Reaching For The Stars
Chapter 1

London: Friday April 20, 2029

It was a nice sunny day when Peter awoke. He got out of bed, washed, dressed in his uniform, and went down in the elevator to the street thirty floors below. As he came out of the building he noticed a slight breeze. It was pleasantly warm and on it he could detect the smell of blossom from some flowering trees across the street in Hyde Park.

Peter looked around and thought as he always did, that it was close on a miracle how London had changed in the twenty years he had been a resident there. He had come with his parents and sister back in `09 as a teenager, when his father had taken a job that took them to London from their old home in Somerset.

Fifteen years ago in `14 when Peter had been nineteen and his sister Fiona seventeen, a nuclear war had seemed more or less a certainty. Trouble had been brewing, worldwide since way back in the nineteen sixties and war was so certain that fallout shelters had been prepared for all the population and every major town and city in Britain, as in most other places throughout the world, had been practising their air raid drills and procedures every day for many months past. Everyone had been issued with protective clothing, masks and detailed instructions on what to do as and when war was actually declared.

In May of `14 when total war had seemed only days away, total havoc had been caused worldwide by the appearance and actual landings of the saucers. They had made a great impact in the late nineteen sixties, with more sightings than ever before, even though sightings had been recorded for well over a hundred years. Every country in the world had reports of these sightings, and Peter could clearly remember hearing about a town in southern England called Warminster featuring strongly in these sightings from over seventy years ago, and in the same area for many years past. The sightings had started way back in the middle of the previous century but it wasn’t until the nineteen sixties that they began to have any major impact. They had steadily increased, reaching a high when war seemed so imminent.

At nine thirty in the morning of May 4th 2014, the air raid sirens had wailed out across London to announce the days practice evacuation. By nine forty five all ideas of war were forgotten as the whole world united to stand against what seemed then like a common foe. At precisely nine thirty eight in London and at the same moment in time everywhere in the world the saucers had landed. Peter could clearly remember emerging from the underground shelter at Regents Park on hearing the all clear signal, with his sister Fiona close behind him, and coming face to face with a strange figure about seven feet tall, dressed in a strange uniform and carrying an equally strange looking weapon. Behind the figure could be seen four silver saucer shaped objects about forty feet in diameter, marshalled on the ground about fifty yards away. Peter and his sister had been among the first people to emerge into the open air. The figure had spoken to them in a soft pleasant voice, in perfect English with no trace of an accent. Fiona had fainted and Peter had just caught her before she fell to the ground.

Panic had reigned supreme for some time, until the new beings had finally convinced the governments and peoples of the world that they had come in peace and that people had no reason to be afraid. Calm had returned at last, even if it was a somewhat uneasy, apprehensive calmness. The beings had pointed out that realising that they had landed, every country in the world had united to fight against them and by so doing had proved that if they were capable of doing that, then there had never been that serious a disagreement between them in the first place, and that the war situation had only built up as the result of people losing their tempers and refusing to see the others point of view. They said that Earth had been under close observation for many years and that they had chosen that moment to land with that object in mind. They stated that a nuclear war would have done untold damage to the solar system and quite probably to the whole galaxy and they didn’t want to see that happen, so had intervened to prevent it taking place. In time the world’s governments had seen the logic in what the beings had said, and finally come to accept it. With some of the newcomers acting as arbitrators the nations had sorted out their differences over the conference tables and now fifteen years later the world was enjoying a peace and security it had never known before. This was total peace and everybody could now feel safe and secure anywhere in the world.

The strangers, during their long study of Earth, had mastered every language in the world and could converse freely with any person in his or her own language. They had imparted great knowledge to the Earth, which without their help may have taken hundreds or even thousands of years to master. The beings had come from Varianne, the fifth planet of the star Sirius and with their vast technology the whole milky-way galaxy and beyond had been opened up to the peoples of Earth.

Galactic travel was now commonplace. The Varian’s had utilized nuclear energy, in a way still not fully understood by Earth’s scientists as a means of power. This enabled spacecraft to travel at millions of times the speed of light. Now there were daily flights to Centuari 3, a planet very similar in size, geography and climate to Earth. This planet was nearly five light years away but with the new technology it was only six and a half hours from Earth.

The red double deck buses, which had for so long been almost a part of London, had now finally disappeared. In their place were sleek wheel-less hover vehicles, painted silver and propelled by the new fuel called atom-x. Each was capable of carrying one hundred and fifty passengers. The driver, or nowadays more correctly termed the pilot, was responsible only for the control of the vehicle. Tickets were issued automatically from electronic machines at all roadside stops. These new vehicles operated on a cushion of air similar to the older hovercraft and were completely silent. Each vehicle still displayed the famous London Transport badge on its sides and they operated over most of the old original bus routes. Back in 2000 the buses had been split into various private companies each with their own logo and paint scheme but due to popular demand the famous London Transport logo had been reinstated sixteen years later.

The underground system was still in existence but once again with new stock, also hover type and driven by atom-x. On all the buses and underground services there was one standard fare. Tickets issued from any machine or station could be used on either network. This made life a lot simpler and easier to use for the travelling public.

The taxis were similar to the buses only of course a lot smaller. They were still painted black to provide a bit of nostalgia. The colour was however the only similarity to the old cars. These new vehicles were sleek and silent hover types, again atom-x driven, as were most vehicles nowadays. They each carried eight people in comfort as each vehicle had fitted carpets, individual reclining seats and a selection of disc music to suit a vast majority of tastes.

Most road vehicles were now of the hover type, driven by atom-x, but some wheeled vehicles could still be seen. They were relatively rare now and seemed strange compared to the new vehicles. Britain’s monarch, King Harry, had been on the throne for eighteen years now and he still had an old wheeled Rolls Royce for his personal use. In its day this had seemed the ultimate in car travel but now it seemed noisy, smelly and uncomfortable.

Things had improved vastly for pedestrians as well, as most pavements in the towns and cities throughout the land, were now moving walkways, quite often divided into three with a slow, moderate and fast travel speed option.

Reflecting as he was on how things had changed over the past years, he thought how his own life had changed considerably as well. Back in`09 he had been in charge of a packing machine at a food factory over at Walton-on-Thames. He could clearly remember the twelve-mile ride on his motorcycle to work each morning and home again in the evening. Motorcycles were now a thing of the past. The modern equivalent was again a hover machine, propelled by atom-x. Unlike the motorcycles of old the rider was not so exposed to the elements as these machines had wrap around shields fitted to them that kept the rider and his pillion passenger virtually dry in times of rain.

Peter glanced down at his uniform. From the food packing plant he had come a long way. His sky blue uniform with its gold stars on his shoulders and wings on his chest denoted him a lieutenant of the Galactic Federation Police and Security Force. Soon after the Varian’s had landed back in`14 they had got Earth to join the federation. There were nearly three thousand planets in the federation spread widely around the Milky Way galaxy and also far beyond. Peter was in charge of one of the ranger class spacecraft. His job was to patrol round the universe, answering calls for help from any federation member and keeping an eye on rogue planets, either not yet in the federation or in some cases expelled from it. It was members of this ranger class, which had caused consternation years ago as flying saucers. The name was quite apt really as the craft were shaped like two saucers put together. However, here the similarity ended. By this time Peter had walked about a hundred yards from his apartment to a taxi rank just round the corner. He got into a waiting vehicle and settled himself into a seat.

“Heathrow Police HQ, please driver”.

“Right sir. `You keeping busy”?

“So-so. It keeps us going anyway. There`s not many dull moments”.

Heathrow had changed considerably, almost beyond recognition, since the landings. Instead of being just an airport, it was now a spaceport. Passenger and freight craft took off from here to all inhabited parts of the galaxy and beyond as well as other places on Earth. Gone were the noisy jet aircraft of the old days. All domestic flights, as all Earth bound journeys were now called, still used the bodies of the conventional jet liners but with silent, pollution free atom-x engines. Many had been adapted for vertical take-off and landing but there were still a few runway types left in service. On the airport itself, gone were the colourful markings of the world’s airlines, to be replaced with an overall blue livery with the lettering “Earth Domestic” on the sides. All inter-galactic craft were saucer type craft although of course considerably larger than the Ranger class, and had “Earth Galactic” on the sides. Craft from other planets had their planets name followed by galactic. The domestic fleet carried a badge showing the old flag of its home country, whilst the galactic fleet had the new Earth flag as its badge.