Deep Space Journey - 5. DSJ Chapter 5

He suggested to the guests that a meeting be arranged for the two ministers with the NZ Defence Chief and the Prime Minister, so they can be informed of the offer from the URJ, so proper planning can take place so there be no panic from the general public.

Director Lenegan suggested that the location of the DSV Perseverance be on a military base where it will be more secure, and they would leave the decision of which base to the NZ government to decide. He said that the Ambassador of Sahndrol is the former commander of the original flight into space, and the Fleet Commander is the former science officer and also his son - Quinn, so there is no concern about aliens invading Earth.

He continued by saying that they wanted to have a goodwill meeting, to show who they are and that they will cause no harm. Director Lenegan next stated that if there is any threat of harm to any person on the DSV Perseverance there would be a replied response of defence of the same scale, and will result in the immediate termination of all meetings and discussions that may be planned and the ship will return to URJ straight away.

The briefing stopped at that point to allow the guests to digest everything that they have been told so far, which was very much a total surprise. A few hours later, after a nice lunch, the group returned to the conference room, where three faces appeared on the video link screen.

Director Lenegan said to the two guests that he would like to introduce to them the three members of the Executive of the High Council of the URJ: Ambassador Dennison Chaenej, Fleet Commander, Commodore Qjiin Lenegan and Administrator Lucas Durjhim, all original crew members and now leaders of the United Republic of Jupiter.

It was now Ambassador Chaenej who spoke to the two guests, laying out ideas on how the visit could be arranged, with ideas on who would be permitted to meet them, what security precautions should be taken, and how the media would be handled. He suggested a small team of media be selected after a thorough screening process has been done, to allow them more direct access to the official greeting party.

Both of the ministers were exhausted after the end of the second half of the briefing, and were allowed to relax for two hours before dinner, and that, late on Sunday afternoon, they would be flown back home to Wellington, with a whole file full of top-secret information, only for the eyes of the two ministers, the Prime Minister and the Chief of Defence.

Three days later a top-secret meeting was held between the four men that not even their secretaries or their wives knew about. They met under the disguise of a social game of golf among old friends, except the were whisked away to a secret location in the countryside out of Wellington, where there was no eavesdropping, but they had video conferencing facilities.

The PM agreed with his two ministers that it would be a great chance to beat every other nation on Earth to host the arrival of the first space ship not from their own solar system, and he also agreed that it be at a secure military base, and the base at Whenuapai, near Auckland, was the recommended location.

Over the next few weeks, the four men got together for their social golf games to plan this big event. Eventually, the Chief of the Navy, the PM’s Media Secretary, the Directors of the Secret Intelligence Agency, and the Federal Police joined the social golf games.

After nearly two months of planning, they were almost ready to put Operation Drop-In, into action. The Federal Police and Intelligence agents were doing a joint drug detection and seizure exercise in Auckland, while the RNZ Navy, Army and Air force were doing a Joint defence exercise also in Auckland, which at one point will be combined into one huge event.

The media were being told for now, that for the first time ever one giant training exercise involving 5 main agencies and some smaller agencies will be held in and around Auckland over a 6-day period, this story was relayed out to the people of Auckland, so as to warn them of it happening and not to worry, and that the local police will be there to assist if any civilians get caught up in the exercise.

It is only known by a small group that this big event was a total cover-up for what was really happening. To keep the media in the loop with what was happening, a total of seven reporters from 5 news agencies had been selected to be given restricted access to the internal activities of the two training exercises which will eventually combine into one.

For the first two days, the exercise was going as planned. At 5 am on day three, all senior officers of all agencies involved in the exercise were summoned to a top-secret briefing, which was held very early so as not to include the media. All 120 senior officers crammed into a large conference room which has Video link facilities, with three large screens, one in the middle of the back wall and one in each corner.

When all was quiet the screen came to life. “Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen of Operation Drop-In New Zealand. I want to ask you all, with a show of hands, who has heard of or seen media reports of the corporation known as DSRES or the Deep Space Research & Exploration Shuttle Project?........ that’s good to see that a good number of you keep up to date with current events, even if that was over five years ago.

I am here today to tell you that not only did that project succeed in getting a shuttle to go into deep space but also that the crew came back to our solar system in a bigger and more advanced space ship that has ever been seen. Not only that, but 6 other ships followed with a total of 628 people mostly from worlds far away from our own......... I see some of you do not believe what I am saying, maybe I should introduce myself, my name is Quinn Lenegan and I was the Science Officer of the shuttle, that left earth seven years ago.

My Drol Name is Qjiin. My rank is now Commodore and I am also one of the three executives of the High Council of the United Republic of Jupiter....... That’s right, you heard me correctly, we have successfully established colonies on three of Jupiter’s moons. On Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. The purpose of this giant exercise, this week is to have a controlled site for the first-ever arrival of a space vessel from another world.

That is why you are all here today. Your senior commanding officers of each agency will brief you on what will be happening at 9 am today. Thank you for your time and I hope to meet some of you personally over the next few days of our visit”. Once the screen went blank there was a lot of talk among all the people in the room, until they were instructed to split into their separate agencies for detailed briefings.

It was about this time that a lot of people discovered that all telephone coverage in the area had been jammed, as ordered by the Prime Minister. For the next hour and a quarter, each member was briefed on their duties by the agency’s senior officers. Already all commercial air traffic had been diverted as previously planned at the start of the exercise. All private air traffic was either diverted if approaching or grounded if local, leaving only military aircraft permitted to operate in a two hundred km radius of Auckland.

Even they were ordered to stay on the ground after 8 am. In and around the shores of Auckland, 3 inshore and 4 offshore Naval ships were patrolling the area. The Army was stationed around the whole boundary of the Auckland Naval Base, while the local Police under the guidance of the Federal Police and Intelligence agency, had all highways, roads, laneways, footpaths and cycleways closed for a period of six hours starting from 7 am.

Then most roads would be reopened, but some near the Airforce base would remain closed until further notice. At 7 am the 7 media members specifically selected for this event were brought to the Airforce base, having been woken up at 6.30 am and told to be ready by 7 am to be collected, or miss out.

They were told where to place their cameras and where the on-air reporters could stand, which is alongside a large marquee that had been installed near the edge of the tarmac. At 8.30 am five official cars arrived, stepping out of the vehicles were the Prime Minister and his wife, the Defence Force Chief, and his wife, the Ministers of Defence and Foreign Affairs and their wives, plus the Auckland Mayor and his wife, who only were informed of this special event just two days ago.

The media were a bit shocked at the high-profile dignitaries who had just arrived and who sat in the marquee waiting for some special event, and that started to occur 15 minutes later. As the skies started to get grey and dark, the dignitaries sat down in their chairs and a guard of honour of about two hundred, from all three defence forces, marched into position. Just fifteen minutes earlier they had been informed who the guard of honour was for, and a lot of them looked very uncertain.

The Prime Minister stood at the podium, and announce “seven years ago a corporation was known as DSRES or the Deep Space Research and Exploration Shuttle Project, announced that it had launched a shuttle that had a crew of 11 who would be going deep into space.