Forsaken
Searching for God’s Fingerprints
by
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Jarrod McKinley swung his chair fully around and looked out the observation window. The shiver he had been feeling tightened into a knot in his gut and chilled him to the core. In the distance, coming around Saturn a bright yellow-orange line stretched across the emptiness of space. The line flickered and grew larger by the second. It was like a wave, still a long distance away but coming right at him, and fast. A quiet tone began sounding, indicating the instruments were picking up something. McKinley hit the alarm button to scramble the crew. Now, everyone was now on duty. The disturbance he saw outside the listening post was like a wave and distorted the surrounding space–like a huge rolling ocean breaker, only tinged with fire. It had to be thousands of kilometers away, judging from the instruments, but McKinley could see it very plainly. It was spreading across space and filling the entire view out the observation window. Plumes of fires erupted as the wave gobbled up space debris as it bored down on the post. McKinley feared the small listening post wouldn’t withstand the hit–either roasting them alive or exploding.
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About the Book
For the dedicated scientists who man a remote listening post on one of Saturn’s moons, 2088 has been a pretty quiet year. After nearly 130 years of fruitless listening to the silence of the void, the men and women who represent mankind at the edge of the solar system are humanity’s best hope for first contact. None of the specialists on duty could have ever predicted what is racing toward them—or what it means for humanity’s future. Jarrod McKinley and two others are stationed on a listening post orbiting the moon Titan, part of man’s latest effort to make contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. What the Titan base crew is about to experience will shake the foundations of the belief that mankind is alone in the universe. Without warning, a massive energy wave sweeps around Saturn and blasts the post. McKinley and his crew survive the initial blast, but the listening post is severely damaged. As a rescue mission is launched, a strange signal is discovered within the energy wave. Just as things seem under control, an explosion rocks the station; one of the crew is killed, but McKinley and Liza Alvarez jettison in an escape pod. McKinley senses some evil has targeted him and the newly discovered signal. As McKinley and Alvarez escape several attempts on their lives and race from Saturn to Earth, they survive repeated attempts to silence them, and they discover a plot that shakes the search for first contact.
About the Author
Richard D. Bangs has a journalism degree from the University of Montana and has worked for thirty years as a newspaper reporter, columnist, editor, and publisher. He is a member of the Planetary Society and an avid reader of science fiction. He now lives in Littleton, Colorado, with his wife, Susan.