The End of the Beginning

The aircraft they were boarding intrigued William. In all his years in the military, he had never seen such a plane. It was all white except for a dark blue seal located just aft of the cockpit windows; the same seal he had seen on the two men’s jackets the day before and on his pin. It had the traditional white world map logo of the UN encircled by two white olive branches in front of a blue circular background. In the center, laid over the map, was some kind of white bird above a white cross. The white cross reminded William of the Red Cross logo. Below the seal was what William assumed was the aircraft’s name, Phoenix 1-2. Maybe that was the bird in the symbol. Near the cockpit window was more dark blue lettering that said UNIRO.

Appearing to be a hybrid between a normal plane and a helicopter, the aircraft had two jet engines, one under each of its swept wings. A pill-shaped pod that looked to be holding fuel was located under each wing, as well between each wingtip and engine. Both pods had dark blue lettering, boldly saying, H2. Hydrogen. William was amazed at this prospect. Large winglets were at the end of each wing. It had no tail structure; in its place was what looked to be a thruster and a rear cargo bay door that was closed at the moment.

On top of its fuselage were four telescoping rotors and a large flat disk from which the rotors came out above the main body. To William, the disk resembled a skinny AWAC radar. The two large sliding doors on either side of the craft were open, one having a little hook-on ladder that ran up to the cabin where they would board.

William stepped inside and looked around, inspecting the interior. The cockpit looked slim and was filled with nothing but LED screens and illuminated buttons. Joysticks seemed to govern the plane. The cockpit led directly into the cargo bay, which had uncomfortable looking, temporary seating arranged in four lines, which were separated by a center aisle with two lines on either side of the isle. The plane had a lot of windows, giving the interior an airy feeling. All in all, the entire plane seemed to be about fifty feet long. The bay was about nine feet across and eight high, big enough to hold the vehicle that Roger and Andrew had been driving, which was located at the rear, held in place with thick blue straps. William stowed his suitcase under his seat and buckled in for the flight. Roger and Andrew sat across from him.

The two pilots up front were conducting preflight checks and communicating with the airport’s control tower. They wore deep blue and black flight suits with gray helmets and black visors, adorned with the same seal as the plane. Instead of the cross, however, was the number 1.

“Passengers ready for takeoff,” a staticky voice relayed over the intercom. William looked up from his seat into the cockpit to see the two pilots fist bump. From across the aisle, Roger gave a small chuckle at William’s confused expression. Expecting to taxi towards the runway, William was startled when the craft lurched and took off vertically, its four rotors spinning furiously. Within seconds, the plane was already 150 feet off the ground. Having not flown in almost six years, William felt a little queasy at the quick upward acceleration.

“When was the last time you flew, Captain?” asked Roger, noticing the look on William’s face.

“In something like this… not since Incheon.”

William looked out his seat’s window and saw the spinning rotors begin to slow down and retract into the disk they were attached to. As they did so, the plane began to vibrate and a smooth revving noise could be heard from the plane’s wing mounted engines. Sure enough, the aircraft moved forward and the airport below fell away from sight.

Once the queasiness passed, William felt right at home again, in the air. He missed this. Flying had always been one thing William thought people got right in perfecting. A magic once restricted to birds and insects, through human engineering and craftsmanship, flying had become the right of all.

Once the plane reached its desired altitude, Roger unbuckled his seatbelt and sat beside William.

“Ready to find out what you just signed up for, Captain?” he asked eagerly.

“Yes, sir, I am. You must be pretty desperate if you want someone like me on your team.”

Roger laughed. “No, not desperation, admiration, Captain. Your reputation speaks for itself.”

William looked at Roger with clouded eyes. “Enough with the crap,” he snapped. “What’s this all about?”

“Captain, why do you think the Second Korean War happened?” Roger asked, reaching for a slim briefcase. He took out his glass tablet and handed it to William.

“Same reason all wars are started, I suppose. Power. Greed.”

“Partially,” Roger nodded in agreement. “But there was a root cause for it, which can no longer be ignored. Climate change.”

William raised his eyebrows quizzically.

“It’s an issue that shouldn’t even exist anymore, quite frankly,” Roger said with a sigh. “But the war made countries look twice at the state of the planet, and our role on it. An entire region of the globe and its people were decimated overnight. It shook things up and showed the international community some things that needed immediate fixing.” Roger turned on the tablet in William’s hands.

“Five months after the war,” he explained, “the UN held a conference in New York to address the growing number of both natural and manmade disasters that were starting to undermine our civilization and establish a plan to counteract them. With overwhelming scientific backing, the conference concluded that climate change was becoming the leading cause of most global issues, with conflicts such as the Korean War and the Syrian Civil War having their origins rooted directly in climate change; in their cases, it was extreme drought. With resources becoming increasingly scarce and disasters increasingly common, governments were beginning to become overwhelmed. You name it, we’ve done it: deforestation, ocean acidification, groundwater pumping, excess greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear exchanges. All of it is our fault. But,” smiled Roger, raising a finger to the air, “it is here, in fact, where our hope lies.” He tapped several icons on the glowing tablet screen, opening up a document.

“What is this?” William asked.

“Our rescue,” Roger said, scrolling through the document’s text. “The Auxilium Protocol. Because our problems are manmade, they can be remedied by man. Developed, signed, and ratified by 191 countries just four months after the conclusion of the conference, this binding document put forth the foundation for a new organization under the United Nations Security Council that would address our problems and take immediate action upon them. It would come to be called the United Nations International Rescue Organization, or UNIRO for short.” “Wow…” William breathed. “Four months…”

“The director had a major hand in it. But I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet,” Roger chuckled. “You see, the world’s problems were seen as encompassing two key areas: disaster relief and climate change. Natural disasters relating to climate change are costing nations millions of refugees and hundreds of billions of dollars. The 2015 Paris Agreement finally saw us begin to limit and decrease our greenhouse gas emissions, but it did nothing in terms of direct response and restoration. It’s software; UNIRO is the hardware. Steps need to be taken to address species extinction, habitat loss, smog, glacial melt, rising global temperatures, and environmental degradation. The link between economics and the environment is becoming painfully evident as global fisheries are nearing collapse and oil spills are polluting our farmlands and seas. This new UN organization is designed to tackle these two problems in a very proactive way. An international fund was created to raise billions of dollars to get the organization off the ground. Money was contributed to this fund through the newly instituted one percent rule, meaning that every nation had to contribute one percent of its annual GDP to the fund every year. Donations also came from hundreds of corporations and private donors. Together they raised the necessary funds in just under eight months.” Roger touched the tablet again for another new page.

“The layout of the organization involves the construction of nine massive bases that are to be the staging and distribution points for all of the organization’s rescue operations and climate mitigation missions. Extensive international R&D programs in both the private and public sectors, akin to the efforts of the Manhattan Project, helped to develop all of the equipment and supplies UNIRO would need, including this aircraft. Everything you could imagine, Captain, from ships to flashlights, was put together through the cooperation of the international community under the new agreement. This aircraft is one of thirty-two specialized vehicles that make up the rescue fleet used by UNIRO. Now, these nine bases are present on every continent except Antarctica. Each one is like a city unto itself and is built on what is considered extraterritorial so no nation can legally claim them, but they must abide by local laws. They can hold thousands of refugees and personnel sustainably for months, grow and harvest all of their own food and water, and make all of their own power through renewable methods. They are the largest peacetime international construction projects in history. If a disaster occurs anywhere, at any time, we’ll be there to help. To become operational and go into a disaster area, it requires an appeal to the UN Security Council by a nation in distress, the situation is assessed, and then, like all Security Council dealings, there must be a vote among the fifteen members before we can get going.” “What about adaptation projects?” William asked, finding himself becoming increasingly enthralled the more Roger spoke. William had always been fascinated by geopolitics and world affairs. It was something about the complexity of it all that just appealed to him.

“Ah, yes,” Roger said, “the other side of the organization.” He gestured to a map on the screen. “Areas around the planet are studied and identified by the IPCC – that’s the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” he interjected, “that are in most need of repair based on their importance to overall planetary systems and human health. Once identified, remediation techniques are evaluated and a plan of action readied. After approval from the Security Council, the project can begin. Twelve such climate change, risk prevention, and geoengineering remediation projects have already been approved and are well into construction, nearly complete, or finished. One could say it’s the terraforming of our own world.” “Hold on, hold on,” William interrupted. “Geoengineering. What’s that?”

Roger tried his best to explain. “Geoengineering is the attempt to slow down global warming and repair environmental damage on both regional and global scales through various engineering schemes. That’s about as much as I know. The men and women behind it can tell you more later once we arrive at the base and you go through basic.” “So, we’re going to one of these bases?” William asked.

“Yes, we are, in Florida. It’s just outside the town of Oak Hill, to be exact, just north of the Kennedy Space Center. The base we are going to is a little special for reasons you’ll discover when we get there; that’s why it was built near the Cape.”

“I’ve always wanted to go to the Cape,” William said with the most exuberant tone Roger had heard from him yet…

That was where we were supposed to have gone when it was all over. When we were all safe. I dreamed of that day that never came to be. Now, I would be there, but alone…

“Yeah,” Roger said. “It’s a great place… Anyway, the organization hasn’t started rescue operations yet. We are still getting some final touches squared away. Opening ceremonies are set to begin in three months in late June.”

Roger swiped a calendar down from the tablet’s menu.

“Three months exactly, actually. Three months to have the chance to be the last class of trainees before opening and to get to know the ins and outs of UNIRO. And shave...” he said with a bemused expression.

“Yeah, I could use a little cleanup,” William chuckled, feeling his scruffy face. “So, this organization seems pretty powerful. When the UN worked with us in Korea, I remember their power to make agreements was only usually non-binding and their reports and actions were more like suggestions than anything else. They had no spine. How did you get around that? Why are countries following all this?” “The agreement that formed UNIRO is binding international law,” Roger explained, “What would be the point of doing anything if the organization you made to do something had no teeth? Also, some things were changed around and the organization, once it receives the bought parts and vehicles it needs to function, permanently owns them. The UN has never been able to own anything before until now. This skips over the old method of waiting for supplies to be found and gathered and then mobilized when it’s already too late. The organization works, Captain. It’s a fast and efficient system. It’s a wonderful thing, finally.” “Yeah. It’s certainly been a busy six years. If you guys have all this fancy tech and money though, why exactly do you need me, sir? I’m sure you have already found the world’s best and brightest, some young kids ready to rock the world or something.”

Roger turned, putting away the glass tablet as he did. He then leaned in and looked at William.

“We have plenty of kids. What we need is someone to whip them into shape. You were one of the best pararescuers in history. We want you to keep your present rank and lead a team of your own again, search and rescue. You see, UNIRO runs paramilitary style. The organization has ranks and squadrons like the military but the only difference is we are not soldiers, we’re rescuers and we don’t fight with weapons. We fight with construction and preparedness. You would lead one of these squadrons. In fact, you would do operations in this very aircraft. Phoenix 1.” “My own team and aircraft? This aircraft?”

Roger waved his head enthusiastically. “Yeah, this aircraft.”

William leaned back in his seat, looking overwhelmed. “So all of the Phoenixes are aircraft?” he asked curiously.

“No,” Roger replied, “most of them are aircraft but many of them are ships and orbiting satellites. They are machines that each serve a specific purpose whether it be cargo transport or asteroid deflection.”

“Asteroid deflection?” exclaimed William.

“That one’s not finished yet. Still on the boards. We’ll show you all of them once we get to the base. We will be there in about six hours, so get some rest while you can. You’ll be pretty busy.”

William decided to take Roger up on his advice. He leaned his head against the window and tried to fall asleep. His mind was buzzing from all this new information. This new mystical organization seemed incredible, almost too good to be true. Even still, he thought, they wanted him enough to hunt him down from the backwoods of Alberta. William closed his eyes, contemplating. They wanted him. They needed him, and that made him feel something he had not felt in a long, long time, he thought as he nodded off against the window. Purpose.