“New Jerusalem, Rainbow Watch. Day 365, negative sightings.”
“Rainbow Watch, New Jerusalem. All crews initiate ballistic return.”
“Darren, catch that?”
“Yeah, Sam. World’s got a year, tops. Probably less.
“Water rations empty. Prophetic precision.”
“It’s a scorcher, 145 Fahrenheit. That mob won’t wait for daybreak. They’ll storm the fence when we power up.
“Launch!”
“They’re on the runway.”
“Light it now or we’ll never get outa here alive.”
“Five minutes to MECO. Hundreds of contrails, We’re all goin’ home.”
“No oceans! Same thing happen on Mars?”
“Worse. Mars was utterly wasted. Other sheep never listened. Whole planet neglected vicarious work.”
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Back story: I may have been unclear in communicating the premise of this story. For anyone interested, the following back story may help clarify what was happening, and why.
It was not an alien race leaving Earth. It was people who had been manning observation stations around the globe being called back to headquarters in the city of New Jerusalem, located in what used to be Missouri.
The rocket contrails were from all the crews that launched from their respective outposts and flew a ballistic trajectory, up, out of the atmosphere, to arc down, back into the atmosphere for final approach to the New Jerusalem airfield. That type of trajectory is the fastest and most direct route, bringing every crew back to New Jerusalem in 40 minutes or less, no matter where on the globe they had been stationed.
Aliens had nothing to do with trying to help Earth. Aliens were not part of this story at all.
Prophets had tried to help Earth, and only a few people listened. One of the pilots noticed there were no oceans left. The vanishing of the oceans had occurred during Operation Rainbow Watch.
No rainbows had been cited anywhere on Earth for an entire year. Headquarters had called the watchmen back to New Jerusalem for final preparations before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
The conversation between the pilots alluded to the idea that, in distant history, Mars had faced a similar but worse experience, suggesting Mars was placed in our solar system to serve as a visible and continual warning of what could happen to Earth if people rejected the prophets and neglected to do temple work, including vicarious baptisms for the dead who had died without opportunity to know Christ.
The premise for the story is that God had promised Noah that Christ would not return during any year in which there was a rainbow in the sky. Such a declaration implies that when there has been no rainbow in a year, Christ’s return is imminent. Since Operation Rainbow Watch had just completed an entire year with no rainbow sightings, they understood that Christ could return any day.
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Where did we come from? Why are we here?
Ilyan Kei Lavanway 
Very interesting take on the prompt. Love your evocative sci-fi.
http://www.rochelle-wisoff.blogspot.com/2012/07/snarl.html
Dark, dismal, and don’t delay! Interesting piece, Ilyan.
http://www.lazuli-portals.com/flash-fiction/elixir
Wow, a lovely apocalyptic take on the prompt with biblical undertones. Well done. Mine is here: http://readinpleasure.wordpress.com/2012/07/27/fridayfictioneers-aqua-madness/
As one Christian to another who believes and reads the prophetic events happening now and still to come your story is more like a piece of realism than a Sci-fi story to only be only imagined. Very good. Mine is here: http://jemj47.wordpress.com
Frightening prophecy–less than a year left?
I loved the flow of the story, the desperation of finding one of the most life-giving commodity – water. When you mentioned that there were no oceans, it sent up a chill. Very well done.
http://mahjira.blogspot.com/2012/07/thirst.html
Nicely done, A dark prophetic outlook on the future and I loved the sheep line.
Here is my offering this week yaralwrites.com
I liked this, felt like it could easily become a movie script Ilyan.
It took me a couple of reads to understand it all, but that made it all the better. Very good – liked the urgency.
Gosh, the apocalyptic feeling of an alien race leaving earth to it’s fate after attempting to help is frightening – you cranked up the tension beautifully 🙂
Thank you for the comment. I may have been unclear in communicating the premise of the story.
It was not an alien race leaving Earth, it was people who had been manning observation stations around the globe being called back to headquarters in the city of New Jerusalem, located in what used to be Missouri.
The rocket contrails were from all the crews that launched from their respective outposts and flew a ballistic trajectory, up, out of the atmosphere, to arc down, back into the atmosphere for final approach to the New Jerusalem airfield. That type of trajectory is the fastest and most direct route, bringing every crew back to New Jerusalem in 40 minutes or less, no matter where on the globe they had been stationed.
Aliens had nothing to do with trying to help Earth. Aliens were not part of this story at all.
Prophets had tried to help Earth, and only a few people listened. One of the pilots noticed there were no oceans left. The vanishing of the oceans had occurred during Operation Rainbow Watch.
Since no rainbows had been cited anywhere on Earth for an entire year, Headquarters had called the watchmen back to New Jerusalem for final preparations before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
The conversation between the pilots alluded to the idea that, in distant history, Mars had faced a similar but worse experience, suggesting Mars was placed in our solar system, near Earth, to be a warning of what could happen to Earth if people rejected the prophets.
The premise for the story is that God had promised Noah that during the year of Christ’s return, there would be no rainbow. That means any year in which no rainbow has been seen could be the year of Christ’s return. Since Operation Rainbow Watch had just completed an entire year with no rainbow sightings, they understood that Christ could return any day.