The opening chapter of Part II of my forthcoming older children's book 'Tír'

GPS Ground Control Station, Diego Garcia, Indian Ocean.

        “Master Sergeant, there goes another one!” shouted Airman Taylor.
        In the dim control room, the glow of the computer screen threw deep shadows across his face.
        The Master Sergeant’s head snapped up from his console.
        “Report.”
        Taylor looked frightened.
        “Another satellite has disappeared, Sir.”
        The Master Sergeant crossed to Taylor’s station and peered over his shoulder. Taking in the information on the display, he picked up the phone handset beside Taylor’s keyboard and punched in a number.
        “This is Steinmetz at Diego Garcia. We’ve lost signal from three GPS birds in the past fifteen minutes. We’re running … hold on.”
        Taylor was gesturing to the screen and holding up four fingers. Steinmetz raised his eyebrows and Taylor nodded.
        “Make that four; all four satellites in orbit-plane C have gone dark. We’re running diagnostics now, but the degradation of accuracy and intel from other ground stations is consistent with shutdown of four birds.”
        The voice on the other end spoke briefly.
        “No sir, we have no idea. Terrorist action is not presumed at this time.”
        Again, Steinmetz listened.
        “No sir, they could not be shut down by a foreign power. We encrypt all the tasking commands. It would have to be done from within our own control systems.”
        The voice barked down the phone again then rang off.
        Over the next two hours, ground-control stations around the world monitored the failure of every satellite in the GPS system.
        The world felt the effect immediately. Airline pilots and ships’ steersmen reported failures in navigation systems. Cellular networks that relied on timing signals from the GPS system collapsed. NATO countries went on high alert and the United States went to DEFCON Three.
        The assumption was that the satellites had shut down. It did not occur to anyone they were physically gone. They presumed such a thing was impossible.
        They presumed wrong.

Goddard Space Flight Centre, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA.
        The ground controllers of the Hubble Space Telescope were the first to see the strange craft. When the first GPS satellites had gone offline, the US Air Force had requested the telescope be re-tasked to look in the direction of the failed birds.
        Dr James King and a few colleagues were huddled around a cluster of computer monitors, examining the area of space where they expected the GPS satellites to be. A US Air Force Major stood behind them.
        “Wait a minute,” said someone. “What’s that?”
        There was an object near one of the GPS satellites. It might have been an optical glitch until it shifted slightly and glinted in reflected earthlight. King zoomed the telescope in for a closer look.
        It was a spacecraft.
        From a distance, it looked like a dark metal disc with gold strips traversing it. They zoomed closer until the craft filled the screen. At first, the image was blurred, then the computers finished their sharpening algorithms and revealed the craft in exquisite detail.
        “No freaking way!” said one of the observers.
        The Major pushed between two civilian scientists and leaned into the screen. As finer images of the craft arrived, the particulars of its construction became clear. None of them could believe what they were seeing.
        “Is that … wood?” asked the Major.
        The craft was constructed of huge planks of timber, treated until pitch black, and overlapping like a clinker-built rowboat. The planks must have come from trees that were in excess of five-hundred metres tall, and the designers had curved and shaped the planks to make a perfect wheel-shaped craft. Along the fascia of every third plank was a strip of bronze embossed with geometric patterns.
        “This is incredible! Look at those symbols,” said Dr King. “They’re all Celtic. That’s a triskelion, and that’s a triquetra.
        “I don’t know what we’re seeing here,” said one of King’s associates, “but I doubt the Irish are sending up flying saucers made of wood – or any other spacecraft for that matter.”
        A snicker went round the group. The Major cleared his throat and looked pointedly at Dr King. King’s eyes flicked back and forth, his mind racing.
        “Well, this is a trick,” said King. “It has to be. Someone’s playing an elaborate practical joke on us.”
        The Major bristled.
        “Our GPS systems are offline, and we have a bogey parked in the same orbit as our satellites – I don’t see any joke here, Doctor.”
        “With respect Major, that’s not what I’m saying. This can’t be real. A wooden spacecraft is not viable, so it’s more likely someone is interlacing these images into the video feed from Hubble.”
        “Yeah? And how do you explain the GPS failures?”
        They were arguing amongst themselves when the Major got his answer.
        “What the hell is that?” said King, pointing at the screen.
        A bubble of energy appeared at the edge of the craft, at first indistinct and almost hidden by King’s finger on the screen. The Major slapped his hand out of the way. In seconds, the bubble elongated and flattened out into a shimmering vertical disc. It looked like a thin film of soapy water in a child’s bubble-blowing loop. The disc moved away from the craft towards the nearest GPS satellite, growing all the time. It intercepted the satellite and scrubbed across it like a cosmic eraser. The satellite and the shimmering disc winked out of existence.
        The Major strode away and reached for a telephone.
        “Did anyone else just see that?” asked King.
        Everyone had, but no one could believe it.
        And then things got stranger.
        As they watched, many portals opened in the edge of the craft, and from each opening protruded a long pole with a flattened blade on the end. Energy fields arced and danced around the blades. In perfect synchronisation, the poles started an elliptical rowing motion. After a brief pause, the craft rowed away smoothly away toward the next satellite.

A poem that forms part of a puzzle, from my forthcoming older children's book 'Tír'

Against the sable backdrop of the night,

The starry actors glide across the stage.

In jewelled costumes sewn with threads of light,

They read their parts, then turn tomorrow’s page.

The earthly audience watches from the dust,

As cosmic players tread Forever’s boards.

Our bearing on our travels we entrust,

To these bejewelled heroes of the Gods.

The Hunter leads the lambent stellar ranks;

His faithful Dogs attending his foray.

His hunting grounds are Danu’s fertile banks;

The Unicorn and Hare his timeless prey.

The Hunter tempers Man’s conceited traits,

And teaches him the limit of his worth.

And Man in turn has sought to emulate,

The august Hunter’s works on artless Earth.

And thus on Earth the Hunter can be found,

In structures placed to emulate his form.

Where Vikings and St Patrick came aground,

The Hunter’s shape conceals a secret door.

Prone, he spans the village like a plan,

From which the ancient builders drew their schemes.

They plotted out his measure on the land,

And placed their covert lodges at his limbs.

Three hallowed houses sit along his belt.

His sword affords a haven from the seas.

His shoulders rest up high along the hills.

His head is where they hid the secret keys.

Above a lofty crag, a Regal keep

surmounts a grotto hid by time and tide,

wherein the keys are placed to then reveal

the secret door that’s hidden Saiph inside.

An extract from my forthcoming book 'Acts of God'

Chapter 4

For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.
    G.K. Chesterton, Ballad of the White Horse.

    P.J Rourke was walking home from the pub and making a right bollix of it. Home was only a five-minute stroll from Kavanagh’s bar but he’d already been at it for half an hour. The main street of Annacarran is far too wide to bounce off both sides of it as you stagger along, but P.J was having a damn good crack at it. He sang as he stumbled around in the moonlight, syncopating the erratic metre of his singing with ill-timed hiccoughs. He had already serenaded a post-box with eighteen verses of ‘The Fields of Athenry.’ It only has three verses but that was no hindrance to P.J.

    Encouraged that the post-box hadn’t walked away or hit him, he had put his arm around it and progressed on to ‘The Green Fields of France.’

    “… I see by yar gravestone ya war awnly nineteen …” he bawled tunelessly.

    A bedroom window slid open somewhere above him.

    “Shut up and go home you drunken bollocks; the children are petrified!”

    “… when ya joined da … ah fuck off! (hic!) … great fallen in nineteen-sixteen.”

    He gave the post-box a parting kiss and attempted to continue his meanderings. With some concern, he realised he was leaning against it at such an angle that he had neither the strength nor the coordination to stand up straight and walk away. Summoning a superhuman will, he planted his free hand on the side of the post-box and pushed himself off.

    As with most pursuits attempted under the influence, the results were mixed. As his body came up though the vertical, one half of his brain told the other half it was time to stop the manoeuvre. Predictably, by the time the message had sunk in, gravity had taken hold and he started to topple like a felled tree the other way. At that moment, the primal fear of falling kicked his arms and legs into action and he fell sideways, still on his feet, like a demented disco-dancer, two hundred metres down the pavement. By the time he got himself under control he had made it as far as Byrnes’. All this time ‘The Green Fields of France’ had been playing away in his brain and, as he got his breath, his mouth picked up where his brain left off:

    “… Did dey beat da drum slowly?…” he inquired.

    At this stage an insistent pressure in his bladder started to register on his inebriated brain.

    “… Did dey play da fife lowly?…” he wondered.

    Just as he was about to ask the ghost of Willy McBride if they had played the death march as they’d lowered him down, P.J tripped over Byrnes’ Geranium plant and went arse-over-tit onto the pavement.

    “Bastard!” he spat, as he struggled to his feet. He proceeded to curse the hapless plant, which was now lying on its side for the third time that day. He profaned the Byrnes, their poxy Geranium, all members of the Geraniaceae family and potted plants in general. He attempted to kick the poor thing, missed and fell over backwards again. As he lay there, his bladder gave his brain its second public warning.

    A wicked thought came into P.J’s mind and he picked himself up. Cackling like a moorhen with emphysema, he fumbled his flies open and proceeded to piss like a stallion on the unfortunate Geranium. This doubly-cathartic activity accomplished, he decided he’d better get home before Sharon locked the door.
Eventually he made it to his porch and was attempting to insert the key into a knot in the wood when the door flew open.

    “Where the hell have you been? The pubs have been closed for hours! Was that you roaring out there?”

    “Ah, get outta me way and let me in, woman.”

    Sharon moved aside and P.J fell into the house, landing face-first on the carpet. His muffled voice emanated from the floor:

    “Either I’ve fallen over again or the wind has picked up something fierce!”

    “You’re drunk again. What on earth kept you?”

    He shambled to his feet and unleashed a grin at her that Jack Nicholson would have been proud of.

    “I think I had one too many. Every time I took one step forward, I staggered two steps back. I’d never have made it home only for I turned around to go back to the pub.”

    “Don’t try and sweet talk me, P.J. You know I’ve no sense of humour as far as your drinking’s concerned.”

    The smile drained from his face.

    “You’ve no bleedin’ sense of humour as far as anything’s concerned, you lime-faced oul’ wagon. It’s a good job one of us has or we’d never have gotten married.”

    Sharon slammed the door in reply and started up the stairs. P.J, considerably sobered by the implications of his own last statement, stomped down the hallway and into the kitchen.

    “D’you want a cup of tea?” he called.

    “No, I do not! I’m brushing my teeth for bed.”

    “I’ll be up in a minute.”

    “You will in your eye! You can sleep on the sofa. I’m not having you snoring and breathing alcohol fumes all over me all night.”

    “But the fuckin’ dog sleeps in there.”

    “That’s very thoughtful of you, but he doesn’t mind you snoring.”

    “Jaysus; thanks a lot. Sleepin’ with the fuckin’ dog! Jaysus!”

    “Well you shouldn’t come home so scuttered, should you? Who were you drinking with? That eejit Joe O’Brien, I suppose.”

    “Yeah, him and a few others. Do you know what he told me?”

    “Should I be interested?”

    “Mary O’Toole’s had another vision.”

    Sharon hurtled into the kitchen like a vulture. Her shadow had a hard time keeping up with her.

    “Really? What sort of vision?” she asked, her eyebrows disappearing into her hairline.

    “She knows where Fidelma Byrne’s St Anthony is.”

    Sharon deflated. Her eyebrows trudged dejectedly back down her forehead. Old news, she thought.

    “She said it was dropped in the street and handed in at the Garda barracks.”

    This caught Sharon well and truly on the hop.

    “Are you sure that’s what she said?”

    “That’s what Joe told me.”

    “But …” she said.

    “But what?”

    “Nothing.”

    Sharon wandered out of the kitchen and upstairs in a state of utter bewilderment.

    What’s the old biddy up to? She knows damn well it was in the flowerpot or she wouldn’t have sent that other eejit looking for it. So why’s he saying it was handed in to the Guards? Think Sharon, think. She knows everyone will find out it’s not there so why would she say it? Aha! She wants everyone to think she’s a fake, that’s why. She wants to keep her abilities to herself. Well that’s fine by me. Tomorrow I’ll lead the charge to the Garda station and make sure everyone knows the medal’s not there. She’ll think her little scheme has worked. She’ll think even I’ve been thrown off the scent. Oh, this gets better by the minute. I’ll be the only person that knows she is psychic and her guard will be down. Oh Mary, you’re going to make me a fortune and you don’t even know it.

    Sharon got changed and went to bed with intrigue and plots coursing around her brain like endorphins. Downstairs in the living room, P.J was snoring like a foghorn. After a while, Tiny the “Fuckin’ Dog” abandoned the living room in disgust. He scampered upstairs, clattered across the wooden floor on small terrier claws and jumped up onto P.J’s side of the bed.
Presently he too was asleep. As he dreamt his little legs kicked. He’s chasing rabbits again, thought a drowsy Sharon. But Tiny wasn’t chasing rabbits. He was having nightmares about his previous life as a Black-and-Tan.