In the Summer of 2038, a recently promoted Air Force Technical Sergeant arrived at Joint Pearl Harbor-Hickam Navel and Air Force base on Oahu with his only child, an eight year old son. This Sergeant's name was Marcus Hardy, Sr., or Mark to his friends.
After his wife and mother of his son, Marcus Jr., vanished, unable or unwilling to cope with the responsibilities of having a family, Technical Sergeant Hardy was adamantly looking forward to the change of duty station to Hawaii; he needed a fresh start and he knew his son did too. While Marcus Jr. was, as per the norm with children, highly skeptical of such a a notable relocation, he had been born into the life of a military brat and had already moved on two other occasions in his young life, so Marcus Sr. knew he'd be fine.
The two were just beginning to happily settle into their new lives and routines when everything irrevocably changed.
The Fleet of Fog, as they had been named, assaulted in force in 2039, quickly, efficiently and brutally wiping out any navel, air and space units that were foolish enough to combat them, or even be in range of their weapons.
Seeing the writing on the wall, the American military desperately ordered around eight hundred thousand civilians (as many as they could) of Hawaii's nearly two million inhabitants to be evacuated to the continental United States on every free aircraft, ship and boat that could possibly be mustered. Everything from cruise ships to cargo craft to oil tankers and any private boat large enough to make the journey were all hastily requisitioned by the military in an attempt to save as many people as possible.
Technical Sergeant Marcus Hardy Sr. knew full well what was happening and had a good idea of what would happen. He knew that the Fog were indiscriminately targeting anything that was seaborne or airborne over the seas and he didn't even attempt to have his son be evacuated out.
His gamble would unfortunately pay off. Of the eight hundred thousand people evacuated from the Hawaiian islands, only around a hundred and fifty thousand of them made it to the mainland. The unarmed civilian ships ran headlong into an oncoming Fog fleet and were decimated.
And with that, Hawaii and everyone left on it, became one of the most isolated and unreachable locations on Earth.
Chaos quickly reigned unchecked on the mainland United States, with mass crime and civil unrest transpiring universally.
With the President of the United States unable to deal with the chaos effectively, a rogue group of idealistic military leaders performed a coup to take control of the government and people by force, with the hope that once all was said and done, freedom could be returned. The Fog wasn't even the primary adversary by this point, having contently set up their blockade.
The new President was not elected by the people, but rather appointed by the group of military leaders. He was an Air Force four star general, The Air Force Chief of Staff, who was universally admired by his peers.
It took nearly seven years, but order was, after long last, somewhat restored. The continental United States had suffered nearly a hundred million deaths at both the hands of the Fog and from the chaos, mass starvation and lack of sufficient medical care that the country had endured in the wake of the invasion. The new President, knowing what was in the best interests for the entire continent, invited both Canada and Mexico to join the Union. Both countries, themselves similarly besieged, agreed wholeheartedly. Canada was divided into seven new states and Mexico into twenty-three. The United States senate was expanded to a hundred and sixty members and the House of Congress was increased to six hundred and ninety-five representatives to reflect the now eighty states of the United States of America.
At least, everyone liked to think there were eighty.
In truth, no word had come out of Hawaii in over six years, since the last boat that had evacuated had made it to the mainland safely.
No one knew if the one million and two hundred thousand people left on Hawaii after the evacuation had survived. No word had reached the mainland and there was no way to contact the island state.
Though Hawaii's two senators and two congressmen (in Washington D.C. at the time of the invasion) still represented their state the best they could, they didn't know if there was anyone left there to represent. Hawaii become known as The Forgotten State.
Finally, after seven years and now having the resources available, the President, Congress, the Air Force and NASA put their combined efforts into the first project of its kind. Working in close unity, a new, high tech satellite was built and launched from a newly constructed NASA base in the the new State of Saskatchewan, well out of the reach of the Fog's weapons and eyes.
The satellite was designed to orbit far enough away from the Earth, where, theoretically, the Fog wouldn't be able to touch it. It was equipped with the highest degree of technological systems for observing and spying and a missile messaging system, in which a small, stealth missile could be launched containing a data core with the past seven years of American history (and whatever world knowledge America had been able to accumulate) stored on it. In practice, the missile's core database would be able to perform a parachute landing (hopefully without being destroyed by the Fog first) and, if there was anyone left on Hawaii to access it, they would know of America's continued resolve to survive and to help Hawaii.
The first images sent back from the satellite of the Hawaiian islands were shocking. Though, by all accounts the population seemed well below what all estimates suggested, there were indeed survivors there. Furthermore, and more importantly, there was no Fog presence within thousands of miles.
It was speculated that since Hawaii was utterly isolated and they had no more ways in which to even slightly threaten the Fog, the Fog grew content with just allowing them to exist in their isolated misery.
Needless to say, the missile's core landed intact dead center on Oahu, where the highest concentration of populace was observed.
The message was received loud and clear: Hawaii was no longer alone. They couldn't respond to the mainland, of course, but that didn't matter. The good news spread among the island's survivors like wildfire and there hadn't been such widespread happiness since before the invasion.
Though, what had happened on Hawaii during its seven years of darkness would shock to the very core of anyone living on the mainland.
In the first steps of the Fog invasion, right after the mass exodus of civilians, the Fog had annihilated any perceived threat on the islands of Hawaii.
On Oahu, Honolulu International Airport and Kalaeloa Airport were first to go, as they were still launching aircraft. Hickam field quickly followed.
The Fog's merciless bombardment of Kalaeloa Airport quickly spread to the nearby refinery, igniting it. The infernos of both locations rapidly spread to the towns of Kapolai and Ewa Beach, destroying most of the residential homes located at both. All surviving civilians were evacuated from them and other nearby towns, such as Iroquois Point and the entire area was cordoned off by the military, off limits to civilians.
Shortly thereafter, once all contact was lost with the mainland, society only spiraled further into oblivion.
With the military forces of Joint Pearl Harbor-Hickam and Wheeler Army Air Base, along with all Hawaiian state police, woefully outnumbered and ineffective, utter chaos expanded even faster than the wildfires of Kapolai and Ewa Beach.
Serious crimes, such as murder, reached heights of over fifty times higher than pre-invasion levels. Tragedies such as suicide (and murder suicides among families and groups) reached levels more than a hundred times higher.
All forces of order, military and police, along with their families and dependents, quickly discovered how ill-equipped they were to combat such overwhelming discord and they barricaded themselves into the two military bases in order to hole up and survive.
Rogue militias formed and civilians were murdered over things that had once been trivial, such as food and shelter. Food and territory became the only currency that mattered. After the first year, when food began running low, cannibalism became widespread.
And with all sources of order holed up in the two impenetrable military bases, utterly incapable of helping, military and government personal looked on in horror.
The Governor of the state, a Hawaiian native named David Inouye who had only been elected to office a little over a year before the Fog invasion, watched helplessly as his state, his home, tore itself to shreds around him. Given that no word from the mainland had come and it was assumed it wasn't likely to come, Inouye made a decision: They were on their own and they had to resolve it all on their own.
In complete cooperation with the remaining military leaders, General Inouye decided that enough was enough and, even at great odds, the government could no longer stand by and do nothing. Organized strikes were made on the lawless, roving gangs. Honolulu (which thankfully hadn't caught fire and burned to the ground) was retaken in the first year of determined combat and became a sanctuary to all of those willing to obey the military. Order only spread from there.
On the tip of this spear was now Master Sergeant Mark Hardy Sr.
The Air Force Security Forces Squadron, of which he quickly became a leader, was one of the first fighting units to be sent on any engagement and he quickly made a name for himself as an effective and honorable Airman and leader.
This all meant little to him; the only thing that mattered to him was his son Marcus Jr., now ten years old. If Master Sergeant Hardy had to personally kill every lawless heathen on the island of Oahu to ensure his son would be safe, he would do so gladly.
After two years of restoring order on Oahu, contact was made with all of the other inhabited islands of Hawaii. As it turned out, the Fleet of Fog was either unaware or utterly indifferent to the small sea craft moving back and forth between the islands. It was speculated the Fog genuinely didn't care what the survivors did, as long as they didn't stray too far from the islands. The survivors had no more significant military force and they were trapped on the islands. What difference would it make to the Fog what any human did on the isolated wasteland of Hawaii?
It took yet another year for order to begin to settle statewide. Oahu was, as it always had been, the largest population center. Every square inch of viable territory on it and (more importantly) the other islands became farmland, with the island of Hawaii being the largest, most important source for food.
Every remaining boat, no matter how small, that was left intact, or could be salvaged or could be constructed become a priceless commodity, closely governed by the military. They were invaluable and necessary to transport goods from one island to the next. A small fishing industry even sprang up.
There was soon enough food for everyone, if only barely.
After the fourth year in 2043, an emergency vote was taken by the people that ensured David Inouye, after his outstanding leadership through one of the greatest humanitarian crises in the history of the world, would be given the position of Governor for life. Nobody complained; it just made sense.
In conjunction with this voting process, a census was taken with the objective of ascertaining the exact remaining population of Hawaii. The results would be horrific.
The population sat at around two hundred and eighty thousand people. Nearly a million people had died on the Hawaiian islands in the four years since the Fog invasion and the majority of those weren't even due to direct actions of the Fog. There was so much death, that the stench of decay that had permeated Oahu for several years was only just beginning to fade, if not from the collective memory.
Governor Inouye and the military leaders resolved to never allow order to be lost again. In order for this be be plausible, a stringent militaristic system had to be established. There was no longer any such thing as currency. People were assigned jobs and tasks ideally lining up with with the professions from their previous lives and the only thing that was asked of them, in order for them to receive their rations, was for them to work.
Five years after the invasion, David Inouye made an announcement to the island: Order had finally been restored. It wasn't perfect, it wasn't even completely ideal, but it was the best situation the state of Hawaii was ever likely to be in.
Though, like in every case involving humanity, there were those who were discontented with the new status quo and those who hadn't forgiven the military or government for their unavoidable year of absence.
Generally, though, a great feeling of proud unity spread among most of the inhabitants. Though things had to be done with a militaristic sense of order and precision, the vast majority of people understood why this had to be so, and it became increasingly rare that the military had to respond to any sort of unrest with an iron fist.
Knowing full well, that the military was suffering manning issues, now Senior Master Sergeant Mark Hardy began training Marcus Jr. on how to be an Airman. He knew, one day, the military would have to begin adding new personnel and he wanted his son to be among them. Being in the military was the easiest way to continue being fed and it was also the most effective way to make a difference. The former is what Mark wanted. The latter was what Marcus Jr. wanted.
So, for the next two years, Mark trained his son in the art of war.
Though life had gotten infinitely better in the years following the invasion and The Crisis (as it became to be known among the islanders) things like murder, suicide and death due to lack of sufficient medical care remained at levels that wouldn't have ever been conceivable in a pre-Fog world. Despite this, due to a general lack of resources, increases in population, newborns, had to be closely monitored and controlled and couples were only allowed to have a single child. Even if the population was only decreasing, the lack of resources made any increase in populace utterly unfeasible.
And, of course, there were always those that remained so unhappy to be under a military rule and those who so much wanted to remain as lawless savages, that a small rogue group, composed of people who fit the mold of the utterly detestable and uncivilized began to form...
Seven years after the Fleet of Fog invaded, in 2046, the absolute unthinkable happened: A parachute landed on Oahu containing a data core of everything that had transpired on the continental United States since the Fog invasion began.
It was the happiest moment the state of Hawaii had experienced in longer than anyone cared to remember.
In the data core, instructions and authorizations directly from the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff were given on how best to continue to govern the people and form the most efficient society and military, but of course, after years of trying to figure out and implement those very concepts, Hawaii was already well ahead of Washington D.C.'s instructions.
The part of all of this that most concerned recently promoted Chief Master Sergeant Mark Hardy, now one of the highest ranking and most respected non-commissioned military individuals on the islands, was the fact that it included authorizations on how to increase the size of the military.
The rules, like many rules of the pre-Fog world, had changed.
Boys and girls as young as fifteen could be selected for military service, hopefully as volunteers but also as draftees if necessary. Given the high demand of people on Hawaii who were eager to serve for all of the benefits involved, it didn't look like a draft would ever be necessary.
Marcus Hardy Jr., given that he had lived his whole life as part of the military establishment and had been trained and conditioned for years by his father, was a natural to be selected among the first group of Air Force trainees, graduating with the highest honors in his class after the two months of training. His father had wanted him to join the officer program, but Marcus Jr. couldn't be swayed. He wanted to be just like his father, after all.
Eight months after contact from the mainland reached Hawaii, the first Single Step To Orbit, or SSTO (piloted by an Air Force officer and a Navy officer and containing a dozen highly trained military medical personnel, all volunteers) touched down at Wheeler Airfield, the only remaining runway on Oahu. It contained nearly a hundred tons of food medical supplies and other assorted commodities.
This was, obviously, a major turning point.
In early 2047, more SSTOs began landing on Oahu; fifteen of them a year at entirely irregular intervals (in an attempt to throw off the Fog predicting when they would be; an added precaution). Everything that the United States could think to send, they did. Food, medical supplies, construction supplies, fuel, munitions, additional trucks and Humvees, even helicopters. Anything that Washington D.C. could think to throw at the besieged islands, they did so gladly. Even more stunning, was the shear amount of pilots, doctors, engineers, and other survival specialists who volunteered for the one way trip to Hawaii on the SSTOs to help their fellow countrymen.
The Fleet of Fog, once again, was either unaware of these SSTO missions, or they simply didn't care. It affected nothing of their stranglehold over Hawaii and so, whatever the case, not a single SSTO sent to Oahu was ever shot down, though this didn't prevent the United States from maintaining its random flight policy.
It seemed after the first few months of consistent SSTO deliveries that law and order on the Hawaiian islands would continue entirely unfettered.
That, unfortunately, just wasn't to be the case. As long as there is more than one human, there will be conflict among humans.
In 2050, Senior Airman Marcus Hardy, Jr., after only three years of immaculate service at age twenty, was quickly building a reputation worthy of his family. He was an exceptional marksman and was designated a scout sniper and was already in line to promote to Staff Sergeant and was working in the Security Forces unit directly under his father's command (which wasn't a coincidence) when the first strike by a radical guerrilla group, proudly calling themselves The Fifth Column, targeted and destroyed a small convoy of small arms supplies before they could reach their intended destination: Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.
That began a year long, incredibly bloody conflict between the organized military and government of Hawaii, and the rebel forces of The Fifth Column.
Much like his father before him, Marcus Hardy, Jr. distinguished himself in battle. His reputation for combat prowess, honorable conduct and (most importantly to him) his passion to protect and defend the citizens of Hawaii at any cost coupled with his father's already formidable career to form a legacy that quickly became familiar all over Hawaii. Of course, the military willingly played up the Hardys' fame, as it was the fuel of good propaganda for both the island's military and civilians. Everyone loves heroes.
The reorganized and sufficiently supplied armed forces of Hawaii made quick work of The Fifth Column over the course of the year, but it wasn't exactly easy. Both Marcus and his father were at the front lines of every major offensive and most defensive engagements. Though both could have stayed behind the lines, had they so chose, that option was unacceptable to either of them. The only way for Hawaii to ever know peace was for good men, men like the Hardys, who where in a place where they could to do something about it, to give it their all to make it happen. They both knew this. And even though Marcus Jr. was the first to volunteer for every dangerous mission, his father, while terribly worried about him, would let him go with no complaint and no pulling of rank to prevent him from doing so. Soon after the major fighting began, Marcus was meritoriously promoted for combat heroism to Technical Sergeant. And despite being wounded on numerous occasions, Marcus Jr. always returned to the fight.
The Fifth Column knew its time was coming to an end. They mustered all of their forces in what would be a final all or nothing strike at the heart of the military. If they won, they might be able to destabilize the Hawaiian government, or at the very least, live to fight another day. If they lost, their force would likely collapse and the movement would be at an end.
In early 2051, they struck in full force at the city of Honolulu and Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam. It was estimated that three thousand Fifth Column guerrillas met a defense force of four thousand Airman and Marines.
Both Hardys were, of course, at the very front of the lines.
Chief Master Sergeant Marcus Hardy, Sr. was killed in action that day, but not before giving a key command that saved hundreds of lives. His son, carrying out one of his commands, personally saved a dozen more men, but was grievously wounded in the process.
The coordinated military defense held and shortly thereafter, after a series of effective counterattacks, what was left of The Fifth Column collapsed into dust and faded into history.
Ultimately, in a display meant just as much for the people as it was for them, both Hardys were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by Governor Inouye (who was given Presidential power by necessity of the situation) and Marcus spent nearly a year recovering from his injuries, many of which could not be adequately treated due to lack of medical technology and resources. He received another meritorious promotion to Master Sergeant, before realizing what was staring him in the face and opting out and being honorably discharged from the Air Force due to his injuries. He received a final, honorable promotion to Senior Master Sergeant as a credit for his selfless, exceptional service to the state of Hawaii.
Over the the next three years following the end of The Fifth Column, with peace finally firmly in place on Hawaii, the story of the Hardy family would pass into legend among the civilians of the island. No one really knew what happened to Marcus Hardy, Jr. Some said he died of his injuries and it wasn't announced in an effort to keep moral across the state up. Others said he never left Pearl Harbor-Hickam and continued working in military affairs, despite his injuries. Some even said he stepped into the Pacific to fight the only enemy left: The Fog.
In truth, only those in the military who had worked with and known him, the Governor of the state and a select few government personnel knew for a fact that Senior Master Sergeant Marcus Hardy, Jr. was alive and even fewer still knew where to find him.
And then one night a mental model of the Fog did just that, by pure dumb luck. This would change both of them forever.
Even stranger still, that same night, across the Pacific Ocean in a town in Japan, a young naval student would also meet a mental model of the Fog.
This startling, incalculably improbable coincidence wouldn't be fully realized by anyone for a long time yet, but that night would ultimately prove to be the genesis of one of the most important series of events in the history of the human race.
Author's Note:
God Moving Over the Face of the Waters, by Moby