David squeezed his tall frame into the honeycomb cabin, then made his way to the front of the craft, where at least he could look out the dark windows at the “normal” environment of the concrete bunker. As Okun had promised, the cockpit was alive with a mad assortment of gizmos and flashing lights. There was a main control panel, but David hardly recognized it as such. Swollen irregular lines that resembled veins ran through the dashboard, and the lights of the instrument panel didn’t flash on and off; they throbbed brighter then relaxed, like a beating heart. The whole place made him feel like he’d crawled inside some prehistoric insect.
“We’ve had people in here working around the clock trying to get a fix on what all this crap does. Some of it, we figured out immediately. Like this whole clump of stuff.” He picked up a tube that looked like a piece of dried intestine. “This is part of the life-support system for the cabin. It runs back to a set of filters. This do-hickey over here,” he pointed, “is a governor for the engines, either a manual override or the accelerator pedal.”
“Did these seats come standard?” David asked planting himself in one of the leather chairs bolted to the floor.
While Okun told him the whole story of how the chairs got there, replacing a set of slimy “body-pods,” David took an interest in one of the instruments. It was some type of screen that seemed to be composed of a translucent membrane, possibly the thin amber shell of some animal, with green patterns of light dancing through it. He stared at the strobing green light for several moments, then started tapping his foot to keep time. Okun was asking him something, but getting no response.
“Hello! Earth to Levinson!”
“Sorry. What did you say?”
“I asked if you’d found something interesting?”
“Maybe. Excuse me,” David said absently, still transfixed by the pattern emerging on the screen. “Connie,” he called out, “are you still out there?”
“Yes, I am.” Her voice came in through the open hatch.
“Are you still holding my laptop?”
“Yes, I am.”
“I need it.”
Before she could answer, David realized how he sounded. Just like he used to when they lived together, like a spoiled genius who thought the world had to revolve around him. He jumped out of his chair and came to the hatch. Connie had already kicked off her heels and was climbing the steel rungs of the ladder. David’s face at the hatch so suddenly surprised her.
“Ms. Spano, have I told you recently that you’re a hell of a good sport?”
Connie handed the computer up to him at a loss for words. “No, you haven’t.”
“Thank you.” David smiled down at her before disappearing again. There was something vaguely familiar about the green light on the screen, something similar to the broadcast signal he’d found. He flipped open the computer and booted up, explaining to Okun as he worked, “These patterns here on the, er… I think you called it the do-hickey.”
“No, this is the thingamabob,” Okun said wryly. “Please keep it straight. We’re trying to be scientific.”
“A thousand pardons, Doctor. The patterns here on this instrument, they’re repeating sequentially, just like—” he spun the machine around so Okun could see the screen “—just like their countdown signal. I think they’re using this frequency for some kind of computer communications. It might be how they coordinate their ships.”
Okun nodded, but still had questions. “Let’s say you’re right. Two problems: what’s being said over the computer, and second, so what? What do we do about it? Where’d you go to school, anyway?”
“What I did with the countdown signal was apply a phase-reverse transmission to cancel out the signal.”
“Did it work?”
David frowned. “Well, it didn’t stop them from firing on the cities, but it cleared up the satellite reception problem I was working on. I went to MIT. Why? Where’d you go?”
“Cal Tech. No reason, I was just wondering.”
Just when David was starting to doubt that Okun knew anything at all, the oddball doctor showed that he understood the situation.
“Okay, we still have two problems. First, we don’t know what’s being sent on this frequency. Could be attack plans, or it could be classical music. Maybe it’s their version of an FM radio. Second problem: with the satellite disruption, you had a way of transmitting the countervailing signal, but this instrument here looks like a receiver. How are we going to send a canceling signal?”
David collapsed into the chair, all the steam taken out of him. “Another slight problem is that I ran out the door and left my phase-reverse spectrometer behind.”
Okun impishly comforted him. “Luckily, you’ve come to the right place. Not only do I have a spectrometer, but I also have another piece of technology which I think we’re going to need. Feast your eyes on this.” From his pocket, he withdrew a $1.98 screwdriver. “Let’s take this screen apart and see if we can jerry-rig it to act as a transmitter.”
“Cal Tech, huh?” David was learning to like this guy, up to a point.
It only took the pair of brainiacs a few minutes to solve their first problem. They tore the green screen loose and delicately attached a pair of alligator clamps to the sinewy wiring on the back. Although the machine had been built thousands of years before in another part of the universe, the data feeding into it was arranged in a binary system, a continuous string of ones and zeros, or whatever the alien equivalent was. Neither Okun nor David cared at that point, just as long as the little laptop could read the sequence.
A crew of technicians hauled Okun’s spectrometer out of storage and brought it into the cockpit. As they were leaving the ship, planning to sneak back into the “freak show” room for another look at the dead aliens, David hit the enter key and applied the reversed sequence. For a moment, nothing happened and the two technical wizards felt the sinking feeling of disappointment. Then, cursing and shouting erupted outside the ship. Through the cockpit windows David and Okun could see the group of technicians laying flat on their asses. The men stood up and tried to walk away, but bounced off some unseen force field.
“Hey,” Okun said, “we got the force field to work! I guess we must have put something in backwards when we repaired it the first time.”
David sank back, depressed and deflated. He had been sure the amber screen was the way in to some kind of central command structure, but now he realized that he’d just spent a couple of hours making an insignificant repair. Disgusted with himself, he looked around the instrument panel. There were at least forty more gizmos to work on and no assurance that any of them would lead anywhere.
He shut off the force field signal when he saw Major Mitchell come racing across the concrete hangar toward the ship. The major spotted Okun behind the windows of the attacker and yelled up at him.
“They’ve got one! And it’s still alive!”
*
As soon as the elevator doors slid open, Mitchell took off at a dead run, leaving Doctors Okun and Issacs to jog along by themselves. Issacs, who had once run an emergency room in Boston, had the presence of mind to grab his black bag. As they ran toward the crowd gathered just inside the giant hangar doors, Okun’s lab coat gave up a steady stream of pens, electrical caps, hand tools, including the slide rule he’d been using since high school, and several stray pieces of the attacker’s instrument panel. By the time they crossed the hangar, someone had handed Mitchell a bullhorn.
“All nonmilitary personnel step away from the stretcher,” he yelled at the hundred or so civilians who were helping deliver the creature. “Clear out of this hangar immediately. Step behind the doors and wait outside.”
Okun shoved his way through the dispersing crowd and found a large body wrapped in a parachute strapped tight to a medical gurney. He pulled enough of the nylon material free to recognize the surface of the biomechanical suit.
“Who found this thing?” he yelled.
“I did, sir. Captain Steven Hiller, U.
S. Marines. His ship went down in the desert.”
“Alone? Weren’t there others?”
The question took Steve off guard. “As a matter of fact, there were two more. Both killed in the crash,” he reported. He looked the long-haired doctor over carefully and couldn’t help asking, “How’d you know that?”
“How long has this one been unconscious?” Issacs asked.
“Since I kicked the—” Steve decided not to tell them how the creature got to be unconscious. Instead, he finished, “About three hours.”
The gurney was on the move, soldiers wheeling it fast across the smooth hangar floor. All the civilians had obeyed the command to return to their vehicles outside, all except two.
“Doctor, excuse me,” Russell said for the tenth time, his arm around Miguel’s shoulder. Steve remembered that the big redheaded man needed to find some medical help for his son and, from his position on the far side of the stretcher, tried to get Okun’s attention. It was no use; everyone was completely focused on the alien specimen.
“Let’s get him down to containment, stat,” Okun yelled. Then, to his colleague, “Is it still alive?”
Amidst the turmoil of the speeding gurney and people shouting in every direction, cool-headed Issacs had put a stethoscope to the monster’s chest. “Still respiring,” he reported.
“Listen, doctor, my boy is very sick. He needs immediate attention.”
Okun seemed to look up at Russell as they entered the elevator hallway, but he was only searching for the button that would take them down to the operating room. “He’s drying out. Let’s have some saline solution ready by the time we get down there.”
Okun pushed past Russell and moved to the switch. He touched the button and the room began its hydraulic, humming descent. But before the elevator had moved a foot, it suddenly lurched to a halt.
Russell slammed his fist against the emergency stop button, then grabbed a fistful of the first thing that looked like medical help. He came up with Dr. Issacs’s white lab coat. He pinned the man so tightly against the elevator wall that the doctor’s toes were off the ground and stared at him with furious bloodshot eyes.
“My boy has a problem with his adrenal cortex. He’s going into adrenal shock and collapse. If he doesn’t get some medicine right now, he is going to die.” Issacs could smell the stale liquor on the man’s breath.
Miguel, for once, felt proud of his father. “He needs an injection of cortecosteroid, or at least some insulin.”
Issacs, unflappable, spoke calmly to his burly attacker. “Sounds like Addison’s syndrome. I’ve got some cortecosteroid right there.”
Russell followed the doctor’s eyes down to where his black bag rested beside the gurney. Issacs didn’t like the idea of missing any part of this history-making medical procedure, but he knew Okun could handle the OR until he got there.
“O’Haver, Miller, come with me.” Then to Russell, “Take us to him.”
*
Near Anaheim, Jasmine found the freeway and headed south. Because she had the First Lady bumping around in the back of the truck, she couldn’t go any faster than thirty miles per hour. As the sun began to set, turning the sky a thousand hues of orange and purple through the smoke on the horizon, it was almost possible to forget the destruction behind them. The electricity was out, but otherwise the neighborhoods surrounding the freeway seemed fine, normal. There was light traffic headed in both directions, and the heat of the day was relaxing to a warm evening.
She followed the signs and took the El Toro exit. Miles before, still driving over and around the rubble, she met several people who told her that the base had been hit. They advised her not to waste her time, but the news only increased Jasmine’s anxiety to hurry up and get there. No matter how much damage the base had incurred, she assumed she’d be able to find medical attention for Mrs. Whitmore and, if she were lucky, find Steve. She imagined herself driving up to his broken plane out on a runway where he was working on it, determined to patch it up so he could join the fight.
As soon as she was off the freeway, the signs of destruction were all around her. Soon she found herself driving through low, rolling hills along a road that disappeared into giant potholes every few yards. She spotted a group of kids poking through the smoking remains of a building further up the road. She drove up the hill onto a level plain and yelled to them.
“Hey, you guys, you know where El Toro is? The Marine base?”
“This is it, lady,” one of them yelled back.
Jasmine drove another hundred yards through the wreckage before coasting to a stop and suddenly turning off the engine. She stepped down out of the truck and walked a few feet to the collapsed facade of a building.
WELCOME TO EL TORO
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION
HOME OF THE BLACK KNIGHTS
Nothing was left standing. The whole area had been pulverized under a hailstorm of laser blasts until not a single building was left standing. Instead of a thriving military base, the area looked as flat as freshly plowed farmland interrupted by a few piles of charred rubble. Jasmine sat down and cried until the last light of evening faded from the sky.
*
The nation’s official military headquarters had transferred from the Pentagon to a noisy, makeshift office 150 feet below the floor of the Nevada desert. The experiment control room at Area 51 was designed to monitor test flights by prototype jets and other experimental aircraft. It was well stocked with electronic gadgetry, everything from old rotary dial phones on up to worldwide radar tracking screens, but almost none of it was working. The earth’s great communications networks had all been torn apart, and the damage was getting worse by the hour.
Major Mitchell’s men were joined by the crack squad of communications specialists from Air Force One. They’d requisitioned three CB radios from the horde of RVs parked outside and were busy gathering information from guys that said such things as, “10–4, good buddy.” The second wave of cities had already been destroyed and the big ships were moving on, apparently firing at will. Even deep in the earth, hundreds of miles from the nearest city destroyer, people were scared. They were starting to realize that even if the destruction were to stop immediately, the country and the world they had known would never be the same. Not even close. They knew they were totally at the mercy of the creatures in the huge ships.
Nimziki was scared, too. He wasn’t afraid of dying physically, but the idea of political death terrified him. He’d spent his whole life working harder than anyone else to grab and keep control, never leaving tracks, never leaving his back exposed, making himself indispensable to others in power. He’d risen to the top, being appointed the chief of the CIA, then becoming Whitmore’s secretary of defense, and even that didn’t give him enough control. ‘The Iron Sphincter” was losing his grip. He knew that beating these invaders was a real long shot, but by force of habit his mind planned on being back in Washington, picking up the pieces, reestablishing his network of allies and, most of all, trying to beat the rap he knew he was going to take for withholding the Area 51 secret too long. He came into the war room, as they were calling it, and picked up one of the phones.
“Got any other secrets up your sleeve that might help us win this fight?”
“That’s a cheap shot, General, and you know it.” Nimziki knew Grey, doggedly loyal to Whitmore, would come after him sooner or later.
“I seem to remember a staff meeting yesterday in Washington. You sat there on that damn couch while we presented options to the president on a code yellow emergency and you didn’t say anything about this place.”
“I gave President Whitmore my best advice: hit them with nuclear weapons. That is still my recommendation, and if he had followed it, we wouldn’t even be here right now. Besides, all I knew was that there was some old spaceship down here.”
“Don’t feed me that line of crap. You keep your fingers up more asses than a proctologist, so don’t claim you didn’t know everything about this p
lace. When were you planning on informing the rest of us?”
“Look, The whole project was deemed classified, black shelf.”
Grey didn’t pretend to hide his disgust. “Christ, why didn’t you say something when they first arrived? You could have saved the lives of over a hundred American pilots.” Grey stared at him, trying to fathom the man’s banal form of evil. He knew full well that Nimziki had sat on the information as long as he did to save his own political hide.
“Look, don’t lay the lives of those pilots at my doorstep. Knowing—” Everything changed when President Whitmore came through the door. Nimziki and Grey turned away from each other and the dozen technicians manning the communications equipment went back to work. Connie led the way over to a paper map of the United States that was taped to the wall, the destroyed cities circled in black.
“Oh my God.” She gasped when she saw the update.
“Are these confirmed?” Whitmore asked, staring at the bad news on the map. “Atlanta, Sacramento, and Philadelphia?”
“Yes, sir. Those sites are confirmed hits. We’re also hearing of several raids on isolated targets, mainly military air bases.”
“Which way are they heading?”
Grey answered. He walked over and used the map to illustrate. “It looks like their plan is to send the Washington ship down the Atlantic coast, then possibly head in over the Gulf states. The Los Angeles craft looks like it’s going to continue up the West Coast, while the New York ship is moving toward Chicago right now.”
The president moved to the conference table, took a seat, and poured himself a glass of water while Grey went on.
“They’re actually attacking corridors, sending out those little attack fighters as they pass through an area to hit specific targets. They aren’t moving around blindly, that’s for sure. We heard from Europe that the ship over Paris moved immediately to Brussels and hit NATO headquarters while the smaller planes picked apart Western Alliance installations.” Then, with an accusatory glare in Nimziki’s direction, he added, ‘They’ve obviously scouted us, planning this attack for some time. The shits know exactly where and how to hit us.”
Complete Independence Day Omnibus, The Page 20