“Where’d they dig up some of these contraptions? It looks like the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum in here.”
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Grey reminded him. “I think Mitchell might have gone a little overboard, but the order was to bring in everything that could fly.”
“How many planes can we put in the air?” Whitmore asked.
“If you’re asking me how many combat-ready pilots we can put into planes in decent working order, the answer is thirty. But we’re going to lower our standards and stretch it to one hundred and fifteen.”
Whitmore had come up top to review the troops before they left for battle. He hadn’t expected to find so quiet, so desolate a scene. These people, unexpectedly pressed into service, weren’t exactly fired up. The worried, defeated expressions on their faces made them seem like a football team down 211–0 at halftime. Whitmore wished there were something he could say, some ringing motivational speech he could deliver, but he knew he wasn’t a talented improviser. He always knew the ideas he wished to convey, but relied heavily on Connie and his staff to script the actual words for him.
He began to walk down the long aisles of planes, stopping here and there to offer a word of encouragement or inspect an airplane. Many of the men hardly glanced up at him as he passed, so deep were they in their personal reflections. Whitmore imagined George Washington moving among the freezing, starved, troops at Valley Forge, quietly measuring their morale and their will to fight. He came upon a man sitting cross-legged on the floor who seemed to be talking to himself. Closer inspection revealed he was praying, whispering hurried incomprehensible words to heaven, aware there wasn’t much time left. Around the next corner, he came upon a muscular young man wearing nothing but a pair of jeans. He was sobbing uncontrollably. All the photos were out of his wallet arranged in a neat row on the concrete. Wiping away his tears, he was taping them one by one to the side of his plane, an old P-51 Mustang. Whitmore realized they were snapshots of his dead, loved ones he’d lost to the blasts. The young man’s grief was hypnotic, and as Whitmore watched, he couldn’t help thinking about the way Marilyn’s hand had gone limp in his. Suddenly, Grey’s hand took hold of his arm and pulled him away from the scene. Without realizing it, Whitmore too had begun to tear.
From a military standpoint, the new recruits were a pitiful sight. A frowning man of sixty sat in the cockpit of a Russian MiG studying an impossibly thick operating manual, badly translated from the original Russian. Whitmore exchanged a few words with him and discovered he hadn’t flown any kind of plane since the Korean War. Still, he was the most experienced pilot in his flight group. Most of the others had never flown at all. A group of them was standing on the wings and fuselage of a plane while one of the California flight instructors sat in the cockpit giving them a “crash course” on how to keep a plane in the air. This group had volunteered for the last, and the ugliest, assignment Mitchell had handed out. Their task during the battle would be to fly the planes for which the base had no ammunition. They would act as distractions and decoys, something for the aliens to shoot at while the more experienced pilots attacked the larger ship. Whitmore interrupted the training session for a moment to greet these doomed young men and women, then moved on.
Eventually, he came to the front of the hangar and the row of F-15s. Whitmore knew the vessel well. He had logged many an hour in the sleek jet before being promoted to flying Stealths. Among the men assigned to pilot this elite weapon, he was surprised to find the captain of Air Force One, Captain Birnham. Even more surprising was the fact that Birnham was listening intently to a stick-thin man with a bushy beard named Pig explain certain features of the plane. Pig had a hog, a motorcycle he rode with his gang, an off-shoot of the Hell’s Angels, every weekend. He wore black leather pants, a denim jacket with his name in gothic letters over an obscene cartoon logo, and a bandanna tied around his wild red hair. Whitmore joined their conversation and learned that the biker had been a navy master chief mechanic stationed for years in San Diego. Whitmore refrained from asking how Pig had learned to fly an F-15, positive he didn’t want to know the answer.
Many of the nervous pilots had followed Whitmore and Grey toward the front doors, and news of his presence had already leaked outside into the campground beyond the hangar doors. Lights inside the tents and vehicles switched on as the displaced civilians began coming out into the night air. The president stepped up into the back of the Jeep with the loud speakers, tapped the microphone a couple of times then spoke into it.
“Good morning,” he said uncertainly. Everyone inside the hangar quickly came out from behind their planes to assemble in the open space near the line of F-15s. Turning around to check the night sky for signs of the approaching dawn, Whitmore watched the bedraggled refugees marching toward the hangar doors. For several moments, he stood quietly at the microphone, staring awkwardly into the expectant faces of his audience, not knowing what he would say to them. Then, without knowing where to begin, he began.
“In less than an hour from now, over one hundred of you will fly north to confront an enemy more powerful than any the world has ever known. As you do so, you will be joined by pilots from around the world as they launch similar attacks against the other thirty-five ships attacking the earth. The battle you will join will be the single largest aerial conflict in the history of mankind.” He paused to consider that idea.
“Mankind,” he repeated, allowing the word to hang in the air. “The word takes on a new meaning for all of us today. If any good has come from this savage and unprovoked attack on our planet, it is the recognition of how much we humans share in common. It has given us a new perspective on what it means to live on this earth together. It has shown us the insignificance of our thousand petty differences from one another and reminded us of our deep and abiding common interests. The attack has changed the course of history and redefined what it means to be human. From this day forward, it will be impossible to forget how interdependent the races and nations of the world truly are.” As he spoke, Whitmore began to feel less selfconscious. He knew what needed to be said and began to trust his instincts. The words felt like they were being drawn out of him.
“I think there’s a certain irony that today is July the Fourth, America’s anniversary of independence. Perhaps it is fate that once again, this date will mark the beginning of a great struggle for freedom. But this time, we will fight for something even more basic than the right to be free of tyranny, persecution, or oppression. We will fight against an enemy who will be satisfied with nothing less than our total annihilation. This time we will be fighting for our right to live, for our very existence.”
His voice grew stronger as the words took on a life and momentum of their own. “An hour from now, we will confront a strange and deadly adversary, an army more powerful than humanity has ever faced. I’m not going to make any false promises to you. I cannot offer any guarantee that we will prevail, but if ever there were a battle worth fighting, this is it. And as I look around me this morning, I realize how extraordinarily lucky I am to be here, at this critical moment, surrounded by people like you. You are patriots in the original and truest sense of the word: people who love their home and are willing to lend their talents, skills and, in some cases, even their lives to the task of defending it. I consider it an honor to be allowed to fight alongside you, to raise my voice in chorus with yours and declare, whether we win or lose, we will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight, but struggle fiercely for what is rightfully ours, our heads held high until the very last moment.
“And if we succeed,” he said, smiling into the mic, “if we somehow accomplish this thing that seems so impossible, it will be the most glorious victory imaginable. The Fourth of July will no longer be known only as an American holiday, but as the day when all the nations of the earth stood shoulder to shoulder and shouted: ‘We will not lay down and die. We will live on! We will survive!’ Today,” he thundered, “we celebrate our Inde
pendence Day!”
Whitmore stepped back from the microphone as a tremendous roar of approval swelled through the crowd. Deeply moved by his words, the men and women surrounding him forgot their fear and pumped their fists into the air and cheered, ready to fight. They would have followed their leader anywhere.
As the applause and the shouting continued, Whitmore hopped down from the Jeep and made his way to the line of F-15s. Grey watched as he exchanged a few quick words with Major Mitchell and the pilot of Air Force One, Bimham. The general had noted with disapproval the shift from you to we midway through the speech. When he saw Bimham hand over his flight jacket and helmet to the commander in chief, Grey began pushing his way through the crowd.
“Tom Whitmore,” Grey rasped, playing the incensed mentor, “what in hell do you think you’re doing?”
Whitmore was already suiting up and inspecting one of the jets. He smiled at his old friend and explained. “I’m a pilot, Will. I belong in the air.” He pulled his helmet on, adding, “I’m not going to ask these people to take any risks I’m not willing to take myself.”
“Think about what it would mean for people to learn the American president was killed.”
“Will, I believe this is probably our last chance. If I don’t come back, it won’t matter tomorrow if there’s a president or not.”
Grey wanted to argue, but saw the man was determined. He appealed to the Secret Service agent, but the man only shrugged and wagged his head. He didn’t officially support what the president was doing, but he sure had to admire him for doing it. When Grey looked back, Whitmore was already climbing into the cockpit locked in conversation with the man wearing a jacket that said PIG. Spitting mad, Grey marched away to take his position in the war room.
*
In the frantic few minutes before takeoff, the technical staff checked and rechecked the equipment. They had festooned the cockpit with a dozen scraps of paper, each hanging from a different place on the instrument panel, with operating diagrams printed on them in marker. Not exactly professional, but it got the job done.
Just outside the ship, people were trying to figure out how to say goodbye. No one said it out loud, but they were all thinking the same thing: Steve and David had a million chances to fail and only one to succeed. They were probably going to die and that made saying goodbye more difficult, more final.
“When I’m back we’ll light the rest of those fireworks,” Steve told Dylan.
Jasmine rolled her eyes a little and tried to smile. She draped her arms over Steve’s shoulders and put her lips to his ear, whispering something that put a dopey grin on his face. When she was done, she kissed him on the cheek, picked up Dylan, and went up the stairs of the observation platform.
A voice came booming over the loudspeakers. “One minute to scheduled liftoff. Clear the area.”
“Pssst. David, over here.”
It was Julius, hiding something under his sportscoat he didn’t want the rest of them to see. He pulled his son off to one side, and with a glance to make sure no one was looking, he pulled back the coat.
“Here, take these. Just in case.” Tucked into his belt were a couple of pilfered “barf bags,” souvenirs of his ride aboard Air Force One. Each of the starch white receptacles was emblazoned with the presidential seal. David smiled when he saw the gift.
“You’re the greatest, Dad. I’ve got something for you, too.” He dug around in his computer case for a second before pulling out a yarmulke and a small leather-bound Bible. Julius made a long face, amazed. A Bible was about the last thing he would have expected David to be carrying. Leaning in close, David whispered, “Just in case.”
Julius looked him up and down, then said, “I want you should know, I’m very proud of you, son.” Those words meant more to David than his father knew. Julius stepped aside to let his son say farewell to one last person.
Connie’s smile wobbled like a house of cards, threatening to crash into tears at any second. She and David had so much unfinished business between them, so much still to say. Now it appeared they would lose one another again, this time for good. With a thousand things left to say, they both felt incapable of words. Nevertheless, the look between them, a look of mutual acceptance and love, seemed to sweep all the residual pain away in a single moment.
“Be careful,” was all Connie could say. David turned to follow Steve up the ladder.
“No, no, no. We can’t go yet.” Steve suddenly started frantically searching the pockets of his uniform. He’d lost something. “Cigars, man. I gotta find some cigars.”
Steve was ready to bolt out of the room. He wasn’t superstitious about too many things, but without a victory dance waiting for him at the end of the ride, he knew something bad would happen.
Julius grabbed him by the arm and retrieved two cigars from his coat pocket. “Here you are. With my blessings.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” Steve told him, and Julius hoped he was right.
A few seconds later, Steve was scampering up the ladder and into the rebuilt alien attacker. With a last nervous smile, David awkwardly followed him inside.
*
Connie joined Jasmine and the others behind the glass windows of the observation booth. It was a small room designed long ago to control security and other functions inside the enormous concrete box that contained the attacker. The equipment inside, most of which had sat idle since it was installed in the late fifties, didn’t inspire much confidence. Much of it was custom built, and the embossed strips of plastic that labeled the control panels were peeling off. A couple of them fell to the floor as the vinyl dust covers were lifted away.
Fortunately, the lead technician, Mitch, was able to figure it all out. After punching a couple of buttons, the entire room felt a rumbling tremor. High above, an ancient electric motor chugged to life and a large section of the concrete roof began to open, then another, opening an escape route for the attacker. The hole in the roof gave way to a large, slanted shaft which in turn led up to the open air. The shaft was approximately one hundred feet across, giving Steve a few feet of leeway on either side to get the sixty-foot-wide spaceship into the open air. Of course, the designers of the shaft never expected the ship to have to make it through with a nuclear explosive strapped to its hull.
When confirmation came by radio that the ground-level doors had also opened, Mitch gave the all-clear to Steve. The pilot nodded back and gave the sign to release the clamps.
“Now this is important,” Steve announced, waiting to get David’s undivided attention. He held one of the cigars out across the aisle. “Hang on to this. This is how we’re going to celebrate on the way home. It’s gonna be our victory dance. But we don’t light up till we hear the fat lady sing.” As he handed the stogie across the aisle, he noticed the barf bags sitting on David’s lap.
“I have a confession to make,” David said, strapping himself in. “I’m not real big on flying.”
As he spoke, the clamps released the sides of the ship, crashing against the floor loudly enough to be heard inside the spaceship. The attacker lifted into the air, waffling slightly until it stabilized at twelve feet, steady as a rock. A pair of white handles, like the legs of a spider, unfolded themselves from the instrument console, extending until they were within easy reach of the pilot’s chair.
“I’m in love with this plane. This is so damn cool, isn’t it?”
David forced a smile. “I’ll think it’s a lot cooler if we leave the building in one piece.” He was thinking about the warhead, which was almost directly under his chair.
Following the instructions printed on the duct tape, Steve made the craft float upward higher and higher, until they were even with the escape shaft. David’s fingers were leaving permanent grip marks on the arms of his chair. Steve, on the other hand, was elated.
“Are you ready? Okay, then, let’s rock ‘n’ roll!”
Steve pointed the nose of the ship at the escape tunnel and pulled back on the control stick. The m
achine responded, but not the way he’d anticipated. It shot backwards across the big room, picking up speed until its rear end smashed into a wall. Fortunately, a mass of fiberglass air-conditioning ducts were there to damped the collision.
“Oops.”
David, who had just suffered an imaginary heart attack, gasped, then growled. “Oops? You call that an oops?”
Steve reached forward, peeled a piece of tape off the console, and turned it over before reattaching it.
“Let’s try that one again.” This time he nudged the steering control gently forward, jerking the attacker forward and into the mouth of the escape tunnel. The shaft sloped upward at an angle. Steve knew he’d gotten away lucky with that first crash. He made sure to go real slow through the shaft, scraping the roof as he went to make enough room for the warhead below. As soon as they nosed out of the tunnel, Steve jacked the controls forward. With a whooshing noise, they zoomed out of the underground shaft and soared into the night sky, dawn just beginning to break on the horizon.
Almost as soon as they were out of the gate, the attacker corkscrewed through the air in a wild set of barrel rolls. They straightened out momentarily, then began twisting and looping once more through the sky.
“Uuuuuugh.” David invented a new sound, gurgling and moaning at once. “Steve, what’s happening, what’s going wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong,” the pilot assured him, straightening the ship out, “just getting a feel for this little honey. I have got to get me one of these.”
“Look, please don’t do that. I’ve got this inner ear thing. Pretty serious.” Steve answered by throwing the rocket-fast ship into yet another series of stunt maneuvers.
*
The president watched the attacker take off from the cockpit of his F-15. A group of forty planes had taxied onto the runway, where the eastern skies were slowly changing from purple to pink. The pilots had their canopies open and were listening to their radios. As Steve and David’s attacker shot through the sky, it appeared to them as a dark streak, an unidentified flying object disappearing at a terrific rate of speed into the darkness overhead. It was something of an anticlimax, a shadow only briefly visible against the thin line of pink breaking to the east.
Complete Independence Day Omnibus, The Page 26