Stephen Molstad - [ID4- Independence Day 03]

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Stephen Molstad - [ID4- Independence Day 03] Page 17

by War in the Desert (epub)


  Guillaume was alarmed, but remained skeptical. Reg had been through a traumatic experience and was badly shaken. The pain could have caused him to hallucinate. He had one more question. “How do the aliens know it is the king?”

  “Because I told them,” Reg answ'ered. He shook free of Guillaume’s grip, stood up, and began moving unsteadily toward the exit. Mohammed took Reg by the arm and assisted him.

  “I think he is right,” Rahim said, checking his watch. “King Ibrahim is scheduled to arrive exactly now. We must warn him at once.”

  The Peacekeepers followed Reg, Mohammed, and Miriyam through the side tunnel and into the main passageway. They turned and hurried toward the first bulkhead door. The Peacekeepers radioed to the men on the far side of the door to open it but received no reply.

  Guillaume had given them orders to keep it open at all times.

  Reg took the machine gun Miriyam was carrying and smashed the butt of it against the door, signaling to the men on the other side. When there was no response he threw down the gun and wedged his fingertips into the thin gap between the door and the bulkhead. “Help me!” he yelled over his shoulder. First Miriyam and then a few of the Peacekeepers stepped forward to try and pry the door open, but they did so reluctantly. If the men on the other side touched the copper medallion, the door would fly open and crush them against the wall. The bayonets the Peacekeepers had on their rifles provided them with the leverage they needed, but it took the full strength of six men and one woman to pull the door open twelve inches.

  “Movement behind us. Something is coming,” one of the soldiers standing farther back yelled to Guillaume.

  “Pull harder!” Guillaume shouted.

  When Rahim came forward to lend his strength to the effort, Miriyam turned and grunted at him. “You are skinny. Reach through. Touch the medallion.”

  “But the door will open too fast.”

  “Do it!”

  The rail-thin Saudi lieutenant pushed his way past the soldiers straining against the strength of the door and reached his arm into the next chamber. “I will count to three,” he told them. But he never got the chance to start counting. Something grabbed his arm and pulled hard enough to break his neck when it slammed against the side of the door. The others backed away, startled, and let the door smash closed on his limp body. A moment later, a tentacle the size of a python slid through the opening and began slashing through the air, searching for another victim.

  The group retreated from the door and started in the other direction, but soon realized they were surrounded. The collapsed section of the ceiling that sagged into the passageway was moving. Although it weighed several tons, something was walking below it, lifting it out of the way as easily as if it were a bedsheet hanging on a clothesline. One of the soldiers moved closer and lay on his stomach, peering ahead with his flashlight.

  ‘Two pairs of feet,” he called back to the others.

  As they braced themselves for the attack, there was an explosion in the passageway behind them. The door had been opened. They wheeled around to see a gruesome and terrifying sight: a ghost gray stump of a face jutting toward them from the center of a wide, flaring shell. The creature was an eight-foot-tall exoskeleton, one of the biomechanical suits of armor they’d discovered lying in the vats of liquid two floors above. It filled the doorway. The multiple pairs of tentacles on its back waved through the air like the hypnotic, ophidian locks of Medusa’s hair, and the sight of the creature turned the humans momentarily to stone.

  All except Mohammed. He was carrying the machine gun Miriyam had tossed to the floor. As soon as the hissing, manyarmed beast revealed itself, Mohammed lowered the gun and charged ahead, firing and screaming as he went. His bullets bounced off the hard shell, but their collective impact began to crack it apart. When he was almost to the bulkhead, the pointed tip of the skeletal head shattered completely and broke away. It made no difference. With alarming agility and speed, the hideous creature darted through the bulkhead and speared the young Saudi in the chest with a tentacle, spraying blood everywhere. As

  Mohammed’s body dropped to the floor, the Peacekeepers opened fire and hit the monster with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, knocking it a few steps backwards. Each bullet chipped away another piece of bone, but only little by little. It took several seconds of sustained firing until the thing died.

  “Go! Go! Back to the entrance!”

  The team broke into a sprint down the hallway, stepping over and around the fallen alien. When they were through the bulkhead, they stumbled on the bodies of the Peacekeepers who had been guarding the door. A moment later, the first of the two aliens behind them stepped clear of the fallen ceiling. The soldier bringing up the rear of the retreat didn’t notice until it was too late. The big creature raced down the tunnel twice as fast as the humans and quickly caught them. One by one, the men running at the end of the line realized they were lost and turned to make their last stands. Each one blasted the alien with as many shells as he could before being trampled, killed, and tossed aside. Reg was running just behind Miriyam and Guillaume. Like the others, he was terrified out of his mind and desperate to climb out of the tunnel. But when he realized what was happening behind him, he stopped running and wrested the machine gun away from the Peacekeeper who had taken it from the dead Mohammed.

  “Keep going,” Reg told the man, then pressed himself against the side of the tunnel and watched the flashlights of the last two men running toward him. He had decided to help them slow the aliens down in order to give Miriyam and the others time to escape. But the men didn’t see him waiting and when he pushed away from the wall and began running alongside of them, he startled them so badly that they tripped over one another and went down in a heap. Reg fell with them and watched the flashlights break free and go rolling across the floor. As the men scrambled to collect their guns, the sound of rushing feet came toward them. They turned and fired into the darkness. They fired until their ammunition was nearly spent.

  When they picked up their flashlights and looked behind them, fragments of an exoskeleton were spread across the floor of the tunnel, the bulk of it lying only a few paces away. Despite having been tom to pieces, the body was struggling slowly forward, determined to complete the hunt. Reg and the two men turned away from it and ran as fast as they could. Far ahead, they saw the bobbing flashlights of the main group. Then they heard gunfire and screaming.

  “Stop,” one of the Peacekeepers beside Reg said. “Back the other way.”

  “No, keep going.” But the man had already turned and headed back in the other direction. Reg and the remaining soldier continued to run, but they slowed their pace because everything had gone silent and still ahead of them. A pair of rifles lay on the ground, the flashlights attached to them creating a dim pool of light on the floor.

  “Maybe we should go the other way,” the Frenchman said.

  “No, there’s another one back there.”

  “Yes, but only one. How many are up ahead?”

  “Switch off your light. Let’s keep going.” The two men walked at a fast march through the pitch-darkness, feeling their way along the curving, uneven walls and keeping their fingers tight against the triggers of their guns. They walked for a long time before they heard a sound.

  “Psst. Over here.” The voice belonged to Guillaume. He told them not to turn on their lights, but he turned on his, keeping the palm of his hand closed over the bulb. Reg felt his way along the wall until he reached the spot. He could feel people huddled low against the wall, but couldn’t immediately tell how many. Clumsily, he made his way close to Guillaume.

  “Another one just ahead, twenty meters,” he told Reg.

  LeBlanc’s voice whispered out of the inky blackness. “Put all your bullets to the face of the shell. We must kill the little one inside.”

  There was another report of gunfire, this time far down the narrow passageway. The man who had turned back had obviously found something. When the firing ceased abr
uptly, everyone could imagine what had happened. “We’ve got to do something,” Reg said. “We’re going to have company in a minute.”

  Miriyam said, “Better to take them one at a time.”

  And a moment later they heard the scraping of footsteps ahead. Guillaume switched on his flashlight, and the group opened fire. But the skeletal warrior quickly retreated behind the first curve in the tunnel.

  Reg knew immediately that the creature was stalling, waiting for the one that was coming from behind so they could work together. Reg snapped a fresh cartridge of shells into the machine gun. “We can’t wait any longer,” he said, and started forward.

  “Remember to aim for the head,” Miriyam said, joining him.

  The creature retreated no farther. When the team came around the bend in the tunnel and began blasting away, it charged forward. The head-thorax shell dipped forward slightly, as if the alien wanted to gore them with the blunt tip of the pointed head. The team’s decision to concentrate their firepower on the face led to mixed results. The hard material quickly fractured and then broke apart, but before the alien inside the suit could be killed, the exoskeleton turned away from the gunfire, scampering backward toward them, tentacles first. Guillaume fired until his ammunition was spent, then moved forward to use the tip of his gun as a spike. Before he could do so, one of the flailing tentacle arms connected and sent him sprawling against the wall. Guillaume was down but not out. As the exoskeleton stepped past him, he sprang to his feet and attacked it with his hands. He reached through the shattered face of the shell and grabbed hold of the squirming alien within. When he did so, the biomechanical suit of armor lost its coordination. The tentacles went limp, and the knees buckled. As the suit clattered to the ground, Guillaume was left holding a slender gray body about three and a half feet tall. It thrashed violently, trying to escape, but the Frenchman had his powerful hand wrapped tight around its tiny throat. Guillaume screamed out in pain when the alien attacked him mentally. He reached up to his own throat as if he were being strangled by an invisible hand. Reg and the others ran forward to give help, but before they reached him, Guillaume had smashed the creature’s head open against the floor. Behind a set of delicate, almost-human facial features, the alien’s brain was a swollen disk extending off the back of the skull. A thin membrane was all that protected the brain, and it split open easily under the force of Guillaume’s strength. The small gray body was slathered in a layer of clear gelatin and smelled powerfully of ammonia.

  Miriyam stepped over the fallen body armor and led the way down the tunnel to the final door. They shouted at the top of their lungs to the men on the far side, but received no reply. On the ceiling, a small part of the crack the team had descended through extended past the door. It was no more than eight inches wide, too small to fit through.

  “Open the door!” Miriyam screamed toward the opening. Although she assumed the two men stationed in the tunnel were dead, she hoped the men on the floor above would hear. Reg brushed past her and wedged the bayonet on a rifle he took from one of the soldiers into the crevice between the door and the bulkhead. The blade bent out of shape.

  “He is coming. He is behind us,” LeBlanc warned.

  Reg took a flashlight from the soldier whose rifle he had and used it to examine the door. There was a thick band of ligament running down one side of it, acting as a hinge. With the bayonet, he stabbed into the tough, sinewy material and sliced away a small piece. But there wasn’t time to cut through it by hand.

  “Stand back!” he warned the others, then sent a spray of carefully aimed bullets into the hinge. When Miriyam saw what he was doing, she picked up the machine gun and joined in, the two of them firing until their ammunition was gone.

  Behind them, the rest of the team opened fire on the armored warrior stalking them through the tunnel. While the others held the creature at bay, Reg and Miriyam attacked the remaining part of the hinge, and the door soon gave way. There was barely time to get clear of its path before it crashed to the ground. Without looking back, the two of them stepped over the door and raced into the next segment of the tunnel.

  “Ladies first,” Miriyam said, when they reached the tear in the ceiling. Reg obliged by lacing his fingers together and boosting her up to the opening. As she wriggled through the gap, the others arrived where Reg was standing, and he began lifting them toward the opening one by one. After the second soldier escaped, Miriyam dropped a pair of fresh assault rifles, taken from the Peacekeepers above, into the opening. They arrived just in time. LeBlanc and Guillaume picked them up and sent a volley of shells flying at the skeletal attacker, momentarily arresting its progress.

  “Doctor, you’re next,” Reg said, waiting to boost the man up.

  “No,” Guillaume shouted, “you go.” He positioned himself so that Reg could climb his body like a ladder and grab the hands reaching down through the hole. The men above quickly lifted Reg out to safety. Then he turned to do the same for LeBlanc.

  A rope was tossed down to Guillaume, who grabbed it with one hand and fired with the other. As Guillaume wriggled through the hole and rolled away, a tentacle shot through the gap, trying to catch him. It wound around LeBlanc’s leg instead and yanked him roughly toward the opening. Reg reacted quickly and caught the terrified doctor under the arms, helping to resist the strength of the tentacle. Before the others could help, another snakelike appendage darted out and grabbed Reg by the ankle. Screaming in pain, LeBlanc was torn from Reg’s grasp and disappeared into the hole. Reg would have gone in behind him if Miriyam hadn’t opened fire and severed the tentacle.

  They heard the doctor screaming in pain on the floor below as more tentacles reached up and searched for more victims. When Reg hesitated, unwilling to leave LeBlanc behind, Miriyam pulled him away from the opening.

  “We can’t help him,” she said. “Let’s go.”

  The handful of survivors took off running down the rectangular passageway until they found the first opening, the one that led to the main deck of the alien ship.

  8

  A Good Old-Fashioned Turkey Shoot

  “Allah preserve us, it looks a lot bigger than it did on TV.”

  King Ibrahim stepped from the back of his limousine at about nine in the morning and gaped at the staggering size of the wrecked fragment of alien airship. The rest of the royal motorcade, a mile-long line of limousines, rocket-launching vehicles, and M1A1 tanks, rolled past him and parked in no particular order near the collection of tents and the scaffolded stage set up near the edge of a bluff. The king’s advance team had selected this site, a mere three hundred yards from the edge of the ship, primarily for the backdrop it offered: a view of the triangular opening half a mile away and, beyond that, the mysterious obsidian tower leaning above the curve of the dome. It had all the makings of a surreal media event: The small stage was dressed in the Saudi national colors of green, black, and white. Sprays of flowers lay in the sand around it. Waiters poured out of the kitchen tent as the king’s entourage continued to arrive, circulating among the cars with drink trays. Workmen were putting the finishing touches on the bright pink bridal tent, where the wedding ceremony would be held. There was a Sikh bartender, dressed in turban and tuxedo, offering nonalcoholic champagne to the guests. Musicians had been hired, and red carpets had been rolled out.

  Mr. Roeder jogged up to the king’s limousine to begin briefing him on the preparations, but King Ibrahim had only one question on his mind. “Did you find me an alien or not?”

  The American pointed to a jeep parked a safe distance away and the gray skeletal carcass tied across its hood. Patiently, he explained the details of the predatory green plant and the high risk of infection involved in using a corpse for the photo session. He urged the king to stay away from it.

  “I came here to kill an alien. Couldn’t you find me one that was still alive? Half-alive?”

  “I’m afraid they’re all dead, Your Majesty.”

  Frustrated, the king grabbed a pistol and
took off down the hill, chased by a flock of camera crews. While he was gone, the crew of pilot heroes was ushered up onto the platform for group pictures. In addition to the foreign and Saudi pilots who had flown with Faisal from his camp in the desert, there were dozens of others who had answered to America’s call to attack. In all, there were more than a hundred men representing nineteen different countries. Conspicuously absent were English major Reginald Cummins and the lone female pilot, Israeli captain Miriyam Marx. The pilots were in high spirits, but it took them quite a while to work out the question of who would stand next to whom. Victory had warmed them to one another personally, but the photographs would be lasting documents, and no one wanted to look like he was cozying up to the enemy.

  “Say cheese!” the photographer yelled.

  He took a series of shots—looking serious, looking happy, shaking their fists angrily—or, in Tye’s case, flipping the bird at the wreckage that dominated the skyline behind them. The whole group beamed with pride. They had accomplished a hugely heroic deed, and their faces showed it. When they stepped off the podium, each pilot was handed a yellow rose and an envelope full of cash by one of the royal grandchildren. They were mingling with high-ranking Saudis when a shot rang out. In the distance, the king had fired a single bullet at the dead alien.

  He rode back up the hill in a jeep, and, when he arrived, unsettling news awaited him. An assistant pulled him aside and handed him a phone. One of his field generals was on the line. He said a Frenchman had stormed into the headquarters tent only moments before, claiming to have been attacked inside the ship. According to the man’s story, he’d ventured down into the bowels of the city destroyer with eighteen men and lost most of them to a handful of aliens.

  “How many of these stories have you heard?” the king asked. “This is the first one.”

 

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