by Alex Irvine
He headed into the briefing theater, and found that Charlie had saved him a seat. A final call echoed over the intercom.
“All pilots report to the briefing theater immediately.” Jake could feel the other pilots in the room looking at him. Many of them knew the story about him and Dylan, and others had heard of his escapades up on the Moon—Lao’s version, anyway.
“Forget them,” Charlie said. “They’re just jealous of our rugged good looks.”
Jake couldn’t say it because of the whole man thing, but there was nobody in the world he would rather have had at his side.
* * *
They got the old man into the car and kept going west and north.
Eventually they ended up in San Antonio, and Sam figured out how to use a gas pump. Cars were driving in every direction, cutting through fields, turning across the median between the freeway lanes… it was chaos. More than once she almost freaked out. She had never driven before, and this was no way to learn.
In the back seat, Felix crawled over to the old man, who was still conked out, and dug into his pockets for a wallet. Sam caught this in the rearview mirror.
“You saved him so you can mug him?”
Felix took out the old man’s driver’s license and held it up next to the cover of the book he’d taken from the boat.
“Holy shit, it is him! He’s David Levinson’s dad.”
Everybody knew who David Levinson was. He was famous.
“Watch your mouth,” Sam said, because she thought that’s what her mother would have said. Bobby snatched the book out of his brother’s hand, waved it around, and shook the old man’s leg.
“Hey, is this really you?” he demanded.
The old man woke up, sat up, and hit his head on the roof.
“Ouch,” he said, and he looked around. “Where am I?” He seemed pretty confused, and got more confused when Ginger the dog climbed on him and started licking his face.
“We rescued you,” Daisy said proudly.
Felix introduced himself, remembering his manners. He was also a little star struck.
“I’m Felix. This is my brother Bobby, that’s my baby sister Daisy—and the mean one driving is our sister Sam.”
“It’s nice to meet you all,” the man said.
“What’s your son like?” Bobby asked.
Felix jumped in before Julius could answer.
“Can you get us his autograph?” he asked. “How often do you see him?”
“Well, these days I only see him around Thanksgiving. Although last year he had to cancel.”
“You haven’t seen him in a year and a half?” Bobby was amazed at this.
“He’s a very busy man,” Julius said defensively. “What about you? Where are your parents?”
None of them wanted to answer that one.
Eventually Sam spoke up. “Visiting our grandpa in Florida,” she said.
“I see.” Julius nodded, understanding what she meant. He seemed to be getting his bearings. “Well, the important thing is that you’re all safe.” He looked out of the car windows and what he saw seemed to confuse him. “Where are we, exactly?”
“New Mexico,” Bobby said. “We found you in Austin.”
“Wowser. That was some wave.”
“So, where should we go, Mr. Levinson?” Felix asked. He still had Julius’s book on his lap.
“He’s not the boss,” Sam said, unwilling to be ordered around by some stranger they’d found in a boat. “We’re going where I say we go.”
“I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes,” Julius said carefully, “but the safest place to be right now is next to my David.”
Maybe so, Sam thought. David Levinson would know what to do. If Julius knew where he was, that would work.
She kept driving.
37
Dylan and General Adams prepared for the briefing. Adams expressed his condolences on Hiller’s mother, but he was all business. A lot of people had died. Their job was to keep alive as many of the rest as they could. The monitor behind them showed the logo of the Earth Space Defense program. The camera operator checked all of his feeds and then got their attention.
“You’re on in five… four… three… two…”
The image of the two men appeared on the theater’s screen, and on many other screens just like it all over the world. General Adams took the podium while Dylan waited to the side, and an inset window displayed a hologram of the satellite’s infrared image of the alien queen.
Adams wasn’t a man who enjoyed small talk, or public speaking, so he skipped introductory pleasantries and addressed the central concern.
“This red mass at the center of the ship is your target,” he said to the gathered pilots. “Analysts have confirmed that the aliens are a hive, controlled by a queen, who has her own protective ship.”
The monitor set next to the camera displayed a number of windows, each filled with the serious faces of pilots in different nations. Earth Space Defense was administered out of Area 51, but true to President Whitmore’s vision, it was a worldwide endeavor. To fight extraterrestrial threats, humanity had needed to surmount its old rivalries. Today their ability to do that would be put to the test. Many of the screens were blank.
“A majority of Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and parts of Africa have been destroyed. North and South America are the last continents standing. It’s now up to you.” A map appeared on the big screen, showing the alien ship’s location and the destroyed areas. Then it was replaced by a mission plan.
“We’ll send a fleet of drones to go in ahead of you and disable their shields. Your mission is to fly cover for the bombers, which will be armed with cold fusion warheads. The blast should penetrate the hull and kill the alien queen,” Adams went on, as the screen ran an animation of the mission’s path. “Captain Hiller will brief you on the flight plan.” He turned. “Captain?”
Dylan stepped to the microphone. He gathered himself, and began.
“We’ll all try to converge at the same time, but whoever gets to the center first delivers the payload. We have to expect they’re going to come at us with everything they got. Protect the bombers at all cost.”
That was the mission part. Now came the inspiration and leadership part. Dylan saw Rain, Jake, and Charlie sitting near each other in the video feed from the Area 51 hangar. Old friends, new partners.
“Our whole lives have built up to this moment,” he said. “We’ve had our fingers on the trigger for a long time. I know some of you thought this day would never come.” Dylan knew he hadn’t, but now that the time had come, he was ready. More than ready. Pissed off and ready to take it out on some aliens.
“But it’s here,” he went on, his voice rising a little. All over the world, pilots leaned forward in their seats, picking up on his intensifying emotion. “Now we’ve got to step up and remind these assholes Earth’s not for the taking, ’cause I guess they didn’t get the message the first time.”
He paused before going on, as the emotion of the War of ’96—all the fear he’d felt as a child seeing the burning cities and the immense, seemingly invincible ships—rose up in him, along with the face of his mother.
“Remember what we’re fighting for,” he said fiercely. “We all lost someone we love. So let’s do it for them.”
In a dozen languages, pilots all over the world erupted in cheers and headed out to their fighters. Watching the video feeds, Dylan saw it all happen. General Adams clapped him on the shoulder. Dylan gave him a nod and then he strode away, knowing he’d done his job thus far, and pledging to himself that he would make his dad proud.
* * *
In the briefing theater, Charlie spotted Rain. He elbowed Jake. “She’s here. I’m gonna go for it.”
“The world’s facing annihilation, and you’re trying to get a date?”
“Exactly,” Charlie said. “Emotions are running high. She’s probably feeling vulnerable. I know I am.”
Jake couldn’t help but gr
in as Charlie ran ahead and met up with the group of pilots who entered the hangar.
“Hey, so after we save the day, maybe you and I could get a bite to eat. I’m thinking a nice steak dinner.” She didn’t stop walking. “You’re not a vegetarian are you?”
Rain climbed into her fighter and then, from the cockpit, she looked at him for the first time since he’d started talking.
“No.”
“Is that ‘no’ to dinner, or ‘no’ you’re not a vegetarian?”
“No to everything,” Rain said. Her cockpit canopy closed and Charlie stood watching her for a moment until he had to turn away and walk to his own jet.
“It’s happening,” he said confidently.
* * *
On the other side of the hangar, Jake ran through pre-flight checks when Patricia called his name. She ran up to him and wrapped him up in a tight hug.
“I love you,” she said into the side of his neck.
“Look at me,” Jake said. “I promise, I’m coming back.”
She held his gaze. Jake thought in that moment that no matter what had happened with flight training or tug mishaps or career plans, he was the luckiest man on earth, because when it came right down to it, all that mattered was going to sleep every night knowing he was loved.
“The one on Harrison Street,” she said. “With the stone walkway.”
It took him a second to switch gears, then it dawned on him. Sure, Jake thought. Now she decides.
“If it’s still there,” he said with a smile.
Jake wasn’t a big fan of prolonged goodbyes, but the kiss she planted on him almost made him reconsider that position. When she let him go, she was crying.
“Go kick their ass,” she said.
Jake climbed into his cockpit. He looked at her as his canopy swung shut and sealed, soaking up as much of her presence as he could, because he didn’t know if he’d ever see her again.
* * *
On the ground outside the immense hangar doors, Floyd Rosenberg stood next to Dikembe. They were watching the fighters take off, wave after wave lifting at a shallow angle away from the base and then accelerating into a rising curve to the east. Floyd wasn’t a sentimental guy, but the sight awed him and made him feel proud to be a small part of the government that had helped make this all possible.
But only a small part. In addition to being proud, Floyd was frustrated. He’d watched other people do heroic stuff, and all he did was schlep around a briefcase and try to make sure that different columns of numbers matched up.
“Everyone’s going off to be a hero, and what am I doing? Collecting receipts and consolidating spreadsheets,” he complained. God, he wanted to be part of it. Suddenly disgusted with the way he’d spent his life, he slammed his briefcase into a nearby trash can.
Then he turned to Dikembe. “Can you teach me what you did with your machetes earlier? The slicing and dicing?” As he talked, Floyd mimicked the motions as he remembered them.
“No,” Dikembe said. He walked away, his body language making it clear that he didn’t want company.
“Yeah, well, I taught myself to solve a Rubik’s cube when I was seven, so I’ll figure something out,” Floyd said—to himself because there was no one else around. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t going to miss this chance.
Leaving the briefcase in the trash where it belonged, he headed back inside to find something heroic to do.
* * *
The crew of the Alison was the kind of drunk men got when the world was about to end. Usually McQuaide kept the liquor cabinet locked up until they’d gotten salvage onboard, but what the hell. The cabinet was wide open, and its contents were just about gone. Ana-Lisa poked her head in.
“What are you idiots doing?” she demanded.
All McQuaide could do was shrug.
“The world is going to end,” he said. “And worse, we lost the gold. So we thought we’d drink a little.”
Boudreaux chuckled at his understatement. Ana-Lisa held up the satellite phone.
“The U.S. government’s on the line. They say the aliens are drilling to the Earth’s core and they’re looking for a ship in the area to monitor their progress. We’re the only ones left.”
The only ones stupid enough to stick around, McQuaide thought. “Tell them we’ll do it for a hundred million dollars,” he cracked. They were all laughing when Ana-Lisa relayed this message into the sat-phone. Then a moment later, she looked up, a shocked expression on her face.
“They said it’s a deal,” she said.
Even drunk, they worked fast.
* * *
Thirty minutes later they had the submersible back in action and approaching the point on the seabed where the plasma beam burned toward the Earth’s interior. The government had relayed all the information they had about the plasma beam and the depth of the crust and mantle in that area.
The robot craft had its own ground-penetrating radar that could tell how far down the beam had gone, and Boudreaux was doing calculations like a madman while McQuaide hovered over him, telling him to go faster.
Boudreaux looked up. “Working off their calculations,” he said, “with the rate of sediment depletion… they will breach the Earth’s core in ten and a half hours.”
McQuaide thought about this for a moment. Then he went looking for the booze again.
* * *
Okun had tried everything he could think of to pry the piece of wreckage apart, but whatever alloy it was composed of had a truly incredible hardness. They couldn’t get enough leverage to break pieces off it and reach the sphere inside. So now they were going to the next step—an industrial-strength diamond cutter.
A tech was handing it to him just as the nebbish accountant—the one who seemed to trail around after Levinson—wandered in, looking as if he was hoping someone would ask him to play.
Sure enough, as Okun hefted the cutter and got a sense of its balance, the accountant—Floyd, that was his name—spoke up.
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Yeah,” Okun said, not taking his eyes off the piece of wreckage, specifically the spot he thought might be the seam through which he could cut most easily. “Back up.”
The blade spun up with a loud shriek and he leaned it into the hull. The whine of its motor rose higher, and the cutter jerked in Okun’s hands the minute its blade connected, spinning at fifteen thousand revolutions per minute. Nothing. He pushed on it a little more, sure he was feeling it start to bite, then—
BANG!
The blade shattered into shrapnel that pinged all over that part of the hangar, and barely missed impaling Floyd the accountant.
Man, Okun thought. This stuff is incredible. He made a note to his future self that he needed to figure out its composition, and start a project to reverse-engineer a design for it. “So much for that,” he said.
“Now what?” Floyd asked. He looked a little nervous.
Okun turned to the tech who had brought him the diamond cutter. “Do we still have the LXR-73?”
“What’s the LXR-73?” Floyd asked. Apparently the tech had no idea either, because he just stared at Okun. People stared at him a lot. He didn’t mind. He was who he was, and if they wanted to stare, that was cool. He had more important things to worry about.
If you want something done… Okun thought. He led the group all the way to the back of the hangar, where he’d just put away the LXR-73… well, if by “just” you meant twenty years ago. That was a big thought he didn’t have room for at the moment, so he stowed it and paid attention to the matter at hand. He was going to get into that piece of wreckage and get the sphere out if he had to invent a disintegrator ray to do it.
Sitting on the top shelf of a large steel unit on the hangar’s back wall was a metal crate almost the size of a coffin. Painted on the crate in capital letters was a warning.
HANDLE WITH EXTREME CAUTION – LASER
“There it is,” Okun said gleefully. If abrasion wouldn’t do the t
rick, even at fifteen thousand rpm, then he would just have to go with heat. Plus it had been a while since he’d taken the LXR-73 out for a test drive.
Floyd looked even more unnerved, most likely deterred by the big warning label. Okun had him pegged as the kind of guy who obeyed every warning label he’d ever seen.
“What is that?” Floyd asked. “Some kind of alien laser?”
“No,” Okun said with a big grin on his face. “That’s an Okun laser.”
* * *
Isaacs knew Brakish would be obsessing over the piece of wreckage until he got the sphere out, so he took the chance to show Catherine Marceaux what Brakish had been doing earlier that day. She was an expert, after all, and Isaacs was a great believer in expertise.
So he stood with her in Brakish’s hospital room while she gaped at the hundreds of alien symbols drawn on the walls.
“How can his connection be this strong?” she wondered.
“During the first attack, he was exposed to their collective mind. Completely unfiltered.”
“It’s a miracle it didn’t kill him,” she said, pulling out a camera. “I need to ask him about this.”
“I already have,” Isaacs said. “He doesn’t know what any of it means. He doesn’t even remember drawing them.” That’s why he had wanted to get Levinson involved, but Levinson had suggested that he talk to Catherine instead. Surely someone could make some sense of this.
Her camera started clicking and Isaacs watched her, preoccupied with worry about Brakish. He was back, and seemed exactly the same as he had been before the coma… but how could he ever really know for sure?
38
David and General Adams stood in the middle of the Area 51 command center, watching the big screen that displayed the progress of the drones. Behind them flew the first waves of the hybrid fighters approaching from the west. Other fighter wings, carefully timed, closed in on the enemy from other directions, having taken off from their bases across Europe, Asia, and Africa.