Independence Day: Crucible (The Official Prequel)

by Greg Keyes

  “Don’t listen to this woman,” the guardsman said.

  “Well?” Dikembe said, moving to confront him. “What were your orders?”

  “I won’t tell you that,” the man said.

  “No?” Dikembe said. He took three quick steps and clubbed the man in the nose with the butt of his pistol. The guardsman cried out and staggered back. He tried to flee but Jelani was there, and knocked him off his feet.

  Dikembe chambered a round.

  “What are you doing with my friend’s family?” he asked softly. “You have exactly one chance to answer me. Then I shoot your kneecap.”

  “Wait,” the man gasped. He was having trouble breathing for all the blood coming from his nose.

  “I’m listening,” Dikembe said.

  “Your father fears Zuberi may be disloyal. I was sent here to—make certain of his loyalty.”

  Dikembe nodded. That was what he’d thought.

  “Handcuff this man,” he told Jelani. “Eshe, get your family together and pack anything essential. Jelani, you are to take them through the checkpoint. Find them lodging across the border. Mayele, you go with him. Take this man, too, and leave him along the roadside. Alive.”

  “Yes, my prince,” Jelani said. “But what of you?”

  “You’ve already served me very well, my friend,” Dikembe said. “You’ve done your part. Stay with Zuberi’s family and keep them safe until you see him or me again.”

  “God keep you, my prince,” Mayele said.

  “And you,” Dikembe answered. He began walking toward his father’s compound.

  “You’re not taking the jeep?” Jelani called after him.

  “No,” Dikembe said. “It’s a nice day to walk.”

  “My prince, it’s fifteen kilometers,” he said.

  “I’ve been in a hole for months,” he said. “I can use the exercise.” He had drawn quite a crowd now, and many of them came forward to touch him. He shook their hands and patted the boys and girls on the head.

  “Where are you going, Prince Dikembe?” one of the boys asked.

  Dikembe squatted down in front of him.

  “I am not a prince,” he said. “I am just a man, and I am going to see my father, who is also just a man.”

  * * *

  “Keep it real up there,” Dylan said, as he and Jake fist-bumped.

  “Always,” Jake said. He looked confident almost to the point of swaggering, but Dylan knew it was mostly a bluff. Deep down, Jake had to be as nervous as he was.

  The trials had been getting more and more difficult. Some pilots had dropped out because they couldn’t handle the stress. Others were eliminated in the hops themselves. Now there were only eight still in the running for the North American slot in Legacy Squadron.

  Like the moon run, a lot of the Earthbound tests had pitted squadron against squadron, with points awarded to the members to create rankings. A few had been simpler—like the time they had been challenged to make a series of high-speed maneuvers over open ocean while practically skimming the swells. There, pilots had been eliminated individually.

  You just never knew, not until they announced it.

  He took a deep, steadying breath and climbed into his cockpit, wondering what was in store this time. He checked his instruments, wondering how different the new H-8s would be that Legacy Squadron would fly. Probably not very in the cockpit, but he’d heard crazy things about their speed and maneuverability.

  He glanced over at Jake, who seemed to be studying his instruments as well. But then he saw the other man was holding something, a little rectangle. His picture of Patricia, the one he kept in the cockpit.

  Dylan still didn’t quite know what to make of that—partly because he tried his best not to think about it. Jake was a good enough guy, but Patricia deserved something better than good enough, and he figured she would have realized that by now.

  His radio suddenly came to life.

  “Alright,” the flight officer said. “Final training hop. Grand Canyon Run, winner takes all.”

  For an instant, Dylan’s mind went blank. The Grand Canyon Run was a flight simulator program they’d done back in the first year of flight school. It was a sort of homage to his father, who had survived a dogfight with an alien fighter by luring it into the canyon.

  What…? Then Dylan got it.

  “Crap,” Jake said. “This is going to be fun.” Obviously Jake got it too. Their H-7s leapt up almost at the same time, quickly followed by the other six.

  Getting there will be half the battle, he thought. It would be the only part of the flight where he could fly full-throttle. He turned his nose in what he thought was the right direction while playing with the nav computer to get his bearings. Some of the others were taking it more cautiously, plotting their courses before coming to speed.

  Dylan went full throttle, hoping the vector in his gut lined up pretty closely with the one his flight computer would give him in a few moments.

  The Grand Canyon. How many times had he heard his dad tell that story?

  “You can simulate it all you want,” he’d told Dylan, when he was in flight school, “but the real thing—that there’s a beast.”

  * * *

  Winner take all, Jake mused. No more points for teamwork, no more holding back. It was a race, pure and simple. A race he could win.

  In the simulator they had always entered the canyon from the west, just as Steven Hiller had in his legendary flight from the ruins of Los Angeles, so he set his flight path and throttled up. About that time a stream of target data started coming in, and he realized things weren’t as simple as he’d thought.

  The Grand Canyon was wide at the top, many kilometers across in some places, a few hundred meters in others. A pilot could drop ten meters below the rim and fly through the whole canyon without any worries.

  He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

  New figures appeared on the screen. Depth goals—points in the vast, twisting chasm where they would be required to fly just meters above the Colorado River. Down there, things could get much, much narrower.

  “This is gonna be like nothing we’ve ever done,” he said. “Parts of that thing are so tight…”

  “Keep your shields up if you’re worried,” Dylan shot back.

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “Sure will. Thanks for the advice.” But he had no intention of keeping his shields up. Shields used power, and they created drag when deployed in an atmosphere. Shields would make him slower, and today he was going to go fast.

  He sped over Lake Mead at over Mach 2, and seconds later was in the canyon. By that time one of the pilots—Martin—was lagging so far behind it was hard to see how he could catch up. The others, however, were now tightening in toward each other. Jake was slightly ahead of the pack, followed closely by Moffett and then Dylan.

  Jake’s nervousness began to melt away as he took his first dive. It was a straight stretch, but down near the river the walls closed in pretty tightly. He wondered what it had been like to do this with an enemy shooting at you, and his estimation for the late Steve Hiller rose a notch, even though it had always been pretty high.

  Flying in space was far easier than this. There was much less to slam into. Once he hit his depth, he decided to stay low and save time for the next descent. Behind him he saw Dylan trying to pull around Moffett, but the likeable southern boy wasn’t having any of that, maneuvering in front of him each time. Jake could imagine his friend’s frustration, and it brought a little grin to his face.

  The canyon took a sharp bend, almost too sharp. He saw Tong and Kerry above, at a safer altitude, beginning to pass, and increased his speed slightly. They were going to have to come down in a minute to hit their mark.

  “Morrison, Moffett,” Dylan’s voice came over the radio. “Let’s keep those guys up there.”

  “Now that sounds like a plan,” Jake said. He took the H-7 right to the top of the next altitude goal, as did the two behind them.

  �
�You’d better clear out,” Tong said. “I’ll go right through you.”

  “You can try,” Jake said.

  He heard Tong cursing, not quite under his breath.

  Jake, Dylan, and Moffett maneuvered wildly through the narrow chasm. As Moffett had been denying Dylan the chance to pass on the right or left, they were now keeping Kerry and Tong from descending to the altitude required by the test.

  “Kerry, Tong, you’re both out,” the flight director said.

  Jake whooped. “Good call, Dylan,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Dylan replied. Then he flipped his fighter so one wing was pointed skyward and another toward the canyon floor, and rushed past Moffett. He then jetted right past Jake, pulling into the lead. Moffett yelped in surprise and broke hard, nearly hitting the wall. He recovered by climbing and climbed too high, putting him out of the contest as well.

  Jake swore silently. The canyon opened back out a bit and he pushed the H-7 hard, but Dylan still had the lead when it began to tighten again.

  36

  Each step he took along the packed red dirt of the road made Dikembe feel curiously stronger, as if the land itself was lending him strength. He knew the exhilaration was probably some sort of delusion caused by months of sensory deprivation, and intellectually he knew this wasn’t likely to end well for him.

  In a way, that no longer mattered.

  He tried to fix an image in his mind of his father, years ago, before the aliens came. He had been stern, fiercely proud of his name and lineage, a strong leader who demanded respect. There was—in those days—more to him than that. He was a man who believed that his obligation to his people was greater than theirs to him, that a ruler’s courage could be measured by the burden he was willing to bear, rather than how much he could make his people do. He was a man who loved his children, the father who wanted his boys to grow to be strong and wise.

  His father was still those things, but they had all been bent into strange and terrible shapes. Some part of Dikembe had always believed his father would get better, become at least something of the man he had been. In the space of what Dikembe experienced and what he dreamed of—that was where anger lived, where it transfigured into hatred.

  Dikembe did not want to die hating his father, as much as he detested what the old man had become.

  The empty road took him on toward what he could only think of as his destiny—a concept he had once rejected. As a young man he had believed he had free will, could do anything he wanted, walk any path he saw, make the path. Now, at last, he understood it wasn’t so.

  Perhaps it was surrender to that that made his steps so light.

  As the compound came in sight, an odd thing began to happen. People began emerging from trails and side roads onto the highway. At first just a few, but then their numbers grew, and he realized that many more were arriving from behind him. He recognized many from Zuberi’s village. They were mostly women and children, although he made out a few elders in the growing crowd. They surrounded him, some singing, most looking terrified.

  “What is this?” Dikembe finally asked. In his mind’s eye he saw messengers from Zuberi’s village—on foot, on bicycles—spreading out through the countryside, telling of Prince Dikembe’s mad march toward the executioner.

  “My prince,” one boy said. “We do not intend that you should die. We will go with you.”

  The boy’s words filled him with an almost unbearable pride for his people. The land seemed almost to swell beneath his feet. He gazed around at the faces, young and old, and he loved them all—began to understand how such love might drive a man to madness.

  “Listen to me,” he said. “My father is not the man we once knew. He will not hesitate to order his men to attack you, and that I could not bear. Please, for my sake, return to your villages.”

  A woman broke through the crowd, and he saw to his dismay that she was Eshe, Zuberi’s wife, followed by her children, and flanked by Mayele and Jelani.

  “They are not his men,” Eshe declared, in a voice more carrying than he had known she possessed. “They are our husbands, our fathers, our sons. Our country has descended into madness and misery. There is no place left to go. If our men are willing to shoot us, what is the point of living on?”

  The crowd stirred at her words. Some began to shout.

  “You must not do this,” Dikembe said to Eshe. “I cannot have your deaths on my conscience. This road I must walk alone.”

  “No,” Jelani said. “We will walk it with you, my prince. To the end.”

  Off in the distance, the doors of the compound opened. A tank and several other vehicles appeared. He was out of time.

  “Go,” he shouted at the crowd.

  No one budged.

  He sighed. “Any of you with arms,” he said, “put them down now. Please. We must not give them an excuse to open fire. Do not shout or carry on. Let me speak to him.”

  His father stood up from the hatch of the tank, just as he had done in the final assault on the aliens. He wore the flayed exoskeletons of several aliens and a necklace made of their bones. His Home Guard surrounded the tank, marching on foot. In one of the two armored Humvees, Dikembe saw Zuberi. He did not appear to be armed.

  The tank rumbled to a stop, and his father peered at him from behind dark sunglasses.

  “These men around me,” he said, gesturing, “they believed you had gone away. Abandoned Umbutu.”

  “That was my intent,” Dikembe said. “When your men pulled me out of the hole you put me in, they were not prepared for what I had become. Perhaps they expected a broken man. That they did not find—isn’t that true, my old ‘friend’?” He gestured toward Zuberi, at his bruised and swollen face.

  “I am aware of Zuberi’s failure,” the old man said. “And I know why you came back. It is because you understand what you must do, just as Bakari did.”

  “What did Bakari do, Father?” Dikembe asked.

  “He joined his other half. He became whole.”

  “My brother,” Dikembe said, “was killed by a stray bullet.”

  “There are no stray bullets,” his father said. “There are no accidents, and chance is a phantom without substance. We all have a place and a purpose.”

  “I remember a man who taught me that my place and purpose was in service to my people,” Dikembe said. “A man who taught that one should never place oneself above the needs of those he rules. Of the man who taught me these things, I no longer see any trace. I see instead a man caught up in the vision of his own greatness, his own importance. A man whose pride has eaten him and taken his shape. I see a man who has become what he once hated, and that is what these people around me see. Your people, Father. You loved them once.”

  His father gazed at the mass of people behind Dikembe as if seeing them for the first time.

  “See what you have done,” he said. “See what you have done.”

  He motioned with his hand.

  “Zuberi,” he said. “Come here.”

  Zuberi didn’t hesitate. He climbed from his vehicle and walked over to the tank. Dikembe’s father handed Zuberi a handgun.

  “Go to my son,” he said.

  Zuberi crossed the few meters with measured strides.

  “Zuberi!” Eshe cried from behind.

  Zuberi’s expression was flat, hard to read.

  “Give my son the gun,” Umbutu said.

  Zuberi handed Dikembe the weapon and stepped to the side.

  “What do you think?” his father said. “You believe you can kill me? It isn’t possible, you know—but perhaps I am wrong. Let me see, once and for all, what kind of son you are.”

  The wide world seemed to shrink as Dikembe felt the grip of the gun in his hand, the weight of it. He chambered a round and raised the pistol. Several of the guards brought their weapons to ready.

  “No, no,” Umbutu said to them, motioning them to lower their rifles. “Let him.”

  Dikembe put his father in the sights.

&nb
sp; Then his father took off his sunglasses, and Dikembe saw him—really saw him.

  His eyes were pools of misery and madness—and hope. In that instant, Dikembe knew it wasn’t a trick of some kind. His father was pleading with him. This was something he hadn’t seen before.

  Those who believed in uchawi were wrong. Madness was not a demon or a spell that entered a man from the outside. In his father’s eyes he saw it all—the man he had been, the man he could have been, the man he was. For each of those versions of his father, there was a sort of reflection of who he, Dikembe, had been, could have been, still might be.

  For his father, there was no “still might be.”

  Dikembe put his finger on the trigger. His hand was shaking. His father stared into the gun barrel, unflinching.

  Dikembe lowered the gun and saw the disappointment in his father’s eyes, followed swiftly by anger.

  “Again you fail me,” he said. “Zuberi, take the gun.”

  Zuberi reached for it.

  “Come along, old man,” Zuberi whispered. “Give it to me.”

  Dikembe surrendered the weapon.

  “You did your best,” Zuberi said, still under his breath. “There is no shame.”

  “Zuberi,” the old man said. “Send my son to be reborn with his ancestors.”

  * * *

  Jake banked right, but Dylan was there, keeping him from passing. He couldn’t go over him—the next depth goal was too close.

  As he counted it, four pilots were already out. He executed a dizzying series of banks, all the while glaring right at Dylan’s tail.

  Where are the other two?

  The flight officer answered his question a moment later.

  “Lebos and Blankenship, you’re out. Hiller and Morrison—looks like it’s down to you two.”

  “Okay, then,” Jake said. He pushed right up, but Dylan was flying as fast as the craft would go in Earth’s atmosphere—at this altitude, anyway.

  “Why don’t you just give up, Morrison?” Dylan said. “You’ll never catch me. Number two’s gonna have to be good enough for you.”

  It sounded like his usual banter, but in that instant Jake knew it wasn’t. As far as Dylan was concerned, there was no version of his world where Jake could beat him.