“Make it one hundred.”
The men roared with laughter at his misguided bravado. Despite his obvious lack of skill, he actually seemed to believe he stood a chance against the mighty Sinclair. He leaned over the table again and quickly stroked his shot. The white ball sailed across the green felt.
‘Too hard,” Sinclair announced as soon as the ball rebounded off the far cushion.
“I don’t think so,” said his challenger. “I’d say that’s just about perfect.” A moment later, the ball stopped rolling a mere fingernail short of the near rail. Reg looked Sinclair in the eyes. “Does this mean I get to break?”
The big man squinted back at him and nodded, beginning to realize that he’d been had.
Reg’s break shot was a thing of beauty. The cue ball fired across the table with surprising power and scattered the colorful spheres in every direction. There were three soft thunks as two solids and a stripe fell into three separate pockets.
“Listen to the Teacher, friends,” Reg said, circling the table like a jungle cat. ‘Today’s lesson is about making assumptions and how much trouble that can get you into.” He paused long enough to hammer the twelve ball into a side pocket and the nine into a corner. “I’m certain you’ve all seen that diagram about the word assume. You know, the one that says: when you assume, you make and ASS out of U and ME.” He tapped the orange five ball in the corner. “Well, there’s been too damn much assuming going on around here this morning and I’ll give you an example. You all assumed that just because you’d never seen me play, that I couldn’t find my way around a table.” He glanced up at Sinclair and smiled. “Combination bank shot. Three ball in the far corner.” A moment later, it fell in.
“The same thing is happening with these spaceships. Everybody’s making assumptions.” He sunk the two ball then broke into the exaggerated accent of a terrified Scotsman. “Oh, fer crackin’ ice! These huge fookin saucers are parked all over the fookin warld. It can mean one thing and one thing only: total fookin annihilation fer the yewmin race.” The men chuckled at his imitation, but they also got the message. In quick succession, Reg sank every ball left on the table then tossed his cue on the table. “The truth of the matter is, you just can’t tell what sort of a player a bloke is until he makes a few shots. So let’s wait to see what kind of players these aliens are before we quit and hang up our cues, okay?”
“And if they turn out to be sharks like you?” Sinclair asked with a laugh.
“In that case, we’ll show them what kind of shooting good English lads can do, right?”
“Right!” the men answered in one voice. With the fire back in their eyes, the men began a raucous discussion of the punishment they would mete out if the aliens started any trouble. They were laughing and arguing when a blast of heat and bright light swept into the room.
The door of the darkened lounge had pulled open and Group Captain Whitley, a man with the long neck and stooped posture of a vulture, stepped inside. He was the highest ranking RAF officer at Khamis Moushalt but had been in the Middle East only a few weeks. He carried a map of the region that he’d ripped from the wall of his office. He was sweating from his short walk across the base. It was already ninety-six degrees Fahrenheit outside and it was only going to get hotter.
“I’m going to need a volunteer,” Whitley announced, knocking glasses and ashtrays off the bar so he could flatten out the map. “Here’s the situation. Forty of our birds, Tornadoes, are trapped over the Mediterranean. They’ve been in a holding pattern for the last half-hour near Haifa. Somebody’s got to go get them.”
“Why?” asked one of the men. “What’s the matter?”
Whitley grimaced in disgust. “Every nation in the region is closing down its airspace. Israel was the first. About an hour ago, they started chasing out all foreign planes, allies included. Five minutes later, Egypt and Syria started doing the same damn thing, so our boys can’t just detour around. Besides, they’re not fully trained pilots. They’re just a bunch of warm bodies acting as chauffeurs. It’s a hideous mess out there, hideous.”
“What the hell is Israel’s problem?” Sinclair asked. “Last night they agreed to allow foreign planes.”
Reg took an educated guess. “There must have been a skirmish. If I know the Israelis, they’ve been shadowing every group of Arab planes that comes in for a look at that alien craft. Somebody started playing chicken—probably some Iraqis—and before they knew it, they were in a dogfight.”
Whitley’s dark eyes opened wide in surprise. He didn’t know Reg well and, after reading his personnel file, regarded him with caution. “The major is correct,” he told the men. ‘Two Iraqi planes were shot down. In retaliation, missiles were fired onto the road leading to Tel Aviv resulting in civilian casualties. Then, of course, all hell broke loose.”
“Oh, that’s bloody lovely,” said one of the pilots in disgust, “that’s just beautiful. The aliens must be laughing their little green arses off right now. They won’t have to waste any ammunition in this part of the world. We’ll kill ourselves off before the bastards have the chance to do it themselves.”
“Enough talk,” Whitley snapped. “Who’s going?”
Six pilots loudly volunteered, but Reg quieted them with a look. “Sorry lads, winner breaks!” Then he turned to the Colonel. “I’m your man, sir. Where do those planes have to go?”
A bead of sweat rolled off the tip of Whitley’s beaklike nose. “They’re headed to Kuwait. But, look, Cummins,” he said tensely, “maybe someone else would be better for this mission. It’s not that I doubt your skills, but there are hundreds of warplanes out there from a dozen different nations. And as I say, these boys flying the Tornadoes don’t know what they’re doing. This is a live-fire situation and it’s going to be, well, confusing.” The men fell into an awkward silence. They knew that the colonel’s reluctance to give Reg the mission was based on something that had happened many years before, something none of them ever mentioned in front of the Teacher. Whitley, a newcomer to the base, didn’t understand that his fears were groundless and that Reg was, by far, the best man for the job. He was the only one who had never flown alongside the Teacher and seen the impossible things he could do in a jet. Besides, Reg knew the region well enough to fly without navigation systems, and he understood the tactics of the Middle East’s diverse air forces better than anyone.
Whitley’s lack of confidence stung Reg like a hard punch to the heart, but he didn’t let it show. “I’m your man, colonel,” he repeated firmly. “I’ll find those planes. I’ll bring them to their destination safely.”
Whitley shook his head. “I’ve read your file, Cummins. We can’t afford any… lapses. Now, who else volunteers?”
The other pilots looked at the ceiling, at the television, anywhere but at the Colonel. It only took a second of being ignored for Whitley to realize that the decision had been made for him.
“So that’s how it’s going to be. Very well then, Major, the mission is yours. Good luck. Your take off has already been cleared with the tower.”
“I’ll see you gentlemen this afternoon,” Reg said over his shoulder as he pushed open the door and headed away across the blistering hot tarmac. The others moved to the windows and watched him go.
Whitley crossed his long arms over his chest. “There goes a man looking for trouble.”
“Not at all,” said Sinclair. “There goes a man looking for redemption.”
*
As his British Aerospace Hawk thundered over the razor-wire perimeter fence of the Khamis Moushalt facility, Reg looked down at the base that had been his home for the last few years, a nine-square-mile patch of pavement in the middle of a desert. It was a horrible place to live and was considered the worst assignment an RAF man could draw. No one except Reg had ever volunteered to be there. Saudi Arabia could be a strange, hostile, and cruel place, ruled by restrictive Islamic social codes. But Reg had found the Saudis to be an honorable people and had made many genuine frien
ds among them. He had trained many of the Royal Saudi Air Force’s best pilots during his years in the country since Desert Storm.
There was plenty to think about during his flight north. His cockpit instrumentation was showing a contradictory jumble of digits and flashing zeroes. All satellite-dependent systems were unreliable. But he’d made the flight to Jerusalem many times and knew the way by heart. He tried to keep his mind clear, but couldn’t help thinking about what Whitley had said about lapses. Could it be that the man had a point? After all, even though he’d engaged in hundreds of mock battles during the last several years, this was the first time he would be facing a live fire situation since his last, illfated sortie over Iraq.
As he flew past the ancient ruins of Petra, he got his first glimpse of the alien ship. It was only a gray blot on the horizon but Reg felt the hackles raise on the back of his neck. His warrior instincts told him to attack the thing at once, but as he came closer, it grew to an impossible, intimidating size and his passion cooled. Dominating the sky, it seemed to cover half of Israel. The astounding thing was that something so vast and heavy could float. It was an egregious violation of the laws of physics and the closer Reg flew to the city-sized airship, the more it dawned on him that he was in the presence of a powerful civilization far in advance of his own. He felt a sudden chill and began to grasp why not a single government around the world had decided to declare war on the uninvited guests.
At the same time, it produced a dark attraction. There was a certain sort of ominous, magnetic, unholy beauty to the craft. Its sleek gray dome, glinting in the midday sun, was made of an exotic material he’d never seen before. It was something out of a beautiful nightmare, like a medieval fortress from the twenty-fourth century built in the clouds.
Mesmerized, Reg flew closer until he became distracted by a stinging in his eyes. It took him a moment to realize that sweat was pouring down his face and blurring his vision. When he wiped his forehead clean, he noticed his hand was trembling. It had been so long since he’d felt anything resembling fear at the controls of a plane that he didn’t recognize it for a moment. In a sudden rush of self-doubt, Whitley’s words echoed through his head. Maybe he wasn’t ready for the real thing.
Distracted, he didn’t notice a pair of Syrian MiG Fulcrums moving up behind him at top speed. They passed above him by a scant few hundred feet, then deliberately cut across his path. When Reg hit the turbulence of their jet wash, his Hawk shook as though the wings would snap off. Regaining control, he rose a thousand feet in altitude and flipped his radio to the general frequency.
“Thank you, friends, for that warm welcome,” he said to the Syrians, figuring that having had their fun, they would leave him alone. But his heads-up display showed them arcing around for another pass. Realizing he was under direct attack had a curious effect on Reg. His hands stopped shaking, his heart rate slowed and something like a smile crossed his lips. “If you boys want to dance,” he said into his radio, “let’s have a go.”
Far below, he saw the brilliant blue of the Dead Sea on Israel’s eastern border. He cut his speed to let the Syrian planes catch up. The Hawk’s automated systems honked a warning alarm as the MiGs came within firing range behind him. When they were almost upon him, Reg snapped back hard on the controls and sent the Hawk into a sudden vertical climb. As he guessed, the faster, more maneuverable MiGs stayed on his tail, following him upward and closing the distance. He looped over backwards, pointed the nose of his plane to earth and plunged full-throttle toward the Dead Sea. The Syrians continued the pursuit.
The three planes plummeted toward the blue surface of the water at hypersonic speed. Reg gave no indication of pulling up. He increased his speed. In his earphones, he could hear his pursuers talking nervously in Arabic. Soon, they were screaming at one another to level off as their altimeter readings approached zero. They broke out of their dive, watching in amazement as the English plane continued to head straight down.
A big grin spread across Reg’s face as he calmly brought his plane parallel to the water with plenty of room to spare. Just as he’d expected, the Syrians had pulled up in a panic, forgetting that zero on an altimeter indicated sea level. But the Dead Sea, the lowest point in Asia, was more than nine hundred meters below sea level.
With his confidence restored, Reg ignored the flashing lights on his display panel and crossed into Israeli airspace with an airspeed of 1,000 KPH and an altitude reading of minus 700 meters.
Outwardly at least, the gigantic alien ship over Jerusalem was an exact replica of the thirty-five others. The front of it was marked by a slender black tower, three-quarters of a mile tall, set into a crater-shaped depression in the dome. Soon after it had parked itself over the ancient capital, it began to spin slowly like a wheel, completing a revolution every seventy-two minutes.
Reg was approaching from the southeast but knew that the Tornadoes were on the opposite side, the northwest. He scanned the skies searching for the safest way around the fifteen-mile-wide obstacle, but everywhere he looked, Israeli jets were patrolling in clusters. Hundreds of other planes were prowling just beyond the border. Only the murky area directly below the alien megaship was deserted. Quickly deciding that would be the path of least resistance, he darted into the deep shadows cast by the floating behemoth.
The bottom of the ship was not the smooth surface it appeared to be on television. Instead, it was studded with endless rectangular structures the size of warehouses. They were arranged in precise rows and the spaces between them formed broad boulevards that ran to the center of the vessel. Subtle color differentiations on the surface created a pattern that looked like a vast daisy, the petals of which stretched several miles to the ship’s perimeter. As he approached the eye of the flower, he glanced down at Jerusalem. The exact center of the giant ship was directly above the city’s most distinctive landmark, the Cubbat As-Sakhrah mosque, the famous Dome of the Rock.
It occurred to Reg that the mazelike underbelly of the ship was a twisted mirror image of the beautiful city below. Jerusalem, one of the most revered cities on the planet, was staring up at a dark reflection of itself. He glanced down as he tore past the walled Old City.
Continuing on his way, he steered toward the horizon, a low, blue ribbon of open sky. When he emerged from beneath the ship, he flew unopposed to the Mediterranean coast and slipped out of Israeli airspace. It didn’t take him long to locate the forty British planes. They were in a disorganized holding pattern, flying long slow loops about five miles from shore. He established radio contact with the group’s commanding officer.
“Lost Sheep, Lost Sheep, this is Guide Dog. Do you read?”
A sputtering, panic-stricken voice roared back. “It’s about bloody well time somebody showed up! Is that you in the Hawk, Guide Dog?”
“Affirmative. This is Major Reg Cummins out of Khamis Moushalt. I’m given to understand that you’re in need of my services.”
“This is Wing Commander Colonel Thomson. What we need is to get to a friendly airfield and land these planes!” the officer shouted. “We’re not pilots, man. We’ve got no business flying these planes, especially in these circumstances. The blasted Israelis have been threatening to shoot us down. Now I’m ordering you to get us the hell out of here at once.”
Although Reg had been warned that the men piloting these sophisticated warplanes were not the best pilots, he was surprised at the man’s hysterical tone. “Colonel,” Reg said calmly, “you and your men are in good hands. I intend to deliver all of you safely to our base in Kuwait. Now if you gentlemen will kindly follow me to the south along the coast…”
A new voice, much younger than Thomson’s and speaking in a working-class London accent interrupted. “Pardon me, Major Cummins. No disrespect intended, but heading south takes us closer to that big ugly wanker sitting over Jerusalem. I, for one, would prefer to stay as far away from that monster as possible.”
“That’s quite enough, Aircraftman Tye,” Colonel Thomson said st
ernly. “Let the man lead.”
“Airman? Did someone just say ‘airman’?” Reg said incredulously. “What the hell is an airman doing flying a Tornado?” Like most militaries around the world, the RAF only gave wings to officers. “What’s going on here, Thomson? You’ve got cadets flying these planes?”
Before Thomson could answer, Tye spoke up again. “It’s worse than you think, Major Cummins. I’m not even a cadet. Just a lowly mechanic, but don’t you worry about me. I’ve got it under control.” Reg had to admit that the kid had a point. It was hard to tell from a distance but Tye seemed to be handling his plane better than most of the others. Certainly much better than his commanding officer, Thomson. He wondered how it was that a mechanic had learned to fly one of Britain’s newest and most lethal jet fighters, but decided not to ask.
“Hold on,” demanded a new voice. “Why south? Last time I checked, Kuwait was east of here.”
“Quite right. We could go that way,” Reg said. “In fact, that’s a brilliant plan if you chaps think you’re ready to square off against the Israelis, the Syrians, the Jordanians, and the Iraqis. How does that sound?”
“Never mind,” replied the voice. “I humbly withdraw the suggestion.”
The young Londoner, Tye, spoke again. “Yes, when you put it that way, Major, heading south sounds lovely. Suddenly, I’d love to get a better look at that spaceship.”
The group formed up behind Reg and flew along the coast keeping to an elevation only slightly lower than the edge of the alien ship. The closer they came, the larger grew the lump in Reg’s throat. Guessing that the others must be feeling the same way, he choked down his fear and got on the radio playing the role of friendly tour guide.
“Coming up on your left, gentlemen, you might notice a very large, dark gray aircraft from outer space hovering just a few thousand feet above the ground. We ask that you kindly refrain from feeding the aliens and please remember to keep all arms and legs inside your cockpits at all times.”
Complete Independence Day Omnibus, The Page 52
