Complete Independence Day Omnibus, The

by Molstad, Stephen

  “Hey, what about us?” Tye shouted. He and Remi ran to the nearest ladder and began to climb. Ali slung his gun over his back and followed them. Reg and Fadeela found another ladder, and they, too, began to climb. The helicopter disappeared only moments after they started up the ladders, but they all continued climbing. The steel rungs were hard on their hands, especially Fadeela’s. The harsh metal rubbed through the skin on her palms, and she was bleeding before they were halfway up. At the three-quarters mark, her arms were so tired they began to shake.

  “I know you’re going to think I’m a princess, but I don’t know if I can make it to the top. Let me stay here and rest. You can go around me.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “No. Let me do it myself. I just need to rest for a while.”

  Reg stared up at her, watching to make sure she didn’t lose her grip when he noticed something strange. Although neither of them was moving, he could feel movement in the ladder. He looked down and saw an armored alien climbing up behind them. It was moving fast, taking the rungs two at a time and using all twelve of its limbs to pull itself upward.

  “I hope you’re ready for this,” Reg said. He climbed another step and shocked Fadeela by wedging his head between her legs and lifting her backside onto his shoulders. Before she could protest, he started climbing as fast as he could. There was no need to look down to see if the alien was getting closer. Reg could feel it gaining on them through the vibrations in the ladder. When they got to the top, Reg fired his last bullet at their pursuer, then he and Fadeela ran onto the curving roof of the tank. From their new vantage point, they could see the Apache helicopters surrounding the refinery. They were keeping low to the ground, well away from the fires they’d started. The civilian helicopter they’d seen pick up their comrades was coming in for another pass, but the alien was already at the top of the ladder. It stepped onto the roof and let the humans regard it in all its horrible glory. The tentacles sprouting from its back waved in the air like a gruesome peacock spreading its tail feathers. As the helicopter came closer, the creature ignored it and marched toward Reg and Fadeela. As it stepped onto the crest of the roof, a pulse blast whizzed past Reg’s ear and struck the exoskeleton square in the face, shattering the armor and knocking it over the side of the tank. When Reg spun around, he saw Tye and Remi waving to him, the alien tube gun sandwiched between their arms.

  “I don’t believe it,” Fadeela muttered when she saw the royal crest painted on the door of the helicopter. “It’s the king’s private helicopter.” But that surprise was nothing compared to the one she got a moment later when a disheveled old man leaned his head out of the cargo door and waved them inside. It was her father, Karmal Yamani.

  Fadeela allowed Reg to help lift her over the landing bars, then reached back to help pull him inside. She sprang into her father’s arms as the chopper began to lift away. The old man winked at Reg over his daughter’s shoulder.

  “I told you I had joined the fight.”

  “You did this? I thought it must be Faisal.”

  King Ibrahim turned around to face them from the copilot’s seat. “Faisal is still driving in circles in the desert wondering where the aliens went.”

  As the pilot lifted the chopper away from the roof of the storage tank and turned to head away, the ship listed violently toward the copilot’s side. Something heavy had grabbed onto the landing gear, and everyone inside knew immediately what it had to be. Before anyone had a chance to reach for a gun, a tentacle reached into the rear passenger area and began to slash through the air. Reg, closest to the door, picked up the first heavy object he could lay his hands on, a fire extinguisher. Ignoring the tentacle, he rushed toward the open door and leaned outside. The mangled exoskeleton was only a few feet below him. Its huge head-thorax shell had been shattered, but its many limbs were wrapped tightly around the landing bars. Reg used the extinguisher to deliver a hard blow to the center of the cracked shell, knocking a large section of it away. The alien hidden below the shell was now exposed to view, but before Reg could deliver a second blow, the tentacle clipped him hard on the back of the head. He felt himself go lightheaded, then collapse. The fleshy arm wound itself around his neck and began pulling him outside. Fadeela caught him by the feet and struggled for a moment against the more powerful alien. Her resistance bought just enough time for the king to open the copilot’s door and peer down into the hideous confusion of limbs and broken shell. Staring up at him were a pair of bulging, reflective eyes. He drew a pistol from the folds of his robes and put a single bullet into the alien’s head. As it died, all the life went out of the biomechanical suit of armor. The tentacles, including the one around Reg’s neck, went limp, and the creature plunged to the ground.

  “Allah-u akbar,” cried the king, shaking a fist at the alien as it fell away. “You see? Finally, I got my wish to kill one of them! I did it! I killed him.” The aging monarch continued to celebrate as his pilot swooped to the next storage tanker and set down long enough for Ali, Remi, and Tye to climb aboard. Reg was beginning to recover his senses by the time they all stepped inside. “Did you see?” King Ibrahim asked the new passengers. “I killed one of them!”

  As the helicopter lifted away from the refinery, there was a series of powerful explosions that sent fire roaring high into the air. The intense heat began exploding the holding tanks, feeding the already-raging fire with ton after ton of additional fuel. Soon, every square inch of the refinery was fully engulfed. The helicopter gunships patrolled the perimeter of the blaze in case any of the aliens escaped, but none did.

  The king ordered the helicopter to hover nearby as the inferno consumed the enemy forces, then told his pilot to take them to Jeddah.

  Ali leaned forward and spoke bluntly to the king. “We cannot leave without our friends, the two men who were picked up first.”

  King Ibrahim turned around in his chair and arched an eyebrow. “One of them is a Palestinian masquerading as a Jordanian, and the other is a Jew. You call these men your friends?”

  “Yes,” Ali answered without hesitation. “Good friends.”

  Mr. Yamani assured the muscular captain there was no reason to worry about Yossi and Edward. “They are in good hands. My son, Khalid, is with them. He will escort them back to At-Ta‘if, where the biological weapons will be destroyed.”

  “Khalid has been released?” Fadeela asked her father. She was on the floor of the helicopter, sitting next to the still-woozy Reg.

  “Yes, Faisal let him go this morning before he retreated from the mountains. I think he expected your brother to die at the hands of the aliens.”

  “Speaking of Ghalil Faisal,” said the king, unbuckling himself from his chair and moving aft to join the others, “I spoke to him by radio earlier today. He had many interesting things to say about you, Major Cummins. Not very positive things, I am afraid.”

  “That doesn’t really surprise me,” Reg said. “Faisal and I haven’t really hit it off during the past few days.”

  “In fact,” the king continued, “he would like to see you arrested. According to him, you have committed several criminal acts since the invasion began.” Fadeela sat bolt upright, ready to defend Reg against Faisal’s accusations. Before she could say a word, both her father and the king spoke to her sternly, telling her to let Reg answer for himself.

  The king outlined the most serious of Faisal’s allegations: that Reg had shot down an Egyptian pilot over whom he had no authority because the man had refused to obey his orders; that he had urged Saudi pilots to disobey their orders during an engagement with the enemy; that he had kidnapped a Saudi woman, Fadeela, on what should have been her wedding day; that he had trespassed on the grounds of the Saudi military facility at Al-Sayyid; and that he had stolen weapons and ammunition from that same facility. Considering that all these acts had been committed within a span of less than four days, it was quite an impressive list. When the king was finished, he asked Reg to answer the charges.

 
“They’re all true,” Reg said without batting an eyelid. “And if I had to do it all again, I’d make the exactly the same decisions.”

  It wasn’t the answer the king had been expecting.

  “I was never kidnapped,” Fadeela couldn’t help interjecting. “It was my choice to go with these people.” The king ignored her and stared intently at Reg, waiting for him to go on.

  First, Reg explained the circumstances under which he had “shot down” the Egyptian pilot who refused to turn away from Khamis Moushayt. King Ibrahim listened carefully, running his fingers through his beard until Reg was finished.

  “If what you say is true, and I believe that it is, you must be quite a fine pilot.”

  “He’s the best,” Tye interjected.

  King Ibrahim nodded. “So I have been told. But do you also admit that you urged our pilots to disobey Faisal’s orders over Mecca?”

  Tye, Remi, Ali, and Fadeela all broke into the conversation at once, insisting that Reg had acted with good cause. Reg quieted them with a gesture and continued speaking to the king.

  “I did what I thought was right,” he said. “I knew Faisal was making a horrible mistake, that he was sending those men to their deaths.”

  “Knew or believed?” the king asked.

  Reg hesitated for a moment before answering. “I believed so.”

  “In other words, your assessment of the situation differed from Commander Faisal’s?” In only a few moments, the king had cut to the quick of the matter.

  “Yes, it was my assessment against his. But before you have me arrested, there’s something I think you should listen to.” He pulled out of his pocket the audiocassette Thomson had given him. “Have you got a tape deck in this copter?”

  The question stung the monarch. “Major Cummins, this is the royal helicopter. Of course there is a cassette player.” He took the tape from Reg and plugged it in. A moment later, the sounds of the air battle over Mecca filled the helicopter’s passenger compartment. King Ibrahim turned the volume up loud, and for the rest of the flight to Jeddah, hardly a word was spoken.

  When they arrived at King Abdul Aziz International Airport at about four in the afternoon, the helicopter swept past the large tent-shaped hajj terminal built especially to accommodate pilgrims en route to Mecca. The pilot landed the craft on a helipad outside the terminal reserved for the exclusive use of the royal family. There was a large contingent of soldiers and servants waiting there to greet them. One of the faces in the crowd was familiar. It was Faisal. He stood about a hundred feet from the helicopter, his olive green uniform encrusted with the sweat and dust accumulated during a long day of chasing the alien army across the desert. He smiled menacingly at Reg when the two of them made eye contact, then sent some of his soldiers to surround the king’s chopper, just in case Reg tried to make a run for it.

  But Reg had no intention of running. When he saw Faisal, he jumped out of the helicopter and marched directly toward him. Fadeela and the others followed him outside, leaving the king still listening to the recording. “Where the hell were you?” Reg demanded loudly as he marched threateningly toward Faisal.

  The Saudi commander retained his customary poise, refusing to return Reg’s hostile tone. As his soldiers stepped into Reg’s path, he smiled easily and shook his head in disbelief. “I was absolutely correct, wasn’t I? You are a difficult man to kill.”

  “Where were you?” Reg repeated fiercely. “We agreed we would work together.”

  “So we did,” Faisal said, moving closer. “I ordered the air strike against the alien ship, just as we planned. But my pilots told me you never came outside.”

  “That’s a lie. I fired a dozen flares into the air when we came out. Those jets were supposed to follow us to your camp in the hills. They didn’t. But we made it into the hills without them, only to find you gone.”

  “A matter of priorities, Major. The city of At-Ta‘if came under attack during the night. I was forced to relocate my forces before you returned. In doing so, praise be to Allah, I saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives.” Faisal and the men around him realized that this was a lie. By the time his forces arrived at At-Ta‘if, the aliens had already left to chase Reg and his team across the desert. But he was accustomed to taking credit for more than he actually accomplished. “In any case,” he went on, “we were successful in removing the biological agents from the alien ship before my planes destroyed it completely. You have been very helpful. And what is more, you have brought Fadeela back to me without a scratch on her pretty face.”

  Before Faisal could protect himself, Reg swung at him and connected. The blow landed squarely on the tip of Faisal’s chin and sent him sprawling to the ground. A pair of soldiers grabbed Reg and pinned his arms behind his back while others leveled their guns at Remi, Ali, and Tye.

  Faisal picked himself off the ground, rubbing his jaw, and gave Reg a deadly stare. He paused for a moment deciding how best to hurt him before issuing a command to his men. “Take the girl inside and wait for me.” A pair of soldiers each grabbed one of Fadeela’s arms and forced her toward the terminal building. Held at gunpoint, Ali and the others were powerless to stop them.

  Faisal moved uncomfortably close to Reg, until they were practically nose to nose. “When my pilots first told me you’d come out of the ship alive,” he hissed, “I was disappointed. But now I see that this way is better. Not only will I be able to enjoy the sweet fruit of this woman, but I will also have the pleasure of attending your public execution.” Reg struggled to free his arms for another swing, but the soldiers held them fast. Instead, Faisal delivered a crushing punch that connected with Reg’s rib cage. He was preparing to hit him again when the loudspeakers mounted to the exterior of the terminal building came to life and began blaring out a recorded conversation.

  REG: “I repeat: Saudi commander, you have broken formation. You are currently running in the wrong direction.”

  FAISAL: “Do not interfere!… I’m afraid you are mistaken, major. You must be watching the wrong plane.”

  REG: “Negative, Faisal. I’m directly above you. Close enough to read your wing markings. You are running away from the engagement.”

  FAISAL: “Stay out of this, Cummins! I am not running. I am… I am positioning myself to observe the attack.”

  REG: “Admit it, Faisal, you’re saving yourself because you know what’s going to happen to those men. Order them to it break off.”

  FAISAL: “Damn you, Cummins, stay quiet! Cooperate with me and you will be rewarded.”

  REG: “And if I don’t?”

  FAISAL: “Then I will personally shoot you out of the sky.”

  REG: “I wouldn’t advise it. You’d only be wasting another one of your king’s planes.”

  FAISAL: “King Ibrahim is no longer a factor. The Saudi Air Force is now completely under my command and it is my will that—”

  As Faisal listened, horrified, he forgot completely about punishing Reg and looked around desperately for the source of the embarrassing transmission. He soon spotted King Ibrahim staring at him sternly from the shadowy recesses of the royal helicopter. Brushing past Reg, Faisal ran to the helipad. “Stop this recording at once!” he shouted.

  “Why should I?” the king asked.

  Faisal stammered out an answer. “Because this is not… this was… you are exposing military secrets. You are… people may misunderstand.”

  “I don’t understand,” said the king, feigning confusion. “You said before the tape would prove Khalid Yamani’s guilt and establish your bravery in the battle. This tape doesn’t match the story you told everyone after the battle. In fact, it sounds as if you turned and ran.”

  Faisal glanced around helplessly at the loudspeakers, which continued to broadcast the sounds of the battle to the entire airport. “There is no need to continue playing the tape. I will explain everything,” he told the king. “After all, you need me.”

  “How so?”

  “I am th
e Saudi hero who saved Mecca!” he shouted. “Do you want to give the credit to a bunch of Western infidels and Jews? I can be very useful to you and your family. Without me, you will appear weak. As if you needed help from outside to protect the Holy City.”

  “I’m not so sure,” said King Ibrahim, stroking his beard. “It seems to me Khalid Yamani acted quite bravely during the battle. Perhaps he will be accepted as our country’s hero during the battle. But as I say, I’m not certain. That is why I am broadcasting the tape right now over several military frequencies to all parts of the country. This time, we can let the people decide who they consider their hero.”

  When Faisal learned that the entire nation was listening to the recording, he realized at once that he was finished. There would be no way to explain why he had flown away from that first bombing run, or why he had muscled the others out of the way to get the first shot for himself. It was all there on the tape, and he knew it. He backed away from the helicopter, then turned and ran toward a jeep that had been left unattended.

  King Ibrahim made no move to stop him. Instead, he watched as Faisal jumped into the vehicle and drove away, burning with humiliation. A moment later, he picked up the handset on his radio and spoke to someone inside the terminal building. He ordered that Fadeela Yamani be found and brought outside again as soon as she was decently covered. Then he called to Reg.

  “Major Cummins, come here please. We have not finished all of our business together. There is still the matter of your reward.”

  “Don’t forget about your friends,” Tye joked, as Reg began moving back to the royal helicopter.

  Reg seemed in a great hurry to speak to the king. He hurried along for a few paces, then broke into a full run. It wasn’t that he was eager to collect his reward; he was concerned about Fadeela. He informed the king that their chat would have to wait until he was positive Fadeela was safe. The old man laughed at his earnest concern and assured him he had already taken care of the matter. Then he invited Reg inside the helicopter, where the two men sat face-to-face for the next several minutes, negotiating. After some time, Mr. Yamani was called in to join them. The three of them were still talking when Fadeela reemerged from the terminal, escorted by a different set of soldiers. Somewhere, they had found a spare abaya and given it to her so she could cover herself. Reg happened to glance up from his conversation long enough to take in the strange sight of her: a battle-tested woman warrior wearing dusty combat fatigues beneath a long skein of black fabric that reached nearly to her ankles. Her boots, stained with oil and blood, protruded from below the cloth. She came striding out of the terminal in an unladylike fashion and joined Tye, Remi, and Ali. The three men pointed toward the helicopter, explaining the situation to her. When she learned what Reg and her father were discussing with the king, she put her hands on her hips and shook her veiled head back and forth to express her displeasure.