Stephen Molstad - [ID4- Independence Day 03]

by War in the Desert (epub)

  “Let’s climb to the top of those rocks so we can have a look around.”

  Tye and Yossi, who were riding next to Reg in the chariot, looked at the almost vertical stone cliff in front of them, then at one another, then finally at Reg. It would have been safer to dismount and climb up the slope under their own power, but neither of them objected. Instead they concentrated on moving toward the top of the stone wall and, through the magic of alien bioengineering, the chariot began to pick its way up the craggy cliff. The angle was so steep that they would have slid off the back of the chariot if it hadn’t been for the ingenious harness Tye had made by fastening several lengths of nylon rope around the body of the sled-shaped alien construct to keep them in.

  “Don't try to steer,” Reg insisted. “Don’t tell it which way to go; just focus on getting to the top. It’s like a horse—it knows the best way.”

  When the chariot stopped at the top of the rocks, Reg lifted himself out of the layer of foul-smelling ooze that coated the seating area and surveyed the valley ahead through a pair of binoculars. He looked nothing like the unassuming man who had entered Faisal’s camp earlier that night. Now he was heavily armed with an automatic machine gun on his back, a belt of grenades slung over his shoulder, and a holster on each hip. One holster held a .357 Magnum loaded with armor-piercing shells. In the other was a flare gun.

  Only a couple of miles ahead, the mountain-sized remains of the alien city destroyer loomed in the darkness. The light of the moon glimmered across what remained of the domed roof, and there was just enough light for them to see their objective: the tower rising from the front of the ruined spacecraft. Far to his right, Reg looked out on the plateau that was to have been the site of Faisal’s wedding. It was littered with destroyed and abandoned vehicles. The flags and bunting decorating the photo platform fluttered in a warm breeze blowing across the desert from the south. Everything was perfectly quiet except for the idling engines of the two trucks nearby.

  “Something is very wrong with this picture,” Reg said as he searched for signs of alien activity through the binoculars. At the base of the tower, he spotted the large opening Faisal’s men had told him about. It was big enough to drive a truck through. “We should have run into some resistance by now. We should have seen them at least.”

  “Don’t sound so disappointed,” Yossi said. “After all, we’re trying to avoid them, remember?”

  The agreement Reg had made with Faisal was simple enough. It called for the team to elude as many of the alien patrols as possible until they were within ten miles of the fallen ship. At that point, they would send up flares to signal the Saudi Air Force to begin bombing the far side of the ship as a diversionary tactic. Despite the high loss rates the Saudis had sustained each time they had tried to make bombing runs on the remains of the destroyer, Faisal had assured Reg that air cover would be waiting for him by the time he arrived at the ten-mile perimeter. Since the aliens were mysteriously absent, it didn’t appear they needed any help to make it inside. But what about on the way out, assuming they lived that long? If they managed to find and recapture the case of biological pathogens, the aliens weren’t likely to let them escape without sending chariots to chase them. In that scenario, a few well-placed bombs dropped in the path of their pursuers would make a world of difference.

  “You think those Saudi jets will show up?”

  Reg shrugged and came back to the chariot. When he sat down, the conductive goop accepted him with a slurping noise. “Faisal promised they would, but obviously that’s no guarantee. If we’re going in, we have to assume there won’t be any help.” Yossi nodded and thought the situation over. “Who needs them? The aliens have gone away and left the front door wide-open. Maybe we can sneak in and out before they come back.” Tye couldn’t believe it was going to be that easy. “Maybe they’re not gone,” he said. “Maybe they’re hiding just inside that opening waiting to zap us when we step through. Or maybe Ihey’re sleeping and when they hear us—”

  Reg interrupted him. “That’s the risk we have to take.”

  “And we better do it soon,” Yossi said. “Only a couple of hours until dawn.”

  Tye unwrapped a couple of the amber-colored medallions and laid them on his forearm. He fiddled with them for a moment, but could find none of the black diamonds that signaled alien proximity. “The coast is clear,” he said. “In fact, it’s empty.”

  “Let’s get back to the trucks,” Reg said.

  The chariot obeyed immediately and bolted down the steep, uneven slope. The skinny, bone white legs took them bouncing, bucking, and stumbling forward until they reached the desert floor once again, then whisked them smoothly up to the driver’s side window of the lead truck, where Sutton was behind the wheel. Edward sat next to him in the cab, monitoring the reports coming over the radio in Arabic. Remi and Fadeela were in the cargo area, keeping their eyes peeled for the enemy, while Ali drove the other, older truck.

  “You smell that?” Sutton asked, sniffing the air with ferretlike intensity. “Something smells funny, like mildew or something.” Like the rest of them, he was hyperalert to signs that the biological weapons had already been released. In addition to noticing odd smells in the air, they’d imagined burning sensations in their noses and lungs and spotted ominous-looking clouds on the horizon, only to have them turn out to be bushes or stands of rock.

  “Smells like you’re imagining something,” Remi called down to the driver.

  Reg said, “It doesn’t look like Faisal’s boys are going to show. But we don’t need them. Actually, it’s better this way; gives us the element of surprise.”

  “Yeah, but on the way out?”

  “That’s a lifetime from now,” Fadeela said.

  Reg grinned at her choice of words.

  Then Sutton surprised them all by yelling, “If we meet any damned resistance on the way out, we’ll blow their bloody heads off! Let’s go. Let’s rock and roll.”

  “Wait a second. Listen to this.” Edward, who had been listening to radio reports, leaned past Sutton so he could make eye contact with Reg, sitting in the alien chariot outside. “I think I found out where our spacemen are. They’ve sent an army to At-Ta‘if. Right now, they’re attacking the southern outskirts of the city.” Sutton asked, “So they’re gone?”

  “If they are,” Reg said, grinning, “that would make it a whole lot easier to sneak in, wouldn’t it? Turn toward the ship,” he said aloud. When he, Yossi, and Tye simultaneously willed it to happen, it did. The chariot turned sharply and began trotting forward, awkwardly at first, until the men mentally agreed on the speed they wanted. With a clear set of mental commands steering it, the chariot moved across the sand smoothly and gracefully.

  “It’s like a magic carpet,” Tye said, as they picked up speed. The pace they settled on was fast—as fast as the bioengineered dune buggy would cany them, which turned out to be forty miles per hour. They slowed down only once, as they came to the last earthen barrier and looked across the wide-open no-man’ s-land in front of them. Ali parked the battered old track there, leaving it as an emergency backup, then jumped into the back of the Mercedes. Now the only obstacles standing between them and the unbelievably large mass of the city destroyer were the destroyed vehicles left behind by the Saudi army. Once they were out in the open terrain, the Mercedes quickly outpaced the chariot. Sutton kept the pedal to the metal and shot ahead, literally leaving Reg and his fellow drivers in the dust.

  As they raced closer, the staggeringly large tower seemed poised to topple over and crash them like fleas, its great height creating the optical illusion that it was about to fall forward. The three men crouched behind the front wall of the chariot expected pulse blasts to begin raining down at them at any moment. Sensing their fear, the chariot veered sharply away from the tower and started across the open desert.

  Reg choked down the fear that was rising in his chest and sounded an order. “Concentrate on following the truck!” And a moment later, the vehi
cle did exactly that. But it wasn’t the last misstep. Each time one of the men glanced up at the darkened, blank face of the tower, the chariot responded to his terror and tried to steer away. Then, to add to their problems, they noticed something new and truly alarming. There was a massive tubular form crawling down the front face of the tower, like a ten-foot-diameter snake, something that definitely hadn’t been there during the daylight hours. The chariot balked under the confusion of conflicting mental signals it received from its drivers, then came to a dead halt.

  “What the hell is that?”

  Switching on their flashlights, they saw what appeared to be an enormous root or section of pipe. Growing up the wall of the tower, it rose beyond the limits of their vision and appeared to be growing right before their eyes, causing the tower to undulate and move.

  “I don’t like the looks of that,” Tye said, his voice full of jitters. ‘They’ve planted their magic beans, and this is the beanstalk we’re supposed to climb up, right?” But as they watched the slow movements, they realized that it wasn’t growing out of the ground. It was growing down, burrowing deeper by the moment.

  “Better to take our chances on the inside,” Yossi said, and the chariot moved off. They turned the comer of the tower and raced to where the others were preparing to enter the break in the destroyer’s wall. Ali had already broken open several flares and tossed them inside the ground-level opening, determining that the first few yards at least were safe. He and Fadeela stood at the ragged opening, impatient to slip inside.

  “Did you see that thing climbing up the tower?” Edward asked in a harsh whisper, bringing a pair of lightweight thermal blankets to the chariot.

  “It’s not climbing,” Tye answered him. “It’s digging itself into the ground.”

  Edward spread the blankets under the rope harness at the back of the chariot to create a “passenger area.” Most of the gelatin coating had already been scraped away. The blankets were to prevent any further contact with the goop. Getting three people to cooperate in the driving was tough enough. They didn’t need six people steering.

  “Hop on,” Reg told Edward. He did, and the chariot jogged forward to where Ali was standing guard over the opening. Sutton ran up behind them before they went inside. “Tye,” he whisper-shouted, “leave us one of those disk things of yours. And don’t you people be in there forever. Remi and I can’t sit around picking our noses out here past sunup.” Tye tossed him one of the medallions. “And one more thing,” Sutton called. “Good luck.”

  Ali and Fadeela stepped through the opening, made a quick inspection, and waved for the chariot to follow them.

  Inside, the team found themselves facing a tangle of collapsed walls. What had once been a series of rooms and passageways was now utterly smashed to pieces. They quickly found a path through the charred, broken debris and arrived at the sidewall of the tower, which extended deep into the body of the ship. This wall was made of a different material and had sustained no visible damage.

  “Wait here,” Ali told the men in the chariot as he moved to inspect the wall. “You too,” he told Fadeela when she followed him. She ignored him and accompanied him into the long, partially collapsed corridor that ran along the edge of the wall.

  “It’s thin,” Ali said, rapping his knuckles against the wall.

  Fadeela pushed against it. It didn’t give. It felt like a razor-thin sheet of rough-cut glass. She told Ali to shoot his way through it, and both of them backed away. Ali fired a single shot and, when the wall held, went to inspect the damage. Not even a nick. He and Fadeela waded a few paces into the darkness of the corridor, trying to find the end of it with their flashlights, but it was too long. They ran back to the chariot, jumped on the back, and took hold of the harness ropes like bull riders at a rodeo.

  “Straight ahead," Reg commanded, and the chariot bolted forward, carrying the six heavily armed humans with ease. They set out at a cautious trot, but soon increased their speed by urging the chariot to move faster. The trip over the uneven floor felt like riding a rickety roller coaster. They were tossed one way, then the other, straining the whole while to spot signs of danger. They sped forward for a long time until they reached the end of the tower and turned the corner.

  “Stop!”

  The chariot legs went stiff and stopped short. Ahead, dim round lights glowed out of the jet blackness, weakly illuminating the floor and walls.

  “Back up,” someone hissed. The chariot shuddered but stayed put.

  “No, don’t,” Reg countered. “They’re not moving.”

  “What is it?” Tye whispered, extending his arm over the front rail of the chariot so Yossi could help him fire the alien pulse weapon if need be.

  “They’re not moving,” Reg said again. “Let’s go for a look.” After a moment of hesitation, the stick legs began moving forward again, but slowly and reluctantly now. As they came closer, it became apparent that they were not the first humans to enter the tower. The lights were coming from a cluster of Saudi jeeps that must have been parked there since the alien ambush almost twenty-four hours earlier. There must have been fresh batteries to keep the headlights lit up for all that time. A ghostly rustle of static came from the radio of the closest vehicle. There was no trace of any soldiers, but they could see where the last man had been and what he’d been doing. His rifle was leaning against the inside of the open door and his water bottle was balanced on the narrow dashboard. He’d been talking on the radio and writing something down when the trouble began, probably very suddenly. His clipboard lay nearby on the ground. Edward picked it up and began studying it. There were no signs of the physical struggle everyone knew must have taken place.

  The jeeps were parked outside the opening to the tower. Where once there had been a great, towering wall, there was now only a confusion of bent structural bars and shreds of fire-blackened sheeting. The first several stories of the tower were exposed to view where the wall had tom away. They were ruined completely, blasted to pieces by explosions and the crash. The rear cargo areas of the jeeps were loaded with recovered artifacts, most of them tagged and labeled. Mostly, they were pieces of shattered machinery, and all were composed of organic matter.

  “You still think we’re going to find that silver case?” Reg asked Fadeela.

  “Or die trying,” she said, lifting her gaze and flashlight up to explore the massive, shredded wall of the tower. “If it’s here, that’s where we’ll find it.”

  Edward found something that helped confirm her suspicions.

  “This is not good news.” He came toward them, reading from the clipboard. “The men in these jeeps were climbing the tower and searching for survivors. Then, on the level thirteen, something happened.”

  Reg and Fadeela spoke at the same time. “What does it say?” Edward shook his head. “That something grabbed them. Then it says control room.”

  Reg arched an eyebrow. “Control room? On the thirteenth floor?”

  Edward took the report off the clipboard and stuffed it in his pocket. “That’s what it says.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go have a look around.” Reg had already estimated that the height of each of the exposed floors was sixty feet. Getting to the thirteenth floor would be the equivalent of climbing a fifty-story building.

  “Check this out,” Tye called softly. He’d found a platter-sized object in one of the jeeps. “It’s the granddaddy of all medallions.” It was the color of liquid amber and had the same hair-thin veins running through it as the disks he’d been carrying with him. “Watch. It lights up when you touch it.” Tye rested his palm on it and a fuzzy, fast-moving image formed on the surface. The image was too indistinct to recognize, but it seemed to be shifting and changing at a chaotic speed.

  Reg leaned in for a better look. “What’s it doing?”

  “Beats me,” Tye said, “but it looks like a broadcast, doesn’t it?” “Check your medallions. See if we’re still alone in here.” When Tye pulled them out
of his pocket, he got two surprises. First, the complex, shifting pattern of diamonds was gone and in its place was a flower design that covered the entire face of the disk. It was the same rigidly symmetrical “daisy” pattern found on the bottom of the city destroyer. Second, he could feel the small medallion drawn to the larger slab like a magnet. It gave him an idea. “These two pieces are attracting one another,” he told Reg. “That must be the basis of their tracking system.” “That’s fascinating,” Reg said impatiently. “Are there any aliens around?”

  “That I can’t tell you,” Tye admitted. “But if I see any, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Reg whistled through his teeth and waved everyone toward the tower. Seeing that the lower floors had been decimated beyond use, he moved directly to one of the X-shaped structural beams and began to climb. Each girder was as tall as he was, and there were about ten of them between floors. They were made of bone, or something very similar to it, and were encrusted with a brittle moss that flaked apart under their hands. As they climbed the first several stories of the mile-high tower, they saw that the floors were made of the same razor-thin material as the exterior walls. The loose edges fluttered like pieces of tissue paper in the breeze Reg made as he climbed past. Despite its seeming fragility, the material was strong enough to withstand the powerful explosions that had obliterated most of the ship.

  They continued to climb up the girders until they were dripping with sweat, and their arms began to tire. Young, lanky, and unencumbered by heavy weaponry, Tye scaled the support beams more easily than the others. Still, he was the first to suggest looking for a different way up. “This is taking too long,” he called down to the others. “There must be a better way to the top.” “Keep moving,” Ali grunted from below, and the team continued to climb, painfully, floor by floor, up the stack of X-shaped girders. Eventually, they reached a place where the damage was less severe. A ceiling of the ultrathin material prevented them from climbing higher. They left the girders and moved deeper into the tower.