Independence Day: Resurgence: The Official Movie Novelization (30 page)

“This is way cooler than a machete,” he said as he hefted the blaster. With a deafening bang it fired in his hands, destroying a nearby Humvee. Rosenberg flinched away and then raised one hand. God, they were loud! “Sorry! Sorry!” he called to the nearby soldiers, who had taken cover and were now emerging with wary looks on their faces. “My bad. I’ll pay for that.”

Actually, he really hoped he wouldn’t have to, but he had to say something. “That was definitely my fault,” he announced to no one in particular, mostly just hoping someone would take a picture of him with the awesome alien blaster.

* * *

Adams was making his own preparations. Ritter had found shortwave gear in one of the old sections of the complex, and Adams tuned it to a common frequency for a final speech that he felt obligated to give. He took a microphone from a waiting aide.

“Am I on?”

The aide nodded and Lieutenant Ritter confirmed. “Yes, sir.”

He took a deep breath and started to speak.

“What we do in the next twelve minutes will either define the human race, or finish it,” he said. “I’ve been told that people around the world are tuning into this channel on their shortwave radios. To those of you listening: No matter your nationality, color, or creed, I ask that all of you pray for us. No matter what our differences, we are all one people. Whatever happens, succeed or fail, we will face it together, standing as one.”

He clicked off. That was all there was to say.

* * *

“Damn right.”

In the tech room aboard the
Alison
, a hung-over Captain McQuaide nodded at the radio.

* * *

Julius roared across the salt flats toward Area 51. They were getting close. They were going to make it. Once he and David were back together, everything would be all right again. He knew it.

Some of the campers had found his book and were quizzing him about the story.

“It says you got to fly on Air Force One,” Kevin said, and Julius started to answer.

Dennis interrupted him. “You meet the president?”

Before Julius could answer, Henry butted in.

“My father says that your son never went to space and it’s a conspiracy.”

“Is that right?” Julius said.
How dare they say that about my David?
“You know what? Your father is a putz!”

Henry looked confused, like he didn’t know what a putz was and couldn’t decide how offended he should be. Suddenly a high-pitched hum reached all of them, getting louder. It seemed to be coming from the horizon behind them, but when he looked in the rearview mirror, he couldn’t see what might be causing it.

“Do you hear that?” Sam asked.

“Yeah,” Julius said, still irritated about the conspiracy comment. “Kid’s making fun of me.”

“No, that sound,” she insisted, and at that moment a wave of alien fighter craft screamed overhead.

“Oh, boy,” Julius said.
They must be heading for Area 51
. “Hold onto your seats!”

Then the huge shadow of another ship passed over. It was smaller than the city destroyers from the last war, but still maybe a mile in diameter. As it glided overhead, darkness fell inside the bus. They were sitting ducks, Julius thought. If just one of those fighters turned back…

But none of them did. The giant ship and its escort moved on. Julius wished he could tell David, but his phone hadn’t survived the tidal wave, and none of the kids’ phones were working. Maybe the satellites were down. In any case, they would be at Area 51 soon.

* * *

From the salt flats, David saw the first wave of alien fighters crest the range of mountains to the east.

“They’re inbound!” Adams shouted over the radio.

“Yes! I can see that!” David replied. He waved to the team. “We gotta go. Gotta move!”

The alien ships flew over the trucks, hundreds of fighters… and behind them, in the distance but closing fast, David saw the huge shape of what could only be the queen’s vessel.

* * *

At Area 51, ground troops held their positions as the fighters closed in. They had visual now.

So many of them
, Floyd thought.
How can we fight them all?

Adams contacted the cannon crew. “They’re going to target the cannon first. We won’t be able to get too many shots off, so make ’em count.” Then the barrage began, the first waves of alien fighters strafing the Area 51 compound and concentrating on the visible defensive positions near the destroyer cannon.

The whole area lit up in fire and thunder, annihilating many of the defenders in the first moments. Blasted around like rag dolls, the bodies of fallen soldiers littered the concrete, but they’d done what was needed—the destroyer cannon was online, and it spun up to fire. Its beam, capable of punching a hole through the Earth’s crust, slashed through the ranks of alien fighters, destroying dozens of them at a shot. Wreckage rained from the sky across Area 51.

Inside the command center, Adams watched the queen’s ship move closer and closer. They had to wait until just the right moment, when she was close enough to make her move, but not so close that she could detect the real sphere. Adams waited, knowing that every second of hesitation was costing good soldiers their lives.

At the last possible moment, he issued the order.

“Send out the decoy.”

* * *

Patricia and the rest of the surviving pilots flooded into the hangar, headed toward the remaining fighters. It was time for the last stand, and she was grimly thrilled to be part of it. Then Travis stepped in front of her.

“Patricia.”

Whatever it was, she didn’t have time for it. “We’re wheels up.”

“Your dad collapsed,” he said.

Oh God
, she thought.
Have the aliens struck him again?
What did collapsed mean? She looked over at her fighter, then back at Travis, agonized at the conflict between duty to family and duty to the human race.

“Where is he?” she said.

Agent Travis led her into a side office attached to the hangar. When they were both inside, he shut the door and locked it. Patricia looked around. Her father wasn’t anywhere in the room.

“Travis, what are you doing?”

He avoided her look, standing wordless in front of the glass door. Beyond him, in the hangar, Patricia saw her father in his flight suit, climbing aboard the tug. When Travis saw that she’d registered that, he finally spoke.

“I’m sorry.”

“Get out of my way,” she said, going for the door. He stopped her, and in a different tone, almost pleading, she said, “Don’t do this.”

“I can’t let you go,” Travis said. “He asked me, as a friend. As a father.”

“I’m not asking,” Patricia said. When he didn’t move, she started throwing punches. At first he didn’t budge, but he wouldn’t retaliate either. She changed her tactics and shoved him to the side enough that she could yank the door open and run out into the hangar.

Too late. The tug carrying the piece of wreckage with the decoy signal had already lifted off.

“Dad!” she screamed uselessly, the sound of the engines drowning out her voice. Frantic, Patricia scanned the hangar. She had to do something.

There was the fighter she’d been assigned, still warmed up but sitting idle. She sprinted toward it. The aliens had taken her mother. They had taken Jake. They were not going to take her father.

* * *

In the command center, Adams got notification that the tug and its escorts were in the air.

“The convoy is en route!” he said to the cannon crew. “Give them cover fire now!” The queen was very, very close. If he’d been outside, he would have been able to see her approaching from the east.

The destroyer cannon spun up again and unleashed a blast that tore a path through the alien fighters, clearing a space for the convoy. Flanked by fighter escorts, the tug surged through the space, Thomas Whitmore at the controls. “Here we go, boys,” he sang out, cutting into a tight roll just for the sheer joy of flying again. “I’d forgotten how much fun this is!”

He was resolute, clear-headed for the first time in years. This was what he had been born to do. They hadn’t finished the job last time, but this time they would.

Or die trying.

Okun watched impatiently as technicians finished replacing the isolation chamber’s glass shielding. The sphere rested inside, inert. The exact second they sealed the last glass panel, he radioed Adams.

“General, we’re back in business.”

Adams immediately called Whitmore. “Tom, we’re ready on our end. Activate the decoy transmitter on my mark.” He counted down to the moment of truth. If the queen didn’t bite on this diversion, their last best hope would be gone. “Three… two… one…

“Mark.”

He saw on the monitor that Whitmore, still flying over the salt flats toward the ring of trucks with shield generators, had activated the signal. Now they would find out whether it would work.

* * *

Inside the isolation chamber, Okun watched the sphere for a long moment and then decided he couldn’t resist. He walked over to it and held his hands close to its surface.

“What are you doing?” Milton asked, sounding alarmed.

“It’s isolated, so I’m going to turn it back on.”

Even more alarmed, Milton reached out toward Okun.

“Why would you do that?”

Too late. Okun pressed his hands onto the sphere’s surface.

“To see what else this thing knows.”

With the same soft
whoosh
and deep thrum as the last time, the sphere activated and hovered at Okun’s eye level. He could feel it perceiving him, waiting for what he had to say. Milton stood next to him, frightened but curious—and loyal, too. Who else would have remained by Okun’s side for twenty years? Brought him orchids? Knitted him a scarf? No matter what else might be going wrong, no matter how dire the threats to humankind, Okun knew he had found the truest love a human being could find.

One of these days he would tell Milton all of that, but right now there were more pressing things on his mind.

“Excuse me, sorry to bother you,” Okun said to the sphere, “but I had a few questions. If you don’t mind.”

* * *

For a long moment in the command center, Catherine and Adams watched the queen stay on her path toward Area 51. They searched for any sign of a change in her course or speed, any signal that she had detected the decoy. Nothing.

“Goddammit, she’s not taking the bait,” Adams said. He had no idea what to do next.

Then the massive ship shifted. Adams caught his breath. He didn’t dare to believe it—but yes. It had worked. Catherine saw it, too.

“It’s working,” she said. “She’s following the decoy!”

* * *

Out on the salt flats, where he was working on a shield generator to get it powered up and ready, David heard her excited shout over the open frequency.

“We’ll be ready!” he shouted back over the sounds of the alien fighters attacking Area 51 a few miles away. More quietly, to himself, he added, “At least we’ll try to be.”

* * *

These new alien fighters are something else
, Jake thought as he raced toward the front range of the Rocky Mountains. At this pace they were only a few minutes away from Area 51. He couldn’t wait to see the look on Patricia’s face. They’d made it out of the alien ship, man—that was going to be a great story.

An explosion off his wing rocked the fighter as the pilot flying next to him was blown out of the sky.

“Shit! We got company!” Jake said, seeing a wave of alien ships coming after them.

“We’ll lose ’em in the mountains!” Dylan dove low, skimming the tops of pine trees as they ducked into a narrow valley, alien gunships close on their trail. Another of the human-flown fighters disappeared in a fireball, pieces of it raining down into the creek at the bottom of the valley.

Jake returned fire. There were more targets than he knew what to do with. He fired until he started to wonder if the turret barrel would melt, but still there were more alien ships funneling in after them as they swooped and dove through the peaks of the Rockies. The enemy had gotten around them, somehow, and were between them and the other side of the mountains, where Area 51 was. Dylan was going to have to do some fancy flying, Jake thought. He shot down another pursuing gunship and started hollering that they were going the wrong way.

This appeared to give Dylan an idea. He accelerated up and over a saddle between two peaks, cutting back northeast. Jake almost asked him what the hell he was doing, then decided it didn’t matter. He’d have to trust Dylan to fly.

All Jake had to do was keep shooting.

* * *

“Sir!” one of the shield generator technicians called out, tossing David a pair of binoculars. “You might want to see this!”

The tech pointed, and David looked in that direction. He was astonished twice in a row. Once to see an old-fashioned yellow school bus heading right for the middle of the energy shield… and then, all over again, when he saw that the driver was none other than Julius Levinson.

How had his father, who had been in the Gulf of Mexico the day before, managed to end up driving a school bus full of children across the salt flats? David really wanted to hear that story, but if he was going to, his father would have to survive. If he was inside the shield perimeter, that had a zero percent chance of happening.

“Dad!” he shouted, dropping the binoculars. “Dad! You’re driving right into the trap!” Of course his dad couldn’t hear him. David ran toward the bus, waving his arms and shouting, trying to make himself unmissable against the monotonous background of the salt flats. He didn’t always like being taller than most other people, but it did come in handy when you wanted to get someone’s attention. He hoped it would work soon enough.

* * *

Watching from the head of the convoy, Whitmore saw the queen’s ship angle away from the main armada. Now she was on a course to intercept him. He judged her airspeed, and his own, and realized something.

“We need to slow down, or we’ll overshoot the trap!” he said.

They did, but although that put their intercept point right where it needed to be inside the perimeter of shield generators, it created another problem—namely, the queen’s escorts could catch them that much sooner. Within a few seconds the air around Whitmore was streaked with energy blasts and the flaming trails of falling fighters.