Independence Day: Crucible (The Official Prequel) by Greg Keyes Page B

sighed.
    “I wish you would reconsider,” he said, “but I can’t make you do it.”
    “I’m honored,” David said. “Really.”
    * * *
    Patricia watched as David Levinson shook hands and left with his wife. Mr. Bell seemed to want to talk about something, but her dad sent everyone out of the room. Then his shoulders slumped. He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair.
    “Is something wrong with your dad?” Dylan asked.
    The two of them were hiding up on the unfinished second floor. They had begun the day when Dylan’s mom dropped him off so she could go to nursing school. It was their summer routine. Then it was playing on the lawn, pretending to be explorers in an ancient ruin. The new favorite game was giving the secret service woman who was supposed to be watching them the slip, so they could slide down the newly finished banisters, pretending to be fighter pilots, blowing aliens out of the sky.
    And sometimes eavesdropping on Dad.
    “He’s just tired,” she said. “He works all the time.”
    “Mom says everybody needs a good night’s sleep,” Dylan said. “Of course, she’s up late studying, too.” He scratched his head. “So what now?”
    “I feel like ice cream,” Patricia said.
    They snuck back downstairs to the kitchen. There were a couple of people doing the dishes from breakfast, and Chef Cortez was in a huddle with his staff, probably talking about lunch. Dylan kept watch and she stole into the walk-in cooler and emerged with a container of rocky road. Then the two of them retired to the garden with a pair of spoons.
    “That’s good,” Dylan said.
    “Yeah,” Patricia replied.
    “I like hanging out here,” he said. “I’m glad my dad moved us to D.C.”
    “Me too,” Patricia replied. She took another bite, kept it in her mouth while it melted.
    “He wakes up at night sometimes,” she said. “He has really bad dreams.”
    “What?”
    “My dad. You asked if there was something wrong with him.”
    “Oh.”
    “I still have nightmares about all that stuff too,” Dylan said.
    She nodded. “He misses Mommy,” she said, “and he’s tired a lot. He says it will get better.”
    “Well, that’s good,” Dylan said.
    “Yeah,” Patricia said.

5
    Bakari stopped short of the top of the hill.
    “You feel them?” he whispered.
    “Yes,” Dikembe said.
    If he had to explain it to someone who didn’t understand, he would probably describe the sensation as similar to hearing a swarm of bees or the pins-and-needles feeling when his foot went to sleep. Yet it was neither a sound nor a feeling, but a thing inside of his head.
    It had started small, but as the months of the war dragged out—as the aliens hunted them with their minds, like bats used sonar to find insects—a sort of feedback loop was beginning to develop. Their human minds were somehow adapting to the alien mental probes and attacks. It was becoming easier to know where they would be, sense a trap, know when they were at your back. Some were more sensitive than others. Dikembe, as it turned out, dealt with them better than anyone.
    “It’s only a few of them,” he said. “On the other side of the hill.”
    “Okay,” Bakari said. “Let’s do this then.” He signed for the flanks to move around, and began to move the middle up. At the top of the hill, Bakari pulled the pin from a grenade and hurled so it cleared the top and fell downslope on the other side.
    An explosion, then Dikembe felt their anguish, their pain, if it could be called that. Green energy began spearing up from below, and five of them crested the ridge. They never had a chance, as thirty-four soldiers opened up on them, but as they died, Dikembe felt something… different.
    “
Merde
,” he swore. “I think…” He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate. The gunfire continued, as the rest of the alien force died.
    It was nearly over. In the early stages of the war, the aliens had expanded away from the ship, foraging for food—and