Read Independence Day: Crucible (The Official Prequel) for Free Online Page B

They’re everywhere, and they do things to our minds. I know it sounds strange to say.”
    “No,” Dikembe said. “I felt something, just before you killed them. Like insects in my skull.”
    Bakari tapped his head. “They can get in here, make us do things if they get those tentacles on us—sometimes when they don’t, if they’re close enough. And they can feel us, track us the way a dog can follow a scent. It’s hard to surprise them, but we’re figuring it out. And we have some artillery, which they don’t. We’ve also managed to capture some of their energy weapons, although they’re a little strange to use.”
    “Plus you have your very high-tech machetes,” Dikembe said.
    “Machetes don’t jam or run out of ammunition,” Bakari pointed out. “In some ways they work better than guns—there’s a sort of seam in their armor—well, you’ll learn.” He took another drink. “If I had tried to shoot it, I might have killed you.”
    “Very thoughtful,” Dikembe said. “I appreciate it.” As he took another drink, he noticed something on his twin’s arm—it appeared as if a series of hash marks had been tattooed there.
    “What’s that?” he asked. “The number of hearts you’ve broken?”
    Bakari uttered a sharp, humorless bark of a laugh.
    “In a sense,” he said. He pulled the short sleeve of his shirt up to reveal his shoulder. Above the hash marks was tattooed the image of an alien head.
    “Oh,” Dikembe said. “I see.”
    “You’ll have your own tally soon enough,” Bakari said. Then his brother patted him on the shoulder. “You look like a man who could use some sleep. Share my tent. Tomorrow I’ll take you home.”
    * * *
    When morning came, Dikembe saw the ship. It dominated the savanna like a mountain. He had seen footage of the ships in flight, of course, as well as crashed. Like Bakari said, this was neither. Instead, it was opened up on the bottom like a flower, each vast petal supporting the ship well above the ground. Beneath was shadow, of course, but within it lay a deeper umbra.
    “We haven’t been able to get that close,” Bakari said, “but it appears they were digging a hole of some sort.”
    “A very big hole,” Dikembe said.
    It took two hours bumping along unpaved roads to reach his father’s compound. Word had gone ahead, however, and Dikembe received a greeting that was nothing short of royal. In the village outside of the compound, children lined the streets, waving and cheering. Young women, as well, most demure and a few dressed to be noticed.
    He was caught off-guard by how good it was to see the house where he had grown up. It was old and rambling, a colonial structure that went back to Belgian times. It was raised up three meters on thick wooden columns, both to keep the first floor higher than mosquitos tended to fly and as a precaution against the floods that sometimes came in the rainy season. Wide stairs led to a long veranda, with the doors to the interior just beyond. An upper story jutted up from the middle, with a peaked roof and a little tower on the very top.
    An honor guard in faultless uniform met them on the dusty plaza in front of the house. More military were assembled in the compound, along with his mother, the female servants in their blue-gray dresses—and of course, his father.
    Upanga Umbutu was a big man in every dimension—even his fingers were thick, and Dikembe had forgotten how bone-crushing his handshake could be. After the grasp, his father pulled him in for a hug, then turned to the crowd that mostly was soldiers and held up Dikembe’s hand as if he had just won a prize fight.
    “The eldest son of Umbutu has returned to us!” he shouted. “It is a sign, as you all can see. Our victory is near at hand.” There followed a cheer that sounded a little flat and ragged to Dikembe’s ear. He was noticing that many of the “soldiers” seemed to be no more than fourteen or fifteen.
    His father wore military attire, as