Overrun (20 page)

The director stood at the same
time and walked purposefully towards the newcomer. The newcomer shifted against
the wire still holding him to the seat.

"No one really knows
anything more specific than what I’ve just shown you.”

Like a snake flaring out to
strike, the director's hand swooped into his holster and seized the large
weapon inside. He smashed its tip against the newcomer's knee and fired twice
into his bone and skin.

The newcomer reeled over
backwards shrieking in sudden horrible pain. Tears and sweat ran freely down
his face as his body writhed grotesquely across the floor. The wire still held
him securely against the back of the chair. Pools of blood collected alongside
both his ears.

The director lowered his weapon
to his side and stood ominously over the newcomer stretched out across his
feet.

"I don’t think what you’re
saying is completely true. I think you, and many more of you that are out
there, do know specific location information. That is why we are in these
camps. To get that information. Find out where they are…and end this war.”

"I swear I don’t know
anything more than what I’ve already said,” the newcomer said softly.

The newcomer looked away towards
the ceiling and rested his head back. Blood poured from the tattered mess that
had once been his knee. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

When he did, the director raised
his weapon again and fired four more rounds into the newcomer’s chest. Gaping
bloody holes opened just above his waist. The newcomer’s eyes froze back open
in stunned fright.

The director turned away while
the soldiers moved again from the shadows and cut the newcomer’s body from the
overturned chair. He opened the door and entered the hallway while they dragged
it through another door out of the room.

Outside in the corridor, he
reached deep into the pouches of his uniform and fumbled for a fresh pack of
cigarettes. The men monitoring the equipment and holovid maps brushed past him
as they reentered the interrogation room.

The director grabbed one of them
by arm before he could go completely inside.

"Go through what you’ve
got," he said between the breaths of smoke escaping his lips. "Piece
as much of it together as you can and show it around. I think we’re close.

“But, I want it all kept here.
Until we’ve confirmed we’ve found anything at all.”

"Yes, sir," the man
answered pulling slightly from the director's grasp.

The director released his arm
and turned back into the darkness feeling the radiating warmth of the lit
cigarette brushing against his cheek and nose. Taking a few more thought-filled
steps through the hall, he started preparing himself for another batch of
prisoners.

His original guards waited for
him just before the giant closed doors leading out of the compound to the
outside. When he reached them, they wordlessly handed him additional ammunition
rounds to reload his weapon.

When his sidearm was again
holstered and ready, the director pushed open the giant doors and felt the
outside air surge its heated fury across the weathered skin of his face. He
walked to the staircase leading towards the courtyard and began to make his way
down.

Another bus filled with prisoners
had cleared the gates. Followed by his personal guards, the director stepped
briskly through the burning blow of air and sand to meet it.

Overhead the sky was dark and a
warm soft rain fell around them. The polluted raindrops sizzled softly when
they collided with the tiny flames of the campfire.

Kirken and his son sat with
their backs pressed against each other. The tiny screen of the holovid shined brightly
against the night.

Brandon unclipped his load of
the bulky gear they both carried and set aside the dirtied tire iron he still
wore on the side of his belt. He placed it on the ground near the fire. Its
steel faintly reflected its dancing light.

Brandon reached around his
father's shoulder and offered him food from their pack. Kirken took it from his
outstretched hand trying not to look at his son or the tire iron next to him.
Drops of dried blood glistened faintly along its tip from the men that had
fallen beneath its blows.

Kirken focused his gaze on the
images of the two men flickering faintly from the small screen. He channeled
his anger there. And focused his rage. While at the same time trying
desperately to conceal from both his son and the men in front of him his
intense almost desperate fear.

It had been five hours since
they had escaped the chaos of the stadium.

"We are going the fuck
back!" Kirken screamed at the screen. His voice carried only slightly and
was soon lost in the vast expanse of the outside. “I will not leave her alone
out here any longer!”

Kirken stared over the screen
toward the faint lights of Beuford. Even from where they sat five miles away on
a high rocky plateau, he could still faintly see the licking flames marking the
destruction they had just wrought.

"Commander, no you will
not,” War Minister Faulken spoke gravely from the tiny speakers of the screen.

“The fuck I’m not.”

“Elimination of the next target
is of utmost priority.”

Faulken’s large frame and thin
gaunt face leaned over the shoulder of General Tuttle and took up most of the
small charred screen.

"The stadium blasts have
split their forces. For the most part, they’ve abandoned their extensive search
of the surrounding area. At least for now. They’ve given us time. Time to move
in before they discover Science Dome 15."

"I don't give a shit about
that!" Kirken spat out.

"Well, Commander you
should," Faulken said again.

Next to him, Tuttle remained silent.
He stared straight into the holovid screen. A look of empathy was etched across
his face.

“What you have done so far has
disrupted their tight hold on that city. And you've instilled a panic, one that
we hope will spread outside the city to other branches of their forces. We need
to build on that, right now, or they're going to regroup and seal Beuford up
even tighter than they did before."

"So why don't you just nuke
the whole goddamn thing? That would accomplish just as much what is necessary
for your plan."

"Even smart-flight nukes
precisely on target would be too close to SD15. With the only prototypes of the
beam cannons being kept there, we can't risk any damage. So what I'm saying to
you now, Kirken, is this. If you don't head to that next target now, we will be
forced to bomb the entire city from the air. It will be a dead blind drop. A
great many aircraft and personnel will be lost. Some before getting anywhere
close.

“But this loss will be necessary
to safeguard what is being kept at Science Dome 15. We will continue to
dispatch these bombing runs until the entire city is gone. What we are dealing
with right here is the one site, if lost, that will determine the final outcome
of this war. If the J.G.U. come to acquire the Beam Cannon Hardware, then they
have won. They will have the power to protect whomever they wish. If they do
not destroy us outright, they will use the technology to entice allies. They
will create a world war that we will have no chance or hope to win. That is how
important this mission and your contribution to it is. This is about much more
than simply saving your daughter."

Kirken looked away from the
holovid and stared into the warm drizzle of the night sky. He swallowed hard
and felt the hot droplets mix with the cool moisture of his coming tears. He
could also feel the rage of pain searing through his body collecting into a
single strangling ball in the center of his throat.

"By doing what we ask now,
you should be able to loosen things up further so that we can get a Vulture
ground team in. If you don’t, your inaction will cause the loss of a great many
men. And you, your daughter and your son, will also find yourselves out among
the dead."

"What if we don’t even
survive our way in?" Kirken asked trying to harness the anger in his voice
and keep his tone somewhat steady. "What happens then?"

"The minute we believe that
you were unable to survive, the air team will be launched. It is being
assembled right now as we speak. Like I said, we will firebomb Beuford until
nothing of that city is left standing except piles of smoking ash. We will do
this, like I said, regardless of any and all losses to equipment, aircraft, and
men.”

Kirken dropped his head away
from the screen.

"If you refuse us now,
Commander Kirken, the first of the air teams will be launched. You and your
daughter will not survive.”

When Kirken looked up again, he
saw through teary eyes that Tuttle had lowered his head and no longer looked
into the holovid screen.

"Kirken," Faulken
still spoke over Tuttle's shoulder. "If you are successful, we should be
able to send in the ground demolition team. And when we do, you can retrieve
your daughter. Then we will get you out. If you do survive, we will take
measures to ensure that. Your only concern now is to complete the next phase of
the mission and successfully destroy that next target."

"From what we can tell,
troops shift positions around the city at nightfall," Tuttle finally
looked up and started speaking again.

Faulken backed away from where
he hovered over Tuttle’s shoulder and walked to a chair further back in the
room. "When they do shift, that will be the best time for you to slip into
the building and begin wiring the explosives.”

"How many floors?"

"There’s about thirty. Try
and set something on each floor if you can. You’re going to need all the blast
power you can get to bring that facility down. It’s a crucial target and needs
to be completely destroyed. Its loss should more than cripple their occupying
forces. We’ll establish Vulture land assault teams as close as we can to the
city’s perimeter to ambush outside reinforcements they may try and bring in.
But, we hope by that time our bombing runners will already be inside."

"And what exactly is this
target?”

"This target is the biggest
J.G.U. armory on the West Coast," Faulken said. "It’s an operations
base camp for the entire coastal area. Numerous high-ranking officers are
headquartered there. All reconnaissance mission efforts are coordinated at this
facility. Once it’s been attacked, dome search missions through the outer
regions will be suspended. They will retreat back inward to secure whatever is
left. Once they’ve pulled their perimeters back, we’ll be able to send Vulture
teams immediately in. Do you understand all this, Commander?"

"I understand," Kirken
said and again lowered his head. He could feel Brandon shifting around behind
him to face the holovid.

Faulken disappeared from the
screen. When Kirken looked back up, only Tuttle’s blank expressionless stare
remained. A door slammed just outside the holovid’s field of view.

"He's gone," Tuttle
said quietly.

"Yes, sir," Kirken
replied.

Behind him, Brandon stood and
leaned over his shoulder to stare into the screen. Faint splatters of blood
from the men they had killed still stained the side of his cheek. Kirken had
already noticed it when they first sat down. Brandon hadn’t bothered to wipe it
off. Not even when they had started to eat.

"We understand, sir,"
Brandon said to the holovid and then turned back around to the fire and his
food.

Tuttle looked at Kirken trying
not to react to the face he had just seen.

"How are you holding up to
the radiation?" Tuttle spoke when Brandon had moved away. "I figure
you've been off the medication for more than thirty-six hours. You've got to be
feeling some of the effects."

"Doing as well as can be
expected," Kirken said.

"How advanced is his
condition?" Tuttle asked.

"Radiation is the least of
his concerns right now,” Kirken said looking resignedly at Brandon then back to
Tuttle on the screen. "For any of us out here."

"Commander, keep focused on
what needs to be accomplished. Right here. You do that, and we will come in and
get your daughter."

Tuttle took another thoughtful
pause.

"When the time is right,
and we can get our people in…and regardless of your personal outcome."

"Thank you, sir."

"When we have you out, we
will get all of you the best medical help available. Numerous possibilities
exist with the medicines and treatments we’ve advanced. There’s still a chance
their systems can be partially or fully healed."

Kirken didn't respond.

"Complete this mission and
get them out," Tuttle said. "A grateful nation will then take care of
the rest. Good luck, Commander."

Kirken remained motionless in
front of the holovid screen while Tuttle's face slowly faded out. When the
transmission had completely terminated, the holovid switched quietly off.

"Thank you, sir," he
repeated again when the image was finally gone, and he was alone in the dark.

Kirken didn’t get up. Continuing
to face in the opposite direction of his son, his body remained still.

Kirken held the holovid silently
for a moment. He then turned around on the rock he had been sitting and stared
at his son.

Brandon did not look up.

Slight twinges of guilt and fear
slowly crept up the back of Kirken’s neck. He felt it wrap itself tightly and
constrict even more viciously around his throat. He closed his eyes and tried
to will the pain and angst away.

Ahead of him, Brandon sat in the
dark and continued to quietly eat.

* * *

When Kirken's haunted face
finally disappeared from view, Tuttle turned away from the holovid to see
Faulken reenter the room.

"We should be able to
launch a full-scale air strike on Beuford tomorrow," Faulken said glancing
towards the darkened monitor to make sure they weren't still carrying the
transmission. "Next day at the latest."

"Depending on what Kirken
is able to do," Tuttle answered him.

"No, regardless."

"What?"

"C'mon Tuttle. We've both
been charting troop movement in Beuford for the last twelve hours and
monitoring levels of arriving reinforcements."

"And what did we find, War
Minister?"

"We've found that things in
Beuford are completely disorganized. Security is not nearly as tight as we
thought. His efforts have been a success."

"Then why are we sending
him, sir?" Tuttle spoke slowly and harshly annunciated the syllables of
each word. "We need to call him off and let him retrieve his daughter.
That is what we now need to do. That is the right thing to do. It won't
jeopardize anything that is happening out there. When he gets to her, we send
in an air or ground evac unit to bring them out. If anything, we owe him
that."

"We owe nothing, General.
You know as well as I that we cannot allow this to happen. The risk would be
too great."

"I don't see the risk,
sir," Tuttle's voice took an even harsher edge. "Ground forces can be
launched. Right now. The stadium attack was a good diversion. It loosened their
lock on the city and caused them to abandon most if not all of their outer
searches. For the moment, the security of SD15 has been secured. We owe that
man for this. We can sneak in a land demolition team. When the explosions
start, the rest of their forces can be neutralized by air assaults. Everything
will then be over."

"Tuttle, that ground team
has already been launched."

"What?" Tuttle's eyes
were wide. His breath shot out in an angry violent gasp.

"They entered the city
almost three hours ago. Most have been dispatched to prepare the
demolition."

"Most?"

"Teams have also been sent
into the tunnels…to take care of the rest.”

"His daughter is down
there. In those bunkers. In those goddamn tunnels, you son of a bitch!"

"Necessity is upon us,
General. You know that."

"No I fucking don’t! God
damn you."

"Word of what we are doing
here is about to break. Knowledge of this plan to any outsider puts us at grave
immediate risk. Revolutionary factions will form almost immediately if this
becomes commonly known. This would endanger the country and greatly jeopardize
our chances of securing victory in this war. These voices must be kept silent.
And you do know this!"

"Keeping the citizens out
of the domes, while protecting the elite, that is one thing," Tuttle said
his voice dropping slightly. "But the necessity of unleashing a massacre
on our own flesh and blood…I can't think of anyone, in any military or
government across the globe, including our own, that would agree with you that
this is the right thing to do."

"We don’t have the
resources to fight a war while at the same time contain an uprising within our
own borders. It is not a massacre, Tuttle. It is a component. A component
necessary to ensure the safety and security of Plan Zero. It is the only way
the new United States can be achieved. If word spreads about what has been put
into motion, then everything will be over. Our country will crumble within. In
the end, Japan's Great Union will achieve their victory.”