Overrun (33 page)

Brandon staggered once and
dropped to one knee. Kirken let go of his daughter and without standing moved
next to him. Brandon leaned against his shoulder and slid to the floor finally
resting his head in Kirken's hands.

The fires on the level below
cast an eerie flicker across their faces. The light grew brighter with each
passing second as the flames quickly spread throughout the building.

Mel stood and positioned herself
on Brandon's other side. Lightly, she picked up his hand. Thick blood from his
wounds quickly covered her own. Brandon smiled up at her weakly and returned
her grip. His limbs shook slightly from the shock settling over his body.

A tear slid slowly down the side
of Mel's cheek. She tried to hide it by turning her face away. When she looked
back, Kirken was staring down at the bloody form he held in his arms.

Brandon’s eyes had become hard
and vacant like two impenetrable shields left to guard the entrance to an empty
room. When he blinked, they moved awkwardly sticking out on his face like two
huge saucers of cold stone.

Brandon coughed twice causing
his body to shake harder in Kirken's grip. Thin lines of blood colored his
teeth and trailed out past his dry lips.

"We're still going
up," Kirken leaned toward Brandon and whispered loudly into his ear.
"And right now, you're going to stand. Right now. Do you understand me,
Brandon?"

Brandon's eyes rolled up into
the back of his head. Another series of coughs brought more blood from where
one of the bullets had clipped the corner edge of his left lung. His throat
wheezed hoarsely when he tried to talk back. His legs kicked weakly about as
his body struggled to stand.

"Right now, Brandon.
They're almost here."

The loud roar of air assault
plane engines rumbled outside shaking the building's sides and causing the
windows all around them to shatter and break. Fresh explosions sounded from the
distance.

"Whether there's anyone out
there to get us or not, we're going up," Kirken whispered again defiantly.
His words were a violent hiss. "Don't waste everything we've done by
making us stop here."

Brandon's eyes came back and
rested on Kirken. His mouth set in a grim expressionless line, but his gaze
could not conceal the pain his body felt.

Kirken and Mel each grabbed him
around the waist and carefully hauled him upright. Despite their support on his
either side, Brandon staggered and nearly fell when he tried to center his
weight. They stayed there for a moment and waited for his legs to steady. A few
short minutes later, he was able to stand fully and move slowly about on his
own.

Kirken picked up one of the
rifles fallen near him and led his children out again into the foreboding
shadows of the ancient mall. Mel followed after Brandon holding her hand
against his back to steady his step.

The sound of the approaching
firebomb team still thundered ominously from outside overhead.

Watch Tower nervously watched
the Bullet land fleet race back towards the dome. Even from his perch high atop
the observation post, he could still hear the tortured screams of the Bullet
engines.

Some exploded. Others stopped
still as their pilots revved them past their limits trying to outrun the
chasing transports and reach the safety zone before the Death Wall was lit.

Smaller J.G.U. vehicles appeared
from the darkness alongside the larger transports. Large bursts of cannon fire
roared from their sides and chased the Bullet team further from the night.

"Wall ignition in ten seconds,"
Watch Tower spoke quietly into his wrist.

Very few of the land fleet had
reached the protective zone which would offer them harbor from the blast. The
dome-killer transports trailed doggedly behind the ones that had managed to
make it close.

"Land team
acknowledge," Bullet Leader's voice came back. "Transports close to
breaching the perimeter…" A loud burst of static temporarily drowned out
his voice. "…don’t wait for us to get in…ignite when ready…"

"Five seconds," one of
the observation sentries said quietly next to Watch Tower. Two others lowered
their glasses and turned away.

Only a handful of the vehicles
had reached the twenty-mile boundary guarding the outside of the dome. Some
entered the zone riding the red tails of fired rockets and exploded into flames
once within.

"Ignite on this mark,"
Watch Tower whispered into the comlink and then dropped his wrist.
"Ignition now."

When the final command left his
lips, he lowered his glasses and closed his eyes.

The initial blast rocked the
observation platform and threw everyone down hard to the deck. Watch Tower
pulled himself from the tangle of fallen bodies and stood back against the
rails.

With more megatons than previous
world armies combined, he watched the shield of fire erupt from the detonation
of special large-scale missile explosives embedded deep within the earth almost
twenty miles away.

Designed to blast up and explode
out, mammoth flames flew like reaching hands of death towards Beuford. Its
hungry fires devoured the advancing J.G.U. convoy lying in its path while
leaving the dome undamaged in its protective wake.

In an instant, the ten or more
transports that had almost breached the safe zone perimeter were gone.

The darkness that had been the
night immediately changed to day.

The few Bullet vehicles that had
crossed into the zone were jettisoned into the air by the force of the blast and
hurled towards SD15's base. Their small frames crashed end over end along the
ground.

Many exploded while others laid
smoking and still. Some pilots turned their vehicles around to rescue the
scattered few that managed to pull themselves alive from the searing twists of
jagged metal.

The remaining survivors streaked
towards the dome where thick metal blast doors covering the landing bay slowly
opened in front of them. The rectangular bay echoed with the tortured cries of
the Bullets' over-revved engines and the thunder of the fiery destruction
raging behind them.

The doors were open for less
than a minute before slamming down again to block the intense heat.

Steam, small fires and smoke
wisped upwards from the engine compartments of the vehicles that managed to
slip inside. Crews moved slowly about within their cabins.

Cold air and water fell from a
web of piping and vents overhead to douse the charred wreckage they had piloted
from the flames.

At the top of the dome, Watch
Tower bowed his head and said a silent prayer that more men than he had
actually seen survived the blasts and made it inside.

Tuttle felt his heart drop
further into the depths of his stomach when the first planes appeared. First in
singles, then in pairs, an entire squadron of assault aircraft punched through
the low-hanging cloud cover that obscured the night sky.

Even above the loud churn of the
helicopter blades, all three men could hear, even feel, the massive thunder
their engines left booming through the air behind. One after the other the
firebomb attack jets roared past them towards the far side of the city where
the fires still brightly burned.

"Head for the northwest end
of the rooftop," Tuttle instructed the pilot. "Keep as close to the
ground as you can.”

Rockets streaked from the
wingtips of the jets leading the firebomb team. Riding the wings of orange and
yellow tails, the missiles sailed towards the troops and vehicles that jammed
the streets.

More than a hundred of the
assault aircraft dropped into view through the clouds. They separated into two
distinct squadrons which swung out to conduct attack runs from the city's opposite
sides.

Starting with small sections on
the outskirts and then moving further inward, the air team buried the ruined
city in fire like whole rivers of spewing lava had dropped from the sky.

Five of the assault planes broke
from the main group towards the vehicle convoy heading away from the burning
town. Each dropped their fiery loads across the jammed roadways before pulling
straight up and away to ready for another run.

Tuttle pulled his eyes away from
the destruction to watch the shape of the Beuford mall approaching quickly in
the distance. Its rooftop loomed dark, empty and ominous directly ahead.

"They're there
alright," Piper's voice broke through his thoughts. "The building's
first four levels are completely on fire. There’s also a whole lot of trucks
and jeeps heading that way."

Tuttle turned his attention down
toward a line of vehicles lumbering down the empty streets of the deserted
blocks.

"They could be evacuating
away from the bombing attack."

"Not likely," Piper
said while pulling three lines of thick cable from an overhead compartment.
With quick even thrusts of his wrist, he wrapped them around his waist and bent
to secure them to the deck. "They're way too far out for that. "

Piper looked up at the
explosions tearing through the city blocks and leaned quickly back to test the
strength of his lines. When he came forward again he threw open the
helicopter's side door. He rotated the heavy assault cannon around on its base
and pointed its thick tip through the opening.

The mall rooftop still appeared
peaceful and dark. Not even the glow of the surrounding flames seemed enough to
interrupt its quiet serenity.

The pilot brought the
helicopter’s skids close over the side of the building and hovered just above
the rooftop.

Still there was no sign.

"I got nothing over
here," Piper screamed from the chopper’s side. The churning wind beneath
the blades overhead mostly drowned out his voice. "And that ground team is
getting real close."

Tuttle didn't answer him right
away. He pressed a pair of extended range glasses to his eyes and scanned them
along the rooftop. He took them away from his face and forcefully blinked his
eyes. He then pressed them back and looked over the area again.

"We're not abandoning them,
sir," Piper spoke to him as if in answer to his thoughts. His tone was
quiet and somber even through the cockpit transmitters. "You kept your
word by just being here. This man would understand that you tried…"

Tuttle closed his eyes and tried
to lose himself in the rhythmic hammer of the helicopter's rotor blades.

"By not being up here, we
can assume he's probably already dead…and so is his family,” Piper said again
after a several-second pause. “We won't be leaving anyone behind."

"I know," Tuttle said
softly and lowered his glasses.

"Sir, we need to go. He’s
not here. We need to go now."

"I know," Tuttle said
again.

Tuttle was about to order the
pilot to turn back when bursts of cannon fire somewhere to the right of the
craft jerked his attention around. Piper swung the heavy cannon hard about to
its other side and searched for its source.

Less than fifty feet away, a
door burst open from one of the side walls surrounding the rooftop revealing
the shapes of three figures stumbling through a thick layer of smoke. They
staggered through the opening holding their hands above their heads.

Splintered wood and chipped
concrete exploded around them from chasing gunfire.

"Over there! Over
there!" Tuttle screamed at the pilot.

Soot, scorched clothing and dark
layers of blood darkened all their skin. One of the figures half-dragged,
half-carried the sagging form of another.

Tuttle couldn't distinguish
which one was Kirken and which one was his son. Both fell forward. One held the
other tightly in his arms.

The third figure slammed the
door shut behind them and bent down to haul them both to their feet.

Piper squared his shoulders
behind the cannon and aimed it towards the door.

Covering their eyes against the
rush of air from the chopper blades, all three limped across the roof towards
the assault helicopter. The two men moved slowly ahead while the smaller shape
of the daughter followed closely behind.

Kirken and his son both
staggered twice more and fell. The daughter pulled them both up and prodded
them to walk again.

A quarter length of the roof and
a large glass observatory window in the rooftop deck separated the trio from
the hovering chopper. They stopped just before the glass. The one being carried
tumbled from the other's grip.

The pilot dropped the helicopter
down even closer to the rooftop. Tuttle quickly undid his straps, threw open
the door and leapt out.

Landing on his feet about twenty
yards from the opposite edge of the window observatory, Tuttle slung his rifle
across his back and sprinted towards them. He was almost to the glass when the
door through which they had just come disintegrated in a white flash of flames
and twisted metal.

The three figures dropped to the
ground while cannon fire raked the air over their heads. Small pieces of the
surrounding walls torn loose from the shots dropped down around and covered
them with a thin layer of chalky debris.

Tuttle dove down onto his
stomach and crawled behind one of the many steel girders that jutted from the
rooftop surface. He turned back towards the chopper to see its pilot lift it
safely away.

Tuttle sat up and leaning his
back against the girder readied his own weapon.

He watched the pilot circle the
helicopter around waiting for the firing to cease. When it did, he swooped it
back in across the roof. Its belly skimmed just over Tuttle and the three
figures lying flat across the ground.

His waist hanging out against
the cables, Piper leaned through its side and shredded the doorway with a
ravaging burst of cannon fire. Taking advantage of the cover, Tuttle leapt from
behind the girder and ran to the glass observatory that separated them.

The giant window stretched
across the entire width of the rooftop. Only a narrow steel maintenance track
extending down it center offered a way across.

Facing straight ahead and trying
not look down at the fires burning below in the mall's lower levels, Tuttle
stepped out and slid his feet hurriedly along the thin track.

"Kirken!" he screamed
at the figures still lying motionless on the other side.

The sound of the helicopter and
the roar of its cannon pounded hard against his ears.