Overrun: Project Hideaway (31 page)

The corridor was finally silent.
The wailings of the Hideaway sirens had been silenced by the blast.

RadCom laid there for a moment
and allowed the dust from the explosion to settle across his eyes. He coughed
once as it went into his nose.

He felt the warm salty taste of
blood from deep in his throat and across his tongue. He raised his arm and
tried to wipe it away.

RadCom rolled over on his side
where several feet of openness separated him from the rest of the ship. Entire
sections of the corridor area had crumbled and dropped away to the bottom
layers of the ship through the gaping hole in the center of the deck.

RadCom rolled himself tiredly
across his knees and stood slowly to his feet.

He stepped to the hole in the
floor and stared over its side. There wasn’t any sign of his assailant in the
shattered metal littering the ripped passageways beneath.

RadCom walked to the side of the
passageway and tried to find a way across. Behind him, the J.G.U. warship was
still visible through the cockpit window as was the wreckage of the explorer
frigate that floating silently around it.

“Light the wall,” the words
still echoed eerily in his head.

“Sir?”

“Light the goddamn wall!” the
President screamed at the man daring to question him.

And now listening with
Administration Dome command center staff to the man on the monitor in front of
him, he knew he was not the only one that questioned the President’s actions.

In fact, Ford questioned it all
himself.

“….we consider the men running
your government and leading your armies nothing less than global fugitives. The
biggest perpetrators of war crimes in this world’s history.”

J.G.U. Prime Minister Talhir’s
voice was quiet and stern. His public address, Ford could now only assume, was
being broadcast to the entire world.

“We offer you freedom from your
newfound tyranny and protection for your besieged peoples. We propose a quick
end to this war in exchange for your compliance and denunciation of your
current rule.”

Ford felt the room begin to spin
around him and fade from view.

“We promise the creators of this
‘Plan Zero’ will be brought to justice. And pledge our support for the use of
new technology to bring healing to all the people of the world.”

It was the first time, Ford had
really heard it out loud. Talhir’s voice boomed large and accusingly in the
President’s ear as he outlined Plan Zero to the United States people in
complete detail. It was the first time Ford had heard himself named as its
creator. The one person behind the death that had befallen the country.

He felt raw bitter tears form in
his eyes. A lump threatened to choke him in his throat.

It had been eight hours since
Ford had given the order to light the Administration Dome’s own Death Wall. It
was an order he never dreamed would be given in the whole history of the United
States. But all too quickly it had come to that.

The location of the
Administration Dome had been compromised. Most likely by someone standing with
him in that very same room. There had been little U.S. resistance to the J.G.U.
advance. Ford wouldn’t have been surprised if the troops had simply stood aside
and watched them come.

The takeover of the United
States was nearly complete.

While still listening to the
J.G.U. prime minister’s direct address to U.S. citizens from the command center
central holovid, Ford felt a gloved hand reach to him from the shadows.

Ford didn’t bother to turn
around. He allowed the hands to gently pull him back into the comfort of the
darkness.

He stepped slowly back as the
gloved hands drew him gently away from the stunned gathering of the
Administration Dome personnel listening to the J.G.U. prime minister speak.

No words were exchanged as the
two bodyguards silently ushered him and Baldwin out into the hall.

Their silence brought Ford a new
sense of remorse. Remorse and deep sorrow. He had not ever before even seen the
faces of the two men that had taken it upon themselves to pull him from the
control room and stand by his side. Even after everything they had just heard.

It made the President think of
all the citizens outside the domes. Those directly affected by his actions. The
same trust some of them must have felt. He knew they felt. If they hadn’t,
things never would have gone this far. Even when they heard of Plan Zero. Even
while he was allowing events to progress that were causing their families and
the world around them to die.

Ford lowered his head and
silently followed the two men.

Baldwin was silent next to him.

They came to the entrance of a
small room where one of the guards lowered his hand to swipe an access card.
The door opened and Ford and Baldwin were escorted quickly inside.

Another door opened after the
guard swiped his card another time.

The next entrance was smaller.
The guard with the card ducked his head and walked through. The other stood at
the entryway of the small weapons chamber and took the gear the first guard passed
him from inside.

Wordlessly, they handed Ford and
Baldwin the round-resistant jackets and darkened plastic faceplates worn by the
Administration Dome Guard.

After strapping one of the
jackets tightly around his chest, Ford took a final look into Baldwin’s
frightened eyes and lowered the darkened protective shield across his face.

When they were both completely
clad in full military protective gear, the two guards pulled Ford and Baldwin
back out into the hallway.

Just as the door shut completely
behind them, the firing began.

Seeing their assailant a split
second before, the guard leading them down the hallway leapt in front of Ford
taking most of the unexpected weapons burst.

The first round of slugs buried
themselves deep into his shoulder. He sank down to his knees while his lips
mouthed a deep silent pain.

The other guard yanked Ford and
Baldwin hard around the next passageway corner for cover.

When the President was safely
away from the corridor, the assailant recharged his weapon and fired again at
the wounded guard. Rounds splashed off and tore across the protective plating
covering his head. Dazed and helpless in the openness of the shredded
passageway, the guard raised himself painfully to his knees and tried to crawl
after them around the corner.

A new burst of rounds pounded
across his protective gear. The ferocity of the shots pressed him harshly back
to the ground and threw sparks in the air.

Everything happened fast. Too
fast for anyone to think including the President. He reached into the depths of
his armor to his shoulder harness and grabbed the Sunszk hanging at his side.

The guard that had pulled them
back to safety was too busy raising his own weapon to stop him.

Ford stepped from around the
corner and standing alongside the guard returned fire on their attacker.

His fingers flew across the
Sunszks’ triggers. His rounds tore mercilessly into the ceiling and corridor
walls. Combined with the firing of the guard, they were able to effectively
push the assailant back.

Using a weapon the guard had
thrown in his direction, Baldwin also sent weapons fire down the corridor. The
gunman retreated back into the darkness of the shadows to avoid their fire
while the President dove toward the other fallen guard.

Beneath the lightning of discharged
weaponry flashing over his head, Ford grabbed the guard’s gear near his
shoulder and dragged him with one hand backward across the floor. With his free
hand, Ford continued firing one of his weapons.

The President pulled the guard
back towards the passageway corner until he reached the outstretched arms of
Baldwin and the second guard. All three dragged the first guard’s battered body
to safety around the corner.

By then the gunman was gone.

The corridor smoked with the
stink of discharged weaponry and recently spilled blood. Destroyed sections of
the surrounding walls further marked the recent battle. The ring of shots still
filled the air and battered their ears.

They didn’t stay there for long
before the first guard yanked them all to their feet.

When they were all standing, he
led them down a darkened corridor which led further underground. Only a small
light in the distance lit their way.

The President moved faster to
follow. The guard he had just saved walked close behind him. The President could
feel the warm metal of his recently fired weapon pressed up against his back.

Without turning around, Ford
also sensed the limp in his walk. And the façade of unwavering strength the
wounded man tried to convey but did not actually feel.

Some of the rounds had punctured
his protective gear leaving wounds that were quite severe.

Ford felt sorrow and reassurance
from this man’s desire to continue with the duty he had undertaken. Especially
when most others in the world most likely simply wanted him dead.

The tunnel widened ahead of them
into a vast expanse of open space. Several small tanks, jeeps, and trucks
waited silently in the gloom.

The guards hustled them through
the vehicle bay towards a large armored assault vehicle.

Ford and Baldwin hurried quickly
between them.

Quietly, they clambered up into
one of the assault trucks. The unwounded guard climbed behind the wheel.
Baldwin sat next to him. Ford fell into the back seat and pulled the wounded
guard in after him.

The engine turned almost
noiselessly over. The guard pulled the truck slowly out towards another dimly
lit corridor.

He didn’t turn on the lights
even when everything around them became lost in the dark.

The truck moved silently ahead.
The vehicle bay fell quickly away behind them.

It had taken more than two days
for Tuttle and his team to slink their way from the Science Dome 15 command
center and make their escape.

Most of those days were spent
cowering in darkness and hiding amidst the rot of the murdered many strewn
about the halls of the destroyed dome.

After making contact with the
Administration Dome, they had run through the tunnels of stinking flesh and
trampled upon the bodies lying before them in the dark.

Samuel led the way as they
fought to escape the nightmare the facility had become and eluded the ghosts of
the dead hovering about the passageways.

Tuttle trailed at the rear. The
voices raged in his head and pounded against his skull. All cried for a
vengeance. One he could never give.

Tuttle ran just to get out.

Samuel was the first to step
back into the burning outside air once they had reached the ground level. Most
of the structure was completely gone. They exited through the cracks of the
twisted metal of the destroyed facility back onto the battlefield where the
wreckage of the Vulture chopper and the remains of their second team still laid
somewhere in the smoldering flames.

With his weapon ready and
raised, Samuel stepped cautiously from the wreckage. His eyes scanned the dying
fires and gutted vehicle debris.

Tuttle stood next to him just
behind his left shoulder.

His eyes ignored the flames.
They centered on the comforting darkness on both sides of the battlefield. Only
burned air separated them from the calm blackness outside the fires and away
from the collapsing structure. There, he saw an escape from the stink of death
and the voices that followed him.

Tuttle felt the darkness call
him. He longed for it.

In a moment of maddening
weakness and pain, he tore into the openness of the smoking battlefield shoving
and breaking free from the hands that tried to stop him.

He ran from the men that
screamed at him over the chaotic din of the dying fires. He could barely hear
them over the screaming whispers filling his ears.

The voices of the dead were
loud. The hollowness of the destroyed dome amplified their pitch creating an
unending shrill of accusation that swirled through his brain.

Tuttle feared he might already
be insane.

He prayed for a stray bullet. A
gift from a straggling soldier. Something to escape the voices and give him an
opportunity to join them in their screams against the nightmare the world had
become.

But nothing came.

Tuttle made it away from the
flames into the welcoming arms of the encompassing blackness. When the fading
light of the dying fires no longer lit his way, he stopped running and dropped
against the sun-ravaged ground.

He was more than a hundred yards
from the closest burning tank or truck.

Once there, he didn’t move. He
felt his body begin to drain of spirit. His willingness to go on was almost
gone. He prayed for the onset of the coming sun so that his body could just
wither away beneath its mammoth heat.

And allow his tortured soul to
finally slip away.

Tuttle laid there for only a
short time before the running footsteps of Samuel and Cranden approached from
the darkness. Neither man spoke as they dropped to their knees next to him and
soundlessly pulled him to his feet.

Tuttle’s cheek burned from the
radiation-poisoned sand that stuck to the edges of his face. He allowed the men
to help him stand and retook the weapon one of them put in his hands.

Tuttle felt strength and a quiet
pity in the eyes of the medic who had handed it to him. Cranden’s back blocked
out the last of the dwindling light from the dying flames of the overrun dome.
Some of the last remaining pieces were now collapsing down within themselves
along the ground. The roar of the crash bellowed out into the far reaches of
the night.

They walked more than ten miles
before activating their location tracers. The chopper extraction force arrived
within the hour. Blades churned noiselessly in the sky overhead as they
scurried up tow ropes hanging from beneath the center craft.

When they were inside the cabin,
they dropped wearily onto its vibrating deck and settled down to briefly rest.

By the time Tuttle awoke, the
helicopters had taken them to one of the remaining underground ship ports.

Tuttle breathed in a sigh of
satisfaction that this one, one under his own command, had been successfully
held by his men. Most of the ports had already been overrun or outright
destroyed by the J.G.U. land assaults that were steamrolling across the
country.

For the moment, the voices were
quiet and stayed away.

After four hours of rest, Tuttle
and Samuel assisted the bay crew in preparing their Vulture fighter for its
trip into space. Every piece of information regarding the Hideaway and its crew
that could be readily gathered was hurriedly loaded into the ship’s data
network.

When that was complete, the
highest ranking officer on the base personally walked aboard the ship and
entered the coordinates of the presidential retreat. The location they were to
rendezvous with the commander-in-chief should their mission be a success.

There were no words exchanged
with the bay crew before their launch. There was really no attention given to
them at all. When the crew had cleared, the three of them walked aboard the
ship, strapped themselves into the cockpit, and simply flew away.

Samuel and Cranden sat in the
two command seats while Tuttle slumped backwards in a rear cockpit chair. He
focused on the space ahead and tried to keep the voices at bay.

In less than half a day, they
covered the distance from Earth to the other side of the moon.

Briefly breaking free from the
torment of his own thoughts, Tuttle gazed over at the man that piloted the
Vulture ship.

"So how long before they
can detect us?"

"They shouldn't be able to
detect us at all," Samuel answered. Both he and Cranden sat rigidly at the
cockpit controls.

All three stared intently
through the front viewport at the spectacle of ships and debris becoming slowly
visible as they rounded the darkest corner of the moon.

Tuttle watched the small pieces
of exploded ship that now bounced lightly against the hull of their own.

Samuel’s hands moved slowly
across the command controls in front of him.

"They’re used to seeing
this kind of ship. We use these small fighters mainly for unmanned
outer-atmospheric reconnaissance flights over the J.G.U. Sometimes they blast
them away. Sometimes they just let them go. Judging from what they’ve got going
on ahead, even if they did detect us, I don’t think they’re going to give us
much notice. At least not right now, if we keep our distance.”

Tuttle gazed quietly out the
observation window and didn’t respond.

A giant J.G.U. battleship loomed
in front of the Hideaway. The wreckage of another ship floated around both of
them in the surrounding space.

"They’re going to notice if
we make a deliberate course through this shit towards them,” Tuttle spoke
again. "Even if they’re ransacking the ship, someone onboard is going to
pick up on our maneuvers to avoid the wreckage. No matter how subtle you’re
able to make them be."

Another piece of jagged metal
flashed and then disintegrated against the front shields of their ship. The
floating piles of debris were becoming heavier. Samuel made an adjustment
across the controls to slightly edge their course.

Tuttle watched his hands intently
while he did.

"They'd have to be looking
pretty close to notice us coming this way, General," Samuel reassured.
“Though I’m going to take us a bit further out so there’s less junk to travel
through and come in a different way.

“I think we’re running out of
time. From the looks of the spread of the wreckage, this happened awhile ago.
If they haven’t done it already, they will be boarding very soon."

Tuttle settled back in his chair
without answering. He stared out at the two large ships coming further into
view ahead.

Both ships were motionless and
still too far away for them to assess any damage to either craft. And Cranden
had already pointed out the heightened possibility of detection by even risking
the lowest-level sensor scan.

The J.G.U. ship reminded Tuttle
of an eagle getting ready to drop on its soon-to-be-dead prey. It was more than
three times the size of the Hideaway. There was no doubt that this was a J.G.U.
ship. Though the identity of the shredded metal they floated within still remained
a mystery.

It didn’t really matter.

All three men were quiet as they
allowed the slow-moving thrusters of the fighter to take them closer to the
Hideaway. It rocked slightly from the increased amounts of shattered steel
bouncing across its shields.

Ripped metal and scorched steel
on the hulls of both ships were coming into view. Flames from battle licked
briefly from escaping oxygen and fuel before being snuffed by the vacuum of
space.

"Jesus, what the hell
happened here?" Samuel asked aloud.

Several smaller craft, each
about the size of their own, skimmed along the surface of the undamaged
sections of the larger ship. The fighters flew in groups of two and three and
were slowly breaking from the main craft. Additional ships launched into space
behind them after they had made their way clear.

"It won’t be much longer
before they board," Cranden remarked from the right cockpit seat.

"I agree," Tuttle
returned. "We’re going to have to find a way in there faster than
this."

The small ships circled the Hideaway.
Waiting, Tuttle thought, for a final signal to descend.

The Hideaway showed no response
or sign of life. It floated there seemingly dead in space.

"If we break from soft
thrusters and go faster through this debris, they're going to notice us for
sure," Samuel said thick-lipped. "We’d probably never even know if
that main ship opened fire. We'd be just be more of the wreckage."

"Can they access the
hardware?" Tuttle asked moving about uneasily on the edge of his seat.
"What if they board before we can get there? What will they go for
first?"

"Obviously, they’d go for
the hardware,” Samuel said quickly back. “There would be a recovery team with
assault members giving cover. With more assault being dispatched about the ship
to look for…”

Samuel’s voice quickly trailed
off, his attention instantly diverted to the main controls.

A large section of ripped metal
appeared suddenly in front of them. Samuel spun their craft hard to its side to
avoid its impact across the cockpit viewport.

None of them dared to make a
breath as they waited to see if their maneuver caught the attention of any of
the ships in front of them.

"If they pulled the same
data we did from Science Dome 15…,” Samuel said again after the ship was out of
danger and he resettled their course back into its original low-thruster
approach. “…then they are well aware the ship will explode the moment they try
to access the pilot controls or cargo area. They need palm verification from at
least one of the pilots.”

"They might just do that
anyway,” Cranden replied. “Blow the whole fucking thing up. Why not? Just to
make sure we don't have it and win the war. They might be just that close to
coming up with similar technology themselves and be content to finish it with
the United States destroyed and no longer a threat of attack."

"Very unlikely,"
Tuttle said watching the smaller crafts still hovering around the larger ships.

"I agree," Samuel
said. “They could do that just from outside. If that was their intention, they
would have done that already.”

Samuel’s hands were now calm and
unmoving across the command controls while they maintained their course.

"I wouldn't do that and
neither would you. The fate of the world, and more importantly, who controls
it, is at stake here. It could be a long time before they develop the same
technology. They know their whole country could be dead before they ever figure
it out. For possibly generations after. It’s too big of a gamble. They’re going
to try and take that ship.”

Tuttle nodded slowly in
agreement. His eyes never left the viewport in front of him.

"There’s no other option,”
Samuel said again. “They have to try.”

For the moment again, the three
men fell silent while their small fighter crawled closer through the wreckage.

The two larger ships loomed larger
the further they approached. The amount of smaller fighters massing from the
J.G.U. ship was becoming alarmingly apparent.

"Jesus Christ," Tuttle
said faintly. The multitudes of smaller craft kept increasing the more they
watched.

He was about to speak again when
giant blasts of energy seared from every possible section of the J.G.U. ship
towards the Hideaway.

"Oh, my God," Samuel
said weakly.

His hands moved to the controls
that would bring power to the ship’s engine. They were no longer on a stealth
approach. It was now a race to board the Hideaway before it was all too late.

The J.G.U. ship fired again. Its
blasts pounded mercilessly across the hull of the dormant Hideaway.

Entire sections of the ship were
obliterated instantly. Whole portions of its hull were ripped from its side.

The energy blasts were focused
on its midsection well away from both the cockpit and the vast cargo area at
its rear. Where every piece of equipment and technological data for the Beam
Cannon Hardware was stored. Those parts of the ship were untouched.

Swearing and cursing under his
breath, Samuel throttled their fighter over and around large pieces of the
Hideaway now careening toward them from every direction in space.