Overrun: Project Hideaway (10 page)

He leaned in slightly and
pressed his weapon against Barnes’ sweaty forehead. For several minutes,
neither man moved. The only sound in the passageway came from the wailing
sirens.

Beads of perspiration dripped
from Parker's wild damp hair. His eyes glared with a steel ferocity under the
frequent flashes of the emergency lights. He leaned in even closer and pressed
his weapon harder against Barnes' head. Barnes closed his eyes in both pain and
fright.

"Major Barnes, there is
probably no one left alive on Earth who even knows who you are,” Parker spoke
into his ear. His voice was soft, deep, and foreboding. "Or will ever
know, or maybe even care, if I have to kill you right here. All you have is
me."

Parker pulled his thumb back
slowly and readied the weapon to fire.

Barnes responded with only quiet
whimpers. And then he started to openly cry.

"Major Barnes, do you
understand?"

Barnes carefully nodded his head
as much as the crush of the door would allow.

"When we came up here, our
mission was, and has always been, to stay hidden. Period. Fly up here,
establish an unidentifiable position from Earth and just wait. Wait to see if
things down there started to become horribly bad. And then act appropriately
when something finally happened. Well, something finally happened. And now our
mission is to find out what ‘acting appropriately’ really is."

The sirens throughout the ship
finally ceased leaving the quiet labored breaths of both men and the hum of the
gravitational generators as the only sounds in the corridor.

Barnes looked up past his weapon
towards him. His lips began to tremble, but he didn’t yet make a sound.

"We have had no contact
from Earth, and we have no idea who brought the ship back online,” Parker
calmly continued. “We don’t even know why we were kept down in an extended
sleep in the first place. We can only assume that danger exists. They may have
kept us down, because the repercussions of our possible discovery were becoming
just too great. Perhaps knowledge of our existence was no longer secure. There
is also the possibility those that know of us are already gone. We have to act accordingly.
Barnes, you have to understand this. You have to understand for me to allow you
to live."

Before Barnes could respond, a
loud groan came from the steel door as it still tried to close completely shut.
Barnes' body shifted roughly under its intense weight, and he let out another
scream.

His shrieks echoed throughout
the ship’s empty corridors.

The weight of the door continued
to press down across Barnes’ shoulders. His lower body started to slip out to
the side, which allowed the strength of the door to push him further down. His
entire frame twisted into an even more painfully contorted position across the
floor.

Barnes’ body was soaking wet
with sweat, and his breathing came in short scared gasps. Without warning, his
legs shot forward causing Parker to take a startled step back. With his arms
still straight out in front of him, Parker continued to press his weapon
against Barnes’ forehead.

"Jed!" Barnes begged
in pathetic shrieks. "Get me out of here! Goddamn it! Get me out!"

"Depending on when the war
started, everyone you have probably ever known is dead or at least assumes you
are. We must assume the world is enduring an ultimate crisis. The final door.
And we are the salvation that is on the other side. Do you understand?"

"Just get me out of here!
Please. I'll do whatever you want!"

"No, Jeff." Parker
said folding his arms in and crouching to the floor next to him. He continued
to press his sidearm into Barnes’ head just above his eyes. With a deliberate
movement of his finger, he applied pressure across its trigger. The pin holding
it stationary made a soft “click” when it released. The force of the spring
made Parker's finger quiver slightly.

"Major Barnes, you will do
whatever is necessary to save the world. Do you understand? You will do what
you were goddamn sent up here to do. What you agreed to do, when others begged
to go in your place. When they pleaded for any way possible to leave Earth. You
agree to do this, you agree right now, or I will end your life right
here."

Parker's voice did not raise in
pitch or ferocity. His words were calm and quiet in the chaos of the
tension-filled room. He crouched down again and leaned closer to the shaking
figure slowly being crushed to death in front of him by the ship's emergency
seal-off system.

"I swear to God, you will
die right here," Parker whispered closely to his ear.

The steel of the door gave out
another loud drawn out groan as it continued trying to slam shut to the floor.
Still fighting against being pressed into the steel deck and not quite yet
accepting the demands laid out before him, Barnes let one last howl escape his
lips.

Pushing so hard that Parker
thought veins were going to explode in his neck, Barnes tried with every bit of
energy and might left in his weakened body to move the door back up.

The strength he had left was not
enough against the massive weight of the door. His body slipped again, and it
pounded him further down against the deck. There was a brief sound of bones
cracking as it planted itself hard across his chest.

After that, Barnes was still.

Parker moved closer and stood
over him. He still held his Sunszk pointed at the center of his head.

With the door’s weight this time
across his lungs, Barnes was not able to speak. His throat gurgled with short
breaths, and his hands flailed in futile desperate attempts to relieve the
pressure across his chest.

"This will never happen
again," Parker said evenly.

He reached up and slammed a
large green control switch that blinked wildly on the corridor wall near the
emergency door. The door hissed upward into the ceiling leaving Barnes gasping
on his back across the ground. Blood seeped from his shoulder, and he still
struggled to breathe.

Parker stepped over him while
slowly tucking his weapon into his uniform at his side. He rubbed absently at
the bruise that had started to form on the side of his head from where Barnes
had slammed it against the cockpit wall.

Giving one last long stare at
his copilot, Parker dropped his eyes and turned around.

He walked back towards the
Hideaway's command center while Barnes cried quietly behind him on the floor.

Capitol Square - Madison, Wisconsin
Northern tip of Dome War theater

“Check, check, radio check,”
Vulture Buck Squad Captain Douglas Rosek whispered softly into his
communication link. “Go, Buck Team.”

“Buck S1, check.”

“Buck S2, check.”

“Buck S3, check.”

Rosek listened half interestedly
as the whispered confirmations of the Vulture Buck Squad commanders slowly
trickled into the small communication piece lodged in his ear. He stretched out
on his stomach across the rooftop. His extended range glasses rested on the
roof ledge and pointed out into the night towards the road leading into the
decayed town.

Vulture Buck Squad 27 Commander
Brian Haase leaned in next to him. He gazed through his own set of glasses
towards what approached from the east on the other side of the crumbling former
state capitol building.

The rooftop ledge they propped
themselves against was atop the tallest building in what was left of downtown
Madison, Wisconsin, a city for many long years decaying and slowing falling
beneath the pressure of the battering sun.

This particular rooftop offered
the best vantage point available to monitor the J.G.U. land advance slowly
making its way into the city. The progression of transports, jeeps, and trucks
was still about twenty miles out. The thick beams of their headlights pierced
ominously through the night.

Haase glanced up at the
dilapidated domed structure of the old state of Wisconsin capitol building
standing in front of them slightly to their right. Only half of the building
remained upright. The other half had collapsed many years earlier leaving a
gaping wound of shredded brick and building exposed to the uncomfortable warmth
of the night sky.

Pieces of ripped framework
flaked and tumbled lazily to the ground. A lightly heated wind pushed itself
across the town.

Behind the capitol building, the
ground sloped gently into a small canyon. It had once been the location of a
good-sized lake that had long since dried up and disappeared into the crusty
terrain.

“Buck 14, check,” Haase listened
to the Buck Squad commanders report in on the radio feed. “On schedule and
proceeding. Things look good, Captain.”

Rosek commanded the Vulture Buck
Team. The VBT was made up of thirty explosive squads and more than five hundred
Vulture soldier demolition technicians. They had been dispatched to make the
outside city of Madison, Wisconsin the next target of the plan.

Haase was in charge of Vulture
Buck Squad 27 working the buildings along the four streets that formed a
perfect square around the capitol building. The roads leading into the area
were the flattest and easiest to travel when heading through the city as
opposed to the cavernous dried-up land of the two former lakes on either side.

The capitol square was located
on a thin isthmus of navigable terrain between the two large empty lakebeds. It
was a perfect place to start the ambush.

Once a sizeable portion of the
coming force reached the area, the Vulture Buck squads would initiate their
attack. A synchronized blast blanket of explosions would spread both forward
and backward through the J.G.U. force. The blast most likely would completely
decimate most of the coming ground advance. It would also level what was left
of the sun-ruined city.

Ten members of Haase’s squad
worked briskly behind them setting the last of the charges for this particular
building along the rooftop. Additional Vulture demolition techs from his squad
worked on some lower rooftops a few buildings over. The remainder of his men
were wiring ground level explosives on the far side of the capitol building.

It was there that the VBT
captain trained his gaze.

Monitoring the land advance
through his own extended range glasses, Haase became more and more
uncomfortable with his demolition team’s pace.

Plan Zero called for fully
wiring target cities with strategically set high intensity explosives mostly at
the bases and along the rooftops of its tallest buildings. A full explosive set
was done as a precursor move to a J.G.U. advance into a city. It was by no
means a task that was meant to be rushed.

In a perfect world, all Vulture
demolition teams would evacuate a wired city long before the vehicles of any
enemy ground force first entered its outer perimeters.

But judging by the nature of
their mission and what they were here to accomplish, a perfect world was not
the place they lived.

Once the force was fully in and
all the Vulture teams were safely out, then the command to fully detonate was
given.

This was how it was supposed to
happen. But as more and more reports trickled in from other demolition teams,
this was not how it was happening.

Vulture squads were getting less
and less time to prepare a city. Targets were being chosen within hours of when
the first enemy troops were projected to arrive.

The most serious problem was the
existence of the demolition squads was no longer a secret from the J.G.U.
forces.

As a result of the rush and
often-used strategic countermoves designed to flush out and neutralize the
demolition teams, final detonations were not always successful at containing
J.G.U. advancements. More times than not a city would be detonated and enough
of the land force was still left able and intact enough to make its way
through.

And as was becoming quite
common, the specialized Vulture demolition teams were finding it harder and
harder to get out. Demolition leaders such as VBT Captain Rosek were being
forced to detonate cities before evacuations could be confirmed or completed.
They were losing a great number of men.

It made the mission that much
more difficult to accomplish. Setting the explosives was hard enough.
Convincing the men not to ponder any moral reservations for their acts was
almost impossible. And now the time they were given to pull it all off…. it
just wasn’t enough.

The escalating failure rate of
the missions as well as the mounting casualty numbers suffered by the
detonation crews were starting to take a toll on his men. Many of them,
including himself, were starting to fear and doubt what is was exactly they
were out here to do.

“Check, and clear,” the last
Buck Squad commander reported in softly.

With that their earpieces became
quiet. But only for a few brief seconds.

“Check that, Captain,” the last
voice transmitted again.

“Go, Commander,” Rosek answered
quietly into the transmitter pressed snugly into the side of his face.

Haase lowered his glasses to the
ledge and pressed his own earpiece tighter against his head.

“First sign of scouts,” the
leader of Buck Squad 23 reported. “Repeat that. J.G.U. scouts sighted within
the blast perimeter.”

“Hold your men steady, S23,”
Rosek ordered calmly. “Continue the explosive set.”

Haase glanced back at his own
squad working in a silent haste to wire the remaining explosives across the
building’s rooftop.

“Their advance is too fast,”
Haase said briskly to Rosek while raising his extended range glasses back to
his eyes. “Our teams got here too late. Judging by their movement in just this
last hour, we’re not going to have enough set time, much less enough time to
evacuate before detonation. Not before they’re here.”

“No one gets what they want for
set time, Haase,” Rosek responded curtly back. “They’ve been dropping down from
Canada all week and pressing all over the outer-domed perimeter.

“They’re coming up from Mexico
and Texas, and they’ve already broken through on both coasts. I don’t care what
we’ve got for time. We can’t give up the city just yet. Keep your men working.”

The first vehicles at the head
of the J.G.U. progression were now only about ten miles away.

Haase turned around and with
short stabbing thrusts of his hands and fingers signaled additional information
and orders to his squad. Their pace had noticeably increased by the time he was
through.

Haase rotated back around and
leaned against the rooftop next to VBT Captain Rosek. With his heart starting
to beat slightly faster and his breathing coming in shorter gasps, he raised
his glasses again to monitor the land procession.

“More signs of scouts,” another
hushed voice transmitted through their earpieces. “Quadrant 4, north side.
We’ve got a few troops on foot and about twice as many jeeps.”

Haase refocused his glasses
towards the rows of headlights that still approached. Through the dark he was
able to make out the shapes of jeeps, trucks and the larger attack transports.
The increasing sound of their engines drifted through the still hot air.

The advance was less than five
miles away.

“Keep your men working,” Rosek
answered composedly back. “Continue the explosive set.”

The rumble of a single truck
engine resonated lightly through the darkness.

“Captain, we have to give this
up,” Haase’s struggled to keep the anxiousness that was quickly consuming his
body from entering his voice. “There really was never enough time to start… and
there’s been a lot of outsiders in the streets. It’s really affected the men.”

Rosek lowered his glasses and
turned to Haase.

“That can’t be a concern,” Rosek
said facing him. “It can’t affect the schedule. They will go underground.”

“I know they’ll go underground,”
Haase said staring into his captain’s face. “They are going underground. But
there’s so many of them this time. They’re flooding the streets, in some
sections right below and in full view of the demolition teams. Some men and
whole squads are breaking way to help them escape.”

Rosek was silent for a moment
holding his stare on Haase before continuing.

“Then these men should be pulled
from demolition duty and sent to the war front.”

Haase lowered his eyes and
looked over the ledge to the streets below.

“Or they should be shot,” Rosek
continued. “For aiding and abetting in an unauthorized and unlawful outside
citizen evacuation.”

Haase turned slightly at this
but did not raise his eyes.

“It’s treason, Commander.”

Haase looked back away.

“If they get out, they get out,”
Rosek said. “We didn’t see them. But, we can’t divert manpower to assist. We’re
here to eliminate them too if the opportunity exists. But like I said, we don’t
have the men to dedicate to this task.

“They are supposed to die with
the town regardless of what we think of it. We are here to eliminate this
J.G.U. advance and keep it from going further into the country. We are here to
clear the city. And the outsiders with it.

“We are not here to think or to
sympathize. We’re here to get it done.”

Haase felt his conscience
stirring sickeningly in his stomach and fought the urge to retch over the side
of the building.

“Now get your goddamn men
working and get it done,” Rosek finished softly.

The racket of truck engines,
tanks, transports, and jeeps now filtered up to them more loudly through the
thin heated air.

“What about the time?” Haase
struggled to make words come from his throat. “It’s getting close.”

“I guarantee set up times in
future cities are not going to increase,” Rosek answered solemnly. “As for this
one, we’re not going to give it up yet.”

With that, Rosek pulled his
glasses back to his eyes and leveled them towards the formation of vehicles now
within the city. Three small jeeps led the procession. They were less than four
blocks away.

Haase stepped away from the
ledge to the center of the rooftop to relay some additional orders to his men.
The light claps of small arms fire reverberated faintly from the empty streets
below.

Haase glanced apprehensively
back at Rosek. Faintly though the communication link in his ear, he could hear
him order another status check from the demolition squads.

“Check. Check. Report in,
check,” Captain Rosek’s voice was slightly louder this time over the comlink.
“Squad Leaders, status check. Small arms within the perimeter. Report in and
check…”

Before he was able to complete
his last order, a blinding flash pierced the air from somewhere behind them in
the night. The sonic pound of a high intensity explosive followed close behind.

Rosek didn’t react. He kept his
extended range glasses trained at the coming ground force. Haase whirled around
to look at the flames bellowing from the opposite side of the city.

Additional sounds of small
weapons fire soon chased the blast.

Trying desperately to fight the
shame and guilt that had seized hold of his chest, Haase turned around to see
his men beginning to run from the rooftop. The explosive set for this building
was now complete.

“Status check, status check,”
Captain Rosek yelled louder into his mouthpiece while pressing the comlink
receiver closer to his ear.

The thunder of additional
weapons being fired and another smaller blast filled the heated night.
“Detonations are not authorized,” Rosek shouted again. “The crux of their
forces hasn’t reached the blast perimeter! All detonations are still ordered on
hold. Squad Leaders report.”

“Buck 2, acknowledge the hold,
area clear.”

“Buck 5, acknowledge the…” Some
one after the other, others at the same time, and some so loud their voices
came only across as distortion through the comlink, the Vulture Buck Squad
leaders responded to the status call.

In addition, energy released
from the blasts sent bursts of static through the communication link making it
further impossible to tell what exactly was going on.

“This is Buck 15, this is Buck
15, we have more than scouts,” a harried voice interrupted by loud static
bursts transmitted in. “Repeat. We have more than scouts. Vehicles entering
from this side of the city. Permission to start lighting the flashes. Request
again. Permission to start lighting the flashes.”