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  "What’s going on, Daddy?" Mel asked him when Brandon had finally left. Her voice shook slightly and again she was close to tears. "What's wrong with him?"

  “I don’t know…,” Kirken said dropping his eyes. “…right now it’s everything. I think it’s just everything.”

  He walked silently away to the other side of the bunker leaving Mel to finish bandaging and dressing the small boy. When he was well away from everyone, he wedged himself tightly against the walls in the corner of the room and pulled out the new holovid unit from his pack.

  He flicked its activation switch and watched its tiny control pad stretch out to him. With shaking fingers, Kirken jabbed his personal military security clearance code across the keys and listened half-attentively to Tuttle's image drone from the screen.

  He couldn't get the bloody image of Brandon beating the two soldiers to death out of his mind. The sight was completely incomprehensible regardless of the fact Brandon had done it to save his life.

  Kirken had seen the look in his son’s eyes. He had felt it many times himself. If Kirken hadn’t been there, he might never have stopped. The rage they all felt was starting to become overpowering. Brandon was already nearly consumed.

  "…three military sites have been selected as primary targets," Tuttle's recording outlined their mission orders. "The first is a makeshift motor pool at the center of the football stadium. They’re gathering vehicles here for full-scale search and assault missions on domes in the area.

  “We can’t do much about the air. Their launching fields are not that close. But, by attacking this site, we can slow down what they’re capable of launching by land. The amount of damage you can do in there will by proportion delay their searches and allow you the time to escape and move on to other targets.

  “We want you to set five charges around the stadium perimeter. To ensure maximum effectiveness of the blasts, you’ll need to set them inside rather than just mounting them on the outside walls.

  “You’re going to need to go in.”

  When these words were uttered, Brandon returned through the bunker doors.

  Kirken looked up and flipped off the holovid switch. He had seen enough. He knew the mission plan. And once inside, he also knew the very little chance they had of coming back out. They would be entering alone and on foot one of the most tightly guarded concentration of troops and equipment in the city.

  "Let's go everyone," Brandon spoke to the room. "I found another place where you can all be safe. Grab what you can. We're going to leave right away."

  Kirken stood and readjusted his gear across his back.

  "We have to go," Brandon said walking closer to him. "Right now. The fighting outside is getting heavier. There’s been heavy-hitter artillery blasts for the last half hour."

  "Mel, is everyone ready to move?" Kirken asked following Brandon to the door.

  "We're ready," she answered him timidly.

  "Make sure everybody carries something," he said. "Even the little ones. Every one person can carry at least one thing. The next one might now be as well supplied."

  "We know," Mel choked.

  Brandon leaned his weapon against the wall and pulled at the door's heavy latch. Kirken drew his own assault rifle to his shoulders and pointed it towards the tunnels outside.

  Brandon slid a crate with his foot into the doorway to hold it open and pulled his weapon from against the wall. He raised it up in front of his chest and followed Kirken out the door.

  "Which way?" Kirken whispered when they had stepped completely out.

  "North. Four blocks," Brandon answered rummaging through his pack.

  "Do we have everybody, Mel?"

  He looked away briefly from his weapon sight at Mel who stood behind him holding the hands of two small children. A third clung tightly to her back.

  "We're all here. Everyone’s ready."

  Kirken stepped out further into the gloom holding his assault rifle steadily in front of him. A quarter mile down the passage, he pulled out a light and flashed it twice behind him to signal the group to follow.

  Brandon stayed back at the bunker door until everyone was out and far enough away. He then walked back in and set a small blast charge in the center of the floor.

  He flipped a switch and a light near its top glowed green. He shut the door and quickly followed the rest down the passage.

  Up further ahead, Kirken found the opening to the next bunker with his light. Still holding his weapon rigidly in front of him, he turned the latch and pushed it in slowly with his foot. Moving his small light around the room and finding no one inside, he motioned to Mel and the rest of the group to follow him in.

  Once everyone was safely inside, Kirken waited at the entrance for Brandon. He stayed there without moving for more than ten minutes until the gentle clang of Brandon’s belt approached from the darkened silence.

  "Brandon...?," Kirken whispered with his assault rifle still raised.

  "Yeah, it’s me. Don't shoot."

  Kirken felt his body pass him as he stepped in, but he didn’t see his face.

  "I'm in. Do we have everybody?"

  "Mel?" Kirken asked.

  "We're all here."

  Kirken closed the door, and Brandon fumbled along the wall to bring up the new bunker's lights.

  While the people they had moved squinted and blinked under the new glare, Brandon pulled a small box from his pack and activated a switch at its center. A green light near his thumb flashed twice then became red.

  The sound of the blast echoed faintly down the underground passageways as any evidence of the old bunker or the people briefly hidden there was destroyed.

  Kirken turned to the haunted look etched across his son's face and briefly explained what they would attempt at the stadium. Brandon listened intently. His expression didn’t change.

  They whispered silently amongst themselves while Mel organized the settlement of their new hiding spot. They made plans to leave once nightfall had completely settled overhead.

  Chapter 16

  Three hours later they approached the football stadium on the outside of town. Both were exhausted from the hard-traveled distance they had covered through the underground tunnels.

  Hundreds of J.G.U. troops had poured into the town over the last several hours making it no longer possible to travel aboveground through the streets.

  They quietly exited the tunnels through an oversized manhole less than a quarter mile from the stadium entrance. Kirken's injuries in addition to the exertion from their run made his body horribly ache.

  They hid behind the walls of the last building at the edge of Beuford. The massive football stadium was just down the road.

  An entire squad of armed sentries guarded its entrance. There were also eight others patrolling the ground and four more on the walls overhead training their weapons below. The soldiers on the ground stopped every vehicle coming and leaving the stadium. They made each driver step from their cabs while they checked their loads and confirmed their destinations.

  "We're never going to get in there," Kirken whispered quietly.

  Barbed wire stretched along the wall near the top, and giant spotlights lit both the air and the ground. Helicopters lifted and landed down in the stadium’s center. The entire area was loud with the sound of truck engines and churning chopper blades.

  Brandon nudged Kirken’s elbow with the tip of his weapon motioning him to follow. Kirken carefully replaced the manhole cover and scattered dirt and garbage across its top. Satisfied he had fully removed any evidence of their entrance to the street, he followed Brandon to the rear of the stadium.

  In the back away from the main road, the guard details weren’t as frequent. Only soldiers in groups of threes and fours made periodic patrols.

  Brandon scampered the short distance to the stadium wall. Kirken followed close behind.

  Silently, Kirken pointed to a dimly lit section of concrete wall where the sun had worn faint grooves into the otherwis
e smooth service. Brandon slung his rifle across his shoulder and gripped the makeshift footholds expertly with the toes of his heavy black boots.

  Kirken scanned the area around them through his rifle sight while Brandon scaled to an opening in the concrete overhead. When he reached the top ledge, he hauled his body over and swung his legs to the other side. He disappeared briefly from Kirken's sight when he dropped to the seats below. Kirken pressed his back against the wall and waited.

  In a few short seconds that felt like forever, a thin black rope dropped in front of Kirken past his rifle scope. He wrapped it around his waist and aimed his weapon along the ground while Brandon pulled him up.

  When he reached the top, Brandon raised his own weapon and scanned the ground through its scope while Kirken dragged himself fully across.

  Kirken repacked the rope and followed Brandon down the semicircular rows of empty decayed seats to the spectacle of lights, vehicles and sound coming from the other side of the field. What looked like more than a thousand trucks, vans and jeeps sprawled across the stadium's center.

  "We're going to have to set the charges on the field," Kirken whispered at Brandon's back. "They're not going to do too much if we set them up here. We’re going to have to get down there. Real close."

  "I know," Brandon replied.

  More darkened shapes of soldiers became visible the closer they got to the field.

  Brandon stopped behind a seat. Kirken crouched as close as he could to the ground behind him. Kirken aimed his assault rifle across Brandon’s shoulder while Brandon pulled a pair of extended range glasses from his pack. While Kirken watched through his weapon, Brandon scanned the glasses across the stadium floor.

  "It looks like most of them are patrolling the seating and exit areas," Brandon said softly. "They’ll come by here eventually. Probably more sooner than later.”

  Kirken continued to stare out across the field through his weapon’s thick scope.

  “It doesn’t look like there’s too many actually on the field by the equipment. And there might be a few up in those four skybox booths. You can see them by the lights. Their shadows block it when they walk past. They’re definitely up there."

  Kirken looked to the skyboxes where Brandon pointed his glasses.

  "C'mon, Brandon," Kirken said touching his arm and pulling him after him. “This way.”

  Kirken stood slowly and crept a third of the distance through the stadium until they were directly across from the skyboxes on the other side of the field.

  Once there, they checked their gear one last time and made their way down a darkened stair aisle towards the vehicle area. Brandon shuffled backwards with his back pressed against Kirken’s. He aimed his weapon into the darkness watching for anyone that might come at them from behind.

  Soon they were at the sandy grit of the stadium's center. They crouched down in a darkened row and spread the contents of their packs about. The hushed voices of the soldiers carried through the air from all around.

  "This is going to take awhile," Kirken whispered looking at the numerous sets of charges and remotes surrounding him. “Probably way more time than we’ve got.”

  "I'll keep an eye out," Brandon whispered back. “You’re going to have to hurry. They’ll be coming around here soon.”

  Kirken taped the first explosive to a guardrail that separated them from the field and synchronized its detonator to a remote. He hoped the blast in this area would obliterate the entire section of seats behind them as well as the outside wall.

  A green light lit across the small device. Kirken tapped Brandon on his shoulder and signaled him to move on. It had taken almost ten minutes to set the first charge. There were six others in his pack that needed to be distributed and wired closer to the vehicles on the field.

  They crawled on their stomachs through five more sections of seats and wriggled beneath another one of the skybox lookout points. When they had gone another fifty feet from where they set the last charge, Kirken unhooked the latches of his pack again and began the tedious procedure of preparing another.

  Brandon stood over him and vigilantly aimed his assault rifle out over the seats into the unknown of the night.

  * * *

  Up in the skybox to the left of where Kirken worked, a bored soldier trained his extended range glasses out onto the field. It was almost time for him to relieve the ground crew at the vehicles. He was about to gather his things and move on down there when a movement below caught his eye.

  Straining to peer through the blackness, he was sure he saw it again. He reached for the transmitter strapped to his hip and spoke quickly into it.

  * * *

  Kirken had just completed the wiring on the second set of explosives along the stadium’s perimeter when the piercing white of searchlights sprayed across the seats from three different directions across the field.

  Brandon dove beneath the nearest rows of seats. Kirken crouched low in the aisle on the concrete stairs.

  Brandon crawled over to him and motioned to the center of the stadium where dozens of soldiers poured onto the field. More filed into the stands from various entryways. A small group moved slowly toward the aisle they hid within.

  Kirken turned around to see others approaching from sections overhead and behind.

  Grabbing him by the shoulder, Kirken pulled Brandon quickly around and was startled to see his own fear reflected in his eyes. Drops of sweat rolled down his face, and he clenched his fingers tightly around his weapon's base.

  The soldiers approached quickly from all around reducing the area of open seats between them. It was only a matter of seconds before they would be upon them.

  Kirken raised his body slightly and quickly pulled the detonators from the pack on Brandon’s back.

  "This is it," Kirken said and armed the first set of detonators they had already placed in the sections behind them. “Be ready to go.”

  He hesitated for a minute with his finger over the activation switch. Large drops of sweat beaded down his nose while he watched more soldiers close in.

  "Just run as soon as it’s lit."

  Brandon gave a nod but did not lower his eyes from his weapon sight.

  The closest soldier was now only twenty feet away.

  Kirken slid down the narrow sections of seats to get further away from the blast area and to get a better look at the soldiers’ approach.

  He stopped for a second and shifted his weight back on his haunches when a series of loud cracks rang through the air.

  Bright light flashed from the skyboxes overhead, and metal from destroyed seats rained down on top of them. The soldiers on the ground also opened fire in their direction making Kirken scurry away clutching the detonators tightly to the bottom of his chest.

  So far he hadn’t been seen. When he was almost back to Brandon, he gritted his teeth and punched the arming switch.

  Brandon stood motionless and watched the blasts tear into the sky. Kirken dove under the seats next to him and threw his arms across his head.

  The more than thirty soldiers coming towards them were completely incinerated before their eyes. Others were propelled like human torpedoes into the surrounding seats. Blood and scorched pieces of flesh were all that was left in the area they had just stood.

  "Run, fucking run!" Kirken screamed when he saw the gaping hole the explosion had left in the side of the stadium and the crater it dug only a few feet in front of them.

  Weapons fire again tore immediately around them disintegrating the decayed seats. Black smoke choked the air.

  Brandon sprinted close after Kirken and grabbed the tire iron hanging from his pack.

  They ran to the next section of the stadium about two hundred feet further down. It was the only section they were able to completely wire with the intended amount of explosives. Kirken dove to the ground and jabbed at the remote to detonate the main charge.

  The following blast was much more forceful than the first. Its unleashed fiery force knocked Bra
ndon down hard across his face next to him.

  Kirken lay on his back across the shredded pavement and frantically tried to assemble the remaining sets of explosives while Brandon writhed in pain next to him.

  Black smoke billowed through most of the stadium for the moment keeping them still hidden from the soldiers thronging towards them. The entire left side of the stadium was now either on fire or completely gone.

  Soldiers massed from every section of the facility both on the ground and from the upper levels surrounding the outside seats.

  Automatic weapons fire flew from every direction sending hundreds of rounds ripping into large white support pillars next to Kirken's head. He opened and shut his eyes forcefully and screamed in pain from the spraying paint and concrete that ripped away at his face.

  Brandon laid still next to him. Kirken rolled on top of him and threw his arms across his head to shield him from the flying debris.

  And then for the moment the weapons fire stopped. Kirken leapt away from Brandon and quickly worked to wire the last set of explosives in his pack.

  In a few short seconds, they were set. It was still impossible to see through the thick smoke, but he could hear the yells of the approaching soldiers searching for them and pulling survivors from the wreckage.

  They were very close.

  Kirken snatched at the material near Brandon's neck and jerked him roughly from where he sprawled beneath the section of seats. Brandon's unmoving feet scraped along behind while Kirken dragged him by his shoulders.

  “Brandon!" Kirken shrieked. The voices hidden by the smoke were louder and coming from all around. "Brandon!"

  Brandon turned his head and opened his eyes dully.

  “Brandon, c’mon!”

  Kirken dropped him roughly back to the ground and dove on top of him to avoid the heaviest barrage of firing upon them yet. He crawled through the rows of seats and yanked Brandon roughly along behind him.

  Finally a sense of energy and direction moved through Brandon’s body, and he began to follow slowly on his own. They crawled another fifty feet, and then Kirken leapt to his feet and sprinted towards the edge of the smoke and the undamaged sections of the stadium.