Overrun Page 21

  "Order him to prepare the explosives. Make sure that he is fully aware that the detonations need to be carefully sequenced. Most of them can only be detonated using the preset timers we provided. Some of them have been programmed to detonate early. Being as how we’re still having this conversation, those particular ones as of yet have not been used.”

  "What?" Tuttle again whispered sluggishly.

  Faulken looked away from Tuttle's glare.

  "You're even worse than they are."

  "No, General, I'm in charge of doing the impossible. Kirken is one of many who must be sacrificed to ensure that the plan continues to work. The sacrifice of his life will help ensure the continued existence of the United States."

  Tuttle walked away to the other side of the room and sat down. He locked his hands behind his neck and lowered his head across the dark surface of his desk.

  "During this time we are now in, orders cannot be questioned, General Tuttle," Faulken said before turning to walk out of the room. "And actions cannot be taken that will interfere with the plan. To do so would be a threat to life on the planet and in the domes. I trust this is the last we will speak of this. And that the orders I’ve given will be followed immediately through."

  Tuttle looked up with sad tired eyes but did not respond.

  "I want regular updates on all developments," Faulken said as he passed through the glass doors of the communications room.

  Tuttle stood and walked to the window overlooking the control room. For the moment, most of the monitors and stations were dark. Many of his men had taken brief leaves of rest. Only a handful remained to monitor the few terminals that were lit.

  It was almost three hours past midnight.

  The hundreds of blank holovid screens loomed in front of him on the other side of the window. He felt his thoughts being engulfed, to the point of nearly being lost, by their black emptiness the longer he stood there and rested his head against the glass.

  The mist from his breath left a faint cloud and then a faded mark across the observation window’s cool thick surface. Tuttle stared at it for a while and watched it slowly disappear from view.

  * * *

  Mel ran through the dark empty streets. Her heart rammed hard against her chest, and her lungs felt like they would both soon explode.

  The rain was coming down harder now. Harder than it had fallen in some time. The water from the poisoned clouds hurt when they landed on top of her. When they struck her skin they left a faint burn.

  She ran not to save herself or to further her escape. She ran from the vision of the small boy, the small boy who had been killed in front of her only a few hours before. Whose body the soldiers had laid down near her feet.

  When she closed her eyes, she could not escape the sight. She knew it would never leave her. It made her forget why it was she had always tried to be so strong.

  Mel ran not to escape, but to find an end. She sprinted through the darkened streets and the nightmare her world had become. Her legs and feet moved her now, not to survive, but only to help her escape how much she had been so horribly wrong.

  Chapter 21

  They saw the city explode in the night.

  Sky Angel waited inside the open doors of the elevator not yet stepping out onto the observation deck. He stared at the turned backs of his lookout team as they leaned against the outer rails.

  Behind the dark lenses of his extended range glasses, he watched the city burn.

  Sky Angel, a large burly man who in a different time would have resembled a lumberjack or mountaineer, took a step out. The doors to the elevator whispered shut behind him.

  The observation area of Dome 26 was dark except only for the faraway light of Boston's fires. He marveled at the spectacle. And deep within a hidden region in his heart, he mourned the loss. Silently, he prayed for the souls of those who had died the day before yesterday when Boston had become the next target of the plan.

  As head perimeter surveillance officer of Dome 26, the closest dome to the Atlantic Ocean, he strove hard to live up to his call name. He had never believed in what the plan was meant to accomplish and greatly doubted its effectiveness and final outcome. Even though the dome he guarded was a safe distance away from the recently occupied and destroyed city, the threat of discovery still existed.

  Before, his concerns rested solely on the possibility of detection by an outsider. The danger had always been that a disgruntled citizen would happen upon the location of a hidden dome, start up a resistance faction and then lead a revolt against the government. It was a threat every dome throughout the country faced.

  Throughout all his years, Dome 26 had always been safe, its existence always completely hidden and secure. He had always believed this was a direct result of his extreme vigilant efforts.

  He had stepped up patrols and lookouts when a massing of J.G.U. troops within Boston's boundaries had been spotted. He had also alerted the quadrant commander and Administration Dome officials when it become a main landing port. His paranoia had not been unfounded. A day later, scouts had confirmed that troops were arriving by air and via ships on both U.S. coasts.

  He stressed his warnings further when his patrols had discovered city prisoners being interrogated in nearby concentration camps. Even up until the present moment, he believed he had been right all along. Dome 26 was in danger of being discovered.

  Vulture commanders had responded and assured both himself and the dome facility leader that once Boston had been neutralized by the plan there would be nothing left to fear. That had been two days ago. He still did not feel at ease, and he knew neither did his observation crew.

  He kept his patrols constant and his overhead lookouts well staffed.

  Sky Angel walked along the clear platform towards his men. They stared intently out from the cloaked observation port across the ravaged land and Boston's ruined city. They were unaware of his entrance onto the observation deck and didn’t turn around when he approached.

  He walked behind them staying in the shadows near the platform’s side. He leaned against the outer rails and watched the mammoth flames devouring the city lunge violently into the sky. Choking clouds of black smoke billowed away casting a gigantic encompassing shadow over the dimming light of the countryside.

  Sky Angel was glad it was starting to get dark. It made walking along the invisible outer platforms of the cloaked dome not as disconcerting. No matter how many years his military assignments had brought him out here, he could never get used to it.

  And yet, this same feeling was what would always set his mind at ease throughout his career as an observation sentry. Walking in the air above the ground made him many times feel invincible. Like he would never die. Sometimes this would lessen the fear, the sheer terror he had always had, of the world in which he lived.

  "So how many do you think died out there?" Sky Angel heard one of his men ask.

  "Troops?" another lookout questioned. “Ours or theirs?”

  "Not troops,” the man’s voice was soft and quiet. “Outsiders. How many of them do you think?"

  Sky Angel broke away from the post near where he had been standing and walked towards his men.

  "You can't think of that," the other of the three answered. "Sooner or later, they're all going to die out there."

  "That's not something to be considered," Sky Angel's deep voice announced his presence on the deck causing all three of his men to lower their glasses and turn around. "As a country, we're too far along to ever think about that. As soldiers, or just men, we will never have the luxury of that consideration. Not anymore. Not if any of us ever wants to get to the end of this war…and see if what we did here was right."

  "Yes, sir," the sentry posing the initial question responded and turned back around to face the faraway monstrosity of the flames. The two other sentries manning the invisible observation post next to him did the same.

  The electronics within their extended range glasses made soft clicking sounds as they adjust
ed their controls.

  "Sir," the sentry to his right said before Sky Angel could speak again. His body straightened and leaned more intently against the rail while Sky Angel covered the short distance to him. Moving in close to his other side, the other lookouts trained their glasses in the same direction.

  "What is it, sentry?"

  "Vehicles, sir."

  "Where?" Sky Angel fumbled through a pack strapped to his thigh and finally pulled out his own set of long range glasses. "What kind?"

  "I'm seeing jeeps. About ten I think," the sentry said nervously. "It looks like they're driving right out of the flames."

  "That's impossible," Sky Angel said leaning next to him over the outer rail.

  "I got 'em," a second sentry said from behind his glasses and pointing excitedly with his free hand. "I'm counting twenty from over here."

  Sky Angel quickly adjusted his glasses. The muscles around his eyes tensed as he tried not to squint away from the setting sun's brilliant glare. When he had focused on the spot where the sentry had pointed, his eyes flew wide open in surprise and fright.

  Battered and severely scorched jeeps pulled from the black smoke clouds. Some drove directly from the flames. They were followed by a few larger vehicles, some trucks and then tanks.

  Most of them were completely covered in flames.

  The vehicles drove a straight and constant course. They appeared to be following each other in formation rather than fleeing the fires in panic. Their direction was on a direct path towards the dome.

  "Oh my God," he heard one of the sentries say quietly to himself.

  Sky Angel dropped his glasses and pulled out a small transmitter from a pouch near his chest.

  "Sky Angel to Command Center," he spoke slowly stepping away from the bright flames towards the darker regions of the platform near the elevator.

  "Dome Leader at command center," an electronically distorted voice answered him confidently. "Go ahead, Angel."

  "Sir, we’ve just sighted military vehicles coming from the Boston city perimeter. There's a lot of them."

  "Ah, roger that Angel," the voice responded calmly.

  The transmission became more increasingly clear the further Sky Angel walked back from the platform and underneath the overhanging structural protection of the dome's outer layer.

  "Detonation wasn’t that long ago. Troops that survived the blasts should be appearing throughout the city’s outer regions. They’ll turn around and head back towards the coast to meet up with their forces coming to port. There is nothing…"

  "They're not heading towards the coast," Sky Angel's voice elevated slightly. "They're not turning around. They're moving further inland. Away from Boston, directly towards this location. It’s a convoy not a band of escaping troops, Dome Leader."

  Sky Angel turned around to again face the distant flames. The transmitter in his hand was silent.

  He turned his head slightly when the controls near the elevator began to flash. Sky Angel placed the transmitter back inside his pouch and walked to rejoin his men scanning the countryside from Dome 26's overhead surveillance tower.

  He didn't turn around when he heard the quiet sound of the elevator doors open.

  "Angel, what do ya got?" Dome Leader said walking to stand directly next to him. One of the sentries moved from his post to the side of the platform to make room. Sky Angel didn't turn his head but handed his extended range glasses to the facility commander's outstretched hands.

  "As I said," Sky Angel said to him while he focused the glasses. "We have multiple vehicles pulling from the bombed perimeter. Their formation is way too methodical to be only escaping survivors."

  Dome Leader leaned his frame further over the outer rails as if the action would give him a better look at what was happening near the burning city.

  "I count fifty," the sentry standing next to him said. "They’re definitely following a deliberate course."

  Sky Angel reached behind the man next to him for the glasses of the next closest sentry. When he held them up to his eyes, he felt like his heart had stopped altogether.

  By now, more than a hundred vehicles had emerged from the flames and smoke. He could feel the weight of the man next to him shift nervously back from where he leaned over the rails.

  "Somebody sound the alert," Dome Leader said quietly. No one on the platform moved. At that moment, Sky Angel himself found it hard to make his body move after the order was given. The fear he felt, like all the men, was so overwhelmingly great.

  "Someone sound the goddamn alarm," Dome Leader spit out again this time more curtly. He handed his glasses back to Sky Angel and turned from the platform. "Attack appears to be imminent."

  "How did they find out we were here?" the sentry that had stepped away asked as he moved back to his position along the rail.

  "I don't know," Sky Angel said quietly next to him and raised his glasses back to his eyes.

  "It doesn't matter now!" Dome Leader said over his shoulder storming the short distance to the elevator. "Prime the facility for an attack, Angel. Tell them to be ready within the hour. Possibly even before then. I'm going back to the command center to sound the alarm and warn the Administration Dome. Their Vulture attack obviously did not accomplish what was planned."

  The command leader of Dome 26 stepped inside the elevator doors and looked straight ahead as they slowly shut in front of him. Sky Angel caught a glimpse of him pulling out his transmitter before they completely closed.

  Without pulling the extended range glasses from his eyes, he pulled his own transmitter from his equipment pouch. Dome Leader continued to talk to him over the communication link as he did.

  "Do you think they'll launch an airstrike if they have precise location coordinates?" Sky Angel spoke through the side of his mouth into the device. He did not take his eyes away from the lenses of his long range glasses.

  "Possible, but I doubt it," the softer mechanical reproduction of Dome Leader's voice returned from the hand transmitter. "They would have done it by now. We wouldn’t be having this conversation, because the whole facility would be gone."

  "I agree."

  Sky Angel moved from the side of the observation post and wedged himself between the four observation sentries. He leaned intently against the outer rails and took one last look before dropping his glasses. He stepped back away. The large frames of the men standing around him filled the opening he had occupied between them.

  "Dome Defense, this is Sky Angel," he bit harshly into the device to the weapons squadron stationed on the lower decks along the ground.

  The glow of the flames cast eerie shadows along the platform that extended across the observation deck.

  "Yeah, go ahead, Angel," another transmitted voice came through.

  "We've got about fifty to a hundred vehicles pulling from Boston. They're coming this way."

  "Response assault is being prepared, sir," the voice crackled through the interference-marred signal coming from deep within the dome.

  Sky Angel raised his glasses back to his eyes and stood just behind the backs of his sentries. With his free hand, he pressed the transmitter close to his face. Even larger flaming tanks, trucks and scores of additional jeeps were coming into his field of view.

  "How long before we can detonate?"

  "We're dropping the doors in seven minutes."

  "The cloak is going to drop in less than two," Dome Leader's harried voice interrupted. His signal from the facility command center was stronger and overpowered the defense officer's transmission. "You're going to have to get them out there faster than that!"

  "We're readying them as fast as we can," the weaker of the two signals began to fade away. "Pilots are loading in…"

  And then the signal was gone.

  "Cloak's down!" Dome Leader's voice was still strong and clear though its pitch had raised another nervous notch.

  A soft hum started to come from the nothingness surrounding Sky Angel and his crew. The open air separati
ng their feet from the rocks, sand and night far below shimmered in the dusk and then darkened. The hard jagged shape of the dome's metal exterior faded into view.

  "We're visible and satellite detectable," Dome Leader’s transmitted voice echoed across the platform.

  Sky Angel pointed his glasses at the front of the approaching vehicle formation. With the dome now in full view, the entire convoy performed an immediate coordinated shift and headed on an even straighter course in their direction.

  "Here they come," Sky Angel said softly.

  Beneath his feet directly below the platform, two large battle doors that guarded the facility's only entrance swung slowly and forcefully out into the night. They had only opened halfway when the revving sounds of engines broke through the stillness and disturbed the solemnity of the shadows thrown by the faraway flames.

  "Team’s away," the signal from the dome defense port tried again to break weakly through. "We've gunned and launched them all."

  Sky Angel glanced down at the large armored trucks that broke from the dome's side and streaked out into the night to meet the sudden threat that approached.

  Each of the Bigfoot land assault vehicles was completely loaded with rockets and high caliber weaponry. They were also heavily covered by thick-plated shields and weapon-deterrent armor. Tiny cabs housing the two-man pilot crews bounced roughly atop giant tires measuring more than five feet across.

  The Bigfoot assault team lumbered easily along the jagged roughness of the terrain while additional rockets and shields raised themselves from the armor covering their sides and fronts.

  Alongside his nervous men, Sky Angel pressed his glasses closer to his face and watched them go.

  "Check tracking equipment and ready short-range rockets," a voice from his transmitter addressed the Bigfoot crews.

  The large land assault vehicles sped towards the J.G.U. fleet that now seemed to even more hurriedly approach.

  "Estimate force intercept at about twenty miles out from the facility," Sky Angel reported softly into the transmitter.

  "We see 'em," Dome Leader returned.