Overrun: Project Hideaway Read online

  "Be advised, all dome personnel!" a mechanical voice sounded from the corridor and every open communication channel in the room. "The Death Wall has been lit. Repeat. The Death Wall has been lit. Stand by for battle status reports. Tower report to commence in sixty seconds."

  Lt. Commander Dome Leader Steven Corrado reached across the table and helped Korcheck slide back to the floor.

  "I'm sorry, Chris," he said. The room shook again. Many of the scientists began to abandon the meeting and head towards the door. "I think we're going to have to keep them in suspended animation. Leaving them up there with the chance they may never wake up is a small price to pay for the safety and security of that cargo."

  "I disagree," Dr. Rone said standing and walking towards the front of the room. A small group had stayed behind to witness the final outcome of the discussion.

  "There is no more time to disagree," Kobus hissed through closed teeth.

  "He's right, Dr. Rone," the Lt. Commander agreed.

  "Sir..." Korcheck tried one last time.

  "Sir," Dr. Rone said interrupting Korcheck and stepping purposely ahead of Kobus. Her petite determined figure separated him from the dome commander. "I think the best thing we can do is wake them up. At least give the hardware some thinking breathing guardians if anything. Guardians against being discovered."

  "Or guardians against ever being used," Korcheck added.

  "Doctors Rone and Korcheck," Kobus' voice was calmer and more controlled. "…taking the chance that these two men may float in their sleep for all eternity is necessary when considering the fact that waking them up could risk the possibility of the technology, our technology, falling into the hands of the J.G.U. If we die, then by God so will they."

  Rone, Korcheck, Kobus, and the small group of remaining scientists stood in a half circle in front of the dome commander at the far end of the room. For the next moment, they were all silent. The commotion in the outside corridors was becoming more intense.

  "I agree," Corrado said firmly. "Does anyone else wish to be heard?"

  The faces of those that remained were rigid, but none of them spoke. Some shook their heads resignedly while others looked apprehensively towards the door.

  "You're talking about the future of life on our planet," Korcheck pleaded his case one last time. Kobus had already turned his back and headed towards the corridor.

  The lights in the meeting room dimmed again and went completely out. A few seconds passed, and then the emergency lighting cast an orange glow about the room. More of the scientists headed for the door leaving only two to remain with the dome commander.

  "Everyone back up your data," Corrado called after the ones that were leaving. "All cloaking shields are down, so send it up to the satellite and ship archives."

  The commander walked away from the table and towards the door. He turned and looked back at Rone and Korcheck who still stood in the now dark briefing room.

  "…just in case," he finished. "Return to your stations, doctors. Make your back-ups. While there is still time."

  And with that he was gone, the meeting to decide the fate of the Hideaway having now become officially complete.

  Chapter 3

  Shopping mall rooftop of destroyed town of Beuford

  Five minutes past Death Wall ignition

  Sixteen-year-old Brandon Kirken dropped to one knee. Still held tightly by the man half-dragging, half-carrying him away from the rooftop, his weight hauled them both to the ground. As they fell, the door behind them to the rooftop disintegrated in a burst of heat and flying metal.

  General Maxwell A. Tuttle, Quadrant 4 Vulture commander, raised his head from the pieces of the door that had obliterated around them. Brandon’s limp form moved slightly next to him buried under a pile of twisted metal and flaming wood. For the moment, they were both still alive having narrowly escaped from the shopping mall’s exploding rooftop.

  It had only been a few moments since the blast came from somewhere in the distance. A giant explosion from the direction of the dome ripped through the city crippling his helicopter and toppling it over the building’s side. It had exploded when it hit the ground below.

  The rescue attempt had lost more lives than could now ever be saved. The helicopter crash left only himself and the son of John Kirken alive and marooned in the upper levels of the mall’s rooftop. Only a short metal hallway and the remnants of an exploded door separated them from the fires and the death that consumed the outside.

  Tuttle felt the ever increasing numbers of the newly dead pour down across his head like a painful stinging rain. John Kirken. His daughter. And Tuttle’s own crew.

  It shouldn’t have surprised any of them that the extraction attempt failed. None of them had come out here specifically to save Kirken or his family awaiting their deaths on the rooftop. Tuttle and his crew had flown out here to save themselves. By making the rescue and pulling this man from the rooftop, they hoped to erase the guilt they all felt. They sought to push back the demons that chased them and perhaps slightly atone for the horrors of which they had been a part. The demons, however, no longer chased the men in his crew. At least not in this life. Their worldly guilt was erased the moment the chopper hit the fiery ground leaving Tuttle to carry the already unbearable emotional load for them all.

  Tuttle looked toward the smoldering wreckage, which had just seconds before been the doorway to the rooftop. Even above the roar of the chaos around them, he could hear the voices approach them. Next to him, still lying half-buried in debris at the bottom of the rooftop stairway, Brandon began to move his broken body. His breath came in gasps, and his screams could be heard even above the howl of the aircraft streaking overhead.

  Gloved hands and slamming rifle butts jabbed through the rubble that filled the doorway and separated them from the rooftop. Pieces of concrete and metallic wreckage quickly began to fall aside revealing the faces of the enemy J.G.U. soldiers attempting to break through.

  The sound of boots scrambling up metal stairs clanged somewhere behind them. Even above the din, the noise echoed eerily in Tuttle’s head. The heat from both the blast and the stale air trapped with them in the stairway was unbearable. Its stinging force felt threateningly close to crushing his lungs.

  It was only a matter of a very short time before the J.G.U. soldiers would be upon them.

  Gritting his teeth and trying to shield his eyes from the heat searing through the air, Tuttle grabbed frantically at the broken metal that held Brandon Kirken to the floor. The gloved hands appearing in the shattered door now became full arms and were quickly followed by the nose of a J.G.U. rifle. Tuttle reached for the Sunszk hand weapon strapped to his hip.

  But his reach was not in time.

  Flames spit from the lip of the soldier's rifle followed by the pain of metal slugs punching into his shoulder. Tuttle felt his body rising through the chaos as if lifted by the grip of an invisible angel’s wings. But this lasted only a short time, and no angels appeared to remove him from his plight.

  The force of the shots entering his body hurled his large frame through the air over Brandon still struggling to stand from the exploded debris. Tuttle crashed behind him on top of another pile of indistinguishable wreckage from the building still obliterating around them.

  Tuttle felt his head crash against the floor and then dazedly sensed his body tumbling end over end down a flight of stairs away from John Kirken’s son. A son he would be giving his life to try and protect.

  A large metal wall slammed into the small of his back finally stopping his fall down the metal steps. Through a haze of consciousness and almost blinded by the heat, Tuttle raised his arm and pointed his Sunszk hand weapon around towards the top of the stairway near the rooftop doorway. The sound of approaching jets followed by the thunder of missile blasts and massive explosions roared from behind the shattered door.

  The firebomb team was almost on top of them.

  Brandon wriggled free from the last of the wreckage holding him
to the floor and without getting up rolled his battered frame over the stair ledge. Tuttle fired twice towards the coming soldiers. The rounds exploded loudly throughout the enclosed stairway.

  A body pitched forward through the smoke and tumbled into the stairwell on top of Brandon. Brandon and the dead soldier fell together down the metal stairs.

  It was then the roof exploded. The firebomb team had reached the area and started to make their drop over the shopping mall.

  Brandon and the dead soldier crashed in a heap on top of Tuttle slamming his wounded shoulder against the wall. Tuttle's eyes rolled back inside his head, but he did not scream. He stood, grabbed Brandon by the straps of the pack across his back, and pulled him roughly down the stairs after him. Flame surged through the doorway and down the passageway engulfing the area around them. Their breaths coming in tortured gasps, Tuttle and Brandon Kirken continued to half-fall, half-run down the steps rocking back and forth from the outside blasts.

  Another explosion knocked both of them to the ground as the rooftop disintegrated into an instant fiery nothingness. The entire stairway structure lurched violently to the side and crumbled beneath their feet. With their arms flailing out towards anything to stop their fall, Tuttle and Brandon Kirken pitched forward over a guardrail and fell with the debris of the exploding building. What was left of the roof rained down at their sides.

  Tuttle forcefully opened and closed his eyes several times trying to see through the raging smoke and fire. He had landed on the ground level of the mall, and Brandon was nowhere in sight within the debris and wreckage.

  The fiery destruction all around brought Tuttle back to the vision of John Kirken surrounded by flames just moments earlier out on the rooftop. He knew Kirken was dead. He was dead the moment his daughter slipped from his grasp into the fires raging at the base of the building. Tuttle had physically seen Kirken’s spirit leave his body moments before life was actually snatched from it by the violence of the surrounding destruction.

  Tuttle knew this image would be etched forever inside his head.

  Tuttle looked around at the few walls and jagged metal structures now jutting into the open air. Fire spat into the sky, and the sonic trails of the fleeing firebomb team boomed overhead. Intense heat and small shards of flying metal blasted at his eyes and skin. He held a hand over his face as he looked for Brandon in what was left of the destroyed structure.

  Tuttle stumbled forward.

  Looking….

  Searching…

  Snatching glimpses at the bedlam for as long as the stinging air would allow.

  He moved towards the escalator, one of few structures still standing in the gigantic fiery pit. It was almost all that remained of the building that continued to disintegrate around him. He leaned against it trying to ignore the screams of his wounded body. Shakily he stood there, trying with the last of his strength to keep his promise to John Kirken as well as honor his crew by at least getting out one of the people they had flown in to rescue.

  Trucks, tanks and soldiers poured around the building. So far, the heat kept them from entering inside. The sound and shake of explosions finally came to end. The world started to become quiet and resemble reality once again.

  Trying to find his way through the thick black smoke, Tuttle searched desperately for any signs of Brandon Kirken. Soldiers finally swarmed into the flaming structure and began to poke through the rubble. A grim chill of despair and defeat had begun to settle about Tuttle’s battered body when a smoking figure appeared from the blackness behind the flames. The figure staggered to the head of the escalators one floor directly above him. His body swayed uneasily as his legs struggled to remain upright.

  Tuttle ran up the smoking swaying steps two at a time and grabbed Brandon Kirken before he dropped again. The left side of his face was badly burned, and his arm cocked grotesquely to one side. Fractured bone bulged through the skin just beneath his sleeve. As of yet, it hadn’t broken all the way through. Like on the rooftop before the missiles hit, Tuttle threw the arm of the limping figure over his good shoulder and pulled him down the stairway.

  The escalator stairs lurched violently side to side knocking their flailing bodies hard against each other and down to the ground. To their left, three stories of still-standing wall toppled down pinning soldiers, crushing vehicles, and covering the scene with a fresh blanket of smoke and debris. Tuttle stopped at the bottom of the escalator, gritted his teeth, and heaved Brandon's now limp body into his shaking arms.

  The two slugs that had entered the base of his shoulder dug deeper into his skin.

  The soldiers hadn’t yet seen them or reached where they stood. The inside of the mall had become part of the unprotected outside. Beyond its walls, mammoth flames raged across what was left of the city that had been destroyed instantly by the launch of Science Dome 15’s Death Wall more than a hundred miles away. There was nothing left overhead except for the harshness of the unshielded sky.

  Turning his back on what had become of Beuford's largest shopping mall, Tuttle carried the lifeless form of Brandon Kirken from the smoke, rubble, and fire. No soldiers followed. No weapons flew. Brandon's head hung limply towards the ground. Smoke curled up in short wisps from his skin and clothes.

  The darkness settling around them seemed to single Tuttle out alone from the flaming fray. Trying to make him atone for what he had caused. For what he had witnessed. And what he had done.

  As a quadrant vulture commander he was one four charged with initiating the plan. He had ordered whole cities destroyed and initiated the starts of the blasts. He had judged worthiness of life. Worse yet, he had not been able to stand up and stop those above him in rank. He allowed himself to be ordered to implement the most heinous of acts in his own mind that he could ever do.

  He couldn’t imagine his actions ever being forgotten or that the accusing spirit of John Kirken would ever stop following him about.

  In his head, Tuttle had always felt he could justify what they did. They were carrying out mission orders for the defense and sake of their country.

  They didn’t stop to question that these mission orders brought death to families like the Kirkens. Families cast off long ago. Living people already considered dead by men in government and military positions like his own.

  That was the reason he felt sudden loyalty to Kirken, a man he had only recently met. That was why Tuttle risked his life in a pointless rescue attempt and squandered the lives of his small crew. It was why he carried Kirken’s bloody son in his arms and ran towards the darkness of the night. Tuttle ran from the shame and dishonor his actions had brought to them. Actions now set in motion that could never be undone.

  Tuttle was there to save a single person, one salvation to offset the millions already killed or ordered dead. Even if the life he protected was only one man’s son, he pledged to God this one man’s son he would forever defend.

  Only the night lay in wait ahead.

  Cautiously, he looked out into the brightly lit gloom. With a final deeply-inhaled breath, Tuttle stepped out into the darkness.

  He sensed the angels of the dead following closely after him. He could hear them whispering in his ear as he walked. Some encouraging, others making emphatic threats. Both to his well-being in this life and in that which would come in the next.

  Tuttle prayed earnestly to God to spare the young man covered in blood in his arms. At least for awhile yet while they both entered the dark void away from the destruction he had helped to create.

  To at least give Tuttle a chance to make amends for his contributions to this war and start to repent for what he had done.

  Chapter 4

  “Our only chance is the pilots!” Dr. Korcheck yelled back to Dr. Rone who ran after him down the corridor. "Those people in that meeting, they don’t know what I know. What the scientific group risks to give up is more than my conscience or any of theirs should be able to allow."

  He turned a corner and charged down a set of utility steps cr
owded with Science Dome 15 personnel heading down and also clawing at anything to drag themselves up. Korcheck’s feet skipped two, sometimes three at a time until he hit the bottom at a dead run. Rone chased as best she could after him, not answering, but just trying to keep up.

  Two more blasts shook the facility dimming the overhead lights and finally knocking them completely out. Emergency lights stabbed into the dark. The explosions from outside the dome had become more frequent.

  A multitude of electronic voices droned evacuation orders and procedures at a volume barely audible over the blasts outside and the rush of people cramming the corridors.

  Rone could barely hear what Korcheck shouted at her over the frenzied din. But, she knew and felt exactly what he was saying. And that was why she wasn’t trying to escape with the other scientists, but instead followed after him deeper into the dome.

  "I didn't spend my entire life crawling underground like a rat so that this technology could just float in space over a world left to rot beneath it,” she heard him say when they turned another corner. “I gave up my family, friends, and my youth a long time ago to come live here for a purpose. Not for my own ego, or as a way to keep myself and my family alive. There is a means within our grasp in which this world can be saved. And I'm not going to let anybody bury that away."

  "Are we that close?" Rone asked him when they descended two more flights of stairs and reached a less crowded corridor. “I mean are we really that close, where we can finally say to people on the outside that we’re finally going to help them, and they’re really not going to die?”

  Korcheck stopped for a moment and turned to stare at her.

  Rone leaned against a wall, thanking God for the break to rest her beating heart and ease the swelling that threatened to tear out her lungs. She crouched down on her haunches and bent her head between her knees. She could taste the raunchy bitterness of her own stomach bile rising up her throat.