Escape: Omega Book 1 (Omega: Earth's Hero) (10 page)

Omega moved to a wall and slipped down it, keeping his eye on his target: a small wooden door that led, he believed, to the outside world. There were other ways in and out, no doubt. The equipment and supplies couldn’t be transported through a lone elevator car, so perhaps the troops were even now scattering to cover all points.

Again, he gave thanks the alarm had not sounded.

The doorknob turned easily in his hand and he only pushed the heavy steel door ajar so that he could peer what lay beyond.

It was the small, utilitarian kitchen of a café. Through the shelving and appliances, Omega could see daylight. Early morning, coppery sunlight. Beautiful and pristine. Slithering through the door, he crouched through the kitchen, but stopped short when he saw soldiers seated along a lunch counter. They had no food in front of them, just steaming cups. Only three, as best as he could tell. Three was enough. He started to turn around to search the kitchen for a back door. Just as he did so, the first, explosive blare of the alarm klaxon sounded.

The sound stabbed his ears and caused his breath to catch.

He knew it couldn’t last forever, but a few more minutes would have been ideal.

The klaxon wasn’t the worst of it. When he turned, he found himself looking at kneecaps covered in desert camo. Omega looked up.

The barrel of an M4 stared right back at him. Beyond, that, the face of a young man, looking as fearful as Omega felt.

In less than the beat of a heart, Omega made his move. He did two things at the exact same time. First, still kneeling, he bolted to the side, as if he were jumping with ball in hand to a basketball goal. Second, using his forearm, he knocked the barrel of the rifle in the opposite direction. He was fast, but so was the soldier. The explosion of gunfire erupted over the siren. Bullets tore through a cooler door, bounced up into the vent hood of the fryer and scattered through the cookware hanging from a wire rack. Omega truly hoped the ricochet didn’t strike anyone. Despite his need to flee, he didn’t want anyone hurt. They were just following orders. Luckily, his pounce put him out of the way just in the nick of time.

Landing on one foot, just beside the soldier, Omega pulled a dirty but necessary move and shoved the man with all his considerable might. The soldier flew across the room. Thankfully, his finger was no longer on the trigger. In his periphery, Omega heard his comrades shuffling back, though guarded because of the gunfire, toward the kitchen.

Omega needed to get away, and fast. 

He looked this way and that, scanning the area for something hopeful. He spotted a miracle. A door stood cracked on the opposite wall than the door he’d entered from the storeroom. Most likely, it was where the fourth man had come from. Probably out relieving himself in the early desert morning.

From zero to sixty in 1.2 seconds, Omega tore off, leaping out the door like a baseball player sliding into home. It was close, too close. Rounds tore through the door, the walls of the building, tearing up the hard dry ground everywhere.

Omega had hit the ground running and kept going and going and going. Overhead the sun rose higher, around him the day grew hotter, and behind him the chase was afoot.

Hendricks stood in the control room. He watched the cam feed from the lead chase vehicle fill the large screen. The room should have been a madhouse of commotion. Not on Hendricks’s watch. Nothing but hushed commands and the inevitable beeps and whirrs of the computer equipment. Even the audio from the chase team was subdued through the speaker system.

The cigar was in his mouth and it was lit. He didn’t give a goddamn what anyone thought about it, either. In truth, he hadn’t even thought that far ahead. What he could really use was a good stiff drink.

What kind of nimrod imbeciles do I have here anyway?

The general was livid, angered, and in a piss poor mood as he saw his billion dollar project disappear over a drop. He wasn’t surprised Omega had made it—what was it, thirty minutes already? That was what he was trained for.   

But by God, so are those Keystone Soldiers chasing him.

They were virtually alone out here in the big sandbox, but one never knew who was watching. He would do whatever it took to capture the Omega Project, but he would do it smartly. If those men didn’t recover him in the next fifteen minutes, he would already be ten clicks from the base. Twenty and he would be to a major highway. That couldn’t happen. He would give them only five minutes more. If capture were not imminent, then General “Anvil” Hendricks would release hell upon earth, or if not on earth, at least on the fleeing piece of government property.

Walking was difficult. Hell, it was worse than that. It was downright painful. Perry was not one to sulk, or pout, or complain, but damn it, he was hurting. His wounded leg felt like a hundred pounds of dead weight and as he moved, the crutch bit into his armpit. Adding insult to injury, the arm that depended upon the crutch because he couldn’t depend upon his own leg was the very same arm that was bandaged and wrapped and stung like liquid fire.

He looked like a miserable wretch and he felt worse.

After the contingent of soldiers deposited him back at his quarters, Perry Black had just stood in the center of his sparse accommodations and looked around. Not much to call home. Then again, he’d never needed much.

It came on him then. The loss of his men swept over him like a crushing, icy avalanche, and despite the crutch, standing was just too hard. He sat down in a nearby wooden chair. The wood was not comfortable, but it satisfied him, knowing he would not fall to the floor.

Four good men. Four men with lives and families and friends. Four men: Gutierrez, Cowell, Hodder, and Kane.

Jose Gutierrez: twenty-two, had two brothers, one sister, proud to be an American. His parents had emigrated from Puerto Rico two years before his birth and ever since watching episodes of G.I. Joe on Saturday mornings, had wanted to wear the uniform.

Eugene Cowell: an only child from a Maine couple, had joined the army for the G.I. Bill but soon found he enjoyed the camaraderie and sense of duty the United States Armed Forces provided and decided to make a career out of it. As a twenty-eight year old First Sergeant, he’d made a damn good start at it.

Jason Hodder: Hot Head he’d been called, an aggressive but ultimately kind young man. Having just earned the rank of corporal, he’d no idea what to do with the rest of his life. At twenty, he’d thought he had time to figure it out. So had Black.

Randall Kane: a genius in both warfare and systems operation. He’d been the “go to” guy for everyone in the unit for everything from honing the sights of the weapons to transferring music to an MP3 player. Shy, with never very much to say, Black didn’t know very much about his life, and now, never would.

Black was not a crying man. That is not to say he did not grieve. There had been no time before. Now, time was all he had ahead of him. With eyes closed, he tried to put death into perspective. Like us all, it was not possible, though he tried quite hard, and for quite a while.

With the hour early and with virtually no rest, Black found himself, strangely, not at all sleepy. Tired and weary, perhaps, but sleep was neither an option nor a consideration. After a few long and draining moments, he opened his eyes.

Perry would need to pack. Preparing for his banishment was not, however, first on his list. He needed to take care of something else first. There was a macabre responsibility any commanding officer that had ever led men never wished to undertake. Writing letters had never been a particular strength of Perry’s. Now, with his men killed in action, he knew he had no choice but to make every effort to put pen to paper and explain to parents and loved ones just what kind of men their lost ones had been, what kind of soldier they had become.

Could he excuse himself from liability for their demise? Of course not. While it was a free military and enlisting had been a deeply personal choice for each, he was, beyond any doubt, the man who’d led them into battle, and it was under his command in which they fell.

Moving over to his small writing desk, Perry pulled a package from a drawer. A small moleskin attaché folder and a small silver rectangular box. These had been gifts upon earning his railroad tracks two years ago from a former superior.

“Son,” he’d said, “I hope you never have to use these things, but in today’s hell of a world, I have no doubt you will.” It was a little known tradition, awarding items such as these as officers moved up within the ranks. At the time, Perry thought it little more than a kind gesture. Now the folder felt like fire in his hand. Inside, a sheaf of heavy stationery and envelopes. He pulled the paper free. The envelopes would wait. He would have to find addresses for the families at a later time and there would be no sending them out before he left at any rate. He would be flown by helicopter to Nellis, and board a cargo plane for his next duty station, or so he’d been told. There would be time enough then.

He placed one single piece of paper on the desk in front of him and opened the silver box. A very fine ballpoint pen sat within, surrounded by velvet. He pulled it free and placed the tip to the paper.

Greetings
, he wrote.
My name is Captain Perry Black, United States Army. I am writing you with a heavy but prideful heart. Heavy because the news I must impart is devastating, prideful because I knew intimately of the man you call son…

That’s it. That’s all he could manage. Rage--black yet red, storming and foul--erupted. Anger at himself, anger at General Hendricks, and most of all, at that infernal freak Omega.

Black chunked the pen against the wall. It shattered upon impact. A scream borne of frustration and defeat rose in him and echoed against the four walls. A primal sound, blood curdling, like a beast fighting against the steel bars of its cage. It was overridden by the blare of an alarm.

On first take, Black didn’t understand. Had his shout created an emergency? That preposterous thought vanished as he heard hurried running outside his door. Something had gone wrong. Something had happened.

And he aimed to find out just what.  
  

Chapter 12

Already the desert was hot, scorching. The deep blue sky far above was clear and the sand he crunched across was the temperature of molten lava. Nevertheless, Omega inhaled deeply of the pure air--air not squeezed a dozen times through a filtration system. He had no time to stop and smell the roses and he ran with a speed an Olympic track star would be enviable of. Still, the world outside the Phantom Base was majestic, amazing to him. He could count on two hands the times he’d been allowed outside, and just as now, he’d no time to enjoy it.

Thankfully, he’d been fully dressed when he’d left the base unexpectedly. His boots took the sand much better than bare feet, and while his BDU’s were warm in the 100+ desert air, he didn’t want to expose too much of himself to the sun. Now if he’d only had a canteen.

Omega had no idea where he was going. He had no knowledge of the area around the base and there were no points of reference even if he did know them, not counting scrub brush and a few cacti.

But he was outside and free. How long he stayed that way would completely be up to him and his ability to evade the party in pursuit.

Immediately to his left, sand erupted ten feet into the air. The sound of an explosion startled him and he almost lost his footing. Almost.

There goes the idea they’d be chasing me with tranquilizer darts or rubber bullets. Those bastards are using live ammo!

Risking a look behind him, Omega saw no one in pursuit. The land was flat, no dunes, or hill anywhere close. That was a good thing and a bad thing. It was good because he could see pursuers from a viable distance away. It was bad because the reverse was also true. There was no shelter, no cover. Nowhere to hide and no way to elude the search and recovery team. All he could do was run. That’s just what he did.

The explosion knocked him to his feet. He raised a hand over his face for protection. He felt hot shrapnel slice into his hand, cut through his arm. The breath was knocked out of him, but he was on his feet almost instantly. He pistoned his knees, gaining speed. He could hear an engine and shouting behind him and the squelch of handheld radios. They were gaining, which meant he was losing.

Omega scanned the sky. Empty. No air support yet. But with jeeps and Humvees, and he on foot, the chase wouldn’t last long regardless. He saw an outcropping of rock just down a decline and he ran with everything he had. He only hoped he could reach the rocks before his hunters could get a good fix on him. He was running as fast as he could. He ran faster.