Overrun (11 page)

"Viper 1 do you copy? Viper
2 do you copy?" Piper and his communications team scanned frantically
through all the recently-used transmission channels trying to reestablish
contact with the air assault teams.

The command monitors in front
remained dark.

"Sir, we can't locate any
of them," Piper turned his head around and reported to Tuttle.

“Well, keep goddamn looking,”
Tuttle snapped quickly back.

“Sir, they’re not out there.
They’re gone. They’re completely gone.”

"Happened upon a troop
encampment before wing formation split, Home Base," the voice and static
crackled again across the command room speakers.

Piper whipped his head around,
and everyone else in the room jumped back at their controls.

“No idea they were there until
they started to fire. No contact with the rest of the squadron. Repeat. No
contact with the rest of the squadron. Over."

"He's right,
Commander," Piper said moving from his station to sit at another across
the room. "There’s wreckage all over the area out there. They could be the
only ones left."

"Viper 6," Tuttle
picked up Piper's headset from the station he had just left. "We need your
coordinates. Say again. We need your position. Over."

Only heavy static popped and
crackled back.

"Goddamn it!" Tuttle
screamed and hurled his coffee cup against the wall where it shattered into an
oblivion of uncountable pieces. He ripped the headset from the top of his head
and threw it across the puddled mess on the floor.

“We are on the city's north
side," the young pilot's voice came again. "Area 4545.26. Drop team
was fired upon as their chutes opened. No premature detonations occurred.
Repeat no premature detonations occurred. Please advise."

Tuttle's face muscles tightened
momentarily, but he managed to keep his expression empty.

“Return to base, Vulture
6," Tuttle ordered from another command station. He tried to ignore the
feeling that a lightning bolt had just been rammed through the base of his
head. "Return to Home Base…"

The speakers became quiet
following his last command.

"Acknowledge Viper 6…"

"Can’t do it, sir,"
the faint voice faded in again. "We’ve lost rear control. Massive engine
failure. Won’t be airborne much longer. Approaching Beuford to attempt air
detonation before impact.”

Tuttle felt his stomach drop.

“Do you copy, Home Base?"

"We copy," Tuttle said
quietly. "Good luck, son."

Tuttle leaned forward on the
command console and stared at the screens. Until this moment, he thought he had
been at ease with the control of the lives that had been placed at his command.
The shake racking his hands rammed a fear through his heart that he actually
wasn't.

"Roger that Home
Base," the voice came again from the static. "Viper 6 out."

Video feed from another
satellite had been reestablished across the monitors in the front of the room.
The transmission spread into a single continuous image across the hundreds of
individual screens.

Tuttle and his men turned to
watch the last attack chopper of the doomed Vulture assault approach Beuford.

"Assemble a replacement
team," Tuttle spoke quietly. “Send them in on foot. Word will spread
quickly about the air attack. Another one won’t be possible."

"Already being assembled,
Max," Piper said looking up from the console in front of him.
"They'll be ready to launch in ten minutes at your order."

"Someone contact the team
at Science Dome 15. Tell them what's going on and that detonation did not
occur. Make sure to emphasize that detonation did not occur. Determine the
exact troop amount and their movements within the vicinity. Get that to them as
well."

"Yes, sir," Piper
answered him. He pressed his headset closer to his ears and bent forward to
work at his controls.

"Tell them we'll send as
much as we can to help defend."

Piper looked up.

“That will be difficult.
Especially after what we’ve lost and what we’ve already launched. It’s going to
take awhile to get people back.”

"Tell them…," Tuttle
ignored Piper and kept his voice level. "Tell them to be ready."

The flash of a large explosion
across the command screens lit up the room. The image of Viper 6 disappeared
from the tracking screens. Many in the room closed their eyes or looked away
from the glare.

Tuttle stood at the room’s
center and kept his gaze straight ahead. His eyelids quivered slightly from the
sudden onslaught of brilliant light.

"Gauge the blast,"
Tuttle said to the man at the console to his right.

"Not weapons caliber,” the
man reported hurriedly back replaying the image on his own personal screen.
“Altitude too high. And not enough power. Looks like she exploded before
completing her approach. Weapons detonation did not occur. It was only the
aircraft."

Tuttle fought the urge to drop
his head towards the ground in defeat.

"He only made it to the
edge of the city."

"Launch that second
team," Tuttle said pointing at Piper and sweeping his eyes across the new
bustle about the room.

He tried not to focus on the
panic that threatened with every breath to engulf his head.

"We're going to have a
full-scale revolt when word of this starts to get back."

"They might think the
chopper attack was targeted at the occupying troops and not at the town,"
Piper stood up from his station and moved closer to Tuttle at the center of the
room. "None of them actually even made it into the city before they went
down."

Tuttle moved his head towards Piper
but kept his eyes staring ahead at the monitors. He responded to him hoarsely
through the corner of his mouth.

"We know the J.G.U. are aware
of what we’re trying to do. If they take that town fully before we do, word
will get out. They'll spread it them goddamn themselves."

"Even if they do, we'll
still have time to get another crew in there," Piper said lowering his own
voice. "They’ll be shocked at first. No one will believe it right away. It
will give us enough time to get it done."

Tuttle turned from the monitor
screens and looked at him fully.

“That’s a goddamn pipe dream.
And you know it.”

Piper set his jaw and did not
look away.

"I want someone monitoring
all transmissions,” Tuttle ordered. “Both ours and theirs. Going in and going
out. If anyone, and I mean anyone, figures out that was us trying to bomb
Beuford, we're going to have widespread panic on our hands. With no means to
control it. We'll be fighting just about fucking everybody."

"Will!" Piper turned
away from Tuttle and screamed to his troop commander, William J. Hilbrandt,
sitting at a station on the other side of the room. "How long before we
can get another unit out?”

“To Beuford?” Hilbrandt asked in
a scream back.

“Yeah. Anything less than five
minutes is not going to be the right answer."

"We're going to have to go
in completely on the ground," the troop commander reported walking towards
Tuttle and Piper with a harried expression across his face. "With no air
support and from almost right here. The J.G.U. are on full alert for a second
wave. We're not going to get another chopper strike team anywhere near there
for quite some time. They know we're around, and they’re looking for us.
They're going to be firing at anything coming near that area through the
sky."

"Well, get your asses moving
toward that city now!" Tuttle barked. "Right fucking now!"

He stomped from the center of
the room and threw himself back into his seat in front of the numerous rows of
command screens.

Piper walked away from him then
and left the command room. Hilbrandt went back across the command area to his
station.

After the explosions, the
screens had darkened again and were black.

"Somebody get me some
goddamn video of what is going on in Beuford right now,” he barked again.
"Hilbrandt…"

"Team’s ready, General,"
the troop commander reported. Standing quickly and whipping off his headset, he
strode briskly to Tuttle’s chair in front of the screens. “Awaiting word to
launch.”

"Good," Tuttle tore a
map of the area from the wall and stretched it across the communication
consoles. "I want broadcast towers and com centers neutralized first.
Don't take the time to wire the delays. Just get out of there and fire them up
as you go. We need this to be all set and done as quickly as possible.
Understood?"

“Yes, sir,” Hilbrandt answered
him.

“Set and done,” Tuttle repeated
coolly looking straight into Hilbrandt’s eyes. “No matter the costs to your
crew. We could already be looking at a pivotal juncture of this war. Right
here. Right now.”

“Understood, General,” Hilbrandt
responded softly and turned away.

Tuttle was about to turn back to
the monitor screens when an out-of-breath communication officer burst through
the heavy door of the command room.

Hilbrandt stopped just before
exiting into the darkened hall.

“What is it?” Tuttle said
annoyed at the noise.

“Sir, we’ve been monitoring
holovid traffic ever since troops started occupying the cities. We just
intercepted a transmission from someone claiming to be a ranking lieutenant
commander of dome military. The transmission source is deep inside Beuford.”

“Spy?” Tuttle spit dismissively.

“We don’t think so.”

“Counter-intel?”

“Not likely. Not from the way
he’s talking.”

Tuttle didn't speak and looked
over at Hilbrandt waiting at the door.

He claims to be trapped by
soldiers inside. Says he’s killed some already. He wants to know what to do.
And wants direction on how to get out.”

"Does he know about the air
attack?" Tuttle asked.

"Don't know, sir. We don't
know much. Other than he said he didn’t report back to the domes for the
emergency return. He’s deep downtown and says a full occupational force is
sealing off the area."

Tuttle locked eyes with
Hilbrandt. Hilbrandt then walked back to his command station and spoke into his
headset.

"Maintain the ground team
at a readiness state," Tuttle spoke at Hilbrandt’s back. "But have
them hold. We're not yet ready to launch."

"Sir…," Hilbrandt said
turning around. “We don’t have a whole lot of time. We can’t afford much of a
delay.”

“Just have them hold. Route that
signal to my office,” Tuttle ordered the communications officer.

"Yes, sir."

"Encrypt it third level.
We're heading there now."

Tuttle stood abruptly and turned
to leave. He motioned Hilbrandt to follow.

“It would be better if we can
keep our troops out of there,” Tuttle said when they had stepped to the edge of
the room. “The longer we can keep people from knowing what is going on, the
longer we can contain the spread of rumors and mass panic. Keep them from
turning against us until we can get another air assault in.”

"If he knows what happened
already, he’ll be hard to convince to be on our side." Hilbrandt said
stuffing some gear he had pulled from his command console into a pouch across
his chest. "He won’t be of much use."

"Let's just hope he isn't
dead already," Tuttle replied as they strode through the two mammoth steel
doors to the darkened halls outside.

The now busy communications room
bustled frantically in their wake.

"Damn it…" Brandon
swore quietly from where he sprawled face first in the dirt.

The caverns were so completely
dark they couldn't see a thing, not even each other while they walked.

With their arms outstretched in
front of them, they had been trying for more than three hours to find their way
through the sewer corridors. They darted for the darkest sides of the cavern
every time an assault weapon fired overhead. It made their progress quite slow.

"Brandon?"

"I'm all right, Mel"
he said spitting thick dust from his mouth. "Stay where you are for a
second, will ya?"

Brandon reached behind his legs
through the sand and dirt trying to find what caught his feet and caused him to
fall. He crawled through the darkness and stood up when his hands found the
wall.

When he hauled himself back to
his full height, he wiped at the dust that covered his eyes. As he did, he felt
a small sudden rush of warm air across his face. With it came a stale sick odor
that almost caused him to vomit.

He then heard the sound of
someone nearby carefully sucking in their breath.

"Mel?" he asked
stepping cautiously back. "Where are you?"

"You O.K.?" she
answered from somewhere behind him.

Brandon hurled his body through
the air at the person hiding in front of him in the darkness. His large hands
found the person’s throat and began to squeeze.

"Brandon!" Mel shrieked.
"Brandon what's going on? I can't see you."

"Don't talk, Mel," he
barked. The person he held thrashed around in panic.

Brandon raised his arms over his
head and held his captive by the neck above the ground. The person’s shoes
kicked lightly against his shins. Groans and quick gasps for air came from
beneath Brandon’s fierce grasp.

"Please…don't…" a
woman’s voice came from the dark. “Please don’t hurt us.”

Brandon lowered the struggling
body back to the ground. But, he did not release his hold.

"Brandon!" Mel
screamed. "There's someone else! There’s someone else! Someone just pushed
past me."

"Besides her?!"

"Yes!" Mel shrieked
frantically again.

"My kids…,” the woman
coughed. “They’re just my kids. Please don’t hurt them.”

"Mel?"

There was no answer from the
darkness. The only sound was the woman in his hands trying to breathe.

"Mel?!" Brandon's
voice echoed down the passageway.

"It's alright," Mel's
voice was softer now. "I've got them. It's all right. I don’t think
there’s anyone else here."

"They're just my
kids," the woman sobbed against his arms. "Please let me go. Don't
hurt them."

Still not quite able to see
through the gloom but satisfied there was no longer a threat, Brandon finally
let go.

"Mel?" Brandon’s voice
softened slightly.

"It's all right,"
Mel's quiet voice came back. "They're just kids, Brandon. It's all
right."

“Tell them it’s all right,”
Brandon said taking a step back from the woman crying in front of him.

She coughed once and darted away
towards the sound of Mel’s voice.

"They're over here
somewhere," Mel said to the woman. "I can't tell exactly where they
went. But I heard them just a second ago and felt a hand on my leg. I think
they thought I was you."

"Tell them to come
out," Brandon whispered after her.

"It's all right," the
woman did her best not to wheeze. "They’re not going to hurt us. Come back
here by me."

There was no sound.

"Mel, are they still
there?" Brandon asked. He followed the sounds of the woman tripping her
way through the dark tunnel to where Mel spoke.

"I don't know. I can't see
anything. They might have just run away. I don’t hear them anymore."

There was a soft click, and the
steady beam of a flashlight broke the gloom.

Three children huddled on the
ground behind Mel. Their arms clutched their knees tightly against their
bodies. One of them pointed a flashlight at Mel's back.

Tears ran in thin trails down
each of their cheeks. None of them made a noise.

"We didn’t run away,"
one spoke timidly when the woman approached.

Mel turned around to the sound
of the new voice and the source of the light.

"It's all right," Mel
reassured them tears falling from her own eyes.

She reached out and took the
flashlight from the quivering hands of the child sitting at the front of the
group. She gave the flashlight to Brandon and then walked back over to them.
Silently, she and the woman helped them all to stand.

Brandon ran the beam of the
flashlight along the corridor walls while the children walked along with the
woman and huddled about her knees.

"Have you been to the
shelters?” Brandon asked the woman. “Or are you looking for them like us?”

"We’ve been there,"
the woman said moving next to him. "There’s a good many of them. And many
people in them. We were too afraid to stay. People are starting to say the
soldiers are coming underground. I thought it might be better to stay away from
these groups. But, there is food if we go back."

"Let's head back
there," Brandon said handing the flashlight to the woman. “At least for
now so they can eat.”

Mel walked over to Brandon.
Together they followed the woman down the corridor. The children crowded close
behind.

Mel picked up the smallest one
and let him wrap his arms around her neck. Brandon reached down and picked up
another of them. The largest child walked at his side.

They traveled nearly a mile when
the woman suddenly stopped and pointed the flashlight at a smooth metal wall.
Squinting through the beam, Brandon saw the thin cracks of a doorway.

Brandon stepped ahead and
pressed it slowly in. As a group, they stepped inside to an even darker gloom.

By the light of the flashlight
beam, they saw about fifteen people sitting on crates and plastic benches. One
of them stood silently and walked to throw up a large switch on the wall. It
made a loud “thump” and then bright light flooded the room.

Brandon and Mel both squinted
for a moment from the sudden glare. When their vision adjusted to the light,
they looked around to see mostly children sitting around the room.

Brandon turned slowly around and
eyed up the shelter. About twenty wooden crates lined two of the furthest
walls. He walked over to the closest one and pried the lid off while the others
in the room quietly watched. Turning it upside down, he dumped the heavy
blankets it contained onto the smooth surface of the floor.

"We think there’s food in
that other one," someone offered.

"C'mon, Mel, let's get
these all open," Brandon said over his shoulder. "See what we've
got."

Brandon set the flashlight he
still held on one of the benches and moved towards another stack of crates.
Within the hour, they had opened them all.

They found clothes, a sizeable
amount of food and other supplies. He figured it was enough for about twice as
many people that were there now to stay healthy and alive for a good amount of
time.

In another two hours they had
gone through and organized it all. Brandon pushed the last of the empty crates
out of the way to a far corner of the room.

“Mel, I think we need to…,"
Brandon began when the sound of something heavy banged just outside the door.

Everyone in the room froze.
Someone quickly reached up and snapped the switch that turned off the lights.

Brandon picked up the flashlight
and walked towards the sound.

"Get the kids behind the
crates in the back corner," he hissed through clenched teeth. He moved
through the darkness without turning on his light.

Everyone in the shelter shuffled
quietly behind him quickly doing what they were told.

The pounding came again from
outside the door. Someone in the group started to cry.

Brandon reached out and put his
hand on the heavy latch that held it shut. He raised the flashlight over his
head and brandished it like a club.

The noise came again from the
corridor outside.

Brandon slowly released the
latch. He took a deep breath and pulled open the massive door.

When he did, a ragged bloody
figure toppled in. Brandon kept the flashlight raised over his head and quietly
clicked it on.

The body sprawled face down and
unmoving at his feet. Brandon lowered his arm and bent down slowly. Mel ran up
next to him.

The body was a man covered in
dirt, grime and blood. Brandon leaned his head closer to his face. A slow
breath and a cough came from the man’s bloody mouth.

“Keep them back,” Brandon said
to Mel and a few people that came up behind him. “Keep the kids back. And get
me some blankets from the…”

He began to roll the body over
when someone in the room turned the lights back on.

A shriek came from Mel’s lips
when she recognized the bloody form exhausted, gasping and bleeding on the
floor before them.

"Somebody get the
kit!" Brandon screamed quickly stooping down and blinking his eyes against
the light.

* * *

Kirken pressed his back against
the wall for what seemed like an eternity while the man on the small holovid
screen spoke.

He knew once he reestablished
contact with those in the dome world the news wouldn’t be good. But nothing in
the world would have prepared him for this. Even if he had swallowed every
painkiller in the medical pack and been hit hard in the head with a rock, it
still wouldn’t have been as mind-numbing as what he had just heard.

For a moment he didn’t speak. He
just let out a loud breath and stared at the stern face of the man on the
screen. Mel stood over him doing her best to tend to his wounds.

"I don't believe
this," Kirken finally said faintly.

He turned sideways and pressed
his body further into a corner trying not to be heard by the others in the
shelter with him.

He took a quick glance back at
Mel. She was having trouble stopping the steady flow of blood oozing down the
side of his face. And when he looked at her, he could tell she could do little
to stop the tears that ran down her own.

He reached for her hand and
gently held it. His own eyes glossed over when she lowered her chin to rest on
his head. He felt the scared sobs and fearful desperate sorrow that coursed
through her body. Her warm tears dripped lightly across the exposed skin of his
shoulder.

The burning desire to just take
her, and her alone, and flee into what was held in the night was maddening. He
found it harder and harder to push the thought away.

"This is too much,"
Kirken spoke to the holovid trying not to choke on the bile lining his throat.
"Too much to ask of anyone. Honestly, what can I really do? I can’t
believe this is what everything has finally come to."

The man in front of him didn't
answer for a moment. His own disconsolate and fearful eyes studied him from
behind the holovid screen.

"You do it to your utmost
best,” Tuttle responded calmly. “That is what we have all been asked. You are
in a targeted area. The whole city. It will be destroyed in less than a
day."

"Not by me," Kirken
said softly. “It won’t be done by me.”

Mel looked away at the others
walking about the bunker. She tried to conceal her quiet sobs and the tears
that ran down her cheeks.

"I’m offering an
opportunity to get you and your daughter out of there alive,” Tuttle’s voice
was somberly dark. “A fighting chance not to be destroyed with it.”

Kirken felt completely empty.
Alone. Like his heart had just died and his head was about to scream.

“General, I’ve lived with these
people. My kids have grown up with them. By my hands this cannot be done.”

Mel continued to wipe at the
wounds seeping down the side of his face. Kirken sensed the effort she put
forth not to cry.

"You can’t think of that
now. Things have changed entirely. You have a chance before you, right now. Do
what we ask. Don’t think. And you and your family will get out. Your
daughter…and your son will survive. It’s more of a chance than anyone in that
room is going to get.”

Mel pressed the last bandage in
the kit to Kirken’s face. She kissed him on the forehead and left quietly.

As she did, she shooed away some
curious children who had wandered too close to where Kirken was making the
holovid transmission. When they were gone, she turned and looked back. Kirken
sat rigid and still while silently listening to the man on the device in front
of him.

"In three hours we’ll send
in a stealth craft to drop you weapons and gear,” Tuttle continued. "The airspace
around you is practically impenetrable, so we are going to make the drop high
up and guide the chutes to you remotely."

"How can you possibly get
us out if you can't even get in yourselves?" Kirken asked looking across
the room at Brandon and Mel giving orders to the people organizing the supplies
and equipment.

His soul ached with barrenness.
And his mind struggled to fight the rage.

"Once you begin
neutralizing some of the targets, we'll be able to get a chopper in,"
Tuttle spoke assuredly. "But that won't be possible unless you move first
on this and do what we need done."

"And if I don’t
succeed?"

"We’ll be forced to
firebomb it from the air," Tuttle's voice became hard. "Our air
assault teams will meet heavy almost irrepressible resistance. We’ll incur
great losses to both aircraft and men. But, we’ll keep sending firebomb teams
in until that city is completely gone…or we have no one left to fight. The
security of Science Dome 15 must be maintained. Regardless of the costs."

Kirken felt the world shut down
around him like someone had switched off a light. He continued to hear the man
speaking from the holovid in front of him, but his mind did not register the
words.