Overrun (21 page)

Tuttle didn’t respond. He walked
closer to Faulken until their bodies touched at the tips of their feet. He
leaned in close until his face was directly in front of Faulken's wide eyes and
flaring nose.

“Is that clear, Tuttle?"
Faulken snarled not moving or backing down.

"No it is not!" Tuttle
screamed with spit flying from his lips. "It’s not at all clear! If
demolition teams are already inside the city, then Kirken should be pulled out!
He's only got a high school kid with him for god’s sake. And he's going in
thinking that if he doesn't do this for you, his other child is going to die.

“I realize we are at war, and
what responsibilities we are required to do, but this is not necessary. This is
unnecessary and unconscionable! You are a monster for allowing this to be
carried out!"

"General Tuttle,"
Faulken's voice was even. "Kirken and his family are already dead. We both
know that. Kirken would be considered by every review board to be a sympathizer
to the outside cause. His children know too much now to be left alone on the
outside, and they are probably too far along in the sickness to be allowed
access to the domes. They will never be allowed in, not now, not ever. And you
know that.

“Dome quarantine laws were
created with the one thought that one day life on this planet would start anew.
That's why they were drafted. To keep those further along out. By accepting
your citizenship within the domes, you have accepted these laws and are not
allowed to question. Your silence through all your elevations in military rank
further takes away from any say you may wish to voice now. You no longer have the
right to argue or question. And if you continue to act on this kind of
thinking, you could find yourself with them. Out there. That will happen."

Tuttle set his teeth in a tight
jagged line. His cheek muscles twitched from the fury coursing through his skin.
His eyes closed, and his tongue fell silent. But he did not step away. Their
noses continued to almost touch while Faulken continued to speak.

"The United States has
suffered too many losses. The J.G.U. onslaught was by far more powerful than we
had ever planned. And Plan Zero is not having the effects that we had hoped.
Most of the Vulture troops inserted in do not survive longer than their first
op. It would be a reckless waste of specialized military personnel, men we just
don’t have to spare, to send even just one on a mission such as this when we
already have what we do on the inside. We're going to stay the course and allow
Kirken to accomplish what he can."

"You’re going to keep
dispatching him to new missions until he dies…," Tuttle softly accused.

"We'll send in a small
group to finish up if the damage he creates is too light. And if he does enough
where we can get the planes through, we'll just finish the city off from the
air with a firebombing run. All in all, we will have preserved the safety of
Science Dome 15. And that is the primary objective of what we are trying to do
here.”

"And what happens to Kirken
and his son if they do survive?" Tuttle questioned. "What if they are
able to do enough and by some miracle get out of that town alive?"

Faulken looked away from Tuttle
and backed away.

"General, you know that is
not possible,” he said serenely. “Never in ten lifetimes. You knew that when
you first sent him out. He will not live to see it through. Not alone. We hope
he is just able to accomplish enough before his time is due."

Tuttle lowered his eyes and hung
his head towards the floor.

"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.

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 adjusted 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 separating
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.