Overrun: Project Hideaway (2 page)

Without turning his eyes from
the battlefield, he nervously switched frequencies on his communication link.
After a few quick taps of his fingers across its tiny controls, he raised it
back to his lips. When he spoke, small drops of moisture jumped from his mouth
into the warm dusty air.

“Bay Guard! Bay Guard! How much
of the team is secured?” Watch Tower felt his voice shriek out into the night.

* * *

Hundreds of feet below, Bay
Guard finished working the controls that opened the mammoth doors to the
landing bay. Opening the doors he had always been told was like rolling an
animal on its back leaving its soft underside completely vulnerable to attack.

The doors stood wide open
allowing thick black smoke to pour inside. His eyes stung instantly from the
fiery fallout of the battle. Like his crew around him, Bay Guard hurriedly
pulled a breathing mask across his face.

Through the protective material
now covering his nose and eyes, he watched a group of about ten of the Bullet
fleet break from the havoc of the battlefield and streak towards the landing
bay. The vehicles were obliterated in an instant by missile and cannon fire
launched by unseen jeeps and trucks chasing them from behind.

“None!” Bay Guard screamed back
into his own communication piece strapped tightly to the back of his wrist.

“Watch Tower, the team is not
secured! None! I repeat. None! None of them are in!”

* * *

A new burst of explosions and
chasing artillery fire forced Watch Tower to press his wrist transmitter closer
to his ear.

“Say again, Bay Guard!” Watch
Tower felt himself scream. “How many are secured? We’ve got to get them in
here! We’re going to light it!”

“The Death Wall is set for
launch!” a different sentry on the observation deck screamed at Watch Tower
from the other end of the observation deck. He also struggled to be heard over
the sound of blasts.

"Bay Guard! Bay Guard! Is
the Bullet team secured?"

"Negative, Watch Tower!”
Bay Guard’s voice crackled out over the explosions filling the night. “We just
opened the door. No one’s made it to the door!”

"We've got to get them in
here! We're going to light it!" Watch Tower jerked away from the control
panel and brought his glasses back to bear on the ferocious ground battle being
waged less than twenty-five miles from Science Dome 15.

“Bullet Leader!” Watch Tower
barked in a flurry of spit into the side of his wrist. “We have got to get them
in here now! You’ve got to move them in faster or we’re going to close the
whole bay out! The doors have to be shut. And they have to be shut now!”

The sentry working the controls
stood up and ran down the length of the observation deck and disappeared into
the darkness at the far end of the platform. Flames from the battle below cast
eerie shadows across the entire observation post.

Watch Tower gripped the large
main guard rail that surrounded the observation decks and ignored the mild burn
of its metal reaching through the fabric of his gloved hands. Grimly, he
watched the Bullet land fleet speed toward the dome receiving bay. His stomach
clutched painfully inside his gut as he watched five more vehicles explode into
nothingness. The flames from their blasts lit up the night sky.

Not even a third of the Bullet
fleet had reached the safety zone. Many of those that had were obliterated by
the weapons assault. Large areas of flame and shredded debris throughout the
zone and directly in front of the open landing bay further impeded their way
in. The deadly J.G.U. dome-killer transports followed closely behind. Their
massive weaponry tore up the earth behind them.

A few transports at the front of
the assault were within a mile or two of the safety zone. Two of them rotated
back around away from the dome and picked off the Bullet vehicles trying to
race past.

More Bullets appeared from the
night behind the fire and smoke of the waging battle. Their engines screamed as
they raced in between the mammoth transports trying desperately to reach the
safety zone before the Death Wall was launched.

"Bay Guard! Bay
Guard!" Watch Tower yelled over his comlink to the landing bay crew more
than thirty floors below. “Be advised. Those transports are right behind them.
Prepare to slam the doors. There’s no more time!"

* * *

Bay Guard stared out at the
first Bullet racer charging in. A large hiccup of air bellowed from the
harnessing mechanism as it dropped across it and snatched it in one controlled
motion into the air. The engine continued to rev with a loud high whine, and
its wheels spun wildly as the machine carried it out of the way down the
landing bay.

Two more Bullets were nearly to the
landing bay entrance. A missile whine followed by an explosion pounded the
ground just outside the massive doors.

"Roger that Watch Tower. We
got 'em. They’re just starting to come in!” Bay Guard bellowed into his comlink
through the exploding din.

* * *

"No, you don't got
'em." Watch Tower dropped his glasses to his chest and screamed into the
communications link to the landing bay. "Those transports are ahead of
some of the team! They're going to be shooting right fucking inside the longer
you keep those doors open to let what’s left of ‘em in!”

Red streaks of light sailed from
two of the transports as Watch Tower shrieked. Fragments of three Bullet
vehicles exploded into the air. Additional fiery missile streaks soon followed
sailing over the fleeing land vehicles directly towards the dome’s outer walls.
Watch Tower leaned against the observation rail and trained his glasses on what
was happening on the ground almost directly under him.

"Everybody hang the fuck
on!" he screamed as the first deadly blow struck.

The rockets pummeled the side of
Dome 15 three hundred feet from the landing bay doors. Their impact
reverberated throughout the entire structure and threw everyone on the
observation platform hard to the deck. On the ground, a huge hole gaped open
like a gunshot wound in the dome’s outer wall near the bay door. Fiery shrapnel
from the blast incinerated two more racers, one of which was almost through the
landing bay doors.

* * *

"Bay Guard! Bay Guard! Are
you still with us?" he heard Watch Tower’s voice over the loud ringing in
his head. He felt a drop of sweat or blood fall from the tip of his ear and
slide down the back of his neck.

"Roger that Watch Tower.
Bays 3 and 6 are down. We're not going to be able to open those up again. Bay
15 is destroyed. But we still got some room and the door is still open. We can
see them coming now."

* * *

Watch Tower picked up his
extended range glasses and pointed them back towards the battlefield. Through
the fires and mountains of dark smoke, he watched the land fleet race towards
the landing bay. The J.G.U. transports chased close behind them spitting cannon
fire and releasing hundreds of rockets with red flaming tails to further
brighten the battle-plagued night.

Watch Tower lowered his glasses
one last time and pulled his wrist back to his face. “You guys are really going
to have to hurry,” he said softly into his transmitter.

Even from his perch high atop
the observation post, he could still hear the tortured screams of the Bullet
engines.

Some exploded. Others stopped
still as their pilots revved them past their limits trying to outrun the
chasing transports and reach the safety zone before the Death Wall was lit.

"Son, are you ready?"
Watch Tower screamed behind him.

"Death Wall ignition ready
at your command, sir," the young sentry’s voice cracked.

"Bay Guard! Bay Guard! How
many do you have?"

"None alive, Watch Tower.
Repeat. None secured alive. Rocket fire tearing them apart before reaching the
bay. We've still got a few more in sight. They're coming in fast. We're firing
everything we’ve got to give them some cover. "

"They’re not coming in fast
enough!" Watch Tower screamed. "Get ready to close those fucking
doors!"

Through the smoke and fire, he
could only see five or six Bullets within the safety zone and twenty of the
dome-killers transports gaining ground behind. And then from somewhere behind
the harsh flicker of the raging flames, another fifteen Bullets streaked into
view racing for the landing bay. Watch Tower could hear the strained scream of
their engines even above the sound of the blasts.

Smaller J.G.U. vehicles also
appeared from the darkness alongside the larger transports. Large bursts of
cannon fire roared from their sides chasing the Bullet team further from the
night.

"Wall ignition in ten
seconds," Watch Tower spoke quietly into his wrist.

Very few of the land fleet had
reached the protective zone which would offer them harbor from the blast. The
dome-killer transports trailed doggedly behind the ones that had managed to
make it close.

"Land team
acknowledge," Bullet Leader's voice came back. "Transports close to
breaching the perimeter…" A loud burst of static temporarily drowned out
his voice. "…don’t wait for us to get in…ignite when ready…"

"Five seconds," one of
the observation sentries said quietly next to Watch Tower. Two others lowered
their glasses and turned away.

And then what he saw next made
his heart almost stop and his blood run cold.

"Oh, sweet mother of
God," Watch Tower said lowering his glasses and grabbing his comlink.

"How many you got? Say
again! How many...!"

"Only five harbored!"
Bay Tower's shrieking voice pierced through the crackling comlink. "We've
only got five! More than fifteen in sight, Watch Tower! They're almost
here!"

"Soldier, stand by!"
Watch Tower barked over his shoulder. The three young tower guards sat tautly
behind him at the controls awaiting the final order to launch.

Below, five of the killer
transports pivoted to their sides and dropped their panels revealing an arsenal
of large rockets leveled straight at the dome.

"There's no more time!
Light it!" Watch Tower screamed. The hands of the tower guards flew across
the controls.

Only a handful of the vehicles
had reached the twenty-mile boundary guarding the outside of the dome. Some
entered the zone riding the red tails of fired rockets and exploded into flames
once within.

"They're not in!" Bay
Guard's voice screamed through the comlink. "We've only got a..."

"Close the doors! Close
them now!" Watch Tower's voice bellowed.

"They're out there! They’re
coming!” Bay Guard screamed back. “They’re right fucking here. We’ve almost got
em’! We can’t close them now…..!"

"Close those bay doors, or
we're all going to fucking die!"

As if in slow motion, trails of
red fire began to detach themselves from the sides of the J.G.U. transports and
streak over the speeding Bullet team.

“Ignite on this mark,” Watch
Tower whispered into the comlink and then dropped his wrist. “Ignition now.
Burn the fucking thing.” When the final command left his lips, he lowered his
glasses and closed his eyes.

He wondered briefly if the doors
had even been sealed. Regardless, the guard crew was most likely dead. Even if
they had sealed the doors, the concussion shields most likely wouldn’t have
dropped in time. They were probably all incinerated in one fiery instant.

Watch Tower knew it was too late
to wonder about that now. Following his command, as if God was standing at his
side, the darkness of the wounded night seared with a brilliant light.

The initial blast rocked the
observation platform and threw everyone down hard to the deck. Watch Tower
pulled himself from the tangle of fallen bodies and leaned against the rails.

With more megatons than previous
world armies combined, he watched the shield of fire erupt from the detonation
of special large-scale missile explosives embedded deep within the earth almost
twenty miles away.

A massive thermonuclear blast
designed to blast up and explode out, the Death Wall threw a mammoth shield of
white flames away from Science Dome 15 towards the small town of Beuford.

Towering walls of ferocious fire
licked into the sky and blasted a deadly apocalyptic ring around and away from
the dome. Its destructive force enveloped everything not within the twenty-mile
safety zone.

A fast moving inferno thundered
across the J.G.U. transports and then swept further out incinerating as much as
the eye could see. In an instant, much of the town of Beuford and the land
before it erupted into a fireball. The heat seared at Watch Tower's eyes and
pounded hard across his chest.

Massive roaring flames tore
through the dome-killer transports and consumed the straggling members of the
Bullet land fleet. The few Bullet vehicles that had crossed into the zone were
tossed into the air by the force of the blast and thrown towards the base of
Science Dome 15. Their small frames crashed end-over-end along the ground. Many
exploded. Others lay smoking and still.

The hungry fires of the Death
Wall devoured the advancing J.G.U. convoy lying in its path while leaving the
dome undamaged in its protective wake.

In an instant, the ten or more
transports that had almost breached the safe zone were gone.

But the Death Wall’s awesome
might was not able to stop the rockets that had already been launched. Many had
long since streaked past the safety zone perimeter an instant before it was
lit.

More than thirty rockets ripped
into the walls of Dome 15 tearing gaping flaming wounds into its massive
structure. Beams collapsed and metal twisted in on itself. Glass exploded and
fell through the air like rain. Screams and the sounds of death tore across the
complex.

Two missiles found their marks
near the base of the observation deck. Their impact and detonation created a
fireball of destruction that spit shards of rubble and debris into the air.
Small pieces of twisted metal sailed across the observation platform embedding
themselves into the flesh of the tower guards. Their bodies tumbled down hard
around Watch Tower's feet turning his ankles and knocking him to the ground on
top of them.