Minus America | Book 5 | Hostile Shores

by Isherwood, E. E.

  Tabby spoke up. “Dwight helped us get here, Peter. Let’s remember that.”

  Peter rolled his eyes, but they weren’t visible to Dwight.

  “We arrived on a flight from…Denver,” he said, to not give anything away. Just in case. “But we got stuck on the outside of the plane, so we’re more than ready to go inside.”

  “Good luck,” Tabby replied. “We’ve been at this airport all night trying to think how to get inside the bunker and catch up with you. We figured after you left NORAD you were going to attack here, like you said. We didn’t anticipate we’d beat you here.” She laughed a little. “When the sun started to rise, we thought about moving, but weren’t sure where to go.”

  “Couldn’t you find an entrance?” he asked.

  She shrugged. “We saw it but couldn’t get in on account of all the traffic. The door to the bunker is over there.” The young girl pointed across the runway and up toward the buildings near town. A mound of earth sat among the square structures. It had a huge door attached to the front. It looked like an earth revetment, where a plane would be protected from bombs while parked, but instead of one plane, there were a ton of people going in and out.

  Ted thought about it for a few seconds. “We saw a giant hole, kind of like a silo, when we were airborne. It’s over there by all that electrical equipment. Is it a second entrance?” He pointed to the far end of the runway, but on his side of the landing strip. The metal shields sat uniformly around the hole, at what looked to be about forty-five-degree angles, although he couldn’t see those on the far side of the opening.

  Tabby put her fingers to her chin, thinking. “When I was down in the bunker, David took me to see his almighty weapon. It was in a pit, maybe ten or twelve feet wide, and he said it went into the earth for ten miles. There was also a section that went up above us. It wouldn’t surprise me if it went to the surface.”

  “Was there a way down?” he asked, seeing the opportunity.

  “I don’t know. There was a ladder in the lower part. I can’t remember what was above us, other than the hole. Sorry.”

  It was enough to go on. They would never be able to bluff their way past all those people on the far side, but they might be able to drop into the pit from the top. To his great relief, he’d kept the climber’s rope from their flight.

  “How are we going to get there?” Peter asked. “It’s got to be a quarter of a mile up the runway.”

  He was right. Between Ted and the hole, there were the three large solar planes and about fifty smaller aircraft. Each of those would need refuelers, food service, and baggage handlers. There were going to be guards, or other pilots, at the very least.

  Ted sighed heavily. “I’m going to pull out this trick one last time. Since Kyla and I are wearing their uniforms, we’ll point our guns and walk you forward, like you’re our prisoners. We’ll go right for the pit.”

  Dwight spit on the ground, but otherwise kept silent. He got the sense the older man wasn’t thrilled to be there. The kids, however, were anxious to have someone tell them what to do. He saw it right away. Even the leader, Tabby, seemed frustrated they’d wasted the night. It was a role he was ready to fill.

  After collecting a whole mess of rifles, he pointed his AR at their backs, careful to keep his finger glued to the trigger guard, and marched them forward. He didn’t make them raise their hands, assuming it was enough for him to be dressed like a Legion guard. The scenario he worked up in his head was they’d come in on a flight with the prisoners…

  “Walk at a nice, even pace,” he advised them as they got out from under the last of the giant planes.

  “Don’t boss us,” Dwight snapped.

  They’d passed several military jets and one helicopter before they ran into a flight crew preparing a small propeller-driven commuter plane. He stood tall as if he was proud to have his prisoners, but the men barely glanced at him.

  It was the same for a few other crews and pilots. Everyone seemed to have their own problems, which was a lot like any other walk on the tarmac of an airport. It wasn’t exactly a chit-chat zone when razor sharp blades and engine intakes could grab you at any second.

  He was surprised to see many rows of armored tanks and other tracked vehicles parked in the open field between the airport and the edge of town. He’d missed them on the flight in since he’d been interested in the hole. However, he figured there were enough of the M1-A2 Abrams tanks, American tanks, to outfit a whole division.

  They made it to the silo site without any harassment. They walked through about ten concentric rows of the shield-like plates. They all seemed to be aimed at the central point. They finally stopped when they reached the edge of the pit.

  “This is definitely the superweapon,” Tabby commented, pointing down. “I can see the lights on in the room where David and I talked. Below it, the drop goes on for ten miles.”

  “Wow. Watch the last step,” Audrey said, impressed with what she’d found.

  He leaned over, immediately curious. The dark ten-foot-wide hole went down about thirty feet until it met a ring of light, as if the tube had been sliced through from all sides. If they could get down to that level, they could exit the tube and be inside the bunker. A ladder was attached to the side, as Tabby predicted.

  However, as he stood there taking it all in, he noticed how the twin doors for the silo had been flung open on the surface. Was something about to come out?

  Reboot Legion Headquarters, Lamar, CO

  Tabby paused on the ladder, swallowing gravely to keep her stomach where it belonged.

  “Hold onto the ladder, not the rope,” Ted advised from below.

  He’d told Tabby and the kids he’d brought a length of climbing rope, so he intended to use it. Since they were going down a ladder, he tied everyone together with the rope to ensure if anyone lost their grip, the others would keep them from falling.

  It was still as scary a descent as Tabby thought it would be. The ladder was evidently there for technicians to service the miles of tunnel below them, but she couldn’t understand how men didn’t fall to their deaths every other day. If she fell, she would have died from terror long before she touched the bottom.

  She took a few more steps.

  When they’d gotten low enough to reach the observation room, the ladder twisted like a ribbon, allowing them to step off easily instead of having to flip from one side of the ladder to the other. That was also a scary moment for her. Below them, a second ladder started down. Both were attached to the metal railing surrounding the pit, making a cage-like barrier to prevent anyone from walking off the edge.

  They all gathered in the room after the climb.

  Ted addressed them. “Take your rifles back. I’d normally ask you to be careful with them and try not to get into any fights, but you all know what we’re up against. If you need to take someone out, then do it.” He handed out the rifles he’d been carrying as part of their prisoner ruse.

  Tabby pointed to the elevators. “Those go down to the bottom of the pit. They also go up, but not to ground level. When you reach the top floor, you have to walk down a long hallway before you reach the first exit door. From there, you have to walk a ramped tunnel up to the surface. It’s the opening you saw on the other side of the runway when we were outside.”

  Ted repeated the route. “So, the elevators go up. There’s a tunnel about as long as the airstrip is wide, and then there’s the ramp to the surface. Is that right?”

  Tabby nodded gravely, remembering how close she’d come to her first escape in that last tunnel. “Yes.”

  She waited as Ted tried his radio again.

  “This is Rebel One calling Team Yankee. Come in Yankee.”

  He was met with more static.

  “I can take it up the ladder to see if it gets a better signal,” she offered.

  Ted seemed to think on it. She saw him as a thoughtful leader who really cared what happened to her. A tour-guide trait she appreciated. “Do you think you cou
ld take the radio and go up in the elevator? If our friends make it here, it will probably be a hasty attack. They won’t be able to climb down a ladder one at a time. We need someone on the inside to make sure the front door stays open for them.”

  She gulped. “You want me to go alone up to the doors?”

  He nodded at Peter and Audrey. “Not alone.”

  Tabby spun to face her friends, taking the radio. “You guys want to go with me?” She remembered the one item at her disposal that would give her an advantage no one else on her team could possibly gain. Slowly, and with great distaste, she unbuttoned the front of her shirt, like SuperGirl. “I’m going to pretend I still live here.”

  “Right on, hot stuff,” Audrey said immediately. Her teen friend was much more excited about her blue outfit than she was.

  Dwight groused. “I guess I’ll go, too. Poppy would want me to keep an eye on you.” He’d been looking at Tabby.

  “I guess that’s fine,” she replied, hoping Ted might disagree. When he didn’t, and after she’d taken off her shirt and jeans, she went full-on self-conscious once more. She dragged her long hair from a makeshift braid and let it fall over her chest. She’d tossed the gray blanket she’d once used as a skirt, so she had to suffer without it.

  “Come on, Tabs,” Peter said with merriment. “I’ll make sure no one gropes you.” He held his rifle at the ready, as if he would shoot anyone who dared look at her funny. She was still shy about how she was dressed, but her friend made it a little less awkward.

  Ted walked her to the door. “When you get up near the surface, call out on the radio using my callsign and guide Avery to your location. As long as the front door is open, he’ll be able to shoot his way inside. If the door is closed, you’ll have to open it.”

  “Got it,” she replied, glancing once at the radio to be sure it was obvious how to key the mic. Once completed, she stepped into the elevator.

  “Going up,” Peter announced as Audrey and Dwight hurried in.

  Once the doors closed, she tried the radio. After calling out for Avery three or four times, she stopped. When the doors opened, she was greeted by the flow of people going in and out of the bunker.

  “Whoa!” she blurted.

  The bunker must have gone for quite a way on the topmost level based on the number of people inside. They weren’t going for the elevator. Instead, they walked into the side hallway where she’d once stood in Victor’s room. Other pioneer girls and boys lived in that dorm area and she estimated there was much more to the level than what she’d seen.

  She pulled out the radio again, content there were so many people as to be anonymous. “Hello? Avery? Are you out there?”

  Static came out of the speaker.

  Peter tapped her on the shoulder. “Hey, if we hold the door for this elevator, we can prevent anyone but us from using it. Can I call this other one? We’ll block both of them.” He pointed to the second elevator.

  “Yeah, sure. Sounds smart.”

  She called again on the radio, though she held it close to her chest and kept her back to those walking close by. “This is Rebel One. Come in.”

  Tabby had to repeat it a few more times before a static-filled voice replied.

  “This is Team Yankee, Rebel One. What’s your situation?”

  “We’re inside the target.”

  “Confirmed, Rebel. We’re on approach. Can you offer any assistance with the landing zone?”

  She turned to Audrey, Peter, and Dwight. The two younger kids were next to the other elevator entrance, waiting for it to arrive. Dwight stood slack-jawed in the middle of the hallway as men and women passed on each side of him.

  “I don’t think so,” she replied. “But we will make sure you can come inside the bunker with us. We’re right at the door, which is currently open.”

  “Good work. We’re inbound now. Out.”

  Tabby strained to hear an explosion or other sign the attack had begun, but it remained silent. As people continued to walk by, some nodded at her as if she was important. At first, she thought it was due to someone recognizing her, but she later figured out it was only the blue skin-tight suit that got their attention.

  “I’m going to ditch this unitard the first chance I get,” she said to herself.

  Turning toward the elevator, she realized Audrey and Peter had taken a few steps back from the doors. The car had arrived, and a man stood in the gap.

  “Tabby?” the guy asked with surprise.

  It was President Tanager.

  CHAPTER 27

  Reboot Legion Headquarters, Lamar, CO

  “What are we going to do?” Kyla asked.

  Uncle Ted looked around the room, which had a series of light panels on the rounded perimeter. He pointed to a computer terminal inset in the wall, near the elevators. “There. We have to figure out a way to take out this weapon. We can overload it, or short it out, or what have you. Whatever happens, we can’t allow it to fire.”

  He seemed to pause.

  “What do you see?” she asked.

  When he looked at her, she saw hints of fear. He put great care into each word. “We have no idea how this thing works. This chamber could be part of the firing sequence. We could be in some mega serious danger right now.”

  She returned his gaze. “And?”

  He smiled. “And we have to be careful. If it looks like we’re going to get hurt by it, I’ll move us out the door.” He gestured to a portal on the far wall.

  “I can live with that.” Walking to the console, she found the keyboard and started it up. It took the machine a couple of seconds to turn on, and a few more to load into the software. It was like nothing she’d ever seen before. It had no similarities to the tablet software, though the coding wasn’t totally alien. “Yuck. This isn’t going to be easy.”

  “Can you get in there?” he asked.

  “Yes, but it’s going to take some time.”

  Her uncle walked away, leaving her to it. It was nice she was able to access the terminal in the first place, but it didn’t really give her the leg up she was hoping for. It was like sitting down to a new version of her desktop computer software where the developers had changed the location of every familiar button, menu, and application. She’d located a user with elevated administrator rights and was in the process of accessing it when Uncle Ted cried out.

  “It’s on! Did you do this?”

  She ran over to look in the pit. “I don’t think I did.” The sides of the silo had lit up, revealing long strands of LED lights traveling up the sides. They’d been there when she descended the stairs from hell, but now they were blinking in sequence, as if moving toward her. Above them, the lights didn’t go up into the tube to the surface. Instead, they spread out on the ceiling as if they were exploding fireworks. It was both beautiful and terrifying to witness. Whatever it was, the thing was a weapon.

  “I’ll try to turn it off.” She shot over to the terminal again.

  Suddenly, everything seemed like Greek lettering.

  The pressure was on.

  “This label says this is a percentage of aggregated dark energy.” She pointed to the slider. Like most things done on the visual side of the enemy’s programming, the meaning was fairly obvious. A tally was counting the percentage until it reached one hundred. Would the machine fire then?

  She ran over to the pit again. “What the heck is it?” she asked. How long would it take to drop something to the bottom? Would that knock out the machine? It was hard to know without understanding what they were looking at.

  “I’ve been trying to answer that very question. We don’t have any weapon even remotely like this. Tabby said the tunnel goes down for ten miles. Do we know it for certain? Maybe the people who built this figured out how to punch something through the core of the earth? What if it goes all the way through to the other side? Where would it end up?”

  He stared into the depths.

  Antipode Station, Amsterdam Island

  On
the exact opposite side of the earth, Priscilla woke up to find the C-5 cockpit filled with choking black smoke. The acrid smell reminded her of burning metal with a whiff of ozone, like lightning had recently gone off.

  “Bell, you okay?”

  The co-pilot seat was canted away from her, obviously crushed into the bank of controls on the far side of the cockpit. Once she got her bearings and saw the destruction, she knew it had been a dumb question.

  The rear of the flight deck ended in a tangle of metal, then open air. She walked back there, holding the wall for support, until she had a clear view of how the plane had come down.

  “How did we make that?” she asked the emptiness around her.

  The portable radio chirped, prompting her to rush up to the front to find it. After a brief search, she found it underneath her chair.

  “This is Major Clairmont.”

  “Are you still in the game?” Oakdale asked with a weak voice.

  “I think so. I’m bruised, yeah, but somehow, I’m walking away from this. However, the rear of the plane is two hundred yards away from me. The wings are gone. It’s a total loss. Where are you, sir?”

  “I’m still in the Stryker, but this thing broke its tether when we rolled. I was the only one who had already strapped in. The rest of these guys are…”

  She cursed whoever decided to take off without the loadmasters.

  “I understand, sir.” Looking at the wreckage across the rocky terrain, she noticed the other Stryker. It had punched through the skin of the plane and split open like a tin can when it struck the earth. “Stryker Two is out of the game. I have eyes on it.”

  “Listen to me,” he said with urgency. “You have to get over here. Our mission can’t stop because we were shot down. If you can make it, I’ll tell you what needs to be done.”

  There were men strapped to the jump seats up and down the sides of the transport. If any of them made it, she was certain Oakdale would round them up and send them out for help. She assumed that was why he wanted her there. Collect everyone together, then send them as one cohesive unit.