Sokol ran up to them and said, “Who triggered the alarm?”
“The bogus orders must have bounced back,” Pike said calmly. She then turned to Liger. “Arm it. Six o’clock.”
“Throw them out of here,” Sokol yelled to his men.
Two of his commandos carried the unconscious soldiers to the door and tossed them out of the dome.
Sokol looked up at the hovering bomb with awe. “You actually did it,” he said with a mixture of wonder and joy. “To be honest, my confidence wasn’t high.”
“To be honest,” Pike said. “I didn’t think we’d even get it out of the depot.”
“Now it’s our turn.”
“Yeah, you and those kids,” Pike replied.
Pike and Sokol shook hands, then Sokol took a step back toward the Bridge.
“Let’s move!” he bellowed.
The other nine commandos gathered around him in front of the Bridge. Sokol took one last look back at the future, snapped a sharp salute to Colonel Pike, then turned and faced the white light.
“Be cool,” Sokol said to his men. “The people on the other side have no idea what’s happening here. Are we good?”
Each of the commandos gave a quick thumbs-up.
“All right then, let’s do it.”
They all stepped through the glowing frame and were gone.
The last sounds they heard of 2324 were the first sounds of a new battle.
Outside the dome in 2324, growing numbers of soldiers arrived and began moving toward the giant doors.
The Sounders had created a formidable defense. They fired their pulsers from behind the armored vehicles, spraying their attackers and forcing them back. The advancing soldiers had no plan of attack. They hadn’t trained to stage an assault on their own base and didn’t have the personnel or firepower to punch through the Sounder defense . . . which is exactly what Colonel Pike was counting on.
“How much longer?” Pike asked Liger as she watched him working furiously to program the bomb.
“This wasn’t designed to be easy,” he said. “There are safeguards.”
“How much longer?” she asked again, calmly.
“Five minutes. Six if you keep talking to me.”
Airman Lewis ran up to Pike and said, “If I’m not needed here, I’ll go help outside.”
“Thank you,” Pike said, sincerely. “I hope you understand how many lives you helped save today.”
“It was an honor, ma’am,” Lewis said.
He saluted the Colonel, then raised his own pulser and charged out to join the fight.
The Sounders were holding the Air Force back, though they knew it wouldn’t last. They fully expected the Air Force to bring in heavy artillery and that would be the end of it. Their mission wasn’t to keep them away forever, just until the bomb was detonated.
The Air Force realized the attack was going nowhere and stopped firing. They were taking too many casualties for no gain. Within minutes the battle went from full-on raucous mayhem to eerie quiet.
There was no celebration on the Sounder side. They knew it was only a matter of time before the big guns were brought in. The question was, would the artillery show up before six o’clock?
“Done,” Liger said. “Detonation in thirty-five minutes.”
He pointed to a countdown clock that was already moving.
Olivia stepped up and asked, “Can it be stopped?”
“Only by someone with the codes.”
The three of them stood there, their mission as good as complete.
“Then you should both go outside and join the others,” Pike said. “Thank you. Both of you. I promise the sacrifice you made will one day be understood and celebrated.”
“What about you?” Olivia asked.
“Someone has to stay behind and seal the door,” Pike said. “Without that door closed, the circumstances of the detonation won’t be duplicated.”
“Then you can go through the Bridge,” Olivia said.
“Not if I want to make sure this bad boy detonates,” Pike replied.
“But . . .” Olivia said. She didn’t have to finish the thought.
“I know,” Pike said. “But after what I did, do you think the Air Force would let me live? In either era? I’d rather go out in a flash of glory than be executed in the past, or spend the rest of my life in a cell. Please go. This is my decision and I’m okay with it.”
The three walked slowly toward the open door. Beyond the door frame they saw the Sounders hiding behind the armored vehicles, ready for the next attack.
There were no soldiers charging at them. No push to get through to the dome. No counteroffensive. The only thing they could see was the first in the line of giant attack planes that was waiting for its turn to float into the past.
It hovered in place, its engine giving off the familiar musical sound.
It was a sound they hadn’t heard from these planes until that moment.
“Oh my God,” Olivia said with sudden realization.
The plane slowly spun to face forward. To face the open door.
“No!” Olivia screamed and ran for cover.
The plane fired its energy cannon at the armored vehicles that stood between it and the open door. Sounders scattered as the heavy vehicles exploded in front of them.
The Air Force had heavy artillery in place after all.
Liger ran for the door and dove outside.
Olivia jumped to the side, away from the open door.
The plane drifted closer and fired its cannon again. Another vehicle erupted and sharp pieces of molten shrapnel flew into the dome.
Colonel Pike didn’t react fast enough. She was hit by the wave of debris and fell where she stood.
“Colonel!” Olivia screamed.
Pike didn’t respond.
Olivia struggled to her feet and ran for the door, ready to jump outside and enter the fight.
The door.
The open door.
Olivia skidded to a stop. She knew that with the power of the attack planes, the Sounder defense couldn’t hold much longer. With more than thirty minutes left before detonation there was plenty of time for someone with the right codes to simply stroll in and deactivate the bomb.
Unless she did something about it.
She looked about frantically until she saw what she needed. The dome’s control panel was just inside the door frame. Olivia sprinted for it, scanned the rows of switches quickly, then slammed the Door Seal button.
A loud, jarring horn blared. Red lights flashed on either side of the door frame as the two massive sides of the door began to slide shut.
The black plane floated closer. There were no longer armored vehicles standing in its way.
Olivia pressed her back against the inside wall of the dome and prayed.
She heard the sharp sound of air being released and saw the light on the floor begin to shrink as the two doors closed toward each other. They were moving quickly, but was it quick enough?
Desperate shouts came from outside. Olivia couldn’t understand what they were saying but she knew it meant the Air Force personnel were rushing for the door.
She stared at the line of disappearing light on the floor, willing it to shrink faster.
The sound of pulser fire echoed through the dome. The last of the Sounders were fighting again, desperately trying to keep the Air Force from getting to the dome before it was sealed.
Only a sliver of light remained on the floor. With a final metallic thud, the two doors met and slammed shut.
The blaring horn ceased. The red lights stopped flashing.
The dome in 2324 was sealed.
It was thirty minutes until the boom.
TWENTY-THREE
Kenny Sokol and his team of commandos strolled casuall
y out of the Bridge into the twenty-first century. None gave any warning as to the mayhem they intended to bring to the camp.
A few Retro soldiers were in the mostly empty dome, performing guard duty they felt was a waste of time. When they saw the team of badass soldiers appear out of the light from the Bridge, they straightened up. Not to defend themselves, but to give the appearance that they too deserved to wear the uniform.
“You’re early,” one of the guards said.
“You’re done,” Sokol shot back.
He raised his pulser and knocked the guard off of his feet. The second guard wasn’t standing for much longer. A commando took him out. Without a word, two of the commandos dragged the bodies to the side of the open door, out of sight from the outside.
“Thompson, Shaw, and Goodlad with me,” Sokol ordered. “The rest of you stay here. Keep the doors open until 17:55. If it starts getting hairy before then, use your judgment and lock it down early. Understood?”
There were quiet nods of acknowledgment all around.
“Help may be on the way, but don’t count on it,” Sokol said. “Good luck.”
There were no other pleasantries. They were professionals. They had a job to do. There was no room for emotion. Sokol and the three Sounders strolled to the mouth of the dome and stopped there.
“You two okay?” Sokol asked Goodlad and Thompson.
They nodded but their eyes were wide with anxiety. These two were not trained commandos. They were pilots. If the Sounders were to take control of the black drones, they needed experienced pilots who knew how the systems worked.
“Try to stay calm,” Sokol said. “This isn’t about us, it’s about you. Stay out of harm’s way. We’ll get you inside.”
The two pilots nodded in unison.
They were terrified.
“Here we go,” Sokol said and led the group out of the dome.
Again, they did their best to appear as if nothing out of the ordinary was about to occur. Surprise was their most powerful weapon.
They walked casually but quickly to the aboveground bunker that served as the command-and-control center for the drone fleet. None of them had seen it for themselves, but they had studied the diagrams. Besides the dome, it was the only building in the camp that was built to withstand an attack.
It was also the only building that was guarded.
Outside of the bunker stood two armed guards who looked every bit as dangerous as Sokol’s commandos. These were not low-level administrators. They were charged with guarding the most valuable asset the twenty-first-century Air Force had. The drones. The eradication of an entire world’s population was being carried out from this bunker.
It didn’t matter how casually Sokol and his men approached; the guards went on instant alert.
“Halt right there!” one guard called.
Sokol answered by raising his pulser and firing.
The camp was now on alert. They were under attack.
The shot missed the guard and he fired back, dropping Shaw. The guards went flat on their bellies to make difficult targets, but it did little good. Sokol and the pilots unloaded on them. One guard was knocked out instantly. The second guard, realizing how futile his position was, threw himself back toward the bunker and hit a control switch. The move released a steel door that closed over the regular wooden door, sealing the bunker. A second later the guard was hit by a pulser shot and slammed back against the wall. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.
Sokol didn’t break stride. He reached into the cargo pocket in his pants and pulled out a black disk. He slapped the disk onto the door, then spun away to take cover.
With a quick but powerful explosion, the door blew down.
“You’re on,” Sokol said to the pilots.
The Sounders were in.
I lay in the dirt next to Tori, sweating like I was in a sauna. Between strained nerves and the heat, I thought I might pass out. I kept looking to Granger, waiting for some sign that we were going to do something other than lie there and bake.
The guy hadn’t budged in forever. His eyes were glued to his binoculars, his attention riveted on the horizon and the Retro camp that was just beyond.
I looked at my watch for the millionth time.
5:25.
To say we were running out of time was an understatement.
We were surrounded by hundreds of SYLO fighters. None moved. None said a word. It was like they had become part of the terrain. The vehicles sat behind us, silently. After the incredible flurry of activity that rallied us for the attack and dropped us here in the desert, we had come to a complete standstill.
All eyes were trained on the horizon.
All ears tuned for the go-word.
I leaned over to get a look at the communicator that Tori was clutching. The screen was blank. She gave me a nervous shrug.
The only sound was the desert wind blowing across the dry, flat terrain . . .
. . . and the faint musical notes that foreshadowed the arrival of the black drones.
They first appeared in the sky far in the distance, rising up from the Retro camp. It was followed shortly after by another. Two drones were in the sky.
“Damn!” Granger spat.
He picked up the walkie-talkie and said, “Hold your positions.”
The black drones stopped rising, turned, and looked to be moving our way.
“They know we’re here,” Granger said to nobody, but I was sure it was directed at us.
Tori grabbed my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” was all I could say.
We both looked at her communicator, willing it to show us the news we were so desperate to see.
It didn’t.
It looked as though our battle was over before it could begin.
“Look sharp,” Granger spat into the walkie. “When they start shooting, scatter. Do not enter a vehicle. It’ll be tougher for them to target individuals.”
The two drones had gotten close enough that I could make out their stingray shape. They both dropped down low to begin their attack run.
“It can’t end like this,” Granger said, more to himself than anyone else.
The drones were nearly on us. I tensed up, ready for the first blast.
“Stand by to scramble,” Granger ordered.
The drones were so low they were nearly on the ground. They knew exactly where we were. The sound of their musical engines was a familiar and frightening prelude.
I put my arm around Tori.
Kent pushed himself closer to her from the other side.
The drones arrived . . . and flew right over us without firing a single shot.
“What!” Kent exclaimed.
We turned and looked back to see the two dark drones continue past us.
“What’n hell?” Granger said.
Tori’s communicator beeped.
Granger snapped a look to her.
We all did.
Her eyes went wide as she stared down at the device. She took a second to register the message.
“Well?” Granger said.
“Just one sentence,” Tori said, her voice quivering.
“What is it?” Kent asked, impatiently.
Tori took a deep breath and said clearly and precisely, “We own the sky.”
Behind us, the drones began to make wide arcs in opposite directions.
“I just got the same thing,” Kent said, staring at his communicator, wide-eyed. “They’re in.”
“And we’re on,” Granger exlaimed. He lifted his walkie-talkie, keyed the mic, and shouted, “This is it! Fire it up! Strike! Strike! Strike!”
There was an instantaneous explosion of activity. The SYLO soldiers jumped to their feet. The vehicles roared to life. The stillness of only a few seconds before was shatt
ered by the sounds of an invading army on the move.
Tori, Kent, and I stayed still, too stunned to react.
“Is that really it?” Tori asked, nervously. “Do we trust that one message?”
I looked around at the blur of activity.
“Too late now,” I said. “It’s on.”
The three of us were still flat on our bellies when Granger strode back and stood in front of us.
“You all coming or do you prefer to stay here?” he snarled.
The three of us jumped to our feet and ran for the vehicle that was right behind us. It was an open troop carrier that offered little to no protection. It might have withstood driving over a landmine, but if we were attacked from the air, we were dead. At least twenty soldiers were already packed inside with their rifles between their knees.
We started for the back but Granger barked, “In the cab. I want to know if any more messages come through.”
We all piled into the enclosed cab. It was tight but that was the least of our worries.
Granger barked into his walkie-talkie, “Move, with all possible speed.”
The driver hit the gas and we charged forward. Once again we were moving over the flat, dry desert at breakneck speed. The truck wasn’t built for comfort. We bounced over the rugged surface, banging our heads into the ceiling.
“There it is,” Kent declared.
The peak of the dome appeared on the horizon.
Granger stayed focused ahead—not on the dome, on the sky.
On either side of us were dozens of transport trucks speeding together toward the camp. Their mission was to get there, fight their way through the Retro army, and secure the dome.
Mine was to find my mother and get her out safely. It meant I had to get my head together and figure out a plan to do it. I hadn’t thought much about it until then because I didn’t believe we’d get that far. But there we were, only a few miles away and closing fast.
The drones flew over us again. They had made a full arc and were headed back toward the Retro camp. Both dropped down low, speeding across the desert floor, headed in the same direction we were.
“What are they doing?” Kent asked.
Strike Page 29