Ben looked just as confused. “But you’re supposed to be dead.”
“There’s no time to explain!” Mike ran toward a nearby stairwell and waved for them to follow.
“Let’s go!” Commander Schaeffer pushed them onward. “We’ve got to find my crew!”
The group quickly made their way down the stairwell. By the time they reached the main entry room to the facility, Commander Schaeffer had given the kids a brief rundown of how his space mission had been hijacked.
“We’ve already been through most of this building,” Winnie said. “We didn’t see any sign of your crew.”
“Then they must’ve been moved to another part of the base.” Commander Schaeffer pointed to a door across the room. Sunlight leaked in from beneath its base. “This way!”
With Commander Schaeffer in the lead, the group moved quickly, snaking their way around the various obstacles that littered the room.
“As long they don’t know that we’ve escaped, we’ve got the element of surprise on our side. Maybe we can check some of the nearby buildings,” Commander Schaeffer said. He’d almost made it to the door when he tripped over a box and stumbled forward into the wall. His bandaged shoulder hit first, and he cried out in pain.
Ben rushed to his side. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Commander Schaeffer winced. “My arm got a little banged up earlier, but it’ll be okay. Do you mind opening the door for me?”
Ben cracked the door and carefully looked out. “I can see a hangar right next door. And the coast looks clear!”
Munson and two of his men ran into the upstairs hallway and saw that the door to the conference room was wide open. They could hear a steady thumping coming from the nearby storage closet.
“Get him out of there,” Munson growled.
As his men began working on the door, Munson grabbed his two-way radio. “Code Red! Repeat: Code Red! I want this whole base locked up tighter than a drum!”
Commander Schaeffer and the kids ran out of the building and sprinted across the open yard to the neighboring hangar. Ben, the last to cross, was just entering when an alarm siren started blaring.
“So much for the element of surprise,” Commander Schaeffer said dryly as he took in their surroundings.
Other than the military tank that Mike had spotted earlier, the hangar was empty.
“What next, Commander?” Spence asked.
“I’ll have to find my crew later,” Commander Schaeffer replied. “First, we need to find a way to get you kids out of here so you can bring back some help.”
“But how?” Mike asked. “It’s probably crawling with Munson’s men out there!”
“Well, I might have an idea.” Commander Schaeffer pointed to his arm in the sling. “But since this arm is useless, I’m going to have to rely on you guys.”
Munson’s men, now heavily armed, fanned out quickly across the outside yard. A couple took positions in a tall, three-story watchtower. Two more sat in a nearby jeep—ready to run down anyone who tried to escape.
Munson walked to the middle of the yard and raised a megaphone to his mouth.
“Commander Schaeffer! I’ve hidden your crew where you will never find them! I’d hate to have to drag them out here—one by one—and make them pay for your stubbornness. You would be wise to surrender immediately!” Munson lowered the megaphone and waited.
There was no response.
“If you’re thinking of making a break, let me point out a few things you may not have considered,” Munson continued. “This base is surrounded on all sides by a quarter mile of open desert. Let me assure you that my snipers are very skilled. You wouldn’t make it ten yards before they had you in their sights. It’s over, Commander!” Munson lowered his megaphone, once more, and waited for a response.
Again, all was quiet but the whistle of the arid desert wind.
“Commander, this is your last warning!” Munson’s voice was showing his impatience. “Give up, now! There is absolutely no way to escape!”
Munson never heard the sound of the engine, so he was completely caught off guard when the wall of the nearby hangar exploded outward violently. The M-1 Abrams tank surged forward with a roar, its twin diesel engines belching clouds of dense black smoke.
Munson dropped his megaphone and dove for cover.
The seventy-three-ton mechanical monster plowed through everything in its path. A cement retaining wall didn’t even slow it down. Bricks shattered and bounced out of the way. Those that didn’t were ground to fine dust under the tank’s heavy metal treads. An abandoned old tow truck was flattened into a six-inch pile of scrap metal in mere seconds.
“Stop them!” Munson yelled to the snipers in the guard tower.
The snipers opened fire on the tank, but the bullets harmlessly ricocheted off the tank’s steel plates. The Abrams accelerated straight for the watchtower. It tore through one of the metal legs in the base. The supports groaned loudly as the tower tilted forward. The guards inside jumped free as it finally crashed to the ground.
“Yeah!” Mike yelled from the driver’s seat of the tank.
“Way to go, Mike!” Ben hollered down from the turret.
“Winnie! Spence!” Commander Schaeffer shouted. “How’s this beast doing?”
“We’ve got plenty of fuel!” Winnie yelled from her position in front of the tank’s gauges.
“All systems are looking good!” Spence added from his position beside her.
“Easy, Mike,” instructed Commander Schaeffer from the captain’s seat. “Pull that left lever to bring her into second, and push the right pedal with your foot to bring her about.”
Driving a tank requires the use of both arms and legs. Since Commander Schaeffer had an injured arm, the duty of driving fell to Mike. He could only see out a small narrow window directly in front of him.
Commander Schaeffer and Ben could see a little better because their positions in the tank were outfitted with periscopes. Winnie and Spence bounced around on the floor of the tank, blind to what was going on outside.
“I can see the main gate!” Ben shouted. “It’s dead ahead!”
“Straighten her up and give it some gas!” Commander Schaeffer hollered. “Now, Mike. Now!”
“Hang on!” Mike yelled.
The Abrams crashed through the main gate like it was made of cardboard and headed out across the open desert.
Chapter 17
POP’S OLD BLUE SUBURBAN bounced down a dirt road, kicking up a trail of dust in its wake. Each of Pop’s passengers had a different reason for hitching a ride with him that afternoon. Sheriff Smitty wanted to pick up the patrol truck that he’d abandoned the night before. Doc Benson wanted to test the area for toxic particles. Lyle and Skye Wilson just wanted a ride home.
“I think we’re getting close.” Smitty pointed ahead and tried to shield his aching eyes from the harsh rays of the sun. His head still hurt from whatever chemical he had come into contact with the night before. “My truck should be just up ahead.”
“Pop, do you mind if I lower the window?” Doc Benson asked from the backseat.
“Not at all.”
Doc Benson lowered the window and stuck a strange-looking handheld device out the window. It had a small, funnel-shaped chrome piece on the top and a black-and-white LED readout on its face.
“Doc, what did you say that thing did again?” Smitty asked.
“It measures trace particles found in the air,” Doc explained. “I have a theory—based on your bloodwork—that all three of you were exposed to an airborne substance last night. If my hypothesis is correct, it would explain why you experienced such vivid hallucinations.”
“Hallucinations?” Smitty shook his head and pointed to the Wilsons. “You may be right about these two, but what happened to me last night was absolutely real!”
Skye reached forward and patted Smitty on his shoulder. “You should listen to the doc, Sheriff. He’s just trying to help.”
“Yeah,�
� Lyle agreed. “Besides, the sooner we can clear up what caused you to trip out, the sooner we can get to the real problem: stopping the octo-aliens.”
“Aliens?” Smitty said mockingly. “Ha!”
“Invading enemy soldiers?” Lyle shot back. “Ha!”
Smitty pointed to the road ahead. “Yeah? Well, just wait until you see all the damage they did to my truck. Then we’ll see who’s laughing.”
Mike had the throttle wide open, but in the deep sand, the heavy tank was only able to reach a top speed of thirty miles per hour. A pursuing jeep quickly caught up and began pacing the tank from behind. At the wheel, Munson maneuvered the jeep as close to the back of the tank as he dared. Beside him, one of his men took aim at the tank with a pistol.
“Don’t waste your time, Lars.” Munson pushed the gun aside.
“Yeah, well, how do you propose we stop them?”
Munson pointed to a long wooden box in the back of the jeep. “I think you’ll find that’s the perfect tool for the job.”
Lars found a rocket-propelled grenade launcher inside the box—a military weapon that was first developed in the 1950s to stop a tank in its tracks.
Lars raised the RPG, more commonly known as a bazooka, to his shoulder and sighted in on his target. The uneven off-road conditions made it difficult to keep the tank in his sights, but Lars took his time and slowly squeezed the trigger.
With a flash of flame, the rocket shot forward and would have made contact, had the tank not dropped into a shallow gully at that exact moment. The missile grazed the top of the tank and then continued on—finally hitting and detonating in a distant sand dune.
“What was that?” Mike asked. He struggled to keep control of the tank as sand and debris rained down from the sky.
Commander Schaeffer peered into his periscope. “I can’t see what’s behind us. But my guess is someone’s back there with an RPG. Ben, turn the turret around and have a look.”
“Turn the turret,” Ben mumbled to himself as he stared down at a panel of unfamiliar switches, knobs, and lights. “Um . . .”
“Hurry, Ben!” Winnie called up from the floor. “Someone back there is shooting at us!”
Ben shrugged and flicked a random switch, causing an alarm to blare loudly. “Nope. No good. That’s not it. Let’s see . . .”
Sheriff Smitty stepped out of the Suburban, with a look of utter disbelief on his face. His patrol truck was parked off to the side of the road, exactly as he’d left it. The driver’s door was still open. The topographic map was still neatly laid out across the front bench seat. And other than being covered with a thin layer of dust, the truck looked exactly as it had when Smitty had driven it out to desert on his way to the Wilsons’ trailer.
“I can’t believe it.” Smitty stared at the truck, his mind slowly processing what his eyes were telling him. “The windshield was completely destroyed. I mean, this whole truck was a mess.”
Pop walked up and placed an understanding hand on Smitty’s shoulder. “Doc thinks the fog you and the Wilsons saw is responsible for what you experienced.”
“So, the soldiers, the explosions and gunfire . . . all of it was—”
“Just in your imagination.”
“But it seemed so—”
“No matter how real it seemed, you weren’t in a war zone, Smitty,” Pop said. “The sooner you accept that the better.”
“I suppose you’re right.” A slow, embarrassed smile grew across Smitty’s face. “It’s kind of humiliating. But at least my new truck’s not all shot up.”
“Can we get going now?” Lyle called from the Suburban. “I want to take some plaster casts of the alien footprints before they’re gone.”
Smitty and Pop were just turning to leave when the roar of approaching engines abruptly caught their attention.
Peering into the distance, they could see an Abrams tank cresting a dune. A moment later, a military jeep followed. Both appeared to be in quite a hurry and headed in their direction. Without warning, a rocket was fired from the jeep. It missed its intended target and exploded in a nearby hillside.
Pop crouched defensively and ran to take shelter by the Suburban. “Smitty! C’mon!”
Smitty calmly stood in the open, still smiling. “Okay! So even though that seems real, there is no tank. No jeep shooting at it. It’s all my imagination. Right?”
Ben pushed yet another button on the control panel and waited to see what would happen. Although the turret didn’t rotate, several lights did begin to flash. “Well, that’s something.”
“Ben!” Spence yelled. “We need to know what’s going on back there!”
“I’m trying!” Ben mashed his hand against a bunch of buttons simultaneously, and unexpectedly, the turret started to rotate for a moment. “I found it!”
“Good! Keep going! See what’s back there,” Spence encouraged.
Ben looked at the panel with a puzzled expression. “Now, which one did I push?”
A red blinking button caught his eye. “Oh! That’s gotta be it!”
The tank was thirty yards parallel to Pop’s Suburban when Ben accidentally pushed the “Fire” button. A split second later, the tank’s cannon erupted with an explosion so loud that it shook the ground and raised dust in all directions. The concussive blast wave knocked Smitty’s cowboy hat off his head and blew it across the road. The warhead hit directly under Smitty’s truck and launched it straight up in the air—cartwheeling end over end.
“Far out!” Lyle yelled as the truck crashed back down to earth.
Smitty shook his head and chuckled while he pointed at the burning heap. “It all just looks and sounds so realistic!”
Because of the limited visibility from the driver’s seat of the tank, Mike never saw Pop’s Suburban or Smitty’s truck. He passed right by with only one thing on his mind—getting everyone to safety.
Meanwhile, with Commander Schaeffer’s help, Ben had finally figured out the controls to the turret. He now had it properly rotated into a position to see what was behind them.
“There’s only a jeep back there. Two guys are in it,” Ben reported, staring through his eyepiece. “Whoa! Not good! Not good! One of them has got a bazooka or something—and he’s reloading!”
Chuck Munson was beginning to worry. If the tank couldn’t be stopped, then his entire operation was at risk. “How many rockets have you got left?” Munson asked Lars.
Lars settled the launcher on his shoulder and took aim. “This is the last one.”
“Then take your time. And aim lower. Your last two shots were too high.”
Lars took a deep breath and waited for the jeep to hit a smooth stretch of sand before he fired. This time his aim was true. The warhead rocketed in a perfectly straight line and hit the tank squarely in the back panel. The ventilation grates disintegrated in a blinding flash and shrapnel tore into the engine compartment.
“We’re hit!” screamed Ben.
“She’s losing power!” Mike called from the driver’s seat.
Spence studied the gauges on an instrument panel. “Oil pressure’s dropping in both engines!”
Loud banging noises from the engine compartment grew louder by the moment, while the interior of the tank began to fill with smoke.
“What do we do now?” Winnie asked.
Commander Schaeffer reached into the pocket of his space suit. “Do any of you kids play baseball?”
“I play softball,” Winnie offered. “But what does that have to do with—”
“What position?”
“Pitcher.”
“Perfect!” Commander Schaeffer handed her his last vial of the compound. “I’ve got a job for you!”
Munson pulled his jeep alongside the slowing tank and handed Lars a pistol. “Prepare to board!”
Lars crouched with one foot on the seat and the other on the doorsill. He was about to make the leap across to the tank when the top hatch of the tank suddenly sprang open and Winnie popped up into view.
&
nbsp; “Got something for you!” she yelled.
Winnie threw the vial as hard as she could onto the hood of the jeep.
The glass container shattered into pieces, creating a smoke-like cloud and coating the front of the jeep in a thick green powder. No longer able to see through the windshield, Munson veered the jeep away from the tank and pulled to a stop.
Lars immediately began wiping the windshield with a rag, but the dust just smeared, making the visibility worse.
“Forget about that!” Munson yelled in frustration.
“But they’re getting away.” Lars pointed to where the wounded tank was just disappearing over a hill.
“They’re not going anywhere!” Munson smashed out the front windshield with a tire iron. “All we gotta do is follow their smoke trail.” Munson slammed the stick shift into gear and took off toward the tank.
It wasn’t hard to track the wounded tank. It had left deep tread marks in the sand. And they could see a huge column of black smoke just ahead.
“There they are!” Lars shouted.
As they drove closer, the plume of smoke grew bigger and bigger. Soon smoke was blotting out most of the horizon.
Almost too much smoke, thought Munson. And where there’s smoke, there’s always fire!
As the jeep crested the top of a sand dune, the thick haze grew so dense that Munson could no longer see what lay ahead. When the jeep finally broke through the smoke, his eyes went wide with fear.
A huge wall of orange flames roared before him.
Munson instinctively hit the brakes, but the vehicle was going too fast to stop in time. Munson screamed in terror as the blazing inferno swallowed the jeep whole.
Lars was startled by the scream and turned to see Munson wildly waving his arms around for no apparent reason. “What’s wrong?”
“Fire!” Munson screamed. “No! Not again!”
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