Overrun: Project Hideaway

  "I need terminals five, six, twelve, and eighteen!" Korcheck yelled over the additional roar of the pounding water. "Their body temps look good. No time for the gradual! We're just going to have to do it all now! And hope their vital signs remain stable through the procedure."

  Water dumped on him from the pierced hull closest to the command area. He sloshed from terminal to terminal in water already over the platform and up to his knees. Wiping the water away the best he could with the palm of his hands, Korcheck monitored the screens, checking and then re-checking their readings and signs.

  Rone hurried to bring the needed terminals online. Moving to the final one on the platform, her feet dropped to the bottom rung of a small staircase hidden beneath the water surface. Her body pitched forward face first into the rising churn of waves.

  Sprawled across her stomach, her body was instantly engulfed. The room continued to fill with raging water which poured mercilessly down on top of her.

  Rone then felt Korcheck reach over her head past her shoulders and grab hold of the uniform material across her back. He lifted her face gently from the water and hauled her coughing to her feet.

  "Get out," he said into her face. "I can do the rest myself."

  At that moment, Rone again felt a incapacitating fright seize hold of her body. She stood trembling before the quaking cavern which was crumbling and becoming lost within an underground raging sea.

  She stared at Korcheck running feverishly about the command consoles.

  "Go!" This time he screamed.

  Rone’s body did not react or move. Water raged over her head and across her face.

  "Do you want to die here?!" Korcheck yelled at her again while swatting at keyboards and flashing switches across the main console. "For God’s sake, go!"

  Rone turned and ran toward the elevator shaft.

  "Son of a bitch!" she heard him yell again. Slowing her pace but not completely stopping, she looked over her shoulder to see Korcheck scrambling to the terminal furthest from him. He struggled to stand against the strong torrent of water battling to claim his feet.

  A mountain of falling jagged rock ripped open two more tank structures near the center of the room. Both dumped their heavy watery loads directly on top of Korcheck and the command center.

  But Rone was no longer looking. She splashed frantically to the elevator shaft.

  By the time she made it back to the toppled elevator, the water had already risen to her shoulders. The cabin was almost completely covered. She could barely see the empty shaft that led away to the dome above it.

  With shaking hands and sliding feet, she grabbed the top edge of the elevator and hauled herself to the outside top of the fallen cabin. Water now completely covered the elevator and rose around her ankles. She would have to duck beneath its surface to enter the filling elevator shaft.

  The area she left behind her became more and more quiet as it was slowly buried beneath the birth of a new underground ocean. She stood on the wobbling metal of the destroyed elevator in water now up to her knees. Yet she could not find the spirit in her body to make her leave.

  She turned and screamed.

  "Korcheck!!"

  Only the roar of the water bellowed back.

  In the middle of the flooding room, she saw him lose his balance to the beating rush of water that ripped at his ankles and across his knees. With what seemed to be a vicious angry fury, the destroyed towers dumped their contents mercilessly across the platform. The combined force of their might pounded his body hard beneath the water’s surface.

  Rone watched him coughing and gagging stand again from the rising water.

  "Korcheck!!" she screamed stretching her hand towards him across the room. Waves the size of her whole body now lapped hungrily across his shoulders and slapped him across the face.

  The water had now risen high enough that she could no longer see any trace of the entrance to the elevator shaft behind her.

  "Go!" Korcheck screamed back at her. Water poured over his head and into his mouth causing him to continue to sputter and choke.

  Korcheck slipped and stumbled across the platform. His fists and arms slapped at the command consoles disappearing in front of him. He held his arms over his head and pressed his face against a monitor screen in a vain attempt to block the cascading waters and read the information they displayed.

  The area where he stood was at the topmost level of the command area platform. The water was close to devouring even this part of the room.

  Korcheck threw his body into a chair and grabbed at a keyboard. He pounded frantically across their sodden keys. Water ran across and buried his lap. Its surface licked at the last level of command consoles.

  With splashing fingers and a sullen expression, Korcheck still hurriedly worked.

  Rone took a breath, turned, and dove towards the hole into the shaft entrance. She let the rushing water pull her from the cavern into the empty shaft. When the currents falling inside released her, she gave two quick kicks to break into the open air. The flooding water echoed eerily within the metal chamber. Stone and grit rained down around her.

  With the elevator cabin and the entrance to the cavern completely covered by the rising water, she was now entirely alone in the filling shaft. It was almost to her shoulders. She struggled to balance and regain her footing on the top of the toppled elevator cabin.

  A thin metal utility ladder hung on the cavern wall next to her.

  Rone reached out and grabbed the wet slippery metal rungs and pulled her body from the rising flood. Heavy water still churning around her, Rone reached up for another grip and carefully climbed.

  When her feet finally cleared its swirling surface, Rone stopped. She wrapped both of her arms tightly around the ladder rungs and hung there. Any sign of the entrance back into the cavern below had all but disappeared.

  Above her, explosions still sounded from the dying dome. Below her, licking at her heels rose a raging sea.

  Rone clung to the ladder. Water cascaded from her drenched body. Much of her soaked uniform was shredded or completely gone. What remained was ravaged by the water and weighed her heavily down.

  Another weapons blast ripped through the air overhead. She swung her body behind the ladder and pressed her back against the wall to avoid the jagged pieces of rock and metal dropping from far above.

  More explosions thundered overhead, some coming this time from the top of the elevator shaft. Flames reached down into the ground towards her followed by more fiery blasts. The air around her began to heat, and the earth holding her ladder started to sway.

  Clutching its rungs tightly with one hand, Rone tried to wipe away the slick mud that now caked her eyes. A large piece of steel fell in front of her narrowly missing the side of her head.

  Rone held one hand over her eyes against the raining dirt and squinted up the shaft. Pondering only seconds the hopelessness of her escape up through the exploding dome, Rone stepped from the ladder and lowered herself back into the water.

  Steadying herself by holding onto the ladder above her head, Rone felt about with her feet for the edge of the cabin and the hole back into the cavern. The flooding covered her shoulders and was to her neck before she finally found the entryway to the command center.

  Rone sucked in a deep breath and let her body slip below. An avalanche of rocks pummeled the water above her as she went.

  Her body found the opening. Against the water rushing out, she pushed herself back into the command center cavern. With a few quick bursts from her legs, she untangled herself from the current and swam away from the submerged elevator.

  Getting further away, her feet grazed the cavern floor. With both hands stretched out and up to pull herself to the surface, she tried to stand. With her body stretched to its full height, her head was still beneath the water. Surprised and almost out of breath, she gave a couple of sharp kicks to propel herself upward away from the command center floor now buried beneath the churning contents of the shat
tered glass towers.

  When her head was finally above water, her mouth and lungs gulped hungrily for air. When she could finally breathe again, she looked around in horror at the flooded room.

  The top casings of the command consoles poked above the water like rectangle islands in the ocean of the vast cavern. And then she saw Korcheck, waist-deep but standing on the submerged platform. He clutched a computer monitor and two keyboards in his arms. His eyes were focused and his expression calm as he tried valiantly to bring the equipment online. Equipment that would breathe life into the pilots and ultimately return the Hideaway and the Beam Cannon Hardware back to Earth.

  Reaching for every ounce of energy left in her weary body, Rone battled the currents and pushed her way to the platform. When she reached its deck, she pulled herself out of the water next to him and grabbed the computer monitor from his grasp. While she struggled to keep her balance against the push of water at her feet, she held it for him in front of her chest.

  Korcheck looked at her briefly and nodded slightly. A look of resignation and faint sadness had settled behind his eyes. He threw one of the keyboards over his shoulder and balanced the second on his knee.

  The water continued to rise. Standing ankle-deep on the topmost platform, their bodies were the only things left uncovered by the rising flood.

  Water rushed at them from all sides. Rone coughed harshly at what dumped into her eyes and rammed at her throat.

  "Just a little longer," Korcheck said evenly. He looked down and away from Rone and pounded at the keyboard on his knee. She shifted the monitor higher up her body away from the steadily climbing water.

  "Engage!" he yelled smashing at the board. "Sequence engage! Goddamn it!"

  The water was now at her chest.

  The ceiling appeared to drop down and move closer. The room itself appeared to be shrinking beneath the encompassing flood.

  Korcheck tossed the first keyboard into the churning water swirls and held the other in his left hand. With his right, he plucked at it desperately with a single pointed finger.

  Rone stretched her arms and hoisted the monitor further up, this time almost to her face.

  "That's it," Korcheck said finally allowing the water to take his keyboard.

  Rone let go of the computer monitor. She felt it sink next to her body and brush by her feet. No longer able to keep her footing, she allowed the currents to carry her upward away from the platform.

  Korcheck did the same next to her.

  With everything now completely buried by the rushing water, the room was almost silent. It completely covered the shattered towers and no longer pounded from above. Its invisible force pushed slightly at their sides and continued to carry them upward.

  Passively, Rone and Korcheck allowed their bodies to rise with its surge.

  Within minutes, they floated to the rock ceiling as the cavern continued to fill. The darkness of the carved-out earth pressed down towards them and the coming water swell. Rone and Korcheck stretched their hands protectively out to keep their skulls from bashing against the hard rock.

  Finally they reached the top of the room. The command center was now one with the sea.

  Calmly, Rone coughed away the water that had entered her lungs and waited while it released from her nose and mouth. She watched Korcheck treading next to her do the same.

  Another push from the currents underneath brought their bodies closer together and brushed their heads against the ceiling.

  Rone reached over him to grab hold of the rock and locked her gaze across his eyes. They were passive and at ease. She tried to lose herself within them and share their peace.

  Gently, the water continued to rise around them.

  Korcheck put his arm around her waist and pulled her after him into a small hole that reached away from the water further into the ceiling. The small space, which was all that remained of the room, pressed their bodies together at their foreheads.

  Their cheeks touched as the water took them into the small space in the rock and wedged their skulls more tightly together. Rone felt Korcheck’s faint breathing echo quietly in her ear.

  She reached out to his chest and unbuttoned a section of his shirt. Softly, she placed her hand against his skin. Korcheck covered her hand with his.

  The room had disappeared around them. Everything now was ominously quiet, overcome and completely consumed by the underground sea.

  The water lifted them again to where there was only room for one of their heads in the small opening.

  His forehead against hers, Korcheck slid down her body. His face brushed past her open mouth. The smell of his wet hair entered her nostrils and touched at her lips. The top of his head dipped beneath the water's surface.

  She felt him at her chest next to her body. His body kicked when his breath let out, and water finally entered his lungs.

  The water continued to push her higher.

  Her face touched the top of the underground cavern. Korcheck still clutched her hand tightly across his chest as death came for him first.

  Rone held him tightly to her until his body finally became still.

  And then the ceiling was upon her.

  The rock pressed against her lips, her cheeks, and her eyes. The water rose around her.

  Still holding Korcheck's body, she let the water take her face. The command room was now completely full.

  She closed her eyes and allowed her body to sink. Her mind felt nothing when it ultimately buried her, embracing her in its swell.

  Her last sense was of warmth. A quiet dry peace.

  She no longer held Korcheck's hand within her own.

  Chapter 5

  U.S. Ship Hideaway

  Ten minutes past pilot reanimation process and ship reactivation

  "Initiate the start up," Captain Jed Parker said tiredly to the man scowling in the cramped cockpit seat to his right. His words were the first spoken since they both stepped shivering from the hibernation tubes and wandered to the front of the ship.

  Parker had always thought the cockpit was too small especially considering the overall size of the vessel. It became exponentially smaller still when he had to endure the incessant grumblings that were sure to come from the man next to him. The nonstop griping from his copilot each and every time they went through the awakening process often made Parker want to return to the cold wetness and cramped claustrophobic quietude offered by his hibernation tube.

  Parker blinked his eyes furiously trying to get rid of the grime that caked across them during hypersleep.

  Their ship, the U.S. Hideaway, hovered silently in the darkness. Lost amidst the giant shadow of the moon.

  Parker hated putting himself down for the extended suspended animation durations required by the mission especially considering the load they were carrying.

  The Hideaway floated in absolute darkness behind the moon which separated it from Earth. It was surrounded by an electronic shield bubble that absorbed all forms of radar and detection pulses. It moved with the moon’s rotation to maintain its concealed position. It was so completely hidden that even if an exploratory satellite or craft were to approach, it was usually off course or headed for deep space.

  None of this did anything to lessen his fear.

  It was a stark mind-numbing terror he experienced every time he began the process. Fear they would be discovered. And fear that what he was experiencing was actually his life’s end, one he was bringing on voluntarily.

  His own death wasn’t what frightened him. But this was not how he wanted to go about it. Not like this. In a frozen tube in the dark. This fright tormented him like an angry monster throughout the freezing process. While he waited for his mind to shut down or possibly die. If he was going to die, especially if by his own hands, he at least wanted everything around him brightly lit.

  And when it was over and the awakening procedure commenced, despite its enormous unpleasantries, he felt exhilaration. He was ecstatic that once again he was able to
step out of the tube alive.

  He loathed and feared everything associated with the experience of suspended animation. However despite this abhorrence, he didn’t fail to see its importance. Considering extended durations of their missions, especially this one in particular, hibernation was necessary.

  For the amounts of time they were left up there completely alone, existing with only themselves within the vast dark emptiness of space, it helped keep away the madness.

  Furthermore, since the scientific medical community finally perfected the cell reanimation process, the use of hibernation was a means to preserve the youth, strength, and vitality of their highest skilled mission crews. It allowed for greater amounts of experience to be brought into larger amounts of missions, carried on the backs of veteran ship personnel in the primes of their bodies and minds.

  And most importantly for the mission they were now on, it was the best way to avoid discovery. A ship with its systems dark appeared to be nothing more than a floating rock. It offered the lowest possible risk for ship-to-ship or planetary detection.

  Parker rubbed harder at the dark grime across his eyes and tried to ignore for the most part his copilot muttering next to him. He was always usually more than Parker felt like tolerating when he first came out of the sleep.

  But Parker did need him to help bring the ship back up. So as he did ever time, he said little while performing his own systems scans. He just stared out into the darkest portions of the cosmos and waited. He waited for the ship to come online. And just waited for his copilot to stop.

  While the consoles hummed and clicked in front of him, the small light coming from the Hideaway cockpit as always did little to disturb the deep blackness of space outside the ship.

  "Do you want to know what I’m thinking?" Major Jeff Barnes finally broke the silence while running his hands through his hair. Blood and mucus dripped from his nose. He paused briefly as his body violently expelled another volley of hibernation fluid out of his mouth into the widened end of what was commonly referred to as the pilot’s “puke tube".