Overrun: Project Hideaway

by Michael Rusch

  Using both arms to pull himself along a wall to the left side of the room, he made his way to the main system terminal. Floating with his chest to the floor and his arms stretched out, he settled in front of the three main monitor screens and began to tap at its keyboard.

  He scrolled quickly through the main ship log and the scheduled system checks during the time they had been down. It took less than two minutes to confirm what he already knew to be true.

  Not looking forward to returning and discussing his findings with Barnes, Parker took his time at the rear of the ship. He activated several additional ship systems from the mainframe rather than in the cramped confines of the cockpit. The ship hummed even more to life around him. Bright light stabbed out into the dark corridors, and the steady hum of the gravity generators pulsed faintly all around.

  He held onto the side of a console and waited for the air to release him and gently lower him down to the ground. Parker walked to the center of the room and allowing his limbs to adjust again to the weight of his body.

  When he was finally ready to experience what ultimately lay in store, he left the systems room and made his way back through the tunnels to the front of the ship.

  As he neared the cockpit entranceway, he could see Barnes sitting quietly still strapped into his command seat. He stared straight ahead through the main window into the blackness of space.

  But Parker knew that right now, even though his body didn’t reflect it, there was far more than he could ever dream now occurring at a rapid-fire rate behind his copilot’s eyes. His mind was now like a bomb arming itself and readying to explode.

  Parker moved to the doorway and prepared himself to deliver the news that would most likely set it off.

  Barnes glanced back at him briefly when Parker reentered the small command room.

  Without speaking, Parker slid into his chair next to him.

  Barnes’ face was white. And his breathing came slowly.

  "What’s the news?" Barnes asked not looking directly at him. His eyes centered weakly at the controls across his lap.

  Parker didn't answer right away. He inhaled deeply and allowed his mind to wander briefly outside the cockpit window towards the dark blackness of the moon looming ahead.

  "Oh, my god, Jed, what’s the fucking news?!" Barnes screamed.

  "You know it is as well as I do,” Parker answered him softly without looking around. “The main data ports confirm it…..how long we've been down."

  Barnes let out an anxious breath and sucked it back it in through a contorted scary grin. He settled back in his seat and fidgeted nervously. He leaned his head back and breathed in using frequent shallow gasps.

  "I even crosschecked our data counters with the separated system database on the Beam Cannon Hardware.”

  "And?" Barnes asked pressing his back further into his seat.

  "At least fifty-four, maybe fifty-five,” Parker spoke evenly. “It’s even feasible we’ve been up here in hypersleep for more than sixty years. Without really doing a complete record analysis, that’s my best guess."

  Parker turned to face Barnes, who looked like he had just been clubbed in the face by a metal pipe. He waited several long moments to speak again. The sound of the small blower pumping fresh air into the cabin seemed like it was screaming through the silence.

  "That can't be right, Jed.”

  “It’s right, Barnes,” Parker responded quietly. “The system up here reset itself and dumped more than a hundred times.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Barnes’s voice shook. His eyes were wide, and air rushed back from his lungs in short near hysterical gulps. “Why would they do that? Oh, my God! Why would this have been allowed to happen?”

  “You know why, Major,” Parker now allowed himself to speak more sternly. “We have to consider the possibility that the reason we were kept in hibernation is of utmost global importance. It’s even feasible that there might not be anyone even left alive down there with the knowledge or ability to wake this ship up.”

  "Holy, shittin’ fuck, Jed?!" Barnes' eyes darted frantically around. “Then how the hell are we up now?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Barnes reached across the cabin directly in front of Parker’s face and started throwing switches and firing up ship systems.

  "It happened, Jeff," Parker said more loudly and full of command. "It happened. It started."

  "The fuck it did,” Barnes replied. His voice had started to even out and color had returned to his face. “Someone brought us up. No recent signs of contact or ship communications. If it’s been fucking sixty years, there’s probably not even a reason for us to be up here anymore. We’re going the fuck back. Right fucking now."

  Barnes did not lower his arm and continued to haphazardly punch at the control consoles in front of Parker’s face.

  Parker reached up quickly and grabbed Barnes tightly by his left wrist. When Barnes tried to pull it away, Parker didn't release his grip. The tips of Parker’s knuckles turned white from the strength of his hold.

  With their foreheads only inches apart, the Hideaway pilots shared a frightened stare. Barnes tried to yank his arm forcefully away. Parker did not let him go.

  "Sixty years, Jed,” Barnes almost pleaded. “That can't be right. There’s no way that can be right."

  "Major Barnes, you know as well as I that everything I’ve said just now is exactly right,” Parker almost whispered to him. “The ship hasn’t been brought online in at least fifty-four years. Probably to ensure that we were even better kept hidden. I guarantee there’s a reason for that. We have an obligation to figure out that reason. We cannot yet make contact or even think about going back.”

  Barnes glared with hatred at the man who still held him tightly by the arm.

  “Besides that Barnes,” Parker continued, “we have to consider there can't be that many people left alive anymore that even care we're gone."

  With this last sentence, Parker released his grip. Angrily, Barnes snatched his hand back away and rubbed at the splotchy red marks Parker's fingers had left at the base of his arm.

  "Fuck you, Jed."

  Parker didn't respond.

  Barnes maneuvered his body as far back away from Parker as he could in the small cockpit compartment and resumed scrolling through the ship’s records on the terminal in front of his lap.

  "I'll tell you what, Jed,” he said without looking up. “We may well have been floating here for close to sixty years. Something on Earth may have gone horribly wrong. And that's why we haven't been contacted. But, what if that isn't what happened? Maybe they're actually looking for us. We don't know. And as long as we don't know, as soon as those engines warm up, we're going back."

  "The ship was kept offline for a reason, Barnes," Parker said rubbing the crusty stubble on his chin. "Our job is to sit here and wait. Wait for the dome to contact us. They’re the only ones that could have brought this ship back up. That's been the standard planned procedure in the case of this eventuality since day one."

  "Again, Jed, fuck that, and fuck you," Barnes said spitefully. "Maybe you have no reason to go back to Earth. But I do. And that's why, right now, I could just almost give a shit about the standard planned procedure in the case of any fucking eventuality. Give me a goddamn break."

  Parker hesitated briefly before responding and stared over at Barnes. He tried to determine whether or not there might be any sort of rational thought left somewhere behind his wild eyes and blind raging fury.

  Parker knew that soon he was going to have to make a move and seize control. And contain the wrath that was about to come.

  "Barnes, most everyone you’ve probably ever known is dead."

  In an instant, movement left Barnes’ body as if he had somehow been suspended in time. Barnes’ eyes shifted slowly towards him. Parker could all but feel the danger to both himself and the ship that lurked behind them.

  The reason for Parker’s presence aboard the Hideaway mission was now more
than ever becoming perfectly clear.

  "Jed, the engines are almost fully lit. In two minutes we are heading back to Earth," Barnes said through clenched teeth. "I don't give a shit what the hell else you say otherwise."

  Parker waited a full minute before making a reply.

  "Barnes, that is not what we are about to do,” Parker spoke in a soft level tone. For the moment, he ignored the open defiance and threats of mutiny by the only officer onboard the ship. “This situation has to be assessed according to War Procedures Act 1. We must assume Plan Zero is underway and proceed appropriately."

  "I'm not assuming shit, Jed!" Barnes screamed at him. "We’re floating out here in space like two men coming back from the dead. I'm going to find out what the hell is going on before I assume one goddamn thing! Do you understand me!?"

  "You're going to act according to proper protocol and procedure,” Parker’s voice dropped to a whisper. “As outlined and presented to you by both Science Dome 15 scientific and military staff before you came up here. That is the one and only standing order you will now follow."

  "Parker, you know what you can do with that standing order," Barnes answered tersely before turning away.

  Without expression, Parker turned to his copilot.

  The situation had progressed as far as he could allow it to go.

  He reached down and felt along the side of his seat. Popping open a small compartment door at the seat’s base, his fingers brushed against the handle of his service weapon hidden inside. Its steel still felt cool to the touch due to the ship’s extended downtime and reduction in life support.

  He had loaded and fired the Sunszk only once at the Science Dome 15 weapons range. Five days before they went up and only after arguing and pleading mercilessly with those overseeing the mission to secretly store it on board.

  Parker didn’t know how else they expected him to control him.

  Without bringing it up from the seat, Parker’s fingers moved across the firing mechanism and pulled at its safety. However, he was not able to control its soft “click” when it completely disengaged.

  Barnes looked over quickly at Parker. For the moment, Parker kept his hand holding the weapon still hidden down near the floor. In a heartbeat, the hate and defiance seething behind Barnes’ eyes changed to a primal almost uncontrollable fear.

  "What are ya doin’, Jed?!" Barnes shifted his body quickly around in his seat.

  Spurred by Barnes’s sudden movement, Parker set his finger across the weapon’s trigger and raised his arm.

  But not in time.

  Before he could pivot his body and bring the Sunszk around, Barnes clenched his fist and slammed it against Parker's jaw. The blow knocked Parker’s head hard against the control panels momentarily clouding his senses in a warm fuzzy haze.

  Through it, he briefly caught a vision of his wife and son. Looking concerned and afraid, they watched him from the other side of the cockpit window. From out in the deepness of space.

  Parker then felt his body start to rise out of his seat. Barnes had activated the emergency life support system conservation controls before running from the cockpit toward the rear of the ship.

  Many of the ship lights powered down and the gravitational generators had already disengaged. Parker's half-conscious form floated lazily towards the top of the cabin until the ceiling pressed down against his face.

  Parker turned his head in time to see Barnes floating away down the center of the corridor working his hands in front of him like he was doing a waterless breaststroke. He then rounded a corner and was gone leaving Parker alone in the control cabin.

  Disorientated and painfully annoyed, Parker felt a couple drops of sweat break from his face into the weightlessness around him. He raised his hands over his head and pushed up at the ceiling trying to get his body back down into his seat. With his senses starting to clear, he strapped himself back into his command chair and began punching at the main control console.

  He regretted it had already come to this. No matter how much he disliked the man with whom he shared this mission, Parker preferred his company many times over to dying alone out in space.

  "Commencing emergency override," a computer-generated voice spoke calmly through a small speaker in the ceiling overhead.

  Parker slumped back in his chair as the gravitational generators fired up and came back on.

  Loud slamming sounds echoed behind him through the metallic passageways.

  Parker punched hurriedly at the main control terminals and entered a series of number and letter sequences.

  "Emergency Zero Sequence activated," the computer voice reported serenely from over his head.

  Parker could feel the jolts from the large steel doors slamming shut throughout the Hideaway. The emergency-activated doors were individually sealing off each compartment and separating the pilots from the cargo at the rear of the ship.

  He heard another loud slam. And then from somewhere in the far back recesses of the ship’s chambers, came a loud shriek.

  Parker turned his body slightly and reached back towards where his Sunszk hand weapon had fallen across the floor. He released himself from the straps and buckles holding him to his seat and swung his feet to the ground. After firmly securing his weapon to his waist, Parker ducked out of the cockpit into the empty passageways.

  It was difficult to see anything within the steel girders of the corridor leading from the cockpit. Red emergency lights cast eerie slow-pulsing beams across the metal walls of the ship’s narrow hallways. Stepping slowly with his weapon clutched rigidly at the end of taut outstretched arms, Parker inched further away from the cockpit.

  About twenty steps down the hallway, the corridor veered sharply to the left. Parker stopped before the turn and stood silently at its center.

  Barnes continued to scream.

  "Barnes!" Parker yelled without stepping around the corner.

  Barnes’ screams stopped upon hearing Parker’s voice. They were quickly replaced by the sound of something dragging softly across the metal floor.

  Parker knew Barnes was close. He could hear his heavy breathing and soft whimpering moans coming from around the next corner.

  Parker took a breath and was about to step around the turn when a large creak of strained metal filled the hallway. The sound was immediately followed by a resounding thud. Pain-filled shrieks followed immediately after. Barnes's terrified voice pierced the air and echoed throughout the ship.

  "Barnes!" Parker yelled again without turning into the next passage.

  Barnes only continued to scream.

  Parker moved from the center of the corridor and leaned against a far wall. He pulled his arms back against his body and rested his Sunszk, with its barrel pointed upward, against his forehead. He took two deep breaths and wiped the line of sweat creeping across his forehead with the back of his left hand.

  Again grasping his weapon with both hands and continuing to hold it straight up, Parker crouched to his knees and lowered his body chest-first to the floor.

  "Barnes!" he yelled again while squirming across the ground to where the hallway turned to the side. The coolness of the deck cut through Parker’s uniform bringing a slight discomfort to his skin. Much of his body was still tender from not yet being adjusted to being free of the hibernation liquid that had surrounded it for so long.

  "Jed! Son of a bitch! Jed! Help me for god's sake!"

  With both arms and his weapon pointed out, Parker rolled his large body around the corner. In the same motion, he clicked off its safety and with a quick pump action readied it to fire. With his finger across the trigger, he stared out into the darkness searching for the source of Barnes’ voice.

  With his Sunszk still extended outward, he hugged the cool steel-grated surface of the corridor with his chest.

  He sensed Major Jeff Barnes ahead of him in the gloom. Judging by his groans, he was somewhere along the floor.

  Parker waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Staying
sprawled across his stomach, Parker centered his weapon at the figure moving slightly in front of him. Through the dimness, systematically interrupted by the red flashing emergency lights, Parker saw the reason for Barnes’ screams.

  "Barnes!"

  Barnes answered with a soft moan.

  Parker raised himself to his knees and continued to point his weapon at the dim shape slumped ahead across the ground.

  Barnes sat barely moving in the dark. His body was pinned roughly beneath the mammoth weight of the corridor’s emergency door.

  His hands pushed weakly at the heavy steel that was crushing across his left shoulder and pinning him to the floor. His right leg kicked grotesquely out behind him trying to find a foothold to push his body back up. Barnes howled in agony as the door’s unyielding force slowly drove his tailbone into the deck of the ship.

  Parker fought the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach and did his best not to turn away.

  Setting his teeth in a thin line, Parker slowly stood. With his arms outstretched and his hands still locked tightly about the grip of his Sunszk, he inched down the corridor towards the large emergency door.

  Watching him make his way forward, Barnes stopped his wounded shrieks.

  "Jed, get me out of here," he pleaded. He pressed weakly up again at the heavy door. Its intense weight was driving his spine hard into the ship’s metallic deck. “Please, Jed….”

  Parker could barely hear his pleas over the bellow of the sirens. Finally reaching where he was pinned to the ground, Parker stared down over him. Barnes looked wildly around, his eyes lit by the glare of the jabbing swirl of the emergency lights. Parker moved closer and lowered his arms.

  He leaned in slightly and pressed his weapon against Barnes’ sweaty forehead. For several minutes, neither man moved. The only sound in the passageway came from the wailing sirens.

  Beads of perspiration dripped from Parker's wild damp hair. His eyes glared with a steel ferocity under the frequent flashes of the emergency lights. He leaned in even closer and pressed his weapon harder against Barnes' head. Barnes closed his eyes in both pain and fright.