Drawing from a strength somewhere deep within his soul, Tuttle forced himself to pull his body up and lean over John Kirken's son. He prayed earnestly to any god or spirit that might be listening that he was not dead. That this young boy would live and give him a chance to redeem himself for his participation in this hellish war. And atone for what he had done.
Until now, Tuttle had only experienced the war and the plan he implemented from behind the multiple rows of holovid screens in his own command center. The screens had hidden the faces of the civilians whose deaths he had ordered and the children he had deemed unnecessary to protect. Across the monitors he mostly saw location points and statistics. And satellite footage of the explosions when the city finally went.
Every mission success brought him further and further away from realizing what it was he was actually doing.
Until an hour ago, he had thought of himself as a national hero. A grand protector of his country. That was always how he had always described it to the new young troops that came to him on a regular basis troubled by their own participation.
As a quadrant commander, he had often preached he was implementing the greatest war plan the world had ever seen. Its ultimate purpose was to improve life on a fast-dying world. He was clearing the decay of a world since forgotten to make way for the life-saving construction of the Beam Cannon Hardware. It didn't register until now that he was clearing away life that already existed. And that rather than a hero, he was a monster. He was one of the leaders of the biggest act of genocide the world had ever seen. It was an act he knew would not go unpunished.
Tuttle didn’t know what had possessed him to leave the command center and undertake the helicopter rescue operation. The city had already been ordered terminated by the Administration Dome and the President himself. He wondered why the plight of John Kirken and his family had been the only thing to tug at his morality and bring out a sense of comprehension and compassion that he had not felt since the onset of this war.
The countless missions and excursions experienced in previous battles and wars had not prepared him for what he had come upon on today. When he had set his feet down on the roof of the shopping mall, he finally saw what had been hidden from him this whole time. It was something he had been able to somehow push and keep away since the birth of the Vulture squad and the leadership he had assumed within it.
Tuttle was horrified by the extreme youth of Kirken’s children and was sickened by their pain.
On the rooftop, he was haunted by the look in John Kirken's eyes when his daughter died. Only then did he realize what was happening in this war and what exactly it was he had helped to create. Tuttle had seen hope, long before life, rush from Kirken’s body before he was consumed by the flames on the rooftop.
And only now after Tuttle had escaped with Kirken’s son from that fate-filled place, did he feel the eyes of a vengeful God watching him from above the flames. He sensed his own damnation falling from above the poisoned clouds hanging low above the Earth.
Only when he had escaped the exploding city of Beuford did he finally realize what it was he had done and what the consequences would be. A sickening sense of realization washed over him as he half-dragged half-carried John Kirken's bloody son.
Tuttle had to keep him alive at all costs to silence the accusing voices of the spirits that walked with him. The souls of those that had already lost their lives in Beuford or other similar towns. They followed Brandon expecting to soon welcome him into their ranks.
Tuttle could almost feel them walking at his side step for step and whispering blame and condemnation into his ears.
Beneath the faint light of the half moon, Tuttle pulled himself over to where Brandon laid sprawled across the ground. He reached at Brandon’s puffing eyes and pulled gently at his lids looking for any signs of life.
His pupils stared blankly back over Tuttle’s shoulder, lifeless under the dirt and grit covering his charred eyelids. When Tuttle pulled his hand back, he was horrified but not surprised to find it completely stained red.
Tuttle lowered his head across Brandon's chest and rested it there briefly there. He hoped John Kirken was not watching and damning him for not being able to do more.
Brandon wheezed once, coughed violently and gasped blood from his throat. His head moved around slightly and then settled still. His breaths became shorter and less pronounced.
Tuttle tore open the boy’s shirt and pressed his ear across his chest. A final single breath of air slowly released itself from the young Kirken's mouth. His body then was silent. Another breath did not come.
"Don't do that!" Tuttle yelled while swinging his aching frame across Brandon's legs and waist.
Tuttle raised his black gloved fist into the air and brought it down hard across the teenager’s chest.
"C'mon, Brandon!" Tuttle screamed.
Tuttle raised his arm and struck the center of Brandon’s chest a second time. He could hear the sound of jeeps and tanks moving across the road at the top of the hill.
"Breathe for me, goddamn it!"
Tuttle rolled to Brandon's side and kneeled near his face. His own body screamed in agony. His head ached and patches of skin still burned from their narrow escape from the exploding mall. He could also feel the thick wet of blood run down his arm from the two wounds just above and below his shoulder.
His own injuries didn’t matter now. He welcomed the pain. It kept him conscious. It kept him working. It kept him from slumping over and sealing both their fates right there.
Tuttle lowered his head and made a tight seal over Brandon's mouth.
Taking a deep breath through his nose, Tuttle brought the hot outside air into his lungs and exhaled it into Brandon's throat. Coughing and wiping blood from his burnt lips, he raised his head and waited for the air to make its way back out.
Tuttle breathed for him again.
Forcing his battered body to continue to work, he straddled Brandon’s long body again and pressed his hands across his heart. He tore away more pieces of the tattered burned fabric of his jacket to get closer to his skin.
He pushed at it in rhythmic counts trying desperately to bring it back to life. Wiping sweat from his forehead and cursing under his breath, he swung to the side of Brandon's body, lowered his head and slowly breathed again.
Brandon coughed twice. His eyes fluttered open. And then closed again. Breath meandered weakly through his chest. Tuttle grabbed his wrist and did a quick prayer of thanks when he could feel a faint pulse. It was just enough. For now, the young Kirken still clung to life.
His body strained and his spirit weak, Tuttle rolled from Brandon's bleeding body onto his back. The ground was warm against his skin. While life still breathed through the body of John Kirken’s son, a chance at redemption for Tuttle’s charred spirit was still at hand. Keeping him alive was the one thing right and just he could accomplish while still on this dying planet.
Tuttle pleaded to the souls that had gone before him that saving this boy could help him make up for what he had done and what he had been a part of. He would honor his vow to the man he had failed to save and now whose son was bleeding at his side. The man Tuttle had left to die alone on the rooftop. But not before watching his own daughter leave this life first.
Tuttle leaned back on his arms in the darkness and stared at the burning rubble in the distance. The ruins along with hundreds of thick black columns of smoke were all that was left of the town. He thought of the countless missions he had authorized and the nameless cities he had ordered destroyed. And of the evil he had done.
Tuttle watched with a choking sorrow as the flames of Beuford licked into the sky. Its fire cast a tired glow across the barren countryside. The inauspicious sight sent a dull chill down his back. As a quadrant commander and general in the Vulture secret army, he was part of this Armageddon, a creator of this nightmare. He was now a sole witness of the hellishness he had released upon the Earth.
Another moan came from Brandon's li
ps sending blood trickling down the outside of his throat.
Tuttle looked away towards the jeeps, tanks and the giant dome-killer transports heading into the flaming ruins. One-by-one they burrowed through the fires and debris towards the destroyed Science Dome 15 on the city's far side.
He sat there for a long time without moving. He rested his arm on the teenager's chest only to assure himself that it continued to move up and down.
The Vulture general gazed out through the darkness and watched the city burn. A victim of Plan Zero. A victim of the Vulture air and ground team. And a victim of the young boy dying beside him as well as Tuttle himself.
It was during this point of self-realization, one harsh enough Tuttle feared it might take what was left of his own life, that something else caught his eye. Slight bits of movement had begun detaching themselves from the flames.
For more than an hour, Tuttle watched them multiply and transform into the shapes of dark figures. Little by little they further approached. They moved slowly taking great pains to stay hidden within the night.
A single figure appeared at the front of their small mass. He directed those that followed behind keeping them far away from the road to Tuttle's side. The figure waved them all to the ground when a straggling vehicle from the J.G.U. land fleet drove by.
As they moved closer, Tuttle could see that like himself some carried others. From their direction, tiny muffled cries sporadically slipped out into the night. It would only be a short time before the figures were upon their own hiding place in the dark.
Bloodied and bruised, Tuttle slowly stood. A slight pressure on his ankle interrupted his thoughts and drew his attention downward. Brandon Kirken was again conscious. His eyes were wide open and stared straight out into the moving darkness. His weak hands tried to pull Tuttle back to the ground.
Ignoring the slight tug on his leg but not pulling himself completely free, Tuttle stood his full height and held his hands up and open in front of him.
The figures crept steadily towards them. For the most part, they remained hidden within the surrounding darkness. As they came closer, Tuttle recognized they were military most likely his own. Ragged figures of men, women and children walked with them. Tuttle knew in a heartbeat they were refugees of the shattered town.
"That's good right there," a voice said evenly from behind him. Tuttle felt the warm nudge of a long-barreled weapon press into his left ear. "Identify."
"It's alright," Tuttle said keeping his hands up and letting his eyes wander across the pained faces of the wounded women and children that approached. The soldiers near the head of the formation held their arms up motioning them to stay back.
“It’s alright,” Tuttle said again and carefully moved his right arm across his left. With a slight tug, he lifted a black swatch from his across forearm revealing a patch of the United States flag and the dark insignia of the Vulture squad.
"Vulture General, soldier," Tuttle said while another soldier broke from the shadows and ran a retina scanner across his eyes. "Tuttle, Maxwell A., Quadrant Four Vulture Commander. I sent you here, son."
"It’s him," the soldier with the scanner confirmed softly and used his hands to lower Tuttle's own. "What are you doing out here, General?"
More soldiers approached where they stood. Others quietly herded the refugees to a slight clearing to their right. They first looked at Tuttle and then down at Brandon Kirken lying bleeding at his feet.
"I need a medic," Tuttle answered in a voice barely able to be heard above the warm breeze.
"There’s one coming," the soldier behind him said lowering his weapon and stepping back into the shadows of the night.
Chapter 9
"We've lost contact with the observation deck, Commander!" Lieutenant Chris Shriver, Science Dome 15 senior communications director, yelled from his station.
“Do we know what’s happening on the ground?” Dome Commander Steve Corrado shouted from the other side of the smoky command room.
“There’s still a lot of activity down there. Multiple explosions. Rockets being fired. Several impacts. We've lost communication with most of the base stations."
"How much of the ground crew is out there?” Corrado screamed back punching at his own communications station.
They were the only two left in Science Dome 15’s command center after the ignition of the Death Wall and orders for evacuation had been given.
"Unable to tell, Commander. We lost contact with the landing bay more than twenty minutes ago! There’s too much smoke and flame. It’s hard to see anything through it."
"Find some goddamn way to tell!" Corrado yelled over his shoulder as he worked furiously at his control panel.
The room had filled with black choking smoke making it nearly impossible to even see the monitor screens directly in front of them. Sparks leapt from bare swinging wires that jutted from structural pressure tears in the walls and ceiling. Chairs and entire control stations were overturned. Two small fires lit the otherwise dim interior of the command room with an eerie sense of coming doom.
"Steve, I can still tell they’re coming,” Shriver replied solemnly. “Our forces aren’t stopping them. And the evacuation isn’t happening fast enough. That I can tell.”
Corrado turned to his lieutenant and locked eyes briefly with him in acknowledgement. He then ran over to Shriver’s command station.
Corrado reached over his shoulder and punched at a series of blinking switches jutting from shattered consoles hanging over Shriver's head.
Shriver kept one hand on his headset and pressed it tightly against his ear. With the other on his console, he toggled through several different video surveillance feeds coming from the outside perimeter of Science Dome 15. Smoke wisped from frayed wire dangling near the top of his head.
"Is anyone getting out?"
The smell of burned plastic, seared flesh, and the constant roars of the outside rocket attack permeated the stale air of the command room.
"I don’t know,” Shriver said still listening intently to the transmission chatter coming across his headset. “A couple convoys were able to blast out the back about an hour ago. They got past the initial attack force.”
"But, did they get away?"
"I haven’t been able to confirm that, sir,” Shriver said looking up. “I’m hearing reports of flanking troops all over the place. Even if they did get past them, those vehicles don’t hold a lot of people. I don’t think a lot of people are getting out."
Before he could completely finish, a series of explosions ripped through the dome jolting the room hard to its side and knocking Corrado to his knees.
Next to him, Shriver clasped one hand tightly across the control panel to keep his body upright. His chair flew out from beneath him, but he managed to keep his balance and not fall. He continued punching madly at the control panel in front of him.
Corrado grabbed the control station next to Shriver and pulled himself back to his feet. He stopped to watch Shriver press his earpiece closer to his head to monitor some new transmission chatter. Even in the darkness, Corrado was able to see his face fade to a sick pasty white.
"They’ve breached the facility," he said hurriedly. "So far, reports only on Level One and Two. Received instant confirmation on those reports. Their troops…they’re coming in."
Shriver punched a control switch which brought an outside ground-level view of Science Dome 15 across the holovid. Black smoke and flame billowed through a gigantic gaping hole in the side of the dome. The facility was now easily penetrable, and the J.G.U. vehicles were charging through.
"How long before they get to the command room?" Corrado said standing up again. He picked up Shriver’s overturned chair and slid it over to him.
“Not long,” Shriver said sitting back down and continuing to concentrate on the fading number of voices coming over the communications link.
"Scan the banks!" Corrado yelled while sprinting back across the room. "Start with the science levels.
Search for and manually destruct any remaining electronic files. Make sure no one missed anything before the evac. See if you can initiate self destructs in the equipment rooms. Destroy everything you possibly can."
"Roger that, sir!" Shriver bent over his control board. His body shook with adrenaline and fear.
Another explosion shot flames and scorched plastic from a control panel to Shriver's right. The blast lit the dark command center, and the smell of burnt electrical filled the air. Shriver pushed his chair away from the growing fire and moved quickly to another command station.
Behind him, Corrado worked frantically at the stations across the room.
"Especially scan for all info on the Project Hideaway!" he screamed over the increasing roar of the exploding room. "Make sure you can’t find anything. If you do, get rid of it by any means necessary. If you find records on hard paper files, I want you to go down there and burn them with a match for Christ’s sake!"
Another blast shook the command center. Metal piping and half the command ceiling crashed to the floor just to Corrado's left side. Steel shavings, flame and dirt filled the air making it nearly impossible to see.
Shriver turned towards the wall of debris that now divided the room.
"Shriver!" Corrado screamed at him from the other side.
Corrado could hear him try to answer back when another blast threw him to the ground across the room.
The large metal entrance door guarding the command center obliterated in a flash of heat and metal. Huge jagged pieces of the door flew inward. Bursts of small weapons fire followed tracing through the air over Corrado's head. Half-blinded by the flying debris, Corrado dove beneath one of the command consoles for cover.
Soldiers came in after the blast. Their dark shapes moved quickly around the room firing their weapons at anything that moved in the smoke. Bullets ripped across the command equipment tearing the consoles to unrecognizable shreds. Corrado pressed back as far as he could to the wall and tried to protect his eyes with his hands.
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