Overrun: Project Hideaway

by Michael Rusch

  Tuttle remained silent at this last comment and allowed everything Samuel had just said sink in.

  "I sent a faint sensor bounce towards the last known coordinates of the Hideaway."

  "Traceable?" Tuttle's body tensed up slightly as he felt the sanity of the entire world starting to slowly edge away from him.

  "Shouldn't be," Samuel replied. "And shouldn’t matter if it is. We’ll be gone soon.”

  “What did you find?”

  “There's two ships up there. Possibly three. I can't tell for sure."

  "Three ships?" Tuttle asked incredulously.

  "Someone found the Hideaway and then someone else followed them up."

  Tuttle could feel the sweat starting to bead up again across the top of his forehead.

  At the same time, he sensed his wrists clamping themselves tighter around his weapon's grip. His jaw set in a thin line, and his eyes hardened to a point.

  "When we get up there, there’s going to be much more to deal with than just the two pilots of the Hideaway."

  Tuttle didn't reply. He nodded at Samuel, pulled away from his arm, and moved toward the entranceway to the hall.

  Samuel followed behind.

  When Tuttle was at the door, he paused briefly and turned to take one final look at the destroyed command room. He then raised his weapon against the side of his ear and stepped out into the darkness of the outside corridor.

  Samuel also stopped before following him completely out. He looked down the side passageway toward the room where the two dead men hung in chains, their bodies twisting softly in the dark. He turned his head and watched the shoulder lamps of the two men ahead of him move quickly away from the control room and down the dark passageways.

  Samuel stepped carefully over the bodies they had stacked at the command center’s entrance and turned back around.

  He pulled his assault rifle from where it hung across his back and fired into the consoles and command stations that had not yet destructed and still had lights running across their boards. The bursts from his weapon obliterated what remained of the destroyed room.

  Additional fires raged to life and shredded metal toppled down burying the dead lying throughout the room. When his ammunition clip was empty, he lowered his assault rifle back down to his side and followed Samuel and Cranden out into the passage.

  White smoke curled lightly from his weapon’s tip.

  With his back to the room, his fingers fumbled along the doorframe until he found and activated the door release. The command center’s giant metal door dropped down behind him sealing the noise of the fires and the falling metal from the dark silence of the passageways.

  Samuel stepped slowly after Tuttle and Cranden through the quiet darkness. Just up ahead, they waited for him to approach.

  Chapter 22

  "Mr. President?" Baldwin said cautiously to the figure slumped silently next to him. “Frank…”

  Ford didn’t move. His eyes remained fixed on the empty holovid screens. The transmission from General Tuttle at Science Dome 15 had terminated several minutes ago. Ford hadn't yet left the front of the command room or even risen from his seat.

  "Mr. President," Baldwin said again this time causing the President to glance up.

  When he did, the brown-haired woman sitting between them stood. She turned and walked to another station at the rear of the command room leaving Ford and Baldwin alone at its front.

  "Mr. President, I think there are a few things we need to discuss."

  Ford nodded and shifted his weight to look at Baldwin. When he did, one of the holstered weapons hanging at his side bumped against the terminal in front of him. A soft clang echoed timidly across the room. The tension permeating the air quickly swallowed the tiny sound.

  "Somewhere more secure," Baldwin said standing and leaning towards the President.

  He reached under his arm as if to help him to his feet.

  Ford shrugged him off and quickly stood up. He tugged at the base of his shirt in a weak attempt to straighten his rumpled appearance. It was quickly becoming evident that everything was starting to become too much.

  Baldwin knew the time had come to get the President out.

  Baldwin turned and stepped toward the side of the command room. Ford walked in the opposite direction to retrieve his suit coat hanging across an empty workstation. After he draped it neatly across his arm, he followed Baldwin as he left the command area.

  Ford walked towards the two guards standing back within the shadows of the chamber walls. When he passed, they left their positions and followed him out holding their weapons firmly across their chests.

  With a loud snap, one of the guards pumped ammunition into his rifle barrel readying it to fire. The noise made the President jump as he headed out the door. He pressed his hands against the Sunszk weapons hanging at his side.

  The eyes of everyone in the command room were upon them as they left the command center. No one pretended to do otherwise. Ford walked faster to escape the suffocating silence of their stares.

  Outside in the passageway, Baldwin continued his pace. The soft clicks of the President’s shoes followed him across the concrete floor. The heavy footsteps of his armed escorts pounded close behind.

  Baldwin rounded a corner and flashed an access card at a large metal door with the word “BRIEFING” stenciled in small red letters across its top. When the entrance mechanism activated, he stepped quickly inside. The President ducked his head and followed while the guards stopped at the doorway and took positions on either side.

  "Mr. President…” Baldwin began when the door shut behind them and they were finally alone. “Frank, as your chief advisor I must point out to you the importance of maintaining a powerful front. You have to continue to appear strong at all times. No matter how you feel.”

  They stood at the center of the empty briefing room before three long tables. Two of them ran the length of the room. The third connected them at the furthest wall. Empty chairs and deactivated command consoles lined their length.

  "Everything has finally come to this. This right now. Right here. What we are about to do. You are now what this country has come to depend on for salvation and pins its only hope for survival. You cannot afford to show any signs of strain or weakness. Not to anyone. Officers, admin officials, your guards, or even to me. If you do, it will only feed the rumors. This country’s fate hangs in a precarious balance. You can’t afford to give up any more of an edge."

  The President walked from the center of the room to one of the long tables and sat his aching joints stiffly down on its surface. Baldwin remained at the center of the room and watched him carefully.

  "Rumors…,” Ford said starting to pull away from the trance that had seized him following the transmission from the overrun science dome. “We’ve handled rumors in crisis situations before. We’ve never allowed them to knock us down.”

  "We've never dealt with anything like this before, Mr. President," Baldwin answered him. "Frank, nothing like this. We're witnessing the worst beating this country has ever taken. Ever. This country…it is starting to fall."

  The President lowered his head and stared at the floor while Baldwin spoke.

  "The entire dome populace, or at least those who knew of its existence, is stunned at the failure of Plan Zero. And how close we are to losing its control."

  "This failure…,” Ford said not looking up and his voice laced with a sharp tone of bitterness and disgust. “It cannot be attributed to me. Not in the least. Regardless of my failure to or not to act. Your 'powers that be', they did this. Your hidden government planners are the ones responsible. They are the ones that should be answering for this. They are morally responsible. Not me. I'm the one trying to make things right."

  "That doesn’t matter now,” Baldwin said walking towards him slowly. “None of it does. Most of those that caused this are dead. The rest soon will be. Like you said, you're trying to make things right. You are the one, the only one, that can
save the country from what it did to itself…from what others allowed to happen. That is why I am saying all of this to you."

  Ford's face looked sick. A vein near his temple throbbed beneath his pale skin.

  "Sir, there are rumors of open revolts. Thousands of survivors on the outside have taken refuge in the sewers and are now giving aid to dome refugees. Outsiders are now helping those that lived within. They are banding together against this government. It’s why the J.G.U. were able to invade so quickly. Our citizens, both inside and out, are seething with betrayal and have become all too willing to assist."

  The President raised himself from where he sat and stood to face Baldwin. His eyes darkened further still, and his spirit became more sullen. Baldwin could tell that it was only a matter of time before it all got away. The country’s fate was slowly starting to seep from the grasp of the one man that held the power to change it all.

  "Minister of State, if this is all happening like you say, what could possibly be left that we can do? Our military is close to dead. The J.G.U. are being brought to power by the defection of our own people. What course of action even remains?"

  "The Hideaway Project, Mr. President,” Baldwin answered. “That’s what we have. With it in our possession we may be able to negotiate some sort of truce. We can play up your ignorance of Plan Zero and make you a hero who brought peace. Peace and life to the masses all over the world that live outside the domes."

  "What you are saying is not possible. Not anymore," Ford said quickly back. "Blood is what the people seek at this point. They want someone to take responsibility for what has happened. They will want to suck it from the rotting wounds of those in this administration."

  "Sir, this is possible. There are rumors that J.G.U. Prime Minister Talhir himself is here on American soil. That he is here to take you into custody himself. To arrest you for standing in the way of the course of interplanetary peace.

  “You are still a figure head. A symbol of our proud country that has stood globally strong and dominant for so long. This will not be well-liked or received by the American people. No matter what they think you may have done.

  “If you have control of the Hideaway Project, you might be able to use that to sway a wavering and unstable public opinion quickly back into your favor. They will again rally behind you when they see how this will ultimately save themselves.

  “They will want to believe you had nothing to do with this war. They will want to believe anything that will get the beam cannons built. Now, after so much, we cannot give up."

  "So, what do we do?" the President asked looking up tiredly.

  "We get you out of here," Baldwin said. "Right now. The J.G.U. army is almost here. We can still escape to the presidential retreat and head retrieval operations from there."

  "Is the retreat still secure?" the President asked.

  "It's secure."

  "Alright, Mr. Baldwin. But what if the attempt to retrieve the Hideaway is unsuccessful?”

  "You'll still be alive, Frank. At least you will still be alive."

  The President looked down at the ground one last time. His weapon holsters hung loosely towards the ground at his side. A multitude of unlived years washed over his face while Baldwin stood there and watched.

  "I want more than to be alive, Minister Baldwin," the President said straightening up and heading for the door. His guards stood at attention when the door opened, and he walked back outside. "We have a lot to answer for. And much to avenge."

  The President walked briskly past the guards back towards the way they had come.

  "Yes, Mr. President," Baldwin said hurrying to keep his pace.

  The guards fell in step behind them and hurried after them down the hall.

  Chapter 23

  The captain sat quiet and contemplative at the helm of the Vulture explorer frigate. His attention was fixed intently on the holovid monitor to his left. On the small screen, he watched two soldiers with blow torches move about slowly beneath a hail of sparks. The boarding team was close to cutting their way completely through the air-locked entrance door to the Hideaway.

  Half the crew of the Vulture ship made up the boarding party and stood just beyond the flurry of sparks. The captain wasn’t comfortable with the dispatch of this many of his limited personnel, but RadCom, his boarding chief, had convinced him the necessity of doing otherwise.

  The captain watched RadCom standing behind the men with the torches waiting for them to finish breaking in. The rest of the boarding crew stood behind him with their weapons aimed at whatever awaited behind the disintegrating door.

  The captain tried to ignore the sickening feeling festering in his gut while he watched the glowing door of the Hideaway begin to fall through.

  Ever since they came within visual range of the Hideaway, he had begun to have misgivings about the entire mission and his own reasons for leaving Earth. The unknown behind this mission now seemed more of a risk than the certainty of participating in the battles currently being waged back on the planet.

  But this didn’t really matter at this point.

  In addition to the transmission from the Hideaway boarding, another holovid was lit in front of him. He only half listened to the man barking orders from its screen. He mainly kept his attention focused on the image of his crew standing ready in the boarding tube.

  "They're almost through," the captain said covering his eyes against the glare of the torches. Even dulled by the holovid image, their intensity still made his eyes squint.

  "Any signs of pilot life?" War Minister Faulken's voice was sharp and irritated. It resonated loudly through the empty command bridge.

  "We detected a small power surge about forty-five minutes ago, right around the time we maneuvered into position to dock. But it didn’t seem to be anything more than what the ship would most likely be routinely performing on its own."

  A loud clang echoed through the explorer frigate.

  The mammoth exterior door to the Hideaway finally separated itself from the metal anchoring it to its fist-sized hinges. The two men in front powered their torches down and without turning around backed carefully away.

  The boarding team waiting behind RadCom stepped cautiously around him. RadCom stood stiffly at the center of the boarding tube. The torch crew backed around and behind him until they disappeared from the view of the holovid and re-boarded the explorer frigate.

  "Our team is entering their landing bay now, War Minister," the captain reported without taking his eyes away from the holovid image of the Hideaway.

  He did not hear Faulken's reply.

  He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. His eyes riveted on the first of his men to enter the ship. No sound came from the holovid screen.

  The last of the initial entrance team slipped past RadCom and slunk into the darkness of the Hideaway's landing bay. RadCom remained where he stood at the center of the boarding tube. He turned his head slightly when the torch team, now also armed and clad in full assault gear, returned and jogged across the tube.

  They passed RadCom and slipped through the jagged entrance to the ship. The massive doorframe still glowed from the heat of the torches. RadCom stood there for another second and followed the last of his men inside.

  "We're in," RadCom's voice said softly from a speaker to the captain's right.

  "Team’s in," the captain repeated to the other holovid screen where Faulken's face still remained.

  The holovid monitoring the boarding tube became empty, motionless and silent after RadCom stepped inside. The captain sat back in his seat and waited for the team to establish transmitters within the ship.

  Faulken said something again from the screen that this time the captain didn’t hear. The frigate’s command bridge was eerie and quiet. Only the hum of recently vacated command stations interrupted the silence. The captain couldn't remember the last time he monitored a crew mission alone in the command area.

  "We’ve got some activity," RadCom's voice whispered t
hrough the empty command bridge. His voice was just loud enough for Faulken to hear on the other holovid.

  "Captain, what’s happening?" Faulken asked with some nervousness in his voice.

  "What do you got, RadCom?" the captain spoke into his own holovid transmitter.

  "We’ve got some movement…something...can’t quite pin down the location."

  RadCom's voice was then suddenly interrupted by an explosion of small rounds fire.

  "Holy shit!" RadCom's surprised voice bellowed from the command center speaker. "Frigate, we're being fired upon. Repeat, Frigate. Shots are being fired from inside the ship!"

  His audio transmission ended abruptly in a loud burst of static.

  "Captain, what the hell is going on?" Faulken barked from the second holovid.

  The captain sat bolt upright in his chair and stared intently at the silent holovid screen. White flashes of smoke and light were visible coming from the Hideaway bay along with giant holes ripping themselves through the walls near the bay door.

  Bodies dove in front of the holovid’s field of view. The force of subsequent explosions tossed legs and feet straight up into the air.

  The men of the ambushed crew landed on top of one another and hugged themselves to the deck. Enemy fire strafed across the wall just above their heads.

  "Captain!” Faulken barked. “What in the hell...!?"

  "The landing crew is receiving fire!" the captain yelled back and then turned to bellow into his transmitter. "RadCom, come in! RadCom! Report in!"

  When the shower of weapons fire and shredded metal began to subside, one of the bodies tangled up on the floor began to crawl slowly through the boarding tube away from the bay. Two other members of the boarding crew knelt behind a mound of recently exploded concrete within the Hideaway and returned fire.