"Load everything. Ready everything you’ve got left."
Barnes nodded in his direction but didn’t speak. He was completely overwhelmed by his fear. His skin was a deathlike white, and his movements were slow and robotic. His hands shook as he clicked open the ammunition chamber of his assault rifle.
He stretched his body out to peer around the wall he hid behind. He reached his hand into his pocket and, after fumbling awkwardly through the fabric, pulled out two ammunition cartridges. With a dull expression on his face and exaggerated sluggish movement in his arms, he pushed them carefully into the empty chamber.
"I want you to get back to the ships," Parker said to him again. Barnes pressed his back up against the wall and raised his weapon. "I already charged power through both of them before I left the control center. They should be ready and online. At least very close."
Barnes didn’t move. His back seemed glued to the wall behind him like it was the only thing that kept him on his feet.
"Barnes, do you understand me?" Parker whispered through the smoky din.
Barnes nodded slowly. The end of his weapon shifted up and down with the movement of his head. His eyes jutted from their sockets like they were about to explode from the back of his skull. Sweat trickled down his face and across his lips. His hands left sweat spots across his weapon when he shifted his grip.
Thirty seconds had passed since the firing had ceased. Parker could still hear the hushed voices of the men receiving instructions from their ship.
Parker looked down the corridor they had just fled. He could see the tops of their heads moving behind the metal structures and obliterated walls. The wounded man was still sprawled across his chest beyond their reach. His body was still.
"Bring full power from the ship reserves and flood it through both of the defense crafts. Bring the computers online and fully power up the weapons systems.
“Barnes, I need you to do this for me."
Barnes nodded again. His grip was noticeably tighter across his rifle. The expression on his face seemed to shift back and forth between sheer panic and quiet determination. However, the wild look in his eyes never lessened in intensity.
"You ready?"
"I'm ready," Barnes said and took a breath.
"Good, cause here we go," Parker said softly.
Parker nudged his rifle out around the corner and aimed carefully at the top of the structure the men hid behind. Their heads were no longer visible. Nothing moved in the room. Only flames licked about the room.
"Go, Barnes," Parker hissed.
Barnes jumped at the sound of his name and darted from where he stood. He moved away from the wall and backed down the corridor towards the next structure that offered cover.
The silence of the room was torn again by artillery fire when his body was fully exposed.
The abutment he originally hid behind exploded into a cloud of debris. Barnes dropped to the floor and let out an ear-piercing shriek.
Parker pulled hard on his trigger sending the heads and weapons that had suddenly appeared back down to the floor.
With frightened screams still coming from his lips, Barnes positioned himself on his stomach and fired several continued bursts. The passage wall he had hidden behind disintegrated in a flurry of destroyed metal that fell across his back. Flying shreds of steel ripped blood from his skin while smoke from his weapon bit into his eyes.
With one hand still firing his own weapon, Parker reached down to pull at a chunk of debris that landed across Barnes' back. It pressed him to the floor and kept him from being able to stand up. Large weapons bursts tore over his head and along his sides ripping large chunks of metal from the wall.
It was becoming despairingly clear the fire and manpower of those trying to overtake their ship far outmatched their own.
Parker stepped back and tripped over Barnes' body. He fell to the deck next to him. Still on the ground firing his weapon, Barnes did his best to keep their attackers pushed back in the distance while Parker scrambled to flip over after landing on his back.
Hauling himself on his hands and knees through a hail of debris, Parker crawled around a corner into the next passage. Still low across the ground, he reached back around the corner towards Barnes and tugged at his feet. Raising his head and arms slightly higher, he pulled at the metal and concrete holding him to the deck.
Barnes' weapon continued to roar ahead while Parker struggled to pull him free.
Finally with a loud grunt, Parker yanked his copilot loose and dragged him on his chest across the passageway back into the protection of the next corridor.
Barnes still continued to fire.
When he had finally pulled him free, Parker dove for cover to the corridor that led to the right while Barnes scampered to the left. A flurry of shots destroyed the area between them.
A stray bullet ripped across Parker's right arm tearing his uniform and bringing blood from his skin.
Parker grabbed at the wound and sank to his feet. He pressed his back against the corridor wall and covered his head against the new bombardment of attack fire from the landing bay.
Barnes scurried to stand on the other side of the passage. He grabbed Parker's weapon from the floor and tossed it across the corridor being shredded by cannon fire.
Parker's long fingers snatched it from the air as he rose to his feet. He swung his shoulder around the corner and fired.
Their attackers had not yet followed them into the passageways. Rifle flashes still came from deep within the landing bay. The injured man at its center remained sprawled across the deck. No one had yet been able to get close enough to pull his body back.
Even from as far back as he stood, Parker could tell the man was already dead.
"Go!" Parker screamed.
Parker swung his body out and fired again. From the other side of the exploding corridor, Barnes stepped out with his rifle firing from his hip. Diving towards Parker across the center of the passage, his weapons blasts made the men in the landing bay pull in their weapons and duck further back.
The area around the boarding door disintegrated from his fire.
On the other side of the passageway, Barnes stood up and dropped his weapon. A thin wisp of smoke curled up from its tip through the fog left by the falling debris.
Parker pulled himself back tightly in against the corridor wall when Barnes was safely across.
Barnes did not stop and ran down the corridor towards the access portholes to the Defender ships. Parker turned his head and watched him go while he pulled another weapon from across his shoulder.
A short round of blasts tore down the passageway and ripped into the wall next to him. Parker pressed back in again against the wall and lost sight of Barnes as he disappeared around a corner and fled towards the defense craft access area.
The firing stopped again.
Parker swung his body out and raised his weapon. It was then he saw two figures down the corridor quickly stand. Both cocked their arms far back behind their bodies and hurled two metallic objects down the passage.
Parker did not fire. He watched the objects sail through the air and clank when they hit the deck. They bounced toward him along the metal grates of the floor.
He didn’t wait for them to stop.
He dropped his rifle and tore after Barnes down the corridor. He heard the objects make two more metallic clanks behind him.
Channeling every ounce of energy left in his body to his legs, Parker leapt through the air away from what rolled after him down the corridor. But it was already too late. The concussion grenades had rolled too far.
The passage leading from the landing bay erupted into a mammoth surge of fire and smoke. Violent heat pushed at his legs and elevated him from the disintegrating floor. His body slammed into a wall at the end of the corridor. A portion of the left wall disintegrated and poured down around him.
Parker clawed at his ears with his hands trying to ease the pain coursing through his brain from the
sound of the blast. For a moment, nothing registered across his tortured eardrums. The only sense he had was half-obscured sight. He lifted his head from the exploded floor covering him and fought to bring everything back into view.
He stood groggily and ran after Barnes towards the entrance ports of the Defender ships. He ripped the last rifle from the straps across his back.
Half running, half dragging his tortured body, Parker made his way down to where bright lights flashed at the end of the passageway. His shoulder and shirt stained a deep red, he leaned against the wall and punched at a keypad protruding from the side of the passage.
"Defense craft access approved," an electronic voice muttered calmly.
Parker could barely hear it through the excruciating pain coursing through his skull. He stood before the doorway that appeared from behind a sliding panel. With his uninjured shoulder, he leaned against the access switch. The door opened silently into an area filled with clean air untainted by the landing bay battle.
Parker stepped wearily inside. The sliding door immediately shut and sealed behind him. He moved toward the crawlspace leading to the ships. Using the small step at its base to ease his frame into the entrance, Parker crawled on his stomach into the snakelike passageway leading into the wall.
On his hands and knees, he crawled the ten meters of metal leading away from the side of the Hideaway to the rungs of a descending ladder. Ignoring the pain of his body, he swung his legs down into the docking tube.
Making short time of the distance down the ladder, he dropped hurriedly into his personal defense ship jutting from the docking tube into the dark reaches of space.
Parker looked over towards the window of the small cockpit of the second Defender hanging next to him. Barnes was barely visible through the cockpit glass. A few lit switches from his equipment panel offered the only light in the cabin.
Even through the faceplate of his helmet, Parker could feel the frantic stare of Barnes’ eyes. Barnes nodded once over at Parker in acknowledgement as he reached slowly about the cabin activating switches and powering up his ship’s systems.
"You set, Barnes?" Parker asked easing his own helmet onto his head and breathing into the transmitter embedded in its mask. He shifted his weight around in his seat trying to ease the pressure on his injuries and get himself more comfortable in the smallness of the cockpit.
"Set and ready, Jed," Barnes replied back.
His voice was soft. A sense of defeat clouded his tone. Through the static coming through Parker’s headset, he sounded like someone who had already accepted his fate. Parker stopped what he was doing on his control panel and pressed his helmeted face against the clearness of the cockpit window.
"Barnes," his own voice sounding different now that it was filtered through his transmitter and came through the small speakers of his helmet. "This is not the end. Not here. Not yet."
"I know that, Jed," Barnes’ small voice replied. "But maybe it should be."
"Barnes that is not what I want to hear," Parker said sighing and turning his attention back to powering up his ship systems.
“We’re going to have to destroy that ship,” Parker spoke again. This time his tone was more authoritative and commanding. “Then we'll come back and take care of whomever is left on board. It’s the only way to safeguard the cargo."
"And then what, Jed?"
Additional lights began to come on from the main power up of the Hideaway making it easier to see Barnes’ ship through the darkness of space. The access tubes to both defense crafts started to shake as the pilots bled more power into their engines.
"Wait up here for this to happen again? How much of this can we really survive? And what happens when we don’t?"
"Barnes, let's take care of these bastards first," Parker said revving more power to his own engines. "If what's going on is what I think is going on, you’re right, there will be plenty of more ships heading this way. All with the same purpose. When we get through this, we'll bring the ship fully online and circle the Earth. Try and make contact with someone that can bring us down. If not, we’ll land it ourselves and take our chances on the surface."
The access tube on top Barnes’ ship wobbled twice more and then broke loose. The nose of the craft dipped from where it hung alongside the Hideaway and moved away.
“Clear,” Barnes reported over the intercom.
Parker finished bringing the rest of his ship systems online and waited for his engines to reach full power. He looked over at Barnes' ship as it broke from its tentacle-like moorings and dropped into space. It was soon lost within the bright lights of the Hideaway.
A shrill whistle and red flashing lights brought Parker’s attention back to what was happening inside his own cockpit. He squinted hard at his control panels.
"I've got some problems here, Barnes," Parker said, Barnes' ship had long since disappeared from his view. "Looks like some structural damage from space debris to the right engine. It’s taking longer to power up."
"I'm circling back now," Barnes quickly replied.
"What's your position?"
"Just making a turn off the rear section of their ship. I don’t recognize any of its markings or see anything indicating U.S. Admin origins."
Barnes' Defender glided back into view over Parker’s left shoulder.
Parker’s engine monitors finally confirmed full power. He flipped through the series of switches to initiate the detach procedure. With Barnes still on the left side of his ship, Parker’s Defender pulled loose from the Hideaway and plunged into space. It jerked sharply to the left as the last of the moorings ripped free.
"Alright, Barnes, this is it," Parker said slowly and carefully like he was talking to a frightened child. "Everything matters from here on in. You’ve got to keep it together and help me out here. Otherwise neither one of us is going to go home. And we’ll never know what happened."
"I copy," Barnes said. The right wing of his ship glided up into position next to Parker's.
Parker turned to look again at the small ship outside the cockpit window next to him. Barnes seemed faceless in his dark helmet. Ominous. Foreboding.
“But what about the ship?” Barnes’ voice was soft through the speakers in Parker’s helmet. “They’re already onboard.”
Parker felt his stomach turn. The panic and adrenaline that had consumed him since the unknown crew had tried to board the Hideaway was now replaced with a sickening feeling of absolute doom.
"The emergency war procedure program has been activated,” Parker answered quietly back. “The controls were signaturized immediately. It’s impossible for them to duplicate the handprints burned into the controls. I'm the only one that can pilot the ship or authorize an override. If they’re here, then they have to know or at least suspect something like this. They have to know they can’t access the ship or the cargo."
"And what if they don't," Barnes’ voice whispered over the comlink into his ears. "What if they don't know that?"
Their ships skimmed along the three hundred yard length of the outside hull of the Hideaway.
“Then they don’t,” Parker answered back.
The enemy ship was at the far end of the Hideaway on the side furthest from the blackness of the darkened moon. It was silently attached to the Hideaway’s hull. Lights along the Hideaway’s surface began to glow from the ship’s power up while the two small Defender ships skimmed by.
“Then we lose the ship. All this will be destroyed. And no one will have what’s inside.”
The Defenders approached the Hideaway command center area which was now fully lit.
"How long will they have to disarm?" Barnes asked. "If they try to access?"
"The nukes arm instantly after receiving the destruct command. Thirty seconds. At the absolute most. They would need three times as many men as they have on that ship to even reach them all to attempt a manual disarm override. Even if they knew where they all were. For them to track us up here, they have got to know that
."
The two defense crafts blasted towards the front of the boarding ship.
"Bring your weapons systems up."
"Already up and ready," Barnes returned.
They were almost to the unidentified ship. Though half the size of the Hideaway, it was still a mammoth structure. It was easy to see that this was a carrier frigate meant for hauling large cargo.
"Stay close to me, and stay close to this ship," Parker instructed. "Vicinity indicators register after one hundred meters. It will arm nukes and the caplets. The boarding craft is too long to attack from the rear. We’d be dead before we even got halfway. We’re going to have to do everything pretty close to here."
Parker got another sickening feeling that racked the insides of his gut. The holovid images of the prisoners being administered the radiation caplets flashed through his head. The pain on their faces when the radiation first began to bleed in. And the ugly aftermath once they had fully released their wrath.
Parker decided then and there that was not how he would meet his end. If he was going to die today, it was only going to be after the complete destruction of the Hideaway and all it held within or landing the ship safe and intact back on Earth.
The Defenders made their way closer to the unidentified ship. There was still no reaction, activity or any indication that anyone onboard was aware the small crafts approached.
"Are you hearing me, Barnes?"
"I copy, Jed,” Barnes replied. “It doesn't give us much room to operate. Especially when we fully engage in a fight."
"That's why I want you to stay next to me. Right next to me. Do you got that?"
"Lose one, lose the other," Barnes said grimly. His voice sounded more distant across the ship-to-ship transmitter.
"Barnes, we lose one, there will be no other. I can almost guarantee that."
At that moment, the noses of both Defenders breached the surrounding space of the boarding ship. Their wings skimmed just above the Hideaway’s hull. A light jolt shook Parker’s craft when its base scraped against its surface.
Overrun: Project Hideaway Page 26