Overrun: Project Hideaway

  "What the fuck?!" Samuel's angry voice sounded over the loud cries and thrashing limbs at the rear of the small cockpit.

  A yellow light began to flash on the copilot’s command console. An electronic voice spoke softly from a transmitter in the ceiling. It was barely audible over the chaos in the back of the cockpit.

  The ship continued to buck and roll as Samuel struggled to evade the pursing J.G.U. ship.

  "Planet approach not approved," the voice reported. The loudest yet of Parker’s gut-wrenching screams quickly followed.

  "Radiation control caplet leak commencing. Course set not approved."

  "Course set not approved?" Samuel repeated questioningly. "What the fucking hell?"

  "Planet landing not authorized…," the soft voice said again. "…and will not be allowed. Pilot pacification system activated."

  "Tuttle get up here!" Samuel screamed while rocketing the ship through the cluster of green laser attacks coming from the rear. "Check the nukes! Check the nukes! See if there’s any sign of them arming themselves in the back!"

  Tuttle tore a large piece of fabric from the arm of his uniform and stuffed it roughly into Parker's jaw. He tucked Parker’s arms beneath his chest. Cranden stretched himself facedown across the length of Parker’s body so that he could hold him with both his legs and arms.

  Parker’s body began to tire, and his seizure slowly lessened in strength. Sprawled out across his back, Cranden was able to control him enough to allow Tuttle to release his grip.

  Tuttle moved quickly on his knees to the front of the cockpit and crawled back into his seat beneath the flashing warning lights.

  Behind him, Cranden held a light in one hand and inspected the object at the base of Parker’s neck.

  Tuttle scrolled through the data coming across the console.

  "Radiation control caplet activation complete,” appeared across the screen.

  Tuttle paged through the ship's active status files to check the extent its protective programming was working to prevent unauthorized return to the planet.

  "I don’t see an energy increase from the back!" Tuttle yelled.

  He hit another sequence of numbers on the control pad to confirm his assessment. Another quick run of the ship's readiness system showed that the ship and all of its automatic controls were running normally.

  "I can't find anything!” he yelled at Samuel while quickly sliding from his seat to help Cranden hold Parker. “No signs of a nuclear self-destruct!"

  "We're going to breach planetary atmosphere any second now!" Samuel replied his muscles becoming more tense across the controls.

  Fierce agonized shrieks came again from Parker's lips.

  Cranden drove his elbows into Parker's shoulder blades to hold him across the floor until Tuttle was able to reach them. When Tuttle got there and pressed his large hands down into the small of Parker’s back, Cranden rolled off and knelt beside him.

  Tuttle fought hard to hang on.

  "Keep him breathing!" Samuel yelled at them. "There's no telling how closely his life signs are registered into the ship controls. If there's still a ship booby trap working on him now, there’s a good chance it might arm the nukes if it doesn’t sense his life signs."

  Parker's legs kicked out at the back of Samuel's seat. Some of the blows landed across Samuel’s neck and jammed into his arms.

  "Corn, you've got to do something right now!" Samuel yelled throwing around the ship's controls.

  The planet before them was no longer a visible sphere. It had grown into a single giant mass spanning the entire area of the viewport.

  Atmospheric reentry was shortly becoming close.

  Still trying to hold Parker with one arm, Cranden reached into his gear and pulled out a large black object. He pressed a spring release and a large blade appeared from inside. Tuttle looked over at the resounding click it made even over the chaotic din of the room.

  Tuttle tightened his grip around Parker’s midsection and tried to control his flailing legs with the tips of his own knees.

  "Hold him," Cranden said softly to Tuttle.

  Tuttle pressed his palms hard against the back of Parker's neck trapping his arms beneath his chest and flattening his face into the ground.

  With one quick swooping slice, Cranden slid the blade into Parker’s skin.

  Parker howled in agonizing pain through the cloth stuffed between his teeth.

  Blood sprayed into the air and splashed across Cranden’s face. Tuttle clung desperately to Parker who now struggled more fiercely for release from his grip.

  Cranden pawed at the wound with his free hand trying to move some of the blood and skin away. He pushed the blade through blackened dead tissue trying to get it under the radiation caplet.

  Parker twisted violently side-to-side causing Cranden’s blade to go deeper into his skin.

  Cranden did his best to steady his hand and keep it from slicing all the way through Parker’s neck. But, the wound was quickly becoming dangerously severe.

  "Did you get it?!" Tuttle yelled at him.

  Parker's body was then overtaken again with fresh bursts of violent spasms. Vomit shot from his mouth and splashed across the deck.

  "Just about!" Cranden said trying to ignore the screams. “I’m close.”

  The blood cleared from the wound momentarily allowing Cranden a chance to see better inside. He worked the knife carefully towards the small pulsating device. Parker’s body calmed a bit as his stomach emptied itself again onto the floor.

  Blood again rushed freely down the back of Parker’s neck. The stench of it along with vomit filled the air.

  Bringing one last tortured scream from Parkers’ lips, Cranden popped the caplet loose. It made a sickening sound of moisture and suction letting go. When Cranden had worked it completely out, it fell across Parker’s shoulder and onto the cockpit deck.

  Parker shrieked one last time and then laid still. The device pulsated on the floor next to his knees.

  "Don't touch it!" Cranden yelled.

  Tuttle had already stepped back and tried to roll Parker away from it. His body had settled down and was mostly still.

  Cranden flicked the device out of the cockpit with the tip of his blade. It bounced lightly away and came to a stop just a few feet from the hole ripped in the deck.

  Cranden stood and picked up a piece of the twisted metal lying at his feet. Holding the metal piece at his waist, he used it to push the device past RadCom’s body into the flaming pit in the middle of the corridor.

  "Here we go," Samuel said from back in the cockpit. His grip was tight across the controls, and his attention was riveted on the view of the Earth filling the observation window.

  Additional J.G.U. assault cannon bursts chased them from behind. They impacted across the top of the ship and sailed off into the protective atmosphere of the planet where they dispersed into blinding flashes of light.

  Samuel, Cranden, and Tuttle squinted and covered their eyes. Parker remained motionless along the floor.

  The Hideaway lurched sharply when it made its first contact with the outer atmosphere and began its dive in.

  "General, I need you back up here now!" Samuel yelled over the additional noise of the energy discharge.

  Releasing his grip across Parker, Tuttle quickly crawled the short distance back to the copilot's seat.

  “Beginning descent,” Samuel reported.

  "Corn!" Samuel yelled. His voice was barely able to be heard as they dove further into the Earth, and the ship started to more violently shake.

  "Corn! You need to keep him alive back there. We need him to confirm or command the ship to disarm itself. This would really be a shit trip if we get back only to have the whole fucking thing go the minute we touch down.”

  Tuttle pulled himself back up into the copilot's seat. The cabin shook to the point Tuttle could feel his teeth bouncing inside his head. He tasted blood from a wound he bit into the side of his cheek.

  "Corn!" Samuel look
ed around the quaking cabin. Green energy bursts still chased them from behind ripping at the Hideaway’s sides and exploding in front of them.

  "He's still breathing!” Cranden screamed back at him. “That's all I know!"

  Cranden held onto the side of the wall with one hand to keep from being thrown about the cockpit. With the other, he pressed pieces of fabric he had ripped from his shirt into the wound across the back of Parker’s neck. He continued to hold Parker to the ground with his knee.

  Two more powerful blasts pummeled the rear of the Hideaway smashing it towards the planet.

  And then the viewport glowed brightly orange as the ship immersed itself completely into the planet's outer atmosphere.

  The battered ship shook even harder. Samuel worked furiously at the controls.

  "They shouldn't be able to follow us after reentry," Samuel stammered turning to Tuttle. Their seats vibrated so hard it was almost impossible for either of them to speak. "Once we're through, we'll break for the rendezvous. If any of them make it through, we'll be gone before they can bring up sensors to track us."

  Tuttle pulled a small black rectangular device from the side of his jacket and jabbed it into the navigation console hovering over his lap.

  "Tracer set!" he yelled back. "The ship will break for the coordinates once we're clear."

  The Hideaway bucked again. More alarms sounded through the cabin. A faint blue glow began to replace the orange fires outside the viewport.

  "You're going to need to control rear thrusters once we're through," Samuel said pushing buttons to silence the alarms and scowling at the information appearing on the screens in front of him. "The whole fucking thing is shaking apart. There's not much holding us anymore to the cargo area. You're going to have to steer it with us."

  "Firing up cargo reserve engines now!" Tuttle responded.

  More lights activated across his own console.

  "Coordinates set and received!" he yelled again.

  The Hideaway lurched one last time.

  Behind them, Cranden lost his grip against the wall. Both he and Parker, who was now lying unconscious on the ground, smashed against the back of the command seats.

  Blood spurted from a freshly ripped cut over Cranden’s eye.

  The fires of the atmospheric entry were replaced by the color of sky and ground.

  The Hideaway had finally broken completely through.

  "You've got to revive him!" Samuel yelled pulling wildly at the navigation controls.

  "Rendezvous destination in sixty seconds!" Tuttle yelled wrestling with his own equipment.

  The weapons bombardment from the ship chasing them had stopped.

  "Thirty seconds before we make the descent. Forty-five to the landing run."

  The pitch of the Hideaway leveled out. The turmoil within the cockpit for the moment had settled.

  "How's he doing?" Samuel asked again. For the first time since they had taken control of the ship, he didn't have to scream.

  Tuttle watched the sandy grit of the Earth's surface streak towards them.

  The mammoth domes looked like small dots along its charred dark terrain. They grew quickly in size as the Hideaway made its descent. Many were in flames, victims of the Dome War still being waged across the soil.

  The Hideaway zoomed towards the coordinates entering themselves into its navigation system.

  Tuttle felt sick watching the ruined planet coming at them. Guilt and shame for what he had done to contribute to what he saw below rushed through his head.

  The flaming domes and destroyed cities began to fall behind them as the ship banked to the secret location of the presidential retreat.

  While the ship flew itself without their command, Samuel and Tuttle turned around to see Cranden slowly roll off of Parker's back.

  The seizures had stopped, and his breathing had returned to a normal pace.

  Cranden continued to apply pressure and change bandages across the back of Parker’s neck.

  With his cheek resting against the floor, Parker groggily opened his eyes. Without speaking, he crawled weakly the short distance to the front of the cockpit.

  Cranden readjusted the position of his arm and maintained the pressure across his wound. He moved with Parker along the ground as he pulled himself up to the back of Tuttle’s seat and reached towards the command consoles.

  Tuttle was about to move to allow Parker to sit in the command seat when a fresh burst of energy pounded across the nose of their ship. A second burst ripped to the right of the observation area and tore into the Hideaway’s side.

  Metal broke away and exploded with a scream into the open air.

  A third bolt ripped at the Hideaway’s midsection and tossed all four men violently around inside the cramped cockpit.

  "Rear thruster power is gone!" Tuttle screamed over the wail of new alarms. “I’ve got no control!”

  Below the speeding ship, wreckage ripped loose from its underside tore huge craters into the ground. Some of the twisted metal was swallowed whole by the earth. Other parts of the debris were lost in the still-smoldering flames of the destroyed domes and scorched countryside.

  Cranden and Parker pressed their faces against the viewport to get a better look at what was happening at the rear of the Hideaway.

  "They're still back there!" Parker yelled.

  "Hang on!” Cranden said softly from the other side of the cabin. “We’ve got more coming in…”

  The ship lurched sharply again as it was pelted with a fresh burst of violent energy. Its nose dipped out of the sky and pointed directly towards the ground.

  Its speed did not decrease.

  "How far are we?" Tuttle asked. His fingers jabbed at controls that were short-circuiting and igniting into tiny flames across his lap. The ground rushed at them from the surface.

  Tuttle never heard the reply. The world around him suddenly went black.

  After more than fifty years, the Hideaway and its secret cargo finally returned from space. The force of its impact drove it deep into the hard flaming terrain of the Earth.

  Chapter 31

  The transport jarred again sharply against the rough sandy ground.

  They had broken through to the outside surface less than an hour ago from the emergency escape tunnels of the Administration Dome.

  Flames from the overrun domes and the destruction of the ancient cities were becoming fewer and farther between along their route. Much of the massive ruin now blended into one fiery existence that slowly disappeared behind them in the distance.

  The presidential retreat was not much further ahead.

  They were in a region of old Canada near the northernmost section of the continent. The land here was much as it had been before. Outside cities stretched for many miles throughout. Even years after the unification of the two countries, dome construction hadn’t yet reached this far.

  Only blowing sand and sweating dunes and rock stretched before them.

  “We’re two miles from the retreat, sir,” Baldwin reported looking up from the command console across his lap.

  “Can we send a signal?” Ford asked back.

  “No, sir, too much risk. No guarantee against a trace.”

  “Do we know anything about the retrieval team?”

  “It’s been some time since we’ve had contact with the crew boarding the Hideaway. All we can do is proceed. We’ll know more when we get to the retreat. At least there we’ll know if they’ve activated the tracing system to bring it in.”

  Baldwin sat in the transport’s passenger seat next to the guard that had led them out. Both the portable command console and a mini-holovid hovered across his lap.

  Ford sat in the back next to the second guard whose blood colored the inside of the passenger cab a dark red. He tried to ignore the sickening smell.

  Neither of the guards spoke. Both wore stony expressions of determined indifference as one drove the tiny transport and the other bled in the backseat next to the President. A scar
y blankness lurked behind their stares.

  The President took another gulp of the stale air inside the cramped cab.

  The smoky smell of discharged weaponry still jammed the compartment. The large bodies of both guards further crowded the space. The thick scent of spilt blood threatened to suffocate them all.

  Ford closed his eyes and tried to fight the claustrophobia away.

  Blood flowed freely down the neck of the man next to him and disappeared into a thick foam of sweat at his uniform sleeve.

  Everyone in the cab knew his wounds at any time would take his life.

  The parts of his skin not covered in blood were a ghostly white.

  The President sat back to take a breath and raised the bloody needle from the emergency kit away from the guard’s skin.

  Since they had broken through from the tunnels into the light, Ford had undertaken the hopeless task of trying to sew shut some of his wounds.

  He tried not to stare directly into the guard’s eyes. He couldn’t bear for him to read his thoughts.

  Ford took another breath and waited for the transport to hit some flatter land so that he wouldn’t further damage the wounds he was trying to close.

  A large gaping gash of ripped skin stretched nearly the full length of his arm and down beneath his shoulder.

  Ford swallowed hard and did his best to close at least part of it. With what fabric they had torn from their clothes and gear, he tried to stop the flow of blood from the rest.

  “Sir, we’ve got a whole lot of new signals,” Baldwin stammered from the front of the transport.

  “Source!” Ford demanded immediately.

  They continued to speed along the sun-ravaged land.

  “Nothing of ours. Enemy forces for sure.”

  “Where?” Ford looked away from the guard and stared out the rear window apprehensively.

  “Coming from every side. Can’t see them yet, but they’re out there. Just beyond the dunes. Jeeps, tanks and air assault craft. Multiple sizes and coming from all around. From all over the goddamn place!”

  The President became silent and returned his attention back to the guard’s wounds.

  “I recommend we break from course,” Baldwin said slowly.