Four more of the saucers had landed at the spot where the command bunker used to sit and thousands of Grays and their automatons ran down the metal ramps. It was like watching ants emptying a hill.
The American and German forces had been completely overrun and were now just trying to survive.
The Black Hawk pilot slammed the stick to the left as a line of cannon fire hit her four-bladed rotor. The helicopter shook but remained in the air and the pilot cursed as he brought the army bird directly over Poseidon’s Nest.
* * *
The three tons of charges had been placed when the false ceiling of the three hundred tons of camouflaging ice had been frozen over by the U.S. Army and Royal Corps of Engineers years before in anticipation of the Lee’s breakout of Poseidon’s Nest. The loud warning blasts of horns could be heard throughout Camp Alamo and Poseidon’s Nest and every man and woman braced for one of the largest explosions ever detonated by man over an occupied zone.
“All camp personnel brace for shock wave,” came the automated announcement that echoed off the ice walls of the now-deserted hangar.
Carl and his men looked at one another and most felt as if they would never reach the IP position for their assault to take place. The men in the two squads had set their odds of the Lee making it into the air as 75–1. Everett had not wanted to place his money on the outcome because the odds he had figured were far worse.
Inside the hangar the sound of the powerful ion engines pulsed with the power of the alien power plant. Blue-colored venting started to flare from her six thirty-five-foot-in-diameter bell housings at the stern of the battleship. The paint marking the name Garrison Lee, stenciled on the fifty-foot fantail, started to peel and fly away from the tremendous heat being generated from the giant engines. Plastic wire-ties left by the workers flared and melted away, and even a scaffolding left by the yard started to melt like ice cream in the summer sun until it fell like melting wax to the frozen ground beneath the last of the support struts, and even these enormous pieces of steel started glowing red hot as the engine exhaust became too much, even with the six engines at idle.
The HMS Garrison Lee was as ready as she ever would be as she shook in her red-hot mountings with the power of the Martian technology flowing through her structural lines.
“Ceiling detonation in ten, nine, eight, seven…,”
Carl braced himself for the impact that would be caused by one hundred tons of hardened ice striking the ship as the man-made roof opened to the sky. He hoped the Martians knew what they were doing in their design of the large battlewagon.
* * *
The Black Hawk took another direct hit on the tail boom and the rear rotor barely hung on after ten feet of aluminum housing tore free.
Suddenly the world seemed to go silent. The illusion could be attested to by men caught in the opening moments of an artillery barrage as the mind played a protecting trick on the body. It was if the world slowed down so the human reaction could spark movement in the speedy detonation around them.
The Black Hawk vanished in a hail of shattered ice as the false roof of Poseidon’s Nest exploded upward. Four square miles of ice and snow disappeared in a millisecond as the explosives were electronically detonated by computer.
The passengers and crew were thrown against the sound-reducing roof of the helicopter as the impact first lifted and then flipped her onto her side, and then the Black Hawk rolled over upside down. Her tail boom was ripped completely free of her main body and the five-bladed rotors were sheared away by one-ton blocks of ice that were thrown into the sky like Styrofoam. The helicopter spun in a dizzying circle as she fell from the sky in flames and falling ice.
* * *
Everett closed his eyes as the impact started beating a horrible sound against the Lee’s superstructure as the millions of tons of ice fell free and onto the decks of the warship. The giant battleship shook and was nearly pushed from her remaining support beams as she righted herself and then shook even more as five delayed charges exploded against her superstructure. When the shaking and battering stopped and the Lee ceased her frightening roll, Carl chanced a look onto the upper deck of the battleship to see falling blocks of ice striking the ship with terrifying loudness. The view that he had was amazing and horrifying at the same time, even as several of his assault team members shouted their approval at the adrenaline-producing scene.
Everett’s eyes widened when he saw amongst the falling ice, the dark shape of something his brain didn’t recognize at first. Then he realized it was the damaged main section of a Black Hawk. It struck the deck and then bounced, stopping only when it was inundated with falling ice from above. Carl immediately released his harness and sprinted for the emergency hatch only feet away. The opening would lead him toward the deck and superstructure beyond. The two Special Forces lieutenants had seen the same thing as the admiral and also unsnapped their harnesses and ran after Carl, finding it hard to lift their feet against the grip of the Velcro flooring. They admonished the rest of the men to stay put as several of them attempted to follow.
Everett ignored the hatch-open warning and even the yelling from the engineering section on the bridge to secure the hatch. He finally managed to break the hard seal and he was nearly crushed as ice continued to fall. He covered his head, cursing himself for not bringing his helmet as he was joined by the two team leaders. They dodged and ran along the laced girder superstructure that made up the forward decking just aft of the giant deflector plow. The Black Hawk was starting to burn as it was wedged into the sharpened rear of the immense plow.
“Check the other side!” he yelled as he ran for the shattered door of the upside-down helicopter. Ice fell and warning alarms once more sounded inside the immense cave.
“Booster ignition in two minutes,” came the announcement that eerily echoed and bounced off the ice walls three hundred feet away.
The three men struggled getting both sets of sliding doors open. Finally Everett smashed the Plexiglas and slid inside, careful not to puncture or slice his environmental suit. He bounced down inside the upside-down compartment. He landed on at least two men. The two team leaders could not get the wedged-in door open and couldn’t reach the glass window because of the immensity of the deflector plow. They ran to Carl’s side and helped him lift the first live passenger out. It was a small man, to the relief of the Delta and SEAL as they roughly pulled the man free.
Lieutenant Tram was seriously hurt from a bleeding head wound as the Delta lieutenant threw him over his shoulder and ran for the open hatch thirty feet away, still dodging the falling ice.
Everett checked the next man after discovering the two pilots dead in the seats. He rolled the large body over and saw that it was Major Krell. His blank and staring eyes told the admiral the major was dead. This gave him a start as he realized both men were a part of Jack’s command staff.
“Jack!” Everett yelled as the countdown outside started at exactly at one minute.
Finally Everett found Collins lying underneath their field gear and rolled him over. His head was bleeding from several large gashes and he looked as if he were having difficulty breathing.
“Oh no, you don’t—not here, not now!” he shouted into Collins’s face as the big SEAL lifted him free from the debris. He practically tossed Jack through the broken window and didn’t wait to see if anyone caught him as he too scrambled free of the Black Hawk.
“Booster ignition in thirty seconds,” the computerized voice stated.
Carl quickly ran for the fast-retreating Delta lieutenant, who had the heavy general in a fireman’s carry as he made for the hatchway. Carl wasn’t far behind.
Helping hands took Jack and placed him on the deck. Then the men quickly strapped themselves in. Everett and the Delta lieutenant threw themselves on top of the two unconscious men and braced them as best they could. Several of the assault team reached out with their legs and slammed their booted feet down across the two men and the rescued passengers to assist in holding them down.
“Three, two, one, ignition.”
Outside the pressure hull a tremendous explosion rocked the Garrison Lee as one hundred and fifty solid fuel boosters flared to life at once. The Lee shook and then rocked in her cradle as the giant battleship dangerously rolled to starboard as the synchronization of the igniting rocket port boosters was off by 2.3 milliseconds. The men hung on as the Lee bounced several times, crushing the remaining support beams holding her in place.
* * *
Flames erupted all along the central line of midsection of the battleship as she strained against gravity to rise. On the command bridge the officers and men were being shaken as if a 12.0 earthquake had erupted under the ship.
“Gimbal main drive engines one to six to maximum down angle,” Commodore Freemantle said calmly into his headset and mic. “Maneuvering thrusters 150 degrees down angle, full power, gentlemen. Let’s see if the Martians knew how to fly!” That command was the only excitement they had ever heard from their stoic commander.
The added thrust of Lee’s six main engines coupled with her maneuvering jets pushed the Garrison Lee into a slow climb.
The power of the booster and the main engines melted ten million gallons of ice lining Poseidon’s Nest, instantaneously inundating the superstructure with a wall of water.
The Lee rose like a slow-moving airship as her boosters lifted her clear of her remaining support beams. As it did the thrust melted even these.
Still the enormous battleship rose majestically skyward as embedded cameras broadcast the images to the world as major networks were ordered from every capital on the planet to break in.
The HMS Garrison Lee broke through the remaining ice that clung tenaciously to the sides of the tunnel walls. Melting ice fell like Niagara as her engines burned and scorched steel support beams holding the walls intact, and still she rose.
The battleship shook and rocked as her bulk finally cleared the opening. Two of the hovering saucers were hit hard and bounced away as the Lee blasted into the open with brilliant sparkles of sunlight illuminating the thirty tons of ice crystals whose luminescence was excited by the combination of heat and color as the engines exploded her into the clear.
The world watched in awe as Operation Overlord became active and the Garrison Lee rose faster and faster into the brilliant blue sky, incinerating thousands of attacking Grays on the snow-covered ground.
The Earth trembled at the hybrid mix of Martian and Earth technology, and the idea advanced by a small alien in Arizona became reality.
Operation Overlord was going on the attack.
WALTER REED NATIONAL MILITARY MEDICAL CENTER
BETHESDA, MARYLAND
The president was propped up in bed. His eyes were both blackened and his head was still bandaged. Both arms had been broken and the casts were being held up by nylon lines that kept a tight traction on the arms and shoulders. The first lady was standing next to her husband and as they watched the Garrison Lee rise into the air, the water glass she was holding slowly tilted forward and water inundated the commander-in-chief. He didn’t notice as his lips were moving but nothing was coming out of his mouth.
Niles Compton was at the foot of his friend’s bed and Max Caulfield and Virginia Pollock were at each of the handles of the wheelchair, watching in awed silence as the scene from Antarctica was played out before them and six billion other citizens of the world. In an instant the military expenditures incurred by the major contributors to Overlord immediately explained the enormous bill for the project as every advanced technology made by every nation on Earth was utilized in the discovery, excavation, reverse engineering, and repair of the Martian technology that was 700 million years old.
It was two of the six Secret Service agents who voiced the hopes of the world as they simultaneously screamed encouragement as the stirring sight unfolded before them.
“Go, go, go!” they shouted, ignoring the flinching people around them.
Finally the man who had just awakened from a coma less than three hours before joined the men in their enthusiasm. He tried to swing his arms but only succeeded in knocking the rest of the water glass being held by his wife onto his head and he still didn’t notice; neither did the first lady.
As the Lee rose higher and higher, a chase plane from the USS John C. Stennis, an old Grumman A-6 Intruder, had to turn sharply out of the path of the largest object to ever move on land, sea, or air, but her cameras kept rolling. It was Niles Compton who saw the carnage on the ground as the Intruder’s cameras caught the scene as she straightened and accidentally showed a panoramic view of the battlefield beneath the Garrison Lee. He looked at the view of devastation as hundreds of burning and smashed armored vehicles were clearly seen below. Men of the 101st and 82nd Airborne and the German 23rd Panzer divisions were lying dead across the scorched field of ice. Aircraft from the Royal Navy and the remains of Hornets from the Washington and Stennis aircraft carriers were crushed and in flames where their sliced and smashed aluminum frames had impacted the ice.
Niles lowered his bandaged head as he realized it was his plan that had sent so many men and women to their deaths. Max Caulfield, ever the general who cared for his men, had seen the same devastation as Compton, and Virginia allowed her tears to flow for the first time without wiping them away. Niles was only seeing, within his deepest soul, the smiling faces of the friends he had sent into harm’s way—friends who could never be replaced. Caulfield squeezed Compton’s undamaged shoulder in sympathy because he knew exactly how the director felt. Virginia Pollock could no longer stay in the room and turned and left.
On the television screen the Lee burst through the thickened cumulus clouds and vanished.
THE PENTAGON
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Acting President Giles Camden realized that many of the soldiers who owed their allegiance to him were the loudest of all the officers in the situation room. He turned as the British-christened warship reached the sky and the cheers inside the room erupted in earnest. For show the president waved his official photographer over by whipping his head around. The man raised the camera and started taking shots as he stood on his high perch and placed his hands over his head and clasped them together and shook them like a prize fighter after a KO.
Daniel Peachtree watched the show put on by the president and knew that somehow he was to be blamed because the grand experiment had succeeded when he said it would fail and Camden had gone with his advice.
The military men who had been in the acting president’s camp earlier in the day were now stunned at the exhibition being put on by a man they knew had wished Overlord to fail; who had insisted it wasn’t real in the first place. As for Peachtree, he wanted to throttle the man because he wasn’t watching the rats leaving a sinking ship, he was actually pushing them off himself. It didn’t take long for many of the enlisted personnel to see the man above them behind the glass and they slowly lost their enthusiasm for cheering. Finally Peachtree stood and moved to the front and acted as if he were studying the situation boards. Since the awakening of the real commander-in-chief, not only had the two battle groups changed course and assisted in the battle in Antarctica, the Nimitz Battle Group in the Arabian Sea was steaming at flank speed toward the Indian coast. The man having his picture taken had yet to realize that he was no longer in charge. As he stepped to the glass he spoke out of the side of his mouth to get the fool to acknowledge the reality of what was happening.
“The president is giving orders from Walter Reed, if you hadn’t noticed.”
Camden nodded at the photographer and then turned around. “I am well aware of that, and that is why I have had you summon the chief justice and the attorney general.”
“Well, they’re meeting with a president, but it’s not you. My men tell me they’re currently inside the president’s suite of rooms, more than likely telling him the procedures for getting you out of his office.”
Camden lost a lot of the bravado he had been feeling just a mome
nt before.
“Either that or he’s asking for arrest warrants for a few men that seem to have been at odds with their oaths of office.”
“What are you saying?”
Peachtree wanted to turn and shake the fool out of his dreamlike slowness. Finally he turned and faced him directly as many eyes turned their way.
“This is not about hanging onto power any longer, it’s about what prison they send us to after that power is yanked right out of your hands. We have to stop everything right now and put an end to…” he stopped for a moment and lowered his voice to a hard whisper, “Recall the Black Team and immediately eliminate Vickers—he’s the only one that has more than just innuendo and rumor on us. He has knowledge that can hang both of us, and not just about technology buying and selling. Other things.”
“Well, we had already decided that, so what?” Camden said, still not fully grasping the situation. “When he goes, the problem goes.”
Peachtree gave up and walked out of the situation room.
* * *
The moment he was outside in the grassy area between the E ring and the glass doors of the D, he pulled his cell phone out and hit one number.
“Yes?” came the cold voice.
“Mission cancelled. Eliminate the problem that you have currently in your possession.”
“It looked like the asset wasn’t going to utilize this out-of-the-way facility anyway, and the other problem is right in front of me at the moment.”
“Also, after you finish, lay low for a while, a long while. Your payment has been deposited in your regular account.”
Peachtree didn’t wait for a response. He closed the cell phone and then looked over at the two Marines standing guard by the glass doors. For some strange reason it seemed as if the two men knew what sort of man he had become, like they could see his very thoughts. He decided that he would return to his office and await the fate that had been destined for him since he first threw in with the likes of the former Speaker of the House.
This particular rat was on the gunnels of the ship and he was seriously thinking about jumping.
Overlord Page 49