Overrun

by Michael Rusch

  Another minute passed in the silence of the burning flames. Then Mel looked at him and slowly began to move. Kirken and Brandon both extended their arms out further towards her as she made her way back along the broken cables.

  When she had finally reached them, her body lurched violently from the intensity of her fear. She stretched her own arm out to them and allowed them to gently pull her back.

  When they had safely hauled her over the rails, she grabbed them both and sank sobbing in their arms to the floor. Kirken pulled her tightly against him and ran his fingers through her sweat-soaked hair. Small cries but no words came with every touch.

  Brandon stood over them. Pressing hard with both hands, he tried to stop the fresh flow of blood that had started to come from his wounds. The adrenaline and fear fueling his battered body was finally spent. And the pain had finally come.

  The bloody tire iron he had been carrying with him all this time laid close next to him along the broken floor.

  Chapter 35

  The setting sun beat hard against the guardrails surrounding Science Dome 15's lookout station. The rails were unbearable to touch even through the heat-protected gloves.

  Watch Tower paced nervously about the post. The few men in his charge monitoring the lookout platform stared intently through their extended range glasses towards Beuford.

  It was almost time to end their shift. They had been out in the sun too long. Mandatory duty relief would be ordered by the command center within the hour. Yet some feeling seething deep within Watch Tower's gut made him think that today this would not be the case.

  "What do ya got?" he asked one of the lookouts next to him.

  The younger sentry to his right leaned closer to the rails and adjusted the controls of his glasses. Watch Tower squinted into the falling sun towards where the lookout aimed his device. He did not raise his own.

  "Tanks and jeeps, sir," the young sentry answered him. "There’s a lot of them. More than fifty from what I can see now."

  "Fleeing the damaged area?"

  "No, sir," the sentry said again. "These vehicles are moving together. Some sort of procession collecting from areas outside and within the undamaged sections of the town."

  "Any word on the airborne run?"

  "It's on its way, sir."

  Watch Tower lifted up his own glasses and stared at the procession which was just about to breach the outskirts of Beuford's city limits. He couldn't see where it finally came to an end, but the direction in which it traveled was more than distinct.

  He stepped away from the platform to the communications transmitter mounted along the wall. Holding his glasses nervously in his fist, he punched its activation switch. Doing his best to keep the sand swirling about the air out of his mouth, he leaned his head in close to the device.

  "Dome Leader," he called to Science Dome 15's command center housed deep within the facility's protected core. "Reporting visual confirmation on large vehicle procession heading out of Beuford. Danger interpretation status…extremely high."

  "We've been alerted, Watch Tower," a muffled voice answered back through the transmitter.

  Watch Tower leaned in closer to better hear through the strong bellow of the wind's blowing heat. The back of his throat was completely dry, and the usual patches of sand that entered his mouth while on lookout felt even more uncomfortable against his tongue.

  "They breached perimeter alert zones about ten minutes ago. They're still a safe distance out. Plenty of smaller patrols have made it much further in than this."

  "But nothing of this magnitude," Watch Tower responded nervously. "Never a convoy this size."

  "I agree," the voice spit back at him through the crackling speaker. "Lookout assessment, Watch Tower?"

  "Full-scale response," Watch Tower said evenly. He turned away from the transmitter to look across the shoulders of the men leaning over the observation rails. "We are not dealing here with another patrol out searching with no direction. I think at this point it's safe to assume they know where we are."

  "Nothing's for sure, Commander. It's too soon for us to be giving up our position just yet."

  Watch Tower turned back to the transmitter alarmed at what he had just heard.

  "We're readying an intercept team now. Ground troops will be rolling within the next seven minutes."

  "Ground troops?" Watch Tower could feel the nervousness welling in his stomach rise. It added a slight edge to his tone.

  "A full-scale response assault is not necessary at this time," the leader of Science Dome 15's command center answered him. "The firebomb air team is en route. Their launch was confirmed within the last half hour. Our ground forces just need to contain the advance until the target is destroyed. And then get away themselves."

  "Sir, this response is not sufficient," Watch Tower struggled to keep his voice steady. "The Death Wall needs to be primed and made ready for an immediate ignite. This is the only chance we're going to get to decide this."

  "That's a negative, Watch Tower," the voice quickly answered him. "Too much risk to our own bombing run. Everything within a seventy-five mile radius of that blast will be vaporized or otherwise incapacitated including a sizeable portion of the closest section of the town. There is too much potential of blowing our own forces right out of the sky."

  "Sir, an unknown convoy is out there, and it is coming this way," Watch Tower's temper started to rise. "We all know the importance of this particular facility in determining the outcome of this war…"

  "Watch Tower," Dome Leader's transmitted voice cut him off. "…if we send up the fire shield at this point in time, the anonymity of our position will be prematurely and unnecessarily compromised. We would endanger our own air forces and jeopardize the effectiveness of their run. The shield will only make the facility impenetrable for thirty-six hours at the absolute most. When it dies down, our location will be detectable and vulnerable with no guarantees of arriving reinforcements should we fall under attack. This type of last-resort scenario is not something we need to risk at this time. We will engage with a ground team and hold them off best we can until the firebombing. We'll easily eradicate whatever size force that might remain after the run."

  "Any other facility, I would agree, Dome Leader. But with the Beam Cannon Hardware being housed here, I respectfully suggest ignition of the fire shield as necessary and request air reinforcement to deal with ground level survivors near the perimeter. Our fires will be detected as those of Beuford. No one will know that we are here."

  "But the wall will be gone and we will be vulnerable," Dome Leader refuted with a calm stillness coloring his voice.

  "Lookout," Watch Tower called away from the transmitter to the closest man leaning across the railing. "Estimated vehicle force."

  "It’s growing, sir," the lookout answered back. "Visual confirmation of more than three hundred separate vehicles. They are all heading in this direction."

  "Dome Leader," Watch Tower spoke back into the transmitter. "We need to prime the Death Wall now and risk its ignition. Whatever force it is, reconnaissance patrol or otherwise, they're already too far out of the city to be eliminated completely by the air run."

  For the first time, the voice on the other end of the transmitter did not answer back. The soft swirl of hot air blowing about the lookout platform sounded uncomfortably against Watch Tower's ears.

  "Death Wall ignition is a viable risk. Something we're going to have to take. That convoy is coming directly this way."

  The voice coming from the transmitter was still silent. Even through the outside noise coming from behind him on the observation platform, Watch Tower could still hear the electronic sounds of Science Dome 15's command center on the other end.

  "Command Center," Watch Tower dropped the level of his tone but not its intensity.

  "Watch Tower," the voice finally returned. "The Death Wall is being primed. Ignition control will be transferred to the observation deck within the next five minutes. Send it up at your
command."

  "Yes, sir," Watch Tower said quickly and snapped the transmitter off.

  He returned to the observation deck next to his men and pulled his extended range glasses back to his eyes.

  Chapter 36

  "Location confirmation on the firebomb team?"

  "Nothing yet, General," Piper reported back to Tuttle. The communication officer leaned against the large automatic cannon mounted across the rear deck of the assault helicopter and pressed his headset tightly against his ear. He nodded intently at the voices giving him estimated coordinates from the launch base. "The trackers think they're close."

  "How close?" Tuttle barked.

  "They've calculated vicinity vectors and place them as being right here. Right on top of us. We should have visual confirmation any second."

  Tuttle glanced over at the pilot who gripped his hands noticeably tighter across the assault helicopter’s controls. The fiery terrain fell away in a blur beneath them, and a large shape loomed in the darkness just beyond the hills ahead.

  The mall was less than a mile away.

  "Two minutes," the pilot's electronically transmitted voice came tautly through Tuttle's headset.

  Tuttle leaned his head against the side window and searched the sky behind them. There was still no sign of the firebomb team. The edge of Beuford appeared quiet, almost tranquil, from their position overhead. Some of the nearby fires of the burning city had begun to reduce in size.

  The town was still. Peacefully awaiting its coming annihilation.

  Tuttle's eyes searched furtively outside the helicopter for what might be hidden within the sinister black night. He prayed his thoughts alone would keep the firebomb team at bay until they reached the mall roof.

  His concerns did not rest on their survival or even to encompass their escape. Tuttle just wanted to live long enough to reach the Kirken family first.

  He implored favor from those guarding the heavens. If he wasn’t able to complete the rescue, he begged to be at least given the chance to look into John Kirken's eyes. Even if it was just for a second.

  He just wanted the man to know that someone had come.

  Chapter 37

  Watch Tower focused his extended range glasses towards the cloud of churning sand and flying chunks of terrain that marked the location of the racing land fleet. More than a hundred vehicles made up the squadron that sped towards Beuford in defense of Science Dome 15.

  The convoy leaving the city grew with every passing second.

  Watch Tower trained his glasses toward the sleek bullet-shaped attack fleet and the war vehicles they rushed to meet. He held his breath and nervously scanned the long procession of coming trucks and jeeps for any signs of the J.G.U. transports reportedly responsible for the assault on Science Dome 26.

  Immediately following the first loss of one of the secret domes in the war, images of the mammoth killing machines had been transmitted to every facility and scout command.

  Ever since word had arrived of the first dome assault, Watch Tower had made SD15's leaders alter existing defense tactics to better address a similar onslaught of these new weapons at their facility.

  He had personally called for the vehicles rushing from the base of the dome below. Actually, he had stood before the entire facility command crew and demanded the Bullet land craft be prepared for dome defense use.

  Unlike the Bigfoot land units normally used in defensive battles outside the domes, these vehicles were much smaller in design. The Bullets were designed for reconnaissance and espionage runs. They were harder to detect on sensing equipment, and the sheer sleekness of their shape made them much less susceptible to enemy fire.

  Watch Tower leaned his waist against the observation deck rails and raised the inside of his wrist to his mouth. Without looking away from his glasses, he spoke into the transmitter nestled inside his jacket cuff.

  "Bullet Leader this is Watch Tower. Visual confirmation on more than one hundred vehicles headed your way. Some coming from the fires, others from undamaged sections of the city. Firebomb team to Beuford ETA unconfirmed at this time. Death Wall is primed and sitting at ‘ignition ready status’. Twenty-mile safe zone if we decide to let it go."

  Static spit from the comlink while Watch Tower waited for the leader of the ground assault to respond.

  "We've got more than one hundred fifty in sight or on scopes," Bullet Leader's voice returned. “Teams are breaking up to engage."

  Watch Tower adjusted the controls to his extended range glasses and pressed them harder against his eyes. Small purple welts began to form where the sharp edges of the glasses pressed too hard against his skin.

  "Charge weapons and begin fire," the Bullet team leader's voice sounded grimly from Watch Tower's wrist.

  The solid line of Bullet fleet vehicles that stretched from SD15's landing bay immediately broke apart at the order. The small land units left the initial charge in pairs and swarmed about the coming J.G.U. convoy like wasps leaving a disturbed hive.

  Watch Tower strained his eyes to see through the cloud of flying dirt kicked up by the Bullet fleet. The two opposing lines of vehicles merged together at their points and slowly became one jagged disfigured mass.

  By now the J.G.U. convoy was only fifty miles away from the dome's base.

  Soon the bright flashes of fired rockets and the sound of exploding rounds began to come from beneath the floating layers of settling dirt.

  "Someone inform the command center our land team has just intercepted the convoy," Watch Tower said without lowering his glasses.

  One of the lookouts leaning near him backed away from the outer rails towards the communications console just off the observation deck.

  Throngs of the Bullet units poured around their larger J.G.U. targets. Their cannon fire ripped easily through the armor of the vehicles at the head of the convoy obliterating driver cabs and instantly shredding drive wheels and tires.

  After each delivery of heavy weapons fire, the quick-moving Bullets retreated easily to avoid the return bursts from deeper within the convoy.

  "Watch Tower," Bullet Leader came again over Watch Tower's comlink. "There's a lot of 'em, but their armor's pretty light. Minimal weaponry, relatively easy to disable. Advance confinable. Just give us a bit more time."

  "Not much of that left," Watch Tower dropped his glasses and nervously reported back. "You're only thirty miles out. And we've got scanner readings on another two hundred coming from the city."

  Watch Tower raised his glasses back to his eyes not hearing the ground leader's response. He wiped away the perspiration rolling down his face and shifted uncomfortably in his uniform coat recently dampened by a thick layer of sweat.

  Another volley of weapons bursts transformed a handful of J.G.U. vehicles into flames. The Bullets zoomed in and about the wreckage to engage the others replacing them from the rear.

  For the moment, the enemy procession had stopped. A giant wall of flame and burning debris laid strewn across the drive paths of the coming trucks and jeeps. Several small explosions fed its fury momentarily making it virtually impossible to pass.

  Watch Tower lowered his glasses. By now the battle was so close he could watch it easily from the observation deck without any additional aid to his eyes.

  Suddenly becoming visible through the smoke and sand, bulkier more cumbersome trucks and tanks pushed from the back of the J.G.U. ranks. Their larger frames crushed and pushed aside the flaming wreckage of their own fleet vehicles fallen before them.

  "Bigger vehicles coming from the rear," Bullet Leader's voice came nervously from the comlink. "Breaking off from main attack to engage."

  And it was then Watch Tower saw them. "Oh, my God," he muttered softly.

  Two large sections of trucks split in opposite directions away from the convoy to reveal the mammoth structures hiding behind. Their presence until recently concealed by the thick black smoke, the dome destroyers towered the size of small buildings into the air.

  La
rge thick panels lowered along their sides to reveal each structure's awesome supply of large-scale rockets and massive artillery cannons. Some continued their lumbering pace further towards SD15, while others rotated around to align weapons at the dome's base.

  "Dome-killer enemy transports in sight!" Bullet Leader's voice screamed from the comlink. "Visual sighting of ten…make that fifteen units. Less than thirty miles out…some drawing weapons, others positioning to fire…!"

  Watch Tower jabbed his glasses roughly into the side of the lookout standing next to him and ran down the observation deck to the control panel at its center. Two of the other sentries manning the observation post closed their shoulders in next to him. Both kept their glasses pressed hard against their faces and pointed towards the battle being waged below.

  "What the hell are those…?" one asked incredulously.

  "I need some help over here!" Watch Tower barked at the one standing closest to him.

  The young sentry dropped his glasses to the ground and slid behind the observation deck control panel. Watch Tower jumped around excitedly next to him flipping switches and punching at the controls.

  The sentry's glasses crunched softly beneath Watch Tower's darting feet.

  "Enter the codes. Enter them now!" Watch Tower almost shrieked. "Heat up the Death Wall! I want it primed and ready to go in the next three minutes. Three minutes or not at all. Do you got that?!"

  The sentry's hands became a blur across the panel. Watch Tower stepped away and turned back to the ground battle.

  The advancing trucks and other smaller vehicles changed direction and rather than continuing to move forward broke to the sides away from the main group. As their numbers began to thin, more of the mammoth transports could be seen lined hidden single file behind.

  Watch Tower raised his wrist and pressed the small metal of the comlink tightly against his lips.

  "Bullet Leader! Bullet Leader! Bring it back in!" Spit flew from the sides of his mouth and misted lightly across the controls in front of him. "Death Wall ignition two minutes and counting!”