Overrun: Project Hideaway (11 page)

“Buck leaders, Buck leaders,”
Rosek answered quickly back. “That’s a negative permission to light the
flashes. Zero permission to light. Detonate only upon my mark.”

Another explosion burst through
the night. Another soon followed. The blasts came from a few miles back within
the city still far ahead of the J.G.U. advance.

“Buck leaders, Buck leaders,”
Rosek spoke faster into his comlink. He stood and followed Haase towards the
rooftop doorway. “Squad Leaders, this is a direct order. Do not light those
goddamn flashes!”

With a loud crash as it smashed
backwards into an outside wall, Haase threw open the door leading from the
roof. Rosek charged after him into the dark stairwell while continuing to bark
orders into his comlink.

The clatter of boots against
metal stairs, from both themselves and the demolition team that ran ahead of
them, echoed loudly through the chamber causing Rosek to yell even louder as he
continued his transmission.

“Again that’s zero permission to
light the flashes,” Rosek bellowed. “Small return fire if necessary. But check
the flashes and tell your men to hold. They’re trying to spook you into going
early. The main force is not here. Repeat that. The main force is not here!”

“We have to wait for them to get
further inside,” Rosek covered his comlink and yelled through the stairwell at
Haase who was about half a floor ahead of him. “If we detonate too early, when
the flames die down they’re just going to roll right on through.”

Panicked transmission chatter
filled their ears along with the echoes of pounding feet as they clambered down
the length of the ten-story building.

Haase felt his lungs begin to
tighten from the effort. Rosek’s labored breathing chased him from behind as he
struggled to bark orders while racing down the steps.

Another explosion rocked the
building from the outside. Its force threw both Rosek and Haase to the side of
the stairwell causing Rosek to lose his balance and stumble to one knee.

“Status check, status check,
status check again,” Rosek ordered picking himself up and continuing their
rushed descent. Haase stopped for a second and waited for him to catch up.

“Stop the detonations! They are
not to yet a go. Repeat. Explosives are not yet authorized to go.”

Additional detonations jarred
the building. The most recent, much closer and extremely more powerful, shook
pieces of the ceiling loose sending them tumbling to the ground around them.

They were almost to the ground
floor when the transmission from the Buck Squad leaders finally cleared.

“Buck 1, acknowledges the hold,”
Haase heard the first squad commander scream through the chaos closing in from
all around. “Engaging enemy from three points around building perimeter. Blasts
from this sector still at a hold.”

“They’re ambushing us, they’re
ambushing us!” another panicked squad commander yelled through a distorted
transmission coming in on top of the first. “They’re breaking in from all sides
of town.”

Additional blasts hammered the
building causing its walls to shudder around them.

The squad commanders no longer
waited to report in order. The transmission link Rosek and Haase both monitored
became a jumble of screaming voices and bursts of loud static.

Haase noticed that some didn’t
report in at all. He continued to run down the steps not allowing himself to
ponder whether the demolition teams were dying or deserting. All he knew was
that with each blast, less and less of the squad commanders reported through.

Haase reached the ground floor
stair level at a dead run. Ahead of him, he saw the last of his rooftop
demolition team burst through the front doors of the building and escape.

In three quick strides, Haase
reached the front door. Rosek was right behind him still screaming into his
comlink. The bellow and flash of the high-intensity explosives now came at them
from every side of town. The sounds of revving vehicle engines also reached
their ears.

Another large explosion rattled
the building they just stood atop.

“For God’s sake, halt your
detonations!” Rosek clamored while running from the building towards the
streets where the J.G.U. now made their advance. “They have to get further
inside. We have to wait for them to get further inside or none of us are going
to get out alive!”

By now the beginning of the
ground force had reached the far side of the capitol building. Captain Rosek
faced the coming vehicles in the center of the main street still yelling orders
into the night.

Less than two blocks away,
J.G.U. infantry marched towards their location. They had finally breached the
main portion of the city and were now making their way further in.

A few jeeps and smaller trucks
streaked down the streets on either side of where Rosek and Haase stood. The
chatter of voices sending commands in a language they didn’t understand settled
eerily around them.

Automatic rifle fire and grenade
blasts seared the air. The smaller vehicles that headed the advance soon gave
way to larger tanks and transports which bulldozed their way through the small
streets. Those on the outer edges of the vehicle formations plowed straight
through some of the smaller decayed buildings standing on either side of the
roadways. Building debris was stomped to nothingness beneath their tank tracks
and heavy metallic truck wheels.

One after another larger and
larger blasts pounded the air from behind. The detonations were now so close
that the buildings in nearby streets were starting to crumble and topple down.
Heavy dust thrown up from the destruction and thick smoke from growing fires
choked the air making it almost impossible to see.

For the first time, Rosek turned
away from the J.G.U. advance to witness the chaos that was prematurely
befalling the city behind him.

“Not enough of them have reached
the blast perimeter!” he screamed into the comlink trying one last time to
manage the situation that was quickly spinning beyond any realm of control.
“All detonations are still ordered on hold!”

In almost direct defiance to his
last order, three more deafening blasts ripped viciously through the night.

Ahead of where Rosek and Haase
stood in the roadway, J.G.U. soldiers leapt from some of the larger transports.
A few fanned out and darted for cover along the street sides while others
charged directly towards them down its center.

Stepping from somewhere within
the thick black smoke and churning flames, members of Haase’s demolition team
appeared. With automatic rifles and hand weapons firing, they met the ground
attack.

More explosions battered the
night. The thunder of falling brick and disintegrating metal made it almost
impossible to hear.

A hail of small arms fire
strafed the ground near Rosek.

Rosek did not flinch. He
continued to scream into the comlink he pressed hard against the side of his
head.

Next to him, two Vulture
soldiers clutched at holes ripped open in their bodies and then fell lifeless
to the street.

Haase dropped the set of
extended range glasses he had up until now held tightly in his fist. The device
was quickly consumed by the flames along the ground. Haase raised his own
weapon and began to return fire.

Rosek ran past him still
shrieking orders into the communication link.

With Rosek’s desperate yells
still sounding from the comlink wedged in his ear, Haase threw up his left hand
and with a balled fist made the sign for retreat.

The soldiers still standing
behind him immediately began to edge their way back into the cover offered by
the roaring flames. Streaks of brilliant light thundered from their weapons.
Even amidst the chaos and certain death chasing after them, they stepped
carefully about the bodies of their fallen comrades as they went.

Alongside the members of his own
rooftop demolition team and with his weapon continuously firing, Haase slowly
retreated with them back into the smoldering shadows of the black smoke.

Rosek’s frantic shouts no longer
sounded in his ear. The leader of the doomed Buck demolition squad was nowhere
in sight.

With the heat searing at his
eyes and hungry flames rearing on every side, Haase lowered his weapon and
turned his back on the coming J.G.U. advance. Also stepping carefully through
the dead strewn throughout the street around him, Haase followed after his team
as they ran for cover behind the building they had just recently set with
explosives.

He took only two steps forward
before one final blast knocked him hard at his back and slammed him forward
from his feet.

* * *

It was much later in the night
when he finally opened his eyes again and raised his head enough to see what
was ahead of him on the street.

He laid sprawled on his chest
across the ground. Bodies of the fallen and rubble from surrounding buildings
covered his legs and back. The fires had all but died down, but the heat from
the coming sun began to make the air uncomfortably hot.

Haase tried to blink away some
of the dried blood and grime that covered his eyes.

There was no sign of the J.G.U.
land force that had come upon them in the night. Dying flames and scorched
terrain surrounded him.

Smoldering wreckage marked the
sites where buildings either destroyed by the Vulture squad’s high-intensity
explosives or by J.G.U. rocket fire had once stood.

Many of the surrounding
buildings, though crumbled and decayed, remained upright. Structures untouched
by the fight far outnumbered the ones that had been battered to brick and dust.
Vulture operations in this particular city were nowhere near a success.

None of the city would have been
standing or even remotely recognizable had anything gone as designed.

Haase wouldn’t have been lying
in the center of the street buried by the remains of his demolition team. He
would have been far away getting ready to rig the next town. And if by chance
his squad had been neutralized before being able to properly detonate, another
would have finished the job.

Not even that had happened. If
it had, he wouldn’t be having the opportunity to contemplate these thoughts.

Faint episodes of sporadic
weapons fire and the grumble of truck engines faded in the distance.

The Vulture teams had failed
here in their mission. The J.G.U. had been allowed to make their way deeper
into the country. The last of the vehicle procession had already made its way
through.

Haase stared straight ahead into
the stinging rays of the coming day trying to take it all in and fathom the
extreme loss. The loss of his men, the blow to the cause, and the detrimental
national failure they helped further perpetuate by not destroying the town.

Under the harsh beginning glow
of the arriving sun, Haase remained sprawled across his chest in the street. He
stayed there for more than an hour trying to ponder it all. The receding rev of
tank and jeep motors fell off behind him as the J.G.U. vehicles moved deeper
into the city.

Haase rolled over on his side
and pushed weakly at the men that had lost their lives and fallen on top of
him. More than twenty bodies cluttered the streets amidst the dying fires.
Wriggling and crawling to free himself, Haase raised his head and peered over
the fallen. Squinting his eyes through the coming sun, he searched for signs of
J.G.U. troops that might have straggled back from the advance.

Only seeing crackling flames and
thick black billowing smoke, Haase raised himself to his knees.

Before he could fully stand and
run towards one of the shredded buildings next to him for cover, a small
movement caught his eye not too far ahead.

Haase sucked in his breath and
again lowered his head.

Just ahead of him, a light
grinding sound of moving metal came through the waning night. Haase strained
his eyes through the warm sandy wind and dark smoke trying to see its source.
Amid several patches of dying flames, a manhole cover shuddered slightly and
slowly rose up from the dirt.

Haase crouched back down towards
the dead lying at his feet. Without taking his eye from the manhole cover loosening
itself in front of him, he groped around for one of the many weapons dropped by
the wounded or killed strewn about the street.

Finally wrapping his hands
around what he hoped was a working rifle, he watched the manhole cover push
upward and finally fall to its side. It made a soft clank against the dusty
ground. The sound could barely be heard over the crackle of flames and the
vehicle engines in the distance.

Without moving, Haase stared
ahead. His thoughts rested briefly on the fate of his captain and the rest of
his men.

Partially hidden by thin clouds
of passing smoke, tiny hands appeared briefly from the opened hole. The hands
were soon followed by arms, long blonde hair drenched with soot , and a quick
tiny body that rolled itself out onto the street.

Frantic whispers chased after
the young girl that appeared from the hole. More hands and arms stabbed out
through the opening trying to grab her. The young girl glanced at them briefly
and then quickly rolled further away.

She turned and looked up the
street towards where Haase crouched in the flame and smoke. Blood dripped from
a fresh cut along her forehead and streaked down the side of her face.

Shoulders, hands, and arms
grasped at her frantically from the opening. The arms then lowered and were
replaced by the back of someone’s head. But the body expected to follow did not
come all the way through.

Gazing cautiously up and down
the flaming terrain, the girl moved further away from the hole. When she did,
the head fell back and shouted whispers at her from within the dark perceived
safety of the shaft.