Overrun: Project Hideaway (25 page)

"Mr. President,"
Tuttle said his voice steady, slow and quiet. "With due respect, there is
no time for that. And there is even less time to assemble an interception team.
If you plan on sending someone up there, it has to be done right now. While it
still can be done."

Ford looked over at Baldwin who
had propped his head against his hands and leaned his elbows across the console.
His eyes then returned to the holovid and General Tuttle’s bloody
expressionless face.

"Are you suggesting you
go?" the President asked quietly. “You and your team.”

"I am Mr. President,"
Tuttle replied just as softly. “That is what I suggest.”

"Mr. President, a mission…a
mission such as this…" Baldwin began from Ford's side. "…a mission
such as this, does not lend itself to a high probability of success. It is not
the mission for a quadrant commander. Not in space with only a few men. We have
entire units in all parts of the country we could dispatch him to lead right
now."

"The Vulture Team is almost
dead, sir," Tuttle said ignoring Baldwin and keeping his eyes fixed on the
President. "As almost is this country. We have to do this right now. Just
about everything now depends on recovering the Hideaway.”

"What is your team’s
condition?" the President asked looking at Cranden who had stepped within
view of the holovid transmitter.

His face, uniform and skin were
covered with blood. Some his. Some not his own. His arms hung at his side, and
his eyes were blank.

“Functional,” Tuttle responded
evenly.

"Injuries?" the
President asked stilly. "Anything requiring attention before launch?"

"Negative, sir,"
Tuttle reported motioning to the man at his side. "We have a medic. We'll
just need fresh medical supplies and a ship to break the atmosphere. One
capable of docking with another ship."

"En route," the
President answered looking over at Baldwin giving him the order with his eyes.
Baldwin responded by looking away and talking low into a headset transmitter.

"Mr. President?"

"Yes, General."

"Boarding. It will be
hostile. We’re going to need an assault ship. Not just a transport. And a
replenishment of weapons and gear.”

"We understand,
General."

"Mr. President, once we're
up there, there may be no way of making contact. Or even knowing who is in
control of the ship."

"General Tuttle, you are
fully authorized to board and takeover the ship. Do what you have to do. The
only thing that is important is that we control the Hideaway. Defend yourselves
at all costs and take life as necessary to gain access to the ship."

"Even the pilots?"

"Do must what be done to
bring the Hideaway back to Earth."

"Understood, Mr.
President," Tuttle said breaking his gaze and looking down at the floor.
"We'll be activating personal tracers within the hour."

"Very good, General. I wish
luck to you and your men."

"Thank you, Mr.
President."

"And Tuttle," Ford
addressed him one last time trying to ignore the fear and apprehension that was
nearing the point of overtaking him.

Fear of what he just authorized
and put into motion. Fear that it would forever change the course of history
and the fate of the planet. And that he had just made everything much more
horribly worse.

"Stand by," Ford said
trying to push this all away. He set his jaw and stared firmly at the three men
that in all likelihood would not survive to report the success or failure of
the mission. Men he had just dispatched to their deaths. "We'll be sending
you what you need."

"Thank you, Mr.
President."

And with that the holovid
blinked off. The general’s face slowly disappeared from view.

“General."

Tuttle looked up from the spot
he stared at across the ground.

The holovid transmission had
ended several minutes ago. But his thoughts had kept him there. Holding him
tightly where he stood. Thoughts of what was still out there for him to do.

"General," Cranden
said again while carefully stepping through the fallen twisted bodies lying
about the rubble of the command center floor.

The stench of decomposing flesh
made the inside of Tuttle’s head feel like it had just been set on fire.

"Sir, we’re picking up
accelerated amounts of movement again within the facility."

"Survivors?" Tuttle
asked turning to face Cranden.

"Not survivors,” the medic
answered him. “I don't believe there are any survivors. And I don’t believe you
do either."

Cranden stepped around Samuel
who was still setting the last of the destruct entries into the command panels.
Stumbling once and nearly falling to the ground when his foot slipped on jagged
loose pieces of concrete and rock, Cranden moved slowly and carefully across
the rubble that separated him from Tuttle.

"No, I don't," Tuttle
answered him. “No, I sincerely doubt there are any.”

"Sir, we’ve got troops
coming this way,” Cranden said looking at Samuel and then towards the
entranceway.

"How far off?"

"Not far,” Cranden said
softly leaning with both arms against the doorframe and looking carefully out.
“They're coming directly for us. Someone might have detected our life readings
and are coming to check it out."

"What's going on
outside?"

"For the most part,
everything’s died down," Cranden said dropping his arms to his side and
turning back around. "There's still plenty of fires burning, and they’re
clearing paths through the wreckage. But everything seems to be heading away.
They're definitely moving out."

"Alright, let's get the
hell out of here," Tuttle said picking up his assault rifle and digging in
his pack for additional ammunition.

Behind him, sparks started to
spit from the console Samuel worked across. Small bits of flame licked about
his fingertips as the consoles popped and melted from within.

His weapon fully loaded, Tuttle
stood and headed for the doorway. Before he could move, Samuel grabbed his arm
and pulled him around.

Cranden had already left the
room.

Samuel didn’t speak right away.

"Captain?" Tuttle
asked looking at where Samuel held him by the arm.

"There's something
else," Samuel said slowly.

Tuttle turned around to face
him. Sparks and larger flames danced behind Samuel’s back as the equipment
carried out its self-destruct commands.

"There's something else up
there."

"What?" Tuttle asked
only loudly enough to make himself heard over the crackling of the dying
command consoles. "You’re reading more than the Hideaway?"

"Yes, sir," Samuel
responded solemnly. "Signals have been sent from Earth. They were sent
some time ago. I detected them before I initiated the self destructs. They’re
not from this dome. I don’t know really where they are coming from. I do know
they’re random, and they’re tracer signals. They’re being bounced all over the
place in and around the moon. Someone is actively looking for it. And they’ve
been looking for some time."

"The J.G.U. wouldn’t need
to bounce random signals if they obtained information from this dome,” Tuttle
said to him. “They would have learned its exact location here.”

"That's what I'm saying,
sir," Samuel said. "Someone else is up there looking for it."

"Can you tell if they’ve
established an exact location?"

"The signals have become
less and less random. Focusing on an area very close to the coordinates I just
retrieved here. It’s close enough. Somebody already found it."

"Not the J.G.U.? You don’t
think it’s them?"

"No, I don't."

"Who then?"

"I can’t really tell for
sure. There’s been a lot of damage from the overrun. I can see, however, that
it came from this continent and may very well from within the domes themselves.
So, what really matters is if the President was indeed aware of this situation,
there would be no reason for us to go. What I’m saying here is, he must not
know about it."

Tuttle remained silent at this
last comment and allowed everything Samuel had just said sink in.

"I sent a faint sensor
bounce towards the last known coordinates of the Hideaway."

"Traceable?" Tuttle's
body tensed up slightly as he felt the sanity of the entire world starting to
slowly edge away from him.

"Shouldn't be," Samuel
replied. "And shouldn’t matter if it is. We’ll be gone soon.”

“What did you find?”

“There's two ships up there.
Possibly three. I can't tell for sure."

"Three ships?" Tuttle
asked incredulously.

"Someone found the Hideaway
and then someone else followed them up."

Tuttle could feel the sweat starting
to bead up again across the top of his forehead.

At the same time, he sensed his
wrists clamping themselves tighter around his weapon's grip. His jaw set in a
thin line, and his eyes hardened to a point.

"When we get up there,
there’s going to be much more to deal with than just the two pilots of the
Hideaway."

Tuttle didn't reply. He nodded
at Samuel, pulled away from his arm, and moved toward the entranceway to the
hall.

Samuel followed behind.

When Tuttle was at the door, he
paused briefly and turned to take one final look at the destroyed command room.
He then raised his weapon against the side of his ear and stepped out into the
darkness of the outside corridor.

Samuel also stopped before
following him completely out. He looked down the side passageway toward the
room where the two dead men hung in chains, their bodies twisting softly in the
dark. He turned his head and watched the shoulder lamps of the two men ahead of
him move quickly away from the control room and down the dark passageways.

Samuel stepped carefully over
the bodies they had stacked at the command center’s entrance and turned back
around.

He pulled his assault rifle from
where it hung across his back and fired into the consoles and command stations
that had not yet destructed and still had lights running across their boards.
The bursts from his weapon obliterated what remained of the destroyed room.

Additional fires raged to life
and shredded metal toppled down burying the dead lying throughout the room.
When his ammunition clip was empty, he lowered his assault rifle back down to
his side and followed Samuel and Cranden out into the passage.

White smoke curled lightly from
his weapon’s tip.

With his back to the room, his
fingers fumbled along the doorframe until he found and activated the door
release. The command center’s giant metal door dropped down behind him sealing
the noise of the fires and the falling metal from the dark silence of the
passageways.

Samuel stepped slowly after
Tuttle and Cranden through the quiet darkness. Just up ahead, they waited for
him to approach.

"Mr. President?"
Baldwin said cautiously to the figure slumped silently next to him. “Frank…”

Ford didn’t move. His eyes
remained fixed on the empty holovid screens. The transmission from General
Tuttle at Science Dome 15 had terminated several minutes ago. Ford hadn't yet
left the front of the command room or even risen from his seat.

"Mr. President,"
Baldwin said again this time causing the President to glance up.

When he did, the brown-haired
woman sitting between them stood. She turned and walked to another station at
the rear of the command room leaving Ford and Baldwin alone at its front.

"Mr. President, I think
there are a few things we need to discuss."

Ford nodded and shifted his
weight to look at Baldwin. When he did, one of the holstered weapons hanging at
his side bumped against the terminal in front of him. A soft clang echoed
timidly across the room. The tension permeating the air quickly swallowed the
tiny sound.

"Somewhere more
secure," Baldwin said standing and leaning towards the President.

He reached under his arm as if
to help him to his feet.

Ford shrugged him off and
quickly stood up. He tugged at the base of his shirt in a weak attempt to
straighten his rumpled appearance. It was quickly becoming evident that
everything was starting to become too much.

Baldwin knew the time had come
to get the President out.

Baldwin turned and stepped
toward the side of the command room. Ford walked in the opposite direction to
retrieve his suit coat hanging across an empty workstation. After he draped it
neatly across his arm, he followed Baldwin as he left the command area.

Ford walked towards the two
guards standing back within the shadows of the chamber walls. When he passed,
they left their positions and followed him out holding their weapons firmly
across their chests.

With a loud snap, one of the
guards pumped ammunition into his rifle barrel readying it to fire. The noise
made the President jump as he headed out the door. He pressed his hands against
the Sunszk weapons hanging at his side.

The eyes of everyone in the
command room were upon them as they left the command center. No one pretended
to do otherwise. Ford walked faster to escape the suffocating silence of their
stares.

Outside in the passageway,
Baldwin continued his pace. The soft clicks of the President’s shoes followed
him across the concrete floor. The heavy footsteps of his armed escorts pounded
close behind.

Baldwin rounded a corner and
flashed an access card at a large metal door with the word “BRIEFING” stenciled
in small red letters across its top. When the entrance mechanism activated, he
stepped quickly inside. The President ducked his head and followed while the
guards stopped at the doorway and took positions on either side.

"Mr. President…” Baldwin
began when the door shut behind them and they were finally alone. “Frank, as
your chief advisor I must point out to you the importance of maintaining a
powerful front. You have to continue to appear strong at all times. No matter
how you feel.”

They stood at the center of the
empty briefing room before three long tables. Two of them ran the length of the
room. The third connected them at the furthest wall. Empty chairs and
deactivated command consoles lined their length.

"Everything has finally
come to this. This right now. Right here. What we are about to do. You are now
what this country has come to depend on for salvation and pins its only hope
for survival. You cannot afford to show any signs of strain or weakness. Not to
anyone. Officers, admin officials, your guards, or even to me. If you do, it
will only feed the rumors. This country’s fate hangs in a precarious balance.
You can’t afford to give up any more of an edge."

The President walked from the
center of the room to one of the long tables and sat his aching joints stiffly
down on its surface. Baldwin remained at the center of the room and watched him
carefully.

"Rumors…,” Ford said
starting to pull away from the trance that had seized him following the
transmission from the overrun science dome. “We’ve handled rumors in crisis
situations before. We’ve never allowed them to knock us down.”

"We've never dealt with
anything like this before, Mr. President," Baldwin answered him.
"Frank, nothing like this. We're witnessing the worst beating this country
has ever taken. Ever. This country…it is starting to fall."

The President lowered his head
and stared at the floor while Baldwin spoke.

"The entire dome populace,
or at least those who knew of its existence, is stunned at the failure of Plan
Zero. And how close we are to losing its control."

"This failure…,” Ford said
not looking up and his voice laced with a sharp tone of bitterness and disgust.
“It cannot be attributed to me. Not in the least. Regardless of my failure to
or not to act. Your 'powers that be', they did this. Your hidden government
planners are the ones responsible. They are the ones that should be answering
for this. They are morally responsible. Not me. I'm the one trying to make
things right."

"That doesn’t matter now,”
Baldwin said walking towards him slowly. “None of it does. Most of those that
caused this are dead. The rest soon will be. Like you said, you're trying to
make things right. You are the one, the only one, that can save the country
from what it did to itself…from what others allowed to happen. That is why I am
saying all of this to you."

Ford's face looked sick. A vein
near his temple throbbed beneath his pale skin.

"Sir, there are rumors of
open revolts. Thousands of survivors on the outside have taken refuge in the
sewers and are now giving aid to dome refugees. Outsiders are now helping those
that lived within. They are banding together against this government. It’s why
the J.G.U. were able to invade so quickly. Our citizens, both inside and out,
are seething with betrayal and have become all too willing to assist."

The President raised himself
from where he sat and stood to face Baldwin. His eyes darkened further still,
and his spirit became more sullen. Baldwin could tell that it was only a matter
of time before it all got away. The country’s fate was slowly starting to seep
from the grasp of the one man that held the power to change it all.

"Minister of State, if this
is all happening like you say, what could possibly be left that we can do? Our
military is close to dead. The J.G.U. are being brought to power by the
defection of our own people. What course of action even remains?"

"The Hideaway Project, Mr.
President,” Baldwin answered. “That’s what we have. With it in our possession
we may be able to negotiate some sort of truce. We can play up your ignorance
of Plan Zero and make you a hero who brought peace. Peace and life to the
masses all over the world that live outside the domes."

"What you are saying is not
possible. Not anymore," Ford said quickly back. "Blood is what the
people seek at this point. They want someone to take responsibility for what
has happened. They will want to suck it from the rotting wounds of those in
this administration."

"Sir, this is possible.
There are rumors that J.G.U. Prime Minister Talhir himself is here on American
soil. That he is here to take you into custody himself. To arrest you for standing
in the way of the course of interplanetary peace.

“You are still a figure head. A
symbol of our proud country that has stood globally strong and dominant for so
long. This will not be well-liked or received by the American people. No matter
what they think you may have done.

“If you have control of the
Hideaway Project, you might be able to use that to sway a wavering and unstable
public opinion quickly back into your favor. They will again rally behind you
when they see how this will ultimately save themselves.

“They will want to believe you
had nothing to do with this war. They will want to believe anything that will
get the beam cannons built. Now, after so much, we cannot give up."

"So, what do we do?"
the President asked looking up tiredly.

"We get you out of
here," Baldwin said. "Right now. The J.G.U. army is almost here. We
can still escape to the presidential retreat and head retrieval operations from
there."

"Is the retreat still
secure?" the President asked.

"It's secure."

"Alright, Mr. Baldwin. But
what if the attempt to retrieve the Hideaway is unsuccessful?”

"You'll still be alive,
Frank. At least you will still be alive."

The President looked down at the
ground one last time. His weapon holsters hung loosely towards the ground at
his side. A multitude of unlived years washed over his face while Baldwin stood
there and watched.

"I want more than to be
alive, Minister Baldwin," the President said straightening up and heading
for the door. His guards stood at attention when the door opened, and he walked
back outside. "We have a lot to answer for. And much to avenge."

The President walked briskly
past the guards back towards the way they had come.

"Yes, Mr. President,"
Baldwin said hurrying to keep his pace.

The guards fell in step behind them
and hurried after them down the hall.