Overrun (15 page)

Kirken had seen the look in his
son’s eyes. He had felt it many times himself. If Kirken hadn’t been there, he
might never have stopped. The rage they all felt was starting to become
overpowering. Brandon was already nearly consumed.

"…three military sites have
been selected as primary targets," Tuttle's recording outlined their
mission orders. "The first is a makeshift motor pool at the center of the
football stadium. They’re gathering vehicles here for full-scale search and
assault missions on domes in the area.

“We can’t do much about the air.
Their launching fields are not that close. But, by attacking this site, we can
slow down what they’re capable of launching by land. The amount of damage you
can do in there will by proportion delay their searches and allow you the time
to escape and move on to other targets.

“We want you to set five charges
around the stadium perimeter. To ensure maximum effectiveness of the blasts,
you’ll need to set them inside rather than just mounting them on the outside
walls.

“You’re going to need to go in.”

When these words were uttered,
Brandon returned through the bunker doors.

Kirken looked up and flipped off
the holovid switch. He had seen enough. He knew the mission plan. And once
inside, he also knew the very little chance they had of coming back out. They
would be entering alone and on foot one of the most tightly guarded
concentration of troops and equipment in the city.

"Let's go everyone,"
Brandon spoke to the room. "I found another place where you can all be
safe. Grab what you can. We're going to leave right away."

Kirken stood and readjusted his
gear across his back.

"We have to go,"
Brandon said walking closer to him. "Right now. The fighting outside is
getting heavier. There’s been heavy-hitter artillery blasts for the last half
hour."

"Mel, is everyone ready to
move?" Kirken asked following Brandon to the door.

"We're ready," she
answered him timidly.

"Make sure everybody carries
something," he said. "Even the little ones. Every one person can
carry at least one thing. The next one might now be as well supplied."

"We know," Mel choked.

Brandon leaned his weapon
against the wall and pulled at the door's heavy latch. Kirken drew his own
assault rifle to his shoulders and pointed it towards the tunnels outside.

Brandon slid a crate with his
foot into the doorway to hold it open and pulled his weapon from against the
wall. He raised it up in front of his chest and followed Kirken out the door.

"Which way?" Kirken
whispered when they had stepped completely out.

"North. Four blocks,"
Brandon answered rummaging through his pack.

"Do we have everybody,
Mel?"

He looked away briefly from his
weapon sight at Mel who stood behind him holding the hands of two small
children. A third clung tightly to her back.

"We're all here. Everyone’s
ready."

Kirken stepped out further into
the gloom holding his assault rifle steadily in front of him. A quarter mile
down the passage, he pulled out a light and flashed it twice behind him to
signal the group to follow.

Brandon stayed back at the
bunker door until everyone was out and far enough away. He then walked back in
and set a small blast charge in the center of the floor.

He flipped a switch and a light
near its top glowed green. He shut the door and quickly followed the rest down
the passage.

Up further ahead, Kirken found
the opening to the next bunker with his light. Still holding his weapon rigidly
in front of him, he turned the latch and pushed it in slowly with his foot.
Moving his small light around the room and finding no one inside, he motioned
to Mel and the rest of the group to follow him in.

Once everyone was safely inside,
Kirken waited at the entrance for Brandon. He stayed there without moving for
more than ten minutes until the gentle clang of Brandon’s belt approached from
the darkened silence.

"Brandon...?," Kirken
whispered with his assault rifle still raised.

"Yeah, it’s me. Don't
shoot."

Kirken felt his body pass him as
he stepped in, but he didn’t see his face.

"I'm in. Do we have
everybody?"

"Mel?" Kirken asked.

"We're all here."

Kirken closed the door, and
Brandon fumbled along the wall to bring up the new bunker's lights.

While the people they had moved
squinted and blinked under the new glare, Brandon pulled a small box from his
pack and activated a switch at its center. A green light near his thumb flashed
twice then became red.

The sound of the blast echoed
faintly down the underground passageways as any evidence of the old bunker or
the people briefly hidden there was destroyed.

Kirken turned to the haunted
look etched across his son's face and briefly explained what they would attempt
at the stadium. Brandon listened intently. His expression didn’t change.

They whispered silently amongst
themselves while Mel organized the settlement of their new hiding spot. They
made plans to leave once nightfall had completely settled overhead.

Three hours later they
approached the football stadium on the outside of town. Both were exhausted
from the hard-traveled distance they had covered through the underground
tunnels.

Hundreds of J.G.U. troops had
poured into the town over the last several hours making it no longer possible
to travel aboveground through the streets.

They quietly exited the tunnels
through an oversized manhole less than a quarter mile from the stadium
entrance. Kirken's injuries in addition to the exertion from their run made his
body horribly ache.

They hid behind the walls of the
last building at the edge of Beuford. The massive football stadium was just
down the road.

An entire squad of armed
sentries guarded its entrance. There were also eight others patrolling the
ground and four more on the walls overhead training their weapons below. The soldiers
on the ground stopped every vehicle coming and leaving the stadium. They made
each driver step from their cabs while they checked their loads and confirmed
their destinations.

"We're never going to get
in there," Kirken whispered quietly.

Barbed wire stretched along the
wall near the top, and giant spotlights lit both the air and the ground.
Helicopters lifted and landed down in the stadium’s center. The entire area was
loud with the sound of truck engines and churning chopper blades.

Brandon nudged Kirken’s elbow
with the tip of his weapon motioning him to follow. Kirken carefully replaced
the manhole cover and scattered dirt and garbage across its top. Satisfied he
had fully removed any evidence of their entrance to the street, he followed
Brandon to the rear of the stadium.

In the back away from the main
road, the guard details weren’t as frequent. Only soldiers in groups of threes
and fours made periodic patrols.

Brandon scampered the short
distance to the stadium wall. Kirken followed close behind.

Silently, Kirken pointed to a
dimly lit section of concrete wall where the sun had worn faint grooves into
the otherwise smooth service. Brandon slung his rifle across his shoulder and
gripped the makeshift footholds expertly with the toes of his heavy black
boots.

Kirken scanned the area around
them through his rifle sight while Brandon scaled to an opening in the concrete
overhead. When he reached the top ledge, he hauled his body over and swung his
legs to the other side. He disappeared briefly from Kirken's sight when he
dropped to the seats below. Kirken pressed his back against the wall and
waited.

In a few short seconds that felt
like forever, a thin black rope dropped in front of Kirken past his rifle
scope. He wrapped it around his waist and aimed his weapon along the ground
while Brandon pulled him up.

When he reached the top, Brandon
raised his own weapon and scanned the ground through its scope while Kirken
dragged himself fully across.

Kirken repacked the rope and
followed Brandon down the semicircular rows of empty decayed seats to the
spectacle of lights, vehicles and sound coming from the other side of the
field. What looked like more than a thousand trucks, vans and jeeps sprawled
across the stadium's center.

"We're going to have to set
the charges on the field," Kirken whispered at Brandon's back.
"They're not going to do too much if we set them up here. We’re going to
have to get down there. Real close."

"I know," Brandon
replied.

More darkened shapes of soldiers
became visible the closer they got to the field.

Brandon stopped behind a seat.
Kirken crouched as close as he could to the ground behind him. Kirken aimed his
assault rifle across Brandon’s shoulder while Brandon pulled a pair of extended
range glasses from his pack. While Kirken watched through his weapon, Brandon
scanned the glasses across the stadium floor.

"It looks like most of them
are patrolling the seating and exit areas," Brandon said softly.
"They’ll come by here eventually. Probably more sooner than later.”

Kirken continued to stare out
across the field through his weapon’s thick scope.

“It doesn’t look like there’s
too many actually on the field by the equipment. And there might be a few up in
those four skybox booths. You can see them by the lights. Their shadows block
it when they walk past. They’re definitely up there."

Kirken looked to the skyboxes
where Brandon pointed his glasses.

"C'mon, Brandon,"
Kirken said touching his arm and pulling him after him. “This way.”

Kirken stood slowly and crept a
third of the distance through the stadium until they were directly across from
the skyboxes on the other side of the field.

Once there, they checked their
gear one last time and made their way down a darkened stair aisle towards the
vehicle area. Brandon shuffled backwards with his back pressed against
Kirken’s. He aimed his weapon into the darkness watching for anyone that might
come at them from behind.

Soon they were at the sandy grit
of the stadium's center. They crouched down in a darkened row and spread the contents
of their packs about. The hushed voices of the soldiers carried through the air
from all around.

"This is going to take
awhile," Kirken whispered looking at the numerous sets of charges and
remotes surrounding him. “Probably way more time than we’ve got.”

"I'll keep an eye
out," Brandon whispered back. “You’re going to have to hurry. They’ll be
coming around here soon.”

Kirken taped the first explosive
to a guardrail that separated them from the field and synchronized its
detonator to a remote. He hoped the blast in this area would obliterate the
entire section of seats behind them as well as the outside wall.

A green light lit across the
small device. Kirken tapped Brandon on his shoulder and signaled him to move
on. It had taken almost ten minutes to set the first charge. There were six
others in his pack that needed to be distributed and wired closer to the
vehicles on the field.

They crawled on their stomachs
through five more sections of seats and wriggled beneath another one of the
skybox lookout points. When they had gone another fifty feet from where they
set the last charge, Kirken unhooked the latches of his pack again and began
the tedious procedure of preparing another.

Brandon stood over him and
vigilantly aimed his assault rifle out over the seats into the unknown of the
night.

* * *

Up in the skybox to the left of
where Kirken worked, a bored soldier trained his extended range glasses out
onto the field. It was almost time for him to relieve the ground crew at the
vehicles. He was about to gather his things and move on down there when a
movement below caught his eye.

Straining to peer through the
blackness, he was sure he saw it again. He reached for the transmitter strapped
to his hip and spoke quickly into it.

* * *

Kirken had just completed the
wiring on the second set of explosives along the stadium’s perimeter when the
piercing white of searchlights sprayed across the seats from three different
directions across the field.

Brandon dove beneath the nearest
rows of seats. Kirken crouched low in the aisle on the concrete stairs.

Brandon crawled over to him and
motioned to the center of the stadium where dozens of soldiers poured onto the
field. More filed into the stands from various entryways. A small group moved
slowly toward the aisle they hid within.

Kirken turned around to see
others approaching from sections overhead and behind.

Grabbing him by the shoulder,
Kirken pulled Brandon quickly around and was startled to see his own fear
reflected in his eyes. Drops of sweat rolled down his face, and he clenched his
fingers tightly around his weapon's base.

The soldiers approached quickly
from all around reducing the area of open seats between them. It was only a
matter of seconds before they would be upon them.

Kirken raised his body slightly
and quickly pulled the detonators from the pack on Brandon’s back.

"This is it," Kirken
said and armed the first set of detonators they had already placed in the
sections behind them. “Be ready to go.”

He hesitated for a minute with
his finger over the activation switch. Large drops of sweat beaded down his
nose while he watched more soldiers close in.

"Just run as soon as it’s
lit."

Brandon gave a nod but did not
lower his eyes from his weapon sight.

The closest soldier was now only
twenty feet away.

Kirken slid down the narrow
sections of seats to get further away from the blast area and to get a better
look at the soldiers’ approach.

He stopped for a second and
shifted his weight back on his haunches when a series of loud cracks rang
through the air.

Bright light flashed from the
skyboxes overhead, and metal from destroyed seats rained down on top of them.
The soldiers on the ground also opened fire in their direction making Kirken
scurry away clutching the detonators tightly to the bottom of his chest.

So far he hadn’t been seen. When
he was almost back to Brandon, he gritted his teeth and punched the arming
switch.

Brandon stood motionless and
watched the blasts tear into the sky. Kirken dove under the seats next to him
and threw his arms across his head.

The more than thirty soldiers coming
towards them were completely incinerated before their eyes. Others were
propelled like human torpedoes into the surrounding seats. Blood and scorched
pieces of flesh were all that was left in the area they had just stood.

"Run, fucking run!"
Kirken screamed when he saw the gaping hole the explosion had left in the side
of the stadium and the crater it dug only a few feet in front of them.

Weapons fire again tore
immediately around them disintegrating the decayed seats. Black smoke choked
the air.

Brandon sprinted close after
Kirken and grabbed the tire iron hanging from his pack.

They ran to the next section of
the stadium about two hundred feet further down. It was the only section they
were able to completely wire with the intended amount of explosives. Kirken
dove to the ground and jabbed at the remote to detonate the main charge.

The following blast was much
more forceful than the first. Its unleashed fiery force knocked Brandon down
hard across his face next to him.

Kirken lay on his back across
the shredded pavement and frantically tried to assemble the remaining sets of
explosives while Brandon writhed in pain next to him.

Black smoke billowed through
most of the stadium for the moment keeping them still hidden from the soldiers
thronging towards them. The entire left side of the stadium was now either on
fire or completely gone.

Soldiers massed from every
section of the facility both on the ground and from the upper levels
surrounding the outside seats.

Automatic weapons fire flew from
every direction sending hundreds of rounds ripping into large white support
pillars next to Kirken's head. He opened and shut his eyes forcefully and
screamed in pain from the spraying paint and concrete that ripped away at his
face.

Brandon laid still next to him.
Kirken rolled on top of him and threw his arms across his head to shield him
from the flying debris.

And then for the moment the
weapons fire stopped. Kirken leapt away from Brandon and quickly worked to wire
the last set of explosives in his pack.

In a few short seconds, they
were set. It was still impossible to see through the thick smoke, but he could
hear the yells of the approaching soldiers searching for them and pulling
survivors from the wreckage.

They were very close.

Kirken snatched at the material
near Brandon's neck and jerked him roughly from where he sprawled beneath the
section of seats. Brandon's unmoving feet scraped along behind while Kirken
dragged him by his shoulders.

“Brandon!" Kirken shrieked.
The voices hidden by the smoke were louder and coming from all around.
"Brandon!"

Brandon turned his head and
opened his eyes dully.

“Brandon, c’mon!”

Kirken dropped him roughly back
to the ground and dove on top of him to avoid the heaviest barrage of firing
upon them yet. He crawled through the rows of seats and yanked Brandon roughly
along behind him.

Finally a sense of energy and
direction moved through Brandon’s body, and he began to follow slowly on his
own. They crawled another fifty feet, and then Kirken leapt to his feet and
sprinted towards the edge of the smoke and the undamaged sections of the
stadium.

Brandon pulled his body up and
ran after him.

A single soldier separated from
the main group noticed their flight and released a barrage of weapons fire at
their backs. The thunder of his weapon brought more firing from the men
searching near him.

"Son of a bitch!"
Kirken screamed and punched the last detonator in his hand.

The weapons bursts were replaced
by another giant fireball, the closest yet to the center of the stadium. The
blast shredded nearly half of the vehicles on the field into smoking wreckage
while this time leaving the outside walls untouched.

Running to avoid the falling
rubble, Kirken jammed his arm into his bag while still trying to pull Brandon
after him. Only two sets of explosives remained.

"We've only got a few
left!" Kirken yelled back to Brandon. "We're going to have to get to
the center of the field and set off the rest! Get what we can with ‘em! And
still get out!”

Brandon followed him to the
burning vehicles. They ducked unnoticed into the heart of the blazing fires and
raced through the pandemonium towards the undamaged rows of vehicles in the
stadium’s center.

Soldiers sprinted in every
direction. Most now were just trying to escape.