Overrun: Project Hideaway (7 page)

Another weapons blast ripped
through the air overhead. She swung her body behind the ladder and pressed her
back against the wall to avoid the jagged pieces of rock and metal dropping
from far above.

More explosions thundered
overhead, some coming this time from the top of the elevator shaft. Flames
reached down into the ground towards her followed by more fiery blasts. The air
around her began to heat, and the earth holding her ladder started to sway.

Clutching its rungs tightly with
one hand, Rone tried to wipe away the slick mud that now caked her eyes. A
large piece of steel fell in front of her narrowly missing the side of her
head.

Rone held one hand over her eyes
against the raining dirt and squinted up the shaft. Pondering only seconds the
hopelessness of her escape up through the exploding dome, Rone stepped from the
ladder and lowered herself back into the water.

Steadying herself by holding
onto the ladder above her head, Rone felt about with her feet for the edge of
the cabin and the hole back into the cavern. The flooding covered her shoulders
and was to her neck before she finally found the entryway to the command
center.

Rone sucked in a deep breath and
let her body slip below. An avalanche of rocks pummeled the water above her as
she went.

Her body found the opening.
Against the water rushing out, she pushed herself back into the command center
cavern. With a few quick bursts from her legs, she untangled herself from the
current and swam away from the submerged elevator.

Getting further away, her feet
grazed the cavern floor. With both hands stretched out and up to pull herself
to the surface, she tried to stand. With her body stretched to its full height,
her head was still beneath the water. Surprised and almost out of breath, she
gave a couple of sharp kicks to propel herself upward away from the command
center floor now buried beneath the churning contents of the shattered glass
towers.

When her head was finally above
water, her mouth and lungs gulped hungrily for air. When she could finally
breathe again, she looked around in horror at the flooded room.

The top casings of the command
consoles poked above the water like rectangle islands in the ocean of the vast
cavern. And then she saw Korcheck, waist-deep but standing on the submerged
platform. He clutched a computer monitor and two keyboards in his arms. His
eyes were focused and his expression calm as he tried valiantly to bring the
equipment online. Equipment that would breathe life into the pilots and
ultimately return the Hideaway and the Beam Cannon Hardware back to Earth.

Reaching for every ounce of
energy left in her weary body, Rone battled the currents and pushed her way to
the platform. When she reached its deck, she pulled herself out of the water
next to him and grabbed the computer monitor from his grasp. While she
struggled to keep her balance against the push of water at her feet, she held
it for him in front of her chest.

Korcheck looked at her briefly
and nodded slightly. A look of resignation and faint sadness had settled behind
his eyes. He threw one of the keyboards over his shoulder and balanced the
second on his knee.

The water continued to rise.
Standing ankle-deep on the topmost platform, their bodies were the only things
left uncovered by the rising flood.

Water rushed at them from all
sides. Rone coughed harshly at what dumped into her eyes and rammed at her
throat.

"Just a little
longer," Korcheck said evenly. He looked down and away from Rone and
pounded at the keyboard on his knee. She shifted the monitor higher up her body
away from the steadily climbing water.

"Engage!" he yelled
smashing at the board. "Sequence engage! Goddamn it!"

The water was now at her chest.

The ceiling appeared to drop
down and move closer. The room itself appeared to be shrinking beneath the
encompassing flood.

Korcheck tossed the first
keyboard into the churning water swirls and held the other in his left hand.
With his right, he plucked at it desperately with a single pointed finger.

Rone stretched her arms and hoisted
the monitor further up, this time almost to her face.

"That's it," Korcheck
said finally allowing the water to take his keyboard.

Rone let go of the computer
monitor. She felt it sink next to her body and brush by her feet. No longer
able to keep her footing, she allowed the currents to carry her upward away
from the platform.

Korcheck did the same next to
her.

With everything now completely
buried by the rushing water, the room was almost silent. It completely covered
the shattered towers and no longer pounded from above. Its invisible force
pushed slightly at their sides and continued to carry them upward.

Passively, Rone and Korcheck
allowed their bodies to rise with its surge.

Within minutes, they floated to
the rock ceiling as the cavern continued to fill. The darkness of the
carved-out earth pressed down towards them and the coming water swell. Rone and
Korcheck stretched their hands protectively out to keep their skulls from
bashing against the hard rock.

Finally they reached the top of
the room. The command center was now one with the sea.

Calmly, Rone coughed away the
water that had entered her lungs and waited while it released from her nose and
mouth. She watched Korcheck treading next to her do the same.

Another push from the currents
underneath brought their bodies closer together and brushed their heads against
the ceiling.

Rone reached over him to grab
hold of the rock and locked her gaze across his eyes. They were passive and at
ease. She tried to lose herself within them and share their peace.

Gently, the water continued to
rise around them.

Korcheck put his arm around her
waist and pulled her after him into a small hole that reached away from the
water further into the ceiling. The small space, which was all that remained of
the room, pressed their bodies together at their foreheads.

Their cheeks touched as the
water took them into the small space in the rock and wedged their skulls more
tightly together. Rone felt Korcheck’s faint breathing echo quietly in her ear.

She reached out to his chest and
unbuttoned a section of his shirt. Softly, she placed her hand against his
skin. Korcheck covered her hand with his.

The room had disappeared around
them. Everything now was ominously quiet, overcome and completely consumed by
the underground sea.

The water lifted them again to
where there was only room for one of their heads in the small opening.

His forehead against hers,
Korcheck slid down her body. His face brushed past her open mouth. The smell of
his wet hair entered her nostrils and touched at her lips. The top of his head
dipped beneath the water's surface.

She felt him at her chest next
to her body. His body kicked when his breath let out, and water finally entered
his lungs.

The water continued to push her
higher.

Her face touched the top of the
underground cavern. Korcheck still clutched her hand tightly across his chest
as death came for him first.

Rone held him tightly to her
until his body finally became still.

And then the ceiling was upon
her.

The rock pressed against her
lips, her cheeks, and her eyes. The water rose around her.

Still holding Korcheck's body,
she let the water take her face. The command room was now completely full.

She closed her eyes and allowed
her body to sink. Her mind felt nothing when it ultimately buried her,
embracing her in its swell.

Her last sense was of warmth. A
quiet dry peace.

She no longer held Korcheck's
hand within her own.

U.S. Ship Hideaway
Ten minutes past pilot reanimation process and ship reactivation

"Initiate the start
up," Captain Jed Parker said tiredly to the man scowling in the cramped
cockpit seat to his right. His words were the first spoken since they both
stepped shivering from the hibernation tubes and wandered to the front of the
ship.

Parker had always thought the
cockpit was too small especially considering the overall size of the vessel. It
became exponentially smaller still when he had to endure the incessant
grumblings that were sure to come from the man next to him. The nonstop griping
from his copilot each and every time they went through the awakening process
often made Parker want to return to the cold wetness and cramped claustrophobic
quietude offered by his hibernation tube.

Parker blinked his eyes
furiously trying to get rid of the grime that caked across them during
hypersleep.

Their ship, the U.S. Hideaway,
hovered silently in the darkness. Lost amidst the giant shadow of the moon.

Parker hated putting himself
down for the extended suspended animation durations required by the mission
especially considering the load they were carrying.

The Hideaway floated in absolute
darkness behind the moon which separated it from Earth. It was surrounded by an
electronic shield bubble that absorbed all forms of radar and detection pulses.
It moved with the moon’s rotation to maintain its concealed position. It was so
completely hidden that even if an exploratory satellite or craft were to
approach, it was usually off course or headed for deep space.

None of this did anything to
lessen his fear.

It was a stark mind-numbing
terror he experienced every time he began the process. Fear they would be
discovered. And fear that what he was experiencing was actually his life’s end,
one he was bringing on voluntarily.

His own death wasn’t what
frightened him. But this was not how he wanted to go about it. Not like this.
In a frozen tube in the dark. This fright tormented him like an angry monster
throughout the freezing process. While he waited for his mind to shut down or
possibly die. If he was going to die, especially if by his own hands, he at
least wanted everything around him brightly lit.

And when it was over and the
awakening procedure commenced, despite its enormous unpleasantries, he felt
exhilaration. He was ecstatic that once again he was able to step out of the
tube alive.

He loathed and feared everything
associated with the experience of suspended animation. However despite this
abhorrence, he didn’t fail to see its importance. Considering extended
durations of their missions, especially this one in particular, hibernation was
necessary.

For the amounts of time they
were left up there completely alone, existing with only themselves within the
vast dark emptiness of space, it helped keep away the madness.

Furthermore, since the
scientific medical community finally perfected the cell reanimation process,
the use of hibernation was a means to preserve the youth, strength, and
vitality of their highest skilled mission crews. It allowed for greater amounts
of experience to be brought into larger amounts of missions, carried on the
backs of veteran ship personnel in the primes of their bodies and minds.

And most importantly for the
mission they were now on, it was the best way to avoid discovery. A ship with
its systems dark appeared to be nothing more than a floating rock. It offered
the lowest possible risk for ship-to-ship or planetary detection.

Parker rubbed harder at the dark
grime across his eyes and tried to ignore for the most part his copilot
muttering next to him. He was always usually more than Parker felt like
tolerating when he first came out of the sleep.

But Parker did need him to help
bring the ship back up. So as he did ever time, he said little while performing
his own systems scans. He just stared out into the darkest portions of the
cosmos and waited. He waited for the ship to come online. And just waited for
his copilot to stop.

While the consoles hummed and
clicked in front of him, the small light coming from the Hideaway cockpit as
always did little to disturb the deep blackness of space outside the ship.

"Do you want to know what
I’m thinking?" Major Jeff Barnes finally broke the silence while running
his hands through his hair. Blood and mucus dripped from his nose. He paused
briefly as his body violently expelled another volley of hibernation fluid out
of his mouth into the widened end of what was commonly referred to as the
pilot’s “puke tube".

“Initiate systems check,” Parker
said pretending not to notice his question or that he was still throwing up.
The tube gurgled quietly in the small cockpit while it sucked its contents to
the waste expulsion tanks in the back of the ship.

"I can't do another round
of hibernation, Jed," Barnes said flipping switches and bringing the
computer systems on his side of the cockpit online. “I just can’t take this.”

Barnes pulled the puke tube
again to his face and this time blew though his nose forcefully. Two small
drops of blood escaped and floated near his left ear. The gravity generators
had not as of yet been activated by the pilots.

Parker continued to work through
his own series of ship start-up procedures. When most of his equipment appeared
lit up and functioning, he pulled loose his own waste disposal tube anchored
next to his seat near his left side. The tube hovered next to him for a second
and then bumped silently against the instrument panel when he shifted in his
seat. He didn’t need it quite yet.

“So what do you got?” he asked
Barnes tiredly.

“Nothing,” Barnes answered him
just as listlessly back. “No indication of sensor bounce.”

Parker grabbed his tube and
utilized it in a similar fashion as his copilot.

Parker was really feeling the
effects of their extended sleep this time around. He tried to remember the last
time his symptoms had been this severe. But never in three of his lifetimes
would he have relayed these thoughts to the man next to him. Barnes had found
enough things to bitch about since they launched into space. Parker was not
about to help him add to his list.

Despite the expulsion of what he
thought was the last of the hibernation fluid still in his body, Parker's
stomach still felt like it was bursting from inside. The lining of his throat
felt like someone had set it on fire. It had never been this bad after spending
this, their usual two-month interval, amount of time in hibernation. Perhaps
the age they sought to escape through the implementation of hypersleep was no
longer able to outpace the persistence of time.

"Seriously, Captain,”
Barnes launched out in what Parker considered to be his “irritating” tone once
again. “I don't care how safe on the system this whole setup is supposed to be.
This repeated hypersleep can't be too great for your health."

Barnes then pulled his own tube
to his face again and vomited violently into its mask.

"It shouldn’t have a
lasting effect,” Parker said tiredly, repeating what he always did to his
copilot whenever they awoke. “Your system just heals. Just like on a Sunday,
you get over the night before.”

But Barnes didn’t hear him. He
had again become occupied with his stomach expelling the rest of the
hibernation fluid from his gut. It was far more worse than usual this time, but
Parker still felt gratitude and quiet satisfaction that his own body reacted
less ferociously to the hibernation process than Barnes’ system did.

"Look at this for god’s
sake," Barnes said pointing at a large vomit stain on the front of his
flight suit after his body ceased to retch. "I don't know why the fuck
we're still even out here. Extend the mission by an extra hypersleep. I can
even see them heaping it up to two. But that was a long time ago, Jed. A long
time they’ve been jerking us around. How many extra months have they thrown on
us? I’m getting pretty goddamn sick of all this shit! I swear to shit, I
am!"

Barnes drew his arm back as far
as the smallness of the cabin allowed and flung his mask against the instrument
panel in front of him. The mask stopped short of its target and floated lazily
away. It bounced once harmlessly against the rectangular window separating the
cockpit from the view of the barren moon looming outside the ship.

The tube bobbed up and then
hovered in front of Barnes’ face. Its plastic mask floated for a moment near
his eye and taunted him like a child trying to provoke some sort of reaction
from his parent.

Unmoved by his copilot's
outburst, Parker hit a switch which reeled in and secured his own tube and
mask. Pressing at knobs and switches, some marked with flashing lights, he
scowled at the instrument panel wedged into the tiny space in front of his lap.

"Still no word from Science
Dome 15," Parker said evenly. He blinked his eyes one last time until his
vision was finally clear. He let out a long sigh and stared ahead at the
darkness of the moon. “No real signal from Earth at all. At least not
recently.”

"This sucks," Barnes
answered irately with a disgusting gurgling sound coming from his nose and
throat. A drop of something yellow slipped away from his face and floated in
the air between them.

Nausea tugged at Parker’s
stomach threatening to twist it inside out. He tried to concentrate on the
empty blackness outside the cockpit. Of all the men he had to be assigned to in
this mission, it had to be Major Jeffrey Barnes.

Barnes didn't volunteer for this
mission as Parker had.

Parker had all but got down on
his hands and knees to the mission commanders and begged to go. He wanted,
actually needed, simply to run away. To flee his life on Earth.

It had taken four horrifically
long years past his wife’s passing to finally get that chance.

He had found her late in the
night.

She had always held great fears
of what was happening around her, and with the ozone gone, of what the world
had finally become.

Reaching to where she sat in the
tub, her skin was already cold.

Working horrifically long hours
on end with the other flight teams, it had been more than two days since he had
been able to come back and actually sleep in his home.

He leaned in and pulled her body
towards him, his elbows dipping into the cool water which was tinted a light
crimson red.

Parker hugged her closely to him
for a long time, the exact length of which he never knew. Since that day, time
itself had stopped. He could have been there hours, it might have stretched
into days. He held her tightly against him and just tried to make his own body
breathe.

He leaned his face against her
cheek and rested his chin across the back of her shoulder. He remembered
staring straight ahead trying to focus on the white square tiles that lined the
wall. He remembered the effort of just trying to make air move through his
lungs. He stared hard at the tiles searching within their simple structures for
something to keep the insanity rushing at him at bay.

The smell of her hair lingered
in the air.

His body ached, and his soul
screamed with agony when he finally released his grip and at last pulled away.
Gently, he let her body fall back.

When her head rested against the
wall, Parker reached down into the tub.

With a crying heart, he picked
up the lifeless form of his infant son from his mother’s lap. He was born one
year and eight months back from that exact day.

It comforted him somewhat when
he had learned many days later that his child had died from one of the many
radiation diseases running rampant within the protective confines of the domes.
She had taken her own life out of sorrow.

She had never called to let him
know about their son’s death. She had relayed the news with her own.

Since that time, Parker had been
able to push it all away. He fought hard to be assigned to the Hideaway
Project. She was the reason he was up here. Even if he knew in his sickened
heart, it was already entirely too late. He wanted to make the world she feared
a better place. It was a world, in which he was now alone, he vowed he would
die to save.

He was on the Hideaway to
safeguard a technology, in the event of war, that could accomplish this task.
To ensure its secrets and security would not be compromised. To make sure that
those outside the U.S. Dome Administration, no matter how horribly the world
became embroiled in battle, would never obtain it.

His job was to captain the ship
and also attend to what was now at hand. Keeping his copilot from going to that
fearful verge Parker himself had already been to and fought as valiantly as he
could just to stagger back.

Parker felt this task was his
penance for failing his family. And for still being alive himself.

His copilot Major Jeff Barnes
was a different story. He was not up here out of a sense of patriotism or duty.
He did not join the mission to take a side in a war or to ensure life on the
planet continued to live on. He was wanted, wooed, and begged by most of the
dome technical community to first join the scientific military and then sign
onto the mission.

His intellectual gifts had
always been recognized throughout his career. His mind, despite harboring deep
almost-dysfunctional personality flaws, was always considered a cherished asset
by the scientific community.

But Barnes was merely an
intellectual mercenary. He cared little about anything and even less for the
idea of patriotism itself. His only real concerns were his own personal safety
and his level of compensation for supporting the cause.

Parker had thought the man
simply lacked courage. And that he was only up in space on this mission due to
his fear of the world in which they lived.