BROKEN BY THE SUN
Project Hideaway

...105 years after Catastrophic Atmospheric Reduction (CAR) 

They floated in space. Not knowing. Alone. Awaiting the time when salvation…or the end would finally come.
​

Chapter 1

​

Fifteen minutes prior to Death Wall ignition of Science Dome 15
Approximately eighty-two miles from Beuford, Washington

 

It had only been a short while since the first signs of detection were evident. Science Dome 15’s special lookout squad watched in silent horror from the cloaked facility’s observation deck.

​

In an instant, the trucks and jeeps pouring from the burning fires of Beuford had changed course. Every vehicle leaving the city now seemed headed in their direction.

 

It was then that SD15’s observation team knew that their secret location was known. Justan’s Great Union had redirected their forces and were now coming for them.

 

Five minutes later the scream of over-revved engines filled the air as the small sleek shapes of Science Dome 15’s Bullet ground team rushed to intercept the coming assault.

 

Perched outside just at the edge of Science Dome 15’s mammoth facility, Watch Tower leaned against the thin metal of the observation deck rails and focused his extended range glasses towards the cloud of churning sand and flying dirt that marked the location of the racing land fleet.

 

A quiet terror settled across his shoulders. It choked the air around him and the young men that made up his observation crew. The heated metal of the observation rails, hot even at night when the sun was no longer in the sky, burned against his stomach through the thick fabric of his uniform and gear. Watch Tower found it odd that after all these years of holding this command post, it was now that he noticed.

 

Trucks, tanks, and a hodgepodge of other massive land assault vehicles moved from the various fires slowly consuming Beuford. All appeared straight on course to the hidden facility. Nothing else stood within the vast open nothingness of the sun-battered land that separated the city from the cloaked location of Science Dome 15.

 

There was no doubt the dome had been discovered. And there really was no question as to what was to be their fate.

The vehicles and those that governed their advance were coming to attack and destroy the facility. But not before ripping from its core the technological secrets held there by a desperate nation.

 

Fear seared through the facility. Not of death or of capture during war. But that the J.G.U. were coming to retrieve the United States’ last hope for winning the conflict, the Beam Cannon Hardware.

 

Through their extended range glasses, Watch Tower and his crew watched the first of the Bullet land fleet meet the front vehicles of the J.G.U. assault. 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 avoiding the return bursts from deeper within the convoy.

 

“Bullet Land Team to Observation Post,” a voice squawked from the comlink on Watch Tower’s wrist.

 

“Go ahead Bullet Leader,” Watch Tower didn’t lower his glasses as he raised the communication hookup to his lips.

 

"There's a lot of 'em, but their armor's pretty light. Minimal weaponry, relatively easy to disable. Advance confinable. Just give us a few more minutes. "

 

"Not much time left," Watch Tower dropped his glasses and reported nervously back. He looked down at the sound of revving engines at the base of the dome as a second squadron of Bullet vehicles raced to join the fight. “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 at the perspiration rolling down his face and shifted uncomfortably in his uniform coat. It was unbearably hot and moist from a recent thick burst of sweat.

* * *

Down below in the deepest recesses of Science Dome 15, the officer in charge of the vehicle landing bay and the giant shielded doors protecting the entrance into the facility listened to the thunder of explosions pounding just outside.

​

For the past ten minutes he had been monitoring the communications between the observation post and the Bullet defense teams.

 

Missile blasts launched from J.G.U. land craft still thirty to forty miles away echoed loudly throughout the underground vehicle hanger. He could feel the dome’s massiveness shudders and shakes from their impact. They were smashing and obliterating the terrain just outside the door he stood behind.

 

He didn’t share the optimism of the Bullet squad commander leading the defense assault team outside. He knew the men perched on the lookout post many floors above shared his concerns.

 

Bay Guard watched his nervous crews prepare the emergency receiving bays for the return of the Bullet fleet. They avoided looking at the holovid monitors that filled the hanger. Fires raged on the outside and heaps of destroyed wreckage cluttered the ground. Huge billows of black smoke swirled around further obscuring what little view was offered by the monitors.

 

The crews readied the devices that would catch the retreating assault team and keep them from impacting against the walls when they came screaming through the giant entrance doors. The crewmen knew as well as he did that the receiving bays they prepared wouldn’t be of much use. The bays and landing equipment weren’t designed to handle the vehicle numbers necessary in ground battle.

 

The harnessing device was created so that the land racers could enter the small dome landing bay without breaking speed. This was especially useful for quick returns on reconnaissance runs or perimeter patrols. They were also handy when land pilots were in danger of being located by overhead satellites or when outsiders wandered in too close to the cloaked dome.

 

When a pilot entered the bay at top speed, the device struck out like a giant mechanized snake and snatched the vehicle off the floor preventing it from smashing against the wall. Vehicles could enter the small hanger bay at more than one hundred miles per hour, hit the harnessing mechanism, and stop instantaneously without injuring the driver or damaging the vehicle.

 

The vehicle was then quickly whisked away by another machine to make way for more coming in behind. The harnessing devices were good for small, controlled teams, but not meant for panicked retreats or large numbers of vehicles pounding into the bay at once.

 

Despite the shortcomings of the harnessing device, both Bay Guard and his men also knew that many of the Bullet land fleet would probably not return at all. The ones that did most likely would be coming in at such extreme speeds the emergency bays won’t be able to absorb the shock. They would explode across the walls and against each other before the equipment would have a chance to move the vehicles out of the way down the hanger and reset.

 

Missile strikes chasing them in would kill still more. Strays would cause explosions, wreck equipment, and even take the lives of some of his men.

 

A well-placed missile guided in by a J.G.U. gunner waiting for the door to open could actually kill them all.

 

The crews readied all the receiving bays. Bay Guard didn’t need to look at the monitors displaying the outside battle to know its status. The J.G.U. had rolled through the town of Beuford and stormed across the hundred or so miles separating the destroyed town and Science Dome 15’s hidden location.

 

Another explosion pounded just outside the shielded doors causing Bay Guard to turn from his consoles and glance up. He could almost smell the chaos of scorched earth, twisted metal and burning oil on the other side of the giant doors.

* * *

Another volley of weapons bursts transformed a handful of J.G.U. vehicles into flames. The Bullets zoomed in and around 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 lay strewn across the drive paths of the coming trucks and jeeps. Several small explosions fed its fury momentarily making it 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 revealing the mammoth structures hidden behind. Their presence until recently concealed by thick black smoke, the dome destroyers towered the size of small buildings into the air.

 

Large 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 their 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 pressed their shoulders in next to him. Both kept their glasses pressed hard against their faces and pointed towards the battle waging 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 then changed direction. Rather than continuing forward, they broke to the sides and away from the main group. As their numbers began to thin, more of the mammoth transports could be seen lined up single file behind them.

 

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!”

 

“Center all attack on the larger units!" Bullet Leader's voice came back across the communications link. "Gunners continue to fire. Repeat. Gunners continue to fire. Pilots bring the units back in. Full-scale retreat!"

 

"Safety zone twenty miles!" Watch Tower yelled into his wrist. "Say again! Safety zone twenty miles! Death Wall ignition in two minutes."

 

An entire fleet of the large transport vehicles became visible from beneath the flying grit obscuring the battle below. Like submarines skimming just below the water's surface, the top of the structures jutted ominously through the billowing black smoke.

 

As if a single foot reached from the heavens and slammed their brake pedals to the floor, the Bullet vehicles spun about in coordinated unison as soon as the order to withdraw was given.

 

Some catapulted across their sides and burst into flames while others were crushed by the mammoth wheels of the advancing transports.

 

Cannon fire from the smaller vehicles slapped harmlessly off the transports’ heavy armor as the land fleet made its panicked retreat.

 

Return artillery bursts from the transports picked at the smaller Bullet units transforming them one by one into bright balls of light that wounded the surrounding earth.

 

"Lock down the dome!" Watch Tower yelled to the lookout manning the controls. "Get the concussion shields down immediately. Be ready to lower them completely on my mark. We're going to need to leave the bay area exposed until we get the team back in! Those transports are going to be following close behind!"

 

The sentry didn't look up. Only the increased ferocity of his hands across the controls signaled acknowledgement of Watch Tower's latest command.

 

"Bullet Leader," Watch Tower barked into the comlink again. "We're keeping the landing bay open as long as we can. You've got a twenty-mile safe zone when it goes off. And we're going to have to seal the doors at least fifteen seconds before that. If the shields aren't down when the Death Wall goes up, the whole facility could go down!"

 

"We hear you Watch Tower," Bullet Leader’s voice came again from Watch Tower's wrist communication link. A sense of serenity had replaced the controlled panic in his voice. "Keep those bay doors open as long as you can. Light up the wall the instant that first transport reaches the safe zone. Any one of those gets through, everyone will be dead…not just us."

 

"Acknowledged Bullet Leader," Watch Tower said solemnly and lowered his wrist.

Without turning his eyes from the battlefield, he nervously switched frequencies on his communication link. After a few quick taps of his fingers across its tiny controls, he raised it back to his lips. When he spoke, small drops of moisture jumped from his mouth into the warm dusty air.

 

“Bay Guard! Bay Guard! How much of the team is secured?” Watch Tower felt his voice shriek out into the night.

* * *

Hundreds of feet below, Bay Guard finished working the controls that opened the mammoth doors to the landing bay. Opening the doors he had always been told was like rolling an animal on its back leaving its soft underside completely vulnerable to attack.

 

The doors stood wide open, allowing thick black smoke to pour inside. His eyes stung instantly from the fiery fallout of the battle. Like his crew around him, Bay Guard hurriedly pulled a breathing mask across his face.

 

Through the protective material now covering his nose and eyes, he watched a group of about ten of the Bullet fleet break from the havoc of the battlefield and streak towards the landing bay. The vehicles were obliterated in an instant by missile and cannon fire launched by unseen jeeps and trucks chasing them from behind.

 

“None!” Bay Guard screamed back into his own communication piece strapped tightly to the back of his wrist.

 

“Watch Tower, the team is not secured! None! I repeat. None! None of them are in!”

* * *

A new burst of explosions and chasing artillery fire forced Watch Tower to press his wrist transmitter closer to his ear.

 

“Say again, Bay Guard!” Watch Tower felt himself scream. “How many are secured? We’ve got to get them in here! We’re going to light it!”

 

“The Death Wall is set for launch!” a different sentry on the observation deck screamed at Watch Tower from the other end of the observation deck. He also struggled to be heard over the sound of blasts.

 

"Bay Guard! Bay Guard! Is the Bullet team secured?"

 

"Negative, Watch Tower!” Bay Guard’s voice crackled out over the explosions filling the night. “We just opened the door. No one’s made it to the door!”

 

"We've got to get them in here! We're going to light it!" Watch Tower jerked away from the control panel and brought his glasses back to bear on the ferocious ground battle being waged less than twenty-five miles from Science Dome 15.

 

“Bullet Leader!” Watch Tower barked in a flurry of spit into the side of his wrist. “We have got to get them in here now! You’ve got to move them in faster or we’re going to close the whole bay out! The doors have to be shut. And they have to be shut now!”

 

The sentry working the controls stood up and ran down the length of the observation deck and disappeared into the darkness at the far end of the platform. Flames from the battle below cast eerie shadows across the entire observation post.

 

Watch Tower gripped the large main guard rail that surrounded the observation decks and ignored the mild burn of its metal reaching through the fabric of his gloved hands. Grimly, he watched the Bullet land fleet speed toward the dome receiving bay. His stomach clutched painfully inside his gut as he watched five more vehicles explode into nothingness. The flames from their blasts lit up the night sky.

 

Not even a third of the Bullet fleet had reached the safety zone. Many of those that had were obliterated by the weapons assault. Large areas of flame and shredded debris throughout the zone and directly in front of the open landing bay further impeded their way in. The deadly J.G.U. dome-killer transports followed closely behind. Their massive weaponry tore up the earth behind them.

 

A few transports at the front of the assault were within a mile or two of the safety zone. Two of them rotated back around away from the dome and picked off the Bullet vehicles trying to race past.

 

More Bullets appeared from the night behind the fire and smoke of the waging battle. Their engines screamed as they raced in between the mammoth transports trying desperately to reach the safety zone before the Death Wall was launched.

 

"Bay Guard! Bay Guard!" Watch Tower yelled over his comlink to the landing bay crew more than thirty floors below. “Be advised. Those transports are right behind them. Prepare to slam the doors. There’s no more time!"

* * *

Bay Guard stared out at the first Bullet racer charging in. A large hiccup of air bellowed from the harnessing mechanism as it dropped across it and snatched it in one controlled motion into the air. The engine continued to rev with a loud high whine, and its wheels spun wildly as the machine carried it out of the way down the landing bay.

 

Two more Bullets were nearly to the landing bay entrance. A missile whine followed by an explosion pounded the ground just outside the massive doors.

 

"Roger that Watch Tower. We got 'em. They’re just starting to come in!” Bay Guard bellowed into his comlink through the exploding din.

* * *

"No, you don't got 'em." Watch Tower dropped his glasses to his chest and screamed into the communications link to the landing bay. "Those transports are ahead of some of the team! They're going to be shooting right fucking inside the longer you keep those doors open to let what’s left of ‘em in!”

 

Red streaks of light sailed from two of the transports as Watch Tower shrieked. Fragments of three Bullet vehicles exploded into the air. Additional fiery missile streaks soon followed sailing over the fleeing land vehicles directly towards the dome’s outer walls. Watch Tower leaned against the observation rail and trained his glasses on what was happening on the ground almost directly under him.

 

"Hang the fuck on!" he screamed as the first deadly blow struck.

 

The rockets pummeled the side of Dome 15 three hundred feet from the landing bay doors. Their impact reverberated throughout the entire structure and threw everyone on the observation platform hard to the deck. On the ground, a huge hole gaped open like a gunshot wound in the dome’s outer wall near the bay door. Fiery shrapnel from the blast incinerated two more racers, one of which was almost through the landing bay doors.

* * *

"Bay Guard! Bay Guard! Are you still with us?" he heard Watch Tower’s voice over the loud ringing in his head. He felt a drop of sweat or blood fall from the tip of his ear and slide down the back of his neck.

 

"Roger that Watch Tower. Bays 3 and 6 are down. We're not going to be able to open those up again. Bay 15 is destroyed. But we still got some room, and the door is still open. We can see them coming now."

* * *

Watch Tower picked up his extended range glasses and pointed them back towards the battlefield. Through the fires and mountains of dark smoke, he watched the land fleet race towards the landing bay. The J.G.U. transports chased close behind them spitting cannon fire and releasing hundreds of rockets with red flaming tails to further brighten the battle-plagued night.

Watch Tower lowered his glasses one last time and pulled his wrist back to his face. “You guys are really going to have to hurry,” he said softly into his transmitter.

 

Even from his perch high atop the observation post, he could still hear the tortured screams of the Bullet engines.

Some exploded. Others stopped still as their pilots revved them past their limits trying to outrun the chasing transports and reach the safety zone before the Death Wall was lit.

 

"Are you ready?!" Watch Tower screamed behind him.

 

"Death Wall ignition ready at your command, sir," the young sentry’s voice cracked in response.

 

"Bay Guard! Bay Guard! How many do you have?"

 

"None alive, Watch Tower. Repeat. None secured alive. Rocket fire tearing them apart before reaching the bay. We've still got a few more in sight. They're coming in fast. We're firing everything we’ve got to give them some cover. "

 

"They’re not coming in fast enough!" Watch Tower screamed. "Get ready to close those fucking doors!"

 

Through the smoke and fire, he could only see five or six Bullets within the safety zone and twenty of the dome-killers transports gaining ground behind. And then from somewhere behind the harsh flicker of the raging flames, another fifteen Bullets streaked into view racing for the landing bay. Watch Tower could hear the strained scream of their engines even above the sound of the blasts.

 

Smaller J.G.U. vehicles also appeared from the darkness alongside the larger transports. Large bursts of cannon fire roared from their sides chasing the Bullet team further from the night.

 

"Wall ignition in ten seconds," Watch Tower spoke quietly into his wrist.

 

Very few of the land fleet had reached the protective zone which would offer them harbor from the blast. The dome-killer transports trailed doggedly behind the ones that had managed to make it close.

 

"Land team acknowledge," Bullet Leader's voice came back. "Transports close to breaching the perimeter…" A loud burst of static temporarily drowned out his voice. "…don’t wait for us to get in…ignite when ready…"

 

"Five seconds," one of the observation sentries said quietly next to Watch Tower. Two others lowered their glasses and turned away.

 

And then what he saw next made his heart almost stop and his blood run cold.

 

"Oh, sweet mother…," Watch Tower said lowering his glasses and grabbing his comlink.

 

"How many you got? Say again! How many...!"

 

"Only five harbored!" Bay Tower's shrieking voice pierced through the crackling comlink. "We've only got five! More than fifteen in sight, Watch Tower! They're almost here!"

 

"Soldier, stand by!" Watch Tower barked over his shoulder. The three young tower guards sat tautly behind him at the controls awaiting the final order to launch.

 

Below, five of the killer transports pivoted to their sides and dropped their panels revealing an arsenal of large rockets leveled straight at the dome.

 

"There's no more time! Light it!" Watch Tower screamed. The hands of the tower guards flew across the controls.

 

Only a handful of the vehicles had reached the twenty-mile boundary guarding the outside of the dome. Some entered the zone riding the red tails of fired rockets and exploded into flames once within.

 

"They're not in!" Bay Guard's voice screamed through the comlink. "We've only got a..."

 

"Close the doors! Close them now!" Watch Tower's voice bellowed.

 

"They're out there! They’re coming!” Bay Guard screamed back. “They’re right fucking here. We’ve almost got em’! We can’t close them now…..!"

 

"Close those bay doors, or we're all going to fucking die!"

 

As if in slow motion, trails of red fire began to detach themselves from the sides of the J.G.U. transports and streak over the speeding Bullet team.

 

“Ignite on this mark,” Watch Tower whispered into the comlink and then dropped his wrist. “Ignition now. Burn the fucking thing.” When the final command left his lips, he lowered his glasses and closed his eyes.

 

He wondered briefly if the doors had even been sealed. Regardless, the guard crew was most likely dead. Even if they had sealed the doors, the concussion shields most likely wouldn’t have dropped in time. They were probably all incinerated in one fiery instant.

 

Watch Tower knew it was too late to wonder about that now. Following his command, as if God was standing at his side, the darkness of the wounded night seared with a brilliant light.

 

The initial blast rocked the observation platform and threw everyone down hard to the deck. Watch Tower pulled himself from the tangle of fallen bodies and leaned against the rails.

 

With more megatons than previous world armies combined, he watched the shield of fire erupt from the detonation of special large-scale missile explosives embedded deep within the earth almost twenty miles away.

 

A massive thermonuclear blast designed to blast up and explode out, the Death Wall threw a mammoth shield of white flames away from Science Dome 15 towards the small town of Beuford.

 

Towering walls of ferocious fire licked into the sky and blasted a deadly apocalyptic ring around and away from the dome. Its destructive force enveloped everything not within the twenty-mile safety zone.

 

A fast-moving inferno thundered across the J.G.U. transports and then swept further out incinerating as much as the eye could see. In an instant, much of the town of Beuford and the land before it erupted into a fireball. The heat seared at Watch Tower's eyes and pounded hard across his chest.

 

Massive roaring flames tore through the dome-killer transports and consumed the straggling members of the Bullet land fleet. The few Bullet vehicles that had crossed into the zone were tossed into the air by the force of the blast and thrown towards the base of Science Dome 15. Their small frames crashed end-over-end along the ground. Many exploded. Others lay smoking and still.

 

The hungry fires of the Death Wall devoured the advancing J.G.U. convoy lying in its path while leaving the dome undamaged in its protective wake.

 

In an instant, the ten or more transports that had almost breached the safe zone were gone.

 

But the Death Wall’s awesome might was not able to stop the rockets that had already been launched. Many had long since streaked past the safety zone perimeter an instant before it was lit.

 

More than thirty rockets ripped into the walls of Dome 15 tearing gaping flaming wounds into its massive structure. Beams collapsed and metal twisted in on itself. Glass exploded and fell through the air like rain. Screams and the sounds of death tore across the complex.

 

Two missiles found their marks near the base of the observation deck. Their impact and detonation created a fireball of destruction that spit shards of rubble and debris into the air. Small pieces of twisted metal sailed across the observation platform embedding themselves into the flesh of the tower guards. Their bodies tumbled down hard around Watch Tower's feet turning his ankles and knocking him to the ground on top of them.

 

"Bay Guard! Bay Guard!" Watch Tower screamed as he struggled to stand. He slid away from the bodies of the men who had just lit the Death Wall and now sprawled motionless across the deck of the destroyed observation post. “Bay Guard are you still there?!”

 

The body of one of the sentries pinned his leg against a tangled beam preventing him from standing completely up. When he was finally able to pull away, the searing heat from the roaring Death Wall kept him from raising his head over the observation rail and looking below. "Tell me you’re there! And what did you get?"

 

"We’re here…," came the sullen reply. "We got a few, Watch Tower. Had to close on some that weren't in yet. They impacted against the doors. The shield drop crushed a few more. But, we got a few."

 

Watch Tower glanced down briefly at the bodies of his own dead crew and then quickly turned away.

 

"Roger that, Bay Guard," he said and switched off his comlink.

 

Watch Tower hooked his arms again on the observation rail and struggled to pull himself up. Resting his weight on wounded feet, he trained his glasses across the flaming carnage below. Through the disarray and confusion on the ground's surface, a large movement caught his eye through the thick smoke. His hands shook as he adjusted the glasses for a better look.

 

Many of the massive dome-killer superstructures were intact and still moved on the ground after the blast. They continued to push steadily through the roaring flames towards the flaming dome.

 

Watch Tower stared in horror at the sight. More than fifty dome-killer transports lunged through the fiery aftermath of the Death Wall pushing past the safety zone perimeter. As if coming from Hell itself, they appeared from the deepest parts of the monstrous flames that consumed the surrounding land as far as the eye could see.

 

The massive structures moved quickly and steadily before slowing to a stop a few hundred yards from the dome’s base.

Watch Tower knew then that the end for both himself and Science Dome 15 had finally come.

 

The transports lined up along the damaged dome lumbering mercilessly across the wreckage of those already destroyed by the battle. The scorched metal of exploded transports and flaming ruins of the doomed Bullet land fleet were ground into the earth beneath their wheels. Several more of the structures appeared from behind lining up next to them and dropping their panels to their sides. Thousands of rockets extended from their interiors into the blasting heat of the outside.

 

As one they launched. Their destructive force thundered without mercy into the sides of the dome.

 

The blast ripped the observation platform from its base and lifted it in a fiery oblivion towards the sky.

 

By this time, Watch Tower was already gone. His body, long since crushed by raining debris, laid still with the rest of his observation crew. In another quick instant, they were all lifted by the flaming destruction into the battle-ruined sky.

Wind scattered what remained of the observation post across the advancing forces of the J.G.U. ground team. Steam rose from the pieces of jagged metal that fell from the night and pierced the ground.

 

The dome-killer transports kept rolling relentlessly forward over the shredded flaming battlefield.

​

Their guns and rockets continued to fire. Their ferocious and brutal advance did not cease.

Chapter 2

 

Ten minutes prior to Death Wall ignition
Science Dome 15 Command Center, Meeting Room 26

 

"Veer left! Veer left, Ground 2!"

 

A trail of fire blazed after two Bullet land fleet vehicles racing back towards Science Dome 15. A giant burst of flame gouged a hole twice the size of the two vehicles combined deep into the ground beneath the rear of the one furthest from the landing bay.

 

The blast rocketed its frame into the air and hungry flames devoured it before it hit the ground. The fiery debris rained across the path of the lead Bullet causing its pilot to swerve into the path of another J.G.U. rocket that ripped it into nothingness.

 

The steel from the exploding vehicle seemed to shriek briefly before shredding into oblivion, and then no further sound came from the battle monitor.

 

"As everyone has been notified, the security of Dome 15 has been compromised," the tall figure of Lt. Commander Dome Leader Steven Corrado loomed ominously at the head of the long meeting table. Taking a half step to his right, his large frame blocked the wall holovid screen displaying the battle being waged outside on the sun-battered terrain.

 

"A defense land fleet has been dispatched and is heavily engaged. They are only a few miles out." Corrado hit a button on the panel to his left, raising the lights across the meeting room slightly. "We are here to address rumors and discuss possible scenarios and solutions as they relate to this dome attack and the security of Mission Hideaway."

 

A series of explosions flashed across the holovid causing the dozen or so gathered members of the Hideaway science team to glance away from Corrado back at the screen. Two more of the Bullet land fleet burst into flames and were gone. Their fiery destruction jabbed bright light across the still dimly lit room. A thin cloud of smoke hovered in the air from cigarettes clutched tightly in the nervous fingers of many of the people sitting around the table.

 

"How far away are they?" Dr. Katie Rone, head of the Hideaway Pilot Research Program, questioned the speaker.

 

"The command to light the Death Wall was given about five minutes ago," Lt. Commander Corrado answered her. "They're very close. And as I know I needn't remind anyone, the Death Wall has always been considered a last resort."

 

The room fell deathly silent. Only a soft sound of explosions from the monitor and the quiet sucking from deep drags on cigarettes could be heard.

 

"Do we wake them up?" Corrado questioned the group. "This is one of the most difficult decisions this facility has ever faced. I know that. But people…, we have to decide this fast."

 

"Of course we wake them up," Rone answered him. "If the Death Wall is the last resort, then we have to bring them down to Earth. Right now. While we have time."

 

"There is no time," Dr. Robert Kobus, a member of her personal research team and the man seated directly to her left, answered curtly. “This decision should have been made many days ago. It should have been made when we first heard we were going to war. But now, the war has all too quickly come to us.”

​

Rone tried, as she always did, to control the red-hot poker-through-the-eye emotion she always felt when discussing anything with her colleague, Kobus. She had always considered him a bickering and argumentative man since the day he had come to work for her. He was someone that she had never really liked very much, and each day wished would leave the research team. Their views on how to interpret the Hideaway crew never seemed to coincide.

 

But the focus of their research was by far too intriguing for either of them to ever leave the team.

 

The ship was sent up into space loaded with some of the most prized technology ever created on the planet. Updates and supplemental data resources for this technological equipment were uploaded from Science Dome 15 on a continuous daily basis to the ship’s vast array of storage equipment.

 

The two pilots had rocketed a secret course away from Earth with orders to conceal the ship. Simply keep it hidden from anyone that wasn’t directly linked to the science dome. Once safely away, the pilots found a dark remote region on the far side of the moon away from the furthest reaches of any detection system on the planet. There, they set an automated stationary course and put themselves into an extended period of suspended animation.

 

Their mission was to wait. Wait until sometime called upon.

 

That was fifty years ago. And what had become interesting to both Rone and Kobus was that “sometime” had now become way too long.

 

The job of her research team was to monitor the hibernation and thoroughly examine the psychological histories of the pilots. Based on these studies, they were to think, rethink, and predict each pilot’s reaction to any and every set of situations and stimuli that could be possibly encountered on the ship.

 

Neither Rone nor Kobus had ever met the two men. They had inherited the project from a screening and implementation team now since retired. This previous team had selected these men from more than thirteen hundred candidates referred to the project for consideration.

 

Despite not knowing them personally, through numerous lengthy discussions with her predecessors, some done through dissertations and coursework at the dome universities, Rone felt she had experienced the entire process firsthand. She felt connected with the men inside and out. And considered herself the most qualified of anyone ever associated with the project to get into their heads and gaze into their souls.

 

Of anyone in the room, she was the foremost expert on the two men guarding the most important cargo ever to be shot off the planet in a ship.

 

She had heard rumors of the project during the earliest years of her university enrollment, and they had drawn her…almost fanatically so. She was fascinated by the fact that these men had been left in hibernation and never wakened from what could be considered a terminal sleep. She was fascinated by the moral implications of the sin they continued to commit each day they did not bring these men back to Earth. And she was morbidly curious as to what would happen if these men were ever to awake.

 

Rone spent years and three subsequent theses on the subject. She spent more than ten years with the original personnel that screened the men. She knew the personal histories of each pilot by heart. She had run and re-run their psychological evaluations and created and played out every scenario of their return to consciousness both in report form and in her head. She lived, breathed, and dreamt these men and always wondered, despite all her studies, what would really happen when their time finally came to return to life.

 

During the course of this all, she had acquired an extreme fondness for these two men, an almost illogical love. Impractical or unethical. Romantic or paternal. She was always never sure. What she did know was that despite whatever their personal intentions for signing onto the project, she felt an emotion toward both of them based on their individualities and what they had gone up there to do.

 

She feared the longer they were left up there, and now with the country at war and the dome under attack, the closer they came each day to becoming irretrievably lost.

 

These were the thoughts driving her in this conversation. She had always felt it would be her decision and hers alone as to when these men would finally return to Earth. If there was ever a time to bring them back down, this was it.

 

"These men have been in hypersleep for fifty years,” Kobus spoke directly to her. “That’s nothing to their bodies, but half a lifetime to everyone they knew around them. People that are now most likely gone. They will come out of it thinking they’ve been under for only a few weeks or a few months. Natural human reaction has to be taken into account. They will be disconcerted at first, more so than what follows a typical stretch of suspended animation. After that, fear will quickly follow," he said not addressing the room so much as he was lecturing her personally.

 

“And then anger,” he paused and turned away from her to the others listening intently. “It will come. We could quickly lose control of the ship and the entire situation.”

 

Kobus shared some of the same feelings as her own. Though, not entirely so. Like her, he was morbidly fascinated at the prospect of the two pilots possibly floating forever through space in a continuous hibernation. However, he never felt a personal connection with either of the men. The control they held over their personal fates didn’t sway his emotion or compassion in either direction. And the fact that she was the expert, with more knowledge, credentials, and overall authority on the subject, always caused him to engage her in debate.

 

Rone turned from the lieutenant commander and looked directly at him.

 

"They're going to be really pissed," Kobus said ignoring the rest of the room and speaking to her directly again.

 

Each additional year the project continued, Kobus had become more and more squeamish at the idea of ever bringing the men back to Earth. He advocated leaving the ship up there indefinitely rather than risking the possibility of detection even from the minute surges of low frequency power required to bring it back online. He had also started to harbor a growing fear of the two men.

 

This apprehension and his own personal research centered on only one of the pilots. Each day he spent working on it was another day he felt the decision made many years ago had been entirely wrong. This pilot was wrong. He was not the one the world should be counting on to keep it as well as its secrets safe and secure.

 

Kobus never wanted to see the ship come back down, not with this man alive and on board.

 

Kobus had gone so far as argue his case to her in court. After the ruling, there was even an appellate proceeding. But on both occasions, in the presence of both governing tribunals, he was never able to completely convince her or those making the ruling of his fears. Rone wondered if Kobus’ repeated attempts to keep the pilots and ship in continued hibernation was only due to personal fright of the world they all existed within. Or perhaps he just wasn’t entirely convinced himself of what he claimed.

Either way, she had always been able to keep Kobus and his ideas in check while at the same time keeping the project moving forward. Ship mission plans had never changed in all the years since it was launched.

 

"I've researched both their psychological histories thoroughly. I've been closely monitoring their life support and brain patterning. Nothing has been out of the ordinary," Rone argued back at him. “There have been no complications going into or during their hibernation states. Normal brain wave patterning has always been intact. They were both given top physical and psychological clearances when they went up.

 

“If these men were given the military clearance to be aware of and then safeguard one of the most important inventions the world has ever seen, then these same men are certainly capable of handling unforeseen contingencies and changes in mission plans. They are United States soldiers for God's sake, not unstable civilians under suicide watch. They can handle this. This is what they were sent up there to do,” Rone finished.

 

"These are not unforeseen changes in mission plans," a younger male voice came softly but with authority from the far end of the briefing table.

 

Heads turned towards the man that had spoken. Rone could barely see the outlines of his face through the thick haze of smoke choking the room. She thought it was Christopher Korcheck, a member of the Beam Cannon technical group. Only when a burst of air from the overhead ventilating fans cleared the air a bit was she finally sure.

 

Korcheck was considered to be one of the top minds in the entire United States scientific dome community. He grew up a child prodigy. His genius as an adult was thought to be immeasurable. Some said it simply couldn’t be described.

 

Korcheck was a young, eccentric, and driven scientist who spent years working in the tunneled caves below the domes. A man who declared on national news at the age of ten that he would use his knowledge, a great gift given to him from God, to one day save the world. The footage was a favorite throughout the national news media throughout the years that followed.

 

Korcheck worked with the beam cannon scientists. He studied their designs, examined the flaws, and conducted his own experiments into the technology. He then helped a corps of beleaguered engineers see it through. He had discovered new means of storing and utilizing power. He created atom chips and power control devices that were always smaller than anyone else had ever dreamed of in design.

 

He refined the space necessary to make the Beam Cannon Hardware usable. Through his own ambition, he made it possible for the beam cannons to work. Once constructed, the technology he helped perfect in design would completely encompass the globe with an artificial atmosphere. Not limited patches of the globe that would only be able to protect a preordained few.

 

Once a few more things worked into place, it would be possible to implement the technology completely. Once done, the disease and division that ravaged the planet would one day be gone.

 

"We need to think about what we are going to do," Korcheck continued. "We're going to pull these men from hibernation, a procedure that is in itself disconcerting and stressful to the physical and mental system and tell them the world is at war. And then tell them that their family is dead. Everyone they’ve ever known is dead, because we decided to leave them up there in an extended hibernation rather than bring them back down at the specified time.

 

“If we do this, we have to completely follow through. We cannot bring them out and order them to just sit up there and await the possibility of discovery by a hostile force. I think that's a little more than you can expect from anyone.”

 

“We need to wake them up and bring them back immediately," Rone agreed with him.

 

At that moment, the lights dimmed, the coffee mugs on the table rattled, and the walls surrounding them shuddered. Electronic voices droned status reports in the outside corridors, and flashes of red emergency lights spilled into the room.

 

"It may soon not be up to us to decide," Kobus said grimly. "Since I joined the pilot research team five years ago, a few things of note have given me great concern and make me extremely apt to disagree. Particularly in regards to Major Jeff Barnes, co-pilot of the Hideaway.”

 

Rone lowered her eyes and wrung her hands under the table while Kobus continued.

 

“With each and every psychological discussion of Barnes that has come up, there has always been a disturbing issue that seems to repeatedly surface. It’s small, very small. But it’s an issue. It’s an issue that’s been there since the onset of the mission and has been continuously overlooked due to this man’s elevated intelligence.”

 

Rone set her hands again on the large meeting table and did her best not to clench them into tight fists.

 

“Barnes is a genius. A good man to have on any crew. But not on a mission like this. He’s always shown signs of paranoia. Small miniscule signs, many times overlooked because of his intelligence and wealth of technical skill. But I tell you, it’s a threat. His actions in pressure situations have always caused the scientists working on his research small amounts of concern. And it’s for this very reason we cannot let this be the man to bring the Hideaway down. He is a risk.

 

“Given the step-ups in security qualifications and clearances as well as the initiation of the Vulture Program since they went up, it is my opinion that he would not have been cleared for this mission if the selection process had been made at a later date. He is only a pilot, gifted in technical intelligence. But he is not a Vulture soldier. Neither of them are.

 

“We have to take that into consideration. We cannot make the mistake of assuming that both or even one of them is going to act rationally. Especially after they figure out the severity of the circumstances they will have awakened to find themselves in."

 

The lights in the briefing room dimmed again. The groan of tortured steel echoed throughout the facility.

 

"We also have to take into consideration that we are under attack," Rone shot back. "The security of this dome and its scientific facilities are threatened. If we don't at least bring them out of hibernation now, they could be up there forever."

 

"Since I have joined this team, both myself and a large amount of my colleagues have been second-guessing the ability of Major Jeffrey Barnes to handle such a command. We have even gone so far as to recommend that this man’s hibernation simply be terminated."

 

"You've done what?" Rone turned on him in disbelief. "How dare you make these accusations and recommendations without my consultation! How dare you go behind my back…”

 

"It has never been withheld from your knowledge! We have submitted numerous reports to the dome governing bodies!" Kobus shouted back. "You do know that! We don't think he can do it! And that is why we can’t wake them up!"

 

Another explosion flashed across the monitor. At the same time, the entire room tilted to one side. Drinks splashed across the floor, and sparks spit from swinging lights. A female scientist in the back of the room toppled sideways from her chair. Two men hurried next to her to help her climb back into her seat. The sound of rushing footsteps pounded just outside the doorway.

 

"I think what we have to do here is plan for the possibility that this facility may be destroyed," Lt. Commander Corrado said forebodingly from the front of the battle-rocked room. Bright flames on the monitor jutted behind his shoulders while he spoke in the dimness.

 

The lingering smoke of cigarettes brought the battle burning outside further into the room. "The ignition of the Death Wall may not save us. Right now we have to plan for that. Everything else should be set aside," he said pointing at Rone and Kobus.

"There is a good chance the J.G.U. will get through."

 

"That does raise questions, doesn't it?" the quiet strong voice came again from the back of the room.

 

"Please continue Dr. Korcheck," Corrado said taking a step back and inviting him with a wave of his hands to come up and take the floor.

 

"They could quite possibly be up there forever," Korcheck continued before Corrado finished his sentence. Korcheck pushed his chair away from the table and stood. He stepped slowly to the front of the room talking as he did.

 

"We might not have been lying to the later generations of their families when we told them they died a few years back." Corrado moved away and sat down when Korcheck reached the front of the table. "Their fate might really already have been decided.

 

“If the security of this dome is compromised, there will be nothing for them to come back to," he looked around the room staring each person directly in the eye. "We will all be dead. And all the years we've put into this. All the people who are suffering or have already died will have done so for nothing. And then the question will be why.

 

“If the Beam Cannon Hardware is never used, in a few years there might not be anyone left alive on this planet to even ask. The J.G.U. are nowhere near capable of producing technology like this. It's the reason they are here."

 

The room was silent. Long bits of burned ash dangled from still lit cigarettes. The monitor at the front of the meeting room had finally been switched off.

 

"But think about this. I mean really thing about it. The ship containing the Beam Cannon Hardware is still up there completely unmanned. An easy salvage for the J.G.U. if the war continues on this course. A simple space retrieval once they figure out its coordinates."

 

Explosions rocked the dome again. Many of the scientists grabbed at coffee cups sliding across the table and braced their legs to keep from being knocked to the floor. At the back of the room, a different scientist began to cry softly near Korcheck’s empty seat.

 

"But that's just it, Korcheck," Kobus spat. "They don't know anything about this."

 

"They will if the security of this dome is compromised."

 

"What if we are destroyed?" Kobus fired back again. "Everyone that ever knew about Project Hideaway will be dead. If we wake the pilots, they could come down here and bring the technology right to them. Hand it right over to the J.G.U. End the war immediately by giving them precisely what they want."

 

"Not necessarily," Korcheck argued. "Safeguards have been built into the Hideaway systems to prevent that type of unauthorized return."

 

"Those safeguards can easily be defeated and you know that. What kind of a deterrent is death, when you, as far as you know, are the only two people left alive from your country or on the planet. There is nothing for them to lose.

 

“With this in mind, there is that chance, a great one in my opinion, that they would attempt an unauthorized return. We can't risk that happening."

 

"The nukes would prevent that, Doctor," Rone spoke up again. "Any tampering with the safeguard equipment or the follow through of unauthorized mission plans would result in annihilation of the ship. And that is almost guaranteed not to happen due to other safeguarding measures aimed individually at the pilots.”

 

“But right now, they are vulnerable in space. Especially if we continue their hibernation. There is nothing to prevent the J.G.U. from flying right up to that sleeping ship and taking it over."

 

"What nukes?" Korcheck asked suddenly looking startled. "The implementation of nuclear devices into the Beam Cannon Hardware is not something ever…”

 

"If the pilots are awake, no matter what the safeguards are, there is always the possibility they can come down!" Kobus shouted ignoring Korcheck and slamming his fist on the table. What if the plan fails and the United States ends up losing this war? You will be risking paving the way for J.G.U. success. Their kind could ultimately survive while the memory of ours is lost forever."

 

"You would rather have no one use this technology?!" Korcheck raised his voice back at Kobus. "You would rather the entire world sicken and die in the event of our government's defeat. This is the kind of immoral and irresponsible thinking that has brought us to this point today, Kobus!"

 

"Dr. Korcheck," Lt. Commander Corrado stood from the table and moved towards his initial place at the front of the room. "That will…"

 

The loudest explosion yet interrupted his sentence and threw him to the floor. Chairs overturned and numerous legs lifted backward into the air.

 

The force of the explosion knocked Korcheck from his feet and across the table in front of Kobus.

 

"Korcheck!" Kobus, one of the few who managed to continue standing, raged. "Your leftist take on this entire situation is of no use here!” His finger jabbed with rabid accusation at the young scientist’s face with every word.

 

Korcheck sprawled across the top of the table and rolled back over to face Kobus. The blast had thrown him so close that the tip of his nose almost touched Kobus’ outstretched finger.

 

"Be advised, all dome personnel!" a mechanical voice sounded from the corridor and every open communication channel in the room. "The Death Wall has been lit. Repeat. The Death Wall has been lit. Stand by for battle status reports. Tower report to commence in sixty seconds."

 

Lt. Commander Dome Leader Steven Corrado reached across the table and helped Korcheck slide back to the floor.

 

"I'm sorry, Chris," he said. The room shook again. Many of the scientists began to abandon the meeting and head towards the door. "I think we're going to have to keep them in suspended animation. Leaving them up there with the chance they may never wake up is a small price to pay for the safety and security of that cargo."

 

"I disagree," Dr. Rone said standing and walking towards the front of the room. A small group had stayed behind to witness the final outcome of the discussion.

 

"There is no more time to disagree," Kobus hissed through closed teeth.

 

"He's right, Dr. Rone," the Lt. Commander agreed.

 

"Sir..." Korcheck tried one last time.

 

"Sir," Dr. Rone said interrupting Korcheck and stepping purposely ahead of Kobus. Her petite determined figure separated him from the dome commander. "I think the best thing we can do is wake them up. At least give the hardware some thinking breathing guardians if anything. Guardians against being discovered."

 

"Or guardians against ever being used," Korcheck added.

 

"Doctors Rone and Korcheck," Kobus' voice was calmer and more controlled. "…taking the chance that these two men may float in their sleep for all eternity is necessary when considering the fact that waking them up could risk the possibility of the technology, our technology, falling into the hands of the J.G.U. If we die, then by God so will they."

 

Rone, Korcheck, Kobus, and the small group of remaining scientists stood in a half circle in front of the dome commander at the far end of the room. For the next moment, they were all silent. The commotion in the outside corridors was becoming more intense.

 

"I agree," Corrado said firmly. "Does anyone else wish to be heard?"

 

The faces of those that remained were rigid, but none of them spoke. Some shook their heads resignedly while others looked apprehensively towards the door.

 

"You're talking about the future of life on our planet," Korcheck pleaded his case one last time. Kobus had already turned his back and headed towards the corridor.

 

The lights in the meeting room dimmed again and went completely out. A few seconds passed, and then the emergency lighting cast an orange glow about the room. More of the scientists headed for the door leaving only two to remain with the dome commander.

 

"Everyone back up your data," Corrado called after the ones that were leaving. "All cloaking shields are down, so send it up to the satellite and ship archives."

 

The commander walked away from the table and towards the door. He turned and looked back at Rone and Korcheck who still stood in the now dark briefing room.

 

"…just in case," he finished. "Return to your stations, doctors. Make your back-ups. While there is still time."

And with that he was gone, the meeting to decide the fate of the Hideaway having now become officially complete.​

Chapter 3

 

Shopping mall rooftop of destroyed town of Beuford
Five minutes past Death Wall ignition

 

Sixteen-year-old Brandon Kirken dropped to one knee. Still held tightly by the man half-dragging, half-carrying him away from the rooftop, his weight hauled them both to the ground. As they fell, the door behind them to the rooftop disintegrated in a burst of heat and flying metal.

​

General Maxwell A. Tuttle, Quadrant 4 Vulture commander, raised his head from the pieces of the door that had obliterated around them. Brandon’s limp form moved slightly next to him buried under a pile of twisted metal and flaming wood. For the moment, they were both still alive having narrowly escaped from the shopping mall’s exploding rooftop.

 

It had only been a few moments since the blast came from somewhere in the distance. A giant explosion from the direction of the dome ripped through the city crippling his helicopter and toppling it over the building’s side. It had exploded when it hit the ground below.

 

The rescue attempt had lost more lives than could now ever be saved. The helicopter crash left only himself and the son of John Kirken alive and marooned in the upper levels of the mall’s rooftop. Only a short metal hallway and the remnants of an exploded door separated them from the fires and the death that consumed the outside.

 

Tuttle felt the ever-increasing numbers of the newly dead pour down across his head like a painful stinging rain. John Kirken. His daughter. And Tuttle’s own crew.

 

It shouldn’t have surprised any of them that the extraction attempt failed. None of them had come out here specifically to save Kirken or his family awaiting their deaths on the rooftop. Tuttle and his crew had flown out here to save themselves. By making the rescue and pulling this man from the rooftop, they hoped to erase the guilt they all felt. They sought to push back the demons that chased them and perhaps slightly atone for the horrors of which they had been a part. The demons, however, no longer chased the men in his crew. At least not in this life. Their worldly guilt was erased the moment the chopper hit the fiery ground leaving Tuttle to carry the already unbearable emotional load for them all.

 

Tuttle looked toward the smoldering wreckage, which had just seconds before been the doorway to the rooftop. Even above the roar of the chaos around them, he could hear the voices approaching them. Next to him, still lying half-buried in debris at the bottom of the rooftop stairway, Brandon began to move his broken body. His breath came in gasps, and his screams could be heard even above the howl of the aircraft streaking overhead.

 

Gloved hands and slamming rifle butts jabbed through the rubble that filled the doorway and separated them from the rooftop. Pieces of concrete and metallic wreckage quickly began to fall aside revealing the faces of the enemy J.G.U. soldiers attempting to break through.

 

The sound of boots scrambling up metal stairs clanged somewhere behind them. Even above the din, the noise echoed eerily in Tuttle’s head. The heat from both the blast and the stale air trapped with them in the stairway was unbearable. Its stinging force felt threateningly close to crushing his lungs.

 

It was only a matter of a very short time before the J.G.U. soldiers would be upon them.

 

Gritting his teeth and trying to shield his eyes from the heat searing through the air, Tuttle grabbed frantically at the broken metal that held Brandon Kirken to the floor. The gloved hands appearing in the shattered door now became full arms and were quickly followed by the nose of a J.G.U. rifle. Tuttle reached for the Sunszk hand weapon strapped to his hip.

 

But his reach was not in time.

 

Flames spit from the lip of the soldier's rifle followed by the pain of metal slugs punching into his shoulder. Tuttle felt his body rising through the chaos as if lifted by the grip of an invisible angel’s wings. But this lasted only a short time, and no angels appeared to remove him from his plight.

 

The force of the shots entering his body hurled his large frame through the air over Brandon still struggling to stand from the exploded debris. Tuttle crashed behind him on top of another pile of indistinguishable wreckage from the building still obliterating around them.

 

Tuttle felt his head crash against the floor and then dazedly sensed his body tumbling end over end down a flight of stairs away from John Kirken’s son. A son he would be giving his life to try and protect.

 

A large metal wall slammed into the small of his back finally stopping his fall down the metal steps. Through a haze of consciousness and almost blinded by the heat, Tuttle raised his arm and pointed his Sunszk hand weapon around towards the top of the stairway near the rooftop doorway. The sound of approaching jets followed by the thunder of missile blasts and massive explosions roared from behind the shattered door.

 

The firebomb team was almost on top of them.

 

Brandon wriggled free from the last of the wreckage holding him to the floor and without getting up rolled his battered frame over the stair ledge. Tuttle fired twice towards the coming soldiers. The rounds exploded loudly throughout the enclosed stairway.

 

A body pitched forward through the smoke and tumbled into the stairwell on top of Brandon. Brandon and the dead soldier fell together down the metal stairs.

​

It was then the roof exploded. The firebomb team had reached the area and started to make their drop over the shopping mall.

​

Brandon and the dead soldier crashed in a heap on top of Tuttle slamming his wounded shoulder against the wall. Tuttle's eyes rolled back inside his head, but he did not scream. He stood, grabbed Brandon by the straps of the pack across his back, and pulled him roughly down the stairs after him. Flame surged through the doorway and down the passageway engulfing the area around them. Their breaths coming in tortured gasps, Tuttle and Brandon Kirken continued to half-fall, half-run down the steps rocking back and forth from the outside blasts.

​

Another explosion knocked both of them to the ground as the rooftop disintegrated into an instant fiery nothingness. The entire stairway structure lurched violently to the side and crumbled beneath their feet. With their arms flailing out towards anything to stop their fall, Tuttle and Brandon Kirken pitched forward over a guardrail and fell with the debris of the exploding building. What was left of the roof rained down at their sides.

 

Tuttle forcefully opened and closed his eyes several times trying to see through the raging smoke and fire. He had landed on the ground level of the mall, and Brandon was nowhere in sight within the debris and wreckage.

 

The fiery destruction all around brought Tuttle back to the vision of John Kirken surrounded by flames just moments earlier out on the rooftop. He knew Kirken was dead. He was dead the moment his daughter slipped from his grasp into the fires raging at the base of the building. Tuttle had physically seen Kirken’s spirit leave his body moments before life was actually snatched from it by the violence of the surrounding destruction.

 

Tuttle knew this image would be etched forever inside his head.

 

Tuttle looked around at the few walls and jagged metal structures now jutting into the open air. Fire spat into the sky, and the sonic trails of the fleeing firebomb team boomed overhead. Intense heat and small shards of flying metal blasted at his eyes and skin. He held a hand over his face as he looked for Brandon in what was left of the destroyed structure.

 

Tuttle stumbled forward.

 

Looking….

 

Searching…

 

Snatching glimpses at the bedlam for as long as the stinging air would allow.

 

He moved towards the escalator, one of the few structures still standing in the gigantic fiery pit. It was almost all that remained of the building that continued to disintegrate around him. He leaned against it trying to ignore the screams of his wounded body. Shakily he stood there, trying with the last of his strength to keep his promise to John Kirken as well as honor his crew by at least getting out one of the people they had flown in to rescue.

 

Trucks, tanks and soldiers poured around the building. So far, the heat kept them from entering inside. The sound and shake of explosions finally came to an end. The world started to become quiet and resemble reality once again.

 

Trying to find his way through the thick black smoke, Tuttle searched desperately for any signs of Brandon Kirken. Soldiers finally swarmed into the flaming structure and began to poke through the rubble. A grim chill of despair and defeat had begun to settle about Tuttle’s battered body when a smoking figure appeared from the blackness behind the flames. The figure staggered to the head of the escalators one floor directly above him. His body swayed uneasily as his legs struggled to remain upright.

 

Tuttle ran up the smoking swaying steps two at a time and grabbed Brandon Kirken before he dropped again. The left side of his face was badly burned, and his arm cocked grotesquely to one side. Fractured bone bulged through the skin just beneath his sleeve. As of yet, it hadn’t broken all the way through. Like on the rooftop before the missiles hit, Tuttle threw the arm of the limping figure over his good shoulder and pulled him down the stairway.

 

The escalator stairs lurched violently side to side knocking their flailing bodies hard against each other and down to the ground. To their left, three stories of still-standing wall toppled down pinning soldiers, crushing vehicles, and covering the scene with a fresh blanket of smoke and debris. Tuttle stopped at the bottom of the escalator, gritted his teeth, and heaved Brandon's now limp body into his shaking arms.

 

The two slugs that had entered the base of his shoulder dug deeper into his skin.

 

The soldiers hadn’t yet seen them or reached where they stood. The inside of the mall had become part of the unprotected outside. Beyond its walls, mammoth flames raged across what was left of the city that had been destroyed instantly by the launch of Science Dome 15’s Death Wall more than a hundred miles away. There was nothing left overhead except for the harshness of the unshielded sky.

 

Turning his back on what had become of Beuford's largest shopping mall, Tuttle carried the lifeless form of Brandon Kirken from the smoke, rubble, and fire. No soldiers followed. No weapons flew. Brandon's head hung limply towards the ground. Smoke curled up in short wisps from his skin and clothes.

 

The darkness settling around them seemed to single Tuttle out alone from the flaming fray. Trying to make him atone for what he had caused. For what he had witnessed. And what he had done.

 

As a quadrant Vulture commander, he was one four charged with initiating the plan. He had ordered whole cities destroyed and initiated the starts of the blasts. He had judged worthiness of life. Worse yet, he had not been able to stand up and stop those above him in rank. He allowed himself to be ordered to implement the most heinous of acts in his own mind that he could ever do.

 

He couldn’t imagine his actions ever being forgotten or that the accusing spirit of John Kirken would ever stop following him about.

 

In his head, Tuttle had always felt he could justify what they did. They were carrying out mission orders for the defense and sake of their country.

 

They didn’t stop to question that these mission orders brought death to families like the Kirkens. Families cast off long ago. Living people already considered dead by men in government and military positions like his own.

 

That was the reason he felt sudden loyalty to Kirken, a man he had only recently met. That was why Tuttle risked his life in a pointless rescue attempt and squandered the lives of his small crew. It was why he carried Kirken’s bloody son in his arms and ran towards the darkness of the night. Tuttle ran from the shame and dishonor his actions had brought to them. Actions now set in motion that could never be undone.

 

Tuttle was there to save a single person, one salvation to offset the millions already killed or ordered dead. Even if the life he protected was only one man’s son, he pledged to God this one man’s son he would forever defend.

 

Only the night lay in wait ahead.

 

Cautiously, he looked out into the brightly lit gloom. With a final deeply inhaled breath, Tuttle stepped out into the darkness.

He sensed the angels of the dead following closely after him. He could hear them whispering in his ear as he walked. Some encouraging, others making vitriolic threats. Both to his well-being in this life and in that which would come in the next.

 

Tuttle earnestly prayed to God to spare the young man covered in blood in his arms. At least for a while yet while they both entered the dark void away from the destruction he had helped to create.

 

To at least give Tuttle a chance to make amends for his contributions to this war and start to repent for what he had done.

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