“There can’t be,” Kobol said.

“I don’t like being called a liar,” Angela snapped. “Especially by a fughead who doesn’t know a tree from a turd.”

Alec bit his lip to keep from laughing. Kobol staggered a step backward; a lanky, helmeted, booted, armed man retreating from this tiny girl.

“Come on,” Alec said, forcing his voice to remain serious. “We can’t afford to ignore her warning. And there’s nothing left here for us. Let’s move out.” He reached for Angela’s wrist. “You can come with us.”

She pulled back slightly. “I can make it on my own.”

Holding onto her wrist, Alec said, “We’ve got the truck here. It’s faster than walking.”

She stopped arguing.

Once they piled aboard the truck and got rolling, Alec radioed Jameson. “Everything’s peaceful here,” his calm voice replied. “No sign of movement except for a few birds.”

“Check with the satellite,” Alec ordered. “Have them make the most intensive scan of this area that they can.”

“They’re halfway on the other side of the globe now,” Jameson answered. “Won’t be back over here for another four hours.”

“Damn,” Alec muttered. “Well, keep a sharp watch. Protect those ships.”

“You betcha,” Jameson said.

Ferret quivered with a mixture of excitement and fear as they crouched in the brush, watching the strange ships sitting on the airfield runway and the handful of men guarding them.

“Now remember,” Billy-Joe whispered, fingering the scar across his chin the way he always did just before a fight started, “once we knock off all them guys, we got to grab their weapons fast. There’s a dozen other gangs spread around this-here airport and they’re all lickin’ their chops over them fancy guns.”

Ferret nodded and bared his teeth in what passed for a smile. But inwardly he was sick with fear. It was one thing to overrun the men standing around those weird flying machines. But the real battle would be among the rival gangs once the strangers had been wiped out.

Grab a gun as quick as you can, he told himself, and then hide in the woods. Stay hidden until Billy-Joe gives the word to get back to camp.

The first sounds of battle came to Alec’s ears while they were still several kilometers from the airfield.

“What’s that?”

It was an odd, muffled sound coming from beyond the ridge ahead of them. Soft thumps, almost like an airlock hatch slamming in a distant corridor.

Alec was sitting up on the laser mount, his legs dangling over the edge of the turntable platform. Angela sat beside him.

She tensed at the sound. “Mortars. Will must’ve made contact...”

Alec yelled down at the driver, “Top speed! Get this truck back to the ships!”

The electric motors whined and strained, but the overloaded vehicle did not seem to move any faster as it labored up the grade to the crest of the ridge.

Angela said over the rushing wind and another trio of distant explosions, “Will Russo... he’s one of your father’s friends. He’s got a small group of us here, trying to tie up the raiders long enough to give you a chance to take off.”

“William Russo,” Kobol snapped. He’d been squatting cross-legged behind them. “So he didn’t die after all; he turned traitor along with Doug.”

Alec twisted around and squinted up into the noon sun to see Kobol. “We ought to put out flankers,” he said. “These woods could be swarming with barbarians.”

“No, not on this side of the airfield,” Angela said.

It was a tense ride. The truck was agonizingly slow, and it seemed to take forever to get through the spots where the tangled trees and undergrowth crowded up to the very edge of the highway. The men kept their weapons in their grips, straining their eyes on the foliage. Alec saw that they were sweating despite the cool shadows of the trees and the wind blowing against them.

He kept watching Angela. She seemed concerned, but not frightened. She’s not expecting trouble here, he reasoned, so neither should we.

But his palms still felt cold and slippery.

Kobol stayed in constant touch with the ships by radio. Alec had taken his helmet off and hung it by its chin strap on the platform railing.

“Do you know my father well?” he asked Angela.

She nodded. “He’s my father, too.”

Alec felt as if she had kicked him in the stomach. There was no air left in his lungs. He could not speak.

“Stepfather,” she added, oblivious to his plight. “He and my mother, before she died...” Her voice trailed off and she looked away, into the distance.

With a struggle, Alec sucked air into his lungs. He realized that his teeth were clenched together so hard the pain shot to the top of his head.

Angela turned back to face him. “He loved my mother very much,” she said. “It wasn’t just a man taking a woman. They were like man and wife. And he’s taken good care of me ever since I was a little girl.”

Alec said nothing. The knot inside him tightened with every heartbeat.

“You really live on the Moon?” she asked.

“Yes.” His voice sounded like a dying croak, even to himself.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“No. Nothing.” He shook his head. “I... it’s just that... I didn’t expect to meet a stepsister. My mother will be very interested.”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess so. I see.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do.” Her chin went up a notch.

Alec shook his head. “I think not.”

“There’s the airfield,” Gianelli’s voice rang out. “Hot damn, those ships look beautiful!”

Alec scrambled to his feet just as an explosion erupted in the trees on the far side of the airfield, billowing black, flame-streaked smoke into the sky. The thundering roar reached his ears a split-second later. It felt almost like a physical blow.