“Right,” Kobol said.
They stared at each other for a long moment. He has no intention of coming back for me, Alec thought. And he knows that I know it.
The truck bounced crazily across the grassy field. Two more shells landed near the runway, but too far from either shuttle to do anything more than churn fresh craters in the ground. The smoke from the damaged shuttle seemed to have almost died away, it was only a thin gray haze now.
“Maybe the fire’s gone out,” Angela yelled over the noise of the rushing wind and the occasional explosions and gunfire coming from the woods.
Russo shook his head. “Doubt it.”
Alec stood behind the driver’s cab and watched his men streaming toward the good shuttle, now stopped at the farthest corner of the field, its nose turned into the wind. The laser trucks made a thin wall between the shuttle and the woods where the fighting was going on. But they were not firing. The troopers from the Moon milled around them, peering toward the woods, gawking like spectators, trying to decipher the strange goings-on.
Alec’s truck pulled up alongside the shuttle. He started shouting orders and the men began clambering into the rocketplane. Kobol was nowhere in sight. Probably already aboard, Alec thought, and waiting for the takeoff.
The silvery finish of the shuttle’s fuselage looked pitted and stained now, dirty, soiled by the base elements of Earth. Jameson was standing at the bottom of the ladder that ran up to the hatch.
“They’re just about loaded,” he reported. “Fifteen men volunteered to stay with you; I’ve got them with the trucks. The pilot’s checking the ship’s systems to see if there’s any damage that’ll prevent takeoff.”
Russo grasped Alec’s shoulder and half-turned him around. “Lookit, I don’t want to butt into your affairs,” he said, pawing with his free hand at his nose, “but if you don’t start using your lasers to clear out the woods at the far end of the runway you’re not going to be able to get this shuttle out of here.”
“All right,” Alec agreed. He called to Jameson, “I want a driver and two gunners with each truck.”
Jameson said, “I’ll get them moving.”
“You’re staying?”
“Yep.”
Alec grinned at him. “Good. Thanks.”
Kobol appeared at the shuttle’s hatch. “You still insist on staying here?” he shouted.
“Yes. Somebody’s got to.”
“No,” Kobol called. “Listen. There’s enough room in the cargo bay for the rest of the men, if the trucks are left behind. The bay’s pressurized.”
“I’m staying,” Alec shouted up to him.
“To find your father.”
“To keep those raiders off your back, so that you can get away. And to get my hands on the fissionables that we came for.”
“I don’t see any raiders,” Kobol yelled. “Only mortar fire. It could be his mortar.”
Will Russo shot Kobol a disgusted look and turned away. Alec started to say, “Listen, Martin...”
“No, you listen. We both know why you’re staying. I hate to see you killing good men for your own personal reasons.”
Alec wanted to run up the ladder and seize him by the throat. Instead, he hollered, “Then why don’t you volunteer to stay with us, and let one of those good men get away safely?”
Kobol grinned his toothy mirthless grin. “If you want to be a fool, don’t expect me to join you. I’m going back to the satellite station. From there I’ll make a full report on your activities. I’m sure the Council will be interested. So will your mother.”
The hatch started to slide shut. The last sight Alec had of Kobol, he was still grinning. The smile of a man who had just outmaneuvered his enemy.
“Alec,” Ron Jameson called to him from the other side of the truck. “We’re ready to roll.”
It took Alec a moment to refocus his thoughts. He turned and saw that Will Russo was sitting on the front fender of his truck. With a deep breath of exasperation, he banged on the roof of the driver’s cockpit and yelled, “Let’s get moving!”
“I’ve spotted my other men on two of your trucks,” Russo told him. “They know the territory pretty well.”
The truck lurched forward as Alec tightened his chin strap. “All right. You can call the shots.” As they rolled out past the shuttle’s stubby wing, he asked, “What happened to the girl? Where is she?”
“Angela?” Russo blinked his big watery eyes. “I sent her on ahead. She’ll tell our people to fall back, so they won’t get caught in your fire.”
The truck was picking up speed now, jouncing across the broken runway. Alec noticed that the firing seemed to have died down. No more explosions or gunfire came from the shadowy woods. Could Kobol have been right? Is this all some elaborate trap my father’s laid out?
“Better steer wide of that damaged bird,” Russo was saying. “No telling...”
The shuttle exploded with a violence that nearly tore Alec off the truck. The vehicle itself bounced and slewed as a huge ball of white-hot flame burst out and reached for them. Alec could feel its heat searing his face.
The driver swung the truck around viciously, away from the fireball. Hanging onto the laser itself for support, Alec watched the fireball transform itself into a dark tower of uprushing smoke that ballooned into a mushroom shape, far overhead.
“By golly, she really blew,” Russo said, in an awed voice.
Within a few moments they were again racing as fast as the truck’s electric motors would push them toward the woods. For the first time, Alec could see figures scurrying in the distant foliage, through his binoculars.
They looked ragged, furtive, no two of them wearing the same kind of clothes. Mostly barearmed and bare-legged. But they each had weapons, and they were forming a skirmish line at the edge of the woods.
Alec passed the binoculars to Russo. “Are those your people?”
