Torch of Freedom

"Warning. Warning," the autopilot squawked. "Unsustainable damage. Ca

Pritchard stared at Suvorov for a moment, then whipped his head around. Pine Valley Park was now clearly visible ahead of him, the dark-blue waters of its central lake dotted with model sailboats.

"Manual control," he commanded.

Ga

Why were they the pilots? Because they were the best Ga

"I don't think that's a good idea," said Brice dubiously. He watched as Anton and Victor and Yana and a man he didn't know and two women he'd never seen before but one of whom was already of great interest because she was about his own age continued to unload one of the crates. They were unceremoniously dumping everything it held into a refuse bin that Yana had brought up from one of the nearby maintenance centers. (The mechanics hadn't objected. Partly because Yana gave them her biggest smile but mostly because she gave them an even bigger bribe.)

"Got no choice," grunted Anton, lifting out a piece of equipment only he could have picked up unassisted. "Got to make room for Steph and Nancy."

The big piece of equipment went into the bin. Brice thought there was something familiar-looking about it, but couldn't remember why at the moment.

Most of his mind was elsewhere. She must be the Nancy one.

Sarah was practically dancing back and forth with anxiety. In her case, though, not because of the cargo they were jettisoning.

"Hurry it up, folks," she hissed. "If we lift off more than thirty seconds behind schedule, customs will have a fit. You could sharpen sticks in their assholes, each and every one. I think they send them all to obsessive-compulsive disorder school for advanced training."

Anton heaved another piece of gear into the bin.

"Why can't we just ride in the shuttle?" asked the younger of the two women. She seemed bright-eyed, alert and curious. That, combined with the big knife in her hand, made her thoroughly fascinating. She was sort of pretty, too.

Brice screwed up his courage. "No room except in the bays. And they're not pressurized. You'd die, outside of the crates."

The girl looked at him. "Who're you?"

"Brice. Brice Miller. I'm the co-pilot."

"The co-pilot, huh? How old are you?"

"Uh . . . almost fifteen. Next month."

"I'm Nancy. Nancy Becker. I turned fifteen four months ago. So I'm older than you." Having established that critical point of status, however, the girl's expression became quite warm. "Already a co-pilot. That's really cool."

Brice still thought dumping the contents of that crate was probably a bad idea. But he didn't care any longer. Not in the least, littlest, tiniest, teeniest bit.

The crate now emptied, it and its twin were hoisted into the cargo bay with the lift that Sarah had already rented. (For considerably more than she could have gotten it with a bribe—but she was only twenty-two. Still young and naïve.)

"Climb in, all of you!" she said, heading for the shuttle's cabin. "We can still make our schedule. Barely. Brice, seal them in."

The crates were segregated by sex. Zilwicki, Cachat and the man Brice didn't know in one. Yana and the two new women in the other. The crate inhabited by the men was crammed full. The one inhabited by the women was . . . not.

"There's still room for you," said Nancy.

Brice summoned every ounce of duty and discipline he could muster. "Sorry. Can't. I'm the co-pilot. But I'll be seeing you soon anyway. Uh, all of you."

It didn't take long to seal the crates. Then, seal the bay. Nonetheless, by the time he climbed into his seat in the cabin, Sarah was yelling.

"—fault if we get arrested!" The shuttle began to lift. "And don't expect me to bail you out!"

Sarah could be dense, sometimes. Brice was pretty damn sure that if Mesan customs—much less police—arrested them and discovered they were smuggling superspies and who-knew-what-else off the planet, making bail would be the least of their problems.

"What happened?" demanded Albrecht Detweiler as his son Collin's face appeared the small display.

"We don't know yet, Father," Collin replied. "Gamma Center's gone, but we still have no idea why it happened. The 'how' is clear enough, of course. Some way or another, Scorched Earth got triggered. Beyond that . . ."

With most communications systems in the vicinity of Green Pines disabled, Collin and Albrecht were relying on their personal com equipment. Collin's wife and children had left some time earlier for the family get-together that would soon be taking place at his parents' villa. That villa was incredibly luxurious and incredibly secure—only a relative handful of people even knew it existed, and still fewer knew who lived there. Unfortunately, it was also the better part of eight hundred kilometers from the capital, which made it an inconvenient commute even by aircar. The circuitous (and constantly varied) routing Albrecht's security staff demanded only made that worse, so Collin had sent Alexis and the kids ahead while he dealt with a handful of last minute details of the sort his job threw up only too routinely. There was no point having them kick their heels here in Green Pines rather than splashing around in the surf with grandparents determined to spoil them rotten, after all.

But those same routine tasks were the reason he'd been at home when the disaster happened. Since "home" was the penthouse on one of the high-rent residential towers that fronted Pine Valley Park, he had an excellent view of the wreckage which had once been Suvorov Tower and the Gamma Center. Now he stood gazing out through the crystoplast wall of the dining room, shaking his head slowly, as he continued his report to his father.

". . . was another explosion in one of the old industrial areas, about twelve kilometers away, just about simultaneously."

"Nuclear?"

"Apparently so, Father. At least, we've gotten reports of high radiation readings from the first responders in the area."

He noticed an aircar approaching from the west. Its approach looked damned shaky, even at this distance, a corner of his mind noted. Not that it was especially surprising. It might well have taken damage from the explosion, and even if it hadn't, the pilot was undoubtedly badly rattled. From his approach angle, he must have been almost on the fringes of the blast itself . . . no wonder he was making for the park's parking apron. In his place, Collin would certainly want to put his car on the ground as quickly as possible!

Those were just idle thoughts, however. The focus of his mind was elsewhere.

David Pritchard managed to land the aircar on the parking apron without wrecking it. But the landing was about as rough as any landing an aircar could survive without suffering significant damage.

He could see a pair of city cops turning towardhim, and he snarled. They weren't even security legbreakers—just two of those pretty, duded up, glorified na