Doomsday Warrior 14 - American Death Orbit Read Online Free PDF

said with a grim smile. “Just let anyone who comes on this mission know—as all my men know every time we go out into the unknown wastelands—that most likely we’re not coming back.”
    “Rock,” Shecter asked, “did the Glowers tell you who is up there?”
    “No. Only that they must be stopped.”
    “Why didn’t you ask,” hawk-nosed Rath interjected.
    “You don’t ask Glowers things. They tell you things,” Rock said, “when and if they feel like it. Be thankful they’re helping at all.”
    “I don’t trust them,” Rath said.
    “That’s your job, not trusting,” Rock smirked. “My job is to go do it, on the best information we have.”

Five
    R ock gave himself forty-eight hours to get it together. He had no trouble picking his men. They had to be the most battle-hardened—and the smartest. His own Rock team—Archer, Detroit, McCaughlin, Chen. He couldn’t bring Scheransky, who was working on a secret project with Schecter. That was too bad, the Russian defector was like one of their own now, and as brave as any Freefighter. Then another sixteen tough and hardy souls ready to give their lives if need be were chosen, if Ted Rockson had to order it.
    He had made such life and death decisions before. All leaders, military leaders did. And had to live with the faces of those who died in his dreams, in his thoughts. There was no escaping them. But he didn’t try to. Remembering them was honoring them, keeping them alive.
    He left the collecting of munitions, explosives, pack hybrids—the biggest and strongest of the mutant horses contained in the Century City corrals—to Chen and Detroit and the rest of his team. They’d been through this enough times. Meanwhile, Rockson spent nearly thirty-six hours straight with two of the brightest brains of the science space team. Connors, a twenty-year-old whiz kid and astrophysics genius. And Rajat Hyundrquniat, an Indian lad only sixteen years old who was considered to be a super genius. There was a small Indian community in Century City; along with just about every other ethnic group and race. When the original two thousand people—trapped inside the Interstate Highway Tunnel which had been sealed off at both ends by A-bombs—got themselves together, dusted themselves off, and saw just what the hell there was to work with—they discovered that they had among them men from just about every profession. From doctors to engineers, construction men to electricians. Americans of all backgrounds. People with skills which would prove enormously useful in building what was the beginning of C.C. within the solid mountain, expanding the tunnel in all directions, leaving only that which was above them—Carson Mountain—alone, to shield them from further strikes—and hopefully from detection.
    Proud of their roots, and anxious to keep alive their cultures, the generations of survivors kept to their own ways.
    There were now about fifty Indians spread out among five families in the city. Rajat had been rated the highest intelligence measured since the city had begun keeping scores seventy years ago. He had been doing calculus at the age of four, graduated C.C. University, majoring in physics and quantum mechanics at the age of eleven. They didn’t quite know what to do with him after that. In the old world he doubtless would have formed a company, sold stocks. Or gotten his own TV show, or won countless Nobel prizes and made lots of money. But Shecter just let him work on whatever science project caught his fancy—be it research that could be used for immediate needs, or deep research into the very structure of the universe, of the mathematical formulas that determined all events. If you could but find them . . . Schecter believed they existed.
    Rajat was hardly bigger than a broomstick, about five feet four inches tall, and weighing not more than one hundred pounds. He was also only sixteen years old which even gave Rockson—used to meeting bulky mutant-races