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that were stomping around looking for some breathing room. Stripped-down black Liberator .9mm automatic submachine guns over shoulders, alongside strips of deer meat salted and layered over the back of the “kitchen bike,” driven by the official Strike Force cook, McCaughlin. And the two boy geniuses, looking very small indeed among the huge Freefighter men. Rock had them up on hybrids. They were more used to the animals than the high-tech bikes, as all youngsters of C.C. were trained in riding the stubborn mutated horse-mule animals from early childhood.
    Rock didn’t want them on the bikes, they were too hard to handle. He only had the best drivers on those—but the two geniuses seemed happy as larks high up on their mounts with towering packs and satchels all around them. Indeed, the lesser weights of their bodies allowed their steeds to be loaded up extra high with precious supplies for the mission.
    And the supplies were extensive. For they had to carry not just survival goods—food, blankets, medicine, water purification equipment (in case the waters they passed were all radioactive), not just firepower and explosives—but space gear as well. Wrenches and tools specially designed for work on the Dynasoar were needed. Gadgets that Shecter’s engineers had come up with, working nonstop in their machine shop crafting specialized items to work on possible problem areas in the ship. It wasn’t like you could run out to the corner store to get some needed parts. Whatever they took with them—that was it. God help them if they ended up missing one tiny fuse or the screwdriver to open some vital access port. They had prepared—it was in God’s hands now.
    “Team ready?” Rockson checked, mounting up on his ’brid, Snorter-the-Fourth, that he had used for several years now. The mount had saved his ass more than once. He knew it was old-fashioned of him, but he wasn’t ready yet for Shecter’s all-purpose terrain vehicles, the improved models, or so they said, as the last batch had had a tendency to turn over when on steep cliffs, or when hit by unexpected strong winds. Which high in the mountains—was expected most of the time. The new ones had a lower center of gravity. But they’d see. Rock would stick to the smelly hairy beast beneath him stomping at the ground as its muscles ached to get back out in the open, to run free again as it had been cooped up for nearly a month inside the cave walls. Even hybrids can go stir crazy.
    “Ready, Rock,” voices sounded out from around the nervous group. He had spread his Rock Team out among the rest of the squad, knowing that their firm veteran leadership would help to keep the seams from coming apart.
    It was going to be a chaotic venture no matter how you looked at it with so many different personnel involved. Rockson looked around and saw that Detroit, Chen, and his main men were in place around the chamber, ready to goose the rest into action. He lifted his arm overhead and made sure that all caught sight of it. Then he shouted out.
    “Dynasoar Strike Team requesting permission to leave Century City.”
    “Permission granted, sir!” The exit guards saluted and then hand-pulled the ropes that opened two walls at one side of the departure chamber.
    “Opening doors, sir,” the two shouted back as they grunted hard, pulling at the ropes. Usually the camouflage gates were opened electronically but it was a sign of honor to do it by hand. A throwback to the C.C. of old when everything had been done by hand using pulleys and gear systems.
    The solid wall pulled back into the sides of the mountain and Rockson started forward up a concrete ramp that led twenty feet or so through a solid rock wall and then out into the damp and foggy Colorado Rocky Mountains’ morning.
    He had debated whether to travel only at night, but the weather techs had predicted deep fog through the Rockies for at least the next week, as a thick storm pattern had stalled over the whole region.