Freedom Star

Chapter 21

There was plenty of room in the streetsweeper for all of them, or at least there was once Jon, with the help of Mikal and Peter, dumped the dead Soldiers into the street, a messy job Jon tried not to think about while he was doing it—or afterward, for that matter, though blood clotted his stolen clothes. The way he figured it, he'd be lucky if his own blood didn't join it soon enough.

Ellia had never left the controls, and with the younger ones stowed on the benches in the personnel-carrying part of the streetsweeper, Jon joined her. "I can handle the weapons," she told him. "Can you drive?"

Jon sat down in what he took to be the driver's seat with more confidence than he felt. "I can try." Gingerly he took hold of the two levers. "Both forward to go forward, left one back to turn slowly left, left back and right forward to turn quickly left, vice versa to turn right, pull back to reverse or brake. Right?"

Ellia gave him an odd look. "Right. Where—"

"Farm machinery." Jon gave her a small, twisted smile. "Your father taught me. With the help of a whip."

Ellia stared at him for a second, then just nodded. "OK. The screens in front of you show you a 360-degree view. Not that you have to worry too much about obstacles; this thing will climb over just about anything short of a building."

"Fine," said Jon. "But where are we going?"

"Now that we've got this, maybe my original plan isn't so impossible after all," Ellia said.

"You said something about inspiring a general revolt," Jon said. "Using us as inspirational examples."

"Exactly."

"One stolen streetsweeper, five dead Soldiers and a couple of blown-up police cars doesn't seem like much of a revolution," Jon said skeptically. "The way I figure it, we have to recruit. Get soldiers who are willing to desert. Maybe if we could sneak into that military base we—"

"You're thinking too small," Ellia replied. "And anyway, on the base they have the weapons to split this thing open like a rotten fruit."

"Then where do you suggest?" Jon snapped back, stung.

Ellia reached over his shoulder and activated yet another screen. "This is your main computer," she said, typing out codes with one finger. A map appeared, showing their location at the edge of the city as a bright green dot. A red line extended from it, snaking through streets, and connected to a bright blue dot. "And that's our target."

"What is it?"

For answer, Ellia punched another key, and a window opened beside the blue dot. "Touchdown City Central Communications," Jon read out loud.

"First rule of a coup," Ellia said. "Take control of communications."

Jon raised his eyes from the computer screens to the viewscreens, blinked, then said. "Wrong. First rule is—"

The streetsweeper rocked and rang like a giant bell as something exploded against the hull.

Jon, almost knocked from his chair, grabbed Ellia for support and yelled in her ear, "—take out that tank!"

Ellia swore and flung herself at her controls. "What's happening?" Mikal shouted, sticking his head into the control room.

"Not now!" Jon yelled back. "Get everybody sitting down and buckled in! Ellia—"

"Drive straight at it," Ellia said. "It's not military, it's still police. It can't—" The streetsweeper rocked again. "—penetrate our armor."

Jon gritted his teeth, grabbed the control levers and spun the streetsweeper hard right, then shoved both levers forward. The treads spun noisily, then caught and hurled them toward the tank. The move seemed to take the tank driver by surprise; the tank shuddered and spun left just as the cannon fired again, missing them. An instant later an explosion ripped apart one of the buildings in the work camp in a blast of red flame, and Jon prayed all the children were well out in the fields. Then their own gun spoke, and the tank burst apart like a toy, ground a moment later beneath their treads.