Splintered Sky. Don Pendleton

seriousness after a moment. “You’re going to have some trouble. The rest of the crew isn’t going to like Pie Komalko being kicked to have you put in.”

      “Is there an official explanation as to why?” Schwarz asked Brognola.

      “You’re one of the few Burgundy Lake survivors in any condition to work with the experimental prototypes that survived the assault,” Brognola replied. The big Fed glanced at Sabrina Bertonni, whose expression had darkened at the mention of the incident that had claimed the lives of so many colleagues.

      “Right. A few had been sent on ahead,” Schwarz replied with a nod, giving Bertonni’s hand a reassuring squeeze. Her green eyes flicked to him, and her mouth turned up in the closest thing to a smile she could manage. Schwarz sympathized with her. “We’ll work on upgrading the test samples to meet the current generation that was lost.”

      “We?” Broome asked. “So the nickname fits. You can work on the thrusters?”

      “I’ve been discussing the work with him on the flight over,” Bertonni noted. “He’s a quick study, and assisting me, we’ll get everything running better than the modules you were going to take up.”

      “Of course, that’s between my preflight responsibilities,” Schwarz noted.

      “Komalko will help you out with that. With the two of you working on it, you’ll be able to halve the time needed for the checks, freeing up room for the module upgrades,” Broome stated. “But first, you’re going to have to meet the rest of the crew.”

      Schwarz nodded. His introduction as an outsider would leave him vulnerable to anyone in NASA who could have been a turncoat. If the enemy had been able to slip an insider into Burgundy Lake, a top-secret facility with only a small staff, the sprawling Cape Canaveral could potentially be a minefield of danger.

      That was Schwarz’s job, though. To flush the enemy by setting himself up as bait. Glancing at Bertonni, he realized that she would be under the gun, as well, so he had more than his own life at stake.

      Staring into the bright blue Florida afternoon, he knew both of their lives were on the line to keep the sky from falling.