Matthew Reilly - Area 7

men were zooming through the air above the desert in their

two Penetrator attack choppers, heading in the same direction,

a few minutes ahead of the X-rail train.

The small cluster of buildings that was Area 8 rose up

out of the sandy landscape in front of the two helicopters.

Area 8 was essentially a smaller version of Area 7: two

box-shaped hangars and a three-story airfield control tower

sat alongside the facility's black bitumen runway, complete

with its sand-covered extensions that Schofield had observed

earlier that day.

As the two Penetrators approached it, Caesar saw the

gigantic doors to one of the complex's hangars suddenly part

in the middle, and open.

It took the doors a long while to open fully, but once

they had, Caesar's jaw dropped.

One of the most amazing-looking flying objects known

to man rolled slowly out of the hangar.

Truth be told, what Caesar saw was actually two flying

objects. The first was a massive Boeing 747 jumbo jet,

painted in glistening silver. The jumbo, with its imperious

nose and outstretched swanlike wings, edged out from the

shadows of the hangar.

It was, however, the smaller aircraft mounted on the back of the 747 that seized Caesar's attention.

It looked incredible.

Its paint scheme was like that of NASA's regular space

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shuttles: mainly white, with the American flag and "united

states" written in bold lettering on its side, and with the

distinctive black-painted nose and underbelly.

But this was no ordinary space shuttle.

It was the X-38.

One of two sleek mini-shuttles purpose-built by the

United States Air Force for the tasks of satellite killing and,

where necessary, the boarding, takeover or destruction of

foreign space stations.

In shape, it was similar to the standard shuttles--delta

platform, with flat triangular wings, a high aerodynamic tail,

and three conical thrusters on its rear end--but it was

smaller, much more compact. For where Atlantis and her

sister shuttles were heavy long-haul vehicles designed for

ferrying bulky satellites into space, this was the sports version,

designed for blasting them out of existence.

Four specially designed zero-gravity AMRAAM missiles

hung from its wings, on the outside of two enormous

Pegasus II booster rockets--massive cylindrical thrusters

filled to the brim with liquid oxygen--that were attached to

the underbelly of the bird.

What a lot of people don't realize is that many of today's

space flights are conducted with what is essentially

late 1960's technology. Saturn V and Titan II boosters were

used in the original U.S.-Soviet space race in the sixties.

The X-38, however, with its 747 launch platform and its

stunning Pegasus II boosters, is the first orbiter to truly bring

space flight into the twenty-first century.

Its specially configured 747 launcher--fitted with new

extra-powerful Pratt & Whitney turbofan engines, enhanced

pressurization systems and extra radiation protection for the

pilots--can carry the X-38 to a release height of around

67,000 feet, 24,000 feet higher than a commercial jumbo

can fly. Air launch saves the shuttle one-third of its first

stage power/lift ratio.

Then the Pegasus II boosters kick in.

More powerful than Titan III by a whole order of magnitude,

the boosters provide enough lift after the high

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altitude launch to carry the shuttle into a low-earth orbit.

Once expended, they are jettisoned from the shuttle. The

X-38--now in a stationary orbit about two hundred and ten

miles above the earth--can then maneuver freely in space,

killing enemy satellites at will, and coordinate its landing,

all under its own power.

Caesar Russell gazed at the mini-shuttle.

It was absolutely magnificent.

He turned to Kurt Logan. "That shuttle cannot be allowed

to get off the--"

He didn't get to finish the sentence, for at that moment

--completely without warning--five Stinger missiles

came rocketing out from the darkened hangar behind the silver

747, swooping in a wide arc around its wings before rising

sharply into the air, heading straight for Caesar's two

Penetrators.

Echo Unit had seen them.

THE UNDERGROUND X-RAIL STATION OF AREA 8 WAS identical

to the one at Area 7: two tracks on either side of an elongated

central platform, with an elevator sunk into the northern

track's wall.

After about" seven minutes of superfast travel,

Schofield's X-rail car zoomed into the station, bursting into

the white fluorescent light of Area 8. The bullet-shaped engine

decelerated quickly, stopped on a dime.

Its doors hissed open and Schofield, Mother and the

President of the United States came charging out of it, heading

straight for the elevator set into the northern wall. Trailing

behind them--looking completely lost and now holding

his cell phone to his ear--was Nicholas Tate in.

Schofield hit the elevator's call button.

As he waited for the lift to arrive, he noticed Tate for the

first time. The White House suit was clearly rattled, freaked

out by the morning's events. But it was only then that

Schofield realized that Tate was speaking into his cell phone.

"No," Tate said irritably into the phone, "I want to know

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who you are! You have interrupted my phone call to my

stockbroker. Identify yourself."

"What on earth are you doing?" Schofield asked.

Tate frowned, spoke very seriously--in doing so, indicating that he had gone completely bonkers. "Well, I was calling my broker. I figured by the way things are going today, I'd sell off my U.S. dollars. So, after we got out of that train tunnel, I called him up, but no sooner do I get him on the line than this asshole cuts across the connection."

Schofield snatched the phone from Tate's hand.

"Hey!"

Schofield spoke into it. "This is Captain Shane M.

Schofield, United States Marine Corps, Presidential Detachment, serial number 358-6279. Who is this?"

A voice came through the phone: "This is David Fairfax of the Defense Intelligence Agency. I'm speaking from

a monitoring station in D.C. We have been scanning all transmissions emanating from two Air Force bases in the Utah desert. We believe that there may be a rogue Air Force unit

at one of those bases and that the President's life may be in

danger. I just enacted an emergency breakthrough on your

friend's telephone call."

"Believe me, you don't know the half of it, Mr. Fairfax,"

Schofield said.

"Is the President safe?"

"He's right here." Schofield held the phone out for the

President.

The President spoke into it: "This is the President of the

United States. Captain Schofield is with me."

Schofield added, "And we are currently in pursuit of

that rogue Air Force unit you just mentioned. Tell me everything

you know about it--"

Just then, the elevator pinged.

"Hold on." Schofield raised his P-90 toward the elevator.

The doors opened ...

... revealing horribly blood-splattered walls and a particularly

grisly sight.

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The gunned-down bodies of three dead Air Force men

lay strewn about the elevator--no doubt members of the

skeleton crew stationed at Area 8.

"I think we got a fresh trail," Mother said.

They hurried into the lift.

Tate stayed behind, determined not to go near any more

danger. The President, however, insisted on going with