Matthew Reilly - Area 7

for the docking with the Chinese shuttle.

A couple of the other space-suited men in the cargo

hold also began unbuckling their seatbelts, getting up to help

with the transfer.

Schofield saw the chance, tuned to channel 03.

"Okay," he turned to the President. "This is it. Follow me."

As casually as he could make it look, Schofield

Area 7 411

reconnected his air hose to his life-support briefcase and began

unbuckling his seat belts.

The President did the same.

As his belts came free, Schofield felt the weightlessness

take hold of him. He gripped a ceiling handhold and before

anyone could stop him--or even ask him what he was

doing--he casually stepped over to Kevin and began reattaching

the boy's life-support briefcase and disengaging

him from his seat.

A couple of the faceless Echo astronauts looked over, curious.

Schofield gestured to the cockpit--Wanna have a look?

Kevin nodded.

The Echo men went back to their work.

With the President in tow behind him--holding on to the ceiling handholds--Schofield led Kevin forward, into

the shuttle's cockpit.

The view from the cockpit was even more incredible.

Through the panoramic forward windshield, the Earth

looked amazing, stretching away from them like an enormous

aqua-blue convex lens.

The last remaining pilot in the cockpit turned in his seat

as they entered.

Over to channel 05: "Just thought we'd come up and see

the view," Schofield said, coughing through his voice to

mask it.

"Not bad, huh? Just be sure to keep your visors on. Radiation's

a killer, and the sun is almost blinding."

Schofield put Kevin in the empty co-pilot's seat. Then he

turned to the President, clicked back to channel 03.

"You unbuckle his seat belts, then use them to secure his arms. I'll take care of his life-support hose."

"Huh--how? When?"

"After I do this ..." Schofield said.

And with that he leaned forward, grabbed the pilot's

gold-tinted visor, and wrenched it open.

"Argh!" the pilot roared, as raw white sunlight

412 Matthew Reilly

assaulted his eyes. Underneath his gold-tinted visor was a

clear glass bubble that afforded no protection against the

pure sunlight.

Schofield then ripped the man's life-support system out

of its wall socket, while at the same time, the President unclasped

his seat belts and quickly looped them behind the

man's flight seat, pinning his arms firmly to his sides.

Deprived of his life support--and now tied to his own

seat--the pilot started to gasp desperately for air.

Schofield dived for the cockpit door, slammed his fist

down on a switch next to the entryway. The door slid

quickly shut, enclosing the three of them inside the cockpit.

The President spun, "So what--?"

But Schofield was still moving.

He knew he had about three seconds before someone

reopened the cockpit door from the rear cargo compartment.

There was a keypad next to the door, identical to the one

on the other side.

Schofield rushed over to it.

Apart from the usual numbered keys and open/close

switches, there was one long red rectangular button on the

panel, concealed behind a clear-plastic safety casing. It read:

EMERGENCY USE ONLY:

COCKPIT SECURITY LOCK

Schofield flipped open the safety casing and hit the big

red button.

Immediately--thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk!--the door's five emergency deadbolts locked into place, sealing off the cockpit like a bank vault.

A second later, Schofield heard a weak thumping noise coming from the other side: the sound of the Echo men hammering

angrily on the door.

Reflective gold helmets peered in through the five-inch

thick window in the dividing wall, waving furious fists.

Schofield didn't care.

This shuttle was now his.

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HE LEANED OVER KEVIN IN THE CO-PILOT'S SEAT, THE EARTH

and the stars laid out before him.

In addition to the view, he was confronted by another

intimidating sight: the X-38's flight console--a collection of about a million tiny switches, lights, buttons and monitors.

It looked like the cockpit of a jumbo jet ... only more complex.

The President took the rear navigator's seat, lifting

Kevin onto his lap.

"So, what now?" he asked. "Don't tell me you know

how to fly a space shuttle, too, Captain."

"Unfortunately not," Schofield said. He turned to face

the bound and still-gagging shuttle pilot. "But he does."

Schofield pulled his SIG-Sauer from his thigh pocket

and held it to the choking pilot's visor. The President reattached

the man's life-support hose. The pilot stopped gasping

as Schofield flicked his intercom to channel 03.

"I need you to help me bring this thing back down to

earth," Schofield said.

"Fuck you ..." the pilot said.

"Hmm," Schofield said. He then nodded to the President,

who yanked the pilot's life-support hose out of its

socket again. The Echo Unit pilot immediately resumed his

gagging.

Schofield tried again. "How about I put this another

way: either you tell me how to pilot this thing safely back to

Utah, or I do it without your help. Now, given the way I fly,

either we'll burn up on reentry or crash into a friggin' mountain.

Either way, we die. So, the way I see it, you either tell

me how to do it, or you get killed watching me try."

The President reattached the pilot's life-support hose.

The bound man's face was almost blue.

"Okay," he breathed. "Okay ..."

"Great," Schofield said, "Now, the first thing I need is--"

He cut himself off as illuminated green words scrolled

out rapidly across the cockpit's transparent heads-up display,

or HUD, in the windshield:

414 Matthew Reilly

FLEEING EAGLE, THIS IS YELLOW STAR.

YOU HAVE ALTERED COURSE.

PLEASE REALIGN TO VECTOR THREE-ZERO-ZERO.

Schofield stared at the words on the HUD. They seemed

to hover in the air in front of the starfield.

Then, beyond the transparent display, he saw the Chinese

space shuttle, much closer now.

It glided slowly and effortlessly through the void toward

his ship, about three hundred yards away and closing

quickly.

FLEEING EAGLE, PLEASE CONFIRM.

"Please confirm ..." Schofield muttered as he scanned

the cockpit's enormous array of switches and found the

weapons section. "Confirm this"

He flipped open a safety casing to reveal two red buttons

marked missile launch.

"This is for Mother," he said as he jammed his fingers

down on both buttons.

THE TWO SHUTTLES FACED EACH OTHER IN SPACE--HOVERING

above the outer atmosphere, lit from below by the brilliant

reflected light of the world--the compact X-38 and the

much larger Chinese shuttle.

And then suddenly, twin bolts of white shot out from

the wings of the X-38--two missiles, sleek zero-gravity AMRAAM's. They blasted off their wing mounts and rocketed through the vacuum between the two shuttles.

The missiles moved unbelievably fast, converging on

the Chinese shuttle like a pair of giant winged needles.

They left no smoke trails in their wakes. No puffs of

flame or fire, for nothing survives in a vacuum. Their tail

thrusters simply glowed orange against the black star-filled

sky.

There was nothing the Chinese space shuttle could do.

Area 7 415

There were, quite simply, no defensive measures it could

employ up here.

The two AMRAAM's slammed into the Chinese ship at

exactly the same time--one hitting it in the middle, the other