Saucer s-1

by Stephen Coonts

  'That was my mother I was talking to,' Bernice said body. 'Just who are you, anyway? I'll have Roger throw you off the place if you can't mind your manners.'

  'We're in the middle of a war and you're talking to your mother?'

  'A war?' Bernice looked around wildly. The noise of small arms fire was quite plain here. 'I thought those soldiers were just practicing.'

  Charley came trotting over. 'I've disabled the elevator. Hi, Bernice.'

  'Charley, what is all this? I was on the satellite phone, Roger's private line, when he — '

  'Maybe you ought to get under the desk, Bernice, so you don't accidently stop a bullet.'

  As Bernice took that advice, Charley asked Rip, 'Would you mind explaining what we're doing up here when — '

  'Later. Don't let anyone get in here.' He pointed toward the stairs. 'Oh, here are a couple spare magazines.' He tossed them on the desk.

  Charley got behind the desk and pointed the rifle toward the stairs. 'I'm waiting for a miracle, Rip. Get busy.'

  Bernice spoke up. 'Would you mind terribly, Charley, explaining what is going on?'

  Rip ran to the corner of the room facing the hangar. He got down on his knees so only his head was visible through the window.

  This had better work!

  He tried to clear his mind. Closed his eyes, pressed the palms of his hands against them, took three or four deep breaths.

  Okay.

  He visualized the saucer, how it would look if he were sitting in the pilot's seat.

  Reactor on!

  He waited a moment.

  Up a smidgen! Maybe a foot.

  Another small wait, three or four seconds, then he commanded, Gear up!

  Captain Ikeda, Red Three, was ready to call it a bad job. He couldn't figure out a way to open the saucer's hatch. Such a small thing, and yet it had beaten him.

  He was walking toward Red One, Koki Owada, who was still crouched by the hangar door, telling him on the radio to destroy the saucer with the antitank missile, when he heard a hum behind him. Not loud, just a gentle hum.

  Ikeda glanced back over his shoulder. The saucer was suspended in midair about a foot off the concrete.

  Ikeda staggered, then caught himself. He turned, faced the ship.

  Now the gear was retracting.

  'Red One, this is Three. There's someone in the saucer. You'd better destroy it now!'

  Koki Owada turned to the soldier outside the hangar, who passed the antitank launcher through the door.

  When Owada turned around, the saucer was moving!

  It crossed the concrete floor, accelerated, and smacked into the closed hangar door. The building quivered from the impact.

  From his perch in the atrium, Rip saw the roof of the hangar ripple. Okay! He backed the saucer up, ran it at the door again, faster. The impact made the hangar roof shimmy.

  Should he raise the saucer, use it to lift the hangar roof? The saucer would be lifting against the joists that held up the roof.

  First the door. Overhead doors were relatively flimsy; this one should cave in easily.

  The saucer rammed the door so hard the upper hinges tore loose. Only the lifting cables were still holding it up.

  Owada was right beside the lower right corner of the overhead door. He was trying to activate the battery in the missile launcher when the saucer hit the door again and the near door edge whipped out, just flicking against the toe of his boot.

  Owada lost his balance and fell.

  He picked up the launcher as the saucer backed up for another ram. The door was off its hinges. It would go through this time.

  Before he could get the launcher on his shoulder, the saucer shot forward, tore the door loose from the building, and went soaring upward. Owada ducked to get out of the way of the falling door panels.

  When Rip saw the saucer clear the hangar on the far side, a wave of relief flooded over him. Yes, yes, yes!

  He brought the saucer around in a turn, flew it up to his level, then slowed it as it neared the atrium.

  The first Tomahawk missile reached its initial point and pitched upward. It climbed quickly to three thousand feet, then pitched over steeply. The radar in the nose went into its target acquisition mode.

  The aim point was a ventilator shaft on top of a roof. There! Computer analysis of the radar return identified the shaft to a 99 percent certainty. The computer checked the shaft's position in relation to the missile against its predicted position based on GPS coordinates, determined that it was within parameters, and began issuing steering commands to the missile's canards and flying tail.

  The missile accelerated downward.

  Rip Cantrell brought the saucer gently in against the glass and framework of the atrium as a burst of rifle fire sounded behind him. He was distracted for only a second, then concentrated on the saucer before him.

  Glass exploded from the windows, blew around in a cloud as the framework twisted, buckled, and collapsed from the force of the saucer pressing against it. Punctuating the sound of falling glass and twisting metal was the staccato hammering of Charley's rifle and the high-pitched eerie wail of Bernice's screaming.

  Koki Owada, Red One, came around the corner of the hangar with the launcher on his shoulder. He leaned against the side of the building to steady himself, put the crosshairs of the optical sight on the saucer, which was settling down amid the twisted wreckage of the atrium.

  The first Tomahawk missile plunged through the hangar roof a scant six inches from the venI'llator shaft and penetrated two feet into the reinforced concrete floor of the hangar before the warhead exploded.

  The force of the blast lifted the roof of the empty hangar and pushed its walls away from the building.

  Koki Owada was struck by the wall just as he pulled the trigger of the missile launcher. The antitank missile roared from the launcher, shot across one hundred yards of manicured lawn, and punched a hole in the side of Hedrick's house. The missile went through three walls before the contact fuse impacted something solid enough to detonate it — the concrete elevator shaft in the center of the house.

  The force of the exploding warhead bulged every door on the shaft and caused the elevator, which was at the top — atrium — level, to smash upward against the lifting machinery, ripping it from its mountings. The entire elevator and all its equipment fell down the shaft with a mighty crash.

  Huddled in the library as explosions rocked the house and sifted dust down from the ceiling lights, Hedrick heard Red Sharkey's radio squawking. He picked it up and held it against his ear. Sharkey certainly didn't mind: He was lying dead five feet away.

  'Hedrick here.'

  'Mr. Hedrick, the saucer is sitting on top of your house, and the hangar just blew up.'

  'On top of the house, you say?'

  'Right on the bloody top. Collapsed the atrium framework, it did. Now it's sitting up there like a hen on her nest.'

  That bitch, Charley Pine! She was to blame. $150 billion! Down the bloody sewer. Of all the rotten luck!

  Crouching, he made his way to his desk, opened the bottom drawer. The radio-control device for the bomb was still there, right where he had left it. He got out the device as the Europeans and politicians watched, set it on the desk, flipped on the battery switch.

  Green light.

  With the saucer at rest on its gear amid the wreckage of the atrium roof, Rip Cantrell made his way to the hatch and opened it. 'Come on, Charley. It's time to go.'

  She crawled over twisted beams, trying to avoid the shards of glass that threatened everywhere. She turned, called to the now-silent woman under the desk. 'Bernice, this is your chance. Do you want to go with us?' 'No.'

  Bernice was staying with the money. Charley shrugged and crawled on.

  Rip was very agitated. Any second Hedrick's goons were going to come up the staircase shooting like wild men. 'Want to tell me how you got this thing to fly up here?' 'Later. In, in, in! Let's get the hell outta here!'

  The seco
nd Tomahawk couldn't locate its discrete target to guide upon, so its computer opted to impact at the GPS coordinates programmed in before launch. It hit within three feet of the place the first missile impacted.

  The force of this blast was not impeded by the hangar walls, so the nearest Gulfstream V, Hedrick's, soaked up some of the warhead's shrapnel. Fuel began running from holes in the wing.

  As Charley climbed into the saucer, a tremendous force slammed into her right shoulder.

  Her shoulder and arm went numb, and she dropped the assault rifle she had been carrying. She tried to fall back through the hatch, but Rip was pushing hard on her bottom. Against her will, she was propelled into the saucer and sprawled on her face.

  Rigby kicked her viciously in the ribs, bringing forth a grunt.

  Rip crawled over her, going for Rigby.

  Rigby screamed. No words, just a high-pitched, keening wail came out of the bleeding hole in the swollen, bloody mess that was his face.

  He kicked at her again, this time getting Rip. On the next kick, Rip got hold of a leg and held on. Rigby went down, still screaming.

  Charley rolled over, trying with her left hand to get the pistol out of the right-hand pocket of her flight jacket. She was having trouble breathing against the pain in her side.

  Rigby had the strength of ten men. It was all Rip could do to hang on to his leg as he kicked and smashed Rip about the head and shoulders with his fists.

  Charley finally dug the damned pistol out, tried to use her right hand on the safety. Numb. She fumbled with the safety with her left. Got it off.

  Pointed the thing at Rigby and fired.

  The shock of the bullet hitting Rigby was like a cattle prod on a bull. He went nuts, still screaming at the top of his lungs. He kicked so wildly that Rip lost his grip on his leg

  Completely insane, Rigby went for Charley. She shot him again and again as fast as she could pull the trigger.

  He got his hands around her throat.

  He was strangling her when she saw another bomb clinging to the underside of the pilot's seat. The realization of what it was sunk in despite the physical agony she was feeling. She still had the pistol in her left hand. She fired it twice more into Rigby's body before it stopped working — empty!

  With blood pouring from his mouth, Rigby was starting to topple over when Rip grabbed him by the hair and jammed a screwdriver into the side of his neck.

  The screaming stopped. Rigby fell over.

  Charley reached up, grabbed the bomb, and jerked it loose.

  'Get us airborne, Rip. We'll put Rigby through the hatch.'

  With her left hand she stuffed the bomb into Rigby's shirt, then helped Rip pull him toward the hatch.

  'You fly,' Rip shouted. 'I'll crash us.'

  She clambered up into the pilot's seat. Using her left hand, she raised the collective. The saucer rose from the roof. Now gear up.

  'Still using just her left hand, she moved the stick sideways and took the saucer out over the lawn.

  Rip dragged Rigby to the hatch and pushed him through.

  The body fell halfway to the ground, about thirty feet, and stopped in midair.

  Looking through the hatch, Rip shouted, 'He's trapped in the antigravity field.'

  Hedrick and the Europeans were crowded around the window in the library when the saucer came into view with Rigby suspended in midair beneath it.

  'That's your man, Rigby, isn't it?' one of the Europeans demanded of Hedrick. 'Look at his face!'

  Hedrick pushed the button on the radio control.

  Behind him there was an explosion. He turned. A cloud of plaster dust filled the far end of the room. As it thinned somewhat, he could see the safe. The door was off its hinges and smoke was pouring out.

  God damn that Charley Pine!

  Pieraut looked thoughtfully at Hedrick's radio-control unit. If he and his delegation had departed in the saucer, Hedrick would have murdered the lot of them. Pieraut reached into his pocket for his own radio-control device. He flipped the switch to arm it, then pushed the firing button.

  Yoi come fly this,' Charley shouted, getting down from the pilot's seat. Having managed to close the hatch, Rip got into the seat in her stead. He put on the computer headband.

  We want to light the rockets and go.

  Behind him he heard a rumble of the rocket engines lighting off.

  Pieraut was looking out the window at the accelerating saucer when he pushed the button on his device. Rigby's body, which was still trapped in the antigravity field, disappeared in a ball of fire.

  The saucer sped away as the roar from the engines shook the library window glass, cracked it, then caused it to collapse.

  Staring through the hole where the window had been, the audience in the library watched the saucer disappear in the haze, still low in the sky.

  As they stood watching, two fireballs rose from the planes on the parking mat in front of the hangar. Mr. Ito of the Japanese delegation and the gentleman from Beijing had both detonated their bombs.

  Up in his bedroom, Krasnoyarsk was futilely pushing the button on his radio-control device. The battery in the device would not cause the green test light to come on. He pried open the radio controller.

  The battery was Russian.

  Krasnoyarsk cursed, then threw the controller against a wall, shattering it.

  After the saucer had traveled a distance of about fifteen miles, Rip Cantrell laid it into a turn. He still had not touched the controls. With the headband on, he was telling the computer what he wanted the saucer to do, and it was flying the ship. When the saucer was straight and level, pointing back at Hedrick's station, Rip let the machine accelerate through Mach 1. Charley was in one of the forward-facing seats. The G's pushed both of them back into their seats and held them imprisoned there.

  The saucer was passing through Mach 6 when it went over Hedrick's mansion at two hundred feet.

  The shock wave from the saucer blew out every window in the building and pushed the top story of the house down into the structure. The walls bulged, then blew out. The whole house collapsed.

  The nose of the saucer rose until the ship was going straight up atop a pillar of fire.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was one o'clock on a rainy, foggy summer morning when Rip Cantrell brought the saucer in over the treetops and landed in front of Egg's hangar in central Missouri.

  He had reentered the atmosphere over the Southwest — which had probably made lights flash and bells ring all over the country — but he had flown the last two hours at a couple hundred knots and less than a thousand feet in altitude. A half hour ago he had run out of water, so he had slowed to the speed the antigravity unit could give him, which was about a hundred knots.

  Just now Rip couldn't see anything through the canopy. He was afraid to use the landing lights, so when the computer said they had arrived, he told it to land. That was literally an act of blind faith. still, he was wound as tight as a banjo string until he felt the landing gear touch something solid, and all motion ceased. A warm flood of relief brought tears to his eyes.

  Charley was asleep on a reclining couch. The side of her head was heavily bruised where Rigby had kicked her, and her right arm was numb, partially paralyzed. She probably had some cracked ribs too. The G's of acceleration over Australia had made her faint. He should have thought of her injuries before he told the computer to goose the throttle.

  He stood in the darkness of the saucer's cabin thinking about all that had transpired in the last few days.

  Ah, me! Ramming a screwdriver into that maniac's neck… Charley shooting him eight or nine times…

  Was the saucer worth it?

  He opened the hatch and dropped through.

  The warm, moist air smelling of the earth enveloped him. Reeling, he climbed the gentle grade toward Egg's house.

  His uncle would be sleeping with an open window. Rip stood outside the window and called his name.

  'Is that you, Rip?'


  'Yeah, Uncle. It's me. I need some help.'

  I'll get dressed. Be right down.'

  'Come down to the hangar.'

  'Okay.'

  Together they woke Charley Pine and assisted her up the hill and into a bed. It was the same bed where Rip spent his summers growing up. Egg didn't turn on any lights. They got her into bed and Rip held onto her hand.

  'No use letting the neighbors know I have visitors,' Egg said. 'I'll get you to a doctor in the morning,' he told Charley.

  'Is the press still camped out at your front gate?' Rip asked.

  'Yeah, but I'll have her lie down in the front of the truck where they can't see her. The sheriff keeps them back a bit.'

  'Sorry to do this to you.'

  'Glad to help,' Egg said and left the bedroom.

  'Still holding Charley's hand, Rip knelt by the bed.

  'Thanks for everything,' he whispered.

  'You could have flown the saucer out of there any time,' she said. 'You weren't going without me, were you?'

  'I sorta thought we should leave together.'

  She squeezed his hand.

  I'll see you in a few weeks,' he whispered. 'You get well.'

  'You could kiss me good-bye, if you wanted to.'

  He wanted to.

  Egg was making a pot of coffee in the kitchen when Rip came downstairs. He had the lights on. Rip opened the refrigerator and stared in. For the first time in his life he wasn't hungry. He sat down at the table.

  'There was a guy in the saucer when we got in. He tried to kick Charley to death, then tried to strangle her. She shot him six or eight times and I stabbed him with a screwdriver.' He wiped the sweat from his face as the memory swept over him. 'There's blood all over the floor of the cockpit.'

  'It'll wash off,' Egg said calmly. 'Why don't you tell me the rest of it?'

  Rip had finished his third cup of coffee when he ran out of words.

  'Seems to me you didn't have any choice about stabbing that guy,' Egg said.