It was a rapid side-to-side wave which made the little boy's overlong sleeve flap stupidly in the air.
Schofield frowned, did a double take.
He was wearing his opaque gold-tinted space helmet. There was no way Kevin could see his face.
Did Kevin know who he was?
How could Kevin know who he was?
Schofield dismissed the thought as stupid. Kevin must have just been waving at all of the astronauts.
He turned to check on the President — saw him draw his seat belts tightly across his chest. The President seemed to take a long, deep breath. Schofield knew how he felt.
Suddenly, voices came in over their helmet intercoms.
'Booster ignition standing by…'
'Approaching launch height…'
'Umbilical release in three… two… one… mark.'
There came a loud clunking noise from beneath the shuttle, and abruptly, the whole spacecraft rose slightly in the air, felt lighter.
'Umbilical has separated… we are clear of the launch vehicle…'
There came a soft chuckle. Then Cobra Carney's voice: 'Burn it.'
'Certainly, sir. Prepare to engage Pegasus boosters… Ignition in three…'
The shuttle beneath Schofield began to rumble ominously.
Two…
He waited in tense anticipation.
'…One…Mark.'
It looked like someone had ignited a flame thrower.
When the X-38's Pegasus boosters fired, the space shuttle was positioned slightly above its abandoned 747 launch vehicle — its gigantic boosters pointed directly at the silver jumbo beneath it.
The boosters ignited, bright as magnesium flares. Two incredibly long tongues of white-hot fire blasted out from the twin cylindrical boosters on the underside of the X-38.
The two lances of fire shot like lightning bolts straight into the 747, severing it in the middle, cutting through it like a pair of blow torches.
The 747 just snapped in half under the weight of the fiery blast, its back broken in an instant. The fuel inside its wings ignited immediately, and a split second later, the whole gigantic plane just exploded, showering the sky with a thousand pieces of smoke-trailing debris.
Schofield never saw the 747 get destroyed. He was in a whole new world now.
The blast of the boosters igniting was like nothing he had ever heard.
It was loud. Booming. All-consuming.
It had been like the sound of a jet engine thundering to life — only multiplied by a thousand.
Now the shuttle tilted sharply upwards and rocketed forward.
Schofield was thrust back into his seat by the G-force. The whole cabin began to shake and shudder. He felt his cheeks flatten, press back against his face. He clenched his teeth.
Apart from the closed cockpit door, the only visible link between the flight deck and the rear cargo compartment was a five-inch-thick window set into the cockpit's back wall.
Through this window, Schofield could see right through to the forward windshield of the shuttle — through which he could actually see the sky turning purple as they rose higher.
For a few minutes the shuttle soared upward, its massive boosters lifting it high into the sky.
Then, abruptly, over the roar of the rockets, the flight team's voices returned: 'Prepare to jettison boosters and switch over to self contained power…'
'Copy that.'
'Stand by for booster release. In three… two… one… mark.'
Kerchunk!
Schofield felt the weight of the enormous booster rockets drop away from the rising shuttle.
He looked over at the President — the Chief Executive was gripping his armrests tightly. As far as Schofield was concerned, that was actually a good sign. It meant that the President hadn't passed out.
The X-38 rose into the sky. The shuddering and shaking had stopped now and the ride became smoother, quieter, almost as if the X-38 were floating on air.
The respite gave Schofield a chance to take in his surroundings more closely.
The first thing he saw was a keypad next to the cockpit door — a locking mechanism, presumably for use in emergencies, like when cabin pressure was lost.
Schofield also examined his space suit. There was a small unit sewn into the sleeve of his left forearm which appeared to control his helmet intercom. At the moment, the unit's display screen indicated that he was currently on channel 05.
He looked over at the President, surreptitiously tapped his wrist unit, then held up three fingers: Switch to channel three.
The President nodded. A few seconds later, Schofield said, 'Can you hear me?'
'Yes. What's the plan?'
'We sit tight. And we wait for a chance to take over this bird.'
The Shuttle flew higher.
As it did so, the view outside its forward windshield gradually changed. The sky transformed from cloudy purple to ominous black.
And then abruptly, as though a veil had been lifted, Schofield found himself looking at a glorious galaxy of stars, and beneath the starfield — glowing like an opal against the jet-black sky — the wide elliptical expanse of the Earth, curving downward at both extremities, stretching away into the distance like some unbelievably gigantic luminescent orb, so absolutely immense in its size that it was almost too large to comprehend.
It was breathtaking.
They weren't far up, almost exactly at the dividing line between space and the outer atmosphere, about two hundred miles.
The Earth itself — curved and massive and dazzling — filled almost three-quarters of Schofield's field of vision.
He stared at the sight, at the glowing turquoise planet hovering in front of the universe. Then he turned his gaze to the starfield above the planet. It was so clear up here, the starry sky so endless.
And then, one of the stars began to move.
Schofield blinked, looked again.
One of the stars was definitely moving.
'Holy Christ…' he breathed.
It wasn't a star at all.
It was a shuttle, a space shuttle, all but identical in shape and size to the regular American models.
It soared effortlessly in the weightlessness of space, cutting a dead-straight line toward them. The red and yellow flag on its tail was unmistakable. It was the Chinese space shuttle.
Schofield flicked back to channel 05 in time to hear Cobra's voice say: 'Yellow Star, this is Fleeing Eagle, I have visual on you now. We are reducing thrust to begin parking orbit. You may commence your approach in thirty seconds.'
Just then, the cockpit door slid open and two of the X-38's pilots emerged.
Schofield snapped to look up.
Now that they were in low orbit, they could move around the cabin. It was zero gravity, so they stepped lightly, using handgrips attached to the ceiling to move around.
Both pilots still wore their gold-tinted helmets, still carried their briefcase-like life-support units at their sides. They strode past Schofield and the President, heading aft to prepare 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.'
