As casually as he could make it look, Schofield 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 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.
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:
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.
