Schofield breathed again, raced back to his seat.
'Air Force Penetrator,' he said as he climbed back into his flight seat and started doing up his seat belts. 'All right. All right Listen. I also have the President here.' As he spoke, he indicated for the President to undo his belts.
'The President…'
'That's right. I'm going to send him out with the boy. I'm sure you won't mind that. Now, I have your word, you won't fire on us if we send them out?'
'That's right.'
'Okay,' Schofield said,to Kevin and the President. 'When I release the hatch, I want you two to get as far away from this shuttle as you can. All right?'
'Right,' Kevin said.
'Right,' the President nodded. 'But what about you?'
Schofield pulled the hatch release lever.
With a sharp snap-whoosh! a small section of the shuttle's ceiling — the part directly above the tied-up shuttle pilot — went catapulting high into the air, flying end over end.
A wide square of blue sky opened over the pilot.
'Just get as far away from this shuttle as you can,' Schofield said. 'I'll be joining you in a minute. I just have a helicopter to kill.'
In the shimmering desert heat, two tiny figures emerged from the shuttle's cockpit hatch.
The President and Kevin.
The President still wore his orange flight suit, only now he was helmetless. Kevin just wore the regular clothes he'd been wearing underneath his oversized space suit.
The Penetrator loomed above them, its rotor wash shaking the air.
A plastic rope ladder hung down from the shuttle's roof. It had unrolled automatically when the escape hatch had been jettisoned.
The President and Kevin descended the ladder quickly, under the watchful eye of the Penetrator's three crew members.
Then their feet touched the burning-hot tarmac and they hurried away from the shuttle.
In the Shuttle's cockpit, Schofield was positioning the lap, waiting for Kevin and the President to get clear.
He exchanged a glance with the still-bound shuttle pilot. 'What're you looking at?' he said…
Zazzzzzz!
Without warning, a spray of brilliant orange sparks exploded out from the door behind him.
Holy…
The Echo men were using a blow torch to cut through the door!
Must wait for the President and the boy to get clear…
And then the Penetrator pilot's voice came through. 'Thank you, X-38. I'm sorry for misleading you, but unfortunately you must now be destroyed. Good night.'
Instantly, a Sidewinder missile shot out from the right hand wing stub of the Penetrator, a smoke trail looping through the air behind it. It zoomed downwards, heading straight for the space shuttle's windshield.
The blow torch's sparks sprayed into the cockpit from behind.
Screw it, Schofield thought. Time to blow this joint. And with that, he yanked on the ejection lever beside his seat.
Like a new year's eve firecracker shooting up into the sky, Shane Schofield rocketed up into the air above the grounded space shuttle, sitting on his flight seat.
He carved a perfectly straight vertical path into the air, in the process creating a bizarre triangle between himself, the space shuttle and the Penetrator helicopter.
And then everything happened at once.
First, the Penetrator's missile slammed into the X-38 beneath Schofield, causing it and the Echo men inside it to explode in a billowing blasting fireball.
For his part, Schofield shot high into the air above the flaming explosion, reaching the zenith of his flight path as he drew level with the Penetrator's shocked crew.
It was only then that the chopper's three crew members survival kit onto his shoulder — as he flew upwards on the ejection seat.
Only it wasn't just any old tube.
It was a rocket launcher.
A compact M-72 single-shot disposable rocket launcher, supplied in the survival kit for astronauts who crash- landed in enemy territory and needed some lightweight but heavy hitting firepower.
Hovering in the air in his ejection seat, high above the billowing fireball that had been the X 38, Schofield jammed his finger down on the rocket launcher's trigger.
Instantly, a streamlined warhead shoomed out from the M-72 on his shoulder, streaking through the air at phenomenal speed, heading straight for the Penetrator's cockpit.
The warhead smashed through the helicopter's glass windshield and detonated violently. The walls of the attack helicopter blasted outwards, the chopper just disintegrating in midair.
It dropped out of the sky — a blazing, flaming wreck, trailing a plume of thick black smoke — and crashed down against the tarmac, shattering into pieces.
The final episode of the sequence was the inflating of Schofield's parachute.
It blossomed to life above his ejection seat, lifting him out of it. Then the parachute carried him safely back down to earth, landing him gently on the runway a short way from the twin flaming ruins of the space shuttle and the Penetrator.
The President and Kevin rushed up to him.
'That was so cool!' Kevin gasped.
'Yes. Remind me never to point a loaded weapon at you,' the President said.
Schofield discarded his parachute, gazed back down the runway toward the buildings of Area 7.
Area 7…
Strangely, the first thing he thought about was not the Football nor the fate of the country.
It was Libby Gant.
He'd last seen her during their battle in the pit, when Colonel Harper's Sinovirus grenade had gone off and they'd been separated.
But then he saw the helicopter.
Saw the second Penetrator — Caesar and Logan's Penetrator — sitting empty and abandoned outside the main hangar complex.
'Caesar came back to Area 7…' Schofield said aloud. 'Why would he do that?'
It was then that he saw a figure emerge from the base of the airfield's control tower, waving one arm weakly.
It was Book II.
Schofield, Kevin and the President met book at the base of the tower.
Book II looked pale, weary. He wore a thick bandage over a wound on his left biceps, the rest of the arm was held in a makeshift sling.
'Scarecrow. Quick,' he said, obviously still in pain. 'You better come and see this. Now.'
As they climbed the stairs of the control tower, Schofield said, 'When did Caesar come back to Area 7?'
'They landed only a few minutes before you did. They were all heading for that top door entrance when you guys arrived. I was looking after Janson up in the tower, and we saw the whole ejection-seat thing. Caesar and Logan watched it from the hangar entrance, but when you blasted their boys to kingdom come, they headed straight inside the complex again.'
'Caesar went back inside the complex….Why?' Schofield said, thinking hard. Then he looked up. 'Any word from Gant?'
'No,' Book II said. 'I figured she was with you.'
'We got separated when that Sinovirus grenade went off before. She must still be inside the complex.'
