Saucer: The Conquest by Stephen Coonts Read Free Book Online

the ceiling when the spaceplane was on earth. Emergency oxygen masks were rigged on one wall beside a fire alarm and portable extinguisher. Near the portable extinguisher was a nozzle on a flexible hose that hooked into the ship’s main firefighting system.
    Arranged so that she could see it while lying in her hammock was a computer screen. She reached out and turned it on. In seconds she was looking at the main systems displays. A touch of her finger brought up navigation information. Another touch gave her a camera’s view of earth, a huge blue presence surrounded by the blackness of deep space. She lay for a few moments watching the night line move over the surface as the massive orb rotated.
    As she watched she realized that the planet was moving ever so slowly away from the camera. This was an illusion, of course. Actually the spaceplane was flying away from the planet in free fall on a course that would put it in orbit around the moon in about seventy hours.
    Her parents had divorced when she was seven. She grew up with her mother, who taught school in a Washington suburb. During the summers she visited her father, a building contractor in Atlanta. She had an unremarkable childhood, doing all the usual things that bright girls growing up in the American suburbs do. She played soccer, field hockey, basketball and baseball, giggled with her friends, went on dates, made straight As in junior high and high school—and managed to avoid the marijuana and hard drugs that many of her friends dabbled in, and some were consumed by. Was in a bad car wreck and walked away with only a broken arm. Decided she wanted to fly and worked hard to get an appointment to the U.S. Air Force Academy.
    The flying had been challenging, so she applied for the test pilot program and was accepted. Moved in with a few guys along the way and always moved out after a while.
    Just when she gave up on the air force, Rip and his flying saucer came into her life.
    Rip Cantrell. As she watched the earth on the monitor she thought about him, about his face and smile and touch.
    She had it bad. Damn!
    The heck of it was that the kid hadn’t really grown up yet. He was willing to lie around doing nothing—well, doing nothing but having sex five times a day and eating three meals—while the days slid past one by one, turning into weeks, then months.
    She couldn’t live like that.
    Oh, well. She would have to make a decision about Rip after she returned from the moon. She had agreed with Artois to work for the French lunar project for at least one year, making at least three lunar flights. When she returned from the moon in three weeks, she would have a week off. She decided to call Rip and invite him to France.
    That decision made, she was still too keyed up to sleep.
    She unzipped the hammock, got out of it and stowed the thing, then checked her reflection in a mirror. She had two hours before she had to be back in the cockpit. She decided to explore, maybe visit with some of the other people on board and share the adventure.
    Charley Pine opened the door of the compartment and launched herself slowly through it, careful not to carom off the bulkhead. She closed the door behind her.
    Charley Pine found Pierre Artois and Jean-Paul Lalouette filming a cell phone commercial on the flight deck. Artois had a small phone in hand and was placing a call to someone while the cameras rolled. Perhaps, Charley thought, Claudine was right about Pierre’s financial situation.
    Charley watched a few moments, then drifted back along the passageway. The chef was preparing a meal. No freeze-dried grub on this French space freighter—the crew ate French cuisine and drank small portions of wine with every meal. Preparing real food and serving it in a weightless environment was a serious challenge, but the French were up to it.
    The chef offered Charley a sample of several of his creations. She used an eating utensil that totally enclosed the morsel while it was under way