The Rocketeer by Peter David Read Free Book Online Page A

utterly captivated by her verve, her skill, and her pure and obvious lust for life as she capered about, high in the air, wearing a skin-tight white jump suit that inspired pilots everywhere to rise to new heights.
    So Peevy had named the plane for her, knowing that it would probably be the closest he’d ever come to climbing inside of Mabel Cody.
    Miss Mabel sported the number 19 on the side, which Cliff had claimed was the number of pilots killed flying her. Each time, he said, the plane had been rebuilt by the money-conscious Bigelow, although attempts at rebuilding the pilots had met with somewhat less success.
    Still, Cliff forced a smile. “I’ll go real easy on her. She never let us down before.”
    He pulled the photo of Jenny out of his pocket, grinned, and stuck it into the Standard’s instrument panel. Behind him, Peevy went on. “The number five piston’s shot! There’s more spit and bailing wire here than airplane—”
    “I can fly a shoebox if it’s got wings,” said Cliff airily.
    He climbed up into the cockpit, trying not to think about the image of himself wearing that awful clown outfit. But when he tried to sit down, he jumped up moments later with a pained “Owww!”
    Peevy looked up in surprise. “What?”
    Cliff stepped out onto the wing and leaned back into the cockpit, the upper half of his body disappearing from sight as he rooted around in it. Finally he managed to dislodge something wrapped in a gray duffel bag from under the seat.
    “What’ve you got there?” asked Peevy curiously.
    “I don’t know, but it’s heavy,” replied Cliff.
    He carried the bag to a work table and set it down with a thud. Now Peevy said with surprise, “That’s my duffel bag!”
    Cliff pushed the fabric down and his mouth dropped in amazement. Peevy squeezed in behind Cliff’s shoulder and gasped.
    It sat upright on the work table, a device that consisted of two cylinders seamlessly joined, between two and three feet in height. It was gray steel and chrome, sleek and somehow ominous, as if suggesting potential for great good and, at the same time, great danger. There were straps on it, folded tight and buckled in place.
    Peevy stared at it. “Odd-looking contraption . . .”
    “What do you suppose it is?” asked Cliff. Peevy shrugged.
    Cliff uncoiled a wound-up cable and held it up. It was about the length of his arm. At the end of the cable was a weird metal T, like a flat bracelet. And in the center of that T was a red button.
    There was something about the presence of a button, particularly a large red one, that made people want to press it.
    Cliff pressed it.
    With an enormous blast of flame, the device roared and leapt off the table on a rush of superheated air. Peevy was knocked to the floor and Cliff fell back with a yelp of surprise.
    The cylinder shot toward the roof. It smashed through a thick rafter, bounced off the ceiling, and zoomed back at the floor. In a screaming shower of sparks, the blazing cylinder ricocheted off a steel tool cabinet, its trajectory carrying it straight through the outer wall of the hangar’s small office.
    There were the continued sounds of chaos from within the office, and Cliff and Peevy looked at each other with pure terror. Peevy took a step in the opposite direction, as if contemplating simply leaving the hangar and pretending that he’d never even seen the damned thing before. But Cliff went to the hole that the cylinder had drilled through the wall and, after a moment’s reconsideration, Peevy joined him. Together they peered tentatively through the hole in the office.
    The cylinder, still spitting fire and vibrating furiously as its powerful engine continued to operate, was half embedded in an easy chair. It looked as if, given a few more minutes, the thing would manage to get the chair airborne.
    Cliff entered the room, shying away from the intense heat of the flame. He reached out and grabbed a mop that was propped against a wall nearby and,