Saucer The Conquest by Stephen Coonts

Author:Stephen Coonts [Coonts, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-01-27T18:30:00+00:00

, which had been the main drag south back in the dark ages

pfore the interstates were built. The motel dated from that

era, although it had been painted three or four times since.

Charely Pine washed her clothes in the sink of their room and hung them up to dry. Rip gave her a toothbrush and some other personal items that he had brought in a small tote bag from Missouri. When Charley put her clothes on the next morning they were still damp. She complained to Rip, who had just returned from the small diner next to the motel with coffee.

'You gotta be tough this day and age," Rip said, and kissed her good morning.

"I am tough, but wet panties—" Charley shivered.

Charley already had the television on and had watched a replay of her vignette with the Denver reporter. As she and Rip sipped coffee, she flipped back to CNBC and turned the audio down.

"So do you still want to do it?" she asked Rip.

"Artois snatched Egg. If he hadn't, I'd vote to find a hole and crawl in. But we can't."

"You're right. And I owe Pierre. If he wins, he's going to squash me like a bug."

A half hour later, as they ate breakfast in the diner, the news broke that the three spaceplanes in France had just taken off, and had presumably gone into orbit on the first leg of their journey to the moon.

Charley and Rip sat frozen, watching the film clip of the spaceplanes taking off, a minute apart, on the television at the end of the counter.

"They have to get fuel at the orbiting tank," Charley remarked thoughtfully. "I didn't think there was enough there for three spaceplanes."

"What if there isn't?" Rip asked, speaking softly so no one seated at the counter would hear them.

"One of the spaceplanes may have carried up excess fuel for the other two. The crew would pump the excess into the

sAUCER: THE CONQUEST IJI

tank, then the receivers would take it out. Much easier than rigging hoses between orbiting bodies."

They soon paid the tab and drove away in the rented car, with the space suits and accessories in the trunk. They stopped at a convenience store and purchased six bottles of water and three bags of jerky. Then they drove to the parking lot of the old RFK football stadium, which was empty. They parked, locked the car, and walked to Independence Avenue, where they found a bus stop and waited. When the local came along, they climbed aboard.

"Going to be a pretty day," the bus driver said to Charley after she smiled at him.

Rip and Charley took a seat and rode into the heart of the city.

The news that the three spaceplanes in southern France had taken off from their base hit the president hard. He had let the military professionals talk him into waiting to attack, and now it was too late. He said three or four cuss words.

While he waited for his blood pressure to return to normal, he thought about the situation.

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