Free Saucer by Stephen Coonts

starts in six months. The Air Force asked me to stay with the UFO team until they can order in someone else.”
    “I see.”
    “Sorry to bore you. My life is a mess.”
    “So exactly what does a UFO investigation team do?”
    “Learn all we can. Write reports. Debunk the myths.”
    “Are there UFOs?”
    “That’s classified,” Charley Pine said curtly.
    “Government’s been doing UFO stuff for fifty years or so, hasn’t it?”
    “About that, I guess.”
    “Seems like they could tell us something, after all that time.”
    “If the authorities chose, perhaps they could.”
    “Must be a lot of flying saucers to justify spending all that money.”
    “There certainly are a lot of people who think they’ve seen one,” the test pilot admitted.
    “Have you guys got any other flying saucers lying around? Out there in Nevada or somewhere else?”
    Another tiny smile crossed Pine’s face. “Not to my knowledge. Of course, if we did and I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
    Rip smiled easily. “Maybe we oughta call you Charley Manson.”
    “Just kidding, of course.”
    “You’re sorta cute,” Rip told her. “For an older woman.”
    Charley Pine rubbed at the dirt and sweat mixture on her forehead. Sitting in the desert in front of a flying saucer with an amorous kid! She looked at the Aussie’s troops with their big flop hats and their rifles and gritted her teeth.

C HAPTER F IVE
    At lunchtime Bill passed around some freeze-dried fruit sealed in see-through bags. “This is it?” Rip asked incredulously.
    “I’ll eat yours if you don’t want it.”
    As they munched, Rip tried to make conversation with Haagen, who was in a dark mood. He got like that sometimes, and Rip usually tried to avoid him until the mood passed. Today he decided to take his chances.
    “What do you think these Air Force types really want, Dutch?”
    “They want the saucer, kid. Believe it. So does the Aussie.”
    “If the Air Force gets it, this will be big back in the States, huh?”
    Haagen ate another piece of dried prune before he answered. “If the Air Force gets that saucer, you’ll never see or hear of it again. The government’s position is that saucers don’t exist.”
    “That’s crazy.”
    “Why do you think the Air Force has UFO teams? I’ll tell you—to rush to the site of any ‘unexplained phenomenon’ and explain it away, get everybody calmed down. The people who saw strange things are dismissed as kooks.”
    “But saucers do exist. There one is!” Rip pointed with his head.
    “You know that and I know that, but the powers that be don’t want Joe Six-Pack and the Bible thumpers to get all sweaty. My God, kid, where have you been? There are still people in America who think evolution should not be taught in schools. Darwin will rot impressionable little minds, destroy their faith in religion, bring civilization crashing down around our ears, et cetera and so on.”
    “Do you believe that?”
    “Doesn’t matter what I believe. What matters is that the bigwigs in the government believe it.”
    • • •
    Major Stiborek dozed some during the heat of the day. He did it sitting up, with his head back against one of the poles that held up the shade tarp. It didn’t look comfortable, but he snored a bit.
    Stiborek awoke when the Aussie, Sharkey, brought Professor Soldi back to the camp and helped himself to some water. After he had a long drink, Soldi grunted at Dutch and Bill, then went into the sleeping tent and lay down on one of the cots.
    Sharkey tried to make conversation with the Air Force officers. He gave that up after a few minutes as a waste of time.
    When Sharkey wandered back toward the saucer, Rip went over to where Stiborek was sitting on one of the camp stools.
    “Captain Pine says you’re a pretty good engineer.”
    Stiborek merely grunted. He didn’t even look at Rip.
    “Bet a good aeronautical engineer like you has that saucer all figured out, huh?”
    “What do you want,