Catch a Falling Star (12 page)

“I know who he is.”

“What? Who? Miguel?”
She sniffed at him then sat back, wondering what he was getting
at. “I already told you who he is.”

“Yeah. You lied. I
seen his gun, you know? That ain't something that's just out
there for anyone to have. It's Federation. And it's military.
High tech stuff. He's the pilot.” The big man looked pleased
that he'd figured all that out and he watched her to see if
she'd be impressed with him.

“You're wrong,
Farley. No he isn't. I told you. He was sent for by my father-“

A big fist slammed
onto the table, creating a dent in the metal surface and making
the dinnerware jump. She jumped as well and scooted her chair
back to the wall.

“Lies. Lies, Lyrie. I
know and I'm gonna let the authorities know. They won't care any
about me bein' drunk and disorderly once I give him to them.”

“Farley, please. You
can't.” She was too tired to think fast enough to come up with
any plausible story that might put holes in her neighbor's
conclusions. “Please. Just let him be.”

“Why should I,
Lyrie?” A light seemed to go on inside the man's eyes as he
looked at her. He licked his lips then leaned forward. “I dunno.
Maybe we can work out a deal.”

Lyrianne frowned and
shook her head, her first instinct being to run upstairs, lock
the door and never come back down. Never. But, she couldn't do
that. Not even to Fat Farley. “What kind of deal?”

“You marry me. You
marry me and I don't tell.” He rose, his huge belly pushing the
table toward her, trapping her in the chair. She didn't have
enough room behind her to move the chair any further so she
tried to push on the table to allow her room to escape. It
didn't move. He was holding on to it as he advanced around it
toward her.

“Yes, Lyrie? Or no?
Do you want to save your pretty boy's neck? Just say yes.”

She was thinking
frantically as he reached her and leaned over, his face within
inches of hers. A plan, the only out she could see, was to agree
and then stall him. She only needed enough time to allow
Miguel's people to find him and get him off the planet. She
could do it.

“Alright, Farley.
I'll agree. You don't say anything about him, right? Not to
anyone. Not even your family or drinking buddies. Okay?” She
gritted her teeth and leaned as far back as she could, trying to
get far enough away that she could take a breath that wasn't
fouled by his. It was only then she realized the trouble she was
in as she got a gagging whiff of her father's brew on his
breath. She tried to think, pushing back the panic she was
feeling. Maybe she could still manage to control him.

“There's one thing,
though, Farley. You'll let me have the wedding I've always
dreamed of? Won't you? Please?” She would tell him her dream was
to go to her wedding bed as a virgin. He didn't need to know
she'd never had such a dream or that she would die before she'd
ever go to any wedding bed that had him in it.

He backed away, at
first surprised that she'd said yes then puzzled by the change
in her tone when she started asking about the wedding.
Scratching his head, he slowly nodded his agreement. People were
always messing with him; making him the butt of their jokes
because he was so slow to figure out what they were talking
about. But, try as he might, he couldn't see what sort of joke
she'd be trying now. Besides, Lyrie had never made fun of him.
Not like that, anyway. Finally, he decided to go along with her.

“Well, sure. Anything
you want, Lyrie. But first, you gotta give me my dream.”

He'd been getting
worked up as he watched her, his eyes now on the buttoned up
coveralls. He wanted another glimpse of what was under there.
Hell, no he didn't. He wanted them. He wanted them in his hands.
In his mouth.

With a snort, he
rubbed his crotch, grinned and then advanced on her, trapping
her once again with the table. His hands groped at her buttons,
snapping them off, one by one, while she fought him. All the
pushing and tugging at his arms and hands meant nothing but good
things to him. Her fighting was exciting him even more and he
was breathing heavily, drool sliding out the side of his mouth
as he tore at the heavy duty fabric, forcing it apart and down
her arms. She tried to scream when his big sweaty palm squeezed
her breast before he ripped her bra in half. He was making
grunting noises as he lowered his head, holding on to her wrists
to keep them out of his way.

*****

Dawn was approaching
and it was the most beautiful dawn he’d seen since he was a boy
back home on the blue planet. It was a pity he was just too
weary to enjoy it. Somewhere up there, his Federation family
would be trying to find a signal, a sign that their pilot hadn’t
died. Let the death of the capsule point them the way.

Miguel had driven the
hoverbike a great deal away from the farm house. With a
relatively good idea how far out the field he’d landed in was,
he was able to guide himself a more or less equal distance in
the opposite direction to find the spot he needed. Nothing but
old fencing and crumbling rock stretched for miles all around.

Tall, scraggly
grasses scratched at his borrowed pants and a thorny thistle
bush of some kind hooked in the back of his knee. A small rip
later and he was moving the bike away from the escape pod that
had saved his life. He smiled a tired smile and pulled out his
weapon, aiming it at the sweet spot.

The concentrated
energy from the pistol burned the air and ignited the wick, the
wire-wrapped foam sparking with a pop that changed the pressure
in his ears. It didn’t take long for the electrical system to
catch fire within the pod. After disabling the slurry that would
have extinguished it, he’d laid into the HUD until he’d cracked
the hard pane and ripped up its innards. Twisting the wires into
a mess around the cushion torn from the seat he’d sat his ass in
for the last two years, he’d made an effective wick. His gun was
the match.

Pushing down on the
throttle, Miguel pointed the bike back to the farmhouse, leaving
the last traces of himself to burn in the rearview.

Greeted by the soft
lowing of the bovine herd, the pilot coasted the mule back to
its place in the barn and powered it down. Some kind of
night-active insects were chirping as he pulled the barn door
back along its track and closed up the old building. Now there
was nothing to it but to admit to the homeowner that he’d
destroyed the things she’d given him along with the capsule.

Imagining having a
tooth knocked out, Miguel was almost back in good spirits by the
time he was up on the porch and knocking quietly on the door.
The lights were on in some of the windows still but he suspected
Lyrianne would have turned in by now. He could imagine how
exhausted she must be.

Letting himself in as
silently as possible so as not to disturb his sleeping hostess,
the pilot shut the front door and engaged the bolt. His boots
were gone, charred to toast about now, his gloves along with
them, so he had nothing but his weapon and the rig he carried it
in. Even his underpants had gone up in flames. Miguel knew there
was a joke to be had there but he was too fatigued to come up
with it.

Unlacing the tunic,
he dragged it over his head on his way to the stairs. As it came
over his ears, he heard muffled talking and turned, curious. It
was coming from the basement. The open basement.

Dropping the shirt to
the floor, Miguel approached the doorway, his shoulder moving to
the wall beside the jam. Glancing around the corner showed him
nothing but the staircase leading down to the gloomy cellar. But
now he could hear scuffling.

Making very little
sound, the Federation pilot slunk down the stairs, keeping to
the edges so as not to disrupt the old wood. Upon reaching the
bottom, the scene opened up to him in a bizarre medley of dusty
yellow light and smacking lip noises. What he saw was an immense
back covered in a soiled shirt and bobbing shoulders.

If he hadn’t seen the
wrapped foot wedged between a chair and a table leg, he’d have
never known she was there.

Everything slowed
down and narrowed, adrenaline dumping hard into his system. His
heart pounded like a drum and he was walking, one foot in front
of the other, almost seeing himself from outside his body. That
slobbering, smacking sound…

Miguel’s stiffened
fingers rammed into the fat man’s back, right over his kidneys.

Layers and rolls of
fat saved Farley from more than a bruising but the pain of the
attack got his attention. He lifted his head and released
Lyrianne's hands, which he'd had pressed against her mouth to
stop her from screaming again. He brought his arm around,
swinging hard.

Lyrianne pushed at
the table, moving it enough to slip under where she watched,
waiting for a chance to escape. She hadn't seen who had come in
to distract Farley. The last person she expected it to be was
Miguel. Despite his agreement to return the hoverbike and help
her as she'd asked, she'd thought he would be long gone into the
forest, her and her farm a fading thought at the most. She
peeked out then scooted back, a frown on her face.

The pilot was just
ducking the wild swing and coming up with a punch to the fat
man's solar plexus. Considering the bulk of the abdomen, the
strike managed to connect with so much force it knocked the air
from Farley's lungs and doubled him up with agony from shocked
nerve endings deep inside. When he raised his head, wheezing, he
backed away to regroup, coming up against the table.

The sturdy metal legs
bowed alarmingly and Lyrianne ducked, afraid it was going to
collapse on top of her with the full weight of Farley on top of
it. She scurried on hands and knees to the opposite side and as
soon as she was out, got to her feet. She shot a look at Miguel
which was hard to read. She wasn't even sure what she was
feeling. Whatever it was, she didn't spend much time on it.

Trying to cover
herself by pulling the two sides of the coveralls together and
holding them, she backed up against the far wall and moved along
it. When she reached the back area where the bed was, she
stopped, her eyes going to Farley. The black look she gave him
was very clear. If she thought she could have smashed that
disgusting face in, she would have done it in a heartbeat.

Farley hadn't noticed
she was gone, completely focused on the pilot. “Come on, Fed
pig, I'm gonna kill you then tear you to pieces.” He snarled,
circling away from the table until his back was to Lyrianne, who
had closed her eyes, not wishing to look at him again. “No,
maybe I'll do it the other way around. That would be more fun.”
He looked down at Miguel's knees then threw himself forward,
intending to hit the other man down low then sit on him.

Miguel was faster and
around the side of the fat man, leaving the farmer to plow into
the hard floor in a massive belly-flop. His boot kicked out and
struck the grunting pig in the side of the head, his weapon in
his hand and pointed at the prodigious neck.

“Move again, filth,
and I will burn you.”

There was a distinct
whine in Farley's voice, though his eyes held a crafty look. He
lay perfectly still except for an occasional twitch of his fat
legs and the clenching and unclenching of his fists.  “No
fair, man. What you want to do that for?” The weapon's nozzle
felt as if it was burning a hole in his neck. “I was only havin'
a bit of fun with you, is all. Just showing off for my
wife-to-be. I wouldn't have really hurt you. No hard feelings?”

Lyrianne snapped her
eyes wide open at what he'd said. She slowly shook her head,
feeling her stomach churn after hearing him call her that.
Especially to Miguel. Staring at the vicinity of the energy
weapon, she was wavering between trying to will his fingers to
squeeze down on the trigger and... no, that was all she was
hoping for at that particular moment.

“Did I not tell you
to stop calling her things like that, fat man?” The pilot looked
calm and collected but there was a storm in his eyes and his
accent had become more pronounced. “I am pretty sure that we had
this discussion earlier, yeah?” He prodded the farmer sharply
with the round barrel.

“Yeah.” The
craftiness thickened in Farley’s tone. “But, it's different
now.” He shifted his fat neck warily so he could see the table.
Lyrianne was gone. He decided she'd run upstairs, so he felt
comfortable with continuing on. “She told me who you were, Fed
man. She told me that we was gonna get rich together once she
reported you in the morning. There's sure to be some sort of
prize money for turning you in, you see. And she said then we
could marry like she's always secretly wanted.” He was caught up
in his story, almost believing himself.

The muscles in
Miguel's neck tensed visibly and his grip on his weapon whitened
his knuckles. He didn't take his eyes off of the sneering
farmer, whose tone had become boastful, growing a little bolder,
slowly moving his hands up, inch by cautious inch.

“We was just getting
warmed up with some celebratin' when you came in. Maybe you
should just go and find a hidey hole somewhere and leave us to
get back to our private party. I don't think it'll do you any
good, but in honor of Lyrie becoming my wife, maybe I'll let you
have a head start if you get out of here now. Don't want to let
her get all cooled down. She gets hotter than a furnace once she
gets going as you know.”

“Filthy, stinking,
disgusting, lying son of a bitch!” A broom came down out of
nowhere to slam onto Farley's back. Spurred on by the surprised
howl from her gross neighbor, Lyrianne pulled it up to strike
again, inadvertently hitting the hand holding the weapon.

Unfortunately,
Lyrianne's untimely interference occurred just as the pilot took
a step back, his finger flexed over the trigger. He wasn't going
to shoot, or at least he didn't think he was, but the unexpected
strike caught him about the knuckles and did the work for him.