Living in Freefall (Living on the Run Book 1) (6 page)

Ericca dropped her speed rapidly, rolled over, and headed
into the atmosphere. The nose and leading edge of the winglets grew hot from
air friction. The closer to the ground, the greater the air friction, the
higher the temp, the slower her speed.

As she flew over, Archer snapped a few infra-raddion stills.
Then just as fast as they had come in, Ericca headed for the dark blue-black
once again. For her, watching the blue sky quickly give way to the starry void
took her breath away each and every time she saw it. All of space was their
playground, and the thrills came easy. But better yet, before them now lay Grenadier
Nebula.

Ericca cleared the atmosphere, brought
Viper
about,
and headed for Grenadier. “Our fuel supply is good, Archer. I just want to top
off. We’ll fill the spare tank for
Freefall
as well.”

“Roger, Ericca. To be safe, I’ll extend the wings to war-readiness.”

“Roger, Archer.” She glanced at his grinning image on her
monitor. “Gotta have those guns, huh?”

He sobered his face. “Um, yes. Always at the ready, Captain.”
The winglets extended back out and from them the gun turrets arose from their
compartments.

To recharge the fuel cells, Ericca headed for the Nebula.
The leading edge of the winglets opened to scoop in Radical Ion plasma, a fuel
unique to
Viper
and
Freefall
. Race had managed to stabilize and
contain the volatile plasma and then she figured out a way to use it as a fuel
with better than great success.

“So, sis, how’d it go?”

“Did they speak to you beforehand, Archer?”

“They did.”

“You outed me, didn’t you?” she said carefully.

Archer sighed.

“Thanks,” she said in a voice dripping with sarcasm “You’re
a real pal.”

“I told them you were bored, sis. I reminded them our two
years with them would be up soon, and that you were getting antsy.”

“That wasn’t your place to say, Archer. If I wanted them to
know—”

“Stop! Those are good folks. I didn’t want you to walk out
on them without giving them notice or reason, so I outed you. Live with it.”

Ericca said no more, and Archer focused on his instruments. He
knew she didn’t want to make running away a habit. That she told him on
numerous occasions. But since Coredei, since Saundler Blackhart’s little ‘chat’
so called, with her, she felt loyalty to no one; no one, that is, but to Archer.
He was loyal to her. So she refused to extend her loyalty beyond him.

Yanking his mind back to the job before him, he focused on
his instruments. Though the nebula was bright and beautiful, for the man in the
back seat trying to decipher his scanner it was a pain. Its myriad of
fluctuating energies clouded his readings with static, making them difficult to
translate. To filter this, he dropped his visor over his eyes. Although Jordon Kori
designed the visor to cut through this sort of thing, the static interference
stubbornly skewed Archer’s screen anyway.

“Can you give me some sense of what’s in the nebula, Archer?”

“I’ll try, Cap.” Riley dialed in as tight as he could.
“Negative, sis. The Radical Ions are making a mess of my scanner. I’ll work to
clear the noise, but by the high count of it, a quick in and out should be
enough to recharge the core nodes several times over.”

“Roger.” Ericca went oddly still.

Riley gritted his teeth.

In that one lousy little word, ‘Roger,’ Ericca had managed
somehow to wedge two tons of her irritation with Riley.

He sighed. “I’m sorry, okay. I didn’t mean to hurt you. That
wasn’t my aim.”

She shrugged. “No. You were right. It’s out in the open now,
and it’s probably best they knew.”

There was a short moment of silence, then over his headset, Riley
heard her mutter to herself, “Roger dodger, okey dokey.”

“You okay, sis?”

“Archer?”

“Yeah?”

“You think we could come up with something better to say
than Roger?” She paused. “After all, it’s just you and me out here by our
little lonesomes. What do you say, little brother, any ideas?”

Though Ericca wasn’t wearing a joking smile, Riley felt she
should at least be less somber. She used to laugh all the time. Now, not so
much. Maybe, with a little effort, he could lighten her mood. “I’ve always been
partial to sounds of static and clicks and such, you know, radio sounds like,
scuu
–Roger–
scuu
,

“or
click scuu
–Roger, Captain–
scuu click
.

“You know what I’m talking about. Like in those old movies
Dad used to watch.”

Ericca winced.

Riley paused. “Mentioning Dad triggered those bad memories
again, huh?”

“Yes, well, it’s not like I can help it.”

“Here’s the thing, sis, you should be able to. For the most
part, our childhood was a fun, exciting, and adventurous. Those are my memories
anyway. Maybe on your off hours you should think on those things. Train your mind
to default to the good times we had when someone mentions Mom or Dad. Harvest
festival was always fun. Unification day was good. So were our Christmases.”

“I wish it was that simple.”

Riley sighed. Then a thought struck him. “Did I ever thank
you?”

“Excuse me? For what?”

“For hiding me. For preventing me from looking. I still
can’t believe your strength though. You nearly broke my nose pressing my face
into your shoulder.”

She shrugged. “Fight or flight thing.”

“And yet you did neither.”

“What choice did I have? Dad barely got us off the ship in
time.”

Riley remembered. Man, how those Confederate dillweeds
wanted
Reliant
. But they couldn’t have it, not in one piece if Dad had a
say. A few months after their clash with the fed fleet at Los Dabaron, the enemy
ambushed them near Haggis. They fought their way out of that mess and ran, for
all the good it did them. A month later they were set upon near Ceti. And so it
went, the bad guys would set a trap, Reliant would fight free and run like
crazy, and the feds would give chase. Trap, fight, run . . . trap,
fight, run . . . day after day, week after week, month after
insufferable month for two solid, exhausting years.

But there were a lot of them and only one
Reliant
. Eventually
the Confeds caught up to the Archer’s little freighter over Coredei, a pirate
stronghold that skirted Providence territory. They were so close to the Prov
Union and safety, yet not quite close enough. With overwhelming odds, the
Confeds cut off their every escape and, after exchanging cannon for cannon, shot
Reliant
out of Coredei’s skies. Dad managed to crash land the ship, and
get Ericca and Riley off before the enemy ground forces arrived. A short
distance from the crash site, Ericca hid Riley in the brush and kept him quiet.
But she couldn’t keep him from hearing the soldiers drag his parents off the
ship. Then came the screams and the sickening smell of burning flesh, and Riley
holding tight to his sister who rocked back and forth as she pressed Riley’s
face to her shoulder, stroking his hair to calm him. Hour after tortuous hour,
she watched and waited for it to end, all the while shushing him, telling him
it be over soon, that it’d be okay.

Presently Riley couldn’t begin to imagine the effect that
experience had on her. Why did Ericca have to watch the whole thing?

He remembered the fire’s heat on his back, they were that
close. Afterward, when the screams finally stopped, there were no tears in Ericca’s
eyes, no emotion at all. Just a look that scared Riley more than anything he’d
ever experienced before or since. It was then that Ericca became hard and stoic,
no longer laughing as she once had.

He shook off the thought.

“Sorry, sis. Leave it to me to yet once again put my foot in
my mouth,” Riley said, unable to hide the shame in his voice.

She shook her head. “Sorry, I . . .” she
swallowed. “I just . . .”

He gave her time to collect her thoughts.

“Remember our being on
Reliant
, Archer? I mean before
Los Dabaron?”

“Some,” he said trying to recall those years. It was all
such a blur now. “I remember the planet stronghold. I remember Major
Richardson. A few things like that. And a few things from before that time.”

There was a moment of silence before Ericca spoke. “I
remember Dad and Mom and you and me on our old freighter – of doing the
‘Rogers’ and ‘Yes sirs,’ while under heavy fire. Doing so made me feel like one
of the grownups.”

“I remember us on
Reliant
.”

“Dad said discipline helps us keep our wits about us when
we’re under the stresses of combat.”

“Ericca, Daddy trusted you in command of our ship because
you always keep a cool head under pressure.”

“Both of us did and do,” she said. “Nah. We can’t afford to
get sloppy out here. I say we keep the discipline.”

“Roger, Captain. I knew you’d see it my way.”

“Your way? Why you little rat!”

“That’s
Mr. Little Rat
to you, Captain. A little
respect, please.”

She chuckled. “How little do you want?”

That’s what he wanted to hear. Her spirits had risen. Now if
he could just keep from bringing her back down. Riley suddenly noticed his
scanner. The chance to slam into something unseen was greater the faster they
went. “Drop your speed, Cap. We’re closing in on the Nebula way too fast.”

“Roger, Archer.” Ericca dropped her speed and, as she
entered the nebula, the scoops automatically drew in Radical Ions, filling
their batteries.

“Sis, I’ve looked over the preliminary readings we took from
Hawthorn. I don’t see enough metal there to account for one Talon, let alone
two. I was thinking one or both may have crashed, but the readings say that
didn’t happen.”

“Thanks, Archer.” Ericca hesitated. “Where could they have
gone?”

“Maybe Rachel miscalculated their fuel supply. If they ran
dry before they reached Hawthorn, they may have overshot it and drifted in
here.”

“Rachel miscalculated, Archer? Rachel? She’s too much a
stickler for numbers, so I’ll just give that notion a pass.”

“I don’t think they had the fuel to go much further.”

“Maybe. Can you give me a narrow scan two points off our
port bow? I thought I saw a shadow. Maybe it’s one of our lost Talons.”

“Roger, Cap. I’ll try to increase range but these Radicals
are wreaking havoc on my scanners.”

“I’ll slow us to a crawl. Blast! This stuff is thick. I
certainly don’t want to collide with one of those birds.”

“We’re full up. Closing the intake manifolds.”

“Roger. I was thinking about—”

“What?”

“Look.”

As she approached the shadow, it began to take shape. She
pulled up alongside it. “Well, here’s one.” This close they could just make out
the antique Talon. Inside, the pilot’s head leaned back at an unusual angle.

“Power up your suit, Archer, and stay here.”

The moment he energized his spacesuit, Ericca dropped the
canopy, released her harness, and climbed out, then jetted to the Talon for a
closer look.

A dark liquid, most likely blood, trickled from a hole in
his forehead. “Yep. He’s dead.”

Something tugged at her belt. She looked down to find Archer
attaching an umbilical line to her.

“I told you to wait in the ship,” she said through her
helmet communicator.

“Did you?”

“I don’t need a lifeline, Archer. My maneuvering jets are
working just fine, thank you.”

“It isn’t for you, sis. It’s to keep
Viper
from
drifting off.” He gripped the Talon and swung himself around to the other side
of its canopy to peer in.

Ericca glanced back at
Viper
which was sitting right
where she had left it.

“He didn’t kill himself, Ericca.”

“No?”

“There’s no blood splatter inside the cockpit.”

“And a man wouldn’t put a bullet in his own brow,” she
added.

“Someone else killed him outside his ship, dropped him back
him in his seat, and then set his ship adrift.”

“You sure, little brother?”

“So says the evidence, sis. So says me.”

“Where’s that other Talon?”

Archer shot a thumb over his shoulder. Behind him was
another shadow. He pushed off, and jetted to it. “Same sitch over here, sis.
Pilot’s dead, and the cockpit is clear of blood splatter.” He jetted back to
her, shook his head then jetted back to their little ship; the tether
automatically reeled in on its own.

Once he and Ericca were back inside
Viper
, Ericca
reinitialized the canopy, but didn’t move. “Something I said to Capt. Kori. I
told him his little game of dress-up was stupid. I told him he should have
taken these men prisoners and sold them into slavery. I was pretty hard on him.
Was I right to be?”

Archer sighed. “So says the evidence, sis,” he said without
raising his voice above a whisper.

“He paid us what he owes us, Archer. We no longer have any
money ties to him. I’m tempted to just keep going. We have enough to start
over, if you want.”

Archer ran a hand down his face, but said nothing.

“Uh oh.”

“What, sis?”

“We have a problem. All my instruments are screwy. I don’t
know if I can find my way back out of here. If I head the wrong way, we could
go deeper into this nebula and . . . I don’t even want to think about
that
.”

There was a long moment of silence. “I have an idea. Let me
try something.”

“Sure. Anything.”

“Put your flash shield on, and I’ll charge this Radical
plasma with controlled neutron bursts. In this soup, it should act like a kind
of sonar. If we can find the edge of this, maybe . . .”

“Good idea, Archer. Ready when you are.”

The first neutron burst hurt. Like sitting inside a base
drum it was thunderous and painful. But with his face tucked into his scanner
he could at least see. “Okay. That worked,” he said with some satisfaction.