“Ericca, I . . .” he threw up his hands, and spun away. Taking a cleansing breath, he turned back and dropped his hands flat to his desk. “Okay . . . Fine! What was wrong with this last job?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“I do. Tell me.” He threw up a hand to halt her. “No. Never mind.”
“Fine.” Ericca pushed to her feet, focused on the black cube once more and picked it up. “What is this?” she said, testing its weight.
“It’s an urn; the remains of a friend. Put it down.”
Her brows leveled. “Sure.” She set it back into its holder, then turned on her heels and headed out.
“Wait!” Capt. Kori hurried after her, catching her before she ducked through the end-of-the-corridor hatch. “I do want to know,” he said. “What was wrong with this last job?” He wanted to grab her shoulders and spin her around to face him, but—he yanked his hand back—touching her like that could be taken the wrong way. Ericca was very capable of returning his arm to him broken.
Already halfway through the hatch, Ericca stopped. Hesitant, she pulled her foot back, turned, and pressed a stiff, accusing finger to his chest. “You took all kinds of security risks just to play dress up.”
“Dress up?”
“Yes, dress up. You made a gizmo that makes you look older, so you just had to use it. You’re the captain. You’re in charge. Fine. But that scheme just to get two Talons? That was convoluted.”
“Convoluted?”
“It was completely unnecessary.”
His jaw dropped.
Ericca nostrils flared. She was on fire; her tone ardent but measured. As angry as she was, to Jordon she was no less breathtaking. Gathering himself, he crossed his arms, and forced to the front the only coherent reply he cold think of. “Oh, really?!”
“You should have at least asked me what I thought of it. But, apparently, to you I’m just a potted plant.”
“And what would you have done instead, Miss Security expert?”
“I would have stunned those arrogant dillholes, taken their ships outright, and then sold those men into slavery.”
“Sold them? What the—”
“Oh, don’t look so incensed. Working a farm would’ve done’em good. A year or two working the mines of Kesselring would have humbled them some. You saw how those arrogant cocks strutted in here. You saw how they treated your mother. That didn’t bother you?”
“I never considered taking offence. That’s just the way those people are.”
“A man treats a frail old lady like crap, and you’re okay with that? Wow.”
“Those are Confederate enforcers, Ericca. You take the crap they dish out. That’s just the way it is. Do you somehow see it differently?”
“I do.”
“So you—”
“You stun them, Captain, take their ships, and sell those jerks into slavery.”
“If it were only that simple.”
“It is just that simple. Like I said, you made it more than it had to be. Taking them down a notch or two would’ve served ’em right. What did you do? You coughed in the man’s face. Really? Was that the best you could dish out?”
“Human trafficking is out of the question. I’m not selling men into slavery.”
Her face softened. Ericca almost smiled. “Your loss, boss. You could’ve used the money.” Her voice was so pleasant Jordon almost forgot what he was saying.
“We’re doing just fine,” he said, lowering her tone to match hers. “Who says a man has to be rich anyway?”
“Rich?” she said, no longer holding back her smile. Her voice was butter, smooth and sweet. “Who says a man should live hand to mouth when he doesn’t have too?”
“We’re not . . .” He wanted to snatch her up in his arms then and there. Her eyes certainly seemed to be inviting him to do just that. But that couldn’t be right. He was letting his imagination get the better of him. Steeling himself, he lowered his tone. “No, Ericca . . . I’m not going to dignify that with—”
“Fine!” She spun around and headed away. “Then we’re done here.”
“I’m not finished!” he called after her, but it was too late. She disappeared through the hatch and was gone. Ericca Archer was his weakness. He had only a vague recollection now of what they’d just said to each other, so clouded did she muddle his mind. It was then that he realized his heart was thundering against his breastbone, and no because of anger.
Jordon ran an irritated hand over his face. Of all the—
How dare she?!
He spun around toward his office, then peered back over his shoulder at the open hatch. Damn it!
The worst thing was . . . she was right. Hearing it aloud though . . . he felt as if he’d been punched. Like beasts scratching at the door, his long held secrets wanted out into the open. Always in the back of his mind he knew this day would one day come and now here it was, but he had no idea how to broach the subject with Ericca, or how to tell her the truth about the real reasons he’d hired her and Riley to begin with.
Ericca was by no means a fool. She had an insightful, inquisitive mind, and as his chief of security she was solid, confident, and capable. Given time, she’d eventually discover his secrets. How could she not? His avoidance in letting her do her job was growing only too obvious. He sighed. If he told her why he did what he did she would surely hate him, and he most certainly didn’t want that.
Chapter Five
As Rachel Kori, the ship’s engineer, prepared Freefall for the trip back to Providence Prime, the day rolled by fast for her. To study the Talons firsthand she was eager to tear them apart, and uncover the advancements the Confederation had made in their weapons of warfare. As soon as she was free to do so, she enlisted Joshua’s help.
Beside their regular jobs, whenever needed Joshua and his brother Nate took on other duties such as this.
Once she and he went to work, it wasn’t long before Josh lifted the last panel from the second Talon. “So how does it look?”
Rachel completed her inspection of one Confed fighter craft, and was just finishing up with the second. She peered into this last compartment and once again tugged at a few components. “Well, these new Talons have clean lines and a nice color scheme,” she told him shaking her head, “but then so do the John Deer cargo lifters you and Nate pilot.”
“Not impressed?”
“I would rather have the lifter. It’s more suited to the task it was designed for. These new Cougar class Talons, so called, look as if they were designed by a committee instead of by a real weapons engineer.”
Josh patted her shoulder and said, “All the better for the good guys, isn’t it?”
Rachel shrugged. “Providence builds its ships to provide for the needs of those who use them. I pity the man who pilots this thing. This sad ship may look fierce, but to use this to win a war? It’d be last on my list. I place it right behind pitchforks and torches.” With a look of pity, she shook her head again.
“Well, at least we know why Providence had the advantage in every conflict for the last hundred and fifty years.”
“I got to tell you, these new Talons can’t add diddly-squat to Providence intelligentsia – other than to demonstrate how much more advanced they are to these jokers.”
Josh shook his head no. “Nah. There’s more to these than you think, Rachel.”
“Will you pleeease call me Race, already? How many times do I have to ask?”
“Mm, yeah. Rachel, you’re obviously missing something. To be safe you should go over these ships again.”
“Thanks for your help, Chisel. We’re done here. You can go back to shoving boxes around or whatever it is you do.”
“Don’t be crass. I’m here to help you.”
She did a double take of the fifteen-year-old. He was smart for his age—he and his brother both were. And regarding these ships, she knew he was right. Yet she couldn’t help feeling irritated. She felt there was something different about these s
hips, something small and easily overlooked. Clearly Josh had sensed it too. Looking for every feasible reason for their existence, she had carefully searched every inch of both ships on the first go over but she found nothing. Not one thing. And that, in itself, made no sense. Could the Confeds have purposefully sacrificed ability for looks? All in all, the new Talons, so-called, were lighter, a bit more maneuverable, but they neither packed a punch nor could they take one. She sighed and scratched her head.
Chapter Six
That evening, just as she had for every meal, Mara prepared supper with all the care she could show her kids and crew. With gritted teeth, and a vegetable cleaver held with an angry hand, she took her frustrations out on carrots, celery, and other assorted victims, er, vegetables. At forty-seven, she wasn’t old, but she was the oldest of the crew. Except for Ericca and Riley, everyone called her ‘Mom.’ She was Mrs. Kori to Riley. What Ericca called her under her breath she couldn’t repeat.
Mara pulled another carrot onto her cut board. Whack! A tenth of the force used would have done the job, but at this point she didn’t care.
The twenty-year-old female paradox disconcerted her. Mara tried to think of other things, but her main source of aggravation drew her mind like a magnet. Whack! Whack! The stupid carrot didn’t fight back. It was irritating. Come dinnertime, Ericca would behave like a perfect young lady, saying: ‘Please pass the . . .’ and ‘Thank you.’ What a farce. That wasn’t who Ericca was the rest of the time. Away from the table, Ericca was mean-street rough, blunt as a hammer, and when provoked had a mouth as crude as a longshoreman.
One more carrot. Whack! Whack! Whack!
Typically, when Ericca wasn’t focused on work, the younger woman in her dark-died, well-worn leather duds had a rowdy story to tell. Her ability to spin a yarn—talking about pirates and rogues and ruffians—typically held everyone spellbound. And therein lie the problem. Riley insisted everything she said was true, but that wasn’t the point. Ericca’s stories of whores and thugs and drunkenness, had no place on this ship—no place at all. The young woman was a bad influence on the younger crew members.
She pulled a turnip out of the bin. Whack! It fell in two.
“But somehow,” Mara muttered to herself, “come dinnertime . . .”
. . . Ericca became someone else entirely. She morphed into a fine young lady with the manners of an aristocrat—polite, napkin-in-the-lap, clean language, and all. Mara found this behavior the most irritating thing of all. During meals, Ericca demonstrated she knew how to behave. Even in heated arguments, at this table Ericca’s language remained clean.
Whack! Whack! Whack! “Why does she chooses not to keep a civil tongue in her mouth the rest of the time. Was doing so really so difficult?”
Mara had tried on occasion to get Ericca to bring her table manners and attitude out into the rest of the ship. Was that really so hard? Did Mara ask in the wrong way? What? But those conversations always vaulted the women into headlong clashes. They had so little in common to start with, and Mara saw the gap between them growing wider each day. She felt helpless to stop it, not that she really wanted to; she wanted Ericca off the ship. Whack! Whack! Whack! Diced carrots began to pile up.
Riley though was a different matter entirely. Mara could talk to him. Always polite, he was so much more approachable than his sister. He dressed somewhat like Ericca, though his leathers were more soft browns than blacks. For him, he looked good , rugged, handsome. Ericca looked like a thug—a very pretty thug, sure—but a thug nonetheless. Riley was also far more forthcoming about their past, their upbringing. Often he and Mara would find some quiet corner of the ship to talk about his life with his sister. There was no denying Riley loved Ericca. He had good reason. He told Mara about their growing up as orphans in the mean streets of Praxis, a city on Gimpling.
“Although we had to scrape for every morsel of food,” he had said, “Ericca always made sure I got everything I needed—clothes, shelter, something to eat, the occasional bath—even if Ericca had to skip a meal or two herself. It’s funny,” he added, “Ericca sees nothing she’s done as heroic. But she kept me alive, and so she’s my hero all the same.” As far as getting Ericca to change her behavior, Riley laughed out loud at the mere notion. “Like it or not, Ericca is who she is,” he had said. “Get used to it.”
Mara Scooped up the chopped vegetables and dropped them into the pot of boiling water. She didn’t want to admire the young woman. So Ericca cared for Riley when times were tough. Dogs provide for their young as well. Nothing civilized about that. Ericca’s duel personality though? Obviously the girl had some exposure to culture. Mara wondered why the rest of it didn’t take. Archer had let it slip once, that to put food on the table, Ericca had worked in a whorehouse. He insisted she only bussed tables, but Mara didn’t buy it, not by how Ericca acted anyway. Archer said that after that job, he and Ericca worked together mucking out stables. That Mara believed.
Mara dragged a fatty cut of pork onto the butcher block, and hit it probably with more force that was needed. Whack! Whack! Whack!
Her daughter, Rachel, was starting to pick up some of Ericca’s mannerisms and her way of saying certain things, but what irked Mara most was the way her son Jordon looked at Ericca, how he watched her when she wasn’t looking. Clearly that girl, as uncivilized as she was, wasn’t good enough for Mara’s son. Jordon seemed blind to that fact. She didn’t want her son or her daughter led astray, not by that whore at any rate. She had doubts she could do anything about any of this no matter what she did.
Chapter Seven
After everyone sat down to enjoy Mara’s labors of ‘love’ and unalleviated frustration; the initial conversations—normally jovial—quickly turned to shop-talk which Mara heard as only so much white noise. To keep her eyes from glazing over, she considered each person in turn to study how the crew related to each other. Whenever laughter broke out, Mara seldom understood why. When arguments arose, she focused more on tone than content. Opinions could get heated, but she’d only intervene if it got mean.
When she drew out of her daydream, she noticed Ericca staring at her. That was understandable. Lost in thought, Mara had, after all, been staring at Ericca. Resolute, Mara pushed her doubts away, and turned her attention from the whore to Josh. He was being unusually quiet, so she used that as an excuse to divert attention paid her, to the boy. Up to that point, the fifteen-year-old did little more than prod his food and stare at nothing at all.
Mara leaned closer to ask softly “Joshua, this is your favorite meal; aren’t you hungry?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. I was just thinking.” He looked at his plate—it was his favorite meal. To him, Mara’s stews were never a chore, and normally he would savor every bite. But he looked uneasy—apprehensive. The cast in his eyes said he felt something was out of place. Whatever it was seemed to be nagging at him.
Mara looked at Jordon who was mindlessly slurping away. Mara cleared her throat and when Jordon looked up, she shot her eyes toward Josh.
Jordon wiped his mouth, leaned back, and cupped his chin with a hand as he studied the boy his mother had drawn his attention to. His eyes stopped and stayed on Joshua which seemed only to add to the boy’s unease. “What’s bothering you, son?” Jordon said after a moment. Jordon’s ‘captain persona’ fit worse than his grandfather’s old suit. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had. Moving his half-empty plate away, he dropped his hand from his face, and lean on the table.
“Jordy, I think he’s troubled by these captured ships.” Rachel said before Josh could answer. She matched her brother’s concerned gaze with her own.
Josh looked up at Rachel, shifted in his seat and, although he didn’t take his eyes off her, he spoke to Captain Kori. “After talking to your sister—”
“Race!” she snapped.
“Yes. Anyway. I believe those ships are far more than they appear, that’s all.” He dropped his eyes to his plate and took a small bite of food, then shifted in his seat st
ill ill at ease.
“Really, Chisel?” Race interjected. “I didn’t think they were much of anything at all.”
Josh glanced at the captain, then at her. “Exactly, Rachel. But shouldn’t they be?”
“Race,” she muttered to correct him. “Well, yes, Chisel. I thought they’d be better than what they are.”
Now clearly irritated, probably with her, Josh glanced around the table. “If they were captured by someone else, where would they be heading right now, Rachel?”
“Race!”
“Uh huh. Where would they be heading?”
“Right where we’re going,” said Riley. “To Providence.”
“Rachel looked over both of these ships, Riley,” Josh told him. “She neither amounted to much. You heard her. Even the security code was some old Binary Fortran segment with a Quadratic underlayment. It took her longer to break it because she didn’t expect it to be so out of date.”
Riley shrugged. “So? These days the Confederacy isn’t making very many advancements. Is that FrontPage news?”
With a plea in his eyes for help, Josh looked to Captain Kori, but the man just leaned back in his seat and listened to the crew discuss the matter without his input.
Josh turned back to Riley. “If it were anyone else, wouldn’t they be laughing all the way back to Providence?”
“That’s what I’m doing,” Riley said with a toothy grin.
“And therein lies the problem. Right now we’re being way too predictable.”
Mara set her fork aside. She understood Joshua’s tone and his misgivings. “Josh, you suspect a trap?”
He nodded. “Yes ma’am. Consider this. If Rachel—”
Race slammed a fist on the table and glowered at him.
“Had she discovered a new and unusual component, Rachel would have pulled it out,” Josh continued as Race rolled her eyes, “. . . and we would've ditched the ships. But she found nothing, so we bring the ships back to our handlers intact just so Providence HQ can check them over themselves.”
Living in Freefall (Living on the Run Book 1) Page 4