Living in Freefall (Living on the Run Book 1)

by Ben Patterson

  With Ericca’s love of speed, and Archer’s ever ready desire to blast something, Viper was the answer to their dreams. They were always eager to slide down into its tight cockpit and give it a whirl. And with Rachel and Jordon’s enhancements, flying it always proved interesting.

  To accommodate the little craft, Jordon and Rachel had removed Freefall’s forward landing skid. They had deemed it worthless anyway. They then turned the well into a proper shuttle berth for Viper. The fit was snug, but with her winglets retracted, Ericca and Archer’s little ship now had a proper home.

  Now in Viper’s front seat, Ericca looked up through the canopy and watched Freefall’s latches release their ship. A mechanical arm, formerly the skid strut, lowered them down and out of the mother ship, and released them to open space. As the arm retracted, maneuvering jets blew small puffs of air to move Viper further away from the larger ship, clear of the berth and other obstructions.

  “That is so strange,” Archer said from the back seat.

  “What’s that?”

  “I get a sense that Viper will never again rest in that berth.”

  “What?”

  “Never mind. I’m just being silly. This recon trip should be short and sweet, right?”

  Ericca didn’t answer.

  “Right, Ericca? We’ll be back lickety-split, huh?”

  “Yeah, sure. Lickety-split.” Ericca was doing her own bit to shake off the same feelings. His saying that unnerved her a little. She refocused and ran deft fingers across her console controls, touching one icon after the other. The thrusters fired, as she throttled forward to leave the larger ship. The new engines seemed responsive and eager to please. But that odd feeling of loss wouldn’t leave her.

  Archer studied his scanner. To test his aim, he found a distant target, zoomed in, and pressed the trigger. One gun flashed. The far off rock vaporized. He looked for another target but found none. “So how’d it go with Captain and Mrs. Kori?”

  “Confusing,” Ericca said, turning toward the nearest habitable planet. Although Freefall had passed Hawthorn hours earlier, it didn’t take Viper but a few moments to close on the tiny world.

  “I’m about to make my circuits, Archer. Three times around, so get ready to record.”

  “Roger, Captain Sis.” He ran his fingers over certain icons, then asked her, “Not good, huh?”

  “Are you ready to start the camera?”

  “Not going to say, huh? I’ll take that as a sign things went bad for us.”

  “Archer, please.”

  “Fine. Here we go then. Lights, camera . . .”

  “Action!” Ericca said as she pulled Viper into a tight turn around the planet. Tight being relative. Sixty miles above the planet’s surface, but at her current speed it would take everything she had to keep it tight and right – just forty-five seconds to complete three full orbits. Being the only pilot capable of such a feat was what defined her as the very best. Other pilots might be able to stay with her in a straight run, but the moment Ericca made Viper dance, she danced alone.

  Archer tapped his helmet and spoke into his headset. “I think I detect a bit of metal down there, sis. Better go in for a closer look-see. I’ll transfer the location to your screen.”

  “Roger, Archer.” Her console projected three semi-transparent monitors. Focusing through them, she had an unobstructed view of the real world. Focusing on the right screen showed her Archer’s face, and he could see her in his. Her left screen displayed what was behind them. And the larger center screen showed what lay farther ahead or tactical, depending on her need and preference.

  “Going atmo. Archer, retract your guns, please.”

  “Check.” With a touch on the control screen holograph, both gun turrets slid down into the winglets, then the winglets themselves pulled tighter into the body of Viper.

  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 s
he 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.

  “Rapid succession, Archer. Look around this time.”

  Switching it to rapid fire, he briefly hit the trigger, wincing at every painful thrum. “WOW! Look at that! Sis, bring your tracking scope up.”

  Ericca hit a switch, and her scope extended from behind her head and dropped down in front of her face shield. She raised her visor and pressed her face into the rubber-rimmed monitor. The screen came on in front of her eyes. “Ready.”