Living in Freefall (Living on the Run Book 1)

by Ben Patterson

  He hit the switch and flinched at the first burst. On the upside, he knew, like him, she could see clearly for miles. On the downside, what he showed her was worrisome. “You see ‘em, sis?”

  “Man, oh, man!” she whispered in disbelief. “Looks like the whole fleet is out there.”

  “Sis. I count about forty ships—give or take.”

  “Well, now we know where those two Talons made off to.”

  “And we know who killed those men.”

  “Record this, Bro; we got to get this to Freefall.”

  “SNAP!” Archer shouted. That was his catchword for “Big trouble,” and he wasn’t kidding. Four full Talon squads poured out of the Carrier and headed straight for them at high speed. “I have no idea how they see in this stuff, sis, but they do. HAUL, ERICCA! HAUL!” Archer stepped up the neutron bursts. Thunder rumbled through their bones—it was awful, but it was all they had to see by.

  Ericca throttled up. Viper shot forward like a bullet. “We can’t lead them back to Freefall, Archer.” She turned to head them away.

  “You’ve got them beat, sis. Viper’s more maneuverable and faster than those trucks not to mention we have a longer flying range.”

  “Yeah? What’s your plan?”

  “So let’s take their ball from them, and make ‘em play defense. Remember Catch as Catch Can? You tie them up playing that, and I’ll try to figure out how they’re navigating in this stuff.”

  “Atta boy, Archer. Let’s do it.”

  Ericca hit a hard left turn to come straight at the Talons.

  To clear a path, Archer opened up all four of his cannons. Two of the central Talons ripped apart, forcing those near them to scatter.

  Ericca spiraled around tight to confuse their gunnery. She shot Viper through the mass of Talons then pulled a hard, tight turn right in the middle of them flying like she never flew before.

  When she turned this way then dodged back, the Talons lost formation – the leaders lost track of their wingmen and vice versa. The persistent THRUM of Archer’s neutron bursts only added to the confusion. The Talons began to collide with one another, and metal debris started to fill the area. One lucky shot from a Talon clipped Viper’s right winglet. The ship spun twice before Ericca could right it. Now she was mad.

  Throttling up another notch, she brought Viper into a tight circle around the mess to cause even more Talons to ram each other, and then she turned toward the fleet.

  “No reason the big boys shouldn’t play too.”

  Had the Confeds just taken their property, their goods, their stuff, when she was a kid, she wouldn’t feel like this. But the idiots, for some unknown reason, had to brutalize her parents nearly to death, and then, along with their goods, torch them to finish the job. As far as she was concerned, there was no forgiving that kind of brutality, ever.

  And there was no argument Archer could pose that would stop her from having her revenge.

  The Talons, still in disarray, turned to line up on her and, in doing so, a few more crashed.

  “Sis,” Riley kidded, “at this rate, you’re not going to leave me much to shoot.”

  “Just trying to stay alive, little brother. Just trying to stay alive.”

  Not true. But that’s what she told Riley whenever she was out for blood. At times like this, a peculiar calmness filled her from head to toe. She called it her alternate universe, her get-even state of mind. Ericca headed straight at the carrier with the Talons lining up behind her like a string of pearls.

  “Ready your guns, Archer.”

  She looped over, lined up on the carrier’s launch-bay, then reduced speed.

  Wide eyed, Riley gripped his seat. His knuckles turned white. The carrier launch bay was barely twenty feet high and fifty feet wide, little room to maneuver when screaming headlong at 500 miles per.

  The Talons caught up to her just as she entered. In his rear viewer, Riley saw a couple clumsy pilots crash into the bay’s mouth.

  “Everybody in?” Ericca asked under her breath. She brought Viper over to one side of the bay, ran tight near one wall, then pulled away hard to make the sharpest five hundred miles per hour turn ever, inside the launch bay giving her no room whatsoever to screw up. “Everybody out,” she whispered.

  Riley’s stomach clenched as she headed back toward the opening straight at the incoming Talons. Lighting up all four cannons, he fired straight ahead to clear the way out.

  Frantic to evade his guns, the Talons veered but, inside the launch bay, they had no place to go. Most painted the walls with their ships. The bay exploded. Flames like a dragon’s breath devoured the remaining Talon fighters, and chased Viper all the way out.

  “Cripes, sis! You think you got them mad yet?”

  “If you think shoving a stick into a hornet’s nest is a bad idea, just wait.”

  Riley glanced at his rear monitor. Fresh Talons poured in force from the carrier’s second bay. “You didn’t just shove a stick in, sis. You walked up to their nest and beat the daylights out of it.”

  “Gee, little brother, do you think we should git, before we get stung?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Blast it! And right when I’m starting to have fun.”

  “Starting?!” Riley drew a hand firmly down his face. “Look here. I got two bits of good news I think you’ll like.”

  “Yeah?”

  Riley caught her image on his monitor and met her hard eyes with his own. “Yeah. For starters, I managed to hold down my lunch.”

  Ericca chuckled. “Ooh, nice. I'm glad to hear that. And number two?”

  “I believe I have their navigation system figured out.”

  “Great! How does it work?” Ericca headed out and away to give them some leeway, a little room to talk. She wasn’t finished with these Talon jockeys yet. Maybe Riley could give her something with which to hurt them even more than she already had.

  “They use sub-harmonic Ion variants to clear the static.”

  “Okay? So what’s that to us?”

  “Every time we give a neutron burst, it blinds them for a second. They see us only in segmented snippets, a kind of jerky frame-by-frame, poorly-made movie. It prevents them from getting a lock, so when they fire, their aim is if-ish, and erratic. Only by sheer luck will they hit us at all.”

  “Good job, Archer. I have an idea.”

  Ouch! She couched those four simple words in a catty tone he recognized . . . and feared. Had anyone else said, ‘I have an idea,’ Riley would have simply listened with half an ear. But whenever those four, seemingly simple words slipped past Ericca’s lips he knew the rules of the game would change completely, but to what he couldn’t even begin to guess. Yet, he knew one thing was certain; this would no longer be a game of cat and mouse. It’d become something else entirely.

  He remembered her once saying, “I have an idea,” when she was only twelve, and there, near Los Dabaron, the Confederation’s 5th fleet met its end. But at the time she had the help of rebel forces, and Major Richardson’s commandoes.

  A year or so later, she again said, “I have an idea.” And the Confederation 14th fleet wound up as only so much twisted and burned metal. That day she had tricked the Confeds into a confrontation with a pirate fleet twice their number. Riley—with nerves frayed to the edges—had walked away from that mess much in need of a long vacation. There were periods when his sister could be quite insane—scary insane. And days when she was even worse.

  But she wasn’t always that violent. Take for instance the time when they had to deal with pirates. After much experimentation Rachel Kori had discovered that water containers made of Plyocene leached anthroquinone—a harsh laxative—when exposed to Rhthro-magnetrometer energy waves. This amused Rachel because most pirate ship drinking water containers are made of Plyocene. As Race often did, she shared this info with others, including Ericca. Like a squirrel storing nuts, Ericca tucked this news away for a rainy day.

  That rainy day presented itself in the form
of a pirate blockade. No freighter could get through to the colony on Tochni-Omechron One. Without the much needed supplies, the colony would quickly fall to the pirates. Ericca had an idea.

  But having been raised by pirates she had a soft spot for them. Unlike Confed dillholes—as she liked to call them—she saw no reason to kill pirates without a justifiable need. To leave an entire pirate contingency with severe diarrhea Ericca considered reasonable. Riley did too.

  Used once again, that same idea allowed Freefall to slip past the Straits of Andus undetected, but those poor guys—Riley shook his head at the recollection—their being left with fewer lavatories than they had need of. And to think, even on a pirate ship, rank has its privileges. Knowing Ericca was on his side, Riley was elated. He felt that if their enemies only knew who was working against them—namely Ericca Adrianna Archer—they would’ve given up quickly, and quietly.

  Ericca’s ‘I-have-an-idea’ said just so, usually spelled disaster for an unsuspecting enemy, and excitement in the extreme for everyone else. ‘I have an idea,’ left unsaid meant flying straight into a Confederate Carrier’s hanger bay at five-hundred mph—as they just had—or head-on at Talons whose aim was to kill them—as they just had—or any number of things just this side of insane. Were they really though? Riley believed her ideas were actually well beyond. That was why they worked so well. She was a risk-taker, an out-of-the-box thinker. And she had a mean streak—not toward him, never toward him—but no one hated the Confederates more than she.

  And she loved sleight of hand, smoke and mirrors, and other misdirects. Dad had once said, “If Ericca bet she could get the Ace of Spades to jump out of a deck of cards, dance the jig, and then spit in your eye, then you had better wear goggles and be ready to hear Irish music.”

  If a sane man had just heard her use that phrase “I have an idea” and understood Ericca in the slightest, he would seek to distance himself in a hurry. But Riley was stuck in a little two-seater with no place to go.

  Chapter Nine

  As the Galleass approached, Jordon slowed Freefall to a stop. “Hold position here, Freefall.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Jordon went down to the cargo bay with his mother to meet the arriving shuttle. After they opened the huge doors, a two man cargo-carrier entered the bay and settled to the deck. A moment later, Buchannan French, Mara’s younger brother, popped his hatch and dropped a foot to the floor. His pilot and first officer, David Courtney, climbed out the other side.

  Uncle Buck pulled himself out of his seat and greeted his older sister with a warm hug. But he turned his back to his nephew as if the man didn’t exist. “So what’s this about, sis?” Buck asked her.

  “Still holding a grudge, huh, Uncle Buck?” Jordon said.

  Buck turned cold eyes to his nephew. “You asked me here. I came. What do you want?”

  Jordon gestured to a crate behind him. “Five nine epsilon three omega.”

  Buck went to the box and keyed the code into its touch pad. The lid slid back and disappeared behind the crate. Inside were black, fist-sized cubes. Buck pulled one out to examine. “A.I. cubes?”

  “For your ships,” Mara said. “Those are Jordy’s latest and greatest.”

  “There are thirty,” Jordon said. “If you need more, I’ll get them to you, given time. I suggest you install them only in the ships of your most trusted captains.”

  Buck lifted the mirror smooth, black cube and could see his own reflection in it. “I thought you didn’t want to upgrade my ships with your tech. What’s changed?”

  “I had time to think about it. You were right. I was wrong. And you can thank Mom for convincing me of that.”

  “Price?”

  “For you? More than you can afford. For Mom . . .” Jordon dipped his head to indicate Mara, “. . . nothing. To be perfectly clear, I’m doing this for her.”

  “Just like that?”

  “What do you mean, just like that? Mom had some hard arguments. I couldn’t refute them. And you should count yourself lucky she was relentlessly on your side.”

  “Frankly, Jordon Kori, I don’t understand why you needed convincing at all.”

  “It’s like I told you a year ago. I was afraid this would fall into enemy hands.”

  Buchannan hmphed. “God forbid they fall into friendly hands.”

  Jordon sighed. “You’re right. Okay? You were right back then, and you’re right now. Regardless, I’ll supply you enough to upgrade every ship you have. This will give you the advantage you seek.”

  “It’s high time the rebel fleet had the upper hand. And I’m glad to hear you’ve finally come to your senses, Mr. Kori.”

  Jordon studied his uncle for a moment. “You still don’t seem happy about it.”

  Buck looked at the cube, tested its weight, then set it carefully back into the transport container. Then, as he turned to him, he glared at Jordon.

  “What do you want, a pat on the back? You want me to smile and hug you, happy that the prodigal nephew has returned home, has finally come to his senses?” With all the force he could put behind it, Buck slammed a blinding fist into Jordon’s mouth.

  Unprepared for the blow, Jordon flew back and skidded across the steel deck, and rolled to a stop. Now flat on his back, Jordon shook the haze from his head, and quizzically looked up at Buck.

  “What the—”

  “Shield generators?” Buck said casually.

  Rubbing his jaw and dazed, Jordon climbed tenuously to his feet, his feet got tangle under him as he tried to take a step, and he lurched sideways and sent a stack of small boxes crashing to the floor. His mom tried to steady him until his head cleared.

  Puzzled by her brother’s anger, Mara took hold of Buck’s arm, and yanked him around to face her. “Do you mind telling me what that was for?”

  “If you must know, Mara,” Buck said coldly, “that was for the 187 crewmen who died while your idiot son was taking the better part of a year to come to his senses.” He looked at Jordon with icy eyes. “Does that make us square?”

  Still stunned, Jordon shrugged and nodded.

  “Really? You think a punch in the mouth equals the lives of one man, let alone 187? Well here’s a clue; it doesn’t!”

  Jordon dropped his eyes. Once done, some bad decisions could never be undone.

  “Do you have shield generators or not?”

  Jordon sighed. Then he led Buck and David to the other side of their shuttle to another crate. Opening it, he handed Buck another small device. “Every ship has a Titanium shield coupling. Replace yours with these. Each will handle the greater energy flow required to strengthen a ship’s shield output nearly seventy-five percent. That’s just a temporary measure, but it’s a start.”

  “Temporary?”

  “To replace the entire shield generator unit on each of your ships, I’ll need a dry-dock. Rhone should do. But only after we carve out the necessary time. Each generator must be integrated directly into its host ship’s skin.”

  Buck rubbed his increasingly tender knuckles, and tried to shake off the growing pain. His hand was beginning to swell. “Anything else?”

  “Navigation enhancements are in those crates. Weapons components are over there.”

  “Fine.” Buck said. “Now, what do you want for all this?”

  “Everything given comes to you without strings,” Jordon said. “I can leave Rachel with you to help with the modifications, and we’ll return for her after we’ve seen to our Providence assignment.”

  “We most certainly will not,” his mom said firmly. She turned to Buck. “We have a request.”

  “No, Mom, we don’t,” Jordon said. He shot a forced smile at Buck which almost immediately morphed into a scowl. “Gather the crates given you, and we’ll be on our way.”

  “No!” she barked. Placing her fists on her hips, she glared at Jordon. “If you don’t tell him, I will.”

  “Tell me what?” Buck said.

  “Nothing,” Jordon said. “I�
�ll help you get your stuff loaded, and—”

  “Stop it!” Mom snapped. “We need my brother’s help, son. Now put your ego in neutral, and tell him why.”

  “No, we don’t need his help,” Jordon said steadfastly, turning away to grab a crate.

  “I swear, both of you pigheaded idiots will be the death of me,” Mom fumed. “Sooo proud. Get over yourselves, both of you!” You’re insufferable!”

  Jordon turned with a box of I.A. cubes, and headed for the shuttle.

  “I swear! Stop right there, Jordon Kori,” his mom said, “or I’ll knock you on your butt too.”

  Jordon handed the crate to Courtney.

  His mom took his uncle by the arm and then Jordon by his and turned them to a doorway. “Conference room. Now!”

  Jordon and Buck glanced at each other. Both knew that when Mrs. Coalfire was like this she wasn’t one to be trifled with. She led them to the conference room just off the cargo bay and made both take a seat across from each other.

  “Buck,” she said, “we might have picked up a tail. Joshua believes the Confederation is tracking us this very minute.”

  “Yes? So?”

  “We want to lay a trap for them,” she said. “We need you and your band of rebels to help us.”

  “Forget it!” Jordon said, not looking at either of them.

  Still standing, his mom leaned on the table and stabbed the air with a finger at her son. “I swear, Jordon Kori, one more negative word from you and I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?” Jordon said, glowering at her. “Come on, Mom. You’ll what? You think you can turn me over your knee like you used to. I’m not a child anymo—”

  “I’ll do it,” Buck said matter-of-factly.

  “I’d like to see you try,” Jordon said, still angry.

  “No, Jordy, I’ll help you set a trap for the feds.”

  “Why would you want to get involved in this mess?” Jordon said. “Just take the stuff given you and—”

  “Jordon!” Buck said. “You’re family, my sister’s son. Let me do this for you. Besides, it’ll be fun.”

  “It’ll be deadly, a real game ender if we fail.”