“No question. Fact is I’ve never let the possibility of dying detour me before. I see no reason to start now.”
“See there,” Mrs. Kori said, standing straight, “both of you are capable of getting past your stubborn streaks.” She dropped into the chair at the head of the table. To her right and left, Jordon and Buck faced each other. “Okay, then. Let’s start planning, shall we?”
“As long as it doesn’t involve Saigus,” Buck said, “I’m game.”
“Oh, but it does involve Saigus, Buck,” she said. “In fact, Saigus is the key to our plans.”
“No,” Buck said flatly, “it is not.”
Mom rolled her eyes, pushed to her feet, leaned in, and punched her brother in the shoulder hard.
“Ouch! Sis, what was that for?”
“You let me talk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“If after hearing our plan you don’t like it, then we’ll address any objections you may have then and there. Not beforehand.”
“Rhone is our secret base. I don’t want to lead the Confederation straight to it, and I—”
“Shhh!”
Buck looked at Jordon. “Did she just shush me?”
“Shh!” his sister repeated.
Buck released a breath of irritation.
“Now, here’s what we were thinking,” the older woman began, then stopped herself. “Oh, I almost forgot. Jordy is going to die,” she said flatly. The words rolled off her tongue without emotion.
Buck’s jaw dropped. He looked at Jordon, then at her, then back at Jordon.
Jordon shrugged and dipped his head yes.
Could this be a joke? No one seemed amused.
Chapter ten
Like the rings of Saturn, countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometers to meters circled the Saigus sun to form several broad discs, one inside the next. Nothing in it was larger than Earth’s moon, and that made this star system unique in all the known galaxy.
As Freefall neared, the discs continued to grow larger and larger, but the Saigus sun sitting at its center still looked like little more than the glint off the head of a pin. The outer edge terminated two and a half billion miles from Saigus. Even at this distance the size of it was mind-blowingly incomprehensible. But the discs fooled the eye. Edge on, the rings looked razor thin, while in fact they were, in places, four to six thousand miles thick top to bottom.
Known only to those living here, a hollow moon-sized asteroid called Rhone remained hidden. Stumbled across nearly seventy years ago, its discoverers saw its value for what it was and chose to keep its existence secret. Inside it they built a base to house a mining community. Those who mine the asteroids for their rich mineral content transport their goods via Buck and his band of freighter captains. These men, sworn to secrecy, take amazing pains to keep Rhone off Confederate radar.
In past years, the Confederation of Planets made several attempts to build space stations here. They needed a base of operations for their miners. Soon after each attempt ‘marauders,’ so-called, turned those ideas to mush. For the Confederacy, Saigus proved too deadly to take, impossible to hold, and too costly to exploit. The loss of time, money, materials, and men proved too great to bear even for the leviathan Confederate budget.
Freefall followed Buck’s ship, Adventurer, over the Saigus asteroid field to a place nowhere near Rhone. At a point about where Earth’s orbit would be, Adventurer rolled onto its back and nosed into the field. Freefall followed.
Rocks and boulders of every size filled Jordon’s main view screen. Jordon left the piloting to Freefall’s A.I.
Making obsolete the need for a helmsman, Freefall’s computer brain would calculate the size and path of every rock and boulder in their way to avoid the larger, more dangerous ones.
Once they were nearly a thousand miles inside the field, a Corsair pulled out from behind a larger asteroid, its hiding place, and moved up beside Freefall. Then another ship appeared, and another, until Corsairs, Brigantines, and a couple of Xebecs surrounded Freefall, leaving it no place in which to retreat. Once well inside the asteroid field, at a place still far away from Rhone, Adventurer came to a halt.
Jordon thrummed the armrest with a roll of his fingers. “All stop, Freefall.”
From Adventurer a shuttle left its hanger bay and headed for Freefall. “Open the cargo bay, Freefall. Let’em in.”
“Affirmative.”
The shuttle landed. The bay door shut behind it. Buck and David Courtney stepped from it and went to Freefall’s bridge. This time, when Jordon offered his hand, his uncle took it. David Courtney, Buck’s ‘Second in Command,’ had no issues with shaking Jordon’s hand. Jordon was glad to at last properly welcome them aboard Freefall.
David Courtney served with Buck from the days when both were ensigns in the then Prias’s Space corps. Shortly after signing on, Courtney had ‘found religion’—as Jordon put it—and had come to secretly worship some deity he called Yeshua. Jordon didn’t much care for folks who did so, but he didn’t hate them. The Confederation did, and made no bones about it. To be openly religious in Confed territory simply wasn’t acceptable behavior. An unwillingness to renounce Yeshua would cost a man his life.
David had once said he believed his prayers to Yeshua for Buck brought about his friend and captain’s eventual conversion. At the time, Jordon rolled his eyes at hearing it. Around these people, Jordon found himself rolling his eyes often, so much so, the very act threatened to become a mindless habit. The rolling of his eyes came to a sudden end when his mom ‘got the religion.’ She would tolerate none of his doing so, calling him on it every time until he learn to stop rolling his eyes altogether.
Jordon wasn’t happy about it, but didn’t oppose those who chose—uh hmm—that way. Their being in the universe seemed to make life just a wee bit better for everyone, and the changes Jordon saw in his mom weren’t all that bad. She read more, sure, and she also became more at peace with herself. And she grew more attentive to the needs of everyone around her. That was fine, thought Jordon, as long as she left him alone about it. He had his gizmos and gadgets, and that was enough. And for the most part, Mom was more tolerant of others. All that is except one. Mrs. Kori didn’t take to Ericca. The girl had been raised by whores, pirates, and brigands, his mom had said, but Jordon didn’t care. And though Ericca was a major source of arguments between Jordon and his mother, he never abandoned his loyalty to the girl. Ericca was special, and that’s all he’d say about it.
Buchanan’s belief in Yeshua didn’t come to light until he unwittingly tried to ambush Freefall near Hallibourn. Followers of The Way, as Buck called them, valued life to a greater degree than did the Confederates. Though reluctant, they were willing to kill if they had too. Buck believed that when confronting a heartless foe you had to be just as wily as the snake coming to get you.
Jordon was more of a catch and release kind of guy. Why kill at all when duck and cover would do? In Jordon’s thinking, when facing an enemy it was always better to appease than to confront. Ericca, of course, saw things differently. He was only now beginning to see the merit in her ideals, but wasn’t fully convinced.
Aware of the new arrivals, Mara entered the bridge. The moment she saw Buck and David she hugged them and kissed their cheeks to extend to them—in her mind—the proper greeting she’d missed earlier. She stepped back a bit and lightly slapped her brother’s shoulder. “It’s been way too long, you rat. You and Kathy have got to make a point to join us one of these holidays.”
“Sorry, sis. Holidays are our busiest season. The folks in these parts don’t have much, so my band of pirates and I see to it that the Confederation bureaucrats, shall we say, donate to the cause.”
“Cause?” asked Mara. “What cause?”
“Cause they’re the thieves keeping these good folks poor.”
Mara chuckled at her brother’s lame attempt at humor. “Well then,” she said, “you two must spend the night—you and Kathy.”
“That we can manage. Kathy and I would love nothing better.”
Jordon prodded his uncle. “Come on folks, we need to get these ships moving before the Confeds notices that we’ve stopped and decide to move in on us before we’re ready.”
“We’ll move deeper into the field where you won’t be easily detected. Then we can hole up there for as long as you like.” He turned to his first officer. “David, relay the order.”
David nodded and raised his wrist communicator to his lips. “Shuttle one, relay message to the Adventurer directly. Message: Come to heading 111-192-036 and proceed at one-quarter-harbor speed. Courtney, out.” As the ships resumed their course on the new heading, Jordon and his mom took Uncle Buck and David into the seldom-used conference room to join Josh and Rachel who were already there, to discuss the coming events and make plans. David and Buck knew this area well.
Knowing they could add to the ambush in ways that would give them every advantage, Jordon was happy to sit down with Buck and his associates to hash out a few ideas. Joshua impressed everyone with his ability to size up a situation and devise a way into and out of it. Rachel had ideas of her own. As a gizmo-girl, she contributed to the dialog as would any expert engineer. While Jordon understood everything she said, Buck, David, Josh, and Mara were often left behind by the technical jargon. Race and Jordon were saying something about Zero-point web emitters which were at present just theoretical.
Jordon’s mom soon became lost in the conversation that was well beyond her understanding, so she graciously excused herself to make the upcoming lunch.
“So, what do you think?” Jordon asked his uncle. “With your help, and if we use this asteroid belt properly, can we take them?”
“We can,” Buck said, “assuming, of course, you and Race can actually trap their Talons. But I’m still not happy with drawing the Confeds straight to us. However, in this asteroid belt we’ll have the home court advantage. If we can’t take them on in here, we certainly shouldn’t engage them out there in open space.”
“Captain Kori,” David said, “I have to agree with my captain on this. Rhone is secret, and none of us need or want the Confederates to know this is where we’re hiding. Leading them straight here puts us on their star charts. Right now their map reads, ‘Here there be space monsters.’ I’d like to keep it that way.”
“What happened to you Buck?” Jordon said irritably. “Used to be you’d leap at a chance to scrap with the Confeds. Why the change of heart?”
“No change of heart, son. Had you said you wanted to tackle them out there somewhere I’d rally the troops. But you want to bring them here, right to my doorstep. That isn’t something I’m comfortable with doing.”
“Didn’t I see a wrecked space station floating near the Saigus perimeter?” Joshua said. “Looks like the Confederacy’s been here before.”
Buck hmphed. “That was a Confed mining company, boy, not a battle tested war-ready flotilla.”
“Could be nothing more than a scout ship tracking us,” Rachel chimed in softly, “. . . something easily dealt with.”
“Could be a whole fleet,” her uncle retorted. “Heck, it could be every blasted fleet in the quadrant. Big or small, a lot or a few, I don’t care. I don’t want them brought here. Got that?” He narrowed angry eyes on Jordon. “But to blazes with what I want. So . . . against my better judgment, here we are ready to risk it all.”
Jordon felt his anger rise. Fact was, Buck was right, and there was no use arguing the point. But still . . .
“As we speak,” Jordon said, “I have a team looking for those tracking us. Can I wait here till they contact us?”
Buck and David exchanged a look . . .
“The longer he’s here, Captain” said David, “the greater our risk of being discovered.”
Buck released a sigh through his nose. “The moment you hear anything from the Archers, you tell me.”
“Will do.”
“Fine. I’ll introduce you to the other captains. If this plan doesn’t sit well with them, then you’ll have to leave first thing in the morning, Jordy.”
“Captain French, we’re not certain anyone is actually following us,” Josh clarified.
“Then what are we talking about?” Buck said.
“I believe there’s a chance we are being tracked, sir,” Josh said.
“And I thought,” said Jordon, “that if we are, we, with your help, could turn the tables on them.”
Buck shook his head. “Then I suggest you do your best to convince the others.”
“I’ll do my best. But can we discuss this other issue?”
Buck gave him a hesitant nod from.
Jordon leaned forward. “Are you going to help me end it all or not, Buck. You never said.”
“Wait! What?” Courtney said. “End it all?”
Buck glanced at him before looking at Rachel. “I don’t know that I can.”
“My brother has to die,” Rachel said. “I see no way around it.”
“And I need you to help me get it done,” Jordon added.
Buck leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table and scrutinized Jordon for a moment. “You’re making no sense. Why must you die?”
Jordon took and released a heavy breath. “No one must know what I’m about to tell you. Not even Ericca. Understand?”
Buck pushed to his feet and went to the portal to peer out, but his focus didn’t go beyond Jordon’s reflection in the glass. There was a desperate look in Jordon’s face.
“Okay, fine, Jordy. I’ll hear you out but don’t ask me to compromise my faith. There are lines I simply will not cross.”
“No one has to die but me, Buck, and I can’t do this alone.”
To pull off an ambush requires nerves of steel and discipline to match. That’s why Jordon had come here; to a place where everyday life challenged even a strong man’s soul. In taking on Confederate ships, he wanted – No – he needed leverage. Here, the greatest advantage was the field’s size. As big as a solar system, the ring of rocks were too numerous to count, let alone sort through. If it had not been accidentally stumbled upon, odds were against Rhone ever having been discovered. And so, Buck’s reticence was hard for Jordon to understand.
The second best gain in coming here was Buck’s battle-tested, war hardened rebels. These men knew how to fight well as a team, and were flexible enough to respond quickly to surprises, modifying their strategies to suit the ever-changing situations. If word came that the enemy was indeed on their way, then he and Buck’s group would try to solidify something of a plan over the next day or two.
Chapter Eleven
That evening, Jordon, Buck, and David Courtney shuttled over to Lady Mae, a corsair with its hold filled with minerals bound for Providence. They found the ship’s captain alone on the bridge.
Captain Kelly Armstrong’s smile was sweet and soft as she shook each man’s hand in turn. “Welcome aboard Lady Mae, Captain Kori, Buck . . .” but when the thirty-something brunette took David Courtney’s hand, she lingered.
“David, she said softly. But there was something in her tone, the way she said his name, that said she had more than a professional interest in the fleet’s Second in Command. David pretended—poorly—not to notice.
Exchanging a look with Buck, Jordon rolled his eyes in utter dismay.
Taking passage aboard Lady Mae, David’s assignment was to deliver a message to Providence Prime, to the military HQ based there. His mission; make clear to them that Saigus was engaging the Confeds and would need Prov help.
“Seriously?” Kelly said, “A Prov fleet crossing the Confederate border will mean war. Certainly Providence knows that. Who are we to them that they’d provoke such a thing? I don’t think they’ll come.”
“Just be certain you mention Jordon Kori’s name,” Buck urged, “They’ll come.”
“It’s in the bag, Kelly,” David said. “Just get me there, and I’ll see they react as we want them too.”
; Since Jordon Senior’s defection seven years ago, Providence intelligence had failed to pinpoint Kori’s whereabouts. They didn’t know of the senior Kori’s passing. They did know, however, that Jordon Junior was as gifted as his dad had been. Given the chance, Prov would take Jordon in a instant. Until now, even when working with Prov intelligentsia, Jordon had been sly enough to stay two steps ahead of them, and just beyond their reach. Mentioning the inventor’s whereabouts now would insure a response from them, a military response.
With everything finalized, Buck asked David to see them back to the shuttle, and then he and Captain Armstrong could be on their way. Once out of Kelly’s earshot, Jordon turned to David, and threw an arm over his shoulder. “So, you and this Kelly hitting it off?”
David recoiled. “I beg your pardon, sir. She is the captain of this ship. I have a job to do. That is all.”
Jordon shrugged and backed away.
Buck, however, grabbed David by the scruff of the neck and held him firmly to look straight into the man’s eyes. Buck’s tone was quiet and calm but just as firm as his grip. “Now look here young man. My wife and Kelly are going to be good friends. You marry her and that’ll make us friends-in-law. So no more beating around the bush with me—just straight talk, am I understood?”
“Now see here, Captain,” David protested.
“Why’s he your first officer again?” Jordon asked.
Buck squeezed harder and shook David slightly to make his meaning clear. “You love her, don’t you?”
Defiant, David scowled and glared at the older man.
Buck met his glower and stared him down.
After a moment, David dropped his head. The fight in him evaporated and his shoulders slumped. “Yes, I love her. Was I that obvious?”
“Now you’re talkin’.” Buck glanced at Jordon, but his expression remained stern.
“Criminy, David,” Jordon said. “Are you really that blind? Even I saw by the way you looked at each other that this was the case. But you . . .” Jordon shook his head in disbelief, “. . . you aren’t being straight about your feelings for her. Man, time is a luxury you can’t willy-nilly away. You can’t afford to waste one second. You’ve got to tell her how you feel. And you had better do it soon.”
Living in Freefall (Living on the Run Book 1) Page 8