“But how can I tell if she feels the same way about me?”
Buck slapped the back of the young man’s head. “For heaven’s sake, man! You are second in command of this fleet’s flagship. How is it a man of your stature becomes mush-for-brains around women? Now get in there and tell her how you feel.”
“You’re going to Providence Prime,” Jordon said. “It’s a nice place. Take her out. See the sights. Spend time with her. If after all that you don’t discover how she feels about you . . .”
Buck released him, and David shrugged. “I’ll do that.” With that, he said his farewells and headed back to the bridge.
Jordon climbed into the copilot’s seat as Buck slid in behind the pilot’s controls.
Jordon gave his head a slight shake. “Your Second in command, huh? Really?”
“He has his strengths,” Buck said, “but he has this stupid need for military barring and proper protocol and all. He’s a good officer. He’s just wound too tight. I’m hoping she’ll loosen him up some.”
“And if he marries her? Seems to me you’ll lose a good first officer just as he becomes one.”
Buck grimaced. “Blast! I hadn’t thought of that.”
Chapter Twelve
Riley hesitantly watched Ericca’s grin spread into a full-blown devious smile. He trusted her completely, but seeing that smile always made him nervous. Okay, so she has an idea—now what?
“Program a couple of rockets, little brother.”
Rockets? He relaxed his grip and released his long-held breath. Rockets he understood. “Two rockets? So what’s your idea?”
The malicious intent filling her eyes to the brim overflowed into her words. For Riley the fear factor reached a new level. “I want this fleet blind for at least thirty seconds,” she said. “You got a rocket for that?”
“Um, sure . . . I think. On the first, you want a, let’s see, a neutron warhead perhaps. Right! Can do.”
“And next, I want a Helio trail leading out of the nebula.”
“Ah, cool.” Riley chuckled. “A disintegrating Helio rocket should do the trick. It’ll leave a trail, then vanish without a trace once it’s run its course.”
“That’s what I want.”
Riley cocked his head. “Direction?”
“Your choice, little bro.”
“Roger, Captain. Ready in thirty seconds.” Riley had a vague idea of what she planned, but Ericca was a tricky one. He programmed the rockets as fast as he was able.
“Set and ready, Captain.”
“Fire when ready, Archer.”
He let the Neutron rocket fly and as it arched around back toward the enemy fleet Ericca brought Viper around.
Favoom!
When the rocket exploded, Riley let the second rocket fly.
Ericca quickly came around and pulled in tight to the last ship in the fleet. “There’s a lovely spot.” She took Viper in, landed on the deck near the conning tower, and attached the ship into place. Tabbing specific buttons on her console. Viper’s color holographically blended with the ship it now clung to. Ericca and Riley were now safely hidden in plain sight.
“We’ll stay with the Confeds as long as doing so make sense,” she said.
The Neutron explosion dissipated and the Talons that had been chasing them held to Viper’s last known course.
With the stick out of the nest the hornets, in time, settled down to reenter the hive. A few hours passed before the fleet finally picked up Riley’s Helio-rocket trail and started to move on it. They followed the faint Helio-energy signature out of the Nebula, past Hawthorn, and as far as they could before the plasma trail faded to nothing. Like hounds that had just lost the scent of a clever Raccoon, the whole fleet slowed down.
After a while the fleet altered direction and resumed its speed. “They’ve given up the search, sis,” Riley said studied its course. “Looks like they’re returning to their prior mission and, hmm, Joshua’s suspicions were right. They’re tracking Freefall sure enough.”
Ericca sighed, then peered back over her headrest. “We stay put, Archer. We’ll report back to Freefall when we know more.”
Riley nodded. “I can’t believe Josh, though. On every point he was dead on right. The way his mind works is . . .”
Ericca nodded. “I’m just glad he’s on our side. If we had that kind of genius pitted against us, we wouldn’t last long.”
Riley ran his hand over the leather armrest, and glanced at his instruments. “Race is something else, too, isn’t she? It’s as if she read my mind in rebuilding this ship. Man, we have it good.”
Ericca nodded. “What do you say we grab a bite then go for a stroll?”
“I’m up for a burger, sis. But about that walk—just what did you have in mind?”
“Gremlins, Archer. Nasty little gremlins.”
“Sorry?”
The deviousness in her eyes returned. “You know? Those annoying little saboteurs that cause unexplained problems with ships and such.”
Riley grinned. “You want to monkey with this ship, don’t you? Like, make it mysteriously fail at the most inopportune time?”
“Now you’re catching on, Mr. Widget.” Her voice rang with mischief.
Riley understood her villainous tone. This was one of those rare occasions where being a prankster was actually a good thing, and he was not one to miss out on such an opportunity. “So, Miss Fifinella, are you up for a burger, or shall I throw in a slice of pizza?”
“Burger, please. With all the trimmings. Pass one up here when it’s ready.”
Riley worked fast to build the burgers. He only had to heat the meat and slip it between readymade buns with all the trimmings. As they ate, he discreetly scanned their host ship. His target had to be something the cruiser would need in the heat of battle, but not something the ship would use under normal space flight. This would be tricky, because military ships routinely ran diagnostics on every system. If he and Ericca sliced partway through a power cord, their doing so would still have to allow enough energy to flow through it to make the diagnostic say it was still fully functional. To Riley’s glee, there were a great number of targets throughout the ship. But then, the more the targets, the greater the hunt to find the best one. “I need your help, Ericca.”
“Sure. Transfer a schematic to my viewer, and I’ll work on it as you work on yours.”
Unlike her brother, who had wolfed down his burger in short order, Ericca was still working on hers, taking little bites as she studied her screen, and that didn’t escape Archer’s notice. Or goodness sake, they weren’t at the table.
“You’re a tough girl, Ericca.”
She stopped and cocked an ear toward him. “Uh, thanks, I guess.”
“For a tough girl, you certainly take delicate bites. I know why you do that at a proper table, but why here? Who’ll see?”
“Working in the tavern I learned to take huge bites and speak with food in my mouth. That didn’t float at the Blackhart mansion, so, among other things, one of the girl pages there taught me how to eat more like a refined young lady.”
Riley chuckled and shook his head. “Done right, sis, talking past the food in your mouth is considered an art form in many cultures.”
“So is belching.”
“I know. I know. Mrs. Kori argues against such behavior, and fervently so.”
“Yes, so how’s that working out for you, Archer, her trying to make a fine young lady out of you?”
Riley chuckled at her joke.
Fact was, getting Ericca to eat daintily—to take small bites and chew thoroughly—was the only thing mansion life had managed to get Ericca to learn. Everything else was a battle. Well-worn leather, gun slung low, knife in her boot, and tromping like a boy wherever she went were things Ericca just wasn’t willing to give up.
Seeing that, Mrs. Mara had said that the right man would change all that.
Ericca had countered with, ‘The right man would appreciate those features about her more
than anything else.’ Girls, as a rule, had no sense of adventure. And dainty just wasn’t Ericca Archer.
No, it wasn’t, thought Riley. Her working the stables with him was what she seemed most suited to. Why Tyson Blackhart brought her into the mansion left folks guessing. But Riley believed he knew the man and the reasons he did what he did. Saundler, Tyson’s father, could be a touchy feely letch at times. Under Tyson’s orders, Skuppers, the stable foreman, hid Ericca whenever the old man came around. Maybe Tyson brought her into the big house to keep her off Saundler’s radar. In that case, the closer to danger she was, the further from harm she’d be. In the house, she could work in those rooms where Saundler never went.
Riley liked Tyson. Everyone did. As far as a slave-owner went, he was the best, always and forever treating his property, so-called, like human beings, employees even . . . never as pieces of śmieci.
Sitting long hours in Viper, Riley grew weary.
“I’m in the mood to lay back and relax a bit. How about you, skipper?”
“Sure; I’m game,” his sister said.
There are certain advantages to space travel. In a weightless environment, one didn’t have to elevate one’s feet, but simply hit a switch to change the direction of gravity’s pull; in this case, “Synthe-grav.” Once the preferred synthetic angle was tabbed it, sleep would come easy. Ericca adjusted the grav-control to make them feel as if they were lying back with their legs elevated.
“Viper,” she said, “if we doze off, wake us after an hour’s sleep, please.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Viper replied.
She’s no fool, thought Riley. She knew as much as he that if you feed a teen, then have him bury his face in a technical schematic, you could count on him soon dozing off. They had plenty of time though; these large lumbering Confederate ships weren’t big on speed. And besides, Ericca caused so much damage to the carrier; it needed down time to effect repairs. And the added delay would work to the rebel’s advantage.
Riley figured that, as more and more damage reports came in, the Captain of the carrier, along with the fleet admiral, would grow angrier with each passing hour. An admiral that angry would be focused on the chase—on catching the vandals he believed had made a run for it. He wouldn’t dream that they peacefully snoozed right under his nose. Who in this universe would have that much brass?
“Archer, what can you tell me about Jordon Kori. You talked to Mara. The subject ever come up?”
“Yes. We’ve talked.”
“So?”
“Jordon is a scientist. He’s gifted. In fact so much so that Mrs. Kori says other brilliant minds can’t even begin to understand his creations. He was like that as a boy, a prodigy, she said. Others want to reverse engineer his stuff. God knows they’ve tried. But Mrs. Kori says Jordon thinks on a completely different level than anyone else.”
Ericca’s brows leveled. “Okaaay?”
“Gadgets he understands. People, not so much. You’ve seen how nervous he can get. But you put that man in a costume, and give him a roll to play, Mrs. Kori says he blossoms.”
“Really?”
“She says that he, in costume, can be sweet and charming and confident. From what she told me, if he had faced those inspectors out of costume, he would have crumbled into a nervous mess huddled in a corner somewhere.”
“I . . . wow, I didn’t know.”
“Thing is, around you, it doesn’t matter. In costume or out, Mrs. Kori says you make him nervous. It shows.”
“I’m sorry. I had no idea.”
“Just go easy on him, okay?”
“May I ask . . . umm?”
“What?”
“If he’s so nervous around people, how did he ever make it to adulthood?”
Riley smiled slyly. “Mrs. Kori said he usually meets people at a costume parties. He once dressed up as a prince. Every girl at the party wanted him. Mrs. Kori said that he had his choice of women that night, but he had chosen to go home alone. When she pressed him, he only shrugged and said none of them where the girl in his dreams . . . whatever that means.”
“Now he’s alone, poor guy.”
“Sure. Now he’s alone,” Riley said before yawning. “But Mr. Kori seems happy enough. He’s got his gadgets and gizmos, enough said?”
“What’s he after, a beauty queen? How can a nervous, geeky guy like him ever land an attractive woman?”
Riley hesitated and scratched his head to gather his thoughts. “Some things are best left unsaid, Ericca. But I will tell you this; some people can see beyond skin’s surface. If you want to know more, you’ll have to ask him.”
Ericca nodded. “Okay.”
“I could use a good power-nap, sis. Wake me in a day or two, will you?”
Chapter Thirteen
In time, Viper roused the teens and Riley stretched the stiffness from his muscles. Ericca did the same. They took another fresh look at the schematic, and Riley checked the time.
In deep space, distant from any sun, there is no morning, noon, or night. Time is relative, as is up, down, or what-have-you. Each ship’s Captain would consider where they were going, the time of day it would be when they got there, and adjust his ship’s chronometers accordingly. Aboard a spaceship some days would be slightly longer or shorter depending on what time it would be planet-side when they arrived.
Viper’s clock was always set to Freefall time. Riley saw no reason to call home now only to ruin a perfectly good night’s sleep for Mr. and Mrs. Kori, so he turned his focus elsewhere.
Eventually Riley’s search for the perfect point of sabotage paid off—he thought. He found a specific power junction-box of particular interest, but there was something odd about it, something disconcerting. Most of the ship’s key components merged right there, but there was something important to consider; it was rather deep inside the ship. He pointed it out to Ericca.
She turned sharply and glared at him over her seat’s headrest. “What are you, some kind of adrenalin junky? No way in blue blazes are we going there; not when it’s that deep inside this thing.”
“Come on, sis,” he teased. “Don’t you want to stretch your legs?”
She thought for a moment. “Yes, I want to stretch my legs, but I also want to live to a ripe old age. You really want to climb that deep into the belly of the beast?”
“We have a job to do, sis, and we’ll get little done if we just sit here.”
She grunted and turned back to the schematic.
Hmm, she thought, a wire snipped here, a bomb planted there . . . this just might work. As junction boxes went, this one wasn’t half bad. It beat the stuffing out of planting several bombs throughout the ship. At least here, several of the ship’s systems could be mucked with all at once. She glanced back at Riley. “Yeah, what the hey, let’s go have some fun!”
Fun? Riley grinned. Finally. It sounds like she’s actually getting her sense of fun back. It wasn’t a bar fight, but still . . .
He was just about to turn the schematic off, when something at its edge caught his eye. “What the—?” He zoomed out, and his jaw dropped. “Ah, crap!”
“What?”
“Expand your view, sis. Look at the ship’s ‘J’ deck, the whole thing.”
She did so and fell silent.
“This isn’t a tech ship, sis. It’s a weapon. The whole blasted ship is one great big gun.”
Still Ericca said nothing.
“Look at that cavernous maw. It runs clear back to the tail. Those nodes running its length; there must be hundreds.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this. What does it do?”
“I’m thinking, sis, it kills people. It looks as though it was designed to take out an entire ship with one whack.”
“Require study?”
“It does. Give me a moment.”
This is what Riley lived for. Weapons of warfare were his thing, and he had a mind built for figuring out how things like this actually worked. If anybody could disable this monste
r, it’d have to be him. As easily as someone lifting an arm, Riley pieced together all the varying components to discover the true ability of the beast. “Sis, they’ve discovered how to capture, contain, and stabilize Radical Ion plasma. That’s why they’re here. The Prince is drawing it in slowly to charge cells that run the length of the ship.”
“Can we blow them?”
“I don’t think we can. The fuel casings are a Diridium-terinium alloy. We brought nothing with us that’ll breach that.”
“Can we cut the lines.”
“No. They feed straight into the activation chamber. I see no way to stop or cut the feed. This in essence is an unstoppable weapon. And sis, it’s mean.”
“Okay, so the plasma is injected into the chamber, then what?”
“Look at the butt end of the chamber. See that probe? That’s a tyridium trigger. Again, we don’t have the means to damage that. It ignites the plasma, and as the fireball moves forward it collects and compresses more plasma, igniting it as it goes, and what comes out the end is . . . well, by any standard, mean. The rebels won’t stand a chance against this thing.”
“No gun has limitless bullets, Archer. Can you calculate how many shots these guys have before they run dry?”
“I can. Give me a moment.” Riley ran the numbers in his head. Though he’d never seen this weapon before, he understood it in principle. That was his strength. He loved guns and anything that went bang. “Seven shots. Seven.”
She released air through her nose. “Right, then we’ll have to get them to waist a few, right?”
“We could. But I’m looking at another tact that might work for us. Come on, let’s go take a look at that junction box and see what we can see. Who says a direct assault is best anyway.”
“Fine. Let’s do it.” Ericca checked the gun on her thigh, popped the canopy, and they climbed out of Viper one after the other. She reached back behind her seat to grab five small palm-sized explosives, put them in her calf pockets, and turned to see that their path was clear.
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