Living in Freefall (Living on the Run Book 1)

by Ben Patterson

  Johnston shoved the Admiral back. He fell into the command chair. Johnston motioned to Thuggins at the door.

  Instantly, the guard turned his M1-A80 on Fulvus and fired.

  The admiral convulsed as each charged bullet passed through his body. Fulvus—hole riddled and spurting blood—slumped where he sat.

  Johnston glowered at the guard. “Idiot! You were just supposed to restrain him!”

  Surprised by the suggestion, Thuggins smirked. “So, consider him restrained.”

  The commander’s jaw clenched, but he had no time for the brutish guard.

  Sergeant Thuggins cocked his head and spoke with an uncommon callousness. “I had my orders. If you don’t like the results, take it up with my boss, Senator Carringer.”

  Handpicked by the senator, the guard’s reason for existence became clear. Johnston could guess how Fulvus had really come to power, and that his doing so had ruffled the wrong feathers. And, as for the guard, Johnston knew he couldn’t touch him . . . yet.

  However . . . accidents happen. In the back of Johnston’s mind he saw Thuggins destined for an airlock mishap.

  Just then the flagship bucked and tossed the bridge crew around like rag dolls.

  Johnston scrambled to his feet and hit the com’s console. “Gunners, fire at will.” The ship bolted to one side. Consoles shorted, spitting sparks and fire. Smoke began to fill the room.

  Like wolves on a deer the rebels swarmed their prey to brutally tear at both the flagship and carrier. The return fire was intense. The Xebecs, taking the brunt, held against the assault.

  From the flagship, Johnston called for help as he watched sections of his own ship tear away or explode violently into space. Those of his men on their feet soon found themselves sprawled on the floor; all others clung to whatever they could and held on for dear life.

  Power abruptly died. The synthetic gravity failed. The ship bucked. And Johnston found himself flung to the ceiling along with everyone else and everything not nailed down. JD floated nearby with a severely deep cut on his brow. Without gravity, JD’s blood began to pool at the wound.

  “Did you get through?” Johnston asked the radioman beside him.

  JD nodded weakly. “Short range only, sir. The Talons might have heard, but . . .” His eyes closed.

  Johnston grabbed JD’s collar to pull the young man closer. He checked the carotid. No pulse.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Jordon and Josh jetted from the asteroids to engage the Kodiaks which the two Xebecs had engaged in an exchange of heated gunfire. Against the mean gunships, the Xebecs suffered severe damage, but their captains refused to leave the fight. Before long, with Jordon and Joshua’s help, all four Kodiaks were reduced to scrap iron and life pods.

  Capt. Chonri’s corsair, Zion’s Prize, faced heavy pounding. Fifteen feet of its bow began to tear away. Seeing this Captain Muncy brought Star Chaser in to take up the blows otherwise directed at the wounded ship. Chonri, now with room to breathe, got his shields back up and reentered the fight.

  Captain McCarthy joined Muncy in the mêlée to completely destroy the guns of the Rutledge. Then all three turned back to hit the Homanju. Soon all six Confederation ships, laid waste and helpless, began to drift.

  Rebel repair crews immediately went to work. to give new life to their own ships. They started with the four most damaged among them.

  None too soon Buck’s group turned back into the asteroid field and caught the Talons that were now hurrying to the flagship’s rescue. With the Talons’ speed greatly reduced in and among the asteroids the small vessels held no advantage and soon found themselves only so much twisted and burning metal because of the rebel’s guns.

  The light Confederate cruisers found themselves the rebel’s next targets.

  With the rebel fleet now somehow behind them the cruisers, with their vulnerable aft exposed, needed desperately to turn around to meet the rebels head-on. But in the tight confines of Saigus, any quick turn cost them plenty. They slammed into rocks or each other in a frantic attempt to escape their situation.

  Worse yet they had to contend with Katusia. Isaac Katusia, a Rhone scientist, discovered materials in the Saigus asteroids that made for great rockets. Every Katusia rocket’s component, from the guidance system to the warhead explosive, came from compounds found in these asteroids. Unless one had specialized scanning equipment, and knew what to look for, a Katusia rocket-rack was virtually undetectable.

  Mounted throughout the asteroids were dozens of these rocket launchers. Each carried twenty rockets. Every time a Cruiser’s rear-end presented itself the rockets auto-launched with deadly accuracy.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough for the Confederate ships, two small Talons armed with Phiton charged particle cannons proved themselves even more difficult to contend with. Jordon and Josh targeted the scanners of the first few cruisers they happened upon, which left the big ships blind. Unable to find their way through the asteroid field with cane or canine the cruisers stopped moving altogether.

  A few more Confederate cruisers’ took blow after blow from Katusia rockets, severely weakening their shields if they didn’t collapse altogether. As they scrambled to evade the Katusias and the two traitorous Talons the huge ships wrecked themselves on the massive boulders, enough anyway, to tear gaping holes in their sides. And they had yet to face the fast approaching rebel fleet.

  In spite of their repair crews’ best efforts and frantic work to keep them afloat one Confederation ship after the next lost power and began to drift. Life support systems faltered, and the call to launch escape pods from the doomed ships came.

  Unable to respond to their compatriots’ calls for help or their panicked screams, those aboard the larger cruisers outside the asteroid field could do no more than keep watch and wait. The smaller vessels were simply situated beyond their reach. Entering the asteroids to attempt a rescue at this point was no more than a fool’s errand.

  This was the way of pirates, rogues, and scalawags; lure an enemy out of his element and into yours to gain the advantage. Get him to fight on your turf and by your rules instead of you on his.

  Up to this point Jordon and Buck’s plan, though not without fault, had worked well. Only a few Rebel vessels had taken serious damage thus far, but even those ships remained in the fight in spite of it. By the time the rebel fleet came upon the cruisers trapped in the asteroid field, there was little left for Buck’s people to do except gather escape pods and imprison their occupants.

  With the easy part over, Buck and Jordon, with little more than slingshots, were now left to face the giants and their massive guns beyond the asteroids. Out in the open, Buck’s people would be more vulnerable than ever.

  Chapter Fifty

  Leaving the Providence fleet far behind Riley released control of Viper to Ericca. She was, after all, the better pilot, and they had need of him on the scanners as they headed for planet Coredei, a pirates’ stronghold.

  Just outside a little village called Derbe, to keep cover, the Archers swung in low to skirt the ground. They found the estate they were looking for and landed behind the stables. Ericca climbed out and, with Riley behind her, peeked around a building’s corner.

  Skuppers Linstrom was busy brushing down a horse. He was a very round, very beefy stable hand who had a loud but friendly manner. The big Swede was with Tyson Blackhart when they’d come into the tavern that first day. It was Skuppers who had pulled the men off Ericca. The would-be-rapists were large and muscular, but Skuppers found no difficulty in holding each off the floor with one hand.

  “Psst!”

  Scupper’s head popped up. He looked around. Seeing nothing he went back to brushing out the horse.

  “Psst! Skuppers!”

  He looked back and saw Ericca duck back behind the corner of the building. “Little One?” he shouted happily.

  Ericca rolled her eyes. Neither tact nor subtlety were Skuppers strong suits.

  He came around the corner and made
no effort to be quiet about it. With a big smile he spread his arms to welcome the two youths. “Little One!” he repeated loudly. “Ah, is Riley too! You’ve come home at long last. All of us, ev-e-ry one”—he shook a finger to emphasize each salable—“is missing you . . . always.” Although his English had much improved he still had quite an accent.

  Ericca shhhed him. “Don’t give us away!”

  “What? Why, little one?” he said without restraint.

  “Skuppers, will you please not give us away?”

  As if the light had finally came on, the big Swede hunkered his shoulders and slinked the two steps to the building before spinning to press his back to the wall. But his belly still extended outward far more that Ericca liked. For a man built like him, hiding was impossible.

  “Skuppers,” Archer said quietly, “Blackhart will kill us if he discovers we’ve returned.”

  “He will? No, that can’t be. Master Blackhart loves you kids.”

  Ericca spoke quietly “I’m afraid not, my big friend. He made it clear that—”

  “Wait!” Archer interrupted. “Are we talking about the same Blackhart here?”

  “I’m telling you,” Skuppers said, “Tyson is master now.”

  “Tyson is master?” Ericca said. “What happened to the old man?”

  Skuppers beamed like Christmas had come a dozen times this year. “Saundler is dead!”

  “You don’t sound too broken up about it.”

  “I’m don’t like Saundler.” Skuppers spat on the ground to punctuate his disrespect.

  “When did that happen?”

  Skuppers paused for a brief moment. “The day after you go, he is having heart-attack in his study. No one is knowing until too late.” He spat again. “Goodbye to him. He is the devil’s problem now. Saunder is aggravation even for him, I think.”

  “Wow,” Archer said. “If we had only waited one lousy day . . .”

  “Come.” Skuppers hooked an arm over each young person’s shoulder and pressed them forward and around the corner. He led them toward the mansion. “Tyson will be sooo happy, Little One. He is missing you most of all.”

  With his father gone, Tyson Blackhart was now the highest ranking pirate. His home, a large estate with a palatial castle-esque mansion at its center—complete with stone wall, manicured garden, Grecian statues, and fountains spraying glistening water umbrellas—was usually a quiet retreat away from the hustle and bustle of the owner’s thieving business affairs.

  But not this day. This day the place was a hive of activity. When the groundskeepers spotted the Archers, they immediately dropped what they were doing and ran to greet them with a flurry of smiles, handshakes, and enthusiastic pats on the back, and might have held then there all day with questions had Skuppers not pushed through.

  They Even entered the main hall, and there Ericca caught Tyson eye’s, and he hers. With a dip of his head Skuppers saluted the new Pirate King.

  “I’m leave you now, Little One. You or Riley, maybe, need anything, anything at all, you come see Skuppers, okay?” With that he gave each a solid pat on the back and left them.

  Tyson stood tall and straight in his black knee-high leather boots white pants and ruffled white linen shirt underneath a long black overcoat. For a man pushing thirty, he was handsome and manly and everything Ericca believed a king should be. To her surprise, upon seeing him again, she felt her heart pound against her breast bone.

  Tyson was conversing with a ship’s captain, someone Ericca didn’t know. When he concluded with the captain he turned his head to Ericca and her brother but didn’t move to greet them. He was king now. Prince Tyson would have met her half way, but protocol dictated King Blachhart await her approach.

  Ericca and Archer crossed the room to him, and each dipped their head. “Ty, you seem—”

  He abruptly turned away and went into the king’s study, a room off the main hall. Errica and Riley followed. The study was a large room with a bank of windows at one end, and adorned with blood-red silk and satin curtains. The walls were white, inlaid with gold leaf filigree and trimmed in dark cherry wood. Ancient paintings and tapestries hung on the wall busy. Two suits of polished armor at the wall flanked a massive oak desk. On the wall behind that a shield baring the Blackhart sigil hung above to crossed swords. He took a seat on the leading edge of his desk to face them. “You are to address me as ‘Sire’ or ‘Your Highness’ or ‘Your Grace.’ I have responsibilities, and I must present an image to my people.”

  “Did we catch you at a bad time, Sire,” Ericca said acerbically. “Shall we return at a time more convenient . . . Your Highness?”

  “There’s never a convenient time, Tawn,” he said. “Riley, leave us.”

  Archer exchanged a look with her and she nodded her okay. With that, he dipped his head to the king. “By your leave, Your Grace.” With that he stepped from the room.

  Tyson beckoned, Ericca stepped closed, and he gathered her hands in his. “Why did you leave me?”

  Only after a lengthy moment of studying his face, his eyes, did she, speak. “Your father threatened my life. I had no choice.”

  “You should have come to me.”

  “I was afraid, for myself, for Archer. I couldn’t risk it.”

  “Ericca, I held the rights to you. My father would have respected my Patent-of-Claim. I hold them still, and I even have the Bill-of-Sale to prove it. You should have come to me. I would have protected you.”

  “Bill-of-Sale, huh?” She pulled free of his hands and turned to consider the room. “Patent-of-Claim? What happened to you . . . Sire? Of all the people I’ve ever known, I thought you would be the last to succumb to these trappings.”

  He sighed. “When I became King, all that changed. I have responci—

  “Excuse me, Miss Archer,” he said interrupting himself. “The King need not justify himself to a subject. You’ll guard your tongue or I’ll have you shackled.”

  She spun to him, her ire pricked. “You can try, mister; but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

  His jaw slacked. Then his brows leveled, and his face became stone. “So Daddy was right. Familiarity does breeds contempt after all. That you have a private audience with the King means nothing to you?”

  “No. Not really.” She considered the room again, its evident wealth, and began to walk around to touch object of interest.

  “Why did you come to me?”

  “Money,” Ericca said, glancing back. “What else?”

  His eyes shot to her. “How much do you need?”

  “No, Ty,” Ericca said, picking up a porcelain figurine to examine. “Nothing like that. I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

  “If you’re referring to this Prov – Confed battle overhead, I have men already on it.”

  “That . . . in part. But do you know where the Prov fleet is going?”

  “Not really.”

  She turned to face him. “Well, let me tell you.” But right then her mind tripped, and nearly went blank. Being near the man, hearing his voice, touching him and being touched by him made it nearly impossible for her to stay focused. Nearly. But she jerked her thoughts back to reality.

  “I’m listening.”

  “They’re on their way to make you tons of money. An inside word will make the right man rich beyond measure. In your case, just a tad richer than you already are.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Picture this. A rebel fleet twenty-two ships strong takes on a Confed taskforce twice that size. They mix it up a bit. Inject that Prove flotilla who just passed by here. Once they reach their destination a lot of ships are going to clash, all at a known time and place. What is that worth to you?”

  “Depends on who winds up on top in the end.”

  “What if I were to say it would be you?”

  “I’m interested. Keep talking.”

  She took a step nearer to lean in close to the pirate king. “It doesn’t matter who wins this. It doesn’t matter who comes out on t
op. In the end they’ll all have beaten each other senseless. Cannons. Shield emitters. Scanners and communications arrays. Countless torpedoes, rockets, not to mention slaves. A smart man with enough ships showing up at the right time could clean up handily.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I want back in. I want a ship of my own.”

  “Our own,” corrected Archer from the doorway. He had just stepped back in, in time to hear only the tail end of the conversation.

  “Our own,” Ericca restated. “We want something small, fast, but big enough to carry Viper. Maybe a crewman or two which I’ll provide, myself. Small payment for what we’re about to give you.”

  “Tawn,” Tyson said softly, “you could have had all that for the asking. Certainly you knew that?”

  She sighed. “Sure. All I have to do is marry you.”

  He knit his brow. “Would that have been so bad?”

  “To be your wife? No. But to be a queen . . .”

  “I asked you to marry me. But that was never to make you my queen. You would be my consort.”

  Her breath caught in her throat, and she felt her face swiftly grow hot. “Consort?” Only he was capable of doing this to her. She looked at Archer. “Can you give us another moment, little brother?”

  “Sure. No problem.” Archer turned away and stepped out.

  “Ty,” Ericca said turning back to him, “you can have any woman you want. Why me?”

  He shrugged. “Do you want to know the real reason? Or shall I concoct a lie?”

  She chuckled nervously. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

  “Of all the people I know there are only a handful I trust with my life, and none of them as much as I do you. If we were to marry I know I wouldn’t end up with a knife in my back; not by your hand anyway.”

  Ericca’s heart hadn’t slowed. From the first day they met he had this effect on her. There was no denying it. And that’s what scared her most. Unlike his father, King Saundler Blackhart, and despite his chosen vocation, Tyson was kind, gentle, and caring to everyone. Saundler, his father, though, was by far the most vicious man she knew. No one before or since even came close. He had once said that when it came to pirates it was important to couple fear with discipline. The few ambitious men who had tried to overthrow him discovered that fact the hard way. Each and every one of them wound up impaled on a pike outside the wall and raised high as a warning to anyone with similar ideas.