Free Living in Freefall (Living on the Run Book 1) by Ben Patterson Page A

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,