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

he briefly hit the trigger,
wincing at every painful thrum. “WOW! Look at that! Sis, bring your tracking
scope up.”
    Ericca hit a switch, and her scope extended from behind her
head and dropped down in front of her face shield. She raised her visor and
pressed her face into the rubber-rimmed monitor. The screen came on in front of
her eyes. “Ready.”
    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