* * * * *
There was no pain. Shouldn't there be pain? Unless he was dead and his body just hadn't let him go yet. Maybe he couldn't find Heaven at all from space. That would suck. He'd had such plans for Heaven...
Cracking an eye open proved nothing, he was still in the dark. The musty, lizardy smell from the squid masked any other odors but when he wiggled his fingers he felt a mild resistance. That was good. If being encased in a cube of impact-resistant gelatin was a good thing. It reminded him of his sister's weird jell-o desserts, with the fruit bits suspended in them. Gross.
First things first. Get out of the gel. Miguel tried to move his foot, looking for the tiny pedal that was supposed to release the antidote. Good thing I'm not claustrophobic. His breath snorted out and the squid's fingers tightened around his head, the breathing tube tickling his throat and aggravating his gag reflex. Now he was going to panic.
Using all the strength he could muster in his reclined position, the downed pilot managed to squeeze his boot deeper and kick the cramped space tucked beneath the console. A muffled hiss rewarded his efforts and within seconds, the gelatin encasing him was broken down into a harmless vapor.
Still in relative darkness, he could now see smears of gray. He hoped the visor hadn't been damaged. Moving his hands, he felt around for the lock along the seam. Finding the mechanism intact, he disengaged the lock, holding his breath when it stuck before the window gave a hydraulic hiss and eased open.
It wasn't exactly comforting and he didn't know what he'd expected but somehow he felt a little deflated when it wasn't fluorescent lights, or much light at all that greeted his return from the dead.
Unbuckling from his harness, Miguel stifled a groan, his body telling him that despite the shock-absorbent gel, he'd still been plenty rattled by the crash. Putting his hands on the sides of the pod, he hoisted himself up onto the rim and swung his legs over the side. One hand moved automatically to the secured weapon in the leg rig, his head turning to take in his surroundings quickly, half expecting to be overwhelmed by an unfriendly audience.
“Where...?” Talking into the squid made it squirm and his stomach heaved, trying to dislodge the breathing tube. A moment of queer anxiety made the pilot grab for the pressure points, just beneath the top arms, forcing the parasite to release him. The tube slipped out and his breakfast followed the thing to the floor, his knee hitting a bed of straw.
Catching his breath, Miguel wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and watched as the squid curled in on itself. He'd acted rashly without knowing the oxygen content around him. That could be him dying on the floor right now.
Getting back to his feet and shaking only a little, he loosened his helmet and let it fall beside his boot, then ran a gloved hand through his sweat damp hair and tried to get a read on his surroundings. The LED lenses over his eyes had protected them from the impact gel but otherwise they were proving useless. Somehow they'd been damaged or he was just too far away from a viable signal.
Heavy beams were high overhead and a lamp hung by a set of double doors. Scuffing his boot across the wood floor, he inhaled deeply to clear the musty odor from his nose and to pick up on any tells around him.
“I am in a barn,” he said, his throat croaking from the squid's feeding tube. For a boy raised on a cattle farm, there was no hiding it. A barn was a barn was a barn, no matter what was in it and what planet it was on. “How did I get in a barn...?”
Looking back up, he tried to make out the shape of the ceiling, cursing his lens implants for crapping out on him when he needed them most. Obviously he hadn't come through the roof so his capsule must have been relocated from the crash site. But who would do that and where were they now?
Reaching again for his leg rig, he unsnapped the safety on his weapon and pulled it into his hand, feeling immeasurably better at its weight. He needed to get out of this barn and find a signal to put out a distress call.
Walking stiffly towards the big barn door, Miguel made minimal noise, assuming he was in hostile territory because anything else was likely to get him killed for good this time. Getting the door to slide open without creaking was nigh impossible but he slipped out without being detected and breathed in fresh, clean air. Yeah, he was definitely planetside. No dome could produce air this pure. The shape of the house nearby confirmed it. He'd seen plenty of this sort on the info vids and even in the relative darkness of a sky free from electric lighting, he could tell what he was looking at, just by its silhouette and the lights in several of the windows.
If he was a betting man, and he was, he'd bet his sister's firstborn that some poor farmer had dragged off his pod hoping to make a little money from it. The hick probably didn't even know the pod was from a larger vessel and had a pilot in it. If he had, he'd have tried to crack that nut surely, if for no other reason than to eliminate the rightful owner of the property he'd just stolen.
Curling his lip derisively, the dusky skinned Terran crept quietly across the yard towards the house. He was about to burst somebody's bubble in a bad way.
Chapter 3
Just inside the house, Lyrianne was ready to head back to the barn. She carried the hand torch though she hadn't turned it on yet in an effort to save its fuel cells. Once they were depleted, she had no way to pay for more; if she could even find any in town, that is. For most other things, she'd given up on conserving, determined to use them until they no longer worked before going to the alternatives all farms had in place.
Her mind was on the idea of going full retro with oil lamps and wood stove cooking as she stepped outside, turning to lock the front door without looking beyond the porch. She'd started locking the door after her next to the nearest neighbor, Fat Farley, had let himself in while she was out tending to the stock. He'd nearly succeeded in overpowering her, despite his drunken state, before she'd managed to knock him out. Even his week-long stay in the town lock-up and his sweaty, slobbery apology didn't make up for the scare he'd given her or pay to replace the lamp she'd broken over his head.
“Disgusting.” She shivered as she remembered the feel of his clammy, meaty hands on her, his moonshine-tinged breath enough to gag an ox. She turned, the flashlight in one hand, the other hefting the heavy club she'd taken to carrying when going out of the house after dark. That incident had taught her a caution she'd never given a thought to before. She was a woman who was virtually alone, far from the nearest source of possible help if someone else got it into their head to take advantage. She knew how lucky she'd been to escape the first time.
Once she stepped off the last porch step, she raised her eyes toward the barn and squeaked in surprise as she dropped the light and swung the club two-handed out in front of her. “Who are you? What do you want?” She could barely make him out beyond identifying a tall shadowy male shape coming straight towards her. Her bad ankle gave out on her as she shifted her weight to it, causing her to hiss out a breath in pain. The heavy wood in her hands didn't waver, however.
“I think I am asking you the same question, querida. Who are you?” She didn’t recognize the voice and certainly not the accent.
“I'm... “ She started to answer automatically then stopped and raised the club higher. “Never mind who I am.” He was a stranger, of that much she was certain, though she hadn't yet connected him to her salvaged capsule. “This is my land. That's all you need to know.”
Intending to walk around him so she could attempt to defend not only the house but the barn, she first squatted down to retrieve the hand torch. She held the club pointed at him with one hand while the other swept the ground for the light. She didn't dare take her eyes off him.
She found it finally, her hand closing around the metal cylinder while her thumb found the switch. The powerful white light it emitted traced a path to the barn and the partially opened door. She swung the light around to the man, sweeping it over him before settling on his face, deliberately aiming the bright beam at his eyes. His clothing and his accent helped her t
ired brain to put two and two together.
“You! You're the Fed pig- , the pilot, aren't you?” It was spat out like an accusation. “I thought you were dead.” She had to use the club as a crutch to help her stand up again and her final words came out more breathless than she'd hoped they'd be. Damn! Had she twisted the stupid ankle again when he'd scared her?
The harsh light forced him to turn his head to the side, but not for long. He held up a free hand to shield his eyes from the glare. “Do you mind?” he asked, the sarcasm evident even in the liquid candy smoothness of his voice. “Where is the rest of my ship? You have it stashed nearby?”
“No, I don't mind at all.” She waved the light back and forth though it never moved from his face before refocusing on his eyes. She couldn't help noticing his dark hair and a face that was very well put together. Then there were his eyes, dark yet shining in the torch's light. He was certainly handsome... Terran but very exotic... male... nice. What else did he ask? Oh, yes. “The rest of the ship that used to be yours is – elsewhere and not your worry.” She made sure to emphasize that, whether he liked it or not, it was no longer “his” ship.
Though she didn't let down her guard, she did continue to use the club as a crutch while she thought. What was she supposed to do with him? Send him away? That might be best, but for some reason she found herself asking him a question instead. “Why aren't you dead? There didn't seem to be much control behind your entry into the atmosphere from what I could tell. And based on the wreckage, none at all in the landing.”
The man grinned, showing very white teeth. “I am, let us say, very lucky. You can take me to my ship, yeah?” He wasn’t acknowledging the club as if he thought it inconsequential, or maybe he just wasn’t afraid of her wielding it.
“I appreciate your… finding me, but I need to be get back to my ship.” Now he emphasized ownership of the starfighter. “I am in your debt, of course.” His hand moved down by his leg but it was impossible to see what he was doing. “Perhaps you can keep the pod for your kind assistance.”
“There's no 'perhaps' about it. I don't need your permission to keep it.” She frowned, suddenly not so sure of herself. Was he going to cause her trouble over salvage rights? Did he have a right to fight her claim? She didn't remember hearing how the law worked when the person in the ship survived. Wait! It didn't matter. He was Federation and this was Alliance territory. He was probably considered salvage as much as his ship was by the Alliance, she realized. She also realized she didn't like how that thought made her feel.
It was an uneasy affiliation between the United Alliance of Free Planets and her world. First of all, big laugh on the 'Free' part. They hadn't had a choice to join. It had been a unilateral decision on the part of the Alliance who were greedily grabbing up any sector of space they could to gain trade and resource advantage over the Federation. Second, her planet was the only primarily Terran colony in the sector and only a handful in the conglomerate known as the Alliance. Fortunately, because of the prejudice those in control of the government had toward Terrans, Earth-born or not, her planet was never considered worth bothering about. For years the Alliance ignored them and they were mostly able to ignore the Alliance. Now, however, they, like other previously forgotten outlying worlds, had become a handy supply of warm bodies to populate Alliance battle cruisers and ground troops.
That reminded her of her brothers and that made her direct anger at the Federation pilot, even if he wasn't on the side that had probably taken them away. She raised the club and waved it at him. “Go find it yourself. If you can.” She slowly spaced out her next words as if he was a little slow to understanding. “Others have most likely carted it off by now – in pieces – as salvage.”
The man’s grin faltered and the harsh light showed the muscle that clenched in his jaw. His smile was less sincere and there was no mistaking the aggression when he turned his body to face her squarely. “I am sure I did not make myself clear, querida. Please show me to my ship. Where it crashed. Where you found the pod. Then I will be out of your hair, yeah?”
He couldn’t see her, not the details of her anyway, not with the hand torch blinding him. She was just a faceless entity to him; an obstacle in his way. He wasn’t going to ask nicely again.
He wanted to leave. She wanted him to leave. So, he should leave. On his own. Lyrianne used the club to aid her in turning so she could point the light beam in the direction of the crash. She didn't seem worried about him anymore, having turned her back to him.
“See that glow out there?” It wasn't very bright but in the darkness it was visible among the trees. “That's where you need to head. It shouldn't take you more than three quarters of an hour or so of hiking to get there. But there's probably someone there, most likely already dismantling it.” She seemed to reconsider her certainty. “Though they might still be waiting for it to cool down. It was on fire and there was an awful lot of popping, sizzling and exploding going on inside it...“ Just a tiny exaggeration for effect, she thought. “I wouldn't recommend getting too close for another reason, though. Folks can be pretty aggressive about their claims.”
She was staring out at the glow, wishing now she'd had a way to tow the whole thing back with her. She'd forgotten the Federation pilot while she started making a mental list of all the things she could have gotten with the star metal and technology she'd had to leave behind.
Her inattention proved a lesson she wouldn’t soon forget when she was suddenly disarmed, her club thrown back towards the barn. The arm that encircled her waist was thick and unforgiving; the hard point pressed beneath her ribs even less so.
“I do beg your pardon, querida. I truly do. But I think you can understand that I need to get back to my ship if I am to get off this dustbowl, yes? And I need a quicker way to get there than my feet.” Sounding infuriatingly amused, the pilot’s breath was warm on the back of her neck when he added, “You will not provoke me, eh? I think that would be very bad for you.”
Provoke him? The young woman's reaction was a rise in her temper. She'd show him provoke! When he'd grabbed her, she'd tensed up and she worked on that first rather than answer him. Progressively relaxing muscles from head to toes, she took slow, even breaths then carefully shifted weight to her bad foot. She then braced herself for the pain as she lifted the other leg to kick back and up, simultaneously striking up toward his head with the metal shaft of the flashlight.
Close as he was, he felt her muscles contracting, anticipating a strike but not knowing where it was coming from. He managed to take the foot to his inner thigh and not the groin but the flashlight connected solidly with his jaw and his head snapped to the side. He let her go and stumbled back, the pistol in his hand now pointing at the ground.
When he released her, she was forced to put all her weight on the ankle and that brought tears to her eyes. Still, she managed to put the other foot down and bring the bad one up, hopping quickly into a turn to face him. The triumph she'd felt fell away as she looked at him.
“I'm sorry! Are you hurt?” She was shocked that the flashlight had connected. That was the first time she'd ever hit anyone other than occasionally, accidentally, clocking one of her brothers when they were rough-housing. Fat Farley didn't count. He'd deserved it. She put a hand out toward the Fed pilot, feeling guilty. That's when she noticed the gun. Her eyes opened wide and she gasped. “You... you... That's a gun! I thought it was... ”
Though she tried to put her weight back on her bad foot, she quickly realized it wasn't a good idea. Desperate to put space between them, she tried to hop backwards, afraid to look away. It took only a couple of hops before she came down on loose soil and lost her footing, landing on her butt with a jarring impact to her tailbone and spine. It was enough to bring out a cry of pain and more tears.
The flashlight had fallen so that its light was now directed at her though she ignored it. For the first time he could get a good look at his adversary. The long braid she usually wore had come loose earlier,
her hair freed to surround her head in a cloud of reddish brown waves, leaves and twigs caught in tangles. The tan overalls she wore, as well as her cheeks and forehead, had smears of oil and soot from the crash site. Light blue eyes blinked in the torch's light, red rimmed and betraying the pain she was still feeling from the injured ankle and a freshly bruised backside. Her thick, dark eyelashes were wet from the tears.
The pilot hesitated seeing her like that; his snide remark dying in his throat. Rubbing the heel of his palm against his throbbing jaw, he worked it from side to side. He was lucky she hadn’t broken it. Kind of served him right, he supposed. He had stuck a gun in her side though the perverse side of him wanted to know exactly what she’d thought he was threatening her with.
Eyeing the woman more closely, Miguel realized that this woman was as human as he was and not alien as he’d first assumed. Terran colony planet though it was, he hadn’t been convinced they were sharing the same building blocks of life. That wealth of soft looking hair and those corn flower blue eyes confirmed it, however. With a slight grin cocking the unhurt side of his mouth, he lowered his hand from his face and offered it to her.
Determined not to allow him to think she was crying, let alone afraid of him, Lyrianne wiped at her eyes then drew her legs up so she could cradle the throbbing ankle with both hands. Her glare as well as her posture, despite her vulnerable position, shouted her defiance of him.
“You stuck a gun in my ribs!” She was having trouble accepting that it had actually been a gun. She'd been mesmerized by his closeness, she was embarrassed to admit. And, heaven help her, his voice and his hot breath on her neck, so different from drunk Fat Farley's, had been making her weak in the knees. Almost from his first words, she hadn't sensed any real danger from him and she'd actually been behaving, she realized, with a mindset that put him more into the category of a good guy than an enemy. Was she crazy? Hell yes, she decided, she probably was. But so was he! “You threatened to shoot me!”
Catch a Falling Star Page 2
