“Lyrianne?” Farley's deep voice pulled the girl back to herself and her eyes flew open in shock. She'd completely forgotten him. She tried to pull her head back but it seemed the pilot wasn't going to let her. What she did manage to do was to bite down warningly on his tongue to get his attention.
Miguel had been quick enough to follow the game and not bark in stung pride, but nearly choked on his abused tongue when the shadow ballooned into a mammoth weeble-wobble. And by golly, it had a voice.
When he broke the kiss in self-defense, she turned in his arms. Her voice was breathless and shaky. “Farley? What are you doing here?” She wrapped her hands around the muscled arm of the pilot, letting him support her inability to stand on her own. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips tingled as she smiled at her neighbor. “Uh, Farley, this is Miguel...” Her voice trailed off into a mumble after the first two syllables as she thought what an inconvenience such a long name was. Maybe he had a nickname. She'd have to ask... Until then, whether he liked it or not, she was going to call him Miguel.
“Miguel is...” Who was she to say he was? She couldn't very well say who he really was. She said the first thing that popped into her head. “... My future husband. We just came back to finish our salvage of the wreck.”
She stepped away from the strong arms that had been holding her and stopped in front of her neighbor. Farley watched her approach as prey might watch the hypnotizing advance of a swamp viper, his mouth hanging open and his triple chins spasming when he tried to swallow. He gasped when she touched his jumpsuit just below the quivering chins, her finger sliding halfway down the man's massive front to thump his protruding belly. “You weren't thinking to horn in on my salvage, were you, Farley?”
“Uhhhhh.” The big man started to shake his head in denial but was pulled out of her spell when Miguel moved slightly. He pushed her hand away, glared past her at the stranger then shook his head. “Ain't yours if'n I got here first, Lyrie. And whatcha ya mean, 'husband'? Since when? Where'd he come from? He ain't from around here.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Miguel greeted the dirt whale most insincerely, his sensuous mouth curving into a delinquent grin. He left his weapon secured and brought both arms up to encircle Lyrianne quite possessively, and as a little payback, he nipped playfully at the woman's bared shoulder. “I am not from here, no, but I see you have the acquaintance of my little bonita. She is quite the blossom, eh, Farley?”
Upon saying the fat man's name, the pilot's dark eyes hardened and his smile became less welcoming. “If you do not care to take my lovely... bride-to-be at her word, you have only to look at the second crash site. You will see we have already begun the salvage.”
Lyrianne pressed her lips together. He’s not very good at being diplomatic, she thought with irritation. She elbowed the space jockey in the ribs, just hard enough to make it clear she wasn't happy with the tone of his voice, then smiled up at Fat Farley.
“Farley, he's right but I apologize, he could have said it nicer.” She placed her hand on the fat man's arm without thinking in an effort to placate him. He looked down at her with a toothy smile as he briefly studied her face before his gaze dropped down to her half-open coverall front. His breathing became raspy and he licked his lips, causing Lyrianne to shudder as if he'd physically touched her where he'd been staring. Slowly his hungry little eyes returned to her face, the heat in them unmistakable.
“No hard feelings, Lyrie. Throw in two bottles of yer pa's homemade brew and we can make a deal. I'm having a devil of a time with the damned-all Fed security field, anyway. I can't even get inside to see what's what.” He clamped his hand over hers to keep her from moving it from his arm. “You help me turn that field off and I'll split halfsies on what's inside.” He was deliberately ignoring Miguel, who was still right behind Lyrianne, as his gaze slid back to her cleavage.
Seeing as how the woman wasn't really anything to him, least of all some long lost bride, Miguel had very little reason to feel as provoked as he did. Surely if asked he'd chalk it up to the responsibility he felt to his employers. The credit amount on his fighter was astronomical, as all pilots were reminded of at least three-hundred times a day and more if your name was Miguel Arturo. That wasn't even taking into account the importance of the tech on board. It was nothing the enemy should be able to purchase access to under any means. Besides, the fat guy was just asking for it.
“I have a better idea.” Miguel flashed his best smile. “How about you, Mister Farley, take your sausage hand off of my wife before I chop it off and fry it up with butter. I will even share with you, eh? If you make it real fast.” His wink was friendly but his eyes were not. Farley responded by increasing the pressure on her hand and puffing up his enormous chest, breathing through his nose.
Again! He did it again! Lyrianne was seething as she pulled her hand out from under Fat Farley's sweaty palm. Antagonizing her big stupid neighbor was not the way to get anywhere with him. She turned and pushed on Miguel's chest then flipped around and shoved even harder on the blubber mountain that was Farley's.
“You two boys want to pull out your cocks and compare sizes, go ahead. I'm going to see about the salvage.”
She stomped away, almost relishing the stabs of pain that shot up her leg with each hard step. When she turned to glare at the two men, she was furious. “And there's no deal, Farley. You ever look at me like that again and I'll gouge your eyes out. You want to apologize to me, then you're welcome to share what I choose to share with you. Of the wreckage, I mean. Otherwise, go home.” She turned her ire on Miguel. “As for you. You talk too much and I'm not your wife.” She almost forgot what she'd told Farley. “Yet, anyway. Come with me or wait here, I don't care.”
Miguel hid his faint surprise well, but not his amusement. Doffing an imaginary hat at the blustering buffoon, he just couldn’t help the cheesy grin and the whole na-na-na-boo-boo attitude his sister loathed so much. He liked to say he was just a kid at heart; she liked to say he was just childish.
Following in his not-really soon-to-be wife’s wake, the pilot was in good cheer, as if he’d forgotten he was stranded behind enemy lines. And there she was! Smoking and popping and reeking of burnt engine grease and fried circuitry.
“There you are, you old broad!” he crowed as he picked up the pace, soon overtaking the farm girl. “Just like I left ya,” he grinned, still talking to the groaning wreckage. Something shifted inside the craft and it tilted just a hair his way.
“Now, now, don’t you go lookin’ all accusing like at me, querida. You could not handle my moves.” Clearly still talking to his dying craft, the pilot started around the narrow nose of the fighter, its snout buried almost a foot into the ground it had plowed up. A dirt clod lodged in a crevasse where the conical point had cracked upon impact. It was a wonder it hadn’t been snapped completely off.
Ducking under a smoking wing, Miguel had his gloves out from the back pocket he’d stuffed them in, and was pulling them on with his teeth. The whole top part of the plane was gone, along with most of its important guts, safely tucked away in the woman’s barn. But there was one thing that hadn’t been ejected along with the pilot and the escape capsule.
Taking a small hop, he caught hold of the smooth edge where once a viewport had been, and then swung himself up to sit on the lip of the carved-out vessel. The acrid smoke now of a height with him, forced him to cough into his glove and turn his head to the side. He’d have to work fast if he wanted to get out of there with his pink lungs still pink.
“Stay back!” he called down to the girl, his voice muffled and distorted. He coughed again and pressed his nose shut, trying to take shallow breaths in through his mouth. He hoped the woman had the sense to listen because they wouldn’t have much time once he’d engaged the self-destruct.
Lyrianne had been looking around, noticing that her neighbor's hovertruck spotlights were now off. They'd seen them come on from a distance but Farley must have shut them down before he'd gone to investig
ate the noise of their arrival. She thought about turning them back on but negated the idea. If anyone else was on their way, the absence of the bright light would serve their advantage more than it would any interlopers.
She'd been pulled out of her thoughts when Miguel ordered her to stay back. She watched his efforts to breathe without coughing, giving her a graphic idea of how bad the smoke was. She wasn't too keen on trying to breathe it but she also was of a mind to follow him in just because he'd told her not to.
Her hesitance however had given Fat Farley a chance to catch up to her as she stood a good ten feet away from the wreckage. “You gonna let him call you that?”
She'd already taken another step toward the downed ship but the question from Farley had stopped her. “What?” She turned to look at the big man who was wheezing and puffing from his attempted rapid walk. “What did he call me?” She was really puzzled and curious. Had Miguel thrown some insult out about her after she'd left the two of them behind?
Farley tilted his head. “He called you a broad. You said you don't like being called things like broad, or skirt, or piece of a-”
“Okay, Farley, I know what you're talking about.” Lyrianne stopped him from continuing with the list of terms men used to describe women, some condescending, some insulting, some just plain weird.
She bit her lower lip and turned to look at the spot where Miguel had disappeared into the smoking remains of his “broad”. She'd figured out pretty quickly that he'd been talking to his ship since she'd often heard her father and brothers talking to the farm equipment in that same way. But, thank the stars, Farley had thought he'd been addressing her. For just a moment, she found herself wishing he had been using that tone with her. That was not what she should be thinking though, so she covered it with another bout of annoyance with him. Stupid Fed fly jockey, she thought. He could have easily given away who he was if it had been anybody brighter than the one who had heard it.
“Well, you know how it is, Farley. I guess he was never taught manners and proper respect for women.” The irony of talking to her big neighbor about someone else's manners and respect wasn't lost on her. It was then strengthened as her expression suddenly turned to disgust. She moved some distance away from her enormous neighbor, waving a hand in front of her face.
“Farley! Speaking of manners. Gag! I've told you before. Give a girl some warning when you're going to break wind. I think the inside of the metal carcass there has cleaner air than out here with you right now.”
Farley grinned yet managed to look contrite at the same time, not moving and obviously not minding the quality of the air now surrounding him – or he was immune to it. “Sorry.” He said it because he knew she expected him to but he didn't put much sincerity behind it. “Say, where'd your fancy boy go, anyway? Is he in there shuttin' down the security field?”
Staring back at the ship, she wondered the same thing. What was he doing? “I don't know. Yeah, I guess maybe he is.” She hoped, if he was looking for a working communicator or beacon, he found it soon. It didn't look at all healthy to be inside there.
She took several more steps toward the fighter. “Maybe I should see if he needs help.”
What Lyrianne and their oversized friend did not know, was that the ship was attuned to her pilot’s unique resonance, as all of the starfighters of this class were. It was not just a precaution for the present eventuality, but a way for the pilot to communicate his actions even before his own body had registered the commands from his brain.
Miguel had triggered the release of the security field just by his proximity; there wasn’t anything he had to do to get into the craft’s interior. Except for jump in, which he was doing right then. The pit was like a hollowed out canoe, deep enough that he had to reach for the lip to pull himself back out when it was time.
Unaware of his audience outside the screaming metal wreck, the pilot had to stop moving when his ship bellowed and tipped a few inches forward on the already beleaguered nose. The sudden tilt nearly threw him into the cave where the HUD used to sit.
A gasp escaped from Lyrianne as she saw the ship take a groaning tilt before finding its balance again. She knew she should stay back but, he was taking so long. Wasn't he? She'd lost track of just how long he'd been in there; it seemed too long.
She tried to reason with herself that if he was taking so long because he'd been hurt, or overcome by the smoke, she would be of little help. For one thing, she'd left the flashlight back at the mule and it was dark, the moons still not above the tree line. They were hardly providing light to see by outside and would be no help inside the ship, especially with the heavy smoke. Besides, who was he to her? Nobody. Right? Even as she was arguing with herself, however, she was moving forward, pulling on her leather gloves to protect her hands from the heated metal.
“Stay here, Farley. I'm just going to be sure he's okay. I don't want to let him get away from me by dying before he signs that marriage contract.”
Farley snorted, the sound reminiscent of the old hog who used to be lord of the yard when Lyrianne was growing up. The girl couldn't help but respond to the sound; she was laughing silently when she turned to follow the way Miguel had gone.
She managed to pull herself up to the lip where she'd last seen him to squat precariously at the edge of the dark interior. Leaning forward she called out. “Hello? Miguel? Are you okay? Hello?” She leaned a little farther, trying to force her vision to pierce the darkness, when the ship tilted just a fraction more before settling again. She was suddenly falling in with a yelp of surprise.
Chapter 5
She didn’t hit solid metal as she had expected, but what she did hit was solid enough and unmistakable. This was the what? Fourth time now that his arms found their way around her?
“What are you doing in here?” His accent thickened much like the smoke and he was soon coughing again. “We need to get out of here. Now!”
Turning her with his hands, they found her hips and took hold. “Grab the edge when I lift you. Ready?”
She'd taken in a lungful of the foul air when she'd fallen and she was coughing too much to answer. Instead she nodded and held her hands up, trying to see the dim opening through the smoke induced tears stinging her eyes.
She let him lift her until she felt the rim. Her hands gripped the edge tightly and she pulled herself out. She had a lot of strength for her size thanks to years of manual labor and she made it out without much difficulty. She immediately turned while wiping at her eyes, managing to speak through another coughing spasm.
“Okay, I'm up. Do you need me to help you?” She wondered what the huge hurry was. It didn't seem the ship was going to go anywhere but a little more topsy-turvy, still she'd wait until they were both out before she questioned his urgency.
Before she could ask him again, he was hauling himself up out of the wreckage, one of his boots squeaking on the metal as he braced himself to jump to the ground. “Down, get down!” He balanced himself and reached for her, intending to bring her with him if he had to.
She suddenly got that stubborn, contrary look again then scowled at his outstretched hand. “Not until you tell me what the hurry is. And if you found what you were looking for.” She couldn't believe he was still trying to boss her around. And he wasn't even thanking her for risking the nasty smoke that burned going in and coming out. Her throat hurt now all because she'd tried to help him, though she still wasn't sure why.
His eyes flared wide and he looked faintly murderous. Was she seriously going to pull the stubborn act on him now? When his craft was about to become a smudge on the landscape? He didn’t ask permission, he just grabbed her by the elbow and yanked her against him, stepping off the side of the doomed vessel and dragging her with him at first, then switching to carrying her.
Something in that scary look he turned on her, or his body language, or – she wasn't sure what – told her to not fight him. She listened to it, allowing him to carry her away from the fighter. She'd give him
what-for once he put her down and explained himself, she decided.
Farley had watched the stranger manhandle Lyrianne away from the wreckage in a hurry. All he could think of was that the barrier that had kept him out of the ship was down now. This was his chance to get in there and take first dibs on something, or many somethings, while they were busy with each other. He waddled at his quickened pace toward the promise of credits for salvage or maybe the lucrative finders fees for the high tech stuff the government would claim. Good fortune, he was sure, was in his near future.
Neither Miguel nor Lyrianne spotted the farmer with a dream as he pushed his bulk closer to the ship. By now, it had canted close enough to the ground that the heavyset Farley could wheeze and claw his way up the fuselage and onto a wing. Thanks to the heat resistant metal, the lean aircraft didn’t burn the flesh from the enormous intruder’s hands but it was still hot enough to demand caution.
Huffing and puffing and grumbling, Farley managed to get his knees on the wing but slipped when the heat seared through the thin material at his shins. With a howl swallowed up by the racket the plane was making, Farley fell straight back off of the wreck, smacking forcefully against the ground hard enough he should have left his own crater. As it was, his follow-up scream was loud enough to break the sound barrier and brought the pilot to a skidding halt, just at the edge of the trees.
“Dios mio,” Miguel choked, setting Lyrianne on her feet. He barely had her standing before he was running back across the field. Heart pounding in his ears, the adrenaline jockey should have felt a surge of excitement knowing he was racing the clock, but he wasn’t a stupid man; just a semi-loco one. That Farley was a big dude…
Reaching the vessel faster than he’d run from it, Miguel performed a running slide that took him skating under the wing and slamming up against the side of the plane that had tipped so far down that he could stand up and look inside the empty cockpit. Sure enough, the little warning light was strobing, deep down in the nose of the fated ship.
Catch a Falling Star Page 4
