Catch a Falling Star by Fay McDermott Read Free Book Online

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
     investigate 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