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

after all,
been staring at Ericca. Resolute, Mara pushed her doubts away, and turned her
attention from the whore to Josh. He was being unusually quiet, so she used
that as an excuse to divert attention paid her, to the boy. Up to that point, the
fifteen-year-old did little more than prod his food and stare at nothing at
all.
    Mara leaned closer to ask softly “Joshua, this is your
favorite meal; aren’t you hungry?”
    “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. I was just thinking.” He looked at
his plate—it was his favorite meal. To him, Mara’s stews were never a
chore, and normally he would savor every bite. But he looked uneasy— apprehensive .
The cast in his eyes said he felt something was out of place. Whatever it was
seemed to be nagging at him.
    Mara looked at Jordon who was mindlessly slurping away. Mara
cleared her throat and when Jordon looked up, she shot her eyes toward Josh.
    Jordon wiped his mouth, leaned back, and cupped his chin
with a hand as he studied the boy his mother had drawn his attention to. His
eyes stopped and stayed on Joshua which seemed only to add to the boy’s unease.
“What’s bothering you, son?” Jordon said after a moment. Jordon’s ‘captain
persona’ fit worse than his grandfather’s old suit. It wasn’t much, but it was
all he had. Moving his half-empty plate away, he dropped his hand from his
face, and lean on the table.
    “Jordy, I think he’s troubled by these captured ships.”
Rachel said before Josh could answer. She matched her brother’s concerned gaze
with her own.
    Josh looked up at Rachel, shifted in his seat and, although
he didn’t take his eyes off her, he spoke to Captain Kori. “After talking to
your sister—”
    “Race!” she snapped.
    “Yes. Anyway. I believe those ships are far more than they
appear, that’s all.” He dropped his eyes to his plate and took a small bite of
food, then shifted in his seat still ill at ease.
    “Really, Chisel?” Race interjected. “I didn’t think they
were much of anything at all.”
    Josh glanced at the captain, then at her. “Exactly, Rachel.
But shouldn’t they be?”
    “Race,” she muttered to correct him. “Well, yes, Chisel. I
thought they’d be better than what they are.”
    Now clearly irritated, probably with her, Josh glanced
around the table. “If they were captured by someone else, where would they be
heading right now, Rachel ?”
    “Race!”
    “Uh huh. Where would they be heading?”
    “Right where we’re going,” said Riley. “To Providence.”
    “Rachel looked over both of these ships, Riley,” Josh told
him. “She neither amounted to much. You heard her. Even the security code was
some old Binary Fortran segment with a Quadratic underlayment. It took her
longer to break it because she didn’t expect it to be so out of date.”
    Riley shrugged. “So? These days the Confederacy isn’t making
very many advancements. Is that FrontPage news?”
    With a plea in his eyes for help, Josh looked to Captain Kori,
but the man just leaned back in his seat and listened to the crew discuss the
matter without his input.
    Josh turned back to Riley. “If it were anyone else, wouldn’t
they be laughing all the way back to Providence?”
    “That’s what I’m doing,” Riley said with a toothy
grin.
    “And therein lies the problem. Right now we’re being way too
predictable.”
    Mara set her fork aside. She understood Joshua’s tone and
his misgivings. “Josh, you suspect a trap?”
    He nodded. “Yes ma’am. Consider this. If Rachel—”
    Race slammed a fist on the table and glowered at him.
    “Had she discovered a new and unusual component, Rachel would have pulled it out,” Josh continued as Race rolled her eyes, “. . .
and we would've ditched the ships. But she found nothing, so we bring the ships
back to our handlers intact just so Providence HQ can check them over
themselves.”
    Now intrigued, Jordon focused on the boy. “Yes, Josh? Go
on.”
    “At present, where are those two