Falling

  A Girl From Above Prequel

  Pippa DaCosta

  Contents

  Copyright

  Summary

  1. Falling

  Betrayal. Chapter One: #1001

  Betrayal. Chapter Two: Caleb

  Also by Pippa DaCosta

  About the Author

  ‘Girl From Above: Falling’

  #0.5 (Prequel) The 1000 Revolution

  Pippa DaCosta

  Urban Fantasy & Science Fiction Author

  Subscribe to her mailing list here.

  “Falling” Copyright (c) 2015, Pippa DaCosta. All rights reserved.

  Originally published, in a modified form, in 'The Galaxy Chronicles' (2015), edited by Jeff Seymour, part of 'The Future Chronicles', series editor Samuel Peralta (www.futurechronicles.net)

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictions and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  v.1

  Summary

  “Go to Jotunheim, they said. Easy money, they said. I should have known nothing comes easy in the nine systems.”

  Trapped on a scrappers rig with a woman he’s been hired to kill, ex-con Caleb Shepperd is beginning to wonder if this job might be his last. You don’t get by in the black without some tough choices. Caleb’s decision to let her live, could cost him his life.

  Falling

  Do you know what the biggest lie in the nine systems is? It can’t get any worse. It can always get worse. Unless you’re dead. I wasn’t dead, yet. But I’d soon wish I was.

  “This is your fault, Captain.” Francisca’s voice bounced around the empty silo’s innards. She tugged again on the rope knotted around our wrists, yanking my arms and bumping her back against mine. She’d said, “Captain,” but what she’d really meant to say was, “Asshole.” It would have been a step up from the names she’d been calling me since we’d officially met a few hours previously, right before we’d been thrown inside a water-storage silo.

  Shafts of rust-orange light pierced the dark, spilling in through what looked like phase-bullet holes. At least we wouldn’t suffocate. Sweat beaded at my hairline and crawled down my cheek. “I’m not sure how this is my fault when you’re the one who told Jin exactly where he could shove his rig.”

  She muttered something that sounded distinctly Spanish and fidgeted, elbowing me in the ribs. This close, she smelled like lavender soap—that cheap brand fleet used. Much of fleet’s used stock found its way to the out-of-orbit recycling rigs—scrappers, like this one in the Jotunheim system. All the crap in the nine washed up here.

  A smile pulled at the corner of my mouth. If she’d just relaxed, I could’ve slipped the ties, but she hadn’t sat still since Jin’s guys had dumped us in the silo. If she kept wriggling, my thoughts would soon start a’wandering. It wasn’t every day I was tied to a woman, even under duress. For her, anyway.

  “You’re supposed to be some kind of criminal mastermind, right? Jin’s paying you for a reason. How are you going to get us out of this?” She twisted her head, glaring over her shoulder.

  She must have been thinking of another Caleb Shepperd. “Criminal, yes. Mastermind, not so much.” I was a fixer. Jin had paid me to fix her. The old man didn’t like new and unknown folk in his backwater corner of the nine. She’d been taking the prime smuggling runs from his tight cadre of usual guys by undercutting and outflying them. Making waves, Jin had called it. Exactly why the old guy wanted her gone didn’t matter. I’d do anything for credits, but after I caught up with her on Ganymede and shadowed her runs between there and the Jotunheim system, it became pretty clear Jin shouldn’t have been hiring assholes to kill her. He should have been recruiting her.

  Fran lifted her head, bumped it against mine and growled out a curse.

  “Sit still,” I grumbled, digging my fingers into the ties to test their strength.

  I’d seen her flare up in front of Jin like she owned the rig, not the other way around. She had to be outright nuts or stupid to rattle him. Maybe both. Although seeing Old Man Jin lose his sedate cool was almost worth the trip to his silo.

  She was wriggling again. “I’ll die of old age before you get to the rescuing,” she said. Her hands twitched, and the ties fell away.

  Tingling rippled up my arms. I rolled my shoulders, working out the stiffness. Fran was already on her feet, tapping the point of her dagger against her thigh. Dark shadows crowded her face, hollowing her cheeks and pooling in her eyes. In the light, her features—when not snarling—were an alluring combination of Spanish elegance, full lips, and sharp cheekbones. Soft and hard. But in the silo’s smothering dark, the only pretty thing about her was the sly spark in her eyes. I’d seen that spark in her sideways glances when she’d unleashed a verbal tirade. It was there now, like she knew she was better than me in every way and I was something she’d like to scrape from her boot. She was probably right.

  “You had a knife the whole time?” I asked, massaging my arms through my flight-suit sleeves, trying to work some feeling back in to the muscles.

  She’d been frisked. Which meant she’d had the blade in her boots, or somewhere real close and personal.

  “I’m always armed, Captain.” She held out her hand. “Unlike you, I haven’t survived in the black by looks alone.”

  Something told me if I took her hand, I’d be in for more trouble, not less. I should kill her. Keep it simple. Get away clean. It’d be a whole lot easier that way. Her tank top revealed enough muscle to show she’d put up a decent fight, and she was quick too. She’d proven that when clocking one of Jin’s heavies in the face. But she wasn’t a brawler. Jin’s guys had kicked her legs out from under her and manhandled her under control in seconds. Her tongue was clearly sharp though—and her wits too.

  I took her hand and let her yank me to my feet. Soft hands, smooth skin. That lean figure of hers was trained, not earned through manual labor. She still had the dagger out. I’d run a check on her dataprint when tracking her, and there was nothing in her past to suggest she’d use the weapon on me. Still, life in the black changed people.

  Running a hand through my hair dislodged bits of grit. I wiped the sheen of sweat from my face and considered all the questions I needed answers to. Things hadn’t exactly gone to plan. “What’s a girl like you doing smuggling for scrappers?”

  She made a dismissive pfft sound. “What’s an ex-fleet captain doing hiding out in Jotunheim?”

  I turned away and scratched at the back of my neck, pretending to examine the silo while hiding my face. So she knew I wasn’t just the captain of a tugship. She knew who I was—who I’d once been. If I told her why I was keeping a low profile, she wouldn’t believe me. Or she would. And then I’d have half of fleet’s armada bearing down on my ass. I’d kept off their radar this long. Some backwater smart-ass bitch wasn’t going to change that.

  Expression back under control, I smiled—my default response when challenged. “Get me drunk when we get off this stinking rig and maybe I’ll tell you.”

  “When we get out this silo I’m leaving your worthless ass and this godforsaken corner of the nine behind.” She tucked her dagger back inside her boot and straightened. Her smile was a slippery thing, and when combined with her sly glances and her down-the-nose looks, it made it quite clear she had me pegged. She couldn’t be much older than me. Maybe midtwenties, but by the way she carried herself, chin up, shoulders back, she was a woman used to being right.

  “Youngest fleet captain to earn his stripes?” She huffed a laugh when all she got from me was a scowl. “Don’t look so worried. Doesn’t matter who you are out here.” She looked up and examined the silo’s cap. “Boost me.”

  She wasn’t getting out of here without my “worthless ass,” but I wasn’t escaping anytime soon without hers either. The silo cap would push off easily enough. But what was to stop her leaving me once she’d climbed out? She already knew I was ex-fleet and Jin’s fixer. She’d probably already decided she knew my type. Shit, even I’d leave me behind. If she suspected I was being paid to kill her, she’d have already tried to stick me with her dagger.

  “I don’t think so.” I scratched at my chin. “I’m stronger than you. Boost me, and I’ll lift you out.”

  In the gloom I could just make out how one of her dark eyebrows lifted. “And I’m supposed to trust you?”

  “Do you see anyone else here? I sure as shit ain’t trusting you, honey.”

  “Why did Jin put you in here?” She started circling the silo, and me, kicking at the desiccated garbage strewn about the floor.

  I swallowed, or tried to. Machine dust tainted the air, lacing my tongue with a metallic aftertaste. “Because I’m the asshole who tracked you through three systems and two jump gates, watching you profit from his loss. By the time I told him what I knew, he’d decided he didn’t need me no more. Jin likes to make inconvenient people—like you—disappear.” There were a dozen silos like ours in the scrappers yard, and I’d bet credits on some of them harboring more of Jin’s enemies. Couple that with all the heavy cru shing and metal-harvesting machinery, and it was almost too easy to grind human body parts to dust and scatter them in the black. I’d seen the old bastard smile while doing it.

  She stopped her walk and faced me, closer this time.

  “You can glare at me all day,” I said. “But the longer you do, the more time Jin has to strip both our ships clean and think up new and exciting ways of dealing with nuisance smugglers.” Rolling up each sleeve, I checked I had the cap directly above. “Boost me, honey.”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  “C’mon.” I beckoned her forward with a curl of my fingers, enjoy the way her scowl touched me in all the right places. “I don’t bite. Unless you want me to.”

  She sauntered close and cupped her hands between us. “Pinche idiota.”

  I didn’t speak a word of Spanish, but I sure liked how it sounded on her lips. “Ready?” I settled my hands on her shoulders, surprised at her softness. I’d expected her to feel as hard as steel, just like her words.

  She rolled her shoulders beneath my grip. “As I’ll ever be.”

  I barred a smile from my lips. She wasn’t going to give an inch in anything. Stuck in a silo with an asshole smuggler, and so far she’d taken it like it was just another day in the black. Most folks would be having a hard time battling panic. Not her. She had to know Jin had her number punched. So what was she afraid of?

  I planted my boot in her hands and bounced off my back foot, reaching up to shove the silo cap free. It clattered down the sloped sides of the silo and landed with a clang on the platform outside. Fran boosted me again. I gripped the rim and heaved myself through.

  The cavernous insides of Scrappers Rig 19 resembled a vast engine. The hungry rig gobbled up decommissioned ships, devoured anything of worth, and then melted down their remains. From my perch on top of the silo I could see three ships on the decom belt: a dilapidated warbird that looked as though it had been around since before the Blackout, the skeletal remains of a fleet freighter, and Fran’s Pelican-class smuggling ship. I winced. Its guts had been torn out. Welders sparked, and metal clanged and chimed. That bird wasn’t flying again. I could just make out Jin’s orange-jumpsuit-clad guys picking through the remains like vultures back on old Earth. We were far enough away, clad in dark enough clothing, and surrounded by enough machine noise not to be noticed.

  “Shepperd?” Fran’s enquiring tone rang up from inside the silo, not quite concerned, but close.

  I could leave her behind, find my ship before Jin gutted it, and be back in black in no time. I’d lose the last fifty percent of my paycheck but could make the first payment last a few cycles, if I skimped on luxuries.

  But if I left, Fran would likely die in that silo. Or Jin would pass the time by running her through one of his compacters. Fleet didn’t patrol Jotunheim. Nobody was going to come by and save her. I’d seen her skirt fleet’s patrols during her smuggling runs. She’d outmaneuvered patrols like she piloted a warbird, not the heap of junk Jin’s guys had stripped. She was too good a pilot to die in a Jotunheim scrappers rig.

  I leaned over the hole and smiled down at her. Anger had tightened her features—now bathed in light—and pulled her lips into a thin line. The heat in the silo had loosened strands of her dark hair from her braid. They clung to her flushed cheeks. But man, those eyes were all wildcat fury. “Say, ‘please.’”

  “Besa mi culo.”

  I was fairly certain that wasn’t “please,” but it did sound delicious. I braced myself over the opening and reached down. She clasped my hand and I heaved her out through the hole. Steadying herself on the silo’s sloped edges, she brushed her hands together and admired the view.

  “That’s my ship. Son of a bitch!”

  “Say it any louder and they’ll hear you on old Earth.” Crouched low, I maneuvered my way off the silo and climbed down a ladder to the platform below. We were out of the silo, but that was the easy part. Getting off Rig 19 would be a whole lot harder.

  She hissed a few more colorful Spanish phrases and joined me on the platform. “That ship was all I had. There are procedures. Formalities. They can’t just steal what they like.”

  I might have laughed had we not been out in the open. Clearly she hadn’t been in the black for long. “Ain’t nobody all the way out here to stop them.”

  Bathed in the rig’s orange work lights, she somehow managed to look both fierce and vulnerable. She brushed grit from her clothes, her strokes short and sharp. The anger was still there—I was beginning to think it never left her—but her shoulders sagged. She’d lost her ride. That was no small thing. I wouldn’t wish being grounded in Jotunheim on my worst enemies, and I had a few contenders.

  “Maybe I’ll give you a ride out of here.”

  She eyed me sideways and brushed a few stray locks of hair out of her eyes. “And what do you want in exchange?”

  Heavy equipment clanged and groaned in the belly of the recycling rig.

  I pushed back against the wall, eager to get out of sight, and spied a nearby personnel door. “I’m sure we can agree on something, once we’re back in black.”

  We made our way from the catwalks into narrow corridors and the guts of the rig. Pipes groaned and the occasional hiss of released steam blasted from pressure valves. Inside my flight suit my tank clung to my skin and rode up my waist. I wiped sweat from the back of my neck and steered my thoughts toward anything besides how close the walls were and how the air seemed to clog my lungs.

  I took a right and climbed a ladder. Fran followed, her boots scuffing the floor. The rig layouts were all the same, so I figured the control room had to be a few levels up, and close. If we could get inside, I could locate my ship’s dock and slip away unnoticed.

  “Was Jin going to kill us?” Fran asked. Her voice carried into the steam-filled corridor ahead of us.

  I stomped on, listening to the distant clang of metal against metal. “Jin’s a ship short a flotilla—he ain’t all there. Never leaves this rig. That kinda life? Trapped in this place? There’s not much reason left in his head. He’ll kill us both—eventually.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I make it my business to know folks who owe me credits—know what makes them tick, should they ever try and screw me over.” Her hot gaze crawled up my back as we strode on.

  “Why is ex-Fleet Captain Caleb Shepperd hiding out in Jotunheim?” she asked.

  “Same reason a merchant’s daughter is,” I threw back. I’d dug around her dataprint. Her past was peppered with the usual life junk—college, finances, pilots license—but clean. No offenses.

  “You think I’m hiding?” A hint of disgust snagged her voice. From what I’d seen of her so far, hiding wasn’t her way. And the thought clearly didn’t sit well with her.

  I checked over my shoulder. “You think I’m hiding?”

  “I know you are.” She smiled a playful smile and fell into step beside me.

  So damn confident. I wanted to see her rattled, find out who she really was underneath all that swagger. “I didn’t tell you why before. What makes you think I’m going to tell you now?”

  “I spotted your ship.” She lifted a shoulder in a half shrug, like it was no big deal, when we both knew I’d gone to great lengths to stay off her proximity sensors. “It took a bit of digging, but I tracked your ship’s outdated ID and your name showed up on an old purchase order. There’s a whole load of interesting things about a Caleb Shepperd in the cloud. Aren’t you supposed to be in Asgard, Captain?”

  Just mention of that godforsaken prison twisted my gut. Most folks didn’t survive Asgard. Some days I wished I hadn’t. I swallowed hard enough to clear the hitch in my throat. “Keep talking and I’ll be leaving you here for Jin. He’s too old to get it up, but he has his own unique way of getting his kicks. It’s probably been a while since he last had a woman visit.” I unzipped the upper half of my flight suit and shrugged it off my shoulders, letting it hang about my waist in the hope the air would cool me off. It didn’t.

  “Are you always such an asshole?”

  “You bring out the best in me, honey.”

 

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