Read Defiant (an Ell Donsaii story #9) for Free Online Page A

attention is focused on the volcano. Maybe no one will notice us and send the law after us.”
     
    Steve stood, hands on his hips and watched as the hoverbike slid up the beach to the road where they’d parked the two SUVs. As Ell unlocked the catches, he and his team pulled the four ducted fans off the hoverbike body and slid them into the back of the empty SUV. They all piled into the other SUV and pulled away.
    Ell said, “Hey, sorry to put you on the spot like that.”
    Steve snorted and glanced back at her with a little grin. “You are not. You’re just as proud as any other juvenile delinquent who just got away with something.”
    Ell squirmed delightedly in her seat and said, “Yeah, you’re right! It was awesome , right Shan?”
    “Pretty damn cool, if I do say so myself, Ma’am.” He stretched his arms up and back, “I’m proud to be an ace hoverbike pilot and not gonna let anyone tell me that I needed an AI to keep me from flippin’ it.”
     
    Chapter Two
     
    London—The London Metal Exchange reports that futures have begun to drop for gold, cobalt, osmium, tungsten and the platinum group metals. This is apparently in response to initial deliveries of these metals by ET Resources, a company that has begun mining an asteroid using the ports developed by D5R. The amounts of these metals actually delivered by ET Resources so far is apparently small, so the price drops have been attributed to a panicked overreaction…
     
    Athens—Japanese tourists were trapped between a pair of lava flows at the recent low grade eruption at Thera/Santorini. They report being rescued by a woman using some kind of high tech flying saucer. This is corroborated by the pilot of a helicopter that picked up one of the party who’d fallen ill. Said Aieneas Solon, who stated he saw the craft from a distance of about 10 meters while waiting for the ailing man to be loaded onto his helicopter, “The machine appeared to have ducted rotor disks front and back and a pair of smaller rotors to the sides. It was an odd form of ‘quadcopter.’” Solon said he’d done several searches of online aircraft markets looking for such a craft without finding anything even similar. Some claim the witnesses must have been delusional from effects of the volcanic fumes…
     
    ***
     
    Unpacking from their trip, Ell looked up when Shan called from the other room. “Hey, we got an interesting bit of snail mail while we were gone.”
    Ell leaned into the door frame, “Well, what is it?”
    “We’ve been invited to a neighborhood pot luck party next weekend at the house of our next door neighbors.”
    “The Sparlocks?”
    Shan looked around at her in surprise, “Yeah, you know them?”
    “Well of course I know them,” Ell frowned, “they’re our neighbors.”
    Shan snorted, “That isn’t an ‘of course!’  How did you meet them?”
    Ell grinned, “She came over with some cookies to introduce herself a while back.” She raised an eyebrow, “Good cookies too. She talked about a block party when she visited and said she might invite the neighbor,” Ell tossed her head in the direction of her little farm house, “from the little farm out back.”
    Shan guffawed, “She’s going to invite you as Raquel and as Ell? Now that’s a complication of your two identities I didn’t anticipate!”
    Ell sniffed, “Not a problem, I’ll just have to leave early as Raquel and come late as Ell.”
    Shan laughed, shaking his head in bemusement, “‘Not a problem.’ Sure.”
    “Reminds me, I’d better get over to the farm and see if I have any important snail mail there,” she raised an eyebrow, “like an invite to the aforesaid block party.”
    “OK,” Shan said, turning back to tossing out their junk mail.
    Ell headed down to the basement and tripped the catch that opened the hidden door to the tunnel. She stepped into the little changing room there and pulled off her “Raquel” wig. She scrubbed off her skin bronzers with one of