Dragon Ascending Part 70: Brand New KDG Read

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Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending in which our heroes race to the rescue before it’s too late. As I mentioned, I am now attempting to post episodes at lengths that will be better suited for the flow of the story and enhance your reading pleasure. Some will be slightly shorter, some will be longer. This one is particularly long in order not to break the flow of events. I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, the sequel to Piloting Fury, as much as I’m enjoying sharing it with you. As always, I love it when you share my work with your reading friends, so feel free. In the meantime, enjoy!

If you missed the previous episode of Dragon Ascending follow the link for a catch-up. If you wish to start from the beginning, of Dragon Ascending. Follow the link.  

For those of you who would like to read the complete novel, Piloting Fury, book one of the Sentient Ships series, follow the link to the first instalment.

 

Dragon Ascending: Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

On a desolate junkyard of a planetoid, scavenger Lenore Felish, disturbs something slumbering in a remote salvage dump and uncovers secrets of a tragic past and of the surprising role she must play in the terrifying present she now faces.

Robbed of her inheritance after her tyrannical father’s death, Tenad Fallon is out for revenge on her half-brothers, one who happens to be the sentient ship, Fury. Fury, with his human companions, Richard Manning and Diana McAllister, has his own agenda – finding the lost sentient ships and ending the scourge of indentured servitude in Authority space.

 

Dragon Ascending Part 70: Into Safety

“I will not lose my Lenore!” Dragon’s bellow was nearly deafening, filled with rage. “It is your fault she is back here! All your fault! Ouroboros, you are my sister! How could you put my compliment at risk when you know what is like to lose a beloved? You know what it is like!”

“I will explain, but not right now,” Ori yelled to be heard. “You don’t understand, and–”

“We don’t have time for this right now,” Kresho shouted into the roar. “We have to find her now!”

“Hey! Hey! Shut the fuck up all of you and listen to me,” came Camille’s normally soft voice suddenly full of command and urgency. “The top of Mount Orion isn’t under the dampening field. We discovered when we flew over. That’s where she’s at, climbing to get out. If she can reach a high enough –”

The roar of the launch blocked out all sound and tossed the compass as though it were a scrap of paper caught in a strong wind. It took everything both Kresho and Ori could do to right the ship, all the while yelling down the sub-processor, “Camille! Camille, are you all right?” The Andromeda would have literally been blown away by the blast. When the atmosphere settled around them again, a single rocket, launched from the Dreadnaught.

“They launched early!” Came Camille’s breathless voice in the sub processer. “The motherfuckers launched early!”

 

Two days before the drone arrived, with no triaxe cells to keep it running, the generator began to run down, and in the final twenty-four hours, Len was forced to remain in the environmental suit overnight even inside the station. It would be depleted by the time she could get the drone reprogrammed to Tak Major. In order to have enough fuel to make the trip to Sandstorm, everything in the drone had to be off-loaded. That would drain the suit’s life support systems even faster. Even with her working through the daylight hours in her normal bad weather gear, she would still deplete her suite. Her mother’s, which was fully charged, she would need for the trip to Tak Major, and only that with the help of the Juliet drug.

When the drone arrived on the landing pad right on schedule, Len nearly cried with relief, taking time only to open several survival bars and eat them while she began unloading. The last two days there had been only thin soup made from some dried seaweed shoved to the back of the storage room. It was vile, but warm, and it filled her stomach, even if only barely.

At first, she unloaded only enough space so that she could slip inside to reprogram the guidance system. That was the critical path; that was what she needed to be fresh and focused for. The rest was grunt work. She didn’t need to see the schematics nor the calculations for the journey to Sandstorm. Those she had committed to memory long ago and gone over and over in her head every night like a mantra to fill the loneliness.

When the internal computer had been reprogrammed with the emergency landing details for Sandstorm landing pad, she reprogrammed the speed. She programmed it for as fast as a Mayfly 7 could go, dangerously fast for the distance, but any slower and she would be dead before she got there. After that she went about the frantic task of unloading, not bothering to dolly everything into the station. Up until now every little item aboard a drone was precious and carefully sorted and inventoried. It was sometimes two days before the hatch was sealed and the launch sequence set for the drone’s return journey. Now it was only dead weight, and she couldn’t survive another night in the station. She hurried through the task shoving emergency rations bars into her mouth to give her the energy she needed to keep on schedule. The way she saw it, she would either eat again when she arrived on Tak Major, or not at all. She was okay with that. If she didn’t take this chance, she would be dead anyway.

Once she was finished, and the landing pad was all but buried in the tossed bundles and boxes that would have been treasures such a short time ago, she went one last time to the ice cave to say her final good-by to her mother. “I’m on my way, Mama. I promise I’ll be back. You just lie here and rest. It won’t be long.” Once again, she touched the frozen cheek, then she left.

In the freezing, dark station, she carefully donned her mother’s environmental suit, going through all the safety checks her mother had taught her, that they had gone through together a thousand times, always checking each other’s suit too just in case. The Juliet drug was already inserted into the internal first aid system, carefully replacing the broad-spectrum emergency cocktail that every suit was equipped with. In an emergency the suit internals were programmed to inject the cocktail directly into the vein, but this suit she had reprogrammed to inject the Juliet drug at just the right time when hypoxia had reached just the right level and the suit still had the power for the task. If it failed, she would die. The odds were not in her favor, but they were the best odds she would get on this ice ball, so she left the station and climbed into the drone. Once she was safely strapped in where cargo would have normally been, she started the launch sequence, with just enough time to escape the atmosphere before the winds picked up again.

 

 

The next thing she remembered was Arji breaking her ribs in his efforts to revive her and cursing at her not to die as she gasped in her first incredibly painful, incredibly delicious breath of air. And there was heat, more heat than she had ever felt in her life.

But she wasn’t hot now. She was so cold, so cold, and there was so far left to go. So very far. She must have lost consciousness for a moment from the lack of oxygen. She came back to herself sitting on her ass in the middle of a snowdrift.

“Len, honey. Get up. You have to get up. You’re almost there. You’re almost home. You have to keep moving.” The hand that reached out to her was bare and feminine. She looked up to find her mother standing over her dressed in only her under-thermals, her hair loose and barely lifting on a breeze, and yet the wind hadn’t calmed. If anything it was worse. “Come on, sweetheart. You’re not finished yet. Your whole life is ahead of you, and it’ll be a wonderful life. Get up.” She smiled down at her. “Dragon is coming for you, for both of us, don’t worry. Please don’t worry. Get up, my beautiful girl.”

She took the offered hand and clung to it as she shoved up to her feet. “I’m sorry mama. I’m so sorry,” she gasped the words out loud, in spite of not being able to spare the oxygen. And then she sobbed.”

“My darling girl, you have nothing to be sorry for. You’ve done everything right and so very much more. I am so proud of you. Now get up, hurry. Dragon is waiting.”

Suddenly the sky lit up with a network so bright that sunshield lowered itself into position in the visor of her helmet. She figured she must be hallucinating. She’d never seen anything like that before. She should turn up the oxygen a bit she supposed because hallucinations weren’t a good sign, but there was not enough to turn up any way. “I love you mama,” she said to no one there. And then she heard it. Loud and clear, she heard it.

“I love you, I need you, I am here, my Lenore. I have come.” For a second, the world flashed bright and then vanished and then she vanished with it.

 

They all watched helplessly as the rocket raced away toward the planetoid and exploded in low orbit bursting into a blinding net, multiplying and spreading to surround the whole surface of Tak Minor. They had seconds before the net would go critical, flash bright and implode onto the planetoid. The implosion would then continue right on through to the planetoid’s core, collapsing the whole of Tak Minor in on itself. Kresho hammered an impotent fist against the control panel seeing the flash through a red mist of rage and pain. Ori’s own pain dwarfed his own. Camille sobbed openly. “We have failed her! We have failed our Lenore,” Ori sounded almost as though she sobbed as well.

But then something happened. There was another flash of light, a sharp point that slipped through the net like a needle, and it was impossible to see what happened next, it was far too bright for humanoid eyes. Even with his eyes closed, the flash across the dark inside of Kresho’s eyelids was blinding. He cried out and threw his arm over his face, bracing for the aftershock. He waited, holding his breath, but nothing happened. When he ventured a peek, it was as though everything froze as it was. The planet-killer’s lethal net was still in place, the ships hadn’t been tossed. Nothing moved at all. But something was missing. Someone.

“Dragon? Where’s Dragon?” Kresho said when he could manage to speak again. Oh God, to lose an SNT as well as a compliment and the little girl he’d thought of as a daughter was more than he could bear.

Into the silence, Ori replied, “my brother is below the net.” The words were barely spoken before the planet-killer’s net sparked once as though someone had set fireworks off all across its surface. Then it grew duller and duller before it simply crumbled and drifted away like so much space dust revealing beneath an iridescent dome around the curve of the whole planetoid not unlike a giant soap bubble. It caught the twinkle of the distant sun only for a moment then vanished and Dragon rose brighter than the sun from above Mount Orion. For another moment there was stunned silence and then the ship said, “I have her. I have my Lenore. She is safe.”

For a long time no one spoke. The relief on both smaller ships felt like a living thing wrapping itself around them and holding them just for a second. And then Fury’s voice came through sub space. “Taklamakan Major is safe.”

“And Tenad Fallon?” Ori asked.

“She is about to be neutralized.”

“You’re going to kill her?” Camille’s voice down the sub processor link sounded viciously pleased.

It was Ori who responded. “Much worse than that, Camille Ingraham. He is going to give her what she wants.”

Before the discussion could go further, Fury said. “Please hurry home with my beloveds.”

“We’ll be there in a flash,” Ori said. Kresho could almost hear a smile in her voice.

 

Dragon Ascending Part 69: Brand New KDG Read

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Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Tenad Fallon gave Fury an ultimatum. This week Len battles her own past as she struggles to the rendezvous spot with Camille.  As I mentioned, I am now attempting to post episodes at lengths that will be better suited for the flow of the story and enhance your reading pleasure. Some will be slightly shorter, some will be longer. This one is particularly long in order not to break the flow of events. I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, the sequel to Piloting Fury, as much as I’m enjoying sharing it with you. As always, I love it when you share my work with your reading friends, so feel free. In the meantime, enjoy!

If you missed the previous episode of Dragon Ascending follow the link for a catch-up. If you wish to start from the beginning, of Dragon Ascending. Follow the link.  

For those of you who would like to read the complete novel, Piloting Fury, book one of the Sentient Ships series, follow the link to the first instalment.

 

Dragon Ascending: Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

On a desolate junkyard of a planetoid, scavenger Lenore Felish, disturbs something slumbering in a remote salvage dump and uncovers secrets of a tragic past and of the surprising role she must play in the terrifying present she now faces.

Robbed of her inheritance after her tyrannical father’s death, Tenad Fallon is out for revenge on her half-brothers, one who happens to be the sentient ship, Fury. Fury, with his human companions, Richard Manning and Diana McAllister, has his own agenda – finding the lost sentient ships and ending the scourge of indentured servitude in Authority space.

 

Dragon Ascending: Flash-Back and Ascent

“I love you. I need you. I love you. I need you.” Len kept the mantra going down the sub processor com more than anything because it made her feel connected in this isolated place. It had been the lack of connection, the complete isolation, that had nearly broken her here all those years ago, and now in her efforts, now when she had so much to lose for the first time in her life, she clung to that connection like it was more precious than the oxygen supply dwindling with every controlled breath she took. She was no longer alone, she told herself. This time she would make it off. This time she wouldn’t be isolated for three fucking months. In spite of her determination, in spite of those precious connections, this place, this awful place, brought it all back to her as though it were only yesterday. She had never revisited the nightmare of it, never revisited those memories in all the years since her escape. She supposed it was inevitable that they should come back to kick her in the butt now, but it was also the last thing she needed. Somehow that didn’t matter. The memories overflowed with the dwindling oxygen.

The first morning after her mother’s death, when it was warm enough that the facility was as comfortable as it ever got, Len had focused all of her attention on how to get off this iceberg. It gave her something to think about other than her loss, grief she couldn’t afford at the moment when she knew timing was everything if she wanted to stay alive, and her mother had wanted that, made her promise that over and over again before her death, always saying that Len’s life was paramount, that Len had to survive at all costs. She’d just figured that was a mother talking, the survival of the next generation and all that rubbish, and she always promised that she would, mostly just to get her mother to stop talking nonsense. So now she would do her best to keep that promise even if she didn’t particularly care one way or another at the moment. For her the effort of getting off Tak Minor became a focus point to get her outside herself and the pain she was sure would crush her if she dared dwell on it.

She could still send out a distress signal to the ship that had just left, but it wouldn’t come. They had killed her mother, and surely figured that if she were still alive, she wouldn’t be for long. If they did come back for her, she knew it was only for the shackle. She couldn’t keep from wondering why they hadn’t just shackled them both and taken them back for the bounty. On the long range scanner she could still see the ship, but it was heading away from Authority Space. It was only then that she realized the ship wasn’t an Authority vessel. A closer scan showed that it was a salvage ship. They didn’t take them alive for the bounty because they didn’t know who they were.  Cold terror tightened her empty belly, as she threw on her outdoor gear and ran to the storage shed that housed the back-up generator. Even before she got there she knew what she’d find. The pressure door had been left open to the elements leaving it open to the wind, but it didn’t matter now. It was empty of their most precious possessions, the back-up generator and Triaxe power cells that ran both generators. There was nothing on the station that would have been of more value to salvagers. Even the delicate instrumentation and the computers inside would have meant nothing compared to the Triaxe. The men had not bothered to look inside. They had, however, ransacked the food and medicine supplies in the storage shed. She had been taking sensor readings in the ice caves beneath Mount Orion when the shuttle set down. It wasn’t time for the annual manned visit, so of course her mother would have thought someone had discovered who they were and come to take them back for the bounty.

Tak Major belonged to the Rim Free Alliance. Tak Minor hadn’t been so lucky. Supposedly it was under joint control, but everyone knew the Authority used it to punish scientists who had somehow crossed them. And while the planetoid was of scientific significance, that had very little to do with the Authority efforts. It had long been suspected of being nothing more than an Authority satellite for spying on the Rim, but there was no real proof. All Len knew was that when the manned ship came, the chief engineer spent an inordinate amount of time fiddling with the instrumentation.

None of that mattered now. All that mattered was getting off alive. The ship had not taken all the supplies. Len and her mother always cached what they didn’t use from the previous supply dump, never trusting that the next one would come on time. Once a drone had crashed on the far side of Mount Orion due to freak winds. It had taken them days to salvage what they could with long exhausting treks out onto the flank of Orion and back. She figured her mother’s forethought and planning would just about keep her alive for the three galactic months until the next drone supply ship came. Fortunately it was on its way already and could not be turned back. Unfortunately, since it was only a drone ship and had no need to get anywhere fast, it had one speed, and that was slow. It was already visible on the long-range scanners, a tiny blip still three months out. It had no guidance controls, no accommodations for humanoids and no life support. But it was the only hope of her escape.

Len’s foot slipped and she did a belly flop against the rough icy slope jarring her back to the present, back to her purpose. Dragon was waiting. Dragon would come for her. She would get home to him. “I love you. I need you. D, remember the first time you saw me? Fuck that must have been such a shock to you! I must have looked more like a desert rat than a person. I love you. I miss you. I need you so much.” The mantra continued, drawing her back to the present, to staying focused on the task at hand, to slowing her breathing, to getting home to Dragon’s loving arms where she belonged.

 

“The fucking Dreadnaught is already here! How?” Kresho cursed profusely as he dropped the Compass into orbit above Tak Minor. He was glad they were still fully cloaked.

“Clearly Tenad Fallon’s contingency plan had contingencies,” Ori commented. “The Dreadnaught will have to drop the dampening field before it can launch the planet killer. I would guess we will have a two minute window, possibly three to ‘tran my brothers’ compliments out. I do not see the Andromeda. She must be cloaked,” she added.

“I’m trying to get a message through,” Kresho responded, “just keep an eye out for the dampening field to drop, and then you scan like hell.”

“I am on it.” Ori trying to use vernacular always made him smile, and somehow made him feel a little more like her compliment, and damn if he didn’t need all the help he could get right now.

 

 

“I have picked up two homing beacons,” Ori said. Cryo-pods.”

“I couldn’t get them out!” Camille was suddenly shouting down the sub processor. “I couldn’t get them out. Somehow the Dreadnaught blocked my signal.”

“I have them,” Ori responded. “As expected they contain Diana McAllister and Richard Manning. Their bio signs are good. Beginning reviving sequence.”

“Where is Lenore? Where is my Lenore?” Dragon roared into the sub processor. He had slipped into orbit fully cloaked and so stealthily that they hadn’t known he’d arrived yet.

“Shit! There were only two cryo- pods at the station,” Kresho responded. “What was she thinking? What the hell was she thinking? How could she have taken such a risk? Scanning the station now and ready to ‘tran her up.”

The dampening field just went down,” Ori said. “The Dreadnaught is commencing the launch sequence.”

“Fuck! She’s not at the station!” Kresho roared. “Where the fuck is she?”

 

Len spent the first day inventorying what was left of her dwindling supplies. Water was never a problem on Tak Minor since the whole damn planetoid was ice. Food, though, food was everything. There was just her now, and while her mother accused her affectionately of eating like a Triax minor, she could eat less. Far less. If her calculations were right, and they always were, and if she conserved her energy and rationed, and barring anything else unexpected, she should just be able to hold out until the drone arrived. That would be the easy part.

For the next few weeks, she studied everything she could find about Tak Major’s orbit, about its outposts and about where it would be when the drone arrived on Tak Minor. It was the only populated place she had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting to in the drone. She smiled at her ancient Terran cliché. She supposed it would be exactly that, throwing a snowball into the heat of hell. She shivered inside her thermo-shelter and thought she’d be very happy to roast for a while instead of freezing all the time.

There would be food and medical supplies onboard the drone that she and her mother had ordered nine months ago. Making up the shopping list was always an exercise in forethought and planning. There was no such thing as spontaneity on Tak Minor. She pulled up the inventory and checked down through the medical supplies until she found what was commonly known in most sectors as the Juliet drug on the list. It was a cocktail of drugs that when carefully administered would simulate death by slowing the heart rate and all vital signs to almost undetectable levels. Smalls doses were administered when cryo-stasis was used. Get the dosage a little too small and the person could go into convulsions. Get it too large and the resulting death would not be simulated. Still, without it, she knew she couldn’t make the journey, even to Tak Major.

Once she was sure of the orbits and the trajectories of drone ships coming from Hammer Fell and Vodni stations, both too far for her to make, she studied trajectories first to Windward, and Sunward outposts on Tak Major, only to discover that they would be on the far side of the planetoid when she would be forced to make her journey, and there would be no way to reach them. She was just about to despair when she pulled up Sandstorm Outpost, a dreadful place, from all of her research. It was nothing but miles of salvage dumps in a hideous sea of sand, but to her it looked like paradise. Sandstorm Outpost — that she could make, only just barely, but with the Juliet drug and a knowledge of the schematics and control system aboard the Mayfly 7 drones used for Tak Minor, she might just make it. That, however, was a knowledge she didn’t have.

There was lots of knowledge she didn’t have, could never have imagined she would need, knowledge she had only three months to get. Fortunately the one thing that never went down, never failed, never glitched was the central computer set up to enable a lone scientist or two to access the entire body of knowledge from the whole galaxy – well as much as anyone could access. It was there, as much as anything, to keep said scientists from going insane from boredom and isolation. It contained everything from university degrees learned online to porn to cartoons to cooking shows — for all the fucking good those did. They were actually vintage, old Terran, some people made it their life’s work studying cooking shows to try and replicate tastes and textures of foods and spices that had been lost to the known galaxy for so long that no one really had a clue what they tasted like. They called it food archeology. They then, in turn, had their own shows, many going to great lengths and sparing no expense to find and cultivate any extant heirloom seeds for a taste of authenticity, as if anyone would know the difference.

So Len set about learning how to program the guidance system on a Mayfly 7 drone ship, learning all she could about the Juliet Drug, and carefully monitoring the progress of the incoming drone. With her eidetic memory, any knowledge she sought out was very quickly committed to her brain, so there was lots of time to learn lots of things, anything, everything, to keep from thinking about her loneliness, her loss, her mother’s body frozen in the ice cave that housed the generator. For a brief time she researched everything she could about cryo-stasis. There were two cryo-pods in the storage room for emergency escape from the station, but launch devices on them would take her out into the main space lanes, and she would as likely be picked up by an Authority ship as not. As dire as her situation was, it was still better than a shackle. So that once again left her with the incoming drone as her only way off Tak Minor.

The wind picked up, as it always did on Orion. Len hoped that meant she was getting closer to the top. That was a good thing, she told herself. Soon she would break through the dampening field and Camille would ‘tran her up and take her home to Dragon. She trudged on. “I love you I need you, I love you. Dragon, remember when I woke you from the bad dream. I risked coming to your heart because I knew you. I knew your heart, that you would never hurt me, and I was right. I’m coming back to your heart, Dragon. I’ll be there soon. You’ll see. I love you, I miss you,” her thoughts coursed down the sub processor link, hoping against hope that Dragon could hear her, that he would know she was coming home to him. She stumbled and nearly fell again. A check of the oxygen levels said there was a danger of hypoxia, and she should readjust the flow. She couldn’t, she didn’t dare. Even now she would be nearly unconscious when she reached the summit. She’d set an automatic distress beacon in the suit so that if she wasn’t able to transmit, the beacon would do the job for her. Camille knew what to do. “I love you …. I need you …”

 

Dragon Ascending Part 68: Brand New KDG Read

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Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Dragon rose from the desert  and the race was on to rescue Mac and Manning and Len. This week, Tenad learns she’s been betrayed and gives Fury an ultimatum. As I mentioned, I am now attempting to post episodes at lengths that will be better suited for the flow of the story and enhance your reading pleasure. Some will be slightly shorter, some will be longer. This one is particularly long in order not to break the flow of events. I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, the sequel to Piloting Fury, as much as I’m enjoying sharing it with you. As always, I love it when you share my work with your reading friends, so feel free. In the meantime, enjoy!

If you missed the previous episode of Dragon Ascending follow the link for a catch-up. If you wish to start from the beginning, of Dragon Ascending. Follow the link.  

For those of you who would like to read the complete novel, Piloting Fury, book one of the Sentient Ships series, follow the link to the first instalment.

 

Dragon Ascending: Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

On a desolate junkyard of a planetoid, scavenger Lenore Felish, disturbs something slumbering in a remote salvage dump and uncovers secrets of a tragic past and of the surprising role she must play in the terrifying present she now faces.

Robbed of her inheritance after her tyrannical father’s death, Tenad Fallon is out for revenge on her half-brothers, one who happens to be the sentient ship, Fury. Fury, with his human companions, Richard Manning and Diana McAllister, has his own agenda – finding the lost sentient ships and ending the scourge of indentured servitude in Authority space.

 

 

Dragon Ascending Part 68: Ultimatum

Tenad came up from the depths of drug-induced slumber with her ears wringing and her head feeling like it would split in two. She managed to shift herself just in time to vomit over the side of the bed – no! It was not a bed, it was the slab in the fucking auto-surgery, a fact that only made her puke harder.

When she could manage to settle the gag reflex and the nausea passed enough that she could function, she shoved her way off the gurney and promptly landed hard on her ass, but at least she wasn’t lying on the glorified autopsy table of the auto-surgery. She shivered not from the bitter taste of bile but from the nightmares she’d had of what she’d seen her father do on exactly those tables with his victims. The memory always came back with such clarity that she was a child all over again, realizing all over again what a monster her father was.

When he became aware that she was watching, he looked up from his efforts and laughed at her. “Girl, if you’re going to puke, get out of my sight or you’ll be next up here. I don’t have time for mewling, puking weaklings.” She hadn’t. She hadn’t puked then. She learned well from her older brother’s endless humiliations, never, ever show weakness in front of the old man. No, she would never cry in front of him, she would never show fear in front of him, and she would certainly never puke in front of him. Instead, she meant his eyes calmly, forced herself to take in what he was doing to his indentured, a woman, so far gone that she shouldn’t even be alive, a thing that should not have been allowed to live, wounded, diseased from her shackle, and yet she lived, yet she felt every agony. And Tenad had known then, as did that hapless indentured that he would not let her die, no matter what extreme measures it took to keep her alive. He would have gotten off on that, he would have kept her conscious and suffering as long as he possibly could, maybe even taking notes on her body’s responses to the SNT virus, to his torture. Once Tenad had carefully, clinically, forced herself to stand and take in the hideous, pitiful sight on the table long enough to prove to him that she would not humiliate herself, she turned on her heels and walked unhurriedly away, feeling as though she were in a surreal dream, feeling as though she were outside of her body, observing what she could not take into herself if she were to stay sane inside that home of flesh and bone. She walked carefully, deliberately out of the room and down the hallway. Behind her she could hear her father laughing, not the kind of laugh he so often used to humiliate Gerando, no, this was the laugh that told her he was proud his spunk had spawned her, and she almost felt she’d rather have that laugh of humiliation. She did not want his admiration. She didn’t want his attention at all. It was a temporary thing, and it was never safe when he admired you. His admiration would always be followed by humiliation. That was the game he played, his sick competition with his own children, even the smallest. That, she understood at a very young age, and until now, as the second child and as a girl, she had managed to stay beneath his notice.

No, she had not puked. She had returned to her quarters and calmly ate her dinner, then finished her studies for the evening. But she had locked herself in the bathroom that night when the nightmare woke her, and she could no longer keep what she had seen outside herself. And then she did puke. The nightmare didn’t come often now, but every time it did, she would find herself hunched in the bathroom over the commode. The next day she had returned to her mother’s house and convinced her to send her away to school, far away. It was one of the outlying free universities where life was tough and the education tougher, but it was a waltz in the park compared to staying in that monster’s lair. She was only his second child, and a female. She would remain irrelevant to him as long as he had a male heir, and he had plenty of those and was constantly having more. She was just fine with that. There were other ways to get what she wanted. She didn’t need to suckle at the Fallon teat. She closed her eyes to the memory, shoved her way to her feet and looked around her into the stabbing light of the med bay, light she knew SNT 1 had made no effort to dim.

“Where’s Camille?” Tenad forced the words up through a throat that felt blistered. “Why the hell was I in the fucking auto-surgery? She knows I hate auto-surgeries. I told you I hate auto-surgeries! Camille! Camille!” Her attempt to yell came out cracked and rusty, and fuck she was trembling in front of the goddamned SNT! He would know. He would sense her fear. From him, she knew she could hide very little.

“You are in the auto-surgery, Tenad Fallon, because without it you would have died,” SNT1 responded.

Her laugh felt like shards of glass at the back of her throat. “And you wish I had.”

“You are very wrong, Tenad Fallon. I will never allow you to die,” came the ship’s icy response. “I will make sure you live. As long as you hold my compliments hostage, you will live, no matter how much that life makes you suffer.”

 

 

The quick flash of her father and what he had done to his indentured all those years ago went through her head, and like it or not, she was puking again barely making it to the sink on the cabinet next to the medical supplies. Instantly a med-doc appeared with a hypo and a quick sting against her arm made her flinch.

“Only something to ease the nausea,” the ship said.

She spat into the sink, then rinsed her mouth from the faucet. “I don’t suppose you could have done that a little sooner.” When no response came, she chuckled, or tried to. “I should have known that, under the circumstances, you might just have a lot more fun keeping me alive. Now where is Camille? I need her.”

“She is not here.”

Carefully, she forced herself to turn, as though she could actually face the voice that addressed her. “What the hell do you mean she’s not here? Did you send her to rest at a time like this just so you could torture me a bit?”

“While I was fighting to keep you alive, Camille Ingraham took your transport and left.”

If the nausea and the battle with her body’s immune response hadn’t hollowed her out enough, Camille’s betrayal felt like a gut punch. “And you didn’t see fit to stop her.”

“I did not. And I was busy.”

“Need I remind you that the lives of your compliments are in my hands?”

“Need I remind you that if anything happens to them I will be the first to know and I am sure I don’t have to tell you the consequences will be dire? I owe you nothing, Tenad Fallon, and you holding another person in bondage is abhorrent to me. Why would I stop her?”

“She’ll die anyway. Surely you know that? And it won’t be a pretty death. I was good to her. I never tortured her. I never even punished her. I treated her well.”

“She seems to think that a painful death is better than the life of a slave, a thing.”

“You do know that once we’re bonded, I’ll make you find her, and I won’t be kind to her when I do. In fact, I may make you do the honors.”

“You are welcome to try, Tenad Fallon.”

She pushed away from the counter and despite the last wave of rejection, realized she didn’t feel too bad, which was just as well because Camille’s defection had forced the issue. “The treatments are working, aren’t they?” She asked.

“Yes.”

She paced the room on shaky legs that seemed to feel stronger with every step. She barely noticed her nakedness. “Even though I nearly died?”

“It is not unexpected since each infusion of my bio-tech is bigger than the last, and we are essentially doing in a few days what would normally take months, possibly years.”

“And tell me, Fury, is it enough?”

“It is not as much as you would receive in a normal training for bonding, but you are tolerating my bio-tech better that I would have expected.”

“Why wouldn’t I? My brother is a bonded compliment.” She raised a hand to stop his response. “I know that he was trained to it, but I’ve been reading about the process. I’ve been doing a little research of my own. Isn’t it true that there is something in the genetic make-up that makes certain people compatible for bonding? Isn’t it true that most people just can’t, no matter how much of immunosuppressant you dose them with?”

There was a long silence, and if she were reading another person, she would think it was because the ship didn’t want to tell her. “Isn’t it?” She repeated.

“There is some evidence that there might be a connection, yes, but before the research could be completed, in fact barely more than began, your father infected my family and destroyed those scientists who might have come to find out.”

To this she only grunted. “My father often did not have much foresight, and look where it got him.”

“I am not certain you have a great deal more, Tenad Fallon.”

“Isn’t it possible that my genetics would be a good match for an SNT bonding since my brother’s was?”

“It is possible, yes,” came the response.

“And tell me, SNT1, isn’t it possible that I could very well be ready and that I could survive the bonding now?”

“As I have told you, Tenad Fallon, I will not allow you to die.”

She managed a shaky sigh and resolved nod. “Then do it now, the bonding. There are too many variables I can’t control when I’m incapacitated. When we’re bonded, I’ll have an SNT ship at my disposal, and then I’ll control those variables.”

“I have told you that isn’t how it works, Tenad Fallon,” the ship said evenly.

“Oh I think it is when the life of your compliments is on the line,” she said. She was no fool. Camille knew everything and if she was willing to run, she was willing to share what she knew, possibly even willing to risk a rescue attempt, though she didn’t see how she could possibly pull that off even with the Andromeda at her disposal, even if SNT1 had deactivated her shackle. “I think it’s quite possible at this point you’re just dragging your feet, possibly even making me ill to prolong the situation until you can figure something out. So, I’m calling your bluff. I want something to eat, I want a shower, and then I want us to get on with the bonding. Is that clear?”

There was a long pause, and Tenad could feel the static in the air around her making goose flesh raise on her arms. But she knew it was now or never. She braced herself, squaring her shoulders and doing her best to look relaxed, confident, neither of which she felt right now.

At last the ship spoke. “Very well, Tenad Fallon. If that is truly what you wish for, then it is what we shall do.”

 

Guest Post – Fantasy author interview @Libraryoferana #Fantasyauthor #darkfantasy #Fantasy #Meetanauthor

Guest Blogger, , , ,

Name: A.L. Butcher

Location: Bristol, Southwestern UK.

How do YOU define fantasy?

Fantasy – a genre where anything and everything is possible; be it magic, mythological beastie, impossible heroes, the folklore and legend that underpins our society and our storytelling.

From the earliest storytellers trying to make sense of a frightening, confusing and dangerous world, to the supreme world-builders such as Tolkien, to the escapism and humour of Terry Pratchett we’ve loved fairytales, magic, lore and legend for thousands of years.

It’s everywhere – from our national legendary heroes such as Robin Hood, King Arthur and St George to the names of our pubs, our libraries, our children’s education, to our language.

Kids read (or are read) fairy-tales, we have Santa Claus, the toothfairy, black dog myths, headless horsemen, the Loch Ness Monster, ghosts aplenty, Green Men, more saints than you can imagine – most of whom did something fantastical – witches, fairies, pixies, dragons, giants, pirates (including Blackbeard who it’s said drank at the Hatchet Inn) and much more. There are two giants that ‘lived’ locally to where I’m based (Goram and Vincent/Ghyston).

I grew up on fairytales, flower fairies, fantasy tales made up by my father, and later Greek and Roman myth, Tolkien and dragons.

Are these genres seen in a more acceptable light than they used to be?

Well fantasy/folklore is hardly new. But I think with the popularity of certain franchises such as Marvel and Harry Potter, fantasy and sci-fi has become more ‘acceptable’ – in that a wider audience has found enjoyment in these. Games, movies, books in the fantasy/sci-fi genre are big business.

What makes a ‘hero’? Would you say this definition is different within literature to real life?

A hero is someone who does what needs to be done to help/save others despite the risk to themselves, or at personal cost, or do something outstanding for the good of others. They don’t need special powers – despite what the books and films might say.

The doctors and nurses who risked their lives in the pandemic to care for others, a man who risked his life getting abandoned animals out of Afghanistan, a humble old man who walked 100 laps of his garden with his walking frame to raise £1000 for the NHS charity and ended up raising £30 million, the explorers who found new lands, and walked on the moon, the scientists who discovered things for the betterment of life – such as penicillin, aspirin, and chemotherapy, the authors, artists and musicians that defied convention to bring new work to us, to those who fought for equality and freedom.

Literary heroes are often (but not always) special – the son/daughter of a god, imbued with magic or superpowers, vastly wealthy, princes (or princesses).

How do you portray heroism in your books?

My heroes are very much anti-heroes – they kill, they steal, they commit crimes in order to help people who can’t help themselves.

Archos and Olek know full well they are not ‘good’ people by the standards of their society, and they do and have done unpleasant things. Yet they stand up for those with no rights and no voice – and try to help where they can and great personal risk.

Dii – I think she’s a hero – despite what has happened to her, and the way she’s been treated she is still kind, selfless and helps those who aren’t really worth her kindness.

How important are ‘facts’ in fantasy – does something need to be plausible to be believable?

It has to be reasonably plausible in the world in which it takes place – although not necessarily deeply explained. If there’s magic then it has to have limits, or at least be hard to use and dangerous. It doesn’t need to be explained WHY there’s magic – but it needs to be consistent and fit the world. If it doesn’t then I think it needs an explanation to the reader.

So, for example in my world of Erana magic exists – I suppose you could say it’s alive or at least has some sentience – people, animals and objects can be magical and exhibit powers or attributes that the mundane don’t possess. However, due to wars and a plague that mostly affected the magical use of magic is outlawed. Magic is dangerous, and tends to do what it wants if given free range. It exacts a price. A mage can’t indefinitely keep using it – the more powerful the more the mage has to pay – with blood, pain, even life. And, of course, if the Order of Witch-Hunters find out then the mage is in big trouble. Magic demands a price. The greater the magic, the greater the price.

I think with fantasy willing suspension of disbelief is needed. Sometimes things happen because they do….

It’s fiction – it doesn’t have to be true or real in our own world.

Science is magic – just magic we understand or accept. Religion is fantasy, just a truth to some people. Truth can be relative.

What science fiction/fantasy has influenced you most?

JRR Tolkien, Homer, Mary Shelley, Janet Morris, Terry Pratchett, ancient myth, the tales my late father used to make up.…

Excerpt 1 –from The Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles – Book I

The Archmage rested: dozing, replenishing, and dreaming. Archos had spent an active day and night studying and trying to finish the spell he was creating. Even with his Power, something had unsettled him, so he had given up and gone to rest. As he dozed in a chair in what he called his “workshop,” the Mirror he owned began to sing. Pulled from his sleep, he rose and walked to it. “What is it that you disturb me at such an hour?” he murmured. The Mirror’s song began to wail the strange, haunting song of the Arcane Realms. Touching the edges of the Enchanted Silver frame, he watched as the Mirror shimmered, and the mists cleared.

Archos watched as the view of the chamber in the ruins flickered into view. The image was weak, so he channelled some magic into the Mirror, and Archos saw the other Mirror in the tower and a glimpse of something red as the image flickered out. “Damn you,” he muttered, “must be a weak one.”

Concentrating, he channelled another small bolt of magic into his own Mirror. These artefacts had many uses, if a mage knew the correct spell, one of which included finding other such Mirrors. It was almost as though they spoke to one another, communicated in the Arcane Realm. They fed on magic, although Archos was not sure if “fed” was the correct term. Demanded, needed, or desired were perhaps more accurate. His Mirror could be fickle, but it was old. It had cost him a good deal some years ago, but he smiled as he caressed the silver. He saw the image flicker back up and as it did so, a bolt of magic, of pain, of Power, and of the most intense desire shot down his arm and right across him. Suddenly his head spun, for just a moment, and the Power made him drop gasping to his knees.

“Gods, what was that? Such Power! That cannot have been from the other Mirror!”

He had never felt such intensity as the Power of the woman who called to him across the vast Magical Realms. Breathlessly, he gripped the edges, surprised and deeply intrigued. As he pulled himself back to his feet, Archos saw her: the flame-haired elf woman touching the Mirror in the ruins. He watched as she ran her fingers down the glass and murmured something. Again, he cursed that he had never been able to get the thing to transmit sound. Archos gazed, transfixed, at the beautiful young mage. She could not be more than twenty-five summers, although with elves, it was hard to tell. It had taken him years to learn Mirror magic, yet before him stood this young mage activating an old, dying Mirror.

The image faded, and he snapped at the Mirror, “Show me. Do not play games.”

The mists swirled, and he tried to reach through the unyielding magical fog. “Damn you, so be it!” Archos continued, glaring at the Mirror.

Excerpt 2 – from The Stolen Tower – the Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles – Book III

Kherak Var knew her days were numbered. As a Shaman of the Trollkind, she was granted an inkling of when she would go to serve at the feet of the goddess she favoured. To say she was unafraid would not be the truth, for only a fool does not fear death, and Kherak was not a fool. The visions, which were also a gift of her magic and her kind, had become more intense and more disturbing of late, and these played upon her mind more than the matter of joining her forebears. All paths lead to war. That was what she had told the Magelord Archos, Lord of the Storm, who also had the favour of the Goddess Ethnii’a, Lady of the Sky. It was true, or at least that is what the visions and her scrying Arcane Opal informed the old Shaman, and she was rarely mistaken in her interpretations. All paths lead to war, but the paths themselves could be shortened. Those paths more suited to the skills of her more nefarious allies would remain in shadow until such times as those who controlled the shadows brought them to bear on the greater darkness which held the land of Erana beneath a fist of iron. Could shadow and light working together dispel such an entrenched regime as the Order of Witch-Hunters and their divisive laws? Kherak truly did not know. Magic was not yet gone from a land in which it was forbidden, despite the best efforts of the Order to make it so. This would be an unequal war, and the victor was far from certain, but there was hope, and wars had been fought with less.

The Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles – Book I

In a dark world where magic is illegal, and elves are enslaved a young elven sorceress runs for her life from the house of her evil Keeper. Pursued by his men and the corrupt Order of Witch-Hunters she must find sanctuary. As the slavers roll across the lands stealing elves from what remains of their ancestral home the Witch-Hunters turn a blind eye to the tragedy and a story of power, love and a terrible revenge unfolds.

18 rated.

Universal link https://www.books2read.com/Lightbeyondstorm1

The Shining Citadel – The Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles – Book II

Who rules in this game of intrigue where magic is forbidden, and elves enslaved? Journey where beliefs shatter like glass, truth is unwelcome, and monsters from ancient times abound: share the romance and revenge, magic and passion, and the wages of greed in a world of darkest fantasy.

(18 rated)

Universal Link https://www.books2read.com/ShiningCitadel

The Stolen Tower – The Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles – Book III

What stalks the land cannot be, but is.

Where magic is outlawed a troll Shaman calls from her deathbed to her heiress, Mirandra Var, daughter of the storm. Mirandra vows to find her missing kin, sort friend from foe, and claim the dangerous secrets guarded by unthinkable creatures. If she succeeds, she will become the leader of her tribe. If she fails, there will be no tribe to lead.

(18 rated)

Universal Link https://www.books2read.com/StolenTower

*****

Author Bio:

British-born A. L. Butcher is an avid reader and creator of worlds, a poet, and a dreamer, a lover of science, natural history, history, and monkeys. Her prose has been described as ‘dark and gritty’ and her poetry as ‘evocative’. She writes with a sure and sometimes erotic sensibility of things that might have been, never were, but could be.

Alex is the author of the Light Beyond the Storm Chronicles and the Tales of Erana lyrical fantasy series. She also has several short stories in the fantasy, fantasy romance genres with occasional forays into gothic style horror, including the Legacy of the Mask series. With a background in politics, classical studies, ancient history and myth, her affinities bring an eclectic and unique flavour in her work, mixing reality and dream in alchemical proportions that bring her characters and worlds to life.

She also curates speculative fiction themed book bundles on Pubshare – for the most part – the Here Be Series

Alex is also proud to be a writer for Perseid Press where her work features in Heroika: Dragon Eaters, Heroika Skirmishers – where she was editor and cover designer as well as writer – as well as Lovers in Hell and Mystics in Hell – part of the acclaimed Heroes in Hell series. http://www.theperseidpress.com/

Awards:

Outside the Walls, co-written with Diana L. Wicker received a Chill with a Book Reader’s Award in 2017.

NN Light Book Heaven awards:

The Kitchen Imps and Other Dark Tales won the best fantasy for 2018

Echoes of a Song – one of her Phantom tales – won the best fantasy in 2019

Tears and Crimson Velvet won the best Short Story category in 2020

Dark Tales and Twisted Verses – won the best Short Story Category in 2021

Blog https://libraryoferana.wordpress.com/about-a-l-butcher-fantasy-author-poet-author-promotion/

Blog tour organised by Writer Marketing Services.

Dragon Ascending Part 67: Brand New KDG Read

Blog, , , ,

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Mac and Manning realized just how bad their situation really was. This week help comes from unexpected sources, but will it arrive on time? As I mentioned, I am now attempting to post episodes at lengths that will be better suited for the flow of the story and enhance your reading pleasure. Some will be slightly shorter, some will be longer. This one is particularly long in order not to break the flow of events. I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, the sequel to Piloting Fury, as much as I’m enjoying sharing it with you. As always, I love it when you share my work with your reading friends, so feel free. In the meantime, enjoy!

If you missed the previous episode of Dragon Ascending follow the link for a catch-up. If you wish to start from the beginning, of Dragon Ascending. Follow the link.  

For those of you who would like to read the complete novel, Piloting Fury, book one of the Sentient Ships series, follow the link to the first instalment.

 

Dragon Ascending: Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

On a desolate junkyard of a planetoid, scavenger Lenore Felish, disturbs something slumbering in a remote salvage dump and uncovers secrets of a tragic past and of the surprising role she must play in the terrifying present she now faces.

Robbed of her inheritance after her tyrannical father’s death, Tenad Fallon is out for revenge on her half-brothers, one who happens to be the sentient ship, Fury. Fury, with his human companions, Richard Manning and Diana McAllister, has his own agenda – finding the lost sentient ships and ending the scourge of indentured servitude in Authority space.

 

 

Dragon Ascending Part 67: The Dragon Ascends

“Are you the reason our compliments are all at risk?” Fury all but roared.

“I’m the reason you have discovered Dragon, it is you, SNT 7, isn’t it? I knew one of my siblings was sleeping beneath the sand, but you I would not have expected. Never mind, we can catch up on old times later, and I will explain everything. Right now what has to be done will take all three of us and –.”

“Kresho, she’d better have a plan and it had better happen fast,” Came Gerd’s voice over the com. “I don’t know exactly what happened, but the Dreadnaught left for Tak Minor like a bat out of Vati hell. ETA, best case scenario, six hours.”

Just then a low murmur came through the sub processor, not much more than a static buzz, but in response Dragon groaned down the link, a groan that became more a howl of agony and pain. It grew and grew until it filled the space inside the Compass and still grew until Kresho was certain his eardrums would burst. No! It was more like his whole soul would explode, and then Dragon said. MY LENORE IS DOWN THERE! I WILL NOT LOSE HER!”

The whole desert trembled and rocked below and the de-mole perimeter sparked so that the entire, enormous, outline of it was visible from orbit. And just like that, it exploded in a burst of color and light that made the sun seem only a dim shadow. Kresho shielded his eyes and when he dared to open them just a slit, the desert collapsed into a sinkhole of sand, wrecks of ships and water-collection systems, robotic lifts and derelict building materials erupted like the volcanoes on Diga Vulcanus, exploding outward and outward and outward in waves until, at last, a shape began to immerge, at first coated in the rust colored dust of the desert and then, as though immerging from the amniotic dust from the womb of the planetoid, its skin heated nearly molten before the glow died away into the sheen of burnished alloy. It rose and rose and rose from the gaping abyss up and up into the sky. It was slightly bigger than a falcon class harrier, but shaped like nothing Kresho had ever seen before, as though it has spread bio-metallic roots beneath the surface in search for precious water, but as it ascended, its shape changed and morphed as it gained altitude. Roots shrank away, streamline wings spread outward, the ship elongated into a shape not unlike a falcon with wings drawn back preparing to plunge into a stoop only just visible against the glare of the sun.

“Wait!” Fury said, sensing, as they all did, that Dragon was about to jump to hyperspace. “We need a plan. And almost faster than thought, the idea was in all of their heads, though Kresho wasn’t sure which one of them had sent it. It didn’t matter. He shivered at the thought of the power of three sentient ships thinking as one.

The Compass was the fastest and stealthiest of the three ships. While it had been enhanced by SNT tech and benefitted from Ori’s efforts, it was not in and of itself an SNT. It was just a way for Ori to transport a part of her consciousness when it was far less easy for the core of her, her heart to move at anything close to speed. Without another thought Kresho jumped, heading for Tak Minor, the last message from both of the ships was, “Bring back our Beloveds.”

This would not be a pleasant encounter, but that mattered far less than that he could complete his mission. “Don’t worry,” Ori’s voice was soft inside his head, choosing to communicate through the sub processor now that it had been opened after so many years, “we will not fail in our mission, Kresho. There are three of us now, and long-range sensors on Vodni Station have detected our baby brothers both heading this way at speed. Once we are together, we will no longer be able to keep our presence, or mission quiet.”

“Maybe it’s time for the Authority and The Rim Alliance to know,” he replied.

“Yes. Yes it is time, and it’s time for us to begin to right the wrongs that have been done to us, to the inhabitants of Authority space.” She sighed deeply. Kresho felt her satisfaction, and her anticipation to begin what they’d both worked secretly toward for what felt like an eternity. Then she added, as though she read his thoughts, which she probably did. She often did when it suited her. “Len will forgive you, you know, for in the end there is nothing to forgive.”

He grunted. “If she doesn’t kill me first.”

“She will not.” She spoke with confidence he didn’t feel. While of course she probably wouldn’t actually kill him, would she understand? Would she forgive him when he explained?

“She has been a sojourner too long,” Ori said. “It will be good to have her back where she belongs.”

He studied her for a moment. He didn’t know why he always thought of it that way. Of course he couldn’t see her, and she, for the most part, kept her mannerisms and emotions completely hidden from him. He envied Diana McAllister and Richard Manning, and now Len, that openness with their SNT companions. That had never been Ori’s way.  He wondered if either of the other SNTs had any idea just how volatile the situations was, Tenad Fallon’s craziness aside.

 

 

Ori had suffered nearly as much as he had at Len’s loss, and she had mourned with him. And then to discover after all of this time that she was alive, that she had survived against all odds was nothing less than a miracle, and Ori was beside herself. He was pretty sure her emotions were as strong as his were. He could feel anticipation, a certain kind of tension he’d not felt in her in a very long time, not since they battled together to keep him alive. And now, now his own emotions frightened him almost as much as hers did. He seldom felt her temper, but when he did, it felt as though he were being ripped apart, it felt like he felt when the Fidelio was attacked, when he was certain he would die and wished like hell he could just get it over with. But this, this was worse. He couldn’t tell from his own emotions if he was mirroring hers, or if he was simply afraid for Len. Possibly he was afraid for himself, afraid of the uncertainty that now lay before him after all this time, all their efforts, and then believing for so long Len was dead. Surely even Ori, in all of her layers of plans upon plans and schemes upon schemes, could not have foreseen this. Surely she had to know that Len was Dragon’s now, that she’d found a true home with him. Christ, he didn’t want to think about what would happen if she ignored that fact. “You can’t have her now, you know?” The words were out before he could stop them, along with the sharp clench of pain below his breastbone he always felt when he thought about Len and how Ori had sought her out, used him to do so, along with the fear of what might happen now, now that she didn’t need him anymore.

This time it was not her anger he felt, rather a stillness, the kind of stillness you feel when someone inhales and then holds their breath. The fine hair on his arms rose from the tension he felt around him, the sudden closeness, a sharp sense of pain followed by a sudden withdrawal that left him breathless, and chilled. And then the feeling passed and she said, “Tenad Fallon is awake.”

 

“All right, everything is prepped and double checked,” Len said, checking the propulsion systems of the cryo-tubes one last time. “They’re not much, but they’ll get you into orbit. This trip, you don’t want to go any farther than that. Camille will pick you up. I’ve modified the homing beacons so that only a ship with SNT tech can pick it up. She smiled down at them where they both lay in the pods ready for the cocktail of drugs that would put them to sleep before the deep freeze set in. “I wouldn’t have known how to do this back before I bonded with Dragon, but it seems pretty straight forward now.”

When they couldn’t get the coms to work at the pick-up site, it had been all they could manage to get Manning back to the station. There were a couple of times when Len thought she’d have to come back for them one at a time. Even Mac was weakened and was feeling the lack of the connection to the tether. She had gotten them both under warming blankets and made them a thin high protein soup her mother had made for them back in the day, back when rations were sparse, and they needed the warmth and the calories. They’d had to help Manning with his. She’d scarfed a couple of energy bars she’d brought with her, knowing she’d need the calories far more than they did for what still lay ahead of her, wishing like hell she’d not had to expend so much energy on the wasted trip to the pick-up site and then helping Manning get back. Even fresh from her bonding as she was, it wouldn’t be easy.

“What about you?” Manning managed, already struggling not to slur his words. “Are you sure you can make it to the top of that mountain? You said it was damn near impossible.”

“Not for me, it isn’t. I’ve recharged my suit by cannibalizing my old one and the last of the power form the Tri-axe cell since we won’t be needing it. Besides, I don’t have to make it back. I only have to make it to the top, or maybe not even that far, to wherever the dampening field leaves off. Besides,” she added with a little shrug, “I’ve done it before, and made it back safely.”

Mac let out a slow whistle. “Color me impressed.” Her own words were beginning to slur as well.

“Anyway,” Len said looking down at the settings on the pods one last time. “I have Dragon’s blood in me now. I’m tougher than I was.” She hoped. She couldn’t be sure that was true. She didn’t know how the whole thing worked, how much of Dragon’s strength would be with her without the tether, but she wasn’t about to tell them that. Besides there were only two pods no matter what, and she had options they didn’t, neither of them could have made it in their condition, even if they had the knowledge and skill needed to survive on this ice cube. “I can control your lift-off remotely, so as soon as I’m clear of the launch zone, I’ll release the clamps and enable the sequence.” She gave them her best reassuring smile. “Now, nighty-night. When you wake up Camille will take us all home to our Beloveds. Damn, it felt good to be able to say that, and there was nothing she wanted more right now than for them all to be in the arms of their partners again. “Have a nice rest and I’ll see you soon.”

“Len.” Mac blinked up at her, through drowsy eyes. Manning was already asleep. “Stay safe. We’ll see you soon.”

Len gave her a nod and a smile, then pulled the cryo-pods shut and checked the seals. When she was sure they were both well asleep, she clipped the remote control onto her mag belt, donned her helmet, and headed out into the blizzard, taking a quick look around the main station before she left. Just one more time, Mama and then I’ll be back for you and we’ll never have to come back to this horrible place again. She thought it all but said nothing out loud. The truth of the matter was that she would need every smidgeon of power and oxygen if she were to complete this ascent, but there was no other way. And she would get back to Dragon. He would not be bereft again. “I love you, I need you, I love you, I need you.” Her steps synced with the mantra she sent down the sub processor hoping against hope that Dragon could hear, hoping that he could at least feel it. When she was at a safe distance, she launched the cryo-pods and watched them shoot into the dusky sky. And after that, there was nothing but following the suit telemetry and adjusting her pacing and breathing for the long ascent through the blizzard.