Piloting Fury Part 54: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Happy Monday my lovelies!  I’m in Scotland at the Mo, on the Isle of Bute. I’ll be doing a good bit of reading for my own pleasure while I’m here. And some writing, of course. How could I not be inspired on a beautiful Scottish isle? I have not forgotten your Monday morning dose of Fury! In this week’s episode Mac tries to make impossible connections. If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

 

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

 

Piloting Fury Part 54: Making Contact

Bro 123? Bro 123? I typed.

We waited and nothing happened. Keen was called away on more urgent business and I kept trying, getting more and more frustrated.

To my surprise it was Stanislovsky who came to me, her face drawn with grief from the loss of the Svalbard. But it wasn’t that she wanted to talk about. “So what now? Are you just going to let him suffer?”

I stiffened, shoulders that were already tight feeling like granite. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve been right here the whole time trying to help, trying to be useful. Surely he could get in touch with me just as easily as I can with him.”

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“He’s a fucking man! Seriously, McAllister, can you be that naïve?”

I ground my teeth. “As a matter of fact, I can. In case you’ve forgotten I’m not exactly experienced in the world of relationships and consensual sex. Now, if you’ve just come to make me feel worse than I already do, then there’s the door.” I nodded toward it.

“Yeah, well, welcome to the club.” Her face darkened and I felt like the asshole she probably thought me to be.

Of course she knew exactly what I’d been through. She’d been through it herself, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she’d just lost her entire ship and its crew.

“Look, I’m sorry.” I scrubbed a hand over my face and fought my own urge to mourn. “It’s just … I don’t know how to handle this. Have you been with him?”

“Of course I have. I’m a doctor. I was called to treat Fallon and Rab, and I’m pretty sure the infected are a lot less miserable than ship and crew. Manning’s like a Hibernian bear and Fury, well he’s gone none verbal. I mean he’s always been a bit brooding, but I’ve never seen him like this. I had to communicate with him on the fucking console, and even then all he would say when I asked what happened is that you left and you were very upset.”

“Of course I was upset! He ‘tranned Gerando Fallon onboard.”

“I understand that, and so does he, but you left without letting him explain why he did what he did.” Before I could respond, she nodded to the screen. “Vic told me you thought you might be able to make contact with Apocalypse because you were born to be Fury’s compliment. I thought I might be able to help since I was trained to be a compliment. I probably understand a little better the protocols and connections between a compliment and an SNT.

I nodded to the monitor and my efforts to communicate with Apocalypse. “Well, I’m certainly not having any luck. Any help would be appreciated.”

 

 

I barely got the words out of my mouth when the screen went blank and then flashed in big letters: bro1 needs bro1 needs, and then the words repeated until the screen was full of the words over and over again.

Bro1 needs what? I type. It took me several times, my hands were shaking so badly, but this time the answer was immediate.

needs go go! bro1 needs go!

go where?

Go BRO 1!!! 

This time the words were huge and they flashed red.

“It’s not a where,” Stanislavsky said leaning over my shoulder. “It’s a who, McAllister, and the who is you. I think he wants you to go to Fury.” She elbowed me aside and typed

1 not bro go bro1?

!!!!bro 1 need 1not bro!!!! gogogogo!!!!

“Wait a second.” She did something to the com system and with a few touches of the key reception switched to an obscure subspace channel, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. For an instant a sensation not unlike electricity coursed through my body. I thought I was having some sort of seizure. And then Fury’s voice filled my head.

“Diana Mac I need you. I need you. I need you. Diana Mac I need you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Nothing came up on the screen – no words, no symbols, which was just as well, since I couldn’t have seen them when my eyes were misted. There was no other sound in the room except my ragged breathing. Then I realized that Stanislavsky couldn’t hear it.

“Bloody hell! I didn’t know! How do I …?” I struggled to find a way to communicate on the channel.

“You don’t. You can’t. I took a chance that you might be able to hear. It’s amazing that it worked at all, but then you were born for him. You’re connected already in ways no one else could ever be. I took a chance that you might be able to hear it on his private sub channel. It’s sort of like train of thought for an SNT. It’s very private and no one taps into it unless there are problems. No one would ever have to in the case of a properly bonded SNT. I think Manning can hear it, but I’ve never asked, and I know that Vic has never felt the need to check out Fury’s sub-processor routine.” She nodded to the screen, I’m guessing that because Apocalypse is only a partially conscious SNT, a hybrid, that sub processor is what Gerando Fallon tapped into. How he managed it, how he even suspected it was possible is beyond me. Definitely a question that needs to be asked when he’s recovered enough to be questioned.”

1 not bro gogogo! flashed continually across entire screen, a symbolic effort to scream at me ,if that’s what it took to get my attention.

With trembling hands I responded 1 not bro go now!

“Go.” Stanislavsky shooed me out the door. “I’ll try to keep him talking and see if I can find out more.”

Piloting Fury Part 53: A KDG SiFi Romance

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Happy May, my lovelies! And what a warm one it’s starting out to be here in the UK.  It’s definitely time to read outside in the sunshine with a cold drink. I’m SO there!  Here is your Monday morning dose of Fury al fresco! In this week’s episode Mac discovers blood connections in strange places. If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

 

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

Piloting Fury Part 53: Family Connections

I went to the control center to see if there was anything I could do to help. I needed to be busy, and I needed not to think about the fact that I hadn’t felt this much pain since the last time Fallon had hurt me. The communications officer was putting out a subspace on a channel that no one else used but Pandora and the folks helping escaped indentureds make it to Pandora, and now with the Svalbard gone, there was one less. So far, they’d contacted two small freighters only marginally larger that Fury, and a science vessel that was even smaller still.

I was scanning frequencies for any help we might be able to find when Keen came in. “Diana, if you please.” He nodded for me to follow him, and once we were outside the control room and headed down the corridor toward his lab and office, he spoke. “You’re wasting your time. Even if there were enough ships, and there aren’t, none of them are close enough to help us. We’d need an orca class big enough to evacuate the whole base, surely Ina told you that. Our only option is to hope that Gerando Fallon is right about the Apocalypse.”

“I need to do something. Anything.”

He turned on me so fast that I nearly ran into him. “What you need to do is go back to Fury and get about the damn business of bonding.”

“Don’t fucking tell me what I should do,” I exploded. “He kept the truth from me, and what the hell kind of bonding would it be when he makes a unilateral decision against my will. Knowing that … I mean Christu Vaticanus, he has to know what that monster did to me, what his son did to me, and yet there he is convalescing aboard my …”

“Aboard what? Your ship? The one you love?”

“Fuck you!” I turned on my heels and headed back for the control room, but he grabbed me in a powerful grip of an arm made stronger still by doing the work of two and pulled me back.

“Perhaps your father didn’t educate you fully in the roles of a ship and a compliment, so let me enlighten you. When a ship makes a unilateral decision, the compliment stands by him because there are some things a ship understands better than a humanoid does.” He nodded back to the control room. “That message. That message is the only contact Fury’s had with an SNT since the destruction of the Merlin. Do you have any idea what that means to him? Fury would die a thousand deaths for you, Diana, but that Gerando Fallon has some connection with Apocalypse and that the SNT, this civilized part of the Apocalypse has found something in a monster like Fallon’s spawn worth trusting, can’t you see why Fury did what he did, why he had to do what he did? You above all people should understand his loneliness. And that an SNT has been forced into the service of Fallon makes it all the more important for Fury to learn what he can so that he can free Apocalypse – not just because he wants to know his brother, but because another SNT, especially one living as an orca class ship, would give Pandora Base a fighting chance. If we can just –”

“Wait a minute,” I said. And it hit me like a smack in the face. “Why Gerando Fallon? Why did Apocalypse trust Gerando Fallon of all people?”

“I don’t know, but clearly the kid has turned against his father and with damn good reason, I’d say.”

“I know that. There never was much love between the two to begin with, but it’s not just the matter of trust, it’s a matter of how the hell did he connect with Gerando in the first place if Apocalypse is only partially SNT and he’s controlled by Fallon, how could he connect unless …”

“Unless there’s a blood bond.” Keen said, scratching his chin.

“But I thought you were the donor for Fury?” I said, suddenly feeling as though the floor were tilting beneath me.

“No. I never donated. I figured it would make me connected in ways that wouldn’t be helpful, and it might bias me in my work, work that I couldn’t afford to be biased in. I thought of all of the SNTs as my children, and I loved them all equally, or I tried to. But Fury had my heart anyway, it didn’t matter that he wasn’t my child physically.

“Manning had always referred to me as Fury’s father, and in a way I am, as I am to all of the SNTS. But mine was not the sperm that gave Fury life.”

 

 

I felt as my heart would explode from my chest. “It’s Fallon then, isn’t it? Fallon was the donor. And Apocalypse is also from his sperm.”

“It’s more likely that Apocalypse is cloned from Fury. It’s not impossible that Fallon could have bribed someone for a sample of Fury’s genetic material before Fury was born. It’s always easy enough to trump up charges and threaten someone or someone’s family with indenture. That would explain why Gerando could communicate with the Apocalypse. Technically, they’re brothers, just like Gerando and Fury are.”

As we moved into Keen’s lab, I dropped into the nearest chair, my mind racing. “And Fury knows this.”

“Of course Fury knows this, though he didn’t before Gerando and the message from Apocalypse. It wasn’t difficult to figure out.”

“And yet I missed it. I fucking missed it,” I said, scrubbing a hand over my face.

“Of course you missed it. You were face to face with a man who had tortured you and made your life a living hell. That’s the reason SNTs can override their compliments when the situation demands it.” He laid his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “But most of the time, most of the time, the compliment has the last word because it’s the humanity of the SNTs that makes them so powerful, and that humanity can only be fully accessed through the compliment.” He heaved a sigh. “I guess it’s the same as any mated couple. The two are always more themselves, stronger, better when they’re one. It’s not simple mathematics in a humanoid bonding. One and one is always way more than two. But that’s ten times more the case with a SNT bonding.” He chuckled softly and his lips curved into that inward smile I’d seen on people’s faces when they took a little private walk down memory lane. “I used to lay awake at night dreaming about what Fury would be like when he was bonded. I saw astounding results in all of the SNT pairings – every one unique, every one opening up possibilities that I would have never even thought of before the bondings. And Fury, well Fury was so much more than we could have ever imagined just by the nature of his creation. That you were created the same way, that you were so much his compliment that it was like you were already one even before he left space dock. I’ve ached for him and his emptiness so often. I tried to get him to bond with Ina, because the pairing would have worked, and because I didn’t think you would ever be free, I didn’t think you would even live to meet Fury.” He settled into a chair next to me, and held my gaze. “You see, Fury and Manning didn’t let me in on their little plan to rescue you from the Dubrovnik – not that I had contact with them all that often. They also didn’t tell me that they’d been keeping a close watch on you for a long time before that.”

I shook my head, fighting back emotions that if I lived, if any of us lived, I would one day have to deal with. “I wondered why I always felt close to Manning when we’d meet in ports, and we both laughed at the coincidence, which was no coincidence at all. And the first time I boarded Fury, it was like coming home.” I swallowed back the tightness in my throat. “He … he fit me, both he and Manning.” I forced a laugh, “I actually remember thinking once that we were like an old mated couple, like I was his wife, intuiting his needs and what he could do for me, and wanting to find ways to thank him, to please him. All right, I know that pilots are a superstitious, sometimes a bit loopy, but with Fury it was different from the beginning, like I’d found the other part of me.”

Keen touched my hand where it rested on the desktop. “Because you had found the other part of you. Listen to me, Diana, the one thing we don’t have is time, and we need a fully bonded SNT if we have any chance of surviving when clearly we can’t evacuate. As much as it will break my heart to do it, if you don’t bond with Fury, I’ll have to force the issue and bond him with Ina.”

The thought made my heart clench so hard, I thought it would stop beating, but before I could speak, Keen continued. “It won’t be right. It’ll break his heart and hers, and certainly Richard’s, and he won’t be nearly as powerful as he would be if he were properly bonded to his intended, the one born to him, but if I have to, if you force me to I will. There’s too much at stake.”

“I was born for him,” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it so hard that knuckles pop. “Keen, don’t you see, I was born for him. If I was created for Fury and Apocalypse is cloned from Fury, then surely Apocalypse will sense me and reach out to me in the same way, maybe even more so than he did with Gerando and Fury, if it’s true what you say and an SNT isn’t complete without his compliment then perhaps I can connect, communicate with him.

Keen’s forehead wrinkled in thought, then he opened a channel. “Well it’s worth a try.”

 

Piloting Fury Part 52: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Good morning, my lovelies. Here we are racing toward the end of April! Spring is finally properly upon us, and with that it’s time to read outside in the sunshine. That means Monday morning Fury al fresco! In this week’s episode Mac has to make a hard choice. If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

 

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

Piloting Fury Part 52: The Choice is Not Yours to Make

“Wait a minute. I recognize that ship’s signature, but it can’t be.” My stomach clenched so hard I thought I would vomit. “It’s … It’s the Ares.”

“You’re fucking kidding me? I should have killed that little shit when I had the chance!” Manning said. “What do you say, Fury? Time to blow that bastard bastard out of the sky?”

BloodBrosBloodBrosBloodbros plz! Plz! PLZ!

“That message, while it emanates from the Ares, it is not from the Ares. It is

for me.”

I didn’t know if it were possible for me to feel Fury’s tension, but I was sure I did. “For you? I don’t understand.”

“Nor do I,” he said, “but I believe it comes from another ship, it is a message the Ares is piggybacking. Open a channel.”

Manning didn’t argue, and for a second, I didn’t recognize the face that flashed on the screen, it was so ravaged by the SNT virus, “This is an urgent message for Fury and for Pandora Base.”

“Jesu Vaticanus!” I came out of my seat and leaned forward over the console. “Gerando? What the hell happened?”

“You bloody well deserve it, whatever the hell it was,” Manning interjected.

“They have been infected with the SNT virus,” Fury said, and that made Manning shut up fast.

Gerando didn’t wait for an invitation to speak, an act, which was clearly painful for him. “Pandora Base has been compromised. Listen to me!” He said when Manning opened his mouth to respond. “We don’t have much time. The Svalbard has been destroyed along with its crew. Before they were destroyed, they sent a subspace transmission, which my father intercepted. He doesn’t know that anyone else knows. But the Apocalypse leaked the message to the Ares while the ship was being prepped.”

“So let me get this straight,” Manning said. “First the Apocalypse blows the Svalbard out of the sky and then leaks you the message to give to us? You can’t seriously expect us to believe that any of you are working for the good guys, and –”

“Shut up! The Apocalypse has no more choice than we do,” Gerando managed and, with the effort he dissolved into a fit of deep chested coughing.

“Fucking Fallon tortured the Svalbard’s science officer, Markov, used truth drugs on him.” For the first time we became aware that Leo Rab was onboard, and not looking much better than Gerando. He took over while Gerando coughed like he would hack up his insides. “There was nothing the poor man could do. He told the bastard everything before he died. Fallon knows about what’s going on at Pandora Base. He knows about the cure for the SNT virus, why the fuck do you think he infected us? He also knows that you’re here, McAllister, and he knows the Fury’s SNT1.”

“I still don’t understand why he infected you and sent you here.” Keen joined the party. Up until now, Pandora Base had maintained radio silence.

“He’s convinced you’ll let the shields down to take the Ares inside,” Gerando took back over. “He doesn’t think you’ll let us die, then he can take what he wants without destroying any of the valuable research. He can also take Fury and you, MacAllister.”

Manning grabbed my hand and held it tight as Keen spoke again. “He’ll destroy us either way. He’s got to know Pandora Base can’t stand against him.”

“But if he’s forced to destroy the shields he’ll destroy what’s inside too, and he doesn’t want that.”

“In other words either way, bend over and kiss our asses good-bye,” Manning said.

“How long do we have?” Keen asked.

“Not long enough,” came Rab’s reply. “Maybe nine hours. The Apocalypse gave us a little speed boost or Fallon woulda been riding the Ares’ ass right on in. But it’s still only enough for a warning, maybe for the chance to maybe evacuate.”

“And how the hell do you suggest we do that?” I said. “The only ship we have is Fury, and he can’t defend the base and evacuate it at the same time all alone.”

 

 

“I don’t believe that I shall have to,” Fury broke into the conversation. “Is that not correct, Gerando Fallon?”

“That’s right. You won’t,” Gerando replied.

“Care to explain,” Manning asked.

“The message from the Apocalypse,” Fury said. “While cryptic, he was counting on the comprehension of another SNT.”

“Another SNT? What the fuck? Has Fallon managed to commandeer one of the missing ships?” Manning said.

“No. The Apocalypse is a hybrid, only half formed, only half SNT. That’s why he struggles to communicate, and it’s why he could not override Fallon’s command to destroy the Svalbard.”

“And the bro 123? What’s that all about,” I asked.

“It means, Fury, you’re not an only child, son.” This time it was Rab who spoke up.

“What the hell does that mean,” Manning asked.

“It means whoever’s seed fathered me, has fathered others as well, but that is not unusual. Our seed, those of us who were seeded via sperm and egg, rather than cloned, was donor sperm, after all. Be that as it may, Pandora Base is still at risk, and we have very little time. I must ask what you need of me, Professor Keen?”

“Is there any way we can find out just how much help we can get from the Apocalypse,” Keen asked,” because no matter how pure his heart is, if Fallon controls the weapons, then it won’t be enough.”

“And what about them,” Manning asked.

“There’s nothing you can do for us.” I was surprised when it was Gerando Fallon who spoke. “My old man might have been counting on you lowering the shields to get us inside the base, but he wouldn’t have left it to chance. He had to suspect we would find a way to get a message to you in advance. He had to expect after what he’d done to us we might happily betray him. I don’t believe for one moment that he wouldn’t consider booby-trapping us, and we were both unconscious for several hours. We have no way of knowing what he did while we were unconscious. So there’s nothing you can do.”

“If you could blow us out of the sky before it gets too bad, that would be a kindness,” Rab said, “probably one we don’t deserve, but it would be appreciated.”

“The space dock is outside the shields,” Fury said. “I’m ‘tranning them onboard.”

“What?” Both Manning and I said in unison.

“I don’t want them on this ship.” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, and I wouldn’t have if I could have. I knew what Gerando Fallon was capable of. I bore scars from what he was capable of, but before I could say anything else, Fury spoke in a voice suddenly gone cold.

“That choice is not yours to make.”

I felt those words like a killing punch to my heart and, for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. “You’re right. It’s not.” Even as I managed the words I knew he’d already done it.

“They can be safely contained in the hold and Fury will be able to see if they are booby trapped.” Manning’s voice was apologetic, but it no longer mattered. “It’s the best place for them.”

“The best place for them is out the airlock,” I managed around the weight on my chest and the knot in my stomach. And then I left.

Piloting Fury Part 51: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Good morning, my lovelies. Sorry last week’s episode was late. I had it scheduled, but forgot to update it at the last minute. I hope you enjoyed it all the more for the anticipation.  In this week’s more timely episode Fury and his crew get honest with each other. If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

 

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

Piloting Fury Part 51 :Honesty

“About damn time!” Manning all but scooped me into his arms, and Fury crowded in with his own embrace. Both released me when I tensed.

“Where the hell have you been? You had us worried stiff.”

“I’ve been walking,” I said, struggling to speak around my desire to fall back into their embraces and let them welcome me home the way I had envisioned when I left only hours ago with Stanislavski. Plus the physical sense of their worry was so thick in the control room that it was difficult to breathe.

“Diana Mac, what is troubling you?” Fury asked.

“What’s troubling me,” I said stepping back and squaring my shoulders, determined to get through this, “is why you two have not been honest with me.”

I had the sense of two guys giving each other a surreptitious ‘what do we do now’ glance, and I folded my arms across my chest, holding Manning in my gaze and sensing Fury all around me, knowing that in my mind’s eye, with his intuition, he felt that gaze as clearly as Manning did.

When neither spoke, I lost it. “I’m your fucking intended, Fury. That’s what I was born to be, that’s what I’ve spent my life not knowing, being alone, wondering why I felt it so intensely and you didn’t think I needed to know that ASAP!”

“Mac, listen to me –”

“And you,” I cut Manning off. “What the hell did you think, that I would feel differently about you when I found out that you had died, that your life is dependent on Fury? Well I would have, but not because I would have thought less of you or because I found you any less attractive or any less the person I wanted to spend time with. I’d have looked at you differently because I would have known you better. Hell, we all do that, don’t we?”

Before Manning could respond I turned back to the ship. “Fury, do you not want me to be your compliment now? I mean I know you have Manning. I know the two of you’ve been together a long time. What is it, when you finally had me onboard, did I not live up to your expectations? In all fairness I’ve not had the opportunity to train and prepare.”

“Diana Mac, how could you even think such a thing? You have been my heart since I first saw you sobbing in my escape pod. Have you not thought that perhaps I was concerned that you would not want me? Perhaps because of what I have done to Richard Manning, what I have had to become, what we have had to become that we might fear you would not want us?”

“I’m going to kill Stanislavski,” Manning growled.

“She didn’t tell me, oh she did let it slip that I was meant to be Fury’s compliment, but I was too damn dense to figure it out. It was Keen who told me everything.”

“Then we shall kill Keen together,” Fury said.

 

 

“For what? For telling me the truth neither of you had the balls to do yourselves?”

“It was ours to tell,” Manning said.

“But you didn’t,” I said, pacing the tight space on the deck. “You fucking didn’t, and I had to get the details from Stanislavski and Keen. Do you have any idea how that made me feel? It made me feel like I really was nothing more than your indentured, like everything in my life was still on a need to know basis, and that from two people I trusted, two people I …” I sucked a deep breath and fought back tears. I would not cry in front of them. I absolutely would not cry in front of them.

“Jesu Vaticanus, Mac!” Manning grabbed my arm and pulled me around to face him, holding me in his anguished gaze. “How the hell can you even think such a thing? What the fuck, do you think I’ve been following you around like a goddamn puppy dog for the past two years because I really just needed a pilot?”

“And that is only the time since you have officially known Richard Manning,” Fury chimed in. “I have known about you, known about your location, sought to know that you were safe every second since I first saw you, or at least as much as I could, taking into account that I was a fugitive, whose destruction upon sight was all but written into Authority law. That I could not get you away from Abriad Fallon broke my heart every nanosecond of my existance. Our hearts soared with relief when we knew that you were safe aboard the Dubrovnik in Captain Harker’s kind hands. And when we discovered that Abriad Fallon would take you back, we could stand it no longer, so we acted.”

“Goddamn it, Mac, do you think you’re the only one who’s unsure of yourself, who doesn’t trust her own heart. I’m a fucking dead man! I know that every day of my life, my life, which is only mine thanks to Fury. And yet, I’ve wanted you, longed for you every second of that new life. But don’t you dare ever think that either of us kept these things from you because we didn’t want you, didn’t need you to be a part of us. You’ve got to know that’s the absolute truth. Dream with us, and I promise I won’t keep anything from you, Mac.”

“As for our bonding, Diana Mac. I am frightened that what I did to Richard Manning I will also do to you and I couldn’t bear it. I could not bear damaging you a I did him.”

“What you did was give me back my life, Fury. No, what you did was give me back a life, better than any I’ve ever known. Keen reassured you that a short tether wouldn’t happen with Mac because Mac’s not dying, like I was. Plus he’ll be here to help if you need it, and you won’t. We won’t. And frankly we can’t be mated with Mac soon enough to suit me.” He reached for me again, and I pulled back. The pain in his eyes nearly killing me, and yet I had to tell them how I felt, what I needed.

“The thing is, you didn’t trust me to tell me these things, vital things, things I might have been able to help with. You have no idea — ”

Bro 123!

The words suddenly flashed in huge letters across the screen and then multiplied until the entire space was filled with the words.

“What the fuck?” Manning took the position in the captain chair. “The message is coming from a small ship just coming into high orbit. It’s … It’s on a secure channel to Fury.”

Piloting Fury Part 50: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Good morning, my lovelies. I hope you’re enjoying the spring sunshine as much as I am. Few things I like better than a lazy read in said sunshine, so with that in mind, here’s another cheeky Monday read to start your week of right!  In this week’s episode Gerando prepares for a family reunion, hoping he’ll live to enjoy it.  If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

 

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

 

Piloting Fury Part 50: Bro! Bleed!

“I can’t contact him, and it wouldn’t do any good if I could,” Gerando mopped sweat from his forehead. He’ll track us right on in when the shields go down, and I know he’s got Apocalypse armed to the teeth. I heard him brag once to the Prime Minister that he had a planet killer he could detonate if he ever needed to, and with my old man, that’s not an idle threat.”

Rab watched while Fallon did shit to the ship’s computer, things he didn’t understand. He’d been little more than a glorified grunt onboard the Dubrovnik. Oh he had some technical skills, but most of them involved running loading equipment and reading ship’s manifests to be sure what he loaded and unloaded was what it was supposed to be, but knowing the ass end from the gullet of a ship’s main computer, that was Diana McAllister’s job, not his. “If I was her I’d let us both die.” Rab said. “Hell she just might. And that fancy SNT1, well he might just blow our poxed asses out an airlock and be done with us. Pretty sure ole Manning would jump for joy.” He gave a one-shouldered shrug. “The people on Pandora Base, I wonder, would they turn away people like us? Your bastard of an old man doesn’t seem to think so.”

“Fuck my old man,” the kid panted. If I could just shut off the over-ride controls, we could run the Ares hot and get there far enough ahead of the Apocalypse to at least give them some warning.”

“That won’t go down well.”

“Fuck! Do you think I care? He infected me. My own goddamned father infected me. Oh I’m not surprised, not really, but that being the case, I think any loyalty I might have owed him is shot to shit, wouldn’t you say?”

Rab said, gave himself another injection of pain killer, which wasn’t even touching the goddamned aches in his joints, and his fucking head felt like it was about to explode off his shoulders. “Hell, I’ve got no reason to be the shit stain’s cheer leader. What the hell you gonna do about it?”

“Well, at the moment, he’s controlling the speed and trajectory of the Ares through the Apocalypse. I have no control whatsoever. You see for him to get what he wants from Pandora Base, it’s all about timing, isn’t it? He’ll bargain for McAllister, agreeing to leave the base intact if he gets his property back. Of course he never keeps a promise, so once he has her, it’s just a matter of infiltrating the base and taking what he wants, and killing or indenturing the citizens. And our little plea for help will make it all possible.”

“Well fuck” Rab said.

“I just can’t seem to find the algorithm he used to override the Ares’ control. There was a drop, drop, drop of blood on the console and the kid cursed and sniffed. Holding his head back he reached for a steri-pad and pressed it to his nose. One of the symptoms of the virus was bleeding. “That’s just nasty,” he said. “I fucking got blood all over my nice console.” He went to wipe it off and suddenly the view screen flickered, gave a buzz of static and lit up.

Bro bro bro bro go faster bleed. 

“What the fuck?” Every bone in his body ached as Rab dragged himself to the console, which the kid was trying to wipe clean. What the hell did you do?”

“Nothing! Jesus! I didn’t do anything.”

Bro go bro go faster bleed. 

The message flashed up on the view screen again, then multiplied and repeated itself until it filled the whole damned moniter.

Bleed bleed bleed faster bro go bleed fast bro go.

“Sonovabitch!” The kid wheezed and the fought off a fit of coughing. “Is this for real?”

“What? What is it, some other sadistic trick your ass wipe of an old man dreamed up for us?”

“No. I don’t think so.” Junior began to something on the computer, and Rab watched as his words appeared on screen.

Bro go faster how?

The response was instantaneous, up on the screen almost before Gerando stopped typing.

Go faster bro bleed bro bleed.

“I know this is going to sound insane, but I think Apocalypse is trying to communicate with us, with me. I’m his brother, remember?”

 

 

“Fuck me,” Rab whispered.

“I think … I think,” he sniffed and leaned his head back as another stream of blood appeared under his nose and down his upper lip and he caught in his hand before it could drip.

Bleed bleed bleed! Bro go faster bleed!

“All this bleed shit sounds like a sadistic trick from your father to me,” Rab said.

The words were no sooner out of his mouth than then entire screen filled with a single word bleed just bleed over and over again.

“No. No I don’t think so.” Gerando said with a loud sniff. Then he placed his bloody hand against the console and the words blinked off and on neon bright. Bleed go faster bleed go faster bleed go faster!

            “We’re blood,” the kid said. “That’s it. That’s the message Apocalypse and I, we’re blood. Our DNA’s the same. That’s the connection, my blood on the auto doc, don’t you see, no part of an SNT ship is the brain of the SNT. All of the ship is a whole. My blood touched the SNT part of Apocalypse and there’s a link. That means.” He scrambled to the Ares’ CPU and placed his bloodied hand against the unit and suddenly they were both flying back against the wall as the ship shot forward and jumped into hyperspace.

“Jesu fucking Christu,” Rab gasped when they could both manage to get off the floor and stumble to their seats. “Next time your bro decides to pull a stunt like that have him give us a little warning. I hurt bad enough without having every bone in my goddamned body broken.”

“Stop your whining and come look at this.” The kid held a bloodied sani-med to his nose and imput something on the computer. Rab figured he was trying to see how fast they were actually going. “This isn’t even possible. Even if I could have gotten the controls away from the old man, this ship should be burning up at this speed, and yet it’s not. It’s purring like a kitten, everything working well within parameters and above. According to my estimates, we’ll be dropping out of hyperspace in about six hours, a good day ahead of my old man.”

“And what are we going to do when we get there?” Rab asked. “They ain’t exactly gonna roll out the welcome mat for us.

“Doesn’t matter. At least we can warn them. After that, it’s out of our hands, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, we can warn them so they can all bend over and kiss their asses good-bye. What the hell good do you think it’s going to do? A day? A week? The fucking Apocalypse will chew them up and spit them out before they even know what hit them, and you’re old man knows it. Oh, he’d like to take the base intact so he can take whatever tech secrets ole Keen’s been working on all these years, but it don’t matter, in the end he’ll have Diana McAllister back one way or the other, and he’ll get what he wants.”

“I don’t care,” the kid said, around a wet cough. “It does matter. We have to do something.

Go bro 2

The message flashed bright on the screen and then multiplied and spread from top to bottom. Go bro 2 Go bro 2 Go bro 2.

            Before Rab could ask what the hell that meant, the kid typed,

Will Fury help?

            Bro 2! Bro2! Bro2!!!! Came the response

Will you help? The kid typed.

????  Came the response, to which the kid cursed profusely, ending in a coughing fit. Rab handed him water, which he sipped, then typed again.

Will Apocalypse Help?

            Bro 123, Bro123, Bro123!!! Came the response.

The kid managed to pump a fist in the air before another coughing fit hit. This time Rab found a cough treatment in the auto-dock and administered it. And the kid relaxed, drenched in sweat and burning up. “Why don’t you go lay down and get some rest. Neither of us gonna do anyone any good if we are too sick to communicate once we get there. I’ll keep an eye out for more messages from Big Bro.”

Fallon cracked a smile. “He’s actually Little Bro. Fury’s Big Bro, being the eldest, and I’m the one in the middle.”

“Well that explains a lot,” Rab said. “I heard that the middle kid was always the trouble maker.”

Junior forced a chuckle. “You never met my sister. If it’s all the same to you though, I’ll just stay right here, just in case.” He curled up in the chair and Rab covered him with a blanket, and decided he didn’t want to be all that far away from Little Brother either, and he curled up in his own chair.