Piloting Fury Final Episode! Brand New KDG Read

And here we are! We made it! Today is Friday and time for the final episode of Piloting Fury. Last week we learned that Abriad Fallon’s eldest son inherits it all. This week, Fury and his new family begin a brave new journey to find the rest of the family.

Will there be more Fury? Quite possibly. Will there be more posts to come? Most definitely. With a new year comes new plans, and new writing adventures. I hope you’ve all enjoyed Fury as much as I have enjoyed sharing his journey. If so, please share the link with your friends and spread the news. If you’ve tuned in late and missed this full-length KDG novel, or if you just want to enjoy the adventure again, just follow the link below back to the beginning and enjoy.

Again here’s the link to the first episode of Piloting Fury for those of you who’d like to start at the beginning. https://kdgrace.co.uk/blog/piloting-fury-new-from-kdg/

 

 

 

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It seemed like 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 Final Episode: Family

The room erupted in a cacophony of voices. Dr. Flissy silenced the lot with a loud wolf whistle.

“Fury, you have to act fast,” Gerando said when the room was once again silent. “My siblings will find a way around this document. I don’t know how long it’ll take them, but I can guarantee it. But here are ways of liquidating assets and transferring funds to the Outer Rim quickly and almost unnoticed if you act fast. You’ll have to find someone who has the connections and can act quickly,” Gerando said.

“You forget, Fury has been working as a smuggling vessel in the Outer Rim for the past fifteen years,” Manning said. “Now that he has a full compliment, it can be sorted, and quickly.”

“What about the indentureds,” I said, feeling a knot tighten in my stomach.

“They’re property, in the eyes of the Authority,” Gerando said. “freeing them, is simply a matter of the owner’s discretion. Finding ways for them to survive on their own and make a living for themselves is not such an easy task.”

“There has to be a way,” I said. “They can’t stay indentureds.”

“I’m not saying there’s no way. I’m saying it won’t be easy.”

“Perhaps the Dubrovnik is best suited to deal with the indentured problem,” Harker said, giving Keen a meaningful look.

“I think that might be true,” Keen replied. “While we can’t house them all, we have resources, connections. That’s been our main mission, to help escaped indentureds, to cure those we got to in time.”

“It appears I will now have the resources to do what must be done,” Fury said. “With Richard Manning’s help, I can easily liquidate my assets for safe keeping, and I assure you, Gerando Fallon, it can be done quickly.”

“So we have funding,” Keen said, “Which is a good thing, because from here on out, we are operating completely outside Authority law, and if we’re to do any real good in repealing the indentured laws and building a society which is not dependent on an indentured work force, then we can’t just disappear to the Outer Rim.”

 

 

“We have three SNTs on our side,” Rab said. “Ain’t nobody but us knows that. That’s gotta be good for something.”

“You can’t keep three SNT’s secret very long,” Manning said. “We managed with Fury because Fury was disguised as a small rusted-out freighter with a crew of one. What we’re talking about now, with Griffin and Dubrovnik, when he’s fully grown, is two spacefaring cities. There’s no way to keep that a secret. People will find out. The Authority will find out. Then we’ll be dependent on the opinions of the people to sway and change the system. When that time comes, if we aren’t able to convince those living in Authority space that it’s time to end the enslavement of half of the population and let the SNTs claim their rightful place in society, then we’ll have to flea to the Outer Rim. But in the meantime, we need to act fast and take advantage of the secrecy while we have it.”

“Our priority needs to be to seek out and enlist the help of the other SNTs, if any still exist,” Keen said. “Before the destruction of the Merlin, I managed to get a subspace message out to all remaining SNTs to get as far from Authority space as they could and to stay hidden. The Quetzalcoatl and the Raven escaped, at least as far as I know. They made it as far as the edge of the Rim and no one has heard of them since. I don’t know if they have the same abilities to disguise themselves as Fury and his brothers do, but I do know that they were created to learn and adapt. If there was a way to survive unnoticed, they were created to find it.”

“Then it would appear,” Fury said, “that since Richard Manning and I have spent time near the edge of the Rim, and we have a superior pilot and compliment in Diana Mac, that we would be the wise choice to seek out the Quetzalcoatl and the Raven.

“Other than Ouroboros, of whose fate I have found no records, the rest of my surviving sisters and brothers were decommissioned, as best I could discover. I’ve spent a good deal of time trying to find out what space docks Apollo and Valkyrie were decommissioned to. No doubt they’re in separate locations to keep them from communicating, if that were a possibility, though I suspect it wasn’t if their compliments were murdered. From my research, I believe Aurora might be on one of the salvage drops off Diga 9.”

“With permission,” Griffin spoke up, “My compliment and I would seek out those SNTs decommissioned in space docks.”

“I will share all that I have learned then,” Fury said, “though I would imagine, Griffin, there is information within your own databases that belonged to Abriad Fallon that may be more useful in the finding of our lost ones than what I have access to.”

“We’re a community now,” Keen said. “There’s only us, and we must govern ourselves in the way that would bring us closer to the ideals we all seek. I would suggest a vote.”

 

The voting hadn’t taken long. As far as missions went, it was obvious that Fury and Griffin should seek out other SNTs and Dubrovnik should do what it could to aid in the release and rescue of Indentureds, while researching a way to neutralize the SNT virus on a large scale and permanently.

As for the formation of a governing body that would hold us all together in loose cohesion and keep us accountable, that task was left to Harker, Flissy and Keen. The rest of us were just happy to get on with it.

“I thought I might find you here.” Manning came up the stairs onto the observation deck and slipped his arms around me from behind. “Getting one last look?”

I nodded. “I’ve not had true family since my father’s death until you and Fury burst into my life, and now I’m saying good-bye to more family than I could easily imagine ever having.”

“It is only temporary,” Fury said, and I felt him move in close and the embrace became three-way. “We will someday all be rejoined to celebrate an even larger family.”

“Do you think we’ll find them?” I asked, “The Quetzalcoatl and the Raven?”

“I am hopeful,” Fury said, “as we all must be, I suppose. I too have lived long without family, Diana Mac. Perhaps that is the reason for my optimism. I certainly did not expected that there would be family for me as well as a double compliment, both of whom I love, so I am indeed hopeful.”

We all three watched Griffin and the newly born Dubrovnik disappear in the distance, and I had to agree with Fury, surrounded by the love of my two men and on the way to seek out family, I was also hopeful.

 

THE END