Hi my Lovelies. I have decided to release a new instalment of Fury every Friday so you can enjoy through the weekend. If you like it, please let your friends know. The more the merrier.
Today we meet Rab, who has been spying on Diana McAllister for awhile now, and suddenly finds himself caught in a really, really bad situation he hadn’t counted on. Enjoy!
Piloting Fury:
“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” McAlister 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.
Chapter 2 Part 1 A Deal with the Devil
The outer docks were darker than the inside of a Faribaldian’s asshole. This was the oldest part of the station, and while the atmosphere in the outer ring was breathable, if you considered suffocating slowly in a stinking thick fog breathable, the New Hibernians didn’t waste energy on lighting the place unless they needed to use if for overcrowding. Why the hell there would be overcrowding on this backwater shithole, Rab sure as fuck couldn’t figure. He stayed as close to the utility lighting near the docking bay as possible, squinting hard at every moving shadow beyond. It was an unplanned stop for the Dubrovnik, and Rab had no goddamned idea why Captain Harker made it until he saw Gerando Fallon drinking and whoring at the Nine Tails. Then it all made sense. But it was Harker’s problem, wasn’t it? How the hell did he end up right in the butt fuck middle of it all?
It was the shit that happened in this part of the docks when there wasno overcrowding that concerned Rab at the moment. If there was a murder on NH372 — and murder was a favorite pastime for these New Hibernian fuckers – this was the place it would happen. Chances were equally good the body would not be found until the next time NH372 had an overcrowding problem. As Rab waited, pacing in a tight circle, he was almost certain he could smell the stink of rotting corpse.
The thought that he might soon be joining the ranks of the rotting did little to calm his nerves. He knew the place’s reputation, and he didn’t like it. He especially didn’t like it that he was meeting Gerandofucking Fallon here. He wouldn’t even be here in the first place if he hadn’t been doing the job that ass wipe was supposed to be doing, and that because he happened to be in the wrong damn place at the wrong damn time. He happened to choose the goddamned Nine Tails for his first shore leave hooch stop instead of any of a dozen other disreputable dumps on NH372. He was barely in the door before Fallen was eyeballing him. Then, the little snot gob had the balls to grab him by the shoulder and ordered him — fucking ordered him! To keep an eye on Diana McAllister while the bastard went off to fuck some poor unsuspecting whore. Before Rab could mumble yeah or ne, Fallon had escorted a dark-haired chick, big blue eyes and nice tits out of the bar. She was smiling and flirting, doing her job. Rab couldn’t help notice that she looked a helluva lot like Diana McAllister. He felt for the chick. She would more than earn her money — if Fallon paid her at all. Whether or not she’d ever be able to work again once the little shit was done with her, well the odds were definitely not in her favor.
But when Fallon was your name, you could do what you bloody well pleased. Daddy would clean up all your messes and wipe your ass. That’s what made Rab so nervous. He’d been doing the lazy bastard’s job, and he’d kept an eye on Diana McAllister. Hell, he’d been doing that anyway, doing that ever since she set foot on the Dubrovnik. And frankly he felt for her when sonny boy showed up casting his filthy glances her way. He figured daddy was about to bring his prize indentured home, and this time, it didn’t matter that she really was the best damn pilot in the galaxy. Abriad Fallon wanted her back. Hell, Rab would have helped her escape himself if there’d been any possible way. But she was an indentured. To escape was a death sentence, and a long and painful one at that. Still, he couldn’t really imagine that being worse than being the plaything of a Fallon.
Strange her disappearance, though. The place was so crowded he could barely clap eyes on her from where he stood at the bar. She was in the middle of a poker game with some punter he didn’t recognize. No reason why he should. Hell he kept his head down and didn’t associate with anyone. He had too much to lose to get friendly-like with the wrong folks.
He’d just settled at the bar with a pint, figuring he’d be there for awhile. McAllister would ring every last credit out of the poor bastard she could, him hanging on all the while hoping his luck would change, or at least hoping in the end he’d get a sympathy fuck for his losses. Like that was ever gonna happen. He’d been wrong though. A bar maid had dropped a tray full of drinks right in front of him, glass and cheap boozing going everywhere, everyone dodging and cursing. By the time he looked back McAllister was gone. It was like she vanished into thin air once she left the Nine Tails. The scuttlebutt was that she’d lost. Fucking lost! And had left with the man she’d lost to. That was stranger still, Rab thought. He’d been working on the Dubrovnik with the woman since she’d become its pilot, and he had never seen her lose. No one who wanted to leave with their credits and their shirt in tact ever played poker with Diana McAllister. That’s why she was in her element in remote space stations where no one knew her reputation and everyone was lonely and in need of company that didn’t look like a the ass end of a New Vaticana baboon. But tonight she had lost, and she had lost soundly.
Well the way she looked in that dress and considering she was an indentured with no funds, he figured the lucky sonovabitch who’d beaten her was going to get well and truly laid. What else could she have to offer him and, frankly, Rab considered it quite a win. No one fucked Diana McAllister. In all the years he’d served next to her, he never once heard even the slightest rumor that anyone was getting any joy from Diana Mac. Oh plenty had flirted, plenty had tried, but she shut them down right fast. Kept herself to herself, kept her nose clean and did her job. Then whenever the Dubrovnik was in space dock, she put on that cock-straightening dress and invited the brave and the stupid to a little game of poker. While indentureds had no right to invest funds they earned, if the owners of their contract allowed them to moonlight, they could save toward their release. If she was like most of the poor bastards, he figured that’s what she was saving for. Just between him and the gatepost, he wasn’t sure she could pay off her contract to Abriad Fallon in three lifetimes. For some reason, she was worth a small fortune. But that wasn’t Rab’s problem. His problem was explaining to Abriad Fallon’s lazy ass fuck of a son why he had lost her, and doing it in such a way that he might just manage to stay alive.
Being that his situation couldn’t possibly suck worse than it did, he kept racking his brain trying to figure out just what the hell happened, trying to come up with some answer that would get his ass off with only a good hard beating. Oh he was sure that McAllister would be back onboard the Dubrovnik when the ship left orbit. She was an indentured. She didn’t dare not return. But what that did mean was that once the Dubrovnik jumped, daddy Fallon would have to wait a little longer to get his prize back to Terra Nova Prime. It also meant that the whole process of the transfer of her shackle would then have to be legal and aboveboard. Rab reckoned sending Junior to steal her away like a goddamn thief was an insult to Captain Harker. Clearly the captain was fond of Diana Mac, but hell, who wasn’t? Abriad Fallon would see it as a firm reminder that when push came to shove the woman belonged to him to do with whatever the fuck he chose. Sending his cruel fuck of a son made the message crystal clear. The kid was little more than a spoilt brat left to grow up with no discipline and no restraints. Daddy Fallon, on the other hand, was one scary sonovabitch. He was one of the most powerful men in the Authority, and his control of the largest conglomerate also made the motherfucker one of the richest. He didn’t get that way be playing nice. He didn’t get that way be even pretending to play nice.
He would not be best pleased with the jizz gob of his loins for costing him time. Rab knew only too well that shit always rolled down hill and fuck if he wasn’t smack dab at the bottom of that goddamned hill. So he’d managed to shove his way through the
crowd and catch up with McAllister and the man who had won at poker in the alley
behind the Nine Tails. It couldn’t have been simpler. McAllister wasn’t a troublemaker. She’d give the man what he’d won and be back onboard the Dubrovnik in time for departure. They went around a corner and that was it. Just like that, they
fucking vanished. After he had looked for them over two hours with no joy, figuring either his number was up, or he’d have to run, he caught a break. Fallon came back from his whore drunk and puking in the alley, not in any condition to enjoy hurting Rab for his failure, and this dump of a place is where he’d ordered him to wait.
Nice Friday. There is something to read…
These days something to read is a big plus in my book. Thank you Lisa!
Thanks for part 3. I look forward to continuing …
Very glad you are enjoying Fury, Mary. Thank you.