Happy Friday, Everyone! Of course Friday means more Fury, and this is the next to the last episode! Very excited to be sharing the Fury Family reunion. And this week, another surprise from Fury’s father. If you’re enjoying Fury, please spread the word and pass the link to a friend. I love to share my stories with as many people as possible.
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 Part 62: Heir Not-so- Apparent
We all met in Dubrovnik’s captain’s lounge. Manning and I represented Fury, though the com links had been left open with both Fury and Griffin. We were the first to arrive, with Rab, looking slightly uncomfortable in his new uniform. He was now a lieutenant in Dubrovnik’s security division and chosen for his extended relationship with Fallon and the Authority. His knowledge would benefit all of them in the months ahead. Harker was flanked by Doctor Flissy and Lieutenant Juarez, who was the pilot that replaced me. They were joined by Keen, his head of security, Dana Larkin, who would now take over after Markov’s death, and Nali Patel, the head of the transitional team, which would help transition the Dubrovnik from a freighter to a flying research facility as well as from a standard orca class ship to an SNT. The path ahead was staggering. We all settled in at the big conference table, crowded with the full compliment of the three ships – well all except for the representatives from Griffin.
“You suppose they stayed on for a second cigarette?” I whispered in Manning’s ear.
“They’ve had long enough to smoke the whole damn pack,” Manning said.
Suddenly the image of Griffin came up and the monitor showed a split screen image of the two SNTs. Griffin announced the arrival of Gerando and Stanislavsky, who ‘tranned into the room a moment later. Though that, in itself, was no great surprise, the change in the appearance of Gerando Fallon, was. He seemed taller, his shoulders no longer rounded with the years of self-hatred and abuse from his father. He was leaner, the look of sallow laziness that had shadowed his face had gone and the lines and angles of his body were sharper and harder. He was still thinner than ideal from all that he had suffered, but Griffin and Stanislavsky would sort that in short order. His blue eyes burned fever bright and there was a look about him that only came with lessons learned the hard way. Stanislavsky, who stood with her arm threaded through his, no longer looked like a woman who ached for something she couldn’t have.
To everyone’s surprise, it was Gerando Fallon who spoke. “I’m sorry we’re late, but we’ve been doing a bit of research on a very important matter.” He turned his attention to Harker. “If I may, Captain.”
Harker nodded his permission.
“With my father dead, his holdings will now be fought over by his children. It’ll get ugly. There are at least three of my siblings who would give my father a run for his money in the nasty sonovabitch department.” He nodded to Stanislavsky, who moved to the ship’s computer and pulled up a document. “This, however, cannot be disputed. My father left his shares in the Fire Star Conglomerate, along with a great deal of his other accumulated wealth to his eldest son.” He shrugged. “Well technically, I’m dead, so that rules me out. But after Ina and I looked over the documentation, we believe it was never intended for me anyway. He certainly never hinted that I would inherit anything. And now that the truth is out, I’m not his eldest son. Fury is his eldest son.”
The room was suddenly awash in murmurs of startled surprise that all silenced when Stanislavsky pulled up the next document. It looked like a page full of gibberish, numbers, letters, symbols in random combinations. “While I was born fifteen years before Fury, Fury became a living, thinking entity nearly a year before I was born. I don’t mean like a fetus, I mean a sentient being capable of having intelligent, even advanced conversations with Dr. Keen and others who had contact with him and who were responsible for his education.” He waved a dismissive hand. “I know this because I’m really good at hacking systems, and I had a fascination with SNT technology since I was old enough to understand what was going on. But this,” He nodded to the document Stanislavsky had pulled up, “this is what convinced me that my father always believed he would, in the end, have Fury for his own and that he viewed Fury as his immortality. You know what this is and what it means, don’t you, Bro 1?”
“It would appear to be an access code written in my own personal language, the language I created for myself in my infancy.”
“Access to what?” Manning asked.
“To … exactly what Gerando Fallon has stated, our father’s shares in the Fire Star Conglomerate, and multiple billions of credits, property and indentureds across the entirety of Authority space.”
