Happy Friday everyone! And a monumental Friday it is! For eighty weeks you’ve followed Dragon and Len’s adventure in the Dust Cloud Crossroad, and while it’s time for their story to end, the adventure goes on, as I’m sure you’ll see in the final episode of Dragon Ascending. I think it’s quite possible that KD had at least as much of an adventure writing Dragon Ascending as our main cast of characters, though thankfully not nearly as dangerous. I hope it’s been an adventure for you too and that you’ve had as much fun as I have. Will there be another novel from the Sentient Ships series? Well, certainly there’s one in my head. We shall see. 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 Epilogue: You have a Different Fate

Through the observation shield in his office, Kresho watched Dragon make the jump, wishing he’d had more time to better know the woman Len had grown into, but glad that she had found love, had found her rightful place. He and Ori had persuaded Len and Dragon to take Gert with them, a task the woman was a little too excited about in his opinion, but Len wasn’t a pilot, nor did she have the kind of experience troubleshooting that Gert did, and the two women got along surprisingly well. Besides she and Dragon both hoped to build a working crew. They planned to take onboard escaped and free indentured and help them begin a new life beyond the Rim, all that while they searched for Len’s uncle and Quetzalcoatl.

Ori spoke, as they watched her brother vanish. “Humanoids need humanoid companionship. It has been good for us both to be surrounded by so many humanoids, Kresho, though perhaps we were surrounded by too many before we had the chance to enjoy each other as a bonded pair.” He felt her caress of the nape of his neck, and he lifted his arm to accommodate her construct as she slid in tight against his body.

“Then we’ll have to make up for it, won’t we?” He said, turning to kiss the top of her ear. “Does it bother you that Tenad Fallon is here?” The woman was now in a secured room close to the infirmary under full time care. They both visited her every day since they brought her onboard Vodni Station, though she was unaware of their presence.

“Of course it doesn’t. It’s only that I wished I had handled the situation better. I feel responsible for her present condition to some degree.”

“Jesu Vati, Ori, how can you be responsible for the fucked-up mind of a Fallon?”

When she didn’t reply, when he felt her searching for the right words, it was as though the lights had suddenly come on. How could he not have seen it before? “You had me go to her because you wanted her.”

“I wanted us to be happy, and when I learned that Fury had two compliments, I thought perhaps if you had someone human then maybe things would be better. I didn’t think she would escalate the situation like she did.”

Kresho thought about that for a minute and then dropped into his chair. “Perhaps,” he said slowly, “perhaps the reason she pushed for the bonding with Fury is because she wanted something more.”

His com pinged. “Ivanovic, you’d better get down to the infirmary.” The security guard assigned to Tenad’s room was breathing hard, and Kresho could hear the scuffle in the background.

“On my way.”

Even from down the corridor, they could hear the noise, and there was a trail of blood leading into the infirmary. The two security guards always posted at Tenad’s room were not outside, but in the room struggling to restrain Tenad while Doctor Candice, tried to sedate her.

With very little effort, Tenad shoved the doctor on her ass and pushed past the guards to lunge at him, already in mid-sentence, the first words she had spoken since the fiasco of her bonding. “Ivanovic, I have to go. You have to let me go. She needs me to find her. I have to go now!”

Kresho motioned the doc away, and the guards stood back knowing that Ori wouldn’t let anything happen to him. With some effort, he turned her back to settle her on her bed. “Go where, Tenad? Who needs you?

She pounded the side of her head with her open palm. “Here. I can see them here. She won’t leave me alone. I have to go. I have to.” She pulled in a massive breath, her eyes misted and she looked right through him. “There’s a veil, a fog, I can’t get through it, but she’s there. I have to find her.”

 

 

“Find who? Where must you go, Tenad Fallon?” Ori asked.

“Fury … when we were together.” She pounded the side of her head again. “I saw them, I shouldn’t have been able to, but I did. Like I was there. Like I was them. Like they were me. He did this to me. He did this!”

“Who? Who did what? Fury?”

“No, no, no! Not Fury. Never Fury. He would never…” She gave Kresho a shake. “You’re the scientist. Tell me how that can be. You and the SNT you belong to, listen to me, there are others. I don’t know how many, but they will come. The Authority. They will come. The Independent University wasn’t the only one experimenting. They were us. He used us. We didn’t know how many of us there were. My father kept most of us secret from each other. Then I bonded with Fury, and I could see.” Tears streaked her face. “I could see, and now I’m the only one who can, and I can’t get them out of here.” She pounded her temple again, “I have to go. I have to find them. They’re angry, so angry. They will never let it end here. They will never set me free now that they know. Fury did this to me. Fury did this to me! She pounded her temple hard enough that Kresho grabbed her hands.

For a long moment she sat only staring into space. Then she drew another deep breath. “You have to let me go. I know where they are. We need them, I know them. Oh Fury, I can see them. I know them. You could have helped them, and now I’m nobody, I’m nothing, but I’m all there is. I have to go. I’m all there is.” Tenad gave one last convulsive gasp and then her eyes were once again empty. Doctor Candice shooed Kresho away and examined her.

“Well?” Kresho said, when she made no reply.

“It’s like nothing happened. Her brain patterns are consistent with the catatonic state she’s been in since she tried to bond with SNT1. I can’t explain what happened, only that she suddenly sat up, agitated, demanding to see you, and when Pelton tried to sedate her, well,” she shook her head. “He’s over in the infirmary with a broken nose and a dislocated shoulder.”

“What?”

“She forced a bond with an SNT,” the doctor said. “We don’t know the side effects of that, but we do know that the bonded compliments are stronger, more agile, in tune with the functions and needs of their ship, and they’re often very intuitive. If she can ever properly access it, she may have a deep bond to memories, events that only SNT1 would know. But that, whatever just happened, that had nothing to do with SNT1.”

“If she can ever regain consciousness, she will be unique in the galaxy,” Ori said, “and possibly even more frightening than she already was. We must discuss this with Fury.”

 

Tenad dreamed. She dreamed all the time now. It had become her existence. It always seemed like only a thin membrane separated her from the people moving around her, from the events that had changed the politics of the Dust Cloud Crossroads irrevocably. Even when she screamed out to them, tried to reach them, she couldn’t.

In the good dreams she watched her brother and Griffin make love to their pregnant compliment. She watched Dubrovnik interface with Professor Keen and his scientists in exciting research. She sensed the ship’s proud closeness with its double compliment. She watched Dragon make love to his new compliment, felt his pleasure in creating safe and comfortable places for his crew, and she watched Fury and his compliment still celebrating their reunion weeks after their return to him, as though she had never been there at all. How could she have dismissed Vodni Station so lightly? Tonight Kresho and his SNT were making passionate love, not rough like when he’d fucked her, but neither was it gentle. They couldn’t get enough of each other, and there was … love, there was love. She wondered what that might feel like, and she ached with loneliness. She couldn’t pull herself away from their love, their tenderness. Sometimes the camaraderie, the playfulness of the ships with their compliments was worse than her own nightmares because she was always only watching, never participating, always an outsider, one who none of them cared about. Sometimes she would almost prefer that they loathed her than that they did not pay her any mind at all. Lonely. She was desperately lonely, and she lived with the pain of it every time she was pulled into the dream that was the life she would never have.

“You don’t belong here, Tenad Fallon.” The woman’s voice she’d heard before in her fevered dreams, even before she bonded with Fury. She always walked on a craggy peak veiled in black. The air was thin. The wind was icy.

“I don’t belong anywhere.” Tenad tried to turn her face to the wall, but she was only dreaming, and there was no turning away. “It would have been better if I died.”

The veiled woman cackled with laughter. “Do you seriously think your survival was luck, girl? You gambled, and you got more than you bargained for.”

“I didn’t gamble. I considered every factor.” Tenad tried to hold the gaze of the woman before her, but it was impossible through the sway and lift of the veil in the howling wind.

“Your whole existence has been a gamble, Tenad Fallon.” Her words were a harsh, dry chuckle, as though she thought all of this was funny. “You’re not yet finished. You’re not your father, and you are not your brother. You were the best kept secret, the secret unlocked by your own ambition. And now your fate is thrust upon you. And you will rise to meet it, or you will die.”

And just like that the woman on the crag vanished, and Tenad Fallon woke up.

 

The End

 

Happy Friday everyone! Time for the penultimate episode of Dragon Ascending. Wow! What a wild ride it’s been. I hope you’ve had as much fun with it as I have. In this week’s instalment, Len pays a visit to old friends and discovers things are a changing. 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 is especially true as we draw nearer the end of the novel. 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 79: Old Friends, New Beginnings

 They were all on Vodni Station longer than expected. The place felt like home, and it gave them an opportunity to get to know the rest of the family. Besides it was hard not to catch the excitement of a sudden exchange of people and goods between Vodni Station and the Taklamakan System, which had been happy to let the outpost extend its influence for everyone’s benefit. It had long been Ouroboros’s dream to do so, but she felt her hands were tied as long as there was a need to protect her brother. She and Kresho had done what they could to send business Sandstorm way and to help out in unobtrusive ways, but it wasn’t easy without coming out into the open and forming some kind of alliance. Within a few days the new alliance was already benefiting Sandstorm, now that the SNTs could work their seeming magic out in the open. It had always been Keen and Harker’s dream to make things better for humanoids. From the beginning that had been the mission of the SNTs. So with the combine science and tech of Vodni and New Pandora onboard Dubrovnik, they had installed a water molecularization plant in Sandstorm, the only one of the three outposts that didn’t already have one. In the process, they also upgraded the plants on Windward and Sunward. While it was their plan that the whole planetoid should benefit from SNT science and tech, they gave the majority of their attention to Sandstorm, which was the most impoverished and the one in most need.

In the past few months, the people of Sandstorm had become a part of the SNTs’ extended family, having put themselves at risk, as they had. As important as that was, what mattered even more was the fact that the small outpost had been a family to Lenore, another drain on their meager resources when they could just as easily not have revived her. But they had, to the last person, been the family she had lost, never knowing just how special she was, and yet, at the same time, she was special to them simply because of who she was. They had, in essence, rescued nurtured and loved Dragon’s beloved until she was old enough and ready to give him the wake-up call he needed. They had stood nose to nose against the Fallons with little more than what they could salvage. It was only after Kresho and Ouroboros sent deep geo-scanners to Tak Major, they realize that whatever it was at the core of their little sand heap, it wasn’t sand, and they might actually be sitting on a goldmine, having a renewable source of power fed by the intense heat of the system’s sun. It was exactly the kind of power Kresho could harvest, with no harm to the planetoid, for the Tri-axe replacement he and his scientific team had invented. They reckoned that in a few years, all the systems beyond the Rim could be free of the dependence on Tri-Axe, with the help of the Outer Rim Alliance. And suddenly, Tak Major became a hot commodity, though only a few trusted allies knew it just yet.

Tak Minor’s true scientific value had been mostly ignored by the Authority, interested in nothing more than using it to spy on the Rim Alliance. It had, in fact, been completely abandoned after Len left. Clearly there had been no intention of getting the last scientist, who had been executed aboard the Fidelio for betraying Len and her mother and Kresho to the Authority, off the planetoid when his five-year term expired. He had been on the Authority shit list anyway and the posting was the punishment he hoped to get out of by turning in the SNT scientists. When the Authority had not been able to use Vodni as a relay station for the little spy project after they lost the battle with the Alliance, they tried several other methods to relay their information, if there was any to be gathered, and decided it was not worth the cost to them. Their data nodes were automated and maintained through the last Authority scientist, hoping they would find a way to of relaying the information. They gave up the effort and just told the rest of the world the station was to be automated.

As it turned out Tak Minor was indeed a scientific marvel, and most of the data, which Len and her mother had collected and Len had memorized before she fled the planetoid, was outrageously exciting. Tak Minor’s erratic orbit had little to do with the pull of the sun, but no one knew just what it did have to do with. There was a new research station in the works as well as a team from Vodni Station and from Dubrovnik’s Pandora team to work there when it was finished. This station would be a proper research facility akin to what Pandora Base had been on Plague1 and, with Len’s data, long distance research from Vodni had already begun.

Though they kept it well hidden, Vodni Station was far wealthier and better protected from the Authority than Hammerfel Station, which was over twice its size. Vodni Station had an SNT ship with an aptitude for smuggling and making win-win deals, and it was run by a brilliant scientist who knew how to create, market and sell on the sly cutting-edge technology that had benefitted the Rim Alliance quietly. All of this together had made Vodni a quietly wealthy outpost. It was so far out that no one gave it a second thought, and after losing the battle for the station, the Authority was happy to fuck off and leave the survivors to save themselves, having no idea that the whole of the place had been rescued from total destruction by an errant SNT ship, whom they believed to have been long destroyed, along with one of the foremost SNT scientists in the galaxy. In a nutshell, it was the best-kept secret in the quadrant.

All the other SNTs had gone two days ago, but Len and Dragon had lingered. Since the takeover of the Fallon ships, she’d not been back down to Sandstorm, and she wouldn’t leave without saying good-bye. When Dragon ‘tranned her down, she was surprised to see just how quickly things were changing. The Dustbowl pretty much looked the same, but crews from Vodni Station had been working nearly round the clock in special environmental suits that protected them from both the heat and the cold. Bit by bit mountains of salvage, which had long ago been demoted to rubbish, were giving way to state of the art eco-builds, each with proper showers and actual running water.

 

 

Inside Tula and Vaness were behind the bar. “Wow! Something smells in here,” Len said as she came in through the new pressure door.

“It’s called clean,” Tula said, and then added with a bawdy laugh, “took us all awhile to get used to it. Can’t even remember the last time I’d had a proper shower.”

Vaness shook her head slowly. “Seems so decadent, so wasteful.”

“Yeah, well as long as we share quarters, Hon, don’t you even consider saving water by not bathing. I didn’t realize just how bad you smelled until I’d bathed.”

Vaness gave her the finger and then came around the bar to give Len a rib crushing hug. Vaness was a big woman.  “How you doing, Girlie? ‘Zat SNT of yours making sure you’re getting laid enough?”

Tula giggled. “Hell, all you have to do is look at her, Nessie, to she’s walking bowlegged.”

“I like them,” Dragon said over the com system that had been put in place so the actual SNTs could communicate with the surface.

Tula gave another hearty laugh. “Well, Dragon Boy, I’m sure Nessie and I would both give you a freebie just to know what a little SNT cock feels like.”

“I would hardly call it a little SNT cock,” came the response that had both whores guffawing.

“That being the case,” Vaness replied, “maybe we’ll pay you. We’re business owners now, you know?” She nodded around the bar, which was comfortably busy.

“I shall take that under advisement if we are ever lacking for funds,” came the response.

Vaness came out from behind the bar and handed Len a beer, which she tasted. “Wow, that’s actually good.”

“Just don’t tell Arji,” Vaness replied, a blush of pleasure crawling up her cheeks.

“The secret ingredient is water,” Tula said, returning to pulling three more pints as Arji and Camille came from the back room along with Kresho — Arji hand in hand with Camille.

“Hell, I’d have used water if I’d had it,” came the ex-bar owner’s reply. Under the circumstances … well my brew was creative.” He broke away from Camille and swept Len up in a hug.  “How you pissing, Girlie-Girl? Looks like ole Dragon is treating you right. He’d better be.” He glanced around the room and raised his voice slightly just to be sure ole Dragon heard.

“I see that she eats regularly, gets laid whenever she wants and pisses very well indeed.”

“Them sounds like wedding vows on this dirt ball.” Digby came through the pressure door and grabbed Len up for another hug, which was followed in quick succession by half a dozen other Sandstormers coming in to wish her a bon voyage.

“You won’t forget us, will you?” Jax said, her eyes uncharacteristically misty, though she swore if was only the scent of the high-falluting soap Kresho had delivered from Vodni, something that up until the water-system, had not been useful on Sandstorm.

“I would never forget my family,” Len replied, wiping her own eyes.

“See that you don’t,” Digby said.

Even after they came out into the pub, Kresho, Camille and Arji sat at the back table with their heads together, sipping their pints.

“What’s going on?” Len asked Tula nodding back to them.

“Kresho has a half a dozen contracts for them and the Janisha. Those two are gonna be well rewarded. They’re taking Jax and Clapper with them so they’ll have a full crew. If I understood right,” Tula was a great eaves dropper who never missed anything, “their first little expedition is out to Diga Prime. Big enough contracts they’ll need the full crew.”

“So, who is taking the Love Shack now that you two are pub owners and beer makers?” Len asked.

“Gonna be on a rotating schedule for now,” Vaness answered for her partner. “Ori and Kresho have several professionals, both chicks and blokes, who would be happy to trade out and spend a rotation here. They’ll be making a lot more dosh than we were now that the place is becoming all hoity-toity. That’s all right,” she said filling a pint and sliding it across the bar to Clyde. “Them professionals do their job right, all the punters’ll be here to drink up, before and after. We won’t suffer none, especially now with real water for the beer. Hell, we might even start stocking two kinds, and Camille and Arji are saving a little space to bring us back a shipment of good New Hibernian and maybe even a couple of crates of New Dalmatian Wine. We got a little deal going on their returns to Vodni.”

“And what will all this do to the salvage business?” She asked Fido, who gave her a one-armed hug and ordered her another pint.

“More traffic, more salvage. Ain’t nobody wants to pay full price when they can get used cheaper. Plus once the upgrades are all in place, we’ll have a way of sorting what we got and cataloging it a little better. Hell, ain’t a soul ever been able to figure out how all this shit got here in the asshole of the galaxy. I s’pose it’d be nice to know. Got some archeologists and metallurgists and chemists and what-not landing here, so things is changing. Guess I’ll hang around to see what happens.”

Strangely enough for a community of people who had vowed to the person that they’d leave Tak Major in a heartbeat if they had the chance, very few of them actually did.

“What about you, Girlie,” Digby asked. “Where you and ole Dragon off to?”

“We’ll be looking for my brother and Quetzalcoatl,” she answered.

“And we will find them,” Dragon said. “We will not stop until all of our family is once again united.”

Digby nodded as Fido came to his side. “Out here, family is everything.”

“Anywhere, family is everything,” Len said, and she felt the warm brush of Dragon next to her in quiet agreement.

 

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending in which we see that things are definitely changing. Len is finding closure and the Fallon crews have choices to make. 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 is especially true as we draw nearer the end of the novel. 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 76: Choices and Cross Roads

 The first thing Len noticed as she walked into the Dustbowl was Camille chatting rather intimately with Arji over the bar. Dragon chuckled softly in her ear. “It would appear that your Arji’s affections have shifted.”

“Indeed.” She barely got the thought out before Arji and Camille both looked up and came over to her. Arji took her in his arms and lifted her off her feet in a bear hug. “That’s … how many now, Girlie Girl? Is it three lives you’ve used up? Lucky for you to have hooked up with a fancy SNT to keep you safe now, hmm?” He patted her so hard on her back that he nearly knocked the breath out of her, and Dragon tensed a little until she returned the favor and laughed. “You got it ass backwards, Arji. It’s me watching out for my SNT.”

“It don’t surprise me none” His eyes got serious, and he gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “He treatin’ you right that SNT of yours?”

“Yeah, Arji, he’s treatin’ me right.” To this Dragon nearly purred. “You all right, Camille?”

“Never better.” The little indentured – ex indentured — gave her a broad smile looking her up and down as though inspecting her for damage.

“Thank you for everything,” Len said. “If it hadn’t been for you we’d have never found Mac and Manning, and it was one helluva risk you took.”

The smile left the woman’s face, and she bit her lip shifting from foot to foot, then she held Len’s gaze. “Did he kill her?”

Len knew exactly who she was talking about. “I only know that Fury said she wouldn’t be any trouble to anyone anymore. No one has seen her since. I don’t think anyone has had the nerve to ask what happened.”

“But you suspect,” Camille said.

Len thought about it for a moment, then replied. “I know that Fury is already bonded. I also know that no matter how quickly Tenad’s body adjusted to Fury’s bio-tech, he could not have had a warm feeling for her after what she did, and while she might have entered his heart chamber to undergo the process, that doesn’t mean she would come out intact.”

“Good,” Camille said.

Just then Kresho came through the front door. When he saw Len, he offered her a smile that was far more like the old Van than anything she had seen from him so far.

“Kresho Ivanovic and Ouroboros have reconciled and had very pleasing sex,” Dragon said in her ear.

Before she could say TMI, Arji gave Kresho a hard slap on the back and said, “From the looks a you, Ivanovic, I’d say you got well and properly laid last night.”

Dragon chuckled his satisfaction, and Len was pretty sure she heard Ouroboros join in.

Kresho nodded to Len, almost shyly, and she nodded back, thought better of it and then gave him a quick hug, to which she heard both Dragon and Ouroboros’s sigh of pleasure at the reconciliation of the two.

Just then Mac and Manning came through the front door and Arji gave them a nod. “Back room’s ready for you lot, and all them you asked for is back there waiting for you, the whole lot’s damn near pissin’ ‘emselves with nerves, I’d say. I don’t mind saying it does my heart good knowing there’s two less Fallons stinking up the galaxy.”

Arji led them all into the back room behind the curtain with Camille at his side. There, shifting nervously stood all the commanding officers of the three Jaegers that belonged to Tenad and the Dreadnaught that had belonged to Jessup.

When everyone was in the room, Manning gave Arji a nod and he turned on the communication system and stepped back.

“I am SNT1 Fury,” the familiar voice came over the system. “By now you all know that my brother, SNT7 Dragon and my sister SNT3 Ouroboros and I are the reason you and the ships you command are still here after your efforts to kidnap my compliments and to destroy both Taklamakans Major and Minor. The charged static of three SNTs filled the room, three SNTs with every reason imaginable to blow all four ships out of the sky and destroy every living soul associated with them, and they all knew it. Just when the hair along the arms of every person in the room stood on end and the space stank of fear and nervous sweat, the static dissipated and Fury continued. “You were following the orders of cruel people, of people who have enslaved half of their own population through the cruelty of the shackle, and sabotaged my own family, blaming us wrongly for the deaths of innocent millions. You are not stupid, and neither are you fools. Believe me when I say every SNT understands the drive to survive, to stay free of the shackle, as we understand the threat that hangs over the head of every single one of you and every person onboard your ships, and your families, and their unborn children.”

“So here is what we offer you,” Ouroboros took over the sound system. “All of those indentured onboard your ships have been removed to a designated place here in Sandstorm, where their shackles have been deactivated. They will be given the choice to stay here, or to go on to Vodni Station and there find work or passage to the Rim, or if they choose to, they may stay onboard their ships and serve at the pay level and the commission level they would have been had they not been indentureds, with all the chances of advancements available according to their position.

“As for your ships, they have been confiscated by us to help with our mission. They will be refitted to help us find our lost brothers and sisters and to make right the wrongs that have been done, so that we SNTs may, at last, fulfill our commission to humanoid kind. That means those of you who wish to stay on and serve our cause may do so without fear of retribution from any of us or ours, without fear of the shackle. Those of you who don’t wish to serve us may remain here on Taklamakan Major and work off your passage to wherever you choose to go, or become a part of the communities that are here. Those are your choices.”

The captain of the Virago was the first to step forward. “That’s hardly a choice for me and my crew,” he said. “Just tell us what you need from us, and we’ll see it done.”

The other Jaeger captains were quick to follow suit.

Then the captain of the Dreadnaught came forward. “What about our families back in Authority space? There are a fair few of us who serve aboard Fallon ships under threat of the shackle to our families and loved ones. How can we know that they’ll stay safe?”

“There are many ways you can serve, Captain James,” Dragon spoke up. “No one understands the need for family and loved ones quite like we SNTs do, believe me, and we have already begun plans to make sure your family and dear ones are returned to you safe from threat. Some of you will be involved in that plan.”

Dragon’s response was received with hearty nods and smiles from the Fallon Crews.

 

 

“Good then.” Fury picked up. “Let your people know that any who wish to remain will be free to do so, but we will not tolerate any Authority sympathizers.”

The Virago’s captain gave a grunt of a laugh. “I doubt you’d find any once we’ve been offered a choice and know that our families will be made safe.”

“They were all pulled off other ships for their superior service, threatened with the shackle, them and their families, and Shanghaied onboard the Fallon ships,” Camille said. “They all know that serving well in the Authority military or conglomerate cargo ships will as easily get you a shackle as a commendation,” she commented.

“Then we all know how the situation stands,” Ouroboros said. “Tomorrow we will travel in force to Vodni Station where your ships will be refitted to a less destructive purpose while we await the arrival of our brothers, Griffin and Dubrovnik. Once we are all united there, you will receive your assignments, and we will finally be able to begin our mission. Are there any questions?”

“You trust us then?” The captain of the Virago asked.

“You are travelling in the company of three SNT ships, their compliments and their flotilla, are you foolish enough to give us reason not to trust you,” Ouroboros replied.

When the man only offered a sheepish chuckle and everyone else from the Fallon ships did the same, she said, “then you may return to your ships. You will find the course already laid in.”

“Bar’s open if you wanna celebrate good riddance to bad Fallon rubbish,” Arji said. To that they all gave a collective sigh of relief and filed out to the bar.

Once everyone was gone except for Arji and Camille, Fury spoke to Camille. “While I cannot bring back your lost loved ones, dear Camille, I would restore to you your birthright. You are quite capable of piloting any of the jaegers or the dreadnaught, if you want.

“I don’t,” came the pointed reply.”

“What then, dear woman, how then do you wish to begin your life of freedom.”

“I want the Dart,” she said.

Suddenly the room was awash in an electric silence. “I don’t care what happens to the rest of the crew, she continued, talking swiftly, as though she were afraid she wouldn’t get the chance to finish. “I reckon they deserve whatever they get. I want the Dart and I want her refitted at Vodni Station as a proper cargo ship like she should be.” She turned her attention to Kresho. “I reckon as the one in charge at Vodni, it wouldn’t be that hard for you to line me up with enough contracts to get me and a small crew of my choice started in the business that should have been mine. In return for your investment, I promise I won’t disappoint you.”

Arji cleared his throat, and the burn on his cheeks was one Len recognized after all the years she’d known the man as controlled, satisfied anger. “Well, the Dart no longer has a crew. The ship is, I suppose,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, “salvage now.”

When no one spoke and all eyes, humanoid and SNT, were on him, he cleared his throat a couple of times and spoke. “We don’t take kindly to one of our own being … abused.” He lifted his eyes to Len’s and they were like blazing glacier ice. “Me and Digby and Fido and a few of the others decided the bastards deserved a little Sandstorm justice.”

“You left them to the Shimmer,” Len said around the pounding of her own heart.

He held her gaze, his lips a thin tight line. “Just like they did you, Girlie Girl, just like they did you.”

“Good,” Dragon and Fury both said at the same time. Len just took the man into her arms and gave him a tight hug. Family. Family was everything in the Tak.

When he pulled away, he cleared his throat a couple more times until he had control of his emotions again, and said. “We all decided that the Dart is salvage, and it rightly belongs to you, Girlie-Girl, as blood price. It’s yours to do with what you want.”

“Then I want Camille to have it. Without her we wouldn’t be having this happy reunion.”

“As for the refit and the contracts,” Kresho said, “that’ll be no problem. We’re always looking for reliable cargo ships.”

“That’s all done and sorted then,” Arji said. Then to everyone’s surprise, he turned to Camille. “If you need a second in command, I’m your man. I had me some experience in long distance haulage before I ended up on this heap.”

“Well aren’t you just full of surprises,” Len said.

“And what about your dreams to be a master brewer?” Kresho asked, lifting the pint he’d been working on in salute.

“Ah, well you know how it is, Ivanovic, when a good lookin’ woman makes you an offer you can’t refuse, you take it,” the man said, glancing down at tiny little Camille with a look Len could only describe as adoration.

“There is one more thing that we must take care of before we leave for Vodni Station in the morning, Ouroboros said. Kresho took Len’s hand and gave it a tight squeeze.

The morning saw the three SNTs and their compliments as close to Taklamakan Alpha, the yellow sun of the system, as they could all safely get, as they launched the casket bearing Janesha Felish’s body into the sun. “Mama, you told me once that you wish you could fly right into Tak Alpha because you reckoned that was the only way you’d ever be warm again. I remember how cold we always were, and how I used to imagine as a child that I could find a way to get us off Tak Minor and surprise you by taking you somewhere warmer. You belong in the stars. You were the light the burned bright for me in the darkness. And now finally you can be warm. Tak Alpha will be a much brighter star for taking you into its arms. I love you, Mama, and I always will.”

Kresho came to her side and slipped his arm around her as she pressed the launch button that jettisoned the pod casket. From Dragon’s launch bay all of the compliments stood together to honor Len’s mother, and from their place on her deck, Camille and Arji re-Christened the Dart as Janesha’s Gift. Then they all watched as the tiny casket disappeared into a bright flash and was gone forever. Closure. It was closure. “I promised you Mama.” Len said so softly that only Dragon could hear her. “I promised I wouldn’t leave you there. And now neither of us will ever have to go back again.”