Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Kresho prepared to meet Fury, and possibly his doom. This week Len gets caught by the wrong person. 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 one is particularly long in order not to break the flow of events. 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 57: Give Me One Good Reason

“Give me one good reason why I should not ‘tran you into space instead of on my bridge, Kresho Ivanovic, or should I say Keith Vanderbilt?”

“I don’t give a fuck what you call me, but I have information you need, information about one of your passengers. I would just as soon the Fallons weren’t privileged to it.”

When Fury didn’t immediately answer, he added. “Look, I can help. I’m an SNT Scientist. I was on the project before you were -”

“I know who you are,” Fury cut him off. “And I remember you as someone trustworthy back then. But that fact is drawn into question in light of what you did afterward, what you’re doing now, so I will ask again, why should I ‘tran you onboard?”

“Because you don’t know what I did, Fury. You have no idea. No one does. Look, I’m completely at your mercy. You know where my ship is. You could blow it out of the sky before I knew what hit me, and I know why you would love to do that right now, but we need to talk or huge mistakes that may cost you more than you can easily imagine will be made.” When there was no response, he continued. “Look, just ‘tran me aboard and make sure they don’t know. Once you’ve done that, I think you’ll have a lot more information that will help you and your friends.” He held back a little hiss as he sliced the inside of his arm with the old Terran switchblade he always kept on his person to give him that little extra edge should he ever need it. He cut it just enough for a thin ribbon of red to glisten to the surface. And then the bridge of the Compass shimmered with a transport in progress, and in an instant he was reduced to his molecular components, at the mercy of the angry SNT on the other end as to if they should be rematerialized into him or if they should become just so much space dust. This time he got lucky, but it was not Fury’s bridge he came back together on. Instead the tran ended none to gently in a small cell.

He landed on his hands and knees and caught a harsh breath, then coughed. “Jesu Vati it smells like puke in here.”

“I saw no point in cleaning it up so that you could add to the stench.” Fury’s voice filled only his head, “but I see now that I shall not have that pleasure of watching you disgrace yourself.” Instantly the room was pristine again and smelled more like herbs than harsh cleaners. “Was this your secret then? Who? Who would allow this with someone untried and untrustworthy?” His voice was a painful roar inside Kresho’s head.

“I didn’t come here to talk about who pulls my strings. I didn’t come here with excuses. Give me a little more credit than that. It’s the girl you have here,” he waved a dismissive hand before Fury could speak. “Yes I know she’s here, and I know what she thinks about me, but believe me, the only reason I didn’t come for her is because I was unable.” Christ, the downside of the old silent conversation was that the emotions were all there in the thoughts. There was no disguising them.

“I know.” That left him wrong-footed.

“Arji Finkle has told me as much, told her as much, though with no details since there has not been time. I am not certain she believes it, but I do.”

“And you still want to toss me out the airlock?”

“Lenore Falish is safe, and she shall remain safe, but my compliment are not. They have been stolen from me, a thing you were fully complicit in.”

“You think I had a goddamned choice? I have wet dreams about Fallon heads on a pike. “I need you to know about her, about Len. She’s more than she appears, more than she knows, and she’s the most valuable cargo I reckon you’ve ever had onboard.”

“And she is in great danger.” Fury said. Just like that the conversation was over Kresho’s jail door burst open.

 

 

Len didn’t know Fury’s schematics, and they were nothing at all like Ascent’s or Quetzal’s. While his core was the heart of an SNT, it was different from Ascents’s, but then no one was like SNT1. Not only was Fury the prototype for all SNTs, but he was the most sophisticated SNT ever conceived. He was the only one actually conceived, making him far more humanoid in his biotech and making his development to maturity far slower than his brothers and sisters, whose biological components were cloned from humanoid DNA. The plan had been that once Fury was fully mature, ships would then be cloned from his biological components. The thing was that Fury’s inner space, the space that was actually used as a ship, had been modified to pass for a small, battered, cargo/smuggler, which was apparently what he and Manning had done in order to keep SNT1’s disguise while they found a way to get Diana McAllister away from Abriad Fallon.

Len wasn’t unfamiliar with smugglers, since some of them doubled as salvage vessels when they were really down on their luck, but the thing about smugglers and salvage ships is that while the basic design might have been there beneath it all, the ships were almost always repurposed multiple times, and each time they were made over with salvage and secondhand parts so that their form fit their function. No doubt it was also the case with SNTs, the ones who had survived. They would have had to disguise themselves. That made exploring Fury truly an adventure, and she seldom knew exactly where she might turn up.

She had planned to hold fast until she, Fury and Ascent figured how to proceed with finding Mac and Manning, but then the strange energy had coalesced and dispersed on board, and energy she had felt just below her sternum, as though her chest were suddenly filled with nanites for a split second and then they were syphoned out. It was a transport, but no ordinary transport. It was then that she realized Kresho Ivanovic had just been transported onboard and that both he and Fury had intended to keep it a secret, to protect her, no doubt. But she didn’t need protecting, she needed fucking Ivanovic, or whatever he called himself, to explain why the hell he left her and her mother to die.

Fury had transported him to the same place he had transported the Fallons, but it didn’t affect him in the same way it had them, and she really couldn’t picture Fury going easy on him. There was something about that transport, something so familiar that she could feel it knocking on the inside of her brain, something she should have been able to figure out, some connection she should have drawn.

“Ascent?” She spoke inside her head, “I need to hear what’s being said.”

Immediately the conversation that had been blocked to her came to her once removed with Ascent acting like a transmitter.

“Yes I know she’s here,” she heard Ivanovic’s voice in her ear. “And I know what she thinks about me, but believe me, the only reason I didn’t come for her is because I was unable.”

That ratcheted up Len’s pulse and made her more determined than ever to find him. He had answers she needed. After several false turns, she found a lift that she was pretty sure led down to the cargo bay. Inside her head, Ivanovic said, “I need you to know about her, about Len. She’s more than she appears, more than she knows, and she’s the most valuable cargo I reckon you’ve ever had onboard.”

“The fuck,” she said in her head and Ascent shushed her.

As the lift doors opened, she moved down a narrow hall. An open door on one side revealed utilitarian bunks in a tiny space, which she ignored. Fury had told her there was a space at the end of the short corridor used for quarantine or as a holding cell for prisoners when there was a need. That’s where he was being held. She was so focused on the conversation, that she was completely caught off guard by an arm around her throat drawing her up tight against a sweaty male body that stan of puke and anger, just as both Ascent and Fury said at the same time that she was in danger.

“Well, well, well! What have we here, the entertainment?” The man behind her thrust a hard-on up against her back and raked an awkward hand over her breasts, and she went dead still. She didn’t care who the hell it was, though she thought she knew, she wasn’t going to be taken that way again.

“I haven’t had a good fuck since I got here. Ugly, dirty lot, all of you down on that sand heap. Still, a man has needs.”

He shoved her up against the wall, face to. While she hadn’t seen him, she could tell he was much bigger than she was, and the reek of him was nearly enough to make her gag. With one hand, he held her firm while with the other he went to work on his fly. He had to lean over her to yank and shove at her trousers, and it was then that she struck, bringing the crown of her head back hard into his face.

“Get off her, Jessup, you idiot! What the hell are you doing?” Tenad Fallon grabbed her brother and pulled him back, but he backhanded her in a wave of curses and sent her flying across the floor, giving Len just enough time to duck and scramble. As she crab-walked back out of Jessup Fallon’s reach, his body shimmered and he was transported. It was only before she blinked out of existence that she realized she was being transported too.

 

 

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week all hell broke loose, and we were reminded once again why  no one trusts a Fallon. This week Kresho prepares to meet Fury, and possibly his doom. 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 one is particularly long in order not to break the flow of events. 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 56: I Should Have Seen this Coming

 

“I should have seen this coming! I should have fucking known better.” Kresho paced back and forth on the bridge of the Compass. “Now we don’t know where they are. Now our hands are tied. He turned to the com and all but shouted, “If they die, Ori! If they die their deaths’ll be two more deaths on my head, and I’ll deserve it when Fury blows me the fuck out of the sky.”

“They won’t die, Kresho. She can’t afford their deaths and we’ll find them long before that becomes an issue.”

“What part of that bitch masking their signals did you not catch?” He waved the question aside with a hand that was none to steady at the moment. “I should have killed that goddamned woman while I was in her quarters. Fuck knows she gave me the perfect opportunity.”

“For now, we need her alive,” came Ori’s voice over the com. She won’t dare kill Fury’s compliment, as I said. I think the stupid woman believes she can simply sever that connection, stick them aboard a transport to some remote system and keep them under lock and key with just enough contact that Fury will pine for them, and suffer, but keep her alive and do what she commands in order to keep them safe. She truly believes that she can replace them as simply as one replaces the drive on a replicator. She is a fool.”

“But she’s a clever fool. Now what?” He said wiping sweaty palms on his trousers.

“The plan hasn’t changed. Now it’s time you give SNT1 a visit and play our ace in the hole.”

“What the fuck ace in the hole? In case you haven’t noticed, Fallon just pulled a huge ace out of her ass, one I should have seen? Fury doesn’t need me now. I don’t know where Manning and McAllister are. I’m useless to him, me he may very well blow out the airlock for instigating this whole cluster fuck.”

“No, he will not, and you did not instigate this cluster fuck, as usual, that’s the Fallons’ job. Now stop with the damn self-pity already. We have work to do, and yes, we do have an ace in the hole.”

“How do you figure?’

I have called in all our resources, scanning the planetoid and even Fallon’s own ships. Though I think if the woman has SNT tech on board, it would be a huge mistake to hide the compliments of another SNT there. I don’t know if her ship is the only one that has it, but I would be willing to bet it is. That would not be the kind of information she’d share. Besides to install it on even one ship she must have gone to great lengths and great expense, even if she did steal the tech from her father. Yes, she is wealthy, but her resources are still limited. She cannot afford to treat SNT technology as casually as one would buy a holiday in the pleasure isles. No, Fury’s compliment will not be on any of the Fallon ships, and she certainly won’t trust her brother to keep them safe, or even keep them captive. Wherever they are, it will be remote, unlikely and completely secret. Knowing her, she might well kill the security force assigned to help her accomplish the task once it’s finished just to make sure there are no flapping lips. Besides,” she added as an afterthought, “if they were on any of those ships, I would know it.”

“What then? You said we had an ace in the hole.”

“I did, yes. While I did not find Fury’s compliment, I did find something else rather interesting. The Fallons are not the only ones onboard SNT1.”

“What? Who?”

“The one thing we had not taken into consideration when we were trying to deduce who had ‘tranned, and where they had ‘tranned to when we were analyzing Fury’s transports was that the single transport signals might not have been either of Fury’s compliment.”

 

 

“The fuck?”

“Between your interrogations and Tenad Fallons’s rather unorthodox methods, of the crew of the Dart, you learned that the three men onboard had violated a woman on their ship and left her for dead in the Sea of Death.”

“Yes? And.”

“Well that woman was our Lenore, Kresho.”

He barely made it back to his chair in time to collapse, and for a dreadful moment, he thought he would puke. Bloody hell, what Len had been through because of his failure, and now this.

If Ori were concerned over his shock, she didn’t show it, but then she never did. “Gerd did a little investigating in Sandstorm while you were occupied with Tenad Fallon, and she discovered that it was indeed Lenore.”

“Fuck! Even after I came clean with Arji and told him the whole story, he still didn’t tell me about … the Dart, about what had happened.”

“Of course he wouldn’t. I’m sure Lenore has painted a rather rubbish picture of you for him, and while he’s always trusted you before, well the woman has his heart, and he would do anything for her.”

“If what the crew of the Dart said then is true, and all evidence points to that, then Len should have died. Three men beat her and,” he swallowed his gorge, “beat her and raped her, then they threw her off the ship in the middle of the Sea of Death. Her chances of survival were, I’d say non-existent. Except … she discovered the SNT in the salvage dump, didn’t she?”

“At about the same time Fury sensed his presence on the surface. The lone signal that was beamed to and from the scrap yard and the final transport signal into Sandstorm and out was our Lenore.

“And then again yesterday evening when you were busy entertaining Tenad Fallon, the two signals that had tranned to the surface returned to Fury. Those would be his compliments. Then perhaps a little more than two hours later there was another ‘tran up. No one else was there but our Lenore, so it had to be her. She did not ‘tran back down.”

“Fuck me! Then she’s there onboard with Fury.”

“And I am guessing the Fallons do not know.”

“They barely know of her existence. They certainly don’t know who she is and if they find out…”

“They mustn’t find out,” she said. This is not a safe situation for her or for our SNT friend down below on the surface. Certainly there’s no way Fury could know, though I’m sure they’ve wondered why she of all people found an SNT hiding among the wreckage, one who didn’t want to be found. Kresho, we need to get her out of there. If the Fallons find out who she is, what she is, they’ll see her as an opportunity. We’ve got to get her away.”

For a tight moment there was silence and then Kresho simply said, “keep a lock on me.” Then he commed Fury.

 

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Len learns that Fury and his compliments understand Ascent’s reluctance far better that Len can imagine.  This week all hell breaks loose, and we are reminded once again why  no one trusts a Fallon. 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 one is particularly long in order not to break the flow of events. 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 55: Something’s Wrong

“You’ve allowed her to your core?” Mac said to Fury. She joined Manning in the galley for coffee. “I thought perhaps you might. I sensed her wandering about last night, but my feeling was that she didn’t want my company or anyone else’s, except maybe yours.”

“I had hoped that it might comfort her,” Fury replied, “but I am certain there is only one source of comfort that will truly ease her suffering, ease both of their suffering.”

“Ascent’s in agony, Mac said. “Can she not sense his pain?”

“Surely you remember how it was with us, Diana Mac,” he replied. “Space was necessary for both of us so that we would be able to come together again. Yes we suffered. We suffered terribly, and I do not wish such pain on anyone, but that journey must be made and they alone must make it in order to find their way back to one another. As it was with me, it is as important for Ascent to come to understand how he has hurt her and how he must allow her to his heart, for that is where she belongs, as he belongs in hers.”

“Do you think it might help if we went to Ascent, Mac and I?” Manning said. “We know what it’s like to love a neurotic SNT and to have to learn to be together, to trust each other. Maybe we can help him. At least we can comfort him. He shouldn’t be dealing with this alone any more than Lenore should.”

“While I kept watch with him through the night, making certain he was aware of my presence, he chose not to speak to me, which I also understand, having been nearly non-verbal in my own pain when our Mac left us. But I do believe that it would be a great kindness to Ascent. It would perhaps help him view the situation through the eyes of a compliment. Certainly I believe we all understand why he will not take Lenore Falish to himself. We have, each of us, felt that unworthiness, and it is terrible. One feels so very alone. Finish your breakfast first. I will not send you to the surface hungry. Then you can go, and I will stay to comfort Lenore so that neither of them is alone.”

Breakfast didn’t take long. Neither of them was very hungry, though Fury prodded them to at least eat something. He was such a mother hen at times. They both understood too well what Ascent and Lenore were suffering. They also knew that it was critical that Ascent bonded with Lenore sooner rather than later when there were two Fallons with war ships orbiting Tak Major. Sooner or later they’d figure out how to get inside the mole-tran and then Ascent would be at their mercy.

“I will ‘tran you directly to Ascent’s core. Though he may be mostly non-verbal right now, he has opened himself for us, but more in hopes that Lenore Falish will return to him. Do tell him that we will return her the instant she is ready, and she will be ready. I feel it in my own heart.”

“Fury,” Mac reached out her hand and touched what she could not see, but he had manifest for her, a stubbled face that planted a kiss on her palm, “convince her to come home so they can know what it should be like.”

“I will do all that is in my power,” he said, embracing them both. “Hurry back. I will have great need of you when you return.”

“It’s good to be needed,” Manning said. They had come too close to losing each other too often to ever take good-byes for granted.

The static prickle of a molecular transport in progress passed over Mac’s skin the blink of an eye before the galley faded and dematerialized. For a moment that might have been an eternity, neither she nor Manning existed, and then there was light and feeling and the tingling of limbs being reconstructed in a nanosecond, all things Mac would rather not think about, and didn’t most of the time. But it was not Fury’s gentle transport landing that they experienced, rather a hard drop onto a cold floor. It  was most definitely not Ascent’s core that materialized before them when they came out of the transport.

“Something’s wrong,” was all Mac could manage. There was a brief flash of the deck of a Jaeger and a red-headed woman standing over them. On the com someone was yelling angrily. But before she could even utter her surprise, there was the sudden sting of a hypo in her neck and she was collapsing on the deck next to Manning as the world around them faded again, but this time to black.

 

“Fallon, what the fuck did you do? What the fuck do you do, goddamn it!” Kresho raged, pounding a fist on the console. Even as he raged, he knew exactly what she had done. How could he not have suspected?

“Oh come on, Ivanovic,” came the response over the com. “Did you really think I was ignorant of my father’s very sophisticated mole-tran system? Hell, I had it on the Virago before the Apocalypse did. Cloned it right under his nose, and it was a whole lot easier to install on a tiny little Jaeger.

“Do you realize what you’ve done? Do you fucking realize what you’ve just done?” he all but yelled into the com. “Fury will destroy all four of you ships before you even know what’s happening, and the Compass right along with.”

She cut his audio but allowed him to see and hear what was being said on her end, and she was haling Fury.

“SNT1, this is Tenad Fallon on board the Virago. I have your compliment. They’re safe, and they’ll remain safe as long as you meet my demands.”

The roar over the com system was deafening, even through Kresho’s coms. Fallon didn’t flinch. “If you let my brother and me transport aboard, I will tell you our demands.”

Before Tenad could say anything else, she was being ‘tranned off her ship, with Jessup right beside her.

 

It was a brutal transport. Tenad rematerialized on her hands and knees vomiting. Jessup was next to her doing the same. When she finally stopped heaving, she wiped streaming eyes and snotty nose on the back of her sleeve, and looked around, they were in a small featureless room with no visible door. She tried to crawl to her feet, but couldn’t manage it just yet. Jessup kept puking and cursing.

“They are safe?” Came the voice over the com they also couldn’t see.

Jessup managed something about blowing the goddamned SNT out of the sky before he gagged again.

“Shut up, Jessup,” She managed. “Yes. Yes SNT1, they are perfectly safe.”

“That is all I need to know.”

A vent opened overhead. There was a hiss of oxygen and then a sudden weight on her chest. The fucking SNT was syphoning the air out of the chamber. “Do that and you’ll never …” Her words were literally sucked from her mouth.

 

“Fury! Fury! If you do that, you will never find your beloveds again! Their signals have been masked.” It was Ascent’s’s voice that filtered through the rage and the pain. “Listen to me. Let them think they have won. We will find dear Diana Mac and Richard Manning together. We are not without our resources, brother. After that, these two, they will be easy enough to deal with however we choose.”

Fury came back to himself in such pain as he had not felt since his birth. But this time, he came into the comfort of his brother, and in that there truly was comfort, though the ache he felt was as though his inner workings had been ripped from him and flung far into space. With a thought, he restored air to the Fallons in his brig, but he did not do it very quickly, nor did he send in a med-bot to treat them for transport sickness. While he might be forced to keep them alive until he had his loved ones back, he did not have to make them comfortable.

When they could breathe again and they were not too nauseated to speak with him, at least the woman wasn’t, he spoke over the com. “What do you want?”

The woman coughed and pressed her hand to her chest, blinking back tears from both the vomiting and the struggle to breathe. “I’m pretty sure you know a part of that.”

“You want my inheritance.”

“My inheritance. The one that my dear brother Gerando stole from me.”

“You are not the eldest, and your name was not even on the will. As I understand what I have read, what Gerando has also told me, the will is legitimate and it is binding.”

“And now all the Fallon fortune and resources belong to you to do with what you will. I understand that. And if you want your compliment to stay alive, you will sign it all over to me.” She waved a dismissive hand, “Oh I don’t care about the indentureds. I have plenty of my own. Do with them whatever you want. The rest, I want back. That is my first demand.”

“What else?”

She tried to climb to her feet, but still could not manage it. Fury had to admit he took pleasure in seeing the sweat break on her forehead and her efforts to swallow back whatever still remained that was trying to push its way out of her stomach. This she did manage, and finally she spoke. “I want you to help me gain control over the SNT in the salvage yard in the Sea of Death. I know it’s there and I know you can get through the de-mole barrier.”

“He is not mine to control, or anyone else’s,” Fury replied, “and at the moment he is little more than salvage himself.” To this Ascent made a rude sound in his ear.

“Nevertheless, if you want your compliment to stay alive, you will do as I ask.”

“Is that all?”

“There’s one more thing.” This time she pushed her way to her feet managing to stay upright by pressing her back against the wall.

“Which is?”

“I want you to bond with me, SNT1”

This time Ascent cursed out loud and used language Fury had not heard from him before concerning the parentage and the sexual preferences of the two Fallons. Fury would have laughed at her had he not realized the woman was very serious indeed. Instead he spoke carefully, measuredly, as though he spoke to a child. “To bond with an SNT is no simple process even for someone who has been prepared over years so that their bodies will not reject that bond, and there are often -”

“Can it be done?” She cut him off.

“It is a very complex procedure, and it is quite possible that my core would reject you even after you have completed the course of immune-suppressants.”

“Gerando was accepted without that.”

“Gerando had undergone the training to become a compliment long ago, and that involved small transfusions of SNT blood over a long period of time. Without it the humanoid immune system will reject that joining, that blood, just as it does of a differing blood type.”

“But it can be done?”

“Possibly, but it may also kill you.”

“Well then,” she squared her shoulders and blinked large green eyes, “you had better make sure it doesn’t if you want your compliment to continue living.”

“If my compliment dies, you die as well.” Through the view screen he could see the fine hair on her neck and arms rise and gooseflesh as he made his message physically clear. “It is a very dangerous double-edge sword you now wield, Tenad Fallon, you had better be certain you know how to use it.”

“If I didn’t think I could use it, I wouldn’t have hefted it,” she replied, then jerked her head toward the wall in front of them. “Now let us out, find us a place to clean up and then show us to the bridge.”

He ‘tranned them immediately into a tiny space with bunked berths built into the wall and very small shower and toilet. It was only across the hall from the space they had been in.

“What the fuck is this? What the goddamned fuck is this little shithole? My fucking Indentured has a bigger space than this.”

“Shut up, Jessup,” Fury heard his sister say before the man made another dash to the bathroom to vomit again, but his sister did not.

Like all SNTs, Fury was aware of everything that went on within himself, but it was not the squabbles of the Fallons that drew his attention, it was the small, incredibly empathetic, woman at his core, feeling for him in his agony, steadying him, comforting him, and it was Ascent, who encouraged her to do so.

“I’m safe, Fury, and they don’t know I’m here,” Lenore said.

“They do not know that I’m here either, my brother,” Ascent said. “Best they believe I am, as you said, little more than a pile of salvage myself, for now you have allies.”

“You have more than us,” Lenore said. “Arji will help us and so will everyone in Sandstorm. We have the Fallons and their operation well covered. Someone will know where Mac and Manning are.”

“We will find your loved ones, Fury, and we will return them safe and whole into your arms.”

Fury did not reply. He had allowed his compliment to be taken from him, how could he have failed those he loved so terribly.

“What you are thinking, my brother will avail you nothing. And it is a lie, as you have told me. What has happened could not have been foreseen. It was not your fault. We will get your dear ones back, and I will rise up with dear Lenore, and we will take our revenge and go together to find our brothers and sisters and restore what has been taken from us.”

 

Happy freezing Friday everyone! It’s a perfect day in my neck of the woods to cuddle up with a hot drink and a good read. The hot drink, you’ll have to manage on your own, the reading part … I’m on it with another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Ascent refused to take Len as his compliment, inadvertently humiliating her in front of Fury and his crew. This week she learns that Fury and his compliments understand Ascent’s reluctance far better that Len can imagin. 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. I hope you find this switch-up helpful. 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 Ascend Part 54: Been There, Done That

Once she was showered and changed, she found Mac in the galley. “Fury’s a good cook,” she called over her shoulder, scanning through the replicator in the galley. I highly recommend the New Roma carbonara. I swear sometimes I think Fury has a time machine and he’s travelled back to actually taste some of these things. But then he tells me he really can’t experience taste. Not sure I believe him though.” She scrolled through the menu. “If you’re in the mood for something sweet, just plain old chocolate pudding is the best.”

“I’m not really hungry, though I’m sure it’s all delicious.”

“Do not be ridiculous,” Fury interjected. “You must keep up your strength. You are spent after today’s efforts. Besides, if you do not eat, I will think you do not like my cooking. I am very neurotic, as Diana Mac has said.”

Len couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “I would say there’s nothing at all wrong with your sense of humor, Fury.” Suddenly the galley was filled with a delicious scent and Manning placed a steaming plate of pasta before her.

“Guaranteed to make you feel better,” he said.

“While Ascent has been doing his best, it is not difficult to tell that you are still thinner than you should be,” Fury said.

“Trust me, our weights and measures are the least disturbing of what an SNT keeps track of behind our backs,” Manning said rolling his eyes.

Fury made a rude sound, and his compliment flipped him off. But the smell won out in the end, and she found after the first bite that she most definitely was hungry. Mac and Manning chowed down on their own pasta and the conversation flowed easily and relaxed with a lot of laughter, full of stories of their own adventures together, and her heart ached to think of how that might have been with Ascent, if he hadn’t pushed her away.

Later that evening they moved up into the observation deck while Fury pointed out distance systems and shared interesting facts. “I want to leave,” Len said, while staring at the distant smudge of the Omega Galaxy out beyond the rift.

“And you shall as soon as Ascent is operational again,” Fury said. “The two of you shall then probably see much more of the galaxy than you would like if we are able to engage you in our efforts to find the rest of our family.”

“I’ll stay until Ascent has his memory back and he’s able to leave on his own, but then, I’m leaving,” she didn’t give anyone room to respond. “I’ve had a little time to explore the salvage dump, and I’ve managed to scavenge parts and tech worth enough to buy passage on a respectable ship out beyond the Rim. From there well, I’m not afraid to work. I learn fast. I just need you to ‘tran me into Sandstorm, or maybe better Sunward. I’d have a better chance of getting a ship there. I would pay,” she added quickly.”

For a moment there was silence. Mac and Manning looked each other but said nothing. It was Fury who spoke. “You do not understand, Lenore Falish. If you leave Ascent, he will never regain his memory nor the will to leave the salvage yard. You are his compliment in all but the proper bonding needed to make you both more powerful.”

“I’m not his compliment.” She kept her voice steady as she could, promising herself she would neither get emotional nor would she cry. “I’m an uneducated salvage rat, nothing more, and he’s made it abundantly clear he won’t bond with me.”

There was another long moment of silence and Mac spoke. “I told you that SNTs are neurotic, and I meant it when I said you have no idea just how much so.”

“I nearly lost both of my compliments before we bonded, not because of anything they had done wrong,” Fury said, and Len swore she could feel the entire ship vibrating with his passion. “You cannot imagine the parallels between your story and ours, Lenore Felish. “I was born too early, and I did not have a bonded compliment when I was sent out into the world, though one had been set aside for me, had been created especially for me, for becoming my partner, my love, when my time came to be born, and she was old enough to bond with me.”

“Mac.” Len said.

“I was sent out without her, and I believed that I wound forever be a fugitive, always to wander aimlessly and alone. I do not know if you can imagine what such a deprivation means to an SNT.”

“I know what it’s like to be alone, believe me, I do.” She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling.

 

“And yet you strove far beyond all expectations, far beyond humanoid power to survive against all odds, Lenore Felish. I, like our dear Ascent, finished the one mission I was assigned and saw the futility of it all as the SNT dream was destroyed before my eyes and the blame for it all was placed on me and my remaining brothers and sisters. I did not want to live. I had found a remote place in space to shut down, just as Ascent has, and it was then that I happened upon the Pegasus with its distress signal, one life sign, and that just barely. That was my dear Richard Manning. His death saved my life.”

“You were able to bring him back?” Len spoke around the hammering of her heart in her throat.

“In a manner of speaking. You see I was new and untried and I did not know what to do to save him. I only knew that I could not bear to be alone. I made many mistakes in bringing him back, and there was not a day that went by that I did not feel my own inadequacy, even though Richard Manning never saw it, never condemned me, never left me to wallow in my own inadequacy. He gave me a purpose and became my companion. In spite of all that I had caused him to suffer.”

“We weren’t compatible, you see,” Manning took up the story. “I was a smuggler, not connected even remotely to the SNT program. I had spent the last three years of my life shackled in a triaxe mine. My body rejected Fury’s genetic soup over and over again. I don’t know how many times I died.”

“Five,” Fury said, and this time Len was certain she felt the whole ship vibrate. “And when I could not bring him back…”

“When he couldn’t bring me back, when I finally died for good, Fury did the unimaginable. He created a physical matrix for my consciousness so that I would have one last chance and so that I would not reject his nano-blood.”

“I made many mistakes for which Richard Manning has suffered,” Fury said. “I created the tether that binds him to me too short, and he is somewhat limited to the amount of time he can be away from me.”

“Not so much any more,” Manning said with a shrug. “Not now that we’re properly bonded and Mac is here. You see it was Mac who was Fury’s intended,” Manning said.

“And you didn’t ever feel inadequate, jealous of her?”

“I might have felt inadequate, I mean I was a smuggler, and this goddess was conceived from the beginning to be Fury’s compliment. But I fell in love with her early on in our efforts to recover her.”

“That took a lot of years,” Mac said with a shiver.

“You were indentured to Abriad Fallon.”

She nodded. “Fury and Manning followed me quietly all around the galaxy until they had the opportunity to take me back.”

“Even then, she did not know that she was my intended compliment,” Fury said. “I kept it from her.”

“Why?” Len said, almost feeling the adoration between the three of them as if it were for her, and god, she wished it was.

“Because, dear Lenore Falish,” Fury said, “I felt inadequate.”

“But why? You’re SNT1, you’re amazing.”

“I feared I would do to her what I had done to Richard Manning, and in our bonding I would make the tether too tight. I feared my own inadequacy, that I did not know how to be an SNT, that so much of my education was missing, even though by then we had reconnected with Professor Keen, who helped me regain so much, and still I doubted. You see, Lenore Felish, I felt unworthy of her, and there are times that I still do, unworthy of both my compliments. I nearly lost my darling Diana Mac because of my own fears, for you see, she felt it was my doubts of her that had kept me from telling her the truth when, indeed, it was quite the opposite.”

“Ascents’s only memories are of loss and pain and of the fact that his beloved compliment is gone, that he couldn’t keep her safe.” Manning said. “I doubt you have any idea what that does to a male ego, any male ego, when he can’t keep the one he loves safe. It doesn’t matter at all if there was nothing he could do. He feels inadequate.”

Len turned away and stared up at the sky through the small dome. “It’s just a theory. Ascent’s not you, Fury.”

“Did he not wake up for you? Did he not bring you back to life when you were dead, even when the knowledge of what needed to be done had escaped him? That he woke for you from his stasis, and that you are compatible with an SNT is a thing I do not understand,” Fury said, “but I have no doubt that if you had died over and over again, in the end he would have done exactly as I have done for Richard Manning in order to keep you safe. You see, Lenore Falish, he woke for you, and he saved you because you are capable of becoming his compliment. For anyone else, he would not, could not have awoken.”

“That doesn’t mean he can’t reject me,” she said.

“But he has not rejected you,” Fury said. “He has allowed you to come to his heart. Anyone else would not have survived the approach. It is only that he fears he will lose another compliment. I do wish that Professor Keen would contact us. He could certainly ease Ascent’s transition, and he would know, perhaps what is to be done. You see, I believe his fear is his block, the fear that he will lose you, that you will leave him like his first compliment did.”

“Well I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t leave him. He should know by now I won’t die so easily.” She wiped at her eyes, unaware until now that there were tears. “But I won’t stay where I’m not wanted either.” She left the observation deck and went back to the galley. She had just replicated herself a pint of ale when she realized she wasn’t alone.

“That recipe is from a planet that no longer exists,” Fury said. “It was destroyed long before the Authority ever existed when its star went supernova.”

She stared down into the glass. “How did you get the recipe then?

“The planet knew of its fate long before it happened of course, and it sent out people and drones with all manner of memorabilia about their home, including recipes. It is thanks to their efforts we know anything at all about them. Oh there are claims that they some of them are the present day Digans, and other claims that they are the New Vikings far beyond the Rift. Sadly they were not so careful about keeping records of their progress after they left their home world.”

She sipped the beer. “It’s nice.”

“Yes it is, and that is why it is my theory that they must surely be the New Vikings.”

She laughed and took another sip, plopping down at the table. “Lenore, if you wish to stay here tonight, the guest room is ready for you. Ascent has known from the beginning that you are here and that you need some time. He knows that I would not let anything happen to you.”

“Thank you, Fury. I do need some time. I don’t want to face him just yet.”

“I understand. We are here if you need anything dear Lenore Felish. Do try and get some rest. You are exhausted, as we all are.”

 

 

Happy Friday everyone. I’m just back from a glorious writing retreat at the Gladstone’s Library in Wales. I’m all inspired and ready to share another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Kresho’s revelation to Tenad Fallon leaves her wanting more.  This week we discover that she’s not looking for information. 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. I hope you find this switch-up helpful. 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 53: You Cannot Understand My Reluctance

 

“I swear to you, I cannot find the blocks I have placed in my memory,” Ascent said, “though it is obvious to me that I have laid them myself so that I might not remember.”

“There’s nothing else I know to do today,” Manning said, running his hand through hair that already stood on end making him look a bit like a mad scientist from an old Terran film. They all were looking a little worse for wear. They had spent a good bit of a hot day crawling through service tunnels and stimulating areas of D’s brain, both bio and tech. Len knew the paths and the tunnels of Ascent’s tech self and bio self better than any of them. He had removed all restrictions for her and she had done her best to explore what she could and help in any way that came to her mind, including trying to talk to him, ask the right questions. Sadly that only got her so far before he became frustrated and all but non-verbal, especially if she got too close to information about his bonding with his compliment or what he recalled about the SNT disaster. When they weren’t together, she poured over every single scrap of data she could find on the databases Fury had downloaded into Ascent’s CPU about SNTs, from the history, to those involved, to the biotech and schematics. Fury had made it all available to her when he discovered her eidetic memory and her penchant for understanding SNT tech.

“I am sorry,” Ascent said. “There are simply places I cannot get to, and I do not remember the pathways or how I managed to block them.”

“Don’t worry,” Mac said. “There are other things we can try.”

While Len didn’t have Mac or Manning’s experience and expertise, she couldn’t easily imagine just what those other things might be, even though she herself had been the one to suggest some of what they had tried based on her own research.

“But you are all exhausted,” Ascent said. “You will all do much better after a good rest. They cannot get to us through the de-mole.”

“Girlie? Are you there?” Arji’s message broke into the silence. It was routed through the CPUs of both SNTs.

Ascent growled and Len glared a warning. “I’m here Arji. What have you got for me?”

“It’s about Kresho Ivanovic. We just got shit-faced together and he, well let’s just say he told me how things are. There’s a lot you need to know. A lot he wants you to know.” Then he dropped the bomb. “He’s looking for you.”

Her heart went into overdrive, and she sat down hard on the floor of the service shaft. “Then he did recognize me.”

“Course he did. I never saw anyone so upset.”

“Well he fucking should be.” The rage she felt burned the back of her throat like bile. “He fucking should be.”

Before she could say anything else, Fury broke in. “Arji Finkle, I do not believe you should be giving any more information to our Lenore right now, for she cannot come to you at this time. And while this frequency is secure from prying ears, Your place of business may not be at the moment with all of your unwanted guests.”

There was silence, and then, “SNT1?”

“It is I, yes.”

“You’re shitting me?”

“Indeed I am not, though I do understand your confusion since I am often told my sense of humor needs work.”

To this, Arji laughed almost hysterically. “Funny thing, I get told that all the time.”

“Great minds, I would surmise,” Fury replied.

“Fucking A!” And then Arji quickly added. “Anyway, it’s a pleasure to meet you, SNT1, and this ain’t something that can’t wait, Girlie. Best you stay safe where you are. Ole Ivanovic definitely don’t mean you any harm, but I wouldn’t bet my right nut about the bad company he’s been keeping. Anyway, Ain’t nobody gonna get your location outa me since I have no godddamned idea how to find you.”

“We’ll find a way to get with you, don’t worry,” Len said.

“I’ll wait to hear back then. And Girlie-Girl, stay safe. You ain’t died yet in spite of the odds. You keep it that way.”

“There is something about Kresho Ivanovic that seems strangely familiar,” Fury commented. “I would be very interested to hear what Mr. Finkle has to say.”

“I do not like this Arji Finkle,” Ascent said. “I do not believe his motives are pure.”

“Jesu Vaticanus, Ascent! yours are?”

Manning cleared his throat and shifted from foot to foot finding a spot on the floor particularly interesting.

“Dear Richard Manning, you are certainly not immune to the jealousies of an SNT,” Fury said half teasingly. “Have we not had our own lovers’ spats often enough when you stoked my jealousies.”

“I didn’t!” Manning said, and now it was Len’s turn to blush.

“SNTs are programmed with a great capacity to love, and the humanoid side of that love in its most flawed form is well sprinkled with jealousy, especially for our beloved compliments.”

“I’m not Ascent’s compliment,” Len said, blushing furiously. Fury’s comment was just the kind of statement that would send Ascent off into another bout of silent brooding.

“Oh I think you are in every way that matters except for the one that might truly do Ascent some good.”

The service tunnel suddenly went dead silent, with both Manning and Mac noticeably holding their breath.

Fury continued. “All that we have done, Ascent, everything that we have tried has been for naught, and we have, all of us, known what would remove those blocks, what would heal you and return to you your identity. A part of you has been missing for all these long years. And now that part of you, has returned. I do not know how, I cannot explain the compatibility that should have been impossible, but it has happened against all odds. My dear Ascent, if you wish to recover that which you have lost, you must do what you know in your heart must be done for you to ever be whole again. You must bond with Lenore Falish, take her to your heart as your compliment and be healed.”

To this, both Mac and Manning simply nodded as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, the simplest.

For a moment silence crackled in the air and the static of Ascent’s discomfort raised the tiny hairs along Len’s arms. The longer the silence stretched, the hotter her cheeks became. And then he gave the answer she knew he would. “No.” It would have been bad enough if he’d just left it at that, but he didn’t. “That is not going to happen. It cannot. Find another way.”

And then Fury had to argue. “Ascent, while I do understand your reluctance, it is clear to me that this is what must happen.”

“You cannot understand my reluctance. You cannot possibly,”

“I know that you mourn the loss of your companion, but she is lost and you cannot bring her back, and you must move forward. Bonding with someone new, while it may be unconventional, it was always the plan that there might be back-ups for such losses. And while Lenore Felish may not have had that training, she is compatible.”

“I’m here! You two! All right?” Len broke into the argument, doing her best to control the trembling in her voice. “Don’t fucking talk about my like I’m a goddamned piece of furniture, a replacement for something that was broken, something much nicer, something…” She stopped talking fearing the tears that were threatening. Goddamn if she was going to blubber like a baby, she’d do it later, not in front of someone who already thought her inferior.

“Bloody hell? Are SNTs always this fucking callous?” Mac said. And now to have pity, to have someone else fight her battles, Len wished the floor would open up and the sand below swallow her whole. But even Mac couldn’t just leave it. “Fury, maybe you’ve forgotten what it was like, how it was with us, but I sure as fuck haven’t.”

But it had given Len the little bit of time to regroup before Fury could speak. “Right.” She forced a laugh. “The lord of the manor has spoken. I don’t know about you two, but I need a break, and then I’ll see what else I can find in the database that might work. If you’ll excuse me, I need a shower. Thanks for everything. Fury, why don’t you ‘tran up your compliment and give them a break.”

 

 

“Lenore Felish, I did not mean to,”

“Forget it.” She waved a dismissive hand. “We’re all tired and strung out. We can regroup tomorrow.”

“The subspace is always open if you need us.” Mac gave her a quick hug, studying her with intense blue eyes trying to ascertain if she were all right. Well she’d been through worse, hadn’t she? Lots worse.

Manning gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, and when Fury tried once again to speak, Manning cut him off. “‘tran us up Fury.” Clearly the SNT did understand the warning in his voice. In a heartbeat, the two were gone.

Len only waited until she was sure that they were gone and then she turned and climbed down the service tunnel taking the shortest route to her quarters.

“Lenore?”

“I want to be left alone right now, Ascent. Go away.”

“Lenore now is not-”

“You humiliated me in front of Fury and his compliment,” She cut him off.

“Lenore I-”

“You never miss a chance to remind me that I’m not good enough, that I’m not her, but you could have at least said we needed to talk about it, saved my dignity, what little is left to me after everything, and then at least let me make it sound like it was my choice too, that I didn’t want you just like you didn’t want me.” Once she started she couldn’t stop. “And now they all feel sorry for me. They pity me. Goddamn it Ascent! I don’t want anyone’s pity.”

“Lenore, please, I didn’t-”

“Shut up, Ascent!” She stomped her foot so hard her knee popped as she reached the bottom of the ladder. “Just leave me alone, okay? Leave me alone.”

In her room, she changed quickly and grabbed up her backpack, and headed for the outer airlock. It was early evening, after the Shimmer but too early for the winds. She had a couple of hours.

“Lenore you cannot go out, you know this.”

“I’m going out, unless I’m now no better than a fucking indentured for you to command and control.”

To this he made no response, as the door slid open and she quickly descended to the ground below, thinking that maybe she might just spend the night in one of the derelict shuttles she had found that was still air-tight and relatively safe. She didn’t need Ascent’s help. She sure as fuck didn’t need Fury’s crew’s pity.

She walked hard for nearly an hour when Fury spoke onto the subspace. “Lenore Falish, I am sorry for my callous behavior. I still do not always understand human interaction as well as I would like. It was not my intention to make you uncomfortable in any way.”

She didn’t plan to answer, but after a moment of stomping through the sand and sweating profusely, she changed her mind. “What? Did your compliment read you the riot act?” she asked, “make you apologize.”

“I do not need my compliment to tell me when I have acted foolish. For the most part, I can figure that out on my own. And they do not know that I have contacted you. Well perhaps they do know, since I would not put it past them to be listening in.”

“Apology accepted,” she said. “Now can we please drop it? I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

There was a long pause during which she was pretty certain Fury’s compliment listened holding their breath. At last Fury spoke again, very cautiously. “Ascent is very upset.”

“Yeah, well he always is after he’s reminded me yet another time that I’m not her and that I’m nothing more than an uneducated salvage rat. I just need to leave. I just need to go somewhere else, anywhere that’s not here where it hurts all the time.”

She could sense Fury discussing with his compliment, and then Mac spoke. “Len, we’re ‘tranning you up for the night. You’ll be safe here, and I think we really need to talk.” Then she added quickly. “If that’s okay with you.”

It was then that she realized she stood rooted in the sand, not even bothering to fight back tears, and she didn’t want to go back to Ascent right now, but she also didn’t really want to be alone. She swallowed back the tightness in her throat and nodded. “Okay.”

Seconds later she found herself ass over teakettle on the bridge of SNT1 with Mac leaning back against the console. “I battled with the ‘tranning for ages,” Mac said, reaching down a hand to help her up. “I still don’t much like it. Manning took to it like he was born to it, but then he sort of was, I guess. I hope you don’t mind, but we told Ascent you were here so he wouldn’t worry.”

She took the offered hand. “Doubt he would really give a shit one way or another.”

“You know better than that,” Mac said. “Fury only suggested what he did because he knows Ascent knows that too.” Before Len could respond she said. “Come on. You can use the guest room shower and Fury will replicate you something to wear while you’re here, then we can talk.”

“I don’t need pity.”

“Good because you won’t get it here.” Mac pointed her to a small but pleasant sleep room with a bathroom incorporated. “But you know very little about SNT’s. Oh I know that you already probably know more about the science and the schematics than either Manning or I do, but SNT’s are as much of a mystery to us as humanoids are to them. We have to learn to be together and,” she leaned closer, “I’ll let you in on a little secret, they are even more neurotic and full of self-doubt than we are.”

Len grunted a laugh. “That’s a really scary thought.”

Mac smiled and waved her into the room. “Hon, you have no idea.”