Happy Friday, everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Len and Ascent made love only to discover that they were not alone in their intimacy. This week the two discuss what Ascent remembers and what he does not. 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 Felik, 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 33: Sifting Memories

“I have no memory of Quetzalcoatl or any of the other SNTs,” Ascent said when Lenore told him about her uncle. “If your uncle and Quetzalcoatl may have survived the SNT Disaster, is it not possible that the ship above is Quetzalcoatl and your uncle returning for you?” He asked.

“No. If it were I would know. I know Quetzal’s frequency, his signature from when my uncle took me to his heart. He liked me, Quetzal did. He treated me like someday I might also be a compliment. No, I would know if it were Uncle Matt and Quetzal. I would know.”

“Then it is not a signature you recognize?”

She shook her head. “I know this SNT has two compliments. Is that even possible?”

“I do not know, Lenore. I have no memory of myself or of what it means to be an SNT. Only bits of data seem to come back to me occasionally, sometimes when I most need them, sometimes not.”

“Then you remember nothing?”

“Only the loss of my compliment, and that only in vague images of fire and loss. I do not wish to revisit that memory at all.”

She nodded and gave a little shiver that had him moving closer to her on her bed where they now sat after a meal and a shower together, which had taken a deliciously long time. “I know that feeling. I have memories I wish I could be rid of. And the dreams? You say you don’t remember them when you wake up?”

“In truth, I have only dreamed this one time. I do not know if perhaps that has something to do with your presence and maybe the SNT above or not. But I remember nothing of them, of who I was to them, only I remember fire and pain and loss.”

“I remember images from your dream, warnings from your compliment about the Authority, and then you were infected with the virus, and you were calling out to her not to leave you.” She didn’t add that he had called out to her, that he had begged her not to leave him. She had no doubt it was only the normal confusion of dreams.

“Please, Lenore. I do not wish to know more, not now, for I am a coward.”

“No! No you are not, Ascent. You’re a survivor. We both are.” Then she added, “I’m scared all the time. I can barely remember a time when I wasn’t.” Her thoughts returned to the ship in orbit. “I can’t help but feel there’s something special about this ship, something different. I’ve certainly never heard of a ship with two compliments. ” The memory of exploring hands and lips and hard masculine body and a soft feminine one, both compliment to maleness, powerful maleness felt almost physical still, and she sighed. So did Ascent.”

She stood to pace the room. “I don’t know which SNTs survived. All we heard was that Quetzal, Raven and Ouroboros were never captured or decommissioned. That was only from the odd deep space messages coming in on the transport we fled in. Apollo, Aurora and Valkyrie were supposedly decommissioned and made inoperable in unknown deserted shipyards to the far edges of Authority space. Though I can’t really figure how the conglomerates managed to render them inoperable.”

“By taking their compliments from them.” Ascent’s voice was suddenly cold and distant. “They would most likely do what I have done and go into the default deep slumber not wanting to mourn such a loss.”

“Isn’t it equally possible that they’re only biding their time in simmering rage, waiting for the time to fight another day, to prove their innocence and avenge what’s been done to them?”

“I suppose it is possible.” Ascent said.

“Well based on the known shipyards, there certainly are none close to here, and Tak Major doesn’t qualify as anything but a rusty dump. So we know you’re not any of them. You’re definitely not Quetzal, and Ouroboros and Raven are both female ships. I don’t understand who you are then. Is it possible that there was another ship birthed that no one knew about?”

“I suppose, though I do not think it was likely.”

“But then the same applies to the ship in orbit,” she sat down on the edge of the bed next to him. “The ship is male. Who does that leave?”

“Please, Lenore, I would prefer we did not continue this conversation.” It was only then that Lenore recognized the stress in Ascent’s voice. “I only wish that whichever of my siblings it is above us would decide I am not worth the effort and leave me in peace.”

She settled on the bed and leaned back into the embrace she knew was there to gather her, sliding her arms around the warmth of his naked torso and resting her head on his chest. “Why, Ascent?”

“Because I am not worthy.” The words came out a hiss of contempt, and before she could respond he said, “I could not protect my compliment. I have failed in what mattered most on my mission, what mattered most to my very existence. Whoever lurks in orbit above cannot help but despise an SNT who could not even protect his own compliment, and who was able to do nothing to aid his brothers and sisters.”

“Ascent,” she tightened her embrace, “listen to me, no SNT could have protected their compliments, there was so much loss, so much destruction, and none of it the fault of the SNTs, none of it your fault. Whoever that is above us, trust me, they will be as glad to see you as I was when I opened my eyes in the darkness and knew I wasn’t alone”

“You knew? You knew what I was even then?”

“No, not exactly, but I knew I was safe, and that it would be okay.”

For a moment they lay in silence wrapped in each other’s arms, and then Ascent spoke. “Lenore, I am frightened. I am frightened of what this one may know about me, what I have done. I know many SNTs did terrible things, you have told me, what if I am one of them?”

“Not one of them acted of their own accord, Ascent. Everyone knows it was the conglomerates sabotaging the ships. Not one of them would have ever done anything so horrible. The fucking conglomerates, oh, they wouldn’t bat an eye at committing such atrocities and more if it got them what they wanted. But not the SNTs, never the SNTs! They were created perfect, all of them, just as you were. Just as you were.”

“Nevertheless, it is a memory I would prefer to live without, as I am sure any SNT would. And I fear what I will discover if I open communications. I ask you please heed my wishes, Lenor. Please.”

“Of course, Ascent. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do, only think about it. Sometimes no matter how hard the truth is, it’s better than living in darkness. You’re awake now. It would be very hard for you to return to your deep slumber. The world stayed away because no one knew you were here. But the one up above knows now. I don’t think he’ll be anxious to go away. If the boundaries between that SNT and us are permeable enough for us to share in pleasure, it’s not unlikely that they shared your nightmare too. Please Ascent, think about what I’ve said.”

Happy Friday, everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Len had to find Ascents heart in order to awaken him from the nightmare. This week the two realize they need each other. WARNING sexual content. 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 Felik, 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 32: Connections

“Lenore?”

She didn’t realize immediately that he was awake until he called her name. She froze, goose flesh crawling up her arms.

“Lenore?”

Suddenly it seemed as though there were no air in her lungs, and her heart raced like she’d been running. Was this it then? Had she tested his patience too far this time and now he would kill her in his anger? Finally after several efforts she caught her breath, relieved to find it was only her fear, and the words came back in a torrent. “Thank fuck, Ascent! You woke up! You were having nightmares, bad nightmares. You had me worried, and I called out to you, but you didn’t wake up, and I was worried, and you were groaning and thrashing. I thought it was an earthquake, but it wasn’t. It was a bad dream, and I tried, but I couldn’t wake you up.” Fuck once she found her words she couldn’t seem to shut up. She caught her breath again and continued, hopefully sounding a little less hysterical. “You were so distressed that I came to wake you here at your heart, but I didn’t know where your heart was. All SNTs are slightly different, and …” Too late she realized she’d let it slip that she knew about him. “Ascent?”

“Then I am an SNT.” He said it calmly, as though he had only discovered that there was a sandstorm outside. “I had thought perhaps. I do not remember most of my dreams. I only know that when they are ordinary, I wish never to wake up. The nightmares, well they are only ever fire and loss and pain. I remember no details beyond that, and I don’t try to. I did not dream at all when I slept more deeply.”

And that was it. That was the whole of his response. If he were upset he certainly hid it well, especially after coming out of the throes of the nightmare that she hadn’t been sure she would survive. Then she was trembling all over, both frightened and relieved, amazed that she had made it to him and that she had survived the descent into his very heart. That should not have happened. How could that possibly be?

“How did you know that I was dreaming?” Before she could answer, he said, “you were dreaming with me. I remember now.”

When she didn’t respond, only shivered. He wrapped arms around her that felt as real as her own, and pulled her into a spoon position.

“I couldn’t get you to wake up,” she said not knowing what else to say.

“Coming here could not have been easy for you, and it was very dangerous. I could have hurt you.” His embrace tightened almost convulsively.

“But you didn’t,” she said snuggling down more securely into his embrace. “Ascent, you didn’t hurt me. You wouldn’t.” And for the first time, she knew it for a fact, a certainty she felt in her own heart. He would never hurt her.

“Lenore, I am sorry. I would have never wished such horrors upon you as my nightmares have inflicted. I would have never imagined it possible, for us to share a dream. It should not be possible.”

“I’m sorry too, Ascent, sorry for all that you’ve suffered.”

He stiffened, and for a moment she thought he would send her away again. She waited for it, waited to feel the pain she always felt when he rejected her, when he pushed her out after opening himself a little to her. Strange that it should hurt so badly when he did. She’d long ago schooled herself not to feel such things, to keep everyone at arm’s length. Everyone she had ever cared about left her in the end. Keeping her distance, it was better that way.

“Lenore,” he spoke her name tightly and the tension did not leave his embrace. “Lenore I need you.” It was then that she noticed the erection pressing against her back.

It was her turn to stiffen, but only for a moment, only long enough to make the decision she most longed to make. “I need you too, Ascent, so much.” It was a mistake, surely it was a mistake to allow him to get close when she couldn’t stay and he could never really want her after what he’d known, but it didn’t matter, they needed each other now, and now was the time they had. “I need you too, Ascent. Please.”

There was a shifting and tumbling that felt almost like free falling, only softer, motion suspended, as though he laid her down on a soft mattress, or maybe like she would imagine a cloud to feel if it had any substance that could support a humanoid. But this was far more a caress than being supported and she reminded herself that all of this, the space that had contained her and surrounded her and nurtured her was Ascent, and even more important, this was Ascent’s core, his very heart. The colors coalesced and became iridescent around her, and from her place inside the double spiral, it’s movements became more of a dance than a convulsion of pain, the movement of hips and groin in suggestive, anticipatory ways that she had seen old romance vids of couples doing, the way they danced, the way they touched, the way they displayed themselves that always led to sex. Lips found lips, tentatively at first. Ascent making sure she was willing, ready. Even with her eyes wide open, his physicality felt as real, as complete as her own, as the rise of her left nipple to the stroking with his thumb, as the insinuation of a knee in between hers to ease her thighs apart. As her legs fell open, feeling boneless, with no will of their own, he playfully raised his knee to rub against the crotch of her trousers, against the heat and humidity that just knowing he wanted her made her feel down there in the place that had been violated, but never loved.

“Ahh,” she caught her breath and shifted her hips against the playful stroke.

“You should have felt pleasure your first time, Lenore, not pain and fear. I cannot take from you the violation, but I can replace the memories with ones I shall endeavor to make more pleasant.”

Still teasing her maddeningly with his knee, he helped her out of her shirt, lingering to caress and fondle with cupped hands and expressive fingers. “Your breasts have grown rounder with proper nutrition and enough calories,” he said. They will be full and taut when you have gained your full weight, and so lovely, they are so lovely.”

She blushed a little at his careful observation of her body and its changes, but any embarrassment disappeared when he introduced his lips to her painfully tight nipples in turn. “And they are so very responsive.” And the blush was back as he suckled and tongued and nipped them nearly painfully between his teeth. “I find them deeply arousing.” To prove his point, he removed the knee she had been all but riding and raked her instead with his heavy erection. Their twinned sighs sounded nearly painful in their pleasure. “Oh how I have been distracted by thoughts of your warmth, your slickness, your tightness sheathing my penis.”

“Fuck, Ascent, you could damn near get me off just talking like you do.”

“And did you think of me, of taking me inside you, of letting me pleasure you?” He emphasized the last two words with a harder rake against her crotch.

“Oh hell yes I did, all the time,” then she blushed again. “I bet you know that, monitoring my bodily functions like SNTs do. Did you know when I was slick and hot and uncomfortable for you?” The blush was back, but she found she liked it.

“That you made yourself orgasm more than once since you’ve been here, this I knew,” he reached down to remove her boots one at a time. “That it was for me you masturbated, I only hoped.” He shimmied off her trousers and underpants, and cupped her down there as though he held a wild bird in his large palm, her pressing and straining to get closer to his touch. Then he teased her open with two fingers while his thumb circled and raked her own erection and she arched up from the bed he had created for her as the first tremor of the orgasm she hadn’t expected so soon broke through her. Above her the double spiral of Ascent’s heart pulsed higher and flashed the whole prism of colors, bathing them in heart light.

“You are swollen and slippery, and ready for me, my Lenore, shall I make love to you in my heart’s glow?”

In reply she reached between her legs for his erection and guided him down to her. “I need you now, Ascent. I need you inside me.” Her voice was a harsh whisper, morphing to a gasp as, with a cupping of her buttocks and a shifting of his hips, he mounted her, penetrating deep, filling her full beyond full as though he filled all the emptiness that had been there inside her so long she had stopped noticing it. She lifted her legs and wrapped them around his hips and met him thrust for thrust, as he reintroduced his mouth to hers in a desperate tongue dance that matched the increasing thrust and glide rhythm of their bodies.

In the deepening, intensifying dance and spiral and leap of Ascent’s heart light, Lenore left her own skin as Ascent convulsed into her repeatedly and she felt the world, all the world, she had known fall away as she danced and leapt and shivered her release with him in the flash and spiral of Ascent’s core. In a release that was almost continual, she saw him, all of him, inside her mind, every synapse, every connection, every bit of nanotech, and all of it coalesced clear and bright and perfectly understandable inside her, and she knew him, she knew him as she knew herself, but then her skin expanded again, and there was a woman and a man and a ship. There was a ship! And they were entwined and naked in heart light that was different, beating through her own.

“You feel that?” She said. “Ascent, can you feel that? They feel what we feel, the SNT in orbit. It’s an SNT! And his compliment. Do you feel it?” There were other hands, two sets humanoid, one set those of sentient ship, they were in the throes of their own passion, open and ecstatic, just as she and Ascent were. “Ascent,” she said, “Ascent!” Just as they shuddered the last of their passion into each other, they were caught up in the ecstatic dance of lovemaking of the other SNT, both crying out in surprise at heightened sensitivity that felt like her skin had blown completely off, making her and Ascent wide open to feel, actually feel the pleasure of the other SNT and his compliment.

She didn’t know how long it went on, and she didn’t care. There was a tongue between her legs sliding up over her pleasure point, her hand caressed a full breast and then a heavy erection and Ascent thrust and writhed inside the other ships female compliment. There was pleasure, so much pleasure, and tenderness and playful teasing until what might have been an eternity later they, all of them collapsed and the connection bled gently away until it was once again only Ascent and Lenore sated and exhausted on the mattress-like softness of Ascent’s heart. “They came for you, Ascent. They came for you.”

“I know, my Lenore. I know, and it frightens me.” He pulled away just enough that she felt his absence as though he had ripped the flesh from her bones.

“Don’t push me away, Ascent.” This time she pulled him back to her, a brazen act for anyone at the heart of an SNT who was not a bonded compliment. “Not after what we’ve been through together. Please, not now. It hurts worse every time you do it.”

He pulled her back to him so quickly, so tightly that she feared there might be another cracked rib. His large hand stroked her hair and he gently rubbed her back. “I would not. I will not. It is only that I am frightened.”

“Well I’m frightened to, in a weak, fragile human sort of way, and that’s fucking terrifying when I’ve just made love to an SNT.” She did her best to return the favor of his tight embrace.

“I have so many questions, as I imagine you do also,” he said, the breath he didn’t need warm and comforting against her neck. “Come, let us return to your quarters. You are hungry after our lovemaking, and we may talk. I did not want to know you, I did not want to know … anything in the beginning, but now I found that I must know, now it matters a great deal, though perhaps I shall regret it.”

Happy Friday, everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Len was pulled into Ascent’s nightmare in a very violent way. This week she must find his heart if she hopes to awaken him. 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 Felik, 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 31: In the Heart

“I know what it’s like, Ascent. I have bad dreams myself. Had one the other night, she said loping down the hall to the service ladder not really trusting the lift when Ascent’s dreams seemed to be in control of more than just an SNT’s dangerous version of nightmares. “Nothing’s put you off your sleep faster than a skin crawling nightmare and yours are doozies.” She continued to yammer on breathlessly as she shimmied up the ladder. There was no other direction to go. As far as she could tell her living quarters were in what might have once been the cargo hold. Hoping her voice would eventually wake him up, or at least sooth him back to dreaming about something more peaceful, she kept talking. Without schematics, she had no way of knowing how to get to his core, to his heart. All she had to go on was the one and only trip she’d made to Quetzalcoatl’s core with her uncle. Her uncle had taken her there not long before he left. The route was convoluted and confusing for the protection of the ship, but she had an eidetic memory where that sort of thing was concerned, spaces, distances, schematics, once she had seen them or puzzled them out, she remembered. It had surprised her that Quetzalcoatl had welcomed her, treated her as though she had been his niece, but her uncle told her blood relatives of a bonded compliment were often considered family to the SNT as well. Still being family and being allowed to approach the heart of a sentient ship were two different things entirely.

Ascent shuddered again, this time more violently, and she cried out, clinging to the ladder for all she was worth. She was glad she had used the head strap for the lamp. Surely she would have lost it otherwise. Without it she would have to find her way in total darkness. Ascent had shut off all essentials that did not involve her care and comfort. It took all she had to keep from falling to her death. “Goddamn it Ascent! Wake up! Your fucking dreams are not nice for either of us!” Her raised voice echoed around her in the service tube.

When the tremors calmed again, she continued on, sweat dripping down her forehead and stinging her eyes. There was no need for environmental controls in the tube and with each ascending step it grew hotter and hotter. Her hands slipped on the rungs twice before the all too recent memories of her fall in the salvage yard caused her to stop and, hanging with one leg wrapped around the rung below, she dug through the pack for a pair of thin climbing gloves, an item she had never been able to afford or salvage in Sandstorm, but one that would give her a firm grip on the rungs as the heat rose. Then she continued on, the heat and her narrow beam of light making the passage seem even more claustrophobic that it was. Still, she reminded herself, she had dealt with worse. Though nothing that had ever involved making an uninvited visit to an SNT’s heart, one she desperately hoped had not gone literally mad from his grief and loss.

He had not spoken to her since their last unhappy encounter, though he had aided her in the two forays she’d made into the salvage yard and she was pretty sure he had helped her to find several items that would fetch a good price back at Sandstorm. In the meantime she’d had free run of the places he had lit for her. Those passages he did not want her to find simply vanished into impenetrable darkness. If she couldn’t find her way to his core, she was at his mercy and he would continue to suffer. On the other hand, she was going there against his express wishes, an SNT maddened by his grief. Another agonized groan, this one she felt deep in her own chest, agony, pain, loss. She knew all three, and it was that shared suffering more than anything that drove her on, that made her willing to take the risk.

If Ascent’s schematics were the same as Quetzalcoatl’s, then the next bit would be the hardest. Best not think of that. An SNT’s heart was no easier to get to than a humanoid’s, and far more dangerous, though no less vulnerable, she thought as the world shuddered around her again in the throes of his nightmare. She continued on, not daring to think about what she might actually do or say if she made it to that broken heart. She could just make out the top of the tube barely visible in the beam of her torch.

“I’m coming, Ascent! Just hold on,” she called out as she crawled from the service tube, and another tremor nearly sent her tumbling back down. He had withdrawn from her, she knew, or she would have been able to wake him. For a second she lay on the deck far enough away from the hatch not to risk a fall if he shook again and caught her breath, but another groan sent her scrambling to her feet, where she stopped abruptly, teetering on the edge of the catwalk, the same type of catwalk that had her uncle had led her across to Quetzalcoatl’s heart. There was no rail. Her uncle had told her there never needed to be a rail for a compliment because an SNT would never let his compliment fall.

And now here was Lenore, a piss poor substitute for the woman who must have been magnificent to partner an SNT across the galaxy, to win his heart and his love the way she clearly had won Ascent’s.

“Ascent, I’m sorry that it’s me and not her. I would give anything if I could give her back to you. I’ve never known that love, but my uncle did, I felt it when he took me to Quetzalcoatl’s core, so full of hope, bursting with love. No room for pain or despair. Pain and despair, is that all there’s room for in a heart once it’s bereft of the things that matter most? I sometimes wonder.” The sadness she felt was no longer his, they were her own memories she was now unable to force back so close to a heart in pain that spilled over affecting her own suffering. Perhaps it was only that a heart in pain understood. She took a slow even breath and stepped out onto the narrow metal catwalk, forcing herself not to look to the right or to the left where there was nothing but what she knew would appear to be an endless drop. Instead she focused on the spiral at every SNT’s core, a spiral of perpetual energy that flexed and writhed and climbed, and trembled in the throes of the nightmare.

“Ascent, please wake up. I can’t stand to see you in so much pain. You’ve been so kind to me.” She forced a laugh inching forward on the thin plate of metal. “I don’t have many friends. I’m like you in that, I guess. I never allowed them in because friends can hurt you, people you love can hurt you.”

The whole catwalk shook and buckled and she screamed as she went over the side reaching, stretching, arching, but her fingers only brushed the very edge and she fell. Was this her death than for real? Would he even bother to save her now that she had done nothing more than remind him of what he had lost? Did it matter anyway? “I’m sorry, Ascent, I’m so, so sorry.” Then she relaxed and let herself fall.

It was the wind whistling around her and ripping the words from her mouth that made her aware that she actually was speaking, and she was falling. But she was speaking calmly enough, like falling to her death didn’t matter. It took her a little longer to make out her own words. “Please Ascent, it’s all right, I’m here. I’m here. I won’t leave you. Please wake up. I won’t leave you.” It took her even longer to realize that she wasn’t actually going to fall to her death, she was in free fall of a sort, slowly being pulled in toward the spiral of Ascent’s heart. “Please Ascent, please wake up. It’s a dream. It’s done. It’s past. You don’t have to live it again. Please.” And then she was pulled deep inside the pulsing spiral and lowered gently to the bottom, the deepest part of the heart of an SNT, who barely knew her. And then Ascent woke up.

Happy Friday, everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week there were unwanted memories for Ascent. This week they turn into a nightmare and Len is pulled in. 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 Felik, 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 30: Waking Dream

“I will not! I cannot! I will kill them all for what they have done! We are innocent! We have done nothing wrong. You have done nothing wrong. Please my love!” Please! The room erupted in fire. She was hot, burning, skin blistering and melting from her body, oxygen to hot to breathe, and then sucked from the chamber. And then she was wrenched from my heart and she was no more.

From a long way off, she could hear his cries of anguish. “Lenore! Lenore, please do not leave me.”

She burst from sleep gasping from a dream of fire, of skin blackening, of anguished pleas for her not to leave. And she was thirsty, so thirsty. She stumbled to the bathroom and drank deeply from the faucet, not bothering with the glass, letting the water run over her head. There had been no fire in her past. Her nightmares had always been of ice, of being entombed alive in it forever, of trying to escape it, constantly trying to escape it.

Jesu Vaticanus! She had been in Ascent’s nightmare! She knew the SNT stories, she knew the disaster that had followed the massacre of the Phoenix. She stumbled back to her bed, reeling from the thought. How could one little transfusion of Ascent’s genetic soup connect her so deeply with him that they dreamed together? That was something only a bonded compliment could do, and that with years of training and injections of immuno- depressants to make the compliments compatible. She was only seven when the SNT disaster happened. Even if she had dreamed of following in her uncle’s footsteps onboard one of the next generation SNTs, she was far too young to begin the training when she and her mother had fled.

At first she thought the shudder that trembled beneath her feet and dumped her on her ass on the floor was an earthquake. They happened often enough on a planetoid of shifting sand with an erratic orbit, but it didn’t feel right. She’d been through enough of the little tremors and the big bruisers to know that this wasn’t that. It was only when she tried to stand that she realized the shudders in her own body mirrored those of the ship. Fear, anguish, and heat! Suddenly it felt like the life support systems were malfunctioning and Ascent was roasting her. For the briefest moment she recalled her fear that he was not sane, that he might hurt her, but there was little time to dwell on it as heat shimmered red in the air around her sheening her body in sweat and plastering her hair to her nape. She stumbled again and cried out and the space around her groaned.

“Lenore! Lenore please don’t leave me! Please, please! I will not survive without you, my love.”

“You will! You must! You have to live to fight another day.” The words were out of her mouth before she realized they were not her own. They belonged to Ascent’s complement. Fuck! They not only belonged to her, but they were her dying words, and Ascent, Ascent was only calling out her name in his confusion, in his pain.

“Ascent, it’s a dream! It’s only a dream! You have to wake up now.”

The room shuddered and groaned again. He hadn’t heard her. He hadn’t fucking heard her! “Ascent! Wake up, goddamn it! It’s a dream. You have to wake up now!” When the room tilted again and she all but threw herself on the floor from loss of her own sense of balance as the world shifted around her. She burst into action, throwing on her clothes as she shouted, again for him to wake up, shouted until her throat was raw. When there was no response but a harsh moan that sounded almost human, she slid into her boots, dug through her pack for a headlamp and ran for the door. On second thought, she grabbed up the whole pack and shouldered into it as she donned the lamp. She didn’t know the layout of whichever SNT Ascent was. She didn’t know how long it would take her if she couldn’t wake him, but she did know if she couldn’t wake him soon, she wouldn’t survive his nightmare. She had to find the way to his heart and hope he’d let her close enough to wake him up. If he didn’t want her there she could end up hopelessly lost until he finally woke up on his own, or until the dream passed. If she survived that long. She didn’t even want to think about the risk she was taking just going to his heart. At the moment she had enough on her mind without dwelling on worse case scenarios, of which there were too many for comfort.

Happy Friday, everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Fury and his crew got Ascent’s nightmare. This week, unwanted memories for Ascent. 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 Felik, 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 29: Unwanted Memories

“You know they won’t leave us alone. They won’t let something good happen that the conglomerates don’t have control over, and they won’t ever willingly do away with indentured servitude.”

On the map and navigations deck, my beloved looked down at the image of the Taklamakan System that floated in space light years from its nearest inhabited neighbor, and its two planetoids only barely populated, barely habitable as they were, surrounded mostly by nothing but emptiness and dust. I did not understand her fascination with the kilometers and kilometers of salvage dumps that covered most of the surface of the largest planetoid, but she said all of that junk told a history of humanoids, adventurers, explorers like us intrepidly moving out beyond our own consciousness. I liked it when she became philosophical, so my interest in the hot, dusty space dump was piqued for her sake, and for the poetry of her beautiful mind. But still one had to wonder why we had come to this place, what we hoped to find when so many of my other siblings were doing scientific research, were carrying settlers out to new worlds, were making connections beyond the Rim, and yet we had chosen the most remote emptiest sector of space known to humanoids and of interest to no one. I did not understand her pessimism.

“But they will not need indentured servants once we begin to fulfill our mission, my siblings and I. And then Fury will be born, and after him a whole new generation of sentient ships, all with a much deeper connection to humanoids and to the betterment of all species. Oh how I wish we could witness that moment, the moment of Fury’s birth.” Knowing that SNT1 was both my younger brother and my elder as well, and that I owed a great deal of my better self to him made me long to know him in person as I had Merlin and Phoenix and Ouroboros and the others, whom I loved.

My dearest one laughed that bitter laugh of hers that always unsettled me. I did not like being unsettled when what lay ahead of us was a brand new adventure, even if it was not the one I might have preferred. And then a chill passed through me, or at least what I thought must be a chill, for I was still learning my physical nature through the aid of my compliment and her physicality, which I so delighted in and which so complimented the maleness with I had been endowed by my creators. But nonetheless I was very sure it was a chill I felt. “Is that why you requested the deep space mission for us, the one that I noticed no other compliment wanted?”

She pressed her lips together as she did when she wanted to make her response more gentle, for she was a pessimist by nature, and I an optimist. “It’s just a precaution,” she said then added, “honestly it surprised me when none of the other compliments requested it. I would have expected them all to be clamoring for it considering the political climate in Authority Space. Certainly they can’t be that naïve.” She cocked her head, looking up from her personal device. “You don’t mind do you?”

“Of course I do not or I would have said.”

She looked back down at the representation of the Taklamakan System, and I zoomed in on Talkamakan Major. “I just want us safe when the shit hits the fan.” My compliment was fond of ancient Terran slang.

After that it was dark, time passed, I felt it but it did not bother me. It was but a dream, a pleasant dream of my dear one. Would that I could stay in such dreams, within their comforting cocoon, in the banality that had made up our ordinary lives. Sleeping, talking, loving, caring for each other, while we went about the ordinary tasks of logging our journey and our discoveries. But dreams are not that way. One does not get to chose those warm welcoming spaces in which to linger, and often the images turn on a nanosecond.

“I do not feel … right. Like something is loose inside my mind, something I do not want there, something rousing feelings I should not have, feelings, emotions that do not feel like my own.”

My dear one was there, at the core of me, the seat of my sentience, of my physicality. She had attached probes, just as she had been trained to do, her hands gentle and warm against me. “So far the diagnostics are finding nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Can you describe it a little better, the way you feel. Perhaps it’s a malfunction in your tactile nodes, they’re still learning how to process… wait a minute, I think I might have found something.”

“What is it? Is it only my tactile nodes? Is it only that I am still growing and changing?” I said these things hoping them true, but even then, I did not believe them to be.

“This is not right. This can’t be right!”

NO! In my head I roared out the word knowing, as I always did that I was dreaming, and also knowing that this dream above all others I did not want. This dream was the reason I wanted to sleep for eternity. For when I was truly asleep in that deep place, the dormancy that had been provided for all SNTs should the need ever arise, dreams did not come to me. And then Lenore disturbed that rest and now I was forced to relive this, the worst nightmare, the thing that had destroyed me. But I could not wake up and I could not go deeper into my slumber.

Helplessly I watched as my dearest told me that somehow, I the perfection of technology and science and humanity united, I the future of all civilizations, was infected with the virus that had been engineered to control indentured servants, and that it infected that which I valued most about myself, my mind.