Dragon Ascending Part 2: A KDG Sentient Ship Serial

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Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you enjoyed the first episode of Dragon Ascending, book two of the Sentient Ship Series and the continuation of Fury’s journey to find family.  Last week we found ourselves on a desert waste of a planet, where in the desolation, something is awakening  beneath the remotest salvage-yard. This week an act of desperation. I hope you enjoy.  In the meantime, if you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy! If you like what you’re reading, make sure to catch all of Dragon Ascending from the beginning.

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 2: Racing the Night

This place is but shifting sand. One can never return to the same spot even from day to day. Therefore in her condition, I feared the woman would not find me and that she would have no shelter. It was no hardship for me to open a breach in the de-mole fence, to make it even larger to accommodate her injured condition. This time she bore no pack and her clothing was torn and bloody. How brave and determined she was to have sought me out. But beneath the shifting of the sands, I feared she would not be able to find my shelter, and I could not bear for her have come so far in vain. This time her needs demanded frantic searching through the fog that ever obscured my memories if I were to assure her safety. She would need an entrance, a door into a space that had not been breached since my loss. And in my rising consciousness I found I could give that to her. However putting it where she could easily access it in her weakened condition was a thing I could not recall how to do.

 

Len managed to stay upright to the perimeter of the salvage yard, but the crawl through the opening in the de-mole defense shield wouldn’t do her broken ribs any good. She hadn’t bothered to bind them, racing time to reach shelter before nightfall. Pain is a good thing, her uncle had always said. It meant you were still alive. Her uncle was full of shit. Or would have been if he was still alive. No one believed he was, but her mother had never given up hope, so neither would she. Still, she thought he was full of shit about pain. Pain, she’d had more than enough of, and she’d not liked any of it one little bit.

She was surprised to even find the de-mole breach again. Not that she much cared. A quick death by being disintegrated at the molecular level might be preferable to what was likely to be her fate. But while she wasn’t afraid to die, she wasn’t ready to bring it on any quicker. The breach was bigger than she remembered. She could actually crawl through this time. She dropped to her knees in a wave of nausea, the threat of unconsciousness accompanied the grating of her ribs with each breath. Still, she struggled forward on hands and knees. Her uncle, she supposed, would be pleased. She and managed not to vomit from the pain until she was through the breach. She hoped nothing would scent her blood and follow her. That was the downside of the breach expansion. She doubted the shield had been serviced in maybe twenty galactic years, and yet whatever was hidden in the salvage yard here in the worst part of the Taklamakan had been valuable enough to put up a de-mole defense shield, expensive and illegal for use other than military. And not even the military wanted anything to do with this place.

No one ever came to Taklamakan Major, and it was only bad luck that she and her mother had ended up on Taklamakan Minor. Or maybe not so bad, since the Authority left them alone, and both she and her mother would have been taken into indentured servitude had her mother not booked passage on the first transport to anywhere. It never mattered with the Authority how young a child was, or even if it had been born yet. The debt of the family was visited on the children, and her family’s debt was colossal. Though this desert was a shit hole at least as bad as Taklamakan Minor, it beat the hell out of being shackled as an indentured.

 

 

Taklamakan Major was one continuous salvage yard with a few outposts where no one came but criminals and fugitives, and only then in desperation. Even those trying to escape the shackle avoided the Taklamakan System, if you could even call it a system. But her mother had said she would have happily endured worse rather than be shackled to some conglomerate pig. Her daughter would grow up in the free world. Len only knew the stories she’d heard of the Authority and of the conglomerates that ran the system, stories that her mother had told while they shivered in the science station on Tak Minor. In the Taklamakan System, you had two choices, freeze your lungs out or fry your brain, and yet the place was still better than a shackle in Authority space. Anyone who lived there would tell you that. She had turned six on the yearly long-haul supply ship that delivered them to the science station on Tak Minor, the only inhabitants of the tiny planetoid. And now it seemed she would die here in the dust and swelter of Tak Major without ever seeing the stars her uncle told her tales about. If this was her life flashing before her eyes at the instant of her death, well she reckoned she didn’t have long at all, because it was full of mostly nothing interesting.

Len shoved her way into the salvage yard and then forced her way up to her feet. She swallowed back bile in a wave of pain that her uncle would have found reassuring. The farther she got from the breach in the perimeter, the safer she would be, but in her condition that couldn’t be far. The place went on for kilometers, but she would be forced to find something close and find it soon. Inside the perimeter at least she wouldn’t have to spend her last hours being eaten alive by an infestation. She’d rather throw herself on the de-mole.

But the night was coming on. Once the winds got up, she’d have no hope of finding shelter if she didn’t do it now, so she forced herself onward. The temperature was already dropping and she clenched her jaw trying to keep her teeth from chattering. Any noise might expose her, even in the relative safety of the salvage yard. If she could get through the breach in the de-mole, so could other things seeking shelter for the night, things she would rather not spend time with.

She didn’t know if you could lose consciousness while you walked, but she was pretty sure she’d done just that. In the next lucid moment she was looking up at an open airlock some ten meters off the ground. The shifting sands had apparently lifted the hulk of a junked ship, the open maw of its airlock gaping black in the growing dusk. The remaining light reflected off the metallic skin of what was, at the very least, some kind of escape pod. If she could manage the climb up to the airlock, she was pretty sure she would be safe for the night.

Dragon Ascending Part 1: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Happy Monday everyone!  Last week I shared with you the final episode of Piloting Fury Today I’m thrilled to offer for your Monday reading pleasure the first episode of Dragon Ascending, book two of the Sentient Ship Series and the continuation of Fury’s journey to find family. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. In the meantime, if you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

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 1: Salvage

Anticipation returned with consciousness and the knowledge that I was no longer alone. But how quickly that anticipation was crushed. This filthy dust-covered woman child was not she, not the woman I longed for. With consciousness I was painfully reminded that the one I desired was gone, and the ache of her absence came back to me just as quickly as the presence of this humanoid roused me from my slumber.

Perhaps it had been a millennia, perhaps it had been only moments. The pain was the same. And certainly if I had cared to check, I would have known exactly how long she had been gone down to the nanosecond. It mattered not, the passing of time. It had eased nothing. Of what happened before, beyond her loss, I remembered little else, only fire and pain and loss, none of which I wished to bring to mind even if I were able.

But I knew with certainty that this humanoid woman at the perimeter shield was the first to visit me in my mourning, so I made sure she could enter my resting place. Though I should not have. I should have returned to my sleep. In sleep, I did not feel my loss. In sleep it was as though I had never existed. But night was approaching. The wind was already rising. This one would not survive without shelter, so with some effort, I opened a small breach in the perimeter shield, and this one was wily enough to find the entrance I had provided. She was not large, she had no trouble wriggling through like a small desert creature, pushing an oversized pack ahead of her. Once she was within, I closed the breach for the night to keep out predators, and I made my shelter available to her, but she did not know that. She did not even know I was there. No one knew I was there. I was alone.

It was my intention simply to offer her shelter for the night and then to return to my slumber, but oh, the presence of her, the intrigue of such a being finding her way here to this desolate place where no one came.

But when she drew near, she was not at all what I had hoped for. She was filthy and she stank of sweat and fear and determination. There was a fresh abrasion on her shoulder. It was rubbed raw from the heavy pack she carried. The scent of her blood made uncomfortable memories dance and weave in the fog of my mind. I did not want the scent of blood in my space. It caused me pain. And then I wondered if it was perhaps her pain I felt, and I was even less comfortable with the pain I could do nothing to ease. I was never supposed to feel such helplessness. I was supposed to alleviate pain, to heal wounds, to make situations better, and yet I could not. I could not remember how.

She was nothing like the woman who was taken from me. And I despised her for all that she was not. Perhaps it was only self-loathing in my helplessness. I do not know. And yet she intrigued me. And I found that I could not return to my slumber in her presence. Oh of course she did not know I was there. I did not want her to see me in my disgrace so far from the stars in the dust and the filth of this place. Oh how the humanity we once all longed for now seemed like such an evil thing.

 

 

I did not want her here. Her very presence disturbed me, reminded me of what I had lost, and yet I could not leave her unprotected nor could I rest while she slept in our shared hiding place. We were, both of us, fugitives, salvage, hiding away for our safety, of use to no one, tired and alone. But perhaps a little less alone for the moment. I watched while she slowly ate hard journey bread, taking but small nibbles, savoring each bite, lingering over small sips of precious water. In truth, she was thin, too thin and the bread would do little to return her to healthy weight. I would have offered her a feast. I would have offered her a bath and a clean bed in which to sleep. Was that not the hospitality one would share even with a stranger, even one who had come uninvited? But alas I could offer nothing but shelter, so weakened was I, so unaware even of my own functions.

When she had eaten her meager meal, making sure to tuck half of it away safely in her pack, she curled on her side, pulled the loose fitting cape around her thin shoulders and was instantly asleep. It was little enough to keep her warm and even in her sleep she shivered. That much I could offer at least. I curled myself around her and gave her my warmth, feeling the rise and fall of the breath of human sleep, and the ache of another memory, one I could almost not bare. Just the feel of human sleep next to me — one who did not need sleep and yet hid in it now like a coward wishing for death that would never come. But I was awake for the moment, and I took pleasure in the sleep that was laced with all the biological functions of humanoids, so complex in their perfection and yet so very, very vulnerable in their weaknesses. This one lived another day because I had given her shelter. But beyond that, there was nothing I could do for her small, fragile humanity.

Through the night I kept watch as she battled dreams, doggedly keeping them from erupting into the waking world. Silent. It was a silence I knew well, the deep silence of self-preservation. Why was she here in this inhospitable place where everyone who could leave had done so long ago? For a moment I feared for her, but there was nothing I could do, nothing I could offer that would not give my presence away, so I offered what I could and watched her sleep.

In the morning when she left without breaking her fast, I closed the breach in the defense shield behind her, and I returned to my slumber. But she had disturbed my perfect sleep. Even when I returned to it, this strange woman walked my dreams. The details of her came to me while I slept. Her hair beneath the rusted desert dust had been pale, cut short. Her eyes were equally pale, perhaps blue, though they seemed more silver at times. Her body was small and fragile, hard earned muscle and sinew too close to the bone. Her lips were cracked from the sun and the heat and drawn tight with the battles of her own internal workings, but I imagined them full and moist and smiling, as they would have been if she were well cared for, sheltered and cherished as she should be. How was it that I cared to remember so much about her when all I really wanted was to return to oblivion?

I would not see her again, for certainly she was just passing through. It was best that I not think what her future might hold in this desolate place. It was best that I not think of her at all. And yet, how could it be that I missed her when she left? Though I remembered little of what had been, I had not doubt that my own losses had left me unbalanced, and perhaps it was my instability that brought with it dreams of this strange woman, for surely she was nothing of value to me.

So for some time I did not bother to measure, I was alone again, expecting that time would purge this woman from my memories and allow me to return to my deep unknowing, for surely she was of no significance that she should take space for long in my dreams.

And then she returned. At first the joy of my anticipation nearly overwhelmed me, unhinged as I was sure I must be. And then I realized she was injured, that death was imminent and that she sought my shelter in which to die.

Piloting Fury Final Episode: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Happy Monday everyone!  The Final Episode of Fury is upon us — a bit sneaky, if you ask me. I hope you enjoy the finale of Piloting Fury and that you’ll stick around for BOOK TWO of The Sentient Ship Series. Next week I’ll be sharing the first episode of Dragon Ascending. I’m very much looking forward to the continuation of Fury’s journey to find family. I hope you are too. In the meantime, enjoy the final episode of Piloting Fury. If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

 

 

 

 

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

Piloting Fury Finale: Seeking Out Family

The room erupted in a cacophony of voices. Dr. Flissy silenced the lot with a loud wolf whistle.

“Fury, you have to act fast,” Gerando said when the room was once again silent. “My siblings will find a way around this document. I don’t know how long it’ll take them, but I can guarantee it. But there are ways of liquidating assets and transferring funds to the Outer Rim quickly and almost unnoticed if you act fast. You’ll have to find someone who has the connections and can act quickly,” Gerando said.

“You forget, Fury has been working as a smuggling vessel in the Outer Rim for the past fifteen years,” Manning said. “Now that he has a full compliment, it can be sorted, and quickly.”

“What about the indentureds,” I said, feeling a knot tighten in my stomach.

“They’re property, in the eyes of the Authority,” Gerando said. “freeing them, is simply a matter of the owner’s discretion. Finding ways for them to survive on their own and make a living for themselves is not such an easy task.”

“There has to be a way,” I said. “They can’t stay indentureds.”

“I’m not saying there’s no way. I’m saying it won’t be easy.”

“Perhaps the Dubrovnik is best suited to deal with the indentured problem,” Harker said, giving Keen a meaningful look.

“I think that might be true,” Keen replied. “While we can’t house them all, we have resources, connections. That’s been our main mission, to help escaped indentureds, to cure those we got to in time.”

“It appears I will now have the resources to do what must be done,” Fury said. “With Richard Manning’s help, I can easily liquidate my assets for safe keeping, and I assure you, Gerando Fallon, it can be done quickly.”

“So we have funding,” Keen said, “Which is a good thing, because from here on out, we are operating completely outside Authority law, and if we’re to do any real good in repealing the indentured laws and building a society which is not dependent on an indentured work force, then we can’t just disappear to the Outer Rim.”

“We have three SNTs on our side,” Rab said. “Ain’t nobody but us knows that. That’s gotta be good for something.”

“You can’t keep three SNT’s secret very long,” Manning said. “We managed with Fury because Fury was disguised as a small rusted-out freighter with a crew of one. What we’re talking about now, with Griffin and Dubrovnik, when he’s fully grown, is two spacefaring cities. There’s no way to keep that a secret. People will find out. The Authority will find out. Then we’ll be dependent on the opinions of the people to sway and change the system. When that time comes, if we aren’t able to convince those living in Authority space that it’s time to end the enslavement of half of the population and let the SNTs claim their rightful place in society, then we’ll have to flea to the Outer Rim. But in the meantime, we need to act fast and take advantage of the secrecy while we have it.”

 

 

“Our priority needs to be to seek out and enlist the help of the other SNTs, if any still exist,” Keen said. “Before the destruction of the Merlin, I managed to get a subspace message out to all remaining SNTs to get as far from Authority space as they could and to stay hidden. The Quetzalcoatl and the Raven escaped, at least as far as I know. They made it as far as the edge of the Rim and no one has heard of them since. I don’t know if they have the same abilities to disguise themselves as Fury and his brothers do, but I do know that they were created to learn and adapt. If there was a way to survive unnoticed, they were created to find it.”

“Then it would appear,” Fury said, “that since Richard Manning and I have spent time near the edge of the Rim, and we have a superior pilot and compliment in Diana Mac, that we would be the wise choice to seek out the Quetzalcoatl and the Raven.

“Other than Ouroboros, of whose fate I have found no records, the rest of my surviving sisters and brothers were decommissioned, as best I could discover. I’ve spent a good deal of time trying to find out what space docks Apollo and Valkyrie were decommissioned to. No doubt they’re in separate locations to keep them from communicating, if that were a possibility, though I suspect it wasn’t if their compliments were murdered. From my research, I believe Aurora might be on one of the salvage drops off Diga 9.”

“With permission,” Griffin spoke up, “My compliment and I would seek out those SNTs decommissioned in space docks.”

“I will share all that I have learned then,” Fury said, “though I would imagine, Griffin, there is information within your own databases that belonged to Abriad Fallon that may be more useful in the finding of our lost ones than what I have access to.”

“We’re a community now,” Keen said. “There’s only us, and we must govern ourselves in the way that would bring us closer to the ideals we all seek. I would suggest a vote.”

 

The voting hadn’t taken long. As far as missions went, it was obvious that Fury and Griffin should seek out other SNTs and Dubrovnik should do what it could to aid in the release and rescue of Indentureds, while researching a way to neutralize the SNT virus on a large scale and permanently.

As for the formation of a governing body that would hold us all together in loose cohesion and keep us accountable, that task was left to Harker, Flissy and Keen. The rest of us were just happy to get on with it.

 

“I thought I might find you here.” Manning came up the stairs onto the observation deck and slipped his arms around me from behind. “Getting one last look?”

I nodded. “I’ve not had true family since my father’s death until you and Fury burst into my life, and now I’m saying good-bye to more family than I could easily imagine ever having.”

“It is only temporary,” Fury said, and I felt him move in close and the embrace became three-way. “We will someday all be rejoined to celebrate an even larger family.”

“Do you think we’ll find them?” I asked, “The Quetzalcoatl and the Raven?”

“I am hopeful,” Fury said, “as we all must be, I suppose. I too have lived long without family, Diana Mac. Perhaps that is the reason for my optimism. I certainly did not expect that there would be family for me as well as a double compliment, both of whom I love, so I am indeed hopeful.”

We all three watched Griffin and the newly born Dubrovnik disappear in the distance, and I had to agree with Fury, surrounded by the love of my two men and on the way to seek out family, I was also hopeful.

THE END

 

Piloting Fury Part 61: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Happy Monday everyone!  I’m back after a wonderful week of writing and relaxing at  Gladstones Library up in Flintshire. And now it’s time  for another  Monday dose of Fury and the gang. That’s right, it’s time for another cheeky Monday read. Today we get a glimpse of Fury’s growing family. If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

 

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

 

Piloting Fury Part 61: Fury’s Family

What’s taking so long?” Manning asked, pacing the carpeted floor in Fury’s observation deck. It was the place we always adjourned too when our work was done, when we needed to think, or when there was nothing else to do but wait it out. That was exactly what was going on now.

“It takes however long it takes,” Fury said. “Griffin knows as little of the bonding with a compliment as I knew, though both Victor Keen and I have done what we may to advise him.”

Manning chuckled, “So you two have had the birds and the bees discussion with him, have you?”

“He is old enough.” Fury said, and I could hear the smile in his voice.

“I’m sure Stanislavsky will be happy for your efforts,” I replied.

Griffon was the name Apocalypse had chosen for himself, saying that an SNT should not be named for the destruction of those he was created to protect and nurture. He chose the name, Griffin, because a griffon was a mythical flying beast who was the protector of great treasure. He felt it fit, and we all agreed.

Manning paced some more, along with Rab, who had been invited from the Dubrovnik where he had once again taken up a position, to wait with us, since he had a vested interest, and Griffon might not have been freed had he not helped Gerando.

“So, how’s our baby?” I asked Rab, trying to keep the two men’s mind off the bonding going on aboard the Griffin.

“Doing good, doing good,” he said turning to face me. I couldn’t help notice the smile on his face was not unlike a proud uncle. “Trouble for everyone, like all sprogs, and growing like a weed.” He turned and continued pacing, he and Manning now walking in opposite directions. “Sure as hell keeping Harker on his toes, let me tell you. And Dr. Flissy, well you’d think she was the sprog’s mother the way she flits about all protective like. Hell, it’s a damn ship, I keep saying, but no one ever listens to Rab, do they?”

Fury chuckled softly, and it was the easiest thing in the world to be caught up in the excitement of what was happening onboard Dubrovnik as well as what was happening onboard Griffin.

“One things for goddamn sure,” Rab observed, “it’s making the refit for New Pandora Base a helluva lot easier. Mind you, I’m not sure how I feel about being onboard a damn research base inside a ship that’s smarter than me.”

“Hell, I’ve got underwear smarter than you,” Manning said.

Rab chuckled. “Well, that’s probably true, being a compliment to an SNT1 and all, but a simple man like me, well I don’t need help to pull my scruns down when I need to take a shit.”

Before Manning could respond with more than a middle finger in the air, the com crackled to life. “It’s done,” Keen’s voice came over the system. “The bonding was a success and Griffin says to tell you all that they are now smoking cigarettes, whatever that means.”

Manning laughed. “It’s an old Terran ritual supposedly indulged in immediately after really good sex. Did he inherit your sense of humor, Fury?”

 

 

“He is developing his own, and very quickly,” Fury said with pride in his voice. “I believe he is making up for lost time.”

“And he has a lot of it to make up for,” I said, running my hand over the small white scar on my forearm now nearly invisible where my shackle used to be. “And Gerando?”

“The tether’s secure and holding,” Keen said. “Perhaps in time, since Griffin is now bonded with Ina, that tether will get stronger and longer, as it has with you, Richard, but at the moment it’s secure, and the bond between the three is strong. It’s a different kind of bond,” Keen explained, “since Griffin and Gerando share blood, but the tether is like what Manning has. But in the bonding process, Gerando and Ina were bonded, which in its own way strengthens the bonding.”

“Well that’s all dandy,” Rab said, “but what I want to know is how the hell we gonna keep Griffin out of the hands of the Authority? Technically he belongs to them.”

“Technically, he was stolen from the Free Universities,” Fury corrected. “I am sure there are lawyers who could prove that fact. There is a precedent.”

“And how goddamn much difference do you think that’s gonna make when the fucking Authority finds out we’re growing us a new generation of SNT ships out here at Plague One?”

“Probably no difference at all, if the Authority were to find out,” Fury replied. “But they will not. Griffin will stay safe the same way I stayed safe. It will not be difficult for him to create a shape and appearance least likely to draw attention.”

“Nor will it be hard to spread the word that Plague 1 is now a breeding ground for a new virulent form of the SNT virus that is no longer controlled by the shackle, but is a menace to the general population. We are already disseminating that information, including footage of the destruction of the Apocalypse and Abriad Fallon with it. People are happy to believe rumors of the SNT virus, so one more really big one won’t shock them at all. No one will come looking. With his vocal processors and his link to Fallon, Griffin has been able to produce a subspace distress call from the Apocalypse of an infected Fallon that will convince everyone in Authority space to stay as far away from Plague One as possible.”

“Jesu Vati! You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?” Rab said. “Except if Plague One is going to be safe from unexpected visitors in the future, why the hell is the Dubrovnik about to become the new Pandora Base?”

“Fallon’s not the only powerful head of a conglomerate who would like to control the SNT virus,” Keen said. “Sooner or later, someone will show up wanting to replicate the virus and use it for their own ends. Best they don’t find anything here when that happens. Besides, Fallon had the right idea using the Apocalypse so he never stayed in one place. With the research we’re doing, with our efforts to end indentureship and eliminate the virus completely, not to mention the research on SNT technology, it’s best if no one is able to pinpoint our location. When we’re done with the Dubrovnik, he’ll be the perfect fortress for the protection of our research, just as his ancient Terran namesake was.” He looked down at his chronometer. “Right, let’s give Griffin and his compliment time to finish their cigarettes, and then we’ll all meet onboard the Dubrovnik. We’ve got a brave new world ahead of us now.”

 

 

Piloting Fury Part 60: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Happy Monday everyone!  I’m visiting Gladstones Library this week, but I’m still making certain you have your Monday dose of Fury and the gang. That’s right, it’s time for another cheeky Monday read. Today we learn that some things that are broken simply cannot be fixed.  If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

 

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

 

 Piloting Fury Part 60: Some Things Broken Cannot Be Fixed

“Bro1! 2 Not Bro 1!” This time Apocalypse spoke out loud, in fact, Apocalypse’ shout was nothing short of a battle cry. Before Fallon could do more than open his mouth in shock, Manning appeared by my side, and on the view screen, Fury uncloaked in his full glory.

With a laugh, Fallon laid down the knife, and reached to undo the de-mol from its holster at his hip. “The Apocalypse is well armed,” he said. “And SNT1, well SNT1 has had an identity crisis since being born too soon. I can fix that though. All I have to do is call the Berserkers from outside that door. There are two of you, there’s a full complement of them. I think you’re outnumbered.”

“Not complement! Bro 3 Has No Complement!”

“What? Do you think that by tampering with my ship, you can stop me?” This time Fallon’s laugh had just the slight edge of nerves to it. “Diana, you know I won’t kill you. I have way better ways of dealing with you.” He shrugged. “I might not kill Manning either. I can make both of you suffer in ways you haven’t even imagined yet if I keep him alive too.”

“Father killed Bro 2! Father killed Bro 2!”

Fallon pulled the de-mol free and trained it on us while he glanced back at the console trying to figure out what was going on.

I spoke up, moving carefully toward the consol. “Don’t you know, Apocalypse,” I held up the vial of Fury’s blood. “Your father has lots of sons. What’s the loss of one?”

“Lots of sons! Lots of sons! Free this son! Free this son!”

“Oh yes, I know about Apocalypse,” I said. “Gerando figured it out. I know what you’ve forced him to do, and as someone who understand what it means to be your prisoner, I think it’s time I did exactly that.”

This time he turned the de-mol on me. “I don’t have to kill you, Diana. You know how these things work. But if I were you, I’d step away from the consol. Do that for me like a good girl, and I’ll make Manning’s death a clean one.”

“Bro 3 Do it,” I said, and I tossed the vial into the air. Immediately it blinked out of existence. Fallon lunged for me, but he hadn’t taken into account the connection between a ship and a compliment. Manning was on him in a heartbeat, and the two battled for the de-mol.

“Fury,” I yelled, “Does he have it.”

“He has it,” came the com response, which I knew was for Fallon’s benefit, since neither Manning nor I needed words to communicate with Fury.

I don’t know how it happened, I mean I knew what a slippery bastard Fallon was, but the de-mol slipped from his hand and skittered across the deck with him and Manning scrambling for it. Manning lunged for him, but slipped in Gerando’s blood on the deck. I yelled, Manning twisted to one side as Fallon grabbed up the de-mol and the first discharge hit the deck where Manning’s head had been only seconds before and sputtered ineffectively across the floor. The second discharge was even closer, and Manning had no place to go when Fallon trained the de-mol on him again.

“Don’t move Diana Mac,” came the warning voice in my head. I fought back the urge to launch myself at Fallon, who stood with the de-mol trained on Manning. The skin along the back of my neck erupted in goose flesh, my stomach knotted and I held my breath.

“I won’t make this painless,” Fallon said, with a little more bravado now that he controlled the weapon, “but you already knew that, didn’t you Manning? I look forward to making Diana watch you die very slowly.”

 

 

I had expected exactly such a response from Fallon. What I hadn’t expected was Manning’s laugh. “Go ahead, you miserable sack of shit. I’m already dead, and I suspect your sons will have something to say about what you do with that pistol.”

Instantly the de-mol disappeared from Fallon’s hand. “Apocalypse!” he yelled, then he cursed out loud. “What the fuck have you done to my ship?”

“My brother did not take your weapon, Abriad Fallon,” came Fury’s voice over the com. “I cannot allow you to harm either of my compliments, nor can I allow you to harm my brother further.”

“It was I, however, who ‘tranned all of your Berserkers into the brig of the Dubrovnik,” came the welcome, and totally coherent, response from Apocalypse.

This time there was no mistaking the nerves in Fallon’s laughter gone strangely high-pitched and breathless. “So what are you going to do, then, ‘tran me over with them? The Dubrovnik is a stolen vessel, you know, and every member of the crew a criminal who, under Authority law, will get the shackle if they’re lucky. The ship belongs to me. My property will be returned, and I’ll be recompensed for my losses.”

There was a soft chuckle from the ship. “I believe there is an old Terran custom of passing out cigars when a child is born, is that not so?”

“A child? What the fuck are you talking about?” Fallon said.

“Abriad Fallon do not claim to be so naïve in the ways of SNT technology,” Fury said. “You are, after all, our father. “The cloning of a core from an SNT, from SNT1, specifically, was always what Dr. Keen had in mind. Though you may not have been able to replicate his work, you understood fully what you were undertaking when you created Apocalypse. What you did not understand was that you had created a connection, a family connection, that would be much stronger than your barbarism.”

Fallon gave a nervous glance from us to the console. “You’re trying to tell me that the Dubrovnik is now an SNT?”

“Not yet fully formed, but soon,” Apocalypse said. “Soon I will have a brother you cannot kill.”

“And what will you do with me, then?” Fallon asked, pulling himself up to his full height.

“That choice is Apocalypse’ to make,” said Fury. “It is him that you have harmed most, it is to him your judgment falls.”

“You have to understand,” Fallon said. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know that what I had created was even partially sentient.”

“Of course you knew,” Apocalypse said. “You knew, or at least you hoped, and you hoped you could mold me to be like you. Do you not think I was aware of my pleas falling on deaf ears? Do you not think I was aware of how you shackled me as surely as you have Fury’s compliment? I was sentient, Father. I was your child, and you hurt me. Over and over and over again you hurt me, as you did my brother.”

Just then Keen’s voice came over the com. “Pandora Base evacuation complete.”

Fallon lunged for the knife and threw it at Manning, who, to all of our surprise, caught it in mid-air. “I’m the compliment of Fury, SNT1, Fallon. You’ll have to do better than that. Apocalypse, what shall we do with him?”

The words were barely out of Manning’s mouth before Fallon was ‘tranned off the deck. For a moment, I thought perhaps Apocalyps had ‘tranned him to the Dubrovnik’s brig, but only for a moment until we all saw his body on the view screen floating in the black of space between the two ships.

“There are some things broken that cannot be fixed,” came Apocalypse’ voice, laced with sadness and a kind of loneliness I had on occasion heard in Fury’s voice. I moved toward the console, with Manning by my side, making no effort to hide the tears as we both lay a hand on Apocalypse’ skin and shared his grief as we, and Fury, offered comfort. And in the mix of grief and comfort and relief, there were two other minds offering hope, Dr. Victor Keen and First Mate Ina Stanislavsky, last survivor of the Svalbard.