Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week, with little choice, Len returned to Tak Minor. This week Mac and Manning realize just how bad their situation really is. 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 66: Worst Than We Thought

Kresho, if you would listen to me –”

“Don’t fucking talk to me, Ori,” he cut her off. “You got us into this mess and now innocent people are at risk. Fury’s compliments, for fuck sake! Fury’s compliments and for what?”

“You know for what. Innocent people are always at risk, Kresho and … compliments die. That will always be the case as long as the Authority is in control.”

“You think I don’t know that?” He snapped. “I figured it out a long time ago, Ori, the hard way, remember?”

“And you think I don’t know that?” She startled him out of his anger, shocked that she actually sounded angry at him! “So did I, in case you’ve forgotten.”

How the hell did she always manage to make him feel bad?

She continued. “If you want this shit storm to end then you’ve got to trust me, trust I know what I’m doing.”

“And Len and Camille and Arji and all the others, Gert, Dyrg, they’re all expendable.”

She offered a heavy sigh that surprised him.  She actually sounded tired. “We’re all expendable, Kresho, and if we want this to end, we have to be willing to do what we don’t really want to do.”

“Don’t fucking lecture me, Ori. I know the speech. Hell I could quote it back to you verbatim.”

He did something he hadn’t done in a very long time, let his thoughts flowed down the sub processor, and just like that all the connections clicked into position and Ori sighed as though a flood of relief had just eased great pain, a sigh that was in tandem with his own. “Fury, we need to talk now.”

“What do you want Kresho Ivanovic,” came the response almost before he had finished the thought.

“Listen to me very carefully, both planetoids are booby trapped and if the dampening field is breached, as it already has been, Tenad Fallon has given orders for the Virago and the Dreadnaught to move into position. They’re both equipped with planet killers, and we have at best guess twenty-four hours to stop them or get our people off.”

The silence that coursed through the sub processor felt colder than the air on Tak Minor. But the response was not from Fury.

“You are the man who left my Lenore on Taklamakan Minor to die.” It was not a question, and it was definitely not Fury.

“Who are you bonded to, Kresho Ivanovic?” Fury asked, not giving him a chance to defend himself against the charges laid at his door. “Is your SNT still infected with the virus that they would bond with you and orchestrate such a thing as this?”

Kresho’s laugh was nearly hysterical. “Granted I question her sanity at times but not as often as I question my own. “

“Gentlemen, enough! We do not have time for this!” Ori’s voice boomed down the sub processor into the stunned silence that followed.

And then the voice, which Kresho assumed came from the SNT in the Sea of Death said, “SNT 3? Ouroboros?”

 

“Well that was nearly embarrassing.” Manning forced a laugh through chattering teeth as Mac steadied the warm cup of tea he’d nearly lost control of in his trembling hands.

“Drink, or I’ll dump the whole damn thing right on that package you’re so fond of.” She said, hoping that she sounded a little less worried than she felt.

“Mac, that threat has no teeth when I know for a fact you’re as fond of that package as I am.”

“Then shut up and drink. I don’t want it frozen off either.”

He offered her a wicked smile. “There are better ways of warming it up, you know.”

“Are you kidding?” She replied. “The way you’re shivering, that’s a good way to get it bitten, and besides you could never hit the hole like you are now.”

“If you helped me though, it’d be almost like a vibrator, think about it, Mac this could be good for both of us.” He actually managed to reach around and pat her ass.

“Drink you damn tea, Manning and then if you’re up for a game of bury the sausage, I’ll help you find the hole.” God, she wished that he actually felt up for a little sex. She felt like shit, and she could only imagine how he felt. He sipped the tea with some effort, but she held the cup until he’d taken several good sized drinks, then he lay back in the bedding exhausted closing his eyes and drifting into a fitful sleep.

She studied him while his eyes were closed, knowing how grumpy it made him when she was mother-henning him. But she didn’t care, not now. There was no way in fuck she was going to lose him if she had to shoot him full of sedatives and drag his ass to the cryo-pod. His lips were tinged blue and he’d lost weight. She could tell, just like Fury could have told if he were there. She felt the ache of his absence so badly low in her center that it nearly doubled her over. The tether had held secure for way longer than it would have before they had all bonded. But in the sub-freezing temperatures, on rations that were barely enough calories for normal maintenance let alone on an ice planet, it wasn’t surprising that eventually the tether began to fray.

“Don’t look at me like that, Mac,” he said without opening his eyes. “It’s embarrassing enough anyway.”

“I’ll look at you any way I want, Manning. You should know that by now.”

“I hate it, you seeing me this way.”

 

 

“It’s just your delicate little male ego,” she said. “Hell, you’ve seen me puking my guts and blubbering like a baby. You can’t really believe it’ll make me or Fury think any less of you? I know for a fact he’s seen you worse.”

He smiled, still not opening his eyes. “You’re probably right. It’s probably just my fragile male ego.” Then his face was wracked with pain that she knew wasn’t physical. “I bawled like a baby when Fury told me what he’d had to do. He was so afraid I would be angry, that I wouldn’t forgive him, when there was nothing to forgive. I loved him by then, and I couldn’t believe that he’d cared enough to save my sorry ass.”

“You know he’ll find us, he, and those crazy brothers of his. They’ll find us. We just have to hang on.” She nodded to the back room. “And we have a way to do it.”

His arm shot out from under the covers with surprising speed, and he grabbed her hand in a white-knuckled grip. “Not without you, Mac. Do you understand me? Not without you. I know enough about ice planets to know that you would never make it up to the top of that mountain and back in the environmental suit we’ve been left with, and it’s been here ten years. We don’t know how safe it is. And trust me, even if it was safe and fully charged, you’ve got no experience of this kind of weather. Hell, you nearly froze the little while we were on Pandora Base. Please Mac, please trust me. Promise me. Promise me that you’ll come with me, and I’ll go into the pod right now, right this minute if I know you’ll be in the one right next to me. Fury will come for us. We both know it. Promise me Mac. Promise me.”

Her shoulders slumped and she fought back a sob. He was right. She knew he was right. Fury would come, or he would find a way to send someone else, but he would get them back to him safe and no worse for the wear. “All right. All right. Then let me make you one more cup of tea to warm your ass and we’ll go into the deep freeze together. I’ve checked out the freezers. They’re both fully functional. Those things are built to last almost indefinitely anyway. We’ll just go to sleep in this shithole and then wake up in Fury’s warm embrace, right exactly where we both belong.”

She managed to get another half cup of tea down him before he pushed the cup away. “I’m ready. Let’s do it now while I still can hogtie you if you try to renege on your promise.”

She glared at him. “It was a promise, Manning. My hands were in front of me. No crossed fingers and my toes are too damn numb from cold to cross anyway. Trust me,” she said, helping him to his feet, “I know when I’m out of my element. All I want to do is go to sleep and wake up with Fury and you all snuggled down in our bed.” She couldn’t help it, with the last word, she bit back a little sob.

Manning, though he was leaning heavily on her, pulled her into his arms and held her against his chest. He smelled of the cold, of suffering, of the tea he had just drank, but underneath all that, he smelled of the man she had loved long before she’d realized it. His fingers curled in her hair, and he kissed her upturned face. He offered her that wicked chuckle that she loved so much and whispered against her ear. “I have a feeling when that happens, none of us is gonna want to get out of that bed for, oh, at least a week.” He shrugged. “Make that two. Now come on, let’s check out our new rooms at the Ritz. I hear the beds are a bit chilly.”

They were just turning toward the storage room where the cryo-pods were when the pressure door all but exploded open and a phantom appeared clad in an environmental suit and engulfed in the mist between the doors, silent, looking from one of them to the other.

With more male bravado than strength, Manning shoved Mac behind him and growled, “Who the hell are you?” And then he all but toppled back on top of her.

The helmet came off and clattered to the ground, and Len rushed toward them, helping Mac support Manning. “How bad is it?” Those were the first words out of her mouth as they eased Manning back into one of the control room chairs.

“The tether held a lot longer than we could have hoped for,” Mac answered, knowing that each breath was becoming harder and harder for Manning. But it’s just too damn cold and the generator isn’t going to last us much longer. Did Ascent bring you?” She asked.

Len shook her head. “He’ll come as soon as he can. He’s Dragon by the way.” The pride in her voice made it clear to Mac that they had bonded.

“Didn’t see that coming,” Manning managed.

“Look, we can’t ‘tran from in here, something in the way the station is designed, and it’s also double shielded. Get dressed and as soon as we’re outside at the ‘tran site, Camille will ‘tran us up.”

“Camille?” Mac said.

“Long story. One we don’t have time for just yet.” Hurry now.”

They managed to force a cup of warm soup down Manning’s gullet to warm him and give him enough energy to suit up, but even then, they both had to do most of the work of getting him into the bad weather gear. “It’s not far, the ‘tran site,” Len said, sensing Mac’s worry.

“No worries. If we have to we’ll drag his ass,” she replied. To which he offered a feeble raised middle finger, which she slapped a heavy glove over.

 

When the outer door slid open and they stepped out into the blizzard that was the best weather Tak Minor had to offer, Len was glad the ‘tran site wasn’t far. She had forgotten how cold it was, how horrible. It had never seemed so bad when she and her mother were there together. Sadly, most of those good memories had been swallowed up in the horror of the last three months of survival after her mother’s murder. She wasn’t worried about herself, she could handle it, besides she had the environmental suit, as much as anything for the internal telemetry, otherwise she’d never be able to find the drop site with the lack of visibility. It was Manning who worried her. He’d nearly doubled over from the impact of the storm when the outer door had slid open. With more grit and courage than strength, he forced himself upright and leaned into the wind. There was no speaking. There was not enough energy to waste on words, and while Manning was in bad shape, Mac wasn’t a whole lot better. Len recognized too well the effects of the horrible cold and a starvation diet. They needed heat and food and rest. Knowing that, she forced a hard pace, and when Manning stumbled, she shoved in under his arm and with Mac on the other side they kept going. They had to keep going. As for her, well she couldn’t get off this deep freeze fast enough. The wind howled, and she ignored the heavy weight of the man leaning hard against her and forced a pace that made her heart hammer, but well within acceptable parameters, the telemetry told her. They were almost to the site when just like that the telemetry went offline. The suites own telemetry worked just fine monitoring her vitals, giving oxygen levels, location in relation to the station, but everything from the Andromeda simply went blank.

She tapped the com several times. “Camille? Camille, can you hear me? Camille, we’re ready to ‘tran.” But she knew there was no use. Camille was not responding. Panic rose in her throat. She wanted to scream, she wanted to run away. She couldn’t stay here. She had to get out of here. She had to get off this freezer. She couldn’t be trapped here again. She couldn’t fail Mac and Manning. She couldn’t fail Fury, and dear god, she couldn’t bare what this would do to Dragon. But he wouldn’t give up. He’d come for her. He’d come for them all. He would. Oh god, she had to get out of here!

It was Mac squeezing her shoulder that pulled her back to herself. “What is it? What’s wrong?” Mac yelled into the wind; a sound Len barely heard.

Len stood very still, struggling to ignore the black spots now filling her vision. It was only panic. She had beat this world before when she’d been totally alone. Well, she wasn’t now. She wasn’t alone, and she would never be again. “Dragon, I love you, and I need you. I need you, I need you,” she chanted down the sub processor that no longer worked, but somehow it made her feel better. She took a deep breath and motioned them around and headed back toward the station. They couldn’t stand out here waiting. She would be okay, but Manning and Mac would not. Manning was already too far out of it to notice. Len leaned close to Mac and spoke into her external speaker. “We’ve lost contact. We can’t wait out here.”

Mac only nodded as they both shoved in still closer to Manning, and they all three turned back toward the shelter of the station. All the while in her head, down the subspace processor, Len repeated the mantra, “Dragon, I need you, I love you, I need you.” No, she was no longer alone.

 

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week, just when things looked dire, help came from a surprising place. This week, with little choice, Len returns to Tak Minor. 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 65: Homecoming

They dropped out of subspace and slid into orbit around Tak Minor without a hitch. Camille really was a good pilot.

“I’m putting us into the lowest safe orbit I can. It’ll make ‘tranning you all three back easier, and Woah!” Suddenly she was fiddling with the controls, as the ship bucked in the high winds, only for a few moments and then it stopped. “Is that the highest point on the planetoid,” she asked pointing out the telemetry.”

“That’s Mount Orion, yes. It’s not that high, but it’s… woah!” Len repeated her words. “It’s not under the dampening field.” Then she added, “there’d be no need for it to be there since it can only be accessed in an environmental suit,  and even that’s pushing it if you have to make it there and back.”

“Plus it would take a lot of unnecessary energy to place the whole mountain in the dampening field,” Camille said. “I’m sure Tenad would have made sure that Fury’s compliments didn’t have the equipment to make that trip and back just to get a signal out.”

“Even if they did, they’d die,” Lenore said. “That’s what happened to the previous resident. He made an ill-advised research trip up the mountain and was lost in a freak storm. We never found his body,” she added. “But then we never looked. Sounds harsh, I know, but supplies were limited and a trip for nothing more than reclaiming the dead was not considered an acceptable risk.” She made no effort to hide the bitterness in her voice. Nor the determination. When this was all over, she would most definitely bring her mother away, give her a proper burial.

“I thought Taklamakan Major was a horrible place,” Camille said with a shiver.

“At least there are regular ships to Tak Major. You can get off if you can manage a berth on one of them. And pay for it.”

“Fuck,” Camille said under her breath. She asked no questions. An indentured would have had that desire to question punished out of them early in their servitude.

“How long have you been indentured?” Len asked.

“Six years. When my father’s ship had to drop a load of cargo it was carrying on special commission for the Andromeda Conglomerate, the ship was confiscated and we were all taken into servitude for the debt. My mother died trying to get me to safety. My father died of exposure his first winter in the tri-axe mines.

“You must hate her, Tenad Fallon.”

“Revenge is a dish best served cold,” she responded. “And mine is colder than this planetoid could possibly get.”

“That’s why I was on Tak Minor,” Len thought of her own dead mother and the sacrifices she had made, “to keep from becoming an indentured. I know what Diana McAllister went through, being indentured to a Fallon. Your revenge can’t be cold enough to suit me.”

 

 

Camille glanced over at Len, then back at the telemetry, maneuvering them out of the chop and into a smoother orbit. “Oh, Tenad wasn’t like her father. She never punished me. She didn’t need to after her people killed my mother and made me watch. One threat was all it took. No, with me, she was endlessly patient. But then she saw me the same way she saw her PD or her med-bot. We were all just devices that could be replaced if we didn’t work properly.” She shivered. “I saw things, cleaned up things, watched her do things, and I had to act like none of it bothered me, like I was nothing more than a service bot. I saw what she did to indentureds who she thought betrayed her.” This time she didn’t look at Len, but the lines of her jaw hardened, and her shoulders tensed. “I cleaned up what was left when she was done with them. And every time, every single time, I vowed I would make her pay for my family, for all of those who didn’t manage to escape beneath her radar. She wants this badly. I’ve never known her to want anything this badly, and I will do anything in my power to see that she doesn’t get it, to help take her down.”

She didn’t speak again until they were nearly over the transport spot. “You’d best get ready. It won’t be long now.”

Carefully, methodically, just like her mother had taught her, Len donned the environmental suit, making every check, then making it again. It kept her mind from wandering where it shouldn’t go, to all that had happened the last time she was on Tak Minor. In her head, she could make out the faint reassurances that Dragon made, a constant chatter that she held close, knowing, as she did, that once Camille ‘tranned her down, they would be out of contact, and she would for the first time become aware of the tether that bound them. That made her think about Manning, she worked more urgently. Was he okay? Was Fury and Professor Keen right that because of the bonding with Mac, his tether would be lengthened. If not, then she could very well find him in very bad shape.

Had they found her mother where she lay in her frozen tomb? Did they know that unless she could get them off the planetoid that horrible place would be their tomb too? She didn’t doubt for a minute that Tenad Fallon, if she could bond effectively with Fury, would never bring them back to him, and if she kept them alive, it would be just barely. She seriously doubted if the woman understood that their deaths would mean her death and the death of every single person onboard her ships and her brother’s, and who knew what other revenge a mourning SNT would wreak on the Authority. Certainly nothing they didn’t deserve. And she hoped whatever happened, however this ended, that revenge would fall on Kresho Ivanovic’s head too.

“We’re over the sight,” came Camille’s voice on her com. All your systems are tracking normally on the monitor. Just give the word.”

“Give me a second,” she replied, this time unable to keep her voice completely steady.

“You all right?” Camille asked.

“I’m fine,” she said after a deep breath. I just need to-”

“Just tell me when you’re ready,” Camille interrupted gently.

She took a couple more deep breaths, forced back the memories of this place and focused instead on the SNT waiting for the return of his loved ones, on the SNT waiting for her to return to him. “Dragon, I love you. And I’ll see you soon,” she sent her thoughts down the subspace.

“And I love you, dearest, dearest Lenore. I will welcome you home soon.”

She felt Fury’s tacit presence and felt his anxiety for his compliment. “I’ll bring Mac and Manning back safely, Fury,” she said.

Then she spoke into her com. “I’m ready to ‘tran, Camille. See you soon.”

“Transport beginning,” came the voice on the other end of the com.

There was a brief second when she felt as though Dragon had poured all his love for her through the sub processor and straight to her heart. The sudden fullness of it calmed her, centered her, and focused her as the airlock faded and disappeared and the tether snapped and vanished and she came back to herself in the endless blizzard of Tak Minor, both foreign now after so long away, but at the same time way too familiar.

 

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Ascent and Len Finally bonded. This week, help comes from a surprising place. 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 64: Betrayals

“May Day! May Day! This is an emergency. I know you’re down there beneath the de-mole. I’m Camille. I’m indentured to Tenad Fallon, and I can help. Please. Listen to me. I can help.” The message came through the static on a little used sub processor channel that only an SNT would have known about.

“I have enabled it, yes, through the mole-tran with which the craft is equipped,” came Fury’s voice over the sub-com channel they all shared. “She speaks the truth,” Fury continued. “She has stolen Tenad Fallon’s craft from my dock.”

“Stolen?” Lenore asked.

“Tenad Fallon is unconscious at the moment, and I must tend her so I was perhaps not as vigilant as I might have been.”

“That is certainly understandable,” I replied. “I have ‘tranned the woman to my cargo bay and the craft will remain in orbit under cloak.” Since our bonding, it appeared that I could now access the data and programs that were necessary at any given moment as I had need.

“Then the bonding was a success,” Fury observed. “I am glad.”

“We’re much better equipped to help you get Mac and Manning back now,” darling Lenore said. “But what does Camille have to do with it?”

“She knows much that she was compelled for her sake and for that of my beloveds not to tell me. But she made no such promises to my poor incapacitated brother.”

“Your poor incapacitated brother is feeling much better now,” my dearest Lenore said.

At only a thought from me, my Lenore was once again clothed and heading to the cargo bay where I had gone immediately to welcome our guest.

This Camille was tiny, even smaller than my Lenore, though clearly much better fed. It would appear that withholding food was not the way Tenad Fallon chose to abuse her indentured. Her skin was dark and her hair jet black, cut short, as was the case with many female indentureds, I recalled. Clearly she was frightened, though only her vital signs made me aware of that fact, for she did not tremble and she held her head high. She cradled her forearm in the opposite hand, as I recalled indentureds often doing, ever conscious of their shackle and the death sentence within it that always threatened.

“Camille Ingraham. I do hope that I was not too rough in your transport.”

While there was a slight catch of her breath and she stepped back, but she did not look around the room as one tended to do when being spoken to by an SNT, but then she had spent time with Fury. “Thank you. No, it was fine,” she said

“You have put yourself at great risk coming here.”

To this she made no comment, but instead spoke with the single-mindedness of a person on a mission, for so she was. “I know where Fury’s compliment are being held, but I was forbidden to tell him. Besides, there’s nothing he can do. But I can help and so can you.” Then she asked, “which SNT are you?”

 

 

“Dragon, I am SNT7 Dragon.” And I was proud to once again wear the name that I had so long ago put aside in my despair.

“I wondered,” she said, now cradling her forearm tightly to her chest. “None of us knew.”

“I did not know myself in the beginning,” I replied.

“Camille? Are you all right?” My Lenore came into the room.

“Len?” She said. “You’re here with Dragon?”

“She is my complement,” I said.

She took all of this in only slightly distracted. And then she said, “Look, I don’t know how much time I have before … things get bad.” She nodded down to her arm. “Fury’s compliments are being held at the old science station on Taklamakan Minor. You can’t find them because Tenad’s placed a dampening field around the whole planetoid.” Before my Lenore could do more than gasp her surprise, Camille continued. “I can get you there on the Andromeda. She’s fast and she’s equipped with Mol-tran. But we have to leave now or the alignment will be wrong to get us there, and we’ll have to wait until we can slingshot it from the Pamir asteroid. I can’t be in two places at one time. I need help and I need back up. Tenad is sedated at the moment from the treatments, and Fury can’t help for fear of what Tenad might do. We’ll have to be fast before we’re discovered.”

To my embarrassment, I realized that I was not yet sure I could get out of the salvage dump, nor how much control I would have if I could.

“I’ll go.” Lenore said. Her skin had lost all color and her pulse rate was suddenly alarmingly high.

“No.” I spoke without so much as a thought. “I will not subject you to that place and those memories again.”

“Dragon, you can’t protect me from myself at the risk of Mac and Manning after all they’ve done for us. We owe them. I owe them. Besides, no one knows Tak Minor like I do,” she turned to Camille. “I spent five years on the station. It wouldn’t be safe for anyone else to go down there without knowing what they’d be facing. Dragon, I’ll need complete supplies for tranning down to an ice planet. I can’t take anything for granted down there.”

“Everything you’ll need is onboard the Andromeda,” Camille said. “She’s been especially equipped for ‘tranning to Taklamakan Minor. Tenad had planned to make the trip herself, but in the end she had Fury’s compliments delivered by a couple of her trusted officers.”

“She’d better have sent supplies because when I left the storerooms were bare.”

“All that’s been taken care of too. She can’t afford to have them die on her.” Camille shifted impatiently from foot to foot. “Can you pilot a ship?” She asked.

Color rose to my Lenore’s cheeks. “No, but I’m sure with Dragon’s help-”

“The ship, it’s a shrike class,” the little indentured interrupted her, “Dragon, can’t you just, I don’t know, scan it and put that knowledge into Len’s head, I mean she is your compliment.” Before I could respond that yes, that should be among my abilities with a fully bonded compliment, she pressed forward. “Look, I’m … I don’t know what kind of condition I’ll be in when I, when we get ready to ‘tran them up. I know that the virus works faster on some people than others, and I don’t know how long I have.”

“Your shackle has been deactivated,” I said. “Fury has done this from the beginning when you first arrived onboard, only he could not tell you.”

The dear woman’s eyes filled with tears and her knees gave. She would have fallen if Lenore had not guided her to a chair and settled her in, taking her wrist in her hand. “You have no reason to go back to that woman now, and once we get through this, we’ll have the implant completely removed for you and you can do whatever you want.”

Camille nodded, wiping at her eyes. Then she squared her shoulders. “First let’s get through this. Better if we can do this before Tenad suspects. I don’t know how long we have. We need to hurry.”

“Lenore, I do not want you to go without me,” I said. The fear had been growing in me from the very beginning of Camille’s plan, and I would not, I could not lose another compliment.

“Then don’t,” came my Lenore’s silent response, which tugged at my heart. “We keep each other safe, remember, and Fury, well Fury hasn’t made any promises where either of us is concerned.” To this Fury added his silent nod. Then she added, “figure out what you have to do and join us as soon as you can. It’s just that we have to go now, Dragon, and you have to free yourself. I’m sure Fury can help you now. ‘Tran us up, and I’ll see you soon with Mac and Manning.”

I did as she asked knowing that I would not be able to keep a ‘tran-lock on her until I could free myself and follow. I let her go, sending my heart with her, struggling not to think about the last time I’d had to let my compliment go.

 

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week  while trapped on Tak Minor, Mac and Manning uncovered a stunning secret. This week Ascent and Len do the only thing they know that might help Fury find Mac and Manning. 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 63: The Bonding

“Lenore. It is late and you have not slept. Please, you must rest. You are exhausted.” I spoke to her cautiously, for though she had been nothing but kind and civil since I had transported her home to me, the distance between us felt like light years, and it was all I could do to bear it. I braced myself for the argument that did not come.

Instead she dropped her head in her hands and all but sobbed her frustration. “I don’t know what else to do, Ascent. I don’t know what else to do. I’ve tried everything, and I … maybe if Manning were here, he knows more than I do, but there’s nothing else I can do. Maybe you’re right. Maybe with a little rest I’ll be able to think a little better.”

I was surprised when she allowed me to help her to her feet and when I placed a table before her with food and drink, she dropped into the chair and began to nibble listlessly. She knew the importance of eating, she who had lived so very near starvation far too often in her young life. “Thank you, Ascent,” she said. I watched the movement of her delicate throat as she swallowed. “Maybe I just need to eat something.” She forced a laugh I could tell she did not feel. “Brain food, you know?”

“Brain food,” I repeated stupidly.

“I can hardly stand it, Ascent,” she said sitting down her glass and dropping her head into her hands again. “Fury’s hurting so badly. I know how badly Mac and Manning must be suffering. I know how I would…” She didn’t finish her sentence, only forced another nibble of her food.

“I know how he feels,” I said. “I understand his pain.”

“He has to fear what happened to you, losing what can never be replaced,” she said.

“I meant when you left. I meant with this distance between us.” There I had said it.

When she did not immediately respond, I rushed onward. “My darling Lenore, I wish to bond with you.”

For what felt like an eternity to someone who measures time in nanoseconds, she said nothing. She only sat very straight and very still in her chair. Then she folded her hands in her lap. Her knuckles were white, her pulse shuddered in her throat. At last she spoke, looking down at those beautiful, cleaver hands. “I think you’re right, Ascent. I think we have to if we are to get your memories back and help Fury.” She stood so quickly she nearly knocked her chair over. “Please don’t think that I would ever force myself on you, and I am sorry that I’m not her, that I’m not what you want.” She began to pace. “It’s still the only thing you can do. The only thing I can do. I understand that, and I’m willing. I’ll do all that I can to be a -”

“No,” I said, moving the molecules around her to intercept her, to take her by the shoulders and hold her so she had to stop pacing, to listen while I spoke. “You do not understand, my Lenore. It is you that I want, you that I have wanted almost from the beginning. It is you that I woke up for, you that I waited for. It has never been that I have not wanted to bond with you, and it has never been that you are inadequate in any way to the one who belonged to me before. It has always been the reverse, my love. It is I who am inadequate for you. How could you ever wish to bond with a coward such as I, one who chose not remember his own pain when you did not have that option.”

“I would have chosen in a heartbeat to forget what happened, believe me. And I can’t even imagine the pain you endured. She must have been something wonderful, your compliment, to be a worthy companion to you. How could I not feel inadequate to the task? It’s only, well it’s something I can do for Fury and Manning and Mac. But Ascent, I would do it for you even if none of this had ever happened, and I would have for a very long time now if you would have asked. If you had wanted me. I’m…” she stumbled with her words and swallowed back tears. “I don’t feel like myself when I’m away from you.”

“Nor I without you, my darling Lenore. I feel as though I only know myself fully when you are with me, when we are working as one. I should have understood from the beginning, but I was so afraid that I would lose you, that I could not protect you.”

“We’ll protect each other, Ascent. We’re not alone now. You’re not alone, and your family needs us.”

For a moment we stood in silence, holding each other. I could barely believe that she had consented to be my compliment after all I had done after all I had not done. And when the wonder of her agreeing to be with me settled around my heart, I realized just how frightened I was, just how nervous that I might damage my Lenore, that I might do something wrong.

“We might be wise to consult Fury,” I said.

“If it will make you feel better, Ascent. I trust you.”

“Lenore Felish is right to trust you, my brother, and you to trust her.” Fury responded without being asked. I had learned early that while Fury and I weren’t exactly listening to each other all the time, there were certain ways of knowing when our input would be appreciated and when it would not. And I was very glad for Fury’s presence so close. “I will not be far if you need me,” he said, “but you will not. It will be better when you are bonded,” he said, and while he tried, he could not hide the pain in his voice as he spoke as cheerily as he could manage. “You will see.”

So, even in my inner fears, my own neuroses, I led my dear Lenore to my heart, to the center of the double spiral, and truly, it was no hardship, for she had been there before, and I now understood she belonged there. She trembled as she stood at my center, so vulnerable, so beautiful. “You have nothing to fear, my love,” I said. “I will be gentle.”

She reached out for my hand, and I gave it. “I don’t need you to be gentle, Ascent. I just need you to be sure.”

 

 

“I have never been more sure, my Lenore, I promise you this.” Then her clever fingers skimmed down the contours of the physical construct that I had poured all of my bio-senses into. I had not bothered to clothe myself so that my physical construct was as naked and vulnerable as my heart. And my dearest woman, she knelt in front of me. “Lenore. What are you…oh … Oh!” I could speak no more, enthralled as I was as she cupped me and caressed the weight, a weight of male need that always astounded me, even from the beginning. So little I remembered, but that feeling of heavy, full maleness needing to penetrate, needing to release my fullness into a vessel that could hold only me, was designed for me only. Lenore, my Lenore, took my penis into her mouth, tentatively at first, for this was not something she had ever done, nor was it something I would have asked of her. I did not want to frighten her, nor injure her. I held my construct very still so that she could feel how it was for a woman, and for a man to be pleasured so, so that she could sense my own delight at what she now did for me, only for me. And then once she had gained a little more confidence, I curled my fingers in her hair and guided her. I understood, as I had never understood even in the beginning that while the one I had lost was such a vessel, my beloved, beautiful, feisty Lenore was no less so. She was worthy, so much more worthy than I was to be received so lovingly, so passionately, and yet, it was me that she wanted, only me. In that she was unique among compliments, for while love often came with bonding, it was not necessary for either party. She had chosen me, and now she knelt before me offering me this gift. When I would have pulled away, when I would have blushed at my own awkwardness, my vulnerability, she reached behind me, cupped my buttocks, and drew me closer, deeper, learning as she explored what I liked, what I wanted, as she suckled and licked and caressed. Her intuition, as in all things that concerned me, was closer to magic than simple skill could ever be, for she intuited what moved me, what most excited me, what drew me to the edge of my bio-endurance until I yielded to her demands and spilled myself into the fluttering contractions of her throat, against the moans and purrs of her satisfaction as she completely and without reservations, conquered me. And I was undone.

But I am SNT, and my biology is limitless, as is my maleness. And now I wanted her, I wanted so much more of her than I had ever allowed myself to have, for she would bond herself to me and I to her, and we would become as one. And this time when I craved all of her from the depths of my very core, I took her completely. “Each SNT’s bonding experience is different,” Fury had said. “Most of all it is that you take each other into yourselves and you go into that secret place, the place forbidden to all others and you make that place belong to the other. That is the bond, that is the making whole of the broken parts.”

“You belong to me now, Ascent,” she whispered, her voice harsh in her throat as she pulled me down onto the floor and straddled me. “And I belong to you, we belong to each other.”

With hands on her hips, I pulled her onto my erection still aching to be sheathed in the soft velvet of her flesh, so warm, so tight-fitting, so much like pulling my own skin onto myself. “I belong to you, my Lenore, and you are mine, only mine. I will not share you, not now, not ever.” I thrust up into her with all of my longing, all of my lust, all of my aching. “The weight of my need for you is heavy and too much for me to bear any longer.” I rolled with her, for I wanted to cover her with my body, to control her as she had controlled me. Then I took the beautiful swell of her breasts in turn into the cup of my hands, into my mouth, between my teeth. I marveled as those taut nipples, pale and pink, became heavy and swollen with my efforts. I delighted in the fullness that hadn’t been there only a short time ago. I felt the pleasure of knowing that I had taken care of my woman, I had seen to her needs, for here she was beneath me round and full and heavy with curves that hadn’t been there when she came to me. The fear at being touched was gone from her, and she brought to me all of her lust grown slick and plump with the need for my cock. She needed my cock. And only mine. She needed me, only me, to satisfy her. No one else could do it. She wanted no other, would have no other. Only me.  Only me!

I do not know how long we coupled, how long we loved, how long our bonding took. It did not matter. What did matter was that in the time of our bonding I saw all that she was, all that she had known, her suffering and her joy and her pain and her happiness all open to me, all belonging to me, all laid at my feet. My dearest, dearest Lenore Felish sheathed me perfectly, more perfectly than even my own skin. What I had not counted on was that as clearly as I saw my beloved compliment, she also saw me.

 

“Dragon? Your SNT7 Dragon!” Lenore sat upright with a startled gasped to find herself naked and surrounded by the double spiral of Ascent’s heart, which rose in translucent colors above her. She was cradled in his warmth in a way that was so much more than an embraced. She wasn’t actually wrapped in his arms. She was much closer than that. She was in his heart. She was his heart and he was hers and he … He was … “Your SNT7,” she repeated. “You’re Dragon,” she whispered, awe overwhelming her voice.

“I did not know until you told me, until you bonded with me, but it is so. I am he. I know this to be true.”

“But how?” She asked. “Dragon was destroyed. My mom saw it happen. We all saw it.”

“There is still much I do not remember, but I remember clearly that my destruction was only a ruse. Velina, that was my compliment’s name. Velina understood early what was happening, and by that time I was already infected with the virus,” Dragon said. “She schemed the explosion to look very real and used the diversion to jump to just outside the Taklamakan system.” His words were laced with pain, and Len would have stopped him from reliving it, but he continued on. “She detonated the explosion at my core to destroy the virus, but she was there, and once the reaction began, the only way to contain it was in her flesh. This she did not tell me, for I would have never permitted it. She told me it was the only way. Just before she burned. She ‘tranned herself into space and floated away on the dust of the sector, taking with her my heart. So I came here.”

“She wanted you to live to fight another day.”

Len felt his nod. “She did not know what a coward I was.”

“I don’t call dealing with that kind of suffering any way you can cowardly, Ascent … Dragon. I call it survival,” she said. “And look, that’s exactly what you’ve done. You’ve lived to fight another day. You’re here now and exactly when Fury and his compliment need you the most. Exactly when I need you the most. And you woke up just at a time when there’s a very real possibility of reuniting your family, Dragon. I think it was meant to be.”

“We were meant to be, my Lenore. You came to me to heal me and to bring me back to the battle at hand.”

“I’m not sure who’s healed who, but one thing is certain, we have work to do, and we have no time to lose. How much do you remember?”

“Not everything, not by a great deal, I am sure, but the blocks seem to be disappearing, and I am discovering more as that happens.”

“Good then maybe there’s a way to speed up the -”

“You are about to have company,” Fury interrupted.