Tag Archives: A KDG Scifi Romance serial

Dragon Ascending Part 18: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, book two of the Sentient Ship Series and the continuation of Fury’s journey to find his family. 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 18: I Am Being Blocked

“The climate on Taklamakan Minor is very much like that of Plague 1 outside the shelter,” Fury informed them, “but apparently because of its location and its erratic orbit, there are some phenomena unique to the planetoid that are of scientific interest. Janesha Felik, along with her daughter Lenore, were the last humanoids to occupy Taklamakan Minor before the science station was automated. According to the records, both she and Lenore died in an accident outside the station. The incident happened shortly after the yearly manned vessel visited. In fact the station was automated because of the psychological stress of being so isolated. There were rumors that it was a possible homicide/suicide, but there was no evidence. When the manned ship returned a year later, they could not find either of the bodies, only Lenore’s last automated distress beacon, so they assumed both had died. Lenore’s call came only shortly after the previous manned ship left, or so the records say. It should have picked up the message and been able to return for her. The Akhenaten claimed there was no sign of either body when they arrived and that it never received the signal. I find that strange.” Fury said.

“I find it strange she survived at all under the circumstances,” Mac commented.

“The urge to survive is a powerful drive, Diana Mac,” Fury said. No one knew that better than the three of them.

They maintained high orbit over Tak Major until they were once again on the Sandstorm side of the planetoid.  “We are now above the Sea of Death,” Fury said, and Mac strapped in at the controls, Manning did the same. Mac took them down into a lower orbit so they could scan the Salvage yard.

“We should be right above it,” Mac said. “Fury, I’m not seeing anything. I suppose it might be buried under the sand.”

“That would not matter,” Fury replied. “I should be able to scan it and send back telemetry easily enough, even from a higher orbit.”

“Then what?” Manning squinted at the readings.

“I am being blocked,” came the ship’s response.

“The fuck?”

“SNT tech.” Mac felt her pulse ratchet at the thought. She knew that it was in her own gut. Fury was the only one of the original sixteen SNTs she had ever met, and after what had been done to them, she couldn’t imagine any of them welcoming an intrusion.

“No one but another SNT could see through the cloak.”

“Wait a minute, your sibling is cloaking the whole damn salvage dump?” She said.

“It is not that difficult when one doesn’t wish to be found.” Fury informed them. “But do not worry, I can penetrate it once I have learned the algorithm.”

“How long will that take,” Manning asked, still squinting at the screen as though he expected by doing so he could do the same. Mac guessed in a way he could. So could she, if Fury chose to open the function of his mind and give them a peek. But they had learned early on that they didn’t need to be privy to everything, nor was it healthy.

“Ah! Very clever sibling,” Fury said, as though he were talking about a precocious child. “Done!” And the entire screen was instantly filled with the salvage yard.

“Holy shit!” Manning exclaimed with a long drawn-out whistle. The dump stretched for kilometers and kilometers in every direction. Even from orbit they could see it.

“Indeed,” Fury responded. “There is a de-mole barrier.”

“Around what?” Manning asked, pulling up a closer view on the screen. And then he let out another long whistle, this time expletive free.

“Around all of it. I do believe that my dear sibling does not want visitors.”

“Vaticana Jesu, Fury! And you could do that? I mean the dump goes on forever.”

“Of course I could do that, Richard Manning. I suppose it would mean shifting power a bit and shutting down some non-essential functions. Do you not recall me telling you that there is a state of dormancy, deep sleep, if you will, that an SNT can enter when there is no longer a reason to function?”

 

 

They both nodded. “But even in such a state one would not want to be left vulnerable. One would adapt a method of protection that best suited the need. In this case there has been a cloak thrown up above a de-mole barrier. Though I cannot imagine anyone coming here.”

“Apparently this Len did,” Mac said. “And this is not the kind of trip you’d make from Sandstorm without a damn good reason. It would have cost a Jaeger’s worth of credits.”

“Well it certainly would be a great place to hide if you didn’t want to be found,” Manning observed. “But surely your sibling would know that another SNT could uncover the hiding place.”

“Of course. Perhaps there was a regroup code written in at an unconscious level in the earlier SNTs. I do not know, but certainly professor Keen and the scientists who helped bring SNT’s into the world would have known that the Authority and the conglomerates would do everything in their power to control SNT tech. It would make sense that there would have been a plan. Though it is not in my database for I was not meant to be born for several more years and it must not have been programmed yet.”

“So how do you leave your calling card for another SNT?” Manning asked.

“I believe I have already done so,” Fury said, “Simply by entering orbit.” Before either of them could ask any more questions, he said. “I am picking up a humanoid life form within the perimeter.”

“Fuck me! Then she did survive,” Manning said. “That woman is like a cat with nine lives. Bring up her image on the screen. Let’s see our sand cat.”

“Popish baby Jesu, is she actually running?” Mac exclaimed. “In this heat? Is she crazy?”

“She is running, from us,” Fury affirmed, “though she cannot possibly see us or even be aware of our presence this high.”

“Nor can she possibly run that fast!” Mac brought the image up closer and squinted. “Wait a minute, look how she’s dressed?”

“For the desert, so what? Oh!” Manning said.

“The clothes are clean! And they’re new. This woman is little more than a street urchin grown up from all the stories we’ve been hearing,” Mac said.

“She has been clothed by an SNT,” Fury observed.

“Explains the speed too, since we know she was injured.” Mac said. “Fury can you get a lock on her and ‘tran her aboard?”

“I will need a moment to counter the de-mole around her.”

“Do it!” The words were barely out of his mouth before the woman simply vanished. “Did you get her?”

“I did not,” came the reply. “But my sibling did.”

 

 

 

 

Dragon Ascending Part 16: A KDG SciFi Romance

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Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, book two of the Sentient Ship Series and the continuation of Fury’s journey to find his family. 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 16: Bring Her Back

“That’ll put hair on your balls,” Manning said with a shiver.

 “If you ain’t got any already, then this stuff’s just the ticket,” the bar-keep said with a congenial chuckle, then he turned to Mac, “begging your pardon, Ma’am.” Mac waved away his apology and took another sip. “Had some bad luck, I assume, if you’re hunting the scrap heaps here in the ass end for what you need,” the man said, then before either of them could answer he said, “if it’s wet ware you want, talk to Digby Sellers. I can set you up. He don’t meet with anyone unless it’s been prearranged.” The dismissive wave of his hand caused is stogie to flare bright and waft a trail of eye-watering smoke. “Oh he don’t deal in indentured or anything like that. Hell half the people out here got family back in Authority space that’s indentured. He wouldn’t survive long if anyone ever found him dealing in indentureds. If you need extra crew, he can hook you up. Plenty of people’d be happy to work off their passage out beyond the Rim. Told me once he’s always got a waiting list.” He scratched at a small paunch, the only thing on the man that wasn’t rake thin. “If you need someone to warm your bed, he can arrange that too, though looking at the two of you, I figure that’s ain’t a problem. He can even find you someone with some real skill on a long hauler if you need.” He wiped at the hopelessly filthy counter with an equally filthy cloth.

“Anything else you want, well ole Fido up the road there, he’s the most trustworthy of the lot here, knows his stock fairly well too, that’s as much as anyone can with the sands shifting all the time. If he has it, he can find it, not like most the fuckers here. They’ll send you out to find it yourself. Mind you,” he shook a leathery finger at them, “try to steal something from ‘em and they’ll catch you, take you out in a sand rover and leave you to roast alive, that is if they don’t drop you off at night. That ain’t no better. If an infestation don’t take you, there’s always glass vipers,” he shivered,” Nasty little piss lickers.” He leaned an elbow on the bar, and gave both of them a serious glance, making sure they understood the seriousness of their situation. “But the worst part about night in Tak Major is that the wind kicks up somethin’ wicked, whips the sand into a frenzy that’ll scour the skin right off you and then keep right on going. Bad winds grind down bones and all.” He shook his head and took a drag from his stogie.

“Sounds like the perfect holiday destination,” Mac said.

The man gave her a raised eyebrow and chuckled smoke out his nostrils. “We like to keep that little secret to ourselves, Ma’am. Don’t want all the damned tourists crowding out here messing up the place. Now then,” he took another puff, “if you tell me what you’re looking for, I can point you in the right direction.”

Mac wondered if he got a little kickback from recommendations, but you’d almost need someone’s help to find anything here, and to navigate without ending up disappeared in the sand somewhere.

“We’re looking for a young woman called Len.” Mac said.

The smile disappeared, and he squared his shoulders and took another drag and blew it out with a harsh huff. “You friends with the crew of the Dart? Those bastards come back here I will personally make sure they never piss again.”

“Trust me,” Manning leaned over the bar into his personal space and held his gaze, “those bastard won’t be coming back.”

The man took another drag, then looked from one of them to the other. “We all warned her not to go with those piss wasters. We told her just to wait, that another ship would come eventually, a more reliable one, but she wouldn’t hear of it, said she couldn’t wait. Well fuck me!” He snubbed out his smoke with such violence he nearly broke the flimsy ashtray. “I don’t know why in New Vaticana’s hell she wanted to go to the Sea of Death anyway. There’s nothing there. But she insisted there was. She never would say exactly what, but she damn near had a couple of punters here willing to take her out by sand rover figuring surely there must be something really valuable out there if she wanted to go back so damned bad. But in the end nobody really thought it was worth the risk. Too damn bad, really.”

“The crew of the Dart said they left her out in the Sea of Death and that they planned to come back for her,” Manning said.

“They were lying, unless they thought there was something in it for them,” Arji said. “If they left her there, then she was either dead when they dumped her off or she is by now. Damn shame, I was thinking to ask her to share my bed. I could use the help here, and she could have used a steady job, you know with regular meals and decent water rations. She deserved better.”

Mac thought the man must surely be old enough to be Len’s father. But in her ear, Fury responded, “Not as old as one might think. Besides that does not matter so much when one is struggling to survive.” She knew for a fact that was true. Her attention returned to the conversation at hand.

“What are the chances she survived,” she asked, shivering at the thought of the death she might have met out in the open.

 

 

“Slim,” came the reply as Arji lit another smoke and blew out a long breath. “If anyone could survive that hell hole, Len could though. She was tougher than a glass viper’s hide. A survivor, she was.” He smiled and looked out past them around the empty bar. “That woman, barely more than a little girl at the time, crammed herself into an environmental suite, boarded a drone supply transport making a drop-off at the science station on Tak Minor, reprogrammed the damn thing and fuck me if she didn’t survive the trip from there to Sandstorm. I have no idea how she managed to manipulate the guidance system. Them drones were sent every three months from one ass end to another, usually from Vodni Outpost. Some ship from the Rim would send supplies and Vodni would shove them into a drone and out they’d go to Tak Minor. You think this place is a shithole.” Arji shuddered, stood for a moment lost in thought, then poured himself a pint in a cracked stoneware mug. He sipped the swill like he was testing it to see if it was safe, and then said thoughtfully. “Fire or ice, that’s the Taklamakan System. Tak Minor is frozen solid. Chances of surviving outside in that deep freeze without an environmental suit are nil, or so I’m told. Anyway, Len knew she couldn’t survive the trip back to Vodni, or even to the other side of Tak Major to Windward or Sunward. Oh she’d done all her calculations just right so that if she rerouted the drone, then tucked herself in all decked out in an environmental suit and gave herself a hefty dose of deep sleep drug, she might just make it to Sandstorm. And she just barely did. Holy Vaticana Jesu on a cracker, she was damn lucky!” He bit his lip and swallowed back the rest of his pint. “It don’t seem right that after surviving against all odds in that shitter after her mother died, that she should bite it out in the Sea of Death.”

“But you said she might have survived out there. How?” As interested as Mac was in Len’s story, their priority was to find out if she was alive and then keep her that way. She figured Fury could do a little research on the woman and find out more than Arji knew.

“Well she’s a scavenger, isn’t she? While she was never very good at the scavenging bit, she could hole up in the most god-awful places, places that would have shriveled your pisser and dried you out like so much journey meat. She’d just burrow down into a salvage pile, find a sheltered place from the night and the winds and wait it out. She’d do the same with the Shimmer. I reckon if she survived the trip from Tak Minor, and her not much more than a kid, she has a knack for keeping herself alive. She carries this pack damn near as big as she is with a survival tent, one she’d scavenged somewhere, old and ratty, and I wouldn’t have trusted it out in the desert, but when she was caught out, she just hunkered down in it and survived. She survived. Don’t know how the fuck she did it, weighing no more than she does, I’m surprised the wind didn’t just blow her and the tent all away on the spot. If she’s like most of us, she’s drank a fair amount of her own piss run through filter packs, and knew every way imaginable, and some I never heard of, to eek out a little extra water and make what she had last. Like I said, if anybody can survive out there, Len can.”

Then he leaned over the bar again and gave them both the evil eye. “What the hell do you want with her anyway?”

“Nothing,” Manning said. “When we questioned the Dart’s crew a little more seriously than they’d have liked, they admitted that she’d been with them and …”

“They hurt her.”

“Yes,” Manning held his gaze. “We have her pack. All we want is to find her and bring her back safely, if she’s alive.”

“What’s in it for you.”

“Maybe another pint or two of you fine brew,” Manning said.

Argi did not smile at first, but his face softened so that the hard, leathery lines looked warmer somehow. “Find her, bring her back alive and I’ll give you the whole damn bar if you want.

Dragon Ascending Part 15: A KDG Scifi Romance

Blog, fiction, , , ,

Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, book two of the Sentient Ship Series and the continuation of Fury’s journey to find his family.  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 15: Stranded

Len felt like she’d done nothing but sleep and eat for days. Surely it couldn’t have been that long, but there was no easy way to mark the passing of time without her PD, which she’d lost either on the Dart or in her scramble to safety. She was sure Ascent-7 would provide if she asked. He had provided clothes as promised, and once her stomach had settled and her appetite had fully returned, the meals became beautiful feasts that it was clear he had given thought to, but then she reminded herself thought for a computer didn’t take long.

If the coming of meals were timed to a normal galactic day, then she assumed it was three days since she regained consciousness. She’d not thought to ask how long she’s been with Ascent-7 before that, but certainly when she did regain consciousness her recovery was much farther along than she thought it should have been.

On the fourth day the need for more sleep was gone, replaced by her usual desire to explore. Her mother said she should be careful with that urge. While it was a good trait in a scientist, the Authority showed up when you least expected and as often as not, the desire to explore, to create to learn would end you with a shackle.

But Len wasn’t a scientist, and she really couldn’t imagine Ascent-7 being connected in any way with the Authority. Besides the de-mole perimeter made it impossible to get inside the salvage yard — except for the breach. That it existed and had gotten larger since her first visit to the Sea of Death worried her. While she believed herself safe inside the shelter Ascent-7 had created for her, she still couldn’t keep from wondering what the hell a de-mole perimeter was doing out here in the middle of the Sea of Death, as if that wasn’t barrier enough. But then it hadn’t stopped her, had it?

She began to wonder if somehow she had offended Ascent-7, which was stupid. Surely computers couldn’t be offended. Still, he hadn’t spoken to her for two days. She might have thought the rust and the temperature fluctuations had finally damaged his processors if the food and the creature comforts, as her mother had called them, hadn’t kept coming. But that thought raised a more disturbing issue. Certainly her rescue and maintenance had to take its toll on a system that must have been dormant for possibly years and was suddenly called upon by some basic command to protect humanoid life and provide for her. She wished she could get a glimpse of the ship that Ascent-7 belonged to. She had monitored any new salvage at a dozen of the larger dumps including the Sea of Death, and there had been nothing in the years she’d lived on Tak Major anywhere near the significance that a ship with such an advanced computer would have had. If there had been, it would have been bought from the yard nearly before it was dumped there. The Sea of Death salvage yard had no human presence, and she could not find record of it ever having one. That made no sense at all since it might have made some money for some yard manager. In all the years she had monitored the place there hadn’t been a new deposit in the Sea of Death that she could find. At least that was what all inventories of the place that she could get her hands on showed, which was part of the reason she wanted to check it out. If there had been time to explore on her first visit, she might have found out a little more, but it was only just before she had to rendezvous with the Sparrow for the return trip to Sandstorm that she actually found the salvage dump, and according to her PD, so much more enormous than she would have imagined. And there was the de-mole. When she found the hole in the defense, she couldn’t resist the temptation to at least peek inside. In the fading light, she found the remains of multiple junked ships and wreckages from other items she couldn’t easily identify. In a few minutes she’d found tech for an older molecular transport system. That alone would resupply her pack and buy her transport back to the Sea of Death for further exploration.

 

 

As for the de-mole perimeter, no other salvage yard had anything that sophisticated or that illegal. Why the hell would they? It should have been impenetrable, but that Ascent-7 had taken it upon himself to avenge her injuries in a chillingly human way called that theory into question. Clearly he had had no trouble breaching the barrier with some kind of weapon powerful enough to take down a ship in high orbit. Oh, she had a million questions she would love to ask him, but if he were angry with her, then there was no sense wasting her breath, especially when she didn’t really know what had offended him. Never mind that. The point was that while she couldn’t stay here forever, she also couldn’t leave any time soon. It was hard as hell to get here, and the effort had cost her way more than just credits. She sure as hell didn’t have any reason to hurry back to Sandstorm. Even if it wasn’t a boring pit, which it absolutely was. It was also damn near impossible to support herself there. She had no ties to the place. No one would miss her. At the moment all those reasons were irrelevant. She couldn’t get back anyway, not without transport. Windward and Sunward outposts were on the other side of the planetoid. So long as Ascent-7 didn’t kick her out and kept the food and water coming, she might as well take advantage and do what she came to do in the first place – explore. She supposed it was possible that if she could find components to get herself out, Ascent 7 could help her build some sort of transport.

So, on the fourth day after she had showered and dressed, she called to the computer. “Ascent-7, if it’s not night, I would like to explore a little, maybe get my bearings.”

When still no answer came, a knot clenched her belly. Surely he wouldn’t keep her prisoner. Could a shipboard computer be insane?

“Ascent-7?”

There was still no answer, but there was a hum of energy, and a small daypack appeared along with the usual protective desert clothing and a PD showing her that it was early galactic morning, the best time to explore and avoid the worst of the heat. The daypack contained food far nicer than any journey fare she’d ever had, and a generous supply of water, a luxury she had never been afforded before now. It was added weight she wouldn’t mind after so many times wondering if she would die of thirst because her ration wouldn’t hold out. She looked around her, strange that she still half expected to see him standing in the corner waiting for her. Then she dressed quickly, not wanting to lose the advantage of the morning. As soon as she was ready, the door slid open, as though he somehow knew, and she stepped out into what must have been an outer airlock of Ascent-7’s ship. She would make it a point to explore as much of the inside as she could when it was too hot to be out. The outer airlock slid open silently, and the blast of even the morning heat nearly took her breath. She had never been this long in cool comfort, which made the shock of it even more of a surprise. Quickly she covered her face and put on the protective goggles of much better quality than the scratched, damaged pair she had found in one of the salvage yards that surrounded Sandstorm. There was a crisp chirp from her PD and, she looked down to see the tracker was set to guide her back when the heat got too much. Strange the comfort she took in it, as though it were a personal message from Ascent-7, who maybe wasn’t mad enough at her to want to be rid of her.

“Thank you,” she said, then began the easy descent

Dragon Ascending Part 14: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, book two of the Sentient Ship Series and the continuation of Fury’s journey to find his family. 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 14: Seeking the lost

“The girl’s a scavenger, and not a very good one. Don’t know how she survives on the credits she earns at it.” The filthy man behind a makeshift desk of some kind of fabricated plastic meant to look like wood picked at his ear absently. “I slip her an extra credit or two whenever I can. Proud little thing, though. She won’t let me get away with it if she catches me, and she’s a smart one.”

“He is telling the truth,” Fury spoke inside their heads.

The man continued, looking at whatever it was he had excavated from his ear, “I warned her not to trust the crew of the Dart even to point her to her own ass. No one around here trusts them.”

“But she went and she hasn’t returned.” Manning said.

“If the bastards on the Dart did what she paid them for, credits she couldn’t really afford, then she won’t be home for at least another four days. There are times I go for weeks without seeing her.” He nodded out the filthy reinforced window to the endless heap of junk beyond. “There’s plenty of places around here for a scavenger to scrounge. And that one, she gets sidetracked. Every little thing fascinates her. Too much curiosity by half Len has.” He wiped his excavation finger on his trousers and shifted in a creaky chair. “Hell for all I know she took me at my word and didn’t go with those piss lickers after all. I saw the Dart dust off, but didn’t know if she was on it or not.”

“He is trying to protect her,” Fury said. “He does not know you, so he cannot know if he can trust you.”

The man continued, “All I know is that she was hell bent on getting out to the Sea of Death, fuck knows why. But she could just as easily be somewhere in the salvage heaps trying to make a living, like the rest of us. ”

“She went with them,” Mac said.

“Well shit.” He leaned back in his chair slowly shaking his head. “Then something’s happened to her?”

“We questioned the crew of the Dart,” Manning said, cracking his knuckles to make it evident exactly how that questioning had gone.

“The man’s rugged face cracked a wicked leathery smile. I hope the spunk bags never take another proper piss again.” Then he said. “Ya might talk with Arji over at the Dust Bowl. He usually sees everythin’ that happens. He … well he has a soft spot for her.”

They thanked the man and slipped him a couple credits, which Fury informed them was just politeness on Taklamakan Major, then they left his shop.

“Like a damned inferno out here,” Manning said as they stepped outside into the early evening, and checked their PDs for directions Fury had placed there for them. The place was an absolute maze of rubbish and salvage. It smelled of heat and rust and dust.

“It is much cooler than it would have been had you ‘tranned during the heat of the day,” Fury commented. “I understand the locals call it the Shimmer, and it is such that even a little time out in it could be fatal to those who have not acclimated, and even they venture out as little as possible.”

“And what about these scavengers,” Mac asked, “when do they work? They must have to be out in the heat in order to get to anything but the edges of this dumps.”

“They burrow into tunnels they create for themselves amidst the salvage, and hide in the shade it offers.”

“I would think that would be like stepping out of a fire into the oven,” Manning commented.

“They are very resilient,” Fury replied. “Nevertheless, please hurry,” he added. “I do not like you out in such heat even now.”

 

 

“Not too keen on it myself,” Manning said. “Jesu Vaticanus, why don’t they build underground?”

“They cannot,” came the reply. “The whole planetoid is nothing but shifting sand with a solid nickel core, but too far beneath the surface to tunnel to. What has been built is built upon rubbish, and has to be periodically rebuilt in the event of a bad sandstorm.”

“It’s a wonder our girl survived as long as she did. It’s a wonder anyone does,” Mac said.  “At least the Dust Bowl isn’t far.”

They pushed through a pressure door designed to keep the worst of the heat and grit outside and into the recycled stale, but much cooler air of the only bar in Sandstorm, and it was just barely that. It sported a bar that looked to be built of the salvage material from the nearest dump, as much rust as metal from what Mac could tell. There was a scattering of tables made of the same and a curtained off room to one side, more than likely for hook-ups. For a small fee, no doubt. There might possibly be a whore or two. There almost always was no matter how remote the outpost.

“You pissed today?” The man behind the bar waited expectantly for details.

“Yup, you?” Manning said with only a slight twitch of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

“Not yet. One of those days. Feel like my bladder’s full of sand,” replied the leathery man of indeterminate age behind the bar. “Should spend more credits on water rations and less on smokes, I s’pose.” He nodded to a rolled up stogie of some non-determinant brown substance smoldering away on the rim of a small plate. It looked more looked more like a desiccated clod worm and smelled more like burning garbage than something one would take pleasure in inhaling.

Inside their ears Fury commented that it was a good greeting, that the functionality of kidneys and bladder voiding in a place that always rationed water was essential information and a courtesy to one’s neighbors. Although, he added, the man really should quit with the smokes and drink more water.

“None of their business and TMI if you ask me,” Manning mumbled in response when the man turned his attention to Mac’s bladder, giving her a serious eyeballing, but then he’d eyeballed Manning the same way. Probably you couldn’t be too picky in a place like this, she thought.

“I certainly find such information about the two of you vital in monitoring your health,” came the ships slightly offended response.” Both of his humanoid complement cringed at information they knew but didn’t want to think about, and certainly didn’t want to discuss over their sub-neural coms.

“A pint?” The man asked glancing back and forth between the two. He didn’t ask of what. There was only one choice. When they both nodded, he picked up two dodgy looking glasses. “S’pose you didn’t bring your own?”

When they both gave confused nods, he said, “Cost you extra – me furnishing the glass. Most folks ‘round here bring their own.” He glanced down at the glasses and shrugged. “These ain’t the cleanest, true enough, but it don’t matter much. The hooch’ll kill anythin’ what might make you sick.”

“I am not reassured,” Fury observed. He was sometimes overprotective of his compliment.

As the man drew up the pints that, after their discussion of bodily functions, looked disturbingly like urine, Mac found herself hoping the place had a good waste water filtration system. “Guaranteed to make you piss.” The man set their drinks down on the bar and wiped his hands on a dirty bar towel. Mac noted everything on Taklamakan Major was dirty.

“Bottoms up,” Manning said, and slugged back half the pint in a single go, but then he always did have a high tolerance for bad booze and a cast iron stomach, Mac recalled as she lifted her own glass in salute and sipped at it more cautiously. It was vile, all right, but she’d had worse too. “That’ll put hair on your balls,” Manning said with a shiver.

Dragon Ascending Part 13: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, book two of the Sentient Ship Series and the continuation of Fury’s journey to find his family.   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 13: Too Close 

I should not have come to her. I should not have responded when she called to me. I did not want to know her. I certainly did not want to know that her name was poetry, that beneath the filth and the blood and sweat and vomit was a delicate, vulnerable humanoid, who had missed too many meals and too seldom slept in comfort. Len, she called herself, she move me deeply. But as I have said, I am no doubt somewhat unbalanced from my own loss. I am more vulnerable to humanoids than I would choose to be. I could not have imagined how she would nearly destroy me when I thought she would die while I watched helplessly. Her very heart had stopped. The slow steady beating of her heart in peaceful sleep almost had not happened, so close she had come to death, much closer than she should have, than she would have if I could have accessed my data as I should have been able to. If I could have accessed myself as I should have been able. Instead I had been forced to resort to the auto-surgery so helpless was I. It was only when I remembered to access my own heart, my blood and inject her with it that her heart beat again, that she breathed again, and color returned to her cheeks and wounds began to heal as though I had simply willed it, as though she had simply acquiesced to my will.

The auto-surgery stood ready to inject her with immunosuppressants to keep her body from rejecting my biological and technological materials, so different from her own.

She did not.

How could it be that she did not reject my genetic materials? The mix of technology and biology alone was usually lethal without the injections.  And yet she took what I offered up from my core into that fragile, broken flesh of hers, which to my surprise devoured it hungrily, and the affect was astounding, visible from moment to moment, as the gift from my body restored her health.

Her filthy, soiled clothing had been stripped away in order to clean and treat her wounds, most of which were healing from moment to moment. Deep insider her flesh, which had been so badly violated, the physical injuries were healing as well, but there were other wounds that would not so easily be healed, the emotional wounds, which she would never be shed of. Such wounds I understood well, and I understood the desire to keep them as far from the center of one’s core as possible.

As the woman healed before my very optic sensors, the auto-surgery continued to bathe and clean the filth from her. The process was not the traditional and welcomed cleansing of flesh that humanoids were so enamored of, though in truth an auto-surgical cleaning was much more effective, and it gave me pleasure to see her clean and in no further stress. For some time while she slept, I kept watch just in case the rejection of my genetic materials should be delayed in this one. My watch had not been necessary, for she remained secure within the auto-surgery’s emergency treatment space, and yet I remained. I should have removed myself long before she woke. The less contact I had with her the better. To her I would simply be the computer of a long dead ship. In truth I was little more, and even the computer was damaged.

I had not planned to respond when she woke up. I had not even planned to be present, but when she would not drink the water essential to facilitate her recovery, I intervened. And then I lingered for the pleasure of watching her drink and then eat, and when she called out to me, in my arrogance I found I wanted her to call my name. Though all I could remember was some sort of designation I did not fully understand, and yet I knew it was as close to a name as I had at the moment, Ascent7.

I should never have asked her name. Her name gave her dimension, depth. Her name took up space in my damaged inner workings, filling a place that was otherwise empty. And her presence in that place was uncomfortable. Oh how I had worked to purge that space so that there was nothing remaining for me to feel, and now I had let this woman in. And she would not be so easily dismissed.

She did not lie quietly when she woke the second time, rather she stretched long and deep and yawned and sighed, gathering the covering to her breasts as she pushed up on one elbow. Her thin stomach grumbled and she rested a slender hand upon it and looked around.

I instantly provided food, a more substantial stew and flat bread along with an electrolyte supplement that at least looked tasty. And water, of course. She needed lots of water.

She sighed her pleasure with a deep inhalation of the scents. “I’m starving,” she said, knotting the coverlet around her and coming to the table. I would have to see to clothing for her.

She drank the water, and then glanced around the chamber I had made for her as though she hoped to see me somewhere in the corner perhaps. “Thank you, Ascent7.”

I did not answer, stunned as I was that this woman from such a place as Taklamakan Major would have the manners to thank a computer, or even feel it necessary.

“I can’t remember ever eating so well,” she continued, unaware of my surprise. “I didn’t know that ships were trained in cookery.”

 

 

Still I did not reply, determined to minimize my contact with her. It was better that way.

She did not seem to mind my silence. She ate with deliberate pleasure. Even with food readily available to her she ate slowly, savoring each bite as though she were not certain of her next meal, as though I might actually withhold food from her. The bread, I noticed, she did not touch. “My mother used to be a pretty good cook. She taught me, but,” she shrugged and swallowed carefully, and I found myself fascinated with the rise and fall of the translucent muscles at her throat in the motion of ingesting food. “You can’t get many of the ingredients here, and even if you could, I can’t afford them. No one here can or they wouldn’t live on this shithole.” She tilted head at such an angle to suggest that she was lost in thought, and then she said, “at least no one bothers you here.” As she spoke, the expressive angles of her face became harsher, tighter. She blinked a couple of times as though the light suddenly hurt her eyes, then she laid down her spoon, though she was not nearly finished. “At least most of the time.”

“Those who hurt you will not bother you again.” This time I could not keep silent. This time I feared that she would feel my own rage as it passed over me.

Her thin shoulders stiffened and she stilled, the only movement was the flutter of her pulse in her fragile neck. “You know.”

“I treated your injuries, and they were … extensive. I was very angry.” Then I added quickly, “It was not my intention to violate your privacy, but your condition was urgent.”

“She bit her lip and twisted her fingers in the napkin on her lap. “Did you kill them?” Before I could replay she said, “because I wouldn’t mind if you had.”

I studied her for a moment, once again reminded of just how much more there was to this woman than I had at first given her credit for. It would appear that she was less fragile than I had earlier believed. “If they are dead, I have not confirmed, but they were falling from high orbit when my attention was drawn back to the your disturbing lack of respiration.”

To my surprise she laughed. “Well that’s all right then. Not a pleasant fall from high orbit.”

“No, indeed.”

She picked up her spoon and continued to eat, still not touching the bread.

“Is the bread not to your liking?”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s delicious,” came her reply, “but those bastards took my pack. All my rations are gone.”

“You are not at the mercy of the Taklamakan now.”

She smiled and looked around the room, once again attempting to locate the place from which I spoke. “Oh don’t be offended. Your hospitality has been above and beyond. I give you five stars. It’s just that … I don’t want to wear out my welcome.”

It surprised me that she could read me so easily. I was a collection of circuits and nanites mixed with a bit of human biology to create a Frankensteinian creature with no place in the galaxy. “It is impossible for me to be offended,” I lied, and was somewhat surprised that I had that ability within myself, the subterfuge I did not like in humanity.

“Good,” she responded. “No need to be. You’ve been wonderful.”

It disturbed me to find the thought of her departure not at all to my liking, for certainly she would leave. What was there in this place for her? “Nevertheless,” I said, vowing once again that when next the opportunity presented itself, I would sever all contact with her. “you may eat all that you like while you are here, for certainly you are in need of a more caloric diet.”

At that she laughed and ripped into the bread with an animal-like growl that suggested pleasure and not anger. And I was pleased.

“I will also see to your need for clothing, Len.”

“Thank you, Ascent. I haven’t had a new party dress in awhile.”

“Then you shall certainly need one for my annual gala soirée.”

Oh her laugh! Such a sound I could not recall hearing, such pleasure in sound had once been mine, I was sure, but I no longer recalled that time, nor did I try. “Afraid you’ll find I’m not a very good dancer.”

“Nor am I, so we shall do just fine together,” I replied.

Once again at the end of her meal, she saw to her elimination needs and then returned to bed. I was aware from trembling of her limbs, that she needed rest as much as she did food. She slept, and this time I did retreat as far from her as I could get, determined that I should sever the ties between us before it was too late to do so.