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 35: Meeting Family

Len woke up alone in her bed, but she sensed Ascent not far, his attentions drawn elsewhere for the moment. She was tender and sore in ways that made her smile. They had made love through most of the night. She didn’t exactly remember dozing off, but surely she couldn’t have slept much. She stretched long and leisurely, almost certain she felt the gentle warmth of morning sun coming through a window onto her face, something she hadn’t felt since childhood. Perhaps Ascent had accessed some humanoid memory from his database, maybe her own while they were making love. Things bled through, feelings, memories, sensations. Hadn’t she felt like there were no boundaries between them when they came together, with him moving inside her? Hadn’t she, for a second, known the entirety of him, every circuit, every cell? She would ask him about it later. Right now she didn’t want to disturb him. She more than likely should try to get a little more rest, but her mind was too full of Ascent to even consider sleeping. She needed some time to process all that had happened in the past few hours. Groaning a little with the aches of muscles not used before, she crawled out of bed, took a very quick shower and slid into her surface clothes. She gave her pack a check-over, though there was no need. Ascent always saw that whatever items she had used were replaced when she returned and that there was plenty of water. Satisfied everything was in order, she shouldered it, settled it into place and made her way toward the outside airlock. Her PD informed her that it was early morning and she wanted to take advantage of the relative cool before the Shimmer.

The beginnings of a plan rattled around in her head, and there were certain items she knew she would need. Ascent had pinpointed on her PD several derelict ships from which she might salvage useful parts, not only to sell, but also to build a crude, but workable transport that would get her back to Sandstorm base. But now that seemed less urgent. Now there were other reasons to search through the salvage. Surely it was a mistake to make the kind of plans she was considering. Up until now her only plan had always been to get off this sand heap, and that had been vague at best, since she’d have to come up with the money for passage, and the only way to do that was to find something worth a fortune in the salvage dumps. Good luck with that.

Then she’d made love to an SNT, and suddenly nothing looked quite the same. She decided to keep her scheming to herself for the moment. Ascent was still too vulnerable, too sensitive. But sooner or later he would have to come to grips with the loss of his compliment and hopefully make the decision to rejoin the land of the living, though certainly there wasn’t a whole lot of living happening on Tak Major. Still, he was an SNT ship. He came here to mourn and to forget. He didn’t have to stay here. No, some of her plans she would definitely keep to herself for a little while, at least. She found it worrisome that he could not remember so much as his own name. The fact that she was alive proved that he could retrieve memories or at least data. That was another bridge to be crossed later, when he was ready, when they were more sure of each other.

She made the climbed down from the airlock quickly, descending into the furnace of early morning only beginning the temperature climb toward the Shimmer.

Once on the ground, she knew exactly what she was looking for, and judging the distance, and the topo graphs on her PD, she thought she could get to the wrecked Jaeger, which the night’s sandstorm had uncovered, find what she was looking for, and be back before the Shimmer. Checking the route, she could see that if she underestimated the time it would take by a little, there would be shade from the scrap heaps for her to walk in almost the entire way back. Though she didn’t plan to be gone that long. She didn’t want Ascent to worry.

Ascent had informed her that while he had been responsible for the openings in the de-mole barrier, he did not remember erecting the perimeter himself, and doubted that he would have done so, since he found d-mole tech barbaric, and if it were left to him, he would ban it entirely. He could be a little judgmental like that. When she thought of some of the destruction the conglomerates had brought about for their own greed, she wasn’t entirely sure she agreed with him. The de-moling of the entire board of directors and all the top shareholders of the major conglomerates would most definitely make the galaxy a better place. Still, it was a mystery who built it and why. What could it possibly hold that would be of more value than an SNT ship? Anyway, Ascent had easily manipulated it to allow her in and keep others out. So had the other SNT.            She looked up into the sky that was still the deep blue of early morning and not yet the hot iron burn of the Shimmer and wondered if the SNT above her somewhere in orbit had seen her exit the safety of Ascent’s shelter. Who was this strange SNT with two compliments? As she headed around the perimeter of the de-mole in the direction of the coordinates on her PD, she was thinking about how she might convince Ascent he should meet his brother when the world shivered around her and then vanished. No! The world didn’t vanish. She did, dematerializing into nothing. The last thing she heard was Ascent crying out for her.

For a moment she literally did not exist and then the world shivered again and she found herself on her hands and knees on the bridge of a ship, a man and a woman standing over her. But it wasn’t either of them who spoke, as the woman offered her an outstretched hand.

“Lenore Falish, please forgive the abduction. It was the only way we knew to open communications with my brother.”

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 34: You’re Coming With Me

“I don’t want to talk to that woman!” Kresho slammed his palms down on his desk hard enough to rattle the samples of synth-ax on his desk that his head of science had just brought into him. He glanced at them briefly and then shoved them into the top drawer out of sight. The last thing he wanted was for a goddamned Fallon to get hold of them. He dropped his ass down in the creaky chair that he kept meaning to replace, and growled. “I want her off my goddamned station yesterday.”

“Your goddamned station considers that reference very rude,” came the quiet female voice of the central station computer.

He flipped the screen the finger, and received a rude sound in reply. “Cheeky piece of space junk.”

Beside him Gerd cracked her knuckles. “You want me to throw her out the air lock, Kresh.” She gave an introspective shrug. “One more piece of space junk.”

“That would put a bigger smile on my face than a night with a New Kingston water whore.”

His second nodded. “That would definitely put a smile on my face.”

He straightened in his chair and let out a long string of curses, ending with colourful insults to Tenad Fallon’s dead father, which more than likely his daughter would completely agree with. At last he released a heavy sigh and spoke to the computer, “Send her in and let’s get this over with so I can get her the fuck off my station.”

Tenad Fallon walked in as mild and polite as you could ask and stood meekly waiting for him to offer a seat, which he grudgingly did with the barest nod of his head. “You got what you needed?” He asked between gritted teeth.

“I did, thank you. I have to say your station is surprisingly well supplied for such a remote outpost.”

“And your crew, all well R and R-ed?”

“Very well, thank you. The station’s hospitality is spoken of in awed tones among my people.”

“Good, that’s good.” He steepled his fingers on the desk in front of him making a point of not noticing how good she looked. He let the silence stretch between them long enough that someone with smaller balls would have squirmed. When she only remained as calm as a fucking New Vaticana monk, he ground his teeth and said, “so if everything is copacetic, all contracts signed, all bills paid in full, I’m wondering why you’re still here?”

“There’s been a slight change of plans,” she said, her smile never wavering.

He was too well schooled in keeping a poker face to show it, but his stomach fisted so hard, someone with a weaker sphincter might have shit their pants. He’d learn to clench tight a long time ago. He offered her a lazy smile. “What? You’re people like my station hospitality so much they’ve all jumped ship for positions on my loading docks?”

“I’m sure there’s nothing they’d love more. I’m not an easy taskmaster, but no. Just a simple change in destination, but one for which I require a guide, someone who knows the Taklamakan system and has a certain skill set.”

This time he really did pucker tighter. “I doubt you’ll find anyone here. Your best bet is to put out a long-range message to Digby Sellers on Tak Major. He deals in wet ware. If anyone can find you what you’re looking for ole Dig can.” Though he won’t thank me for pointing a Fallon in his direction.”

She folded her arms over her modestly confined, but nonetheless admirable, chest and leaned back in the chair, crossing those endless legs at the ankle. “I also need someone with some expertise in SNT technology.”

This time his sphincter flat out twisted in a knot. “What? You think anybody out here would admit to that and end up in the shackle, or worse, infected and sent off to a plague planet?” He all but catapulted from the chair, stormed to the door and practically broke the open button pressing it. “Lady, I don’t care who the hell your daddy was, you’re not in Authority space here and no one would complain even a little bit if I blew a goddamned Fallon out the airlock.”

The bastard spawn of a, no doubt raped, whore didn’t even bat an eye, she only smiled all relaxed-like. “You might want to close that door, Ivanovic and sit down, unless you want your whole station to know that you were one of the key scientists on the SNT projects.” He barely had time to shut the door and swallow back his threatening gorge before she waved a dismissive hand and nodded to his chair. “I’m not my father, Ivanovic. I find his fascination with the shackle and with destroying the very people he should be searching out and aiding in their research parochial and ineffective. I’m sure you’ve heard through the grapevine that most of my father’s wealth and the biggest share of Bright Star Conglomerate now rest in the hands of SNT1.” She chuckled bitterly. Never let it be said my father didn’t have a sense of humor.” She nodded again to his chair. “Just sit down and hear me out.”

“I’m a captive audience.” He dropped into his chair and mirrored her crossed arms.

“I have reliable intel that SNT1 is sniffing around the Taklamakan system”

He grunted. “No doubt intel from the captain of the Dart before you blew him out your airlock? I wouldn’t exactly call him reliable.”

This time her chuckle was goddamn playful. “Oh don’t tell me that you weren’t tempted to do the same with the whole crew, besides I can be very persuasive, Ivanovic. Of course the man didn’t know the ship was SNT1, but think about it, think about what he claims happened to him and his ship.” She scooted forward until she sat on the edge of the chair not trying to hide her excitement. “More than that think what the Lizzie Ann verified about their rescuing of the Dart. These are events that wouldn’t even be possible with the best state of the art Authority tech. I’m sure you know that. I suspected anyway, but the missing piece of the puzzle was the where of it all. I don’t know why SNT1 is there, but with your help, I intend to find him and get my inheritance back.”

“This is blackmail.”

“You could think of it if a business arrangement if it makes it more palatable.”

“You holding the shackle over me?”

“I don’t believe in wasting resources like my father did.  But I’m not one to be denied either. Certainly there are people on your station who are far less valuable resources.”

 

 

“So let me get this straight, you’re threatening my people with the shackle if I don’t kiss your ass voluntarily?”

She stood and paced back and forth in front of his desk. “Look, I don’t want to disrupt your life any more than necessary, but I will have SNT1, and I need your help to get what I want.” She rested a well-manicured hand on his desk and leaned over into his personal space. Fuck, he wished she wouldn’t do that. A close-up of a beautiful monster was not what he needed right now. He tried not to look at her full lips, speaking excitedly way to close to his person. “Look, all I’m asking is that you help me find him. I have a plan. I need you to help me make it happen. I promise your station will benefit greatly from my gratitude, so you can think of this as a business arrangement, as I said.”

“My station doesn’t need Fallon gratitude.”

She straightened herself then glanced at the door. “Your second in command, she’s good at her job.”

He tensed.

“I can imagine no one argues with her and comes out on top. I know the two of you have been through some tough times together, always have each other’s backs. It’s good to have people like that.”

She paced back and forth in silence just long enough to make him truly dread what would come next, and then she smiled a little thoughtful quirk of her lips. “Not many women in the triax mines, but a bruiser like her, I bet she would do just fine.”

“Get out!” If the desk hadn’t been between them he’d have strangled her and let the garbage bots deal with her worthless Fallon carcass.”

She walked casually to the door. “I’ll leave you to sleep on it tonight, and we’ll talk tomorrow. Oh, and if you do decide to follow up on whatever little plan for my demise you have going through your head right now, I would reconsider. In the event of my death on this station, there’s an automated message set to make all my people very wealthy for destroying this station and everyone on it.” She let that sink in for a moment and then opened the door and sauntered through like the fucking ruler of the galaxy.

Kresho waited until he was certain the bitch was well gone and then he grabbed his jacket and headed for the door nearly running into Gert, who was coming in.

“What happened? Where are you going?”

“Out.” He left his office with her looking after him. She knew to leave him alone when he went out. Everyone knew that. She simply shut the door and went about her business.

At the end of the corridor he took the service elevator to a section of the old inner dock, no longer in use. He spoke quietly into his PD. “Flood it.”

“Inner dock sector three will be habitable in two minutes,” came the automated response in his ear. The digital countdown flashed on his PD ocular. The air would be breathable when he got there and he would need it. He would need lots of it. He pulled the jacket tighter around him not bothering with the parka hanging in the corridor at the bottom of the lift. He was too furious to feel the cold. He arrived at the hatch twenty seconds before the flooding of breathable air into the chamber was complete. It was always a sign of how angry he was when he’d walked fast enough to beat the compression sequence. Sadly these days he never came down here unless he was angry.

He waited pacing back and forth in front of the airlock. Until the sign in his ocular implant flashed compression complete. The airlock hissed open and he stepped inside. Jasmine! The place smelled like fucking flowers! She did it just to irritate him, he knew. And then he waited, pacing. She always made him wait when he was angry. It usually helped calm him a bit, that little extra time to think and cool his jets, but fuck! He’d be pacing from now till galactic New Year and not even be close to any less furious that he was now. Not this time around.

And another thing, she always snuck up on him like he was prey and she was a goddamned old Terran big game hunter.

“I am a hunter and you are my big game,” she said slipping her arms around him from behind and kissing his ear.”

“Don’t.” He said pushing her away, feeling like a little shit as his righteous anger collided with her hurt at his rebuff.

“I’m sorry you’re upset,” she said softly. “I knew you would be, but if you’d known in advance Tenad Fallon would have read you like a book. Men are easy to read when the want to have sex with you.”

“Fuck you, Ori.”

“Not tonight, Kresho. More’s the pity, but we have work to do.”

“You betrayed me, and now the bitch is threatening our people.”

“Don’t you think our people would jump at the chance at some long overdue revenge on a Fallon, possibility even two?”

“Possibly two?”

“Long range sensors have detected a dreadnaught class ship belonging to Jessup Tallon heading this way.  It would appear the Fallon brats want to pick a fight with each other as well as with big brother, and you’re the only one who might get them a chance at taking a nice juicy SNT to boot.” This time she embraced him, pulled his face close to her impossibly warm lips and whispered so close to his ear that it was like she was inside his head. And her words were damn near enough to make him shoot his load, “or possibly even two.”

“What? Another SNT? You’re shitting me! In all the years we’ve been here we’ve not so much as heard a whisper of a rumor of anything remotely resembling an SNT in hiding, and now you’re telling me that not only is SNT1 Fury himself hanging out around Tak Major, but there’s a second SNT? Seriously, what is it a goddamned family reunion?”

“Not yet, but it might be the start of one,” she said. Taking his hand, she led him toward the room that only they knew about. “Now come on, Kresho. We have plans to make.” That usually meant she had a plan and he was her brute strength, but every once in a while he held his own with her. Maybe this would be one of those times.

 

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 33: Speculations

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

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

“Then it is not a signature you recognize?”

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

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

“Then you remember nothing?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

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

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

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

“I suppose it is possible.” Ascent said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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