Tag Archives: brand new KDG serial read

Dragon Ascending Part 59: Grand New KDG Read

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week  Tenad Fallon beegan to realize just what she’d up against to become compatible with Fury. This week she gets to experience the agony first hand, and Fury asks her why? 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 59: Why Put Yourself Through this Agony? 

“I do not understand why you would put yourself through this agony when I have already said I will give you all that you ask.” Fury said as he watched dear Camille bathe Tenad’s fevered forehead. It was something that the auto-doc could have done more effectively, but she would not have it. He knew that she did not believe that he would sabotage the treatments with the lives of his compliments hanging in the balance, though that is what she told him. She trusted the little indentured, and she took comfort in her presence. Yes, she was indeed an open book with much written between the lines. After getting to know Gerando Fallon, Fury suspected that were true of all of the Fallons who were old enough to have any memory of their father.

“I’m doing it because I want that bond, Fury.” Her words were slurred with pain and delirium. “I want that much control over you, and I want…” her words were swallowed in a wave of violent shivers and once that had passed enough that she could speak again, she continued between chattering teeth. “I want to know what it feels like, why Gerando would sacrifice everything for that bond.”

“Gerando proved himself worthy.” Fury said.

“And you don’t think I am?” Before he could respond she said, “he wanted to steal away your compliment too you know, hounded her ruthlessly, as I understand.”

“And in the end he restored my brother to me, the one I did not know I had.”

“You know, he was crushed by what our old man did to the SNT’s. He always loved the SNTs, even wanted to be a compliment, trained for it, but he was rejected.”

“I know his story, for it is now a part of all of our story,” Fury said.

“That nearly broke him. Did for a long time. You know what he was like. The old man would do anything to see Gerando fail because he knew that if Gerando ever figured out what he was actually capable of, he’d bring the old bastard down in a heartbeat, but it doesn’t matter now. And my dear brother got to be a compliment after all.” Her hands twisted in the cooling blanket that covered her and her mouth was a thin pale line of pain.

“And you are jealous?”

“I have no problem with Gerando fulfilling his fondest dream. I heartily cheer him on. When the old man was focused on the first fruit of his loins, he wasn’t busy trying to sabotage my efforts. What I do have a problem with is Gerando helping you gain access to the old man’s fortune and find a way to hide it all beyond the Rim.” And then the shivers took over and the pain and she did not speak again.

“We have been systematically searching the planetoid as best we can,” came Ascent’s voice in Fury’s subprocesser. “Also this Kresho Ivanovic is searching as well. Are you aware that the man is a compliment.”

“I am, yes,” Fury replied as he watched Tenad Fallon drift in delirium. “He wanted me to know, though we did not have time to speak. I thought it expedient for Tenad Fallon not to know he had paid me a visit. If his SNT still lives, I do not know.”

“I do not know which of our siblings would bond to such an unsavory character,” Ascent said.

“I think perhaps we have misjudged the man on some counts my dear brother, though I cannot forgive him for his complicity in the taking from me my dear ones.”

“I cannot forgive him for leaving my poor Lenore to such a horrible fate. Though I must admit I am not sorry that in the end that fate has brought her to me.”

Fury did not ask if he would consent to the bond to Lenore Felish now, though after all that had happened, it was not a topic he could broach without pain.

“Can he help us, do you think?” Ascent asked.

“I believe he wishes to, and we must have all the help we are able to obtain. How is dear Lenore?” He asked.

 

 

“Less angry with me, I believe, though at the moment all of her focus and mine goes to help you find your dear ones.”

“Fury?” Camille spoke softly, looking around the room, as all humanoids did in the beginning.

“Yes, dear Camille.”

“Shouldn’t we give her the immunosuppressant injection now?”

To their surprise Tenad Fallon managed a grunt of a laugh. “He wants to make sure I’ve suffered enough first, Camille.”

“I cannot begin to make you suffer enough for what you have done, Tenad Fallon. But no, what you are feeling is quite normal. The immune response to my genetic material must be fully activated before we can judge how difficult it will be for your body to adjust to my blood and plan your treatment accordingly.”

“And your compliments went through this? Wow! You must be one helluva ship if they were willing to go through this.”

“Only my dearest Richard had to suffer so and more for he was dying of severe radiation burns, and the treatments had to be forced. There were many extenuating circumstances resulting from the way he came to be my companion, but none of those concern you.”

“And Diana McAllister?”

“She was born to be my compliment, so she did not suffer in our bonding. But your father made sure she suffered far more than you will ever imagine before Richard Manning and I were able to rescue her.”

“My father made sure everyone he came in contact with suffered.” This time the pain on her face ran much deeper than her body.

“It is time for the injection,” Fury said. “I have laced it with a sleeping drug for you will need to be well rested before the next transfusion.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I don’t sleep so well these days.”

When the auto-doc approached with the injection, Camille took it. “Let me do that. She doesn’t like auto-docs that aren’t her own.”

Another forced attempt to laugh as Tenad watched Camille prepare the injection. “My father used to threaten us all whenever we were ill that his auto-doc was equipped to give us the SNT virus if we didn’t get better because invalids were of no use to him.”

“He did inject Gerando,” Fury replied.

For a moment she was silent, biting back pain in lips bled pale from exhaustion. “Like I said, he made everyone suffer.” Then she turned her face to the wall and within a few seconds was asleep.

Fury watched as the little indentured fussed about the woman who was without a doubt the source of all her suffering. “She’s kind to you?”

“She’s not cruel, and she doesn’t punish me, if that’s what you mean.”

“But you have never given her cause.”

“That seldom matters for indentureds. In my case it does, so I do as she asks and the rest of the time I do my best to draw no more attention than her med-bot does when it isn’t in use.”

“She will sleep now for a good many hours, Camille. Come down to the galley and have something to eat, and then you must also rest, for the next few weeks shall be grueling.”

She stood to her full height, which was not tall at all, and looked around, once more making an effort to hold his gaze. “Will she die?”

“I have no intention of letting her die before I have my loved ones back, then she may go to New Vaticana hell and dance with all its demons for all I care.”

Camille looked down at her mistress for a moment, squared her shoulders and headed for the galley.

 

Dragon Ascending Part 58: Brand New KDG Read

 

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Len got caught by the wrong person. This week, Tenad Fallon begins to realize just what she’d up against to become compatible with Fury. 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 58: The Conditions of the Bargain

“Fury! What have you done! What the fuck have you done! Bring her back! Bring her-” Kresho came out of transport ass end over teacup and landed hard on the bridge of the Compass.

“Fury didn’t do anything,” Ori said over his subdural. “Well he did send you back here to keep the Fallons from seeing you. Make that Fallon,” she added.

He could almost hear the self-satisfaction in her voice, as he stood and stumbled to his seat at the console. “Where is she? Where the hell is she, I can ‘tran her back, it’s not too late, not for her, it’s not too late.” On the view screen, he pull up and magnify Jessup Fallon’s body tumbling slow motion in the void, hid dick still hanging out. But Len was nowhere to be found.

“She’s not out there. She’s back on the surface with the SNT there. Apparently, he’s not as helpless as they think he is.”

Kresho slumped in his chair and ran his hands over his face. “She’s okay then. Thank fuck.”

“I’m beginning to think our friend on the surface has a soft spot for her,” Ori said. “That’s very interesting.”

Kresho straightened and looked back out the view screen at Jessup Fallon tumbling end over end, then he shut it off. For a moment he stared at the emptiness of their own surroundings, then replicated a double New Hibernian and downed it in one. “Do you think he knows?”

“I doubt it. How could he? As far as anyone knows the only embryo to survive the experiments became Fury’s Diana Mac. And even those few that do know have no real idea what that actually means. Fury will figure it out though. He is SNT1 after all, and he knows Diana McAllister’s history.”

“And he despises me.”

“Clearly not as badly as you despise yourself. This mistake is on me. I should have sensed it. Fallons, at least some of them, are very wily. But they are only hacks when it comes to SNTs and SNT tech. The only one of any expertise is Gerando Fallon, and he’s exceptional. I’ve already begun creating the algorithms to help us find masked signals. Fury’s compliment have SNT DNA in their blood, and they are completely bonded to him. There are ways to uncover those signals. I just have to find them.”

“She’s not stupid enough to kill them. Surly she’s not.”

“She’s far too clever for that, but there are a lot of variables that are beyond even a Fallon’s control, and the Taklamakan system is unpredictable to say the least. Wherever they are, I wager they are not being kept in the lap of luxury.”

 

“Really, this isn’t necessary SNT1. I’ve had worse, and enjoyed it. Just not from my idiot brother.” Tenad Fallon chuckled softly to herself as the auto-doc in the infirmary worked on the nasty bruise Jessup had left on her cheek. “Hell, it would have been worth a lot more roughing up to see you ‘tran the bastard out into the void, end over end with his dick hanging out. Suitable end for the little prick, I’d say.” When SNT1 did not reply, she said. “I’m guessing the girl was also someone you didn’t want me to know about, still, ‘tranning her out into space, hell even ‘tranning my brother out I would have thought went against all SNT programming. Maybe my father was right after all and there is a little bit of psychopath in all of us.”

“You have no idea,” the ship said, voice cold enough to make her shiver.

“Oh, I probably do, but never mind that. You just totally made my day by ridding me of that pest. Ivanovic said to bring him along so we could keep an eye on him. That turned out to be a really stellar idea.” She waved a dismissive hand, “Oh don’t worry, Jessup didn’t know where your compliment are. I wouldn’t trust him with such important information, and he wouldn’t remember anyway once he had a little Mist in his brain.”

“Which you made sure he always had.”

“Well, he is a Fallon with a few resources of his own, though they were rapidly diminishing without the old man’s money. That dreadnaught is the only thing he has of any value. He’s ran a good crew into the ground and had them all cowed under the threat of the shackle. They don’t deserve that. They deserve the chance to shine.”

 

 

“And you would give them that.”

“Of course I would. Carrot, not stick, whenever possible, that’s my philosophy, SNT1. But I am very happy to use the stick if I have to.”

“So I have heard.”

“Now, we need to talk about this process I’ll have to undergo before we can bond. I’d like to start it as soon as possible. Oh, I understand if you want proof of life before we begin. I’m happy to arrange something.”

“That is not necessary,” the ship said. “I will know if they are dead, and so will you.”

In spite of the comfortable ambient temp in the room, goosebumps stood at attention on her arms. “Yes, I suppose I will.”

“If you are even to be compatible to bond with an SNT ship then you must, over a period of time, be injected with ever increasing doses of SNT core material, which your body will violently reject. When that response begins, these injections will be followed by immunodepressant treatments, which will also not be pleasant for you. Under ordinary circumstances, even to rush the compatibility of a compliment will take three months.”

“I see.” She touched her face and looked in the mirror the auto-doc held up for her to view the finished effort. “I want it done in a week.”

“No,” came the response.

“Are you reneging on our bargain, SNT1?” As with most humanoids, she looked around the room in an effort to see him. It was instinct, Fury supposed.

“I am safeguarding our bargain. If you die in the process before I have my compliment restored to safety, then they will die. That is not an acceptable risk, and I guarantee the process would kill you if we attempted to rush it so.”

“How much time than? A month?”

“A month you might survive, but it will be most unpleasant.”

She stood and straightened her worse for the wear clothing. “I’m good with that.”

“You will need help, help that normally my compliment would give if necessary. I cannot.”

“Camille then. I’ll have her ‘tranned over. She’s my indentured, and no, I won’t release her. That’s not part of the bargain.”

“Then I am very glad you shall be far too ill to abuse her.”

She forced a chuckle around the tight knot of nerves in her stomach at the thought of what lay ahead. She didn’t mind pain, but she was certain this experience would make anything she had ever experienced pale in comparison. She had always prided herself in being strong willed, able to get through whatever she had to, but this? Was it just that she feared Gerando actually was a stronger person than she? No. She would never believe that, never allow it. “Not everyone abuses their indentureds, SNT1.”

“You will not free them when they have done nothing to you, to deserve your enslavement. Is that not abuse by any standards?”

“While I see your point, SNT1, the economics of the situation simply do not allow society to be otherwise, and I won’t argue politics with you, when we have work to do,” she spoke into her subdural. “Have Camille ‘tranned over, no belay that order. Have her bring over the Andromeda. I would prefer not to transport any more than possible.”

She rubbed her hands together and stood. “Now, SNT1, I need a shower badly, and I’d appreciate it if you could replicate me something appropriate for my convalescence, then we can get started. If I’m going to spend the next month being very unwell, best get it over with.”

Tenad Fallon was frightened in spite of her bravado, something she could hide easily enough from other humanoids, to Fury, who was sensitive to humanoid emotions she was an open book, and one of which he would make very sure to read between the lines as their efforts began.

 

Dragon Ascending Part 57: Brand New KDG Read

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Kresho prepared to meet Fury, and possibly his doom. This week Len gets caught by the wrong person. 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 57: Give Me One Good Reason

“Give me one good reason why I should not ‘tran you into space instead of on my bridge, Kresho Ivanovic, or should I say Keith Vanderbilt?”

“I don’t give a fuck what you call me, but I have information you need, information about one of your passengers. I would just as soon the Fallons weren’t privileged to it.”

When Fury didn’t immediately answer, he added. “Look, I can help. I’m an SNT Scientist. I was on the project before you were -”

“I know who you are,” Fury cut him off. “And I remember you as someone trustworthy back then. But that fact is drawn into question in light of what you did afterward, what you’re doing now, so I will ask again, why should I ‘tran you onboard?”

“Because you don’t know what I did, Fury. You have no idea. No one does. Look, I’m completely at your mercy. You know where my ship is. You could blow it out of the sky before I knew what hit me, and I know why you would love to do that right now, but we need to talk or huge mistakes that may cost you more than you can easily imagine will be made.” When there was no response, he continued. “Look, just ‘tran me aboard and make sure they don’t know. Once you’ve done that, I think you’ll have a lot more information that will help you and your friends.” He held back a little hiss as he sliced the inside of his arm with the old Terran switchblade he always kept on his person to give him that little extra edge should he ever need it. He cut it just enough for a thin ribbon of red to glisten to the surface. And then the bridge of the Compass shimmered with a transport in progress, and in an instant he was reduced to his molecular components, at the mercy of the angry SNT on the other end as to if they should be rematerialized into him or if they should become just so much space dust. This time he got lucky, but it was not Fury’s bridge he came back together on. Instead the tran ended none to gently in a small cell.

He landed on his hands and knees and caught a harsh breath, then coughed. “Jesu Vati it smells like puke in here.”

“I saw no point in cleaning it up so that you could add to the stench.” Fury’s voice filled only his head, “but I see now that I shall not have that pleasure of watching you disgrace yourself.” Instantly the room was pristine again and smelled more like herbs than harsh cleaners. “Was this your secret then? Who? Who would allow this with someone untried and untrustworthy?” His voice was a painful roar inside Kresho’s head.

“I didn’t come here to talk about who pulls my strings. I didn’t come here with excuses. Give me a little more credit than that. It’s the girl you have here,” he waved a dismissive hand before Fury could speak. “Yes I know she’s here, and I know what she thinks about me, but believe me, the only reason I didn’t come for her is because I was unable.” Christ, the downside of the old silent conversation was that the emotions were all there in the thoughts. There was no disguising them.

“I know.” That left him wrong-footed.

“Arji Finkle has told me as much, told her as much, though with no details since there has not been time. I am not certain she believes it, but I do.”

“And you still want to toss me out the airlock?”

“Lenore Falish is safe, and she shall remain safe, but my compliment are not. They have been stolen from me, a thing you were fully complicit in.”

“You think I had a goddamned choice? I have wet dreams about Fallon heads on a pike. “I need you to know about her, about Len. She’s more than she appears, more than she knows, and she’s the most valuable cargo I reckon you’ve ever had onboard.”

“And she is in great danger.” Fury said. Just like that the conversation was over Kresho’s jail door burst open.

 

 

Len didn’t know Fury’s schematics, and they were nothing at all like Ascent’s or Quetzal’s. While his core was the heart of an SNT, it was different from Ascents’s, but then no one was like SNT1. Not only was Fury the prototype for all SNTs, but he was the most sophisticated SNT ever conceived. He was the only one actually conceived, making him far more humanoid in his biotech and making his development to maturity far slower than his brothers and sisters, whose biological components were cloned from humanoid DNA. The plan had been that once Fury was fully mature, ships would then be cloned from his biological components. The thing was that Fury’s inner space, the space that was actually used as a ship, had been modified to pass for a small, battered, cargo/smuggler, which was apparently what he and Manning had done in order to keep SNT1’s disguise while they found a way to get Diana McAllister away from Abriad Fallon.

Len wasn’t unfamiliar with smugglers, since some of them doubled as salvage vessels when they were really down on their luck, but the thing about smugglers and salvage ships is that while the basic design might have been there beneath it all, the ships were almost always repurposed multiple times, and each time they were made over with salvage and secondhand parts so that their form fit their function. No doubt it was also the case with SNTs, the ones who had survived. They would have had to disguise themselves. That made exploring Fury truly an adventure, and she seldom knew exactly where she might turn up.

She had planned to hold fast until she, Fury and Ascent figured how to proceed with finding Mac and Manning, but then the strange energy had coalesced and dispersed on board, and energy she had felt just below her sternum, as though her chest were suddenly filled with nanites for a split second and then they were syphoned out. It was a transport, but no ordinary transport. It was then that she realized Kresho Ivanovic had just been transported onboard and that both he and Fury had intended to keep it a secret, to protect her, no doubt. But she didn’t need protecting, she needed fucking Ivanovic, or whatever he called himself, to explain why the hell he left her and her mother to die.

Fury had transported him to the same place he had transported the Fallons, but it didn’t affect him in the same way it had them, and she really couldn’t picture Fury going easy on him. There was something about that transport, something so familiar that she could feel it knocking on the inside of her brain, something she should have been able to figure out, some connection she should have drawn.

“Ascent?” She spoke inside her head, “I need to hear what’s being said.”

Immediately the conversation that had been blocked to her came to her once removed with Ascent acting like a transmitter.

“Yes I know she’s here,” she heard Ivanovic’s voice in her ear. “And I know what she thinks about me, but believe me, the only reason I didn’t come for her is because I was unable.”

That ratcheted up Len’s pulse and made her more determined than ever to find him. He had answers she needed. After several false turns, she found a lift that she was pretty sure led down to the cargo bay. Inside her head, Ivanovic said, “I need you to know about her, about Len. She’s more than she appears, more than she knows, and she’s the most valuable cargo I reckon you’ve ever had onboard.”

“The fuck,” she said in her head and Ascent shushed her.

As the lift doors opened, she moved down a narrow hall. An open door on one side revealed utilitarian bunks in a tiny space, which she ignored. Fury had told her there was a space at the end of the short corridor used for quarantine or as a holding cell for prisoners when there was a need. That’s where he was being held. She was so focused on the conversation, that she was completely caught off guard by an arm around her throat drawing her up tight against a sweaty male body that stan of puke and anger, just as both Ascent and Fury said at the same time that she was in danger.

“Well, well, well! What have we here, the entertainment?” The man behind her thrust a hard-on up against her back and raked an awkward hand over her breasts, and she went dead still. She didn’t care who the hell it was, though she thought she knew, she wasn’t going to be taken that way again.

“I haven’t had a good fuck since I got here. Ugly, dirty lot, all of you down on that sand heap. Still, a man has needs.”

He shoved her up against the wall, face to. While she hadn’t seen him, she could tell he was much bigger than she was, and the reek of him was nearly enough to make her gag. With one hand, he held her firm while with the other he went to work on his fly. He had to lean over her to yank and shove at her trousers, and it was then that she struck, bringing the crown of her head back hard into his face.

“Get off her, Jessup, you idiot! What the hell are you doing?” Tenad Fallon grabbed her brother and pulled him back, but he backhanded her in a wave of curses and sent her flying across the floor, giving Len just enough time to duck and scramble. As she crab-walked back out of Jessup Fallon’s reach, his body shimmered and he was transported. It was only before she blinked out of existence that she realized she was being transported too.

 

 

Dragon Ascending Part 56: Brand New KDG Read

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week all hell broke loose, and we were reminded once again why  no one trusts a Fallon. This week Kresho prepares to meet Fury, and possibly his doom. 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 56: I Should Have Seen this Coming

 

“I should have seen this coming! I should have fucking known better.” Kresho paced back and forth on the bridge of the Compass. “Now we don’t know where they are. Now our hands are tied. He turned to the com and all but shouted, “If they die, Ori! If they die their deaths’ll be two more deaths on my head, and I’ll deserve it when Fury blows me the fuck out of the sky.”

“They won’t die, Kresho. She can’t afford their deaths and we’ll find them long before that becomes an issue.”

“What part of that bitch masking their signals did you not catch?” He waved the question aside with a hand that was none to steady at the moment. “I should have killed that goddamned woman while I was in her quarters. Fuck knows she gave me the perfect opportunity.”

“For now, we need her alive,” came Ori’s voice over the com. She won’t dare kill Fury’s compliment, as I said. I think the stupid woman believes she can simply sever that connection, stick them aboard a transport to some remote system and keep them under lock and key with just enough contact that Fury will pine for them, and suffer, but keep her alive and do what she commands in order to keep them safe. She truly believes that she can replace them as simply as one replaces the drive on a replicator. She is a fool.”

“But she’s a clever fool. Now what?” He said wiping sweaty palms on his trousers.

“The plan hasn’t changed. Now it’s time you give SNT1 a visit and play our ace in the hole.”

“What the fuck ace in the hole? In case you haven’t noticed, Fallon just pulled a huge ace out of her ass, one I should have seen? Fury doesn’t need me now. I don’t know where Manning and McAllister are. I’m useless to him, me he may very well blow out the airlock for instigating this whole cluster fuck.”

“No, he will not, and you did not instigate this cluster fuck, as usual, that’s the Fallons’ job. Now stop with the damn self-pity already. We have work to do, and yes, we do have an ace in the hole.”

“How do you figure?’

I have called in all our resources, scanning the planetoid and even Fallon’s own ships. Though I think if the woman has SNT tech on board, it would be a huge mistake to hide the compliments of another SNT there. I don’t know if her ship is the only one that has it, but I would be willing to bet it is. That would not be the kind of information she’d share. Besides to install it on even one ship she must have gone to great lengths and great expense, even if she did steal the tech from her father. Yes, she is wealthy, but her resources are still limited. She cannot afford to treat SNT technology as casually as one would buy a holiday in the pleasure isles. No, Fury’s compliment will not be on any of the Fallon ships, and she certainly won’t trust her brother to keep them safe, or even keep them captive. Wherever they are, it will be remote, unlikely and completely secret. Knowing her, she might well kill the security force assigned to help her accomplish the task once it’s finished just to make sure there are no flapping lips. Besides,” she added as an afterthought, “if they were on any of those ships, I would know it.”

“What then? You said we had an ace in the hole.”

“I did, yes. While I did not find Fury’s compliment, I did find something else rather interesting. The Fallons are not the only ones onboard SNT1.”

“What? Who?”

“The one thing we had not taken into consideration when we were trying to deduce who had ‘tranned, and where they had ‘tranned to when we were analyzing Fury’s transports was that the single transport signals might not have been either of Fury’s compliment.”

 

 

“The fuck?”

“Between your interrogations and Tenad Fallons’s rather unorthodox methods, of the crew of the Dart, you learned that the three men onboard had violated a woman on their ship and left her for dead in the Sea of Death.”

“Yes? And.”

“Well that woman was our Lenore, Kresho.”

He barely made it back to his chair in time to collapse, and for a dreadful moment, he thought he would puke. Bloody hell, what Len had been through because of his failure, and now this.

If Ori were concerned over his shock, she didn’t show it, but then she never did. “Gerd did a little investigating in Sandstorm while you were occupied with Tenad Fallon, and she discovered that it was indeed Lenore.”

“Fuck! Even after I came clean with Arji and told him the whole story, he still didn’t tell me about … the Dart, about what had happened.”

“Of course he wouldn’t. I’m sure Lenore has painted a rather rubbish picture of you for him, and while he’s always trusted you before, well the woman has his heart, and he would do anything for her.”

“If what the crew of the Dart said then is true, and all evidence points to that, then Len should have died. Three men beat her and,” he swallowed his gorge, “beat her and raped her, then they threw her off the ship in the middle of the Sea of Death. Her chances of survival were, I’d say non-existent. Except … she discovered the SNT in the salvage dump, didn’t she?”

“At about the same time Fury sensed his presence on the surface. The lone signal that was beamed to and from the scrap yard and the final transport signal into Sandstorm and out was our Lenore.

“And then again yesterday evening when you were busy entertaining Tenad Fallon, the two signals that had tranned to the surface returned to Fury. Those would be his compliments. Then perhaps a little more than two hours later there was another ‘tran up. No one else was there but our Lenore, so it had to be her. She did not ‘tran back down.”

“Fuck me! Then she’s there onboard with Fury.”

“And I am guessing the Fallons do not know.”

“They barely know of her existence. They certainly don’t know who she is and if they find out…”

“They mustn’t find out,” she said. This is not a safe situation for her or for our SNT friend down below on the surface. Certainly there’s no way Fury could know, though I’m sure they’ve wondered why she of all people found an SNT hiding among the wreckage, one who didn’t want to be found. Kresho, we need to get her out of there. If the Fallons find out who she is, what she is, they’ll see her as an opportunity. We’ve got to get her away.”

For a tight moment there was silence and then Kresho simply said, “keep a lock on me.” Then he commed Fury.

 

Dragon Ascending Part 55: Brand New KDG Read

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Len learns that Fury and his compliments understand Ascent’s reluctance far better that Len can imagine.  This week all hell breaks loose, and we are reminded once again why  no one trusts a Fallon. 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 55: Something’s Wrong

“You’ve allowed her to your core?” Mac said to Fury. She joined Manning in the galley for coffee. “I thought perhaps you might. I sensed her wandering about last night, but my feeling was that she didn’t want my company or anyone else’s, except maybe yours.”

“I had hoped that it might comfort her,” Fury replied, “but I am certain there is only one source of comfort that will truly ease her suffering, ease both of their suffering.”

“Ascent’s in agony, Mac said. “Can she not sense his pain?”

“Surely you remember how it was with us, Diana Mac,” he replied. “Space was necessary for both of us so that we would be able to come together again. Yes we suffered. We suffered terribly, and I do not wish such pain on anyone, but that journey must be made and they alone must make it in order to find their way back to one another. As it was with me, it is as important for Ascent to come to understand how he has hurt her and how he must allow her to his heart, for that is where she belongs, as he belongs in hers.”

“Do you think it might help if we went to Ascent, Mac and I?” Manning said. “We know what it’s like to love a neurotic SNT and to have to learn to be together, to trust each other. Maybe we can help him. At least we can comfort him. He shouldn’t be dealing with this alone any more than Lenore should.”

“While I kept watch with him through the night, making certain he was aware of my presence, he chose not to speak to me, which I also understand, having been nearly non-verbal in my own pain when our Mac left us. But I do believe that it would be a great kindness to Ascent. It would perhaps help him view the situation through the eyes of a compliment. Certainly I believe we all understand why he will not take Lenore Falish to himself. We have, each of us, felt that unworthiness, and it is terrible. One feels so very alone. Finish your breakfast first. I will not send you to the surface hungry. Then you can go, and I will stay to comfort Lenore so that neither of them is alone.”

Breakfast didn’t take long. Neither of them was very hungry, though Fury prodded them to at least eat something. He was such a mother hen at times. They both understood too well what Ascent and Lenore were suffering. They also knew that it was critical that Ascent bonded with Lenore sooner rather than later when there were two Fallons with war ships orbiting Tak Major. Sooner or later they’d figure out how to get inside the mole-tran and then Ascent would be at their mercy.

“I will ‘tran you directly to Ascent’s core. Though he may be mostly non-verbal right now, he has opened himself for us, but more in hopes that Lenore Falish will return to him. Do tell him that we will return her the instant she is ready, and she will be ready. I feel it in my own heart.”

“Fury,” Mac reached out her hand and touched what she could not see, but he had manifest for her, a stubbled face that planted a kiss on her palm, “convince her to come home so they can know what it should be like.”

“I will do all that is in my power,” he said, embracing them both. “Hurry back. I will have great need of you when you return.”

“It’s good to be needed,” Manning said. They had come too close to losing each other too often to ever take good-byes for granted.

The static prickle of a molecular transport in progress passed over Mac’s skin the blink of an eye before the galley faded and dematerialized. For a moment that might have been an eternity, neither she nor Manning existed, and then there was light and feeling and the tingling of limbs being reconstructed in a nanosecond, all things Mac would rather not think about, and didn’t most of the time. But it was not Fury’s gentle transport landing that they experienced, rather a hard drop onto a cold floor. It  was most definitely not Ascent’s core that materialized before them when they came out of the transport.

“Something’s wrong,” was all Mac could manage. There was a brief flash of the deck of a Jaeger and a red-headed woman standing over them. On the com someone was yelling angrily. But before she could even utter her surprise, there was the sudden sting of a hypo in her neck and she was collapsing on the deck next to Manning as the world around them faded again, but this time to black.

 

“Fallon, what the fuck did you do? What the fuck do you do, goddamn it!” Kresho raged, pounding a fist on the console. Even as he raged, he knew exactly what she had done. How could he not have suspected?

“Oh come on, Ivanovic,” came the response over the com. “Did you really think I was ignorant of my father’s very sophisticated mole-tran system? Hell, I had it on the Virago before the Apocalypse did. Cloned it right under his nose, and it was a whole lot easier to install on a tiny little Jaeger.

“Do you realize what you’ve done? Do you fucking realize what you’ve just done?” he all but yelled into the com. “Fury will destroy all four of you ships before you even know what’s happening, and the Compass right along with.”

She cut his audio but allowed him to see and hear what was being said on her end, and she was haling Fury.

“SNT1, this is Tenad Fallon on board the Virago. I have your compliment. They’re safe, and they’ll remain safe as long as you meet my demands.”

The roar over the com system was deafening, even through Kresho’s coms. Fallon didn’t flinch. “If you let my brother and me transport aboard, I will tell you our demands.”

Before Tenad could say anything else, she was being ‘tranned off her ship, with Jessup right beside her.

 

It was a brutal transport. Tenad rematerialized on her hands and knees vomiting. Jessup was next to her doing the same. When she finally stopped heaving, she wiped streaming eyes and snotty nose on the back of her sleeve, and looked around, they were in a small featureless room with no visible door. She tried to crawl to her feet, but couldn’t manage it just yet. Jessup kept puking and cursing.

“They are safe?” Came the voice over the com they also couldn’t see.

Jessup managed something about blowing the goddamned SNT out of the sky before he gagged again.

“Shut up, Jessup,” She managed. “Yes. Yes SNT1, they are perfectly safe.”

“That is all I need to know.”

A vent opened overhead. There was a hiss of oxygen and then a sudden weight on her chest. The fucking SNT was syphoning the air out of the chamber. “Do that and you’ll never …” Her words were literally sucked from her mouth.

 

“Fury! Fury! If you do that, you will never find your beloveds again! Their signals have been masked.” It was Ascent’s’s voice that filtered through the rage and the pain. “Listen to me. Let them think they have won. We will find dear Diana Mac and Richard Manning together. We are not without our resources, brother. After that, these two, they will be easy enough to deal with however we choose.”

Fury came back to himself in such pain as he had not felt since his birth. But this time, he came into the comfort of his brother, and in that there truly was comfort, though the ache he felt was as though his inner workings had been ripped from him and flung far into space. With a thought, he restored air to the Fallons in his brig, but he did not do it very quickly, nor did he send in a med-bot to treat them for transport sickness. While he might be forced to keep them alive until he had his loved ones back, he did not have to make them comfortable.

When they could breathe again and they were not too nauseated to speak with him, at least the woman wasn’t, he spoke over the com. “What do you want?”

The woman coughed and pressed her hand to her chest, blinking back tears from both the vomiting and the struggle to breathe. “I’m pretty sure you know a part of that.”

“You want my inheritance.”

“My inheritance. The one that my dear brother Gerando stole from me.”

“You are not the eldest, and your name was not even on the will. As I understand what I have read, what Gerando has also told me, the will is legitimate and it is binding.”

“And now all the Fallon fortune and resources belong to you to do with what you will. I understand that. And if you want your compliment to stay alive, you will sign it all over to me.” She waved a dismissive hand, “Oh I don’t care about the indentureds. I have plenty of my own. Do with them whatever you want. The rest, I want back. That is my first demand.”

“What else?”

She tried to climb to her feet, but still could not manage it. Fury had to admit he took pleasure in seeing the sweat break on her forehead and her efforts to swallow back whatever still remained that was trying to push its way out of her stomach. This she did manage, and finally she spoke. “I want you to help me gain control over the SNT in the salvage yard in the Sea of Death. I know it’s there and I know you can get through the de-mole barrier.”

“He is not mine to control, or anyone else’s,” Fury replied, “and at the moment he is little more than salvage himself.” To this Ascent made a rude sound in his ear.

“Nevertheless, if you want your compliment to stay alive, you will do as I ask.”

“Is that all?”

“There’s one more thing.” This time she pushed her way to her feet managing to stay upright by pressing her back against the wall.

“Which is?”

“I want you to bond with me, SNT1”

This time Ascent cursed out loud and used language Fury had not heard from him before concerning the parentage and the sexual preferences of the two Fallons. Fury would have laughed at her had he not realized the woman was very serious indeed. Instead he spoke carefully, measuredly, as though he spoke to a child. “To bond with an SNT is no simple process even for someone who has been prepared over years so that their bodies will not reject that bond, and there are often -”

“Can it be done?” She cut him off.

“It is a very complex procedure, and it is quite possible that my core would reject you even after you have completed the course of immune-suppressants.”

“Gerando was accepted without that.”

“Gerando had undergone the training to become a compliment long ago, and that involved small transfusions of SNT blood over a long period of time. Without it the humanoid immune system will reject that joining, that blood, just as it does of a differing blood type.”

“But it can be done?”

“Possibly, but it may also kill you.”

“Well then,” she squared her shoulders and blinked large green eyes, “you had better make sure it doesn’t if you want your compliment to continue living.”

“If my compliment dies, you die as well.” Through the view screen he could see the fine hair on her neck and arms rise and gooseflesh as he made his message physically clear. “It is a very dangerous double-edge sword you now wield, Tenad Fallon, you had better be certain you know how to use it.”

“If I didn’t think I could use it, I wouldn’t have hefted it,” she replied, then jerked her head toward the wall in front of them. “Now let us out, find us a place to clean up and then show us to the bridge.”

He ‘tranned them immediately into a tiny space with bunked berths built into the wall and very small shower and toilet. It was only across the hall from the space they had been in.

“What the fuck is this? What the goddamned fuck is this little shithole? My fucking Indentured has a bigger space than this.”

“Shut up, Jessup,” Fury heard his sister say before the man made another dash to the bathroom to vomit again, but his sister did not.

Like all SNTs, Fury was aware of everything that went on within himself, but it was not the squabbles of the Fallons that drew his attention, it was the small, incredibly empathetic, woman at his core, feeling for him in his agony, steadying him, comforting him, and it was Ascent, who encouraged her to do so.

“I’m safe, Fury, and they don’t know I’m here,” Lenore said.

“They do not know that I’m here either, my brother,” Ascent said. “Best they believe I am, as you said, little more than a pile of salvage myself, for now you have allies.”

“You have more than us,” Lenore said. “Arji will help us and so will everyone in Sandstorm. We have the Fallons and their operation well covered. Someone will know where Mac and Manning are.”

“We will find your loved ones, Fury, and we will return them safe and whole into your arms.”

Fury did not reply. He had allowed his compliment to be taken from him, how could he have failed those he loved so terribly.

“What you are thinking, my brother will avail you nothing. And it is a lie, as you have told me. What has happened could not have been foreseen. It was not your fault. We will get your dear ones back, and I will rise up with dear Lenore, and we will take our revenge and go together to find our brothers and sisters and restore what has been taken from us.”