Tag Archives: Free KDG read

Dragon Ascending Part 30: 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 30: It’s a Dream!

“I will not! I cannot! I will kill them all for what they have done! We are innocent! We have done nothing wrong. You have done nothing wrong. Please my love!” Please! The room erupted in fire. She was hot, burning, skin blistering and melting from her body, oxygen to hot to breathe, and then sucked from the chamber. And then she was wrenched from my heart and she was no more.

From a long way off, she could hear his cries of anguish. “Lenore! Lenore, please do not leave me.”

She burst from sleep gasping from a dream of fire, of skin blackening, of anguished pleas for her not to leave. And she was thirsty, so thirsty. She stumbled to the bathroom and drank deeply from the faucet, not bothering with the glass, letting the water run over her head. There had been no fire in her past. Her nightmares had always been of ice, of being entombed alive in it forever, of trying to escape it, constantly trying to escape it.

Jesu Vaticanus! She had been in Ascent’s nightmare! She knew the SNT stories, she knew the disaster that had followed the massacre of the Phoenix. She stumbled back to her bed, reeling from the thought. How could one little transfusion of Ascent’s genetic soup connect her so deeply with him that they dreamed together? That was something only a bonded compliment could do, and that with years of training and injections of immuno- depressants to make the compliments compatible. She was only seven when the SNT disaster happened. Even if she had dreamed of following in her uncle’s footsteps onboard one of the next generation SNTs, she was far too young to begin the training when she and her mother had fled.

At first she thought the shudder that trembled beneath her feet and dumped her on her ass on the floor was an earthquake. They happened often enough on a planetoid of shifting sand with an erratic orbit, but it didn’t feel right. She’d been through enough of the little tremors and the big bruisers to know that this wasn’t that. It was only when she tried to stand that she realized the shudders in her own body mirrored those of the ship. Fear, anguish, and heat! Suddenly it felt like the life support systems were malfunctioning and Ascent was roasting her. For the briefest moment she recalled her fear that he was not sane, that he might hurt her, but there was little time to dwell on it as heat shimmered red in the air around her sheening her body in sweat and plastering her hair to her nape. She stumbled again and cried out and the space around her groaned.

“Lenore! Lenore please don’t leave me! Please, please! I will not survive without you, my love.”

“You will! You must! You have to live to fight another day.” The words were out of her mouth before she realized they were not her own. They belonged to Ascent’s complement. Fuck! They not only belonged to her, but they were her dying words, and Ascent, Ascent was only calling out her name in his confusion, in his pain.

“Ascent, it’s a dream! It’s only a dream! You have to wake up now.”

The room shuddered and groaned again. He hadn’t heard her. He hadn’t fucking heard her! “Ascent! Wake up, goddamn it! It’s a dream. You have to wake up now!” When the room tilted again and she all but threw herself on the floor from loss of her own sense of balance as the world shifted around her. She burst into action, throwing on her clothes as she shouted, again for him to wake up, shouted until her throat was raw. When there was no response but a harsh moan that sounded almost human, she slid into her boots, dug through her pack for a headlamp and ran for the door. On second thought, she grabbed up the whole pack and shouldered into it as she donned the lamp. She didn’t know the layout of whichever SNT Ascent was. She didn’t know how long it would take her if she couldn’t wake him, but she did know if she couldn’t wake him soon, she wouldn’t survive his nightmare. She had to find the way to his heart and hope he’d let her close enough to wake him up. If he didn’t want her there she could end up hopelessly lost until he finally woke up on his own, or until the dream passed. If she survived that long. She didn’t even want to think about the risk she was taking just going to his heart. At the moment she had enough on her mind without dwelling on worse case scenarios, of which there were too many for comfort.

Dragon Ascending Part 27: 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 27:  Helpful Information

She was dozing between the bloody sheets she had shared with Teagues when her PD sounded. She tapped it to let her chief of security know she was listening.

“I have some information about Kresho Ivanovic you might find helpful, Ma’am,” he said.

Suddenly she was wide-awake, forcing herself through the pain to sit up on the side of the bed. “Give me twenty minutes and I’ll be right down.” She had already ‘tranned Teagues body into space, but Camille could never make the space presentable before Haydon got here. Best she meet him in his office. She knew the drill, the tablets the med bot insisted on, the essential treatments which allowed her to hang on to as much pain as possible while functioning without anyone knowing about it. The med-bot had already treated the worst of the injuries. Sadly, they weren’t as bad as she’d hoped. Apparently Teagues didn’t have quite the stomach for pain that he thought he did. Too bad really. But it had been enough to level her out for a while, and if not, there were always the indentureds. Under the circumstances, maybe it was a good thing that Teagues hadn’t been as tough as he thought he was. If the info Haydon had for her was anything of use, and he certainly wouldn’t have commed her in the middle of the night otherwise, she would need to be at her best to meet with Ivanovic tomorrow, and cracked ribs, she now realized, were not the sorts of things that man would miss. She came out of the shower to find Camille stripping the bed. For a second she watched the girl. She never flinched at her mistress’s predilections, no matter how messy they became, nor was she squeamish about the cleanup. Sometimes she wondered how much of the girl’s mind was left. Tenad had never punished her. There had never been a need. And unlike her father, it gave her no pleasure to hurt someone who couldn’t return the pain. Camille was, to some degree, like the med-bot, always there, always doing her job, never commenting, never moaning. Perhaps her mind was gone. It happened. Tenad had heard that living with the threat of the SNT virus over your head as all indentured did had been known to wreck an indentured’s mind. But as long as Camille served her well and made no trouble, she figured the girl was probably better off without too much ability to let her mind wander. She left her to her cleanup and headed for the Haydon’s office.

For a split second in the lift she let her mind wander to what it might be like to fuck Ivanovic. He was certainly intriguing enough. And he was very much off limits. That in itself made him fodder for her fantasies. What she wanted, but knew she didn’t dare give in to. Still, he was so very enticing.

What she needed was his cooperation. For some reason he was as interested in the Dart’s mysterious arrival as she was. Fair enough, it was his station and he didn’t want some phantom ship that could hurl other ships into deep space threating what was his. But he wasn’t a stupid man. He was as mysterious as this ship was. And she didn’t like things she couldn’t define, things that made her nervous. They too often came back to bite her in the butt when she least expected it. Unknowns in an equation troubled her until she solved them. And this troublesome man was letting her into his business way too easily. He knew her people were snooping about, and he let them. Okay, she was a Fallon and he wanted to be rid of her as soon as possible. She got that. But most deep space stations would have taken a Fallon and head of the Nebula Conglomerate for all it could get. Granted, he was doing that too, but there was something else, something she couldn’t put her finger on.

Ten minutes later, in Haydon’s office with the files before her on her chief of security’s tablet, she could barely believe her luck. What her head of security shared with her about Kresho Ivanovic was the last thing she would have ever expected, and very well might be the most helpful tidbit of information she’d had in ages.

 

 

Dragon Ascending Part 25: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Happy Monday everyone!  And welcome to the first Monday read of 2026! 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 25: I Wish to Return to My Slumber

I was resolved that I must find a way to return to my slumber. Lenore asked too many questions, and I felt each of those questions like the reopening of critical wounds I wished not to feel again. If I allowed her to stay, her very presence would force those wounds open again and again. Had it not been the longing for, the hoping for my companion that had awoken me to Lenore’s presence to begin with? She was no substitute for the one, which I would never have again, and that I had allowed her to entice me from my slumber was a mistake.

Still I could not send her away until I could safely return her to Sandstorm Outpost. It was as I dwelt upon these thoughts that I heard her cry out in her dreams, crying out for her mother in such pain that I felt it in my own heart, a pain I wished not to feel, but I could not separate myself from it, I could not leave her in such agony. It was then that I violated her. Oh not intentionally, and not in the way that the beasts from the Dart had, but it was the connection forged by my blood that now lay open and unprotected between us that revealed her dreams to me as clearly as if they had been my own.

There was ice and snow everywhere and Lenore hid half suffocating half freezing in the recesses or a tiny ice shelter. I saw through her eyes, her thoughts were my own, even as I recovered the data that would have allowed me to close the connection between us enough for her to maintain her privacy, I did not.

Helplessly she watched the man from the ship shove her mother into the snow. “Mama!” I felt the wind freeze the words to ice in her throat, her cry swallowed up by the howl. “Mama!” She cried out bursting from the drift of snow, sounding so much the child that she must have been on Taklamakan Minor. Her pain, her pain! It was not physical, but it was a pain I understood to be so very much worse. I felt it with no shield, I felt as though this moment I lived it, as though this moment I lived it for her. But her pain was nothing to her fear, cold terror in the pit of her stomach, my stomach, clenching her heart, my heart. I was cold, I was terrified and I could not get to my mother. I was not fast enough. I was not fast enough! Pain! Cold, icy cold! Fear beyond what a child should endure, beyond what anyone should endure as I tried to run to my mother. Then the dreamscape slowed to an agonizing pace, like the dragging quick sands my sensors told me had limited the growth of my salvage dump to the south. I did not want the moments to drag out, I wanted only to wake up. I did not want to hear my mother yell for me to run, to hide. I did not want to see the knife brighter, than the cold sun slip up into my mother’s heart. And the man turned away without looking back, leaving me to die. Leaving me alone in this horrible place, for I knew beyond knowing that my mama was dead, and no one would come for me.

It was then that Lenore burst up out of sleep sat up in her bed and sobbed into her hands, and I … I left her to suffer alone, severing the connection, but not before the wave of her own anguish broke over me to join with my own.

 

Len had no desire to sleep after the dream. Instead she wondered the limited space that was lit for her access. There were tantalizing passageways that disappeared into deep darkness, there were ladders that disappeared up into rising tunnels. The lift took her to multiple floors, but all of them were darkened, all of them were frightening, forbidding, leading who knew where into the inner recesses of an SNT ship whose mental stability she was unsure of. Had Ascent killed his own compliment?  So little was known about what had actually happened during the SNT Uprising, what was truth and what was rumor. All she could really do was speculate. What she did know for certain, deep in her gut, was that whatever had happened to the SNTs, the Authority had been to blame, as they had with her mother’s death. She wrapped her arms around herself and fought back the memories she didn’t want to revisit. It had been a long time since she dreamed that dream. She hated it above all the nightmares that had visited her since her mother and she arrived on Tak Minor. It was the one she could never escape, the one that she had actually lived in the waking world, and she could no more stop the dream when it happened than she’d been able to stop the events in the real world.

She walked the confines of the space Ascent had lit for her again and again until she was tired, but she still didn’t want to return to her quarters and risk more dreams. She found a place at the edge of the light where the passage disappeared into the black and settled on the floor against the wall. She was angry at Ascent for having left her vulnerable to the dream after all these years. It had always been her ambition to get off Tak Major and find out what happened to her uncle and Quetzalcoatl, she had never been able to manage it, always barely surviving, always on step ahead of dehydration and hunger. It had never entered her mind that she’d connect with another SNT, and in this way, nor had she thought what might happen when she did, what memories and nightmares would resurface. And now what? Would she spend the rest of her life here, effectively a prisoner, walking on eggshells just in case an enraged Ascent turned violent? Well, she’d lived her whole life on eggshells anyway, hadn’t she? Every ship that visited Tak Major caused her to hide in the salvage dumps until she knew for certain it wasn’t a rogue Authority ship. No one on Tak Major was fond of the rare Authority visitor, and ultimately everyone feared the shackle, but no on had reason to fear like she did. Even with Abriad Fallon’s strange death, indentureds were inherited wealth, so the indentureds would never be free. And she would never be out of the shadow of the shackle until she could get off this rock and safely out beyond the Rim. Tak Major was all the shackle she wanted. It certainly felt like she was indentured to it.

 

 

It was the smell of breakfast that woke her from a doze. A table spread with bacon and eggs and scones had been placed next to her. The growl of her stomach was a reminder that she had not finished her dinner last night. After Ascent’s unintentional revelation, and his abrupt exit, she had lost what little was left of her appetite.

“You were not in your room. Is it not satisfactory?” Once again Ascent sounded more like a ship’s computer.

“It’s fine. I just couldn’t sleep,” she lied, rubbing her eyes. Then she shoved to her feet and settled at the table. “I would have come back for breakfast if you had called me. I didn’t mean to cause you extra trouble.”

“It was no more trouble than any other meal I have set before you. Sustenance for humanoids is a part of my programming.”

SNTs were not programmed, she nearly let slip, but instead she buttered a scone and said politely, “thank you.”

She ate a few bites in silence, enjoying the flavor of some blend of black tea, something she’d not had since her early childhood. All the while she sensed him waiting expectantly. She swallowed and set aside her cutlery. “What is it, Ascent? What is it you want to say?”

“I wish to return to my slumber,” he all but blurted. This he most definitely did not sound like a ship’s computer.

“I understand,” she said, around the hammering of her heart. This was no surprise, and perhaps it was best this way when she didn’t know if she could trust him. “You know I can’t go back to Sandstorm without your help.”

“Of course I know. I have begun plans for a mode of transport that will return you to your home.”

She nearly blurted that she had no home, only a series of differing prisons, but she said. “Thank you.”

“I do not know how long it will take me, but I shall work as swiftly as I can, and I shall be too busy to socialize with you unless I am in need of your input.”

“I understand. I won’t disturb you.”

“All your needs shall be met, as always, and if I have overlooked anything you only need ask.”

“I can’t sit around my little space and do nothing during that time.”

“I understand,” came the reply. “You shall have supplies and access to the salvage yard. I only ask that you do not go beyond your supply and that you do not ration your water, as there is no need.”

“I won’t. And inside?”

“I shall open up a little more of myself so that you may have more space and comfort. You may access my library of literature and science. That I do know how to access, and I shall make it available to you. What I can open to you I shall, but I ask that you do not go into the areas that remain unlit, for it may be very dangerous in the darkness.”

“Thank you. I won’t.” Once again, she found her appetite lacking, but she forced herself to eat anyway, knowing that she would most definitely need her strength for the return journey to Sandstorm. “I would like to explore as much as possible outside. That’s why I risked coming in the first place. Perhaps I may find something of value that will help me buy space on a ship going to the Outer Rim.”

For a moment the corridor filled with the crackling static of Ascent’s silence and she froze. Finally he spoke, and she realized she had been holding her breath. “That is a very long way from here,” he commented.

“Not far enough.” The bitterness bled through in her voice as she recalled her escape from Authority space with her mother, and then … and then she slammed the door of unwanted memories shut.

The static of silence returned. This time her own bitterness made her less fearful. Maybe he’d just kill her and get it over with. Anything was better than living this half life.

“Lenore,” this time he did not sound like a ship at all, but like the Ascent who had held her close in the darkness. “I will not hurt you. You do not need to fear me.” There was pain in his voice that felt like a strange lump in her chest.

She let out a tight breath and looked down at her hands clenched on the table. “I know.”

“It is only that I believe it is best for both of us if you return to Sandstorm Outpost and I to my slumber. But I will do what I may to help you find salvage of enough value that you may buy your passage away from here.”

            “You could take me,” she blurted out without thinking. “This place can’t be good for you either. We could go together.”

It was almost as though the whole of the corridor drew in a sharp breath. “I cannot,” he said. And then he was gone.

 

Dragon Ascending Part 19: 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 19: Am I Your Prisoner?

Len fell long enough that her stomach threatened to climb out her throat and the sensation of free fall was almost there, then instantly replace by tight enveloping darkness and a hissed “shush” in her ear. “We are being scanned,” Ascent-7 whispered so close it felt as though it were in her head.

“The Dart?”

“No.”

It was only when Ascent answered that Len realized she hadn’t spoken the words.

“They will not find us here,” his response was also a thought. Len knew there was nano chip technology that could link ships and their most important crew sub-vocally, but this, this was far beyond that tech. This was instant thought communication. It didn’t exist. Ascent-7 sure as hell was no salvaged wreck. For the first time it entered her mind that whoever was out there wasn’t looking for her at all. And then she truly was terrified.

“You must relax, Lenore. We are safe here,” Came the comforting voice in her head. “You are trembling, and your pulse rate is too fast.”

Oh! Oh, there were all sorts of responses she would like to make to that little remark, but she decided instead to try to keep her thoughts to herself. Vaticana Jesu! Could he read her thoughts? When she could breathe again and was sure she wouldn’t pass out, she became aware of her surroundings, the ones she could not see, but she sure as hell could feel. Those surroundings were most definitely male. Her heart rate spiked again. “Am I your prisoner?” She asked – whispered this time.

“You are not,” came his reply in her head. “Now be quiet please. We are in danger.” If it were possible, he wrapped himself still more tightly around her, almost as if by doing so he could calm her. And she clung to him too, arms wrapped tightly around his neck, fear flooding her nerve endings, fear that she had never lived terribly far from since she had escaped Authority space with her mother. Fear kept you alive, and sometimes, sometimes even that was not enough.

Ascent held her securely tucked against his chest, a broad strong chest she could feel every detail of, and it was bare. Warm skin against her cheek? That wasn’t even possible. She listened for the beating of a heart, but she could hear little above the hammer fall of her own. Perhaps he was humanoid, perhaps there was a humanoid living out here hidden away in the wreckage, then why hadn’t he shown himself if that were true.

She was aware that long haul ships especially the smaller ones, quite often provided for the sexual needs of their crew with pleasure tech, not that she’d ever had the experience. The only long haul ship she’d ever been on was the one that had whisked her and her mother away from their home in Authority space when she was just a child. She would not have been aware or interested in such things then. All she recalled well was that her uncle was missing and presumed dead and because of that they’d had to run. Mostly she knew about the pleasure tech able to shape itself into humanoid form for the pleasuring of small crews on deep space missions because the functioning parts of that pleasure tech were worth a fortune in the salvage yards and most often snapped up immediately. After her mother’s death, when she came to live on Tak Major, she fantasize about being lucky enough to find a functioning device in the salvage yards that had been overlooked, which would have made her well off enough financially to catch a transport off this rock to somewhere decent beyond the Rim. Even as valuable as they were, those systems were crude. They were functional and clunky, not that anyone minded when their only other companionship was another smelly crewmate or two, or possibly not even that.

But this, blessed baby Jesu! In the dark, Ascent-7 felt completely humanoid, completely male and … really happy to see her. Flashes of her violation reminded her too vividly of what could happen when men had been too long without companionship. Ascent-7 was so much stronger than any humanoid, and no doubt badly damaged or he wouldn’t be here in the salvage yard. Her skin sheened in cold sweat and she tensed.

 

 

“I will not harm you,” came the response in her head. “Please do not worry. You are safe with me.” The embrace relaxed a little and the erection dissipated slightly. “It is only that I have not embraced a humanoid in a very long time.” The erection vanished completely, and there was an ache of sadness that somehow Len knew belonged to the computer, even though she felt it somewhere deep below her heart. She didn’t know how a computer could feel anything. Surely it was only mirroring human emotions, emotions that could have even been her own really. Before the Dart, she’d had no humanoid embrace since her mother’s death. Her friends in Sandstorm had protected her from the worst of the rusters who came in for salvage. Though in truth she’d had little desire to get close to anyone after her mother’s death, and living on her own and spending most of her time beneath the salvage heaps, there was no one to get close to. What happened on the Dart was not anything she’d ever want to repeat, but this, what Ascent felt like around her, this was something totally different. She understood his pain, and his closeness she welcomed.

This time it was she who tightened the embrace. “I’m sorry,” she whispered very softly against his ear, misjudging the distance and brushing her lips against that warm spiral curve.

His breath caught, surely breath he did not have. “As am I,” came the equally soft whisper of warm lips against her ear.

She wasn’t sure how long they remained in the embrace, the pleasure of human closeness. The erection slowly returned, but he made no advances, and she could not ignore the aching hardness of her nipples beneath her clothing and the clench below her belly that made her want to move still closer, to shift and squirm and wrap herself around him as he had her. Instead, she indulged the embrace, relishing his nearness, marveling at what it felt like to have maleness engulf her in safety, even to perhaps desire her a little, or at least the comfort of her body. It was a long time before she felt solid footing beneath her feet and Ascent-7 spoke out loud this time. “They have gone. They are no longer scanning the salvage yard.” Utility lighting came on just enough to illuminate a corridor that was not a part of Len’s short context with the computer. The embrace disappeared, though she sensed as she recovered her balance, that should she stumble, Ascent would not allow her to fall. “Come,” he said, and the path ahead of her illuminated still further revealing pristine white walls with a metallic sheen. “You must rehydrate and eat, then you may have a shower.”

“I have questions.” She followed him down the corridor. “Lots of questions.”

“I shall give you what answers I may,” came the reply, “Once you have refreshed yourself and rested.”

“Do you know who it was scanning us?” She asked as they stepped into a lift.

“I do not. I feel that I should, but I do not. I feel strongly that we must not reveal ourselves.”

“They’re after you, not me.” It wasn’t a question. It was a fact. She was no one anyone would ever look for, and that was just the way she planned to keep it.

“Perhaps.” The doors of the lift closed around her and her stomach dropped at the speed of the ascent.

“You’re a big ship?”

“My size is irrelevant,” came the reply. Silence returned and for a moment she was afraid he would once again give her the silent treatment. When the elevator stopped, they turned at a junction that almost instantly brought them to the open door of her chamber. The smell coming from inside was exquisite and she realized for the first time since she had broke and run just how hungry she was. This time the drink in the glass was bright orange. It was accompanied by a pitcher of water. “What is it?”

“Only another variation in the electrolyte formula I have been serving you. This one will boost any nutrients and minerals you have lost from your flight in the Shimmer, since clearly you did not partake liberally of the water I provided.”

“Sorry,” she said, downing the contents of the glass in thirsty gulps. “I’m not used to having any spare water.”

“You could have sustained severe damage from the heat.”

She smiled as she dug into a pasta dish she could not identify, but it was divine. “You don’t need to baby me,” she said around a mouthful, which she chased with a glass of water.

“I do not wish to have you damaged again after you were so difficult to repair in the first place.”

“Ascent,” she sat down the glass and wiped sweaty palms on her trousers. “Ascent, how badly damaged was I? I mean I remember falling before I blacked out. I couldn’t make the leap. The only other thing I remember after that was waking up in the darkness and knowing someone was there. I thought perhaps the Religiosers were right and maybe there was an afterlife. I thought I was dead.”

“You were dead, Lenore,” came the reply, “and I could not remember how to fix you.

He said something after that, but she heard nothing over the beating of wings in her ears and her struggle to breathe.

 

Dragon Ascending Part 17: 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 17: Fire! Ice! Loss!

Once on the ground, Len looked up to see the airlock much as it had been when she had arrived convinced she sought only shelter where she could die in peace. Looking at it now, there was no way she could have made the leap from where she had perched that evening. Ascent 7 had somehow caught her as she fell. She shivered. How could that even be possible? And yet, according to him, his ship still had enough functionality to shoot down a starling class freighter from high orbit. As she looked up at the airlock above, the heat waves around it lazily shimmered, then convulsed and in its place was nothing more than a mountain of wreckage and metallic debris. The ship’s outer airlock was impossible to perceive. All that remained was the small red blip on her PD. “Thank you,” she said again. As she turned to face the kilometers and kilometers of space junk, there was another chirp of the PD and she glanced down to see a second blip on the monitor nearly on top of the first, a representation of herself. A quick study of the graphic of the area showed an outline that glowed red, which she recognized according to the scale as the de-mole perimeter. Upon it there was no evidence of a breach. She stood for a moment more studying her location and remembering what she could about her desperate arrival. She had not come straight from the perimeter breach to Ascent 7’s airlock, not wanting to make it easy for any predators, which might have followed the trail of blood. She had entered the breach and then turned immediately left. She remembered her PD had shown her the outline of the de-mole, so she had it with her at that point. There was no way of knowing how far she had come. She was not in any kind of state to hurry, nor to judge time. Her PD would have given her all of that information, but that was a moot point now. She headed in the direction she had come following the perimeter. Perhaps the PD Ascent 7 had given her was sophisticated enough to not show the breach until she got to it.

The heat beat down on her even through the loose light clothing. She fucking hated the Taklamakan heat. She much preferred the icy chill of night, minus the perpetual wind that howled until dawn, of course. She walked slowly, keeping one eye on the PD and another on the barely visible shimmer of the do-mole. Every once in a while she would pick up a small stone and toss it at the fence, where it would instantly disintegrate back to its molecular elements. Occasionally she stopped to sip water from the insulated flask that kept it cool. Creature comforts and attention to detail. Ascent 7 seemed to be all about both. The knot returned to her stomach. She missed his company. How could it be that she’d grown used to it so quickly? She’d probably had more conversation with him than she’d had with anyone at Sandstorm Base for the past year, unless you count those haggling over the price of some piece of rubbish she’d been desperate enough to steal from one of the yards and sell back again.

She walked slowly, carefully, for over an hour. Much farther than she could have possibly made in her injured condition. No matter how long it had taken to get her to Asctent 7’s airlock, there’s no way it could have been far. Had she turned the wrong way? Sweat ran in little riverlets down her back even as it dried in salty trails and formed again. She squinted hard in spite of the goggles and pulled the cloth up tighter around her face. Any signs of her passing would have all been scoured away in the wind. She pulled a concentrated journey bar from her pack and nibbled it, surprised by the rich intensity of the flavor, then she drank again and turned back the other way. She must have mistaken the direction she’d turned. The heat rose in shimmering waves from the ground playing tricks on her eyes, making living things out of dancing heat, blasting the shadows with dusty knee-high clouds that ebbed and flowed like someone might have passed that way, then blended with the shadows until every movement lost clarity, every shifting felt like an intruder waiting to pounce on her, waiting to finish what the assholes on the Dart had started, like predators that had found their way in at the scent of her blood and lay in wait for a meal that would eventually come if they were only patient enough.

 

 

The skin along her neck prickled and she glanced behind her. But of course no one was there. Surely Ascent 7’s hiding place was well guarded, but then she was an hour away from the airlock. A lot could happen in an hour. Sweat dripped down inside the goggles and stung her eyes. She gave the PD a little shake. Perhaps it was miscalibrated. But it wasn’t. Again the thought ran through her head that perhaps Ascent 7 was pushing the limits of his functionality to care for her. She shivered in spite of the heat and pushed that thought out of her head. Perhaps she had gone farther than she thought. Damp hair stuck to the back of her neck and the heat beating down on her felt like a physical thing as she trudged back.

When she arrived, the force field that hid Ascent 7’s airlock trembled away and the cool of the interior beckoned her. Instead, she took another careful sip of water, blinked her stinging eyes and continued on in the opposite direction, watching the PD’s readout more carefully. Her sense of time and distance had always been good. It saved her life more than once while exploring the salvage yards for something she could sell. Yes, there was nothing wrong with the PD, she was almost certain after she had walked for an hour in the other direction and then carried on another fifteen minutes and then another just for good measure. Her mouth felt like a sandpit as she carefully sipped the water. She had walked into the heat of the day now, the Shimmer, they called it on Taklamakan. It was something she knew better than to do. Still no sign of the breach in the de-mole.

An hour and a half out meant an hour and a half back. She should have never taken such an unnecessary risk. There were too many things that could go wrong in the Shimmer. Along with the exhaustion and the weight of the heat that squeezed in against her still weakened body, threatening to suffocate her, there was a rising fear in the pit of her stomach she still could not dare to give thought to. The breach had been larger upon her arrival to ease her passage. It was now gone. She could not get out. Would Ascent 7 allow her out if she asked, or was she his prisoner?

She pushed the thought to the back of her heat-addled brain as the return stretched before her, every step longer and harder than the one before. She tripped over her own feet and fell to her hands and knees. It should have jarred ribs still tender at the very least, but she felt nothing unusual, no pain at all. For a long moment, she stayed on all fours, catching her breath, fighting off the panic and the anger that what she had done, how she had pushed herself had been stupid. She had just calmed herself and shoved to her feet when she felt it. Around her the air shifted, then stilled, charged and full. A chill passed over her, as though she were suddenly immersed in deep shadow, though the sky was empty and baked as it always was. The hair on her arms and neck bristled from the static and for the briefest of moments she was certain she felt a wisp of breath along her neck. She yelped and ran, like all the banshees of hell were chasing her. Running in the Shimmer was sheer madness, but stopping seemed stupider still, terrified to look behind her, knowing beyond knowing that she was not alone. “Ascent!” She gasped out loud. Then she screamed, “Ascent!” Though she didn’t know what the hell she expected a fucking computer to do when she was still at least an hour away from the airlock. The heat, the heat, the heat! It beat her shoulders with every step. She had to get back, she had to get back!

The feel of the prickle against her skin drove her past her abilities, way past. It wasn’t possible she could run this fast in the heat. In the Shimmer it was barely possible to do more than shamble without passing out. The inexplicable increase in speed didn’t stop the feel of her lungs on fire or her heart in hyper drive. The speed was unsustainable. She was unsustainable. She wanted only to sleep and forget the fire, the loss, the loss the LOSS! What kind of fucking thought was that? Sure there had been loss in her life, but she didn’t want to go to sleep, and it had been ice, so much ice. Not fire. Always ice. She slammed down the wall in her head that held back the ice and the snow. Now was not the time to navel gaze, now was the time to move her ass. Just at the moment she was certain her heart would explode and she would die, the ground opened beneath her feet and swallowed her up. There was no infestation, no glass serpent’s maw, just sand. Sand that was there, then suddenly gone. For a moment she fell into total darkness.