Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, book two of the Sentient Ship Series and the continuation of Fury’s journey to find his family.  I hope you enjoy.  In the meantime, if you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy! If you like what you’re reading, make sure to catch all of Dragon Ascending from the beginning.

Dragon Ascending :Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

On a desolate junkyard of a planetoid, scavenger Lenore Felik, disturbs something slumbering in a remote salvage dump and uncovers secrets of a tragic past and of the surprising role she must play in the terrifying present she now faces.

Robbed of her inheritance after her tyrannical father’s death, Tenad Fallon is out for revenge on her half-brothers, one who happens to be the sentient ship, Fury. Fury, with his human companions, Richard Manning and Diana McAllister, has his own agenda – finding the lost sentient ships and ending the scourge of indentured servitude in Authority space.

Dragon Ascending Part 15: Stranded

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ascent-7?”

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

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

Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, book two of the Sentient Ship Series and the continuation of Fury’s journey to find his family.   I hope you enjoy.  In the meantime, if you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy! If you like what you’re reading, make sure to catch all of Dragon Ascending from the beginning.

Dragon Ascending :Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

On a desolate junkyard of a planetoid, scavenger Lenore Felik, disturbs something slumbering in a remote salvage dump and uncovers secrets of a tragic past and of the surprising role she must play in the terrifying present she now faces.

Robbed of her inheritance after her tyrannical father’s death, Tenad Fallon is out for revenge on her half-brothers, one who happens to be the sentient ship, Fury. Fury, with his human companions, Richard Manning and Diana McAllister, has his own agenda – finding the lost sentient ships and ending the scourge of indentured servitude in Authority space.

Dragon Ascending Part 13: Too Close 

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

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

She did not.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No, indeed.”

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

“Is the bread not to your liking?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, book two of the Sentient Ship Series and the continuation of Fury’s journey to find his family.  I hope you enjoy.  In the meantime, if you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy! If you like what you’re reading, make sure to catch all of Dragon Ascending from the beginning.

Dragon Ascending :Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

On a desolate junkyard of a planetoid, scavenger Lenore Felik, disturbs something slumbering in a remote salvage dump and uncovers secrets of a tragic past and of the surprising role she must play in the terrifying present she now faces.

Robbed of her inheritance after her tyrannical father’s death, Tenad Fallon is out for revenge on her half-brothers, one who happens to be the sentient ship, Fury. Fury, with his human companions, Richard Manning and Diana McAllister, has his own agenda – finding the lost sentient ships and ending the scourge of indentured servitude in Authority space.

Dragon Ascending Part 11: Bad Blood

She flinched and forced a sour smile as the bot began its work. Her older brother and her father were not the only ones with very specific needs. She would have left the wounds untreated to prolong the pain if it had not been for her crew. She had learned long ago, growing up in the viper’s nest, that a Fallon never showed weakness, and while she could disguise most injuries, she expected this time that there was a cracked rib. The bot knew well enough to treat only the most severe injuries, only the most visible, at least there was that much, and then she could have the pleasure of the pain — the pain of the guilt. The longer the pain lasted, the less often she needed to run the risk of being found out. Though those who did find out would certainly not survive that knowledge. What a fucked up bunch the Fallon bastards all were. She wondered if SNT 1 was equally fucked up.

The man on the bed moaned and shifted. She studied him for a moment. “Diagnosis?” She asked the med-bot, which stopped its work on her ribs and scanned. “Internal bleeding, ruptured spleen, broken wrist and two fractured ribs along with various bruises and contusions,” came the reply.

“Prognosis?”

“One hundred percent recovery, however time in the infirmary will be required.”

That was disappointing. She should have known better than to use someone who was not an indentured. To use and indentured to service her needs and then have him healed would have only been protecting her investment, and an indentured knew better than to spread rumors. She sighed, flinched again at the Med-bot’s efforts, and said, “‘tran him out.”

Instantly the bed was empty. The voice command to her computer had been obeyed to the unwritten letter. Wherever into the vacuum of space the man had been ‘tranned would not be visible to any of the present crew. Yes, it was disappointing. It was always better with a non-indentured. There were so many more delicious risks. But if her sexual partner didn’t have the good graces to die in the act, then the situation had to be sorted. Sometimes, in some places, she could pick up someone at a bar or choose someone who could be easily explained away and easily replaced. Her predilection was best timed perfectly. That she had not done so this time was a testament to how truly angry she was at her brother’s interruption of her plans.

This communications officer was the loss of a resource that would be difficult to replace on Vodni Station. Oh she’d had her eye on the man for a while, but it had been her plan if she brought him to her bed to do so in a place where there were plenty of gifted replacements. That meant near the center of Authority space, and she avoided that hot bed of politics and intrigue as much as possible. No this man, she had planned to have only in her fantasies. This man would not be easily replaced no matter where they were. She seldom made such a juvenile mistake, so like something her elder brother would pull, and she was furious at herself for her few hours of weakness and what it would cost her. This man she would not even have considered if she not been cloistered with him over the deep space scanners trying to find a trace of SNT1 for long enough to be strung out and way too aware of his own rising hormones, working so closely with the boss. And it had been his skills that had actually pinpointed where SNT1 actually was and confirmed their speculations of its route in the first place.

She could not abide stupid men, and she refused to fuck them, so this man had signed his own fate by his brilliance, and she was even more aroused by the fact that he was just arrogant enough not to fear her. The one thing she did not want when she took someone to her bed was for them to fear her. That was the reason she didn’t relish taking indentureds. They lived in fear, and they all knew she held the key to their pain, their long anguished death, or even their release, all safely tucked away in a small black case and a micro syringe that she always kept on her person. But this one, Vidak, he had been good, really good, taking as much pleasure in his own pain as in inflicting pain upon her. Vaticana Jesu, she would have liked to keep him for later. Her weakness, her lack of control, had cost her far too much. With a grunt, she pulled away from the med-bot. “Leave it!” She said.

“There will be scarring on the lower hip and buttocks,” the bot warned. “And one rib is not completely healed. You will have to wrap it very tightly. I shall leave you bandages.”

“I can live with that,” she said. She deserved no better.

As quietly as it had come, the bot left, leaving a roll of bandaging on her dressing table. Once it was gone, she slid back into the wrecked bedding and over to the spot where Vidak had lain, still warm from the man’s body. She sighed deeply, breathing in the scent of blood and sex and the sweat of their fucking, of their shared rage. She lay on her back, her buttocks stinging excruciatingly as she slid down between the sheets, breath catching as she moved harsh hands over each bruise, each abrasion, each ache that still remained, especially between her thighs where he had battered her with such fury that she thought perhaps it was she who should die this time. He bloodied her as surely as if she had been a virgin, and that warmth still trickled down her thighs. That deep aching pain burned into pleasure so sharp that she saw the room through a sheen of tears. “You, I won’t forget soon, Vidak,” she gasped. Her heart rapped furiously against her injured ribs, her own scent rose to dominate the room with the crescendo of her need. Her own scent, her own blood, it would always and forever dominate the space, even in the pain she relished. As she shuddered against her fingers, and gave a cry of pain, she bit her lip and tasted that blood as she whispered. “Your skills I’ll enjoy awhile longer.”

She was drowsing in post-coital bliss, or as close to it as she ever came, when her PD pinged. She came back to herself cursing. She took two deeply painful breaths remembering that her ribs had not been properly treated. “What?”

“Jessup Fallon is out of sensory range, heading back toward Authority space,” her first lieutenant said.

“And SNT1?” She asked.

“No sign of any other ship.” There was no apology in his voice, no whining fear. He knew that she would hold him accountable only for his own actions and not a loss none of them could have foreseen.

“Lay in a course for Vodni Outpost then, and make sure I’m not disturbed.”

She broke off the link before Lieutenant Fizel could respond. Then she shoved back the sheets, now smelling of regret she did not need right at the moment. With an effort, she stood and limped toward the shower. The rib was going to be hard to disguise. At the bathroom door she stopped and spoke. “Camille, change the bed. Incinerate the sheets and the robe.” The indentured, who had been huddled unobtrusively in the corner, rose instantly and went to the task. Tenad smiled to herself. There were some tasks only a humanoid could properly manage, and Camille had clever hands. Inside the bathroom, she took two of the tablets that would ease the pain of her bodily functions enough for her to manage a piss without passing out and to keep infection at bay. She swallowed them without water. Then stepped into the shower and cranked the hot water. For a moment she leaned against the tiles feeling suddenly very cold. Then she scrubbed her aching body with a vigor that was anything but gentle. For a Fallon, gentle would never suffice.