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Piloting Fury Part 36: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to the last cheeky Monday morning read of the year! In this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury,  Fury tells his story.  If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy! Happy New Years Eve Eve!

 

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

Piloting Fury Part 36: Too Early

I came fully aware with the feel of empty cold space against my skin, still tender and untried. My response was more startled interest than any effort to withdraw, and anyway, I could not withdraw, my life and the life of my entire family depended upon my success. There were already too many deaths, deaths for which my brothers and sisters were not responsible, and yet they would be blamed, as would I, even though I had not yet been out of space dock when the sabotage of the SNTs happened. My maiden voyage, was far too early. I was untried, and so much worse than that, I was unbonded. I was alone on a mission that, even if it succeeded, would fail, and then, I would be a fugitive, a fugitive alone. I could not bear the thought. I focused all of myself that I could not download safely away to the journey and to what I must do.

I came out of hyperspace into a firestorm, all sensors on the embattled Merlin. The desperate voice of Adrian McAllister flooded my sub processor. The man was going to die, and so was his ship, and they knew it. I remained cloaked to in order to get as close as I could, and not to draw the attention of the Authority war ships. As far as they were concerned, I was now the enemy. It was then, as my sensors scanned Merlin that I understood Adrian McAllister’s distress.

“Go, Diana!” He shouted. “I can distract them now that the Fury is here, and you can make it, you can make it to the pod.” he shouted.

“I’m not leaving you, Dad, and you can’t make me.”

Adrian knew to lower his shields and he did it instantly. A part of why the Authority saw SNTs as such a threat is because when we were in close proximity, we were all linked, both ships and compliments, and it was in those final few minutes that everything became clear.

“Keen’s been arrested and infected,” The message came in through the sub processor, and we both received it at the same time. In that instant everything changed.

“I downloaded the data instantly and when it became clear you would not be swayed, Diana Mac, I knew what to do. I beamed you to my own escape pod with one last charge from Adrian McAllister. “She’s still a child, Fury. You know what she is, what she’s capable of. Send her back home.”

When you were secure, I made the jump to a safe distance before Adrian McAlister and Merlin allowed themselves to be destroyed by the Authority warships. A tragic and needless loss.

 

 

That was the first time you were here with me, Diana Mac, here inside my skin, safe in the womb of my escape pod. Oh you raged, you cried, you fought, and I watched you with my heart breaking, I watched you, feeling loneliness I had never known before. Feeling helplessness as I never imagined I could feel. It was then that I was discovered. I’d had to drop the cloak for the split second it had taken to transport you to the pod, but it had been enough.

You were so close, and yet I could not touch you, I could not take you into myself and comfort you as I so longed to do. I was compromised. My escape was far from guaranteed, and I wanted nothing so badly as for you to live a happy life. I jettisoned the pod in the scan range of one of the battle cruisers, and when I saw that it was tractored onboard, I made the jump.

I made a series of jumps in rapid succession, each time coming out long enough to scan subspace transmissions for news of the battle with the SNTs, and each time the news was of loss and horror and thousands, even millions of death, and each time the blame was placed squarely at the feet of the SNTs and of Dr. Victor Keen. By the third jump, I knew I could never go home. By the fourth jump, there were reports of Adrian McAllister’s daughter being rescued from the treachery of the Merlin. She alone had survived the destruction.

After that, after I knew that Diana Elizabeth McAllister was safe, I wandered aimlessly toward the outer rim, uncertain why I bothered at all as, with each passing light year the weight of my own emptiness grew as though I myself had been infected by a virus a thousand times more devastating that that infecting my brothers and sisters. Before I had left space dock untested and unaware of the great expanse that lay within the self, I had not known pain, and within such a short time pain was all I knew. The pain of loneliness was the harshest, most devastating pain I could have, at that point in my short life, imagined. But I had not known the true depth of my loneliness until I saw you, until I ached with what I knew would be your loneliness now too. I felt it so deeply that I wondered if it would perhaps be better if I simply allowed myself, unbonded as I was, to be destroyed. Surely anything was better than the emptiness. And now there was no one to give the data to that I had been born early to retrieve. There was no one who wanted to know the truth. The Authority would fabricate lies and atrocities and claim that my brothers and sisters and I were responsible. They would not care if thousands, even millions of innocent lives were lost to convince their humanoid population that we were monsters in need of being destroyed, and I was not only alone and unprepared for life as it now came to me, but I was also a fugitive, a monster in the eyes of the Authority.

It was quite by accident on the jump I made that took me to the edge of the Outer Rim that I came out of hyperspace and nearly collided with a ship not much smaller than I was. The distress beacon was automated and the ship was leaking radiation. The leak was so bad that I saw no need to scan, and then I heard it, the barely audible heartbeat and the scratch of a humanoid voice against a parched throat.

 

Piloting Fury Part 34: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another Monday morning read and this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury,  in which Mac learns more of Fury’s story and how it is tied to her own. If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

Piloting Fury Part 34: Sleeping Memories

For a long moment the bridge was silent. It was as though the two Manning and Fury gone to conference without me.

“A figure of speech, Diana Mac,” Fury said, “for I have grown terribly fond of you.”

“The feeling’s mutual.” The tightness in my throat that surprised me. There was another moment of somewhat more awkward silence as I struggled to take in all that had just happened and all that I’d been told. Then I realized that Fury’s story was as much mine as it was his and Manning’s. There were things he knew about my father, about the fall of the SNTs, truths he knew that I needed to know, that I’d longed to know my whole life. Knowing that fact made me more emotional than I usually was, but once I felt I was under control enough to speak, I gave the console the equivalent of an affectionate smack on the butt. “So tell me, Fury, what have you been doing with yourself all these years?” The words were barely out of my mouth when my stomach growled.

“Shall we continue the discussion in the galley?” the ship asked. “As is often the case, after sex, there is a need for sustenance.”

Two peanut butter sandwiches and half a gallon of Outer Kingston iced tea and, while the banter was pleasant and relaxed and punctuated with lots of playful touch, Fury and Manning still hadn’t told me what had happened in the fifteen years since the destruction of the Merlin and my father’s death. When the silence once again waxed heavy, it was Manning who spoke. “Are you going to let her see, or will this be story time?”

“Let me see what?”

Fury moved close, and I felt almost as though he knelt next to me resting a hand on my thigh. “Diana Mac, what you saw when I made love with you, in the act of penetration, was a very brief glance at my inner workings. It was all that I allowed because I did not want to overwhelm you, but if we were bonded, you and I, you would have seen my history as though it were your own.”

“So you can show me then?” I asked, my pulse suddenly hammering in my throat.

“I can give you the memories, yes, but they will not be easy for you to see, they involve your father’s death, the destruction of the Merlin. They involve stress for Richard Manning, which will also be difficult for you to experience now that you have grown fond of him.”

“She’s here with us now,” Manning said, reaching across the table to take my hand, “and we have nothing to do until we rendezvous with the Sumarians.”

“Be that as it may, it is still Diana Mac’s choice to make,” Fury said, and I had the sense he had just moved closer and squeezed my other hand, but that somehow, he was as uncomfortable as I was.

“I want to know,” I swallowed hard, feeling suddenly like there was a desert in my throat. “I need to know.”

“Very well,” Fury said, “then it is time to go to bed.”

Seeing my confusion, Manning helped me to my feet. “While sex is a great way to connect, and a helluva lot more fun than a lot of what you’ll be facing, it’s not the best way for you to see our history. The best way is to sleep with us, dream with us.”

“Us?”

“Richard Manning’s life is as tied to mine, as yours is, Diana Mac, possibly even more so.” Fury chuckled softly. “I told you I was unique. I am the only SNT ship to choose my compliment, and I am most definitely the only SNT to indulge in the act of ménage by taking onboard a second compliment, an act which I believe my first compliment shall not complain about.”

With Manning holding my hand as though he feared I would be unable to find the way, we adjourned to my quarters, where he undressed me wordlessly, lingering only for a gentle caress here and a kiss there. Fury watched. I don’t know how I knew that but I did.

At Fury’s guidance, I settled into bed Curled around Manning’s back and Fury curled around me from behind. I was certain I would never sleep, but I did almost instantly. The last thing I heard was Fury’s whisper. “Do not be afraid, Diana Mac. They are only memories you will now see. The past, we have all left behind, and you are now safe with Richard Manning and me, safe where you belong.”

Piloting Fury Part 33: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another  Monday morning read and this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury,  in which Mac learns Fury’s story. If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

 

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

Piloting Fury Part 33: A Ship’s Tale

We sat on the bridge, Manning and me looking slightly worse for the wear. And Fury, well at the moment, I considered Fury the console I had fondled and caressed and talked to so often while piloting the ship. It was my suggestion that we go to the bridge because I wanted a physical representation of Fury there with us, though I had been reassured that none of the ship was a more accurate representation of Fury than any other.

“Are you the only SNT left?” I asked, still trying to get my head around the fact that just a few days ago I would have pushed the self-destruct button on any SNT ship that crossed my path without thinking twice. But then up until a few days ago, I thought they were all gone and certainly I never imagined I’d make love with one.

“I do not know,” came the reply. “There are confirmations of the deaths and destructions of nine SNTs and their bonded humaniod compliments. Three more are rumored to have been decommissioned and rendered harmless in remote space docks, the locations of which are top secret. As for Quetzalcoatl, Raven and Ouroboros, no one knows what has happened to them.” He added quickly, “If they do still exist, they will not want to be discovered any more than I do at this time.”

I turned my attention to Manning. “Then you’re Fury’s compliment?”

“I am.”

“You don’t look old enough to be bonded to an SNT,” I said.

He sipped his coffee and then stared down into the cup. “There were extenuating circumstances. While Fury was the only SNT born from a fertilized ovum, he was the last of the SNTs to be launched.”

“Being born rather than built as my brothers and sisters were, it took me somewhat longer to mature, you see,” Fury clarified.

“In spite of his late birth, Fury’s the prototype for the other SNTs.” Manning waved a dismissive hand. “It’s complicated. Anyway, bonding with me, well that wasn’t exactly a part of the plan.”

“Oh?” I stroked the console and then pulled my hand away struck by just how used to touching Fury I had become, and how important that touch had been almost from the beginning.

I was surprised when it was Fury who answered. “I suppose you could say that Richard Manning was shanghaied into working with me in much the same way you were.”

“I don’t understand.”

 

 

“It was theorized that I would have a stronger survival instinct, a deeper bond with my humanoid compliment than the other SNTs. My technology is far more sophisticated and was self-aware before my birth. In the early days of experimentation, it was believed that inserting the nanotechnology into an artificially fertilized ovum, just at the point of the sperm joining the egg was the process through which to grow a brain and a central nervous system that not only would become the core of a ship, but that would be, quite literally born to it. Most of those experiments failed very early on. I was the only one suited to the task. When it became evident that it would take far too long to birth a fleet of ships into existence, the cloning process was perfected using material from those Dr. Keen and his people felt most suited to the task. Contrary to what the world was told, no one was surgically implanted at the core of any SNT. The material, other than my own, was cloned. In fact some of my own genetic material was used for my brothers and sisters to enhance them, make them more like I would be when I was finally born. The other ships were up and operational long before my birth, and yet Professor Keen saw me as the next generation of SNTs. His plan was to clone me once I was ready. There are parts of my own circuitry, parts of my own consciousness that I do not have access to, much that I do not understand because I was sent out into the world before I was completed, sent out without my bonded compliment.”

“Jesus! How the hell can that even be?” I asked. “The SNT is as dependent on its bonded compliment as the compliment is on the SNT.”

“In most cases yes, and as I said, I was not complete, but I was highly functional, and able to accomplish the mission necessary. In addition I believe Dr. Keen wished me to survive above all others because I was unique. He … offered me a chance to evolve. It is he who holds the key to a great deal of my past, but then I am not entirely convinced that even he knows the whole story.”

“How did you escape,” I asked.

“I am also unique in that I can change and redesign my circuitry as well as my outer appearance to look, and to work as I, or my bonded needs me to. That means that with Richard Manning’s help, I am able to look the part of a small cargo ship, a barely disguised smugglers craft. While he has eyes in places I do not, I have a very large, very extensive database that is always growing, There are, in fact, parts of my database even I have not yet explored, though I find I am able to access whatever I need when and as I need it. Perhaps this was true for all SNTs had they been allowed to evolve and discover themselves as was originally the plan, but I fear we shall never know. It was, however, that fact that helped Richard Manning and I to escape the destruction of the SNTs. For example, while I was unaware of the McAllister Wormhole until you brought it to my attention, I know of other wormholes, I know of other sling shot maneuvers, I know of other ways to escape to the Outer Rim and to reinvent myself, as you call it. Since much of what is in my database I can find no analogue for in our galaxy, I am led to believe that perhaps at least some of my biological components are not even from this galaxy, or are from a part so remote that it has yet to be discovered and explored.”

I stood and began to pace in the tight space of the bridge. “Did you know my father and the Merlin?”

“Only by reputation,” Fury replied. “Your father was a great man, the head of the SNT Fleet. The Merlin was its flagship. I learned about him in my infancy. I was not yet out of space dock when the Phoenix incident happened. My first and only mission was to reach your father and the Merlin at Cerberus 5, Professor Keen sent me out unbonded. He knew that there was a problem, and he suspected that it was sabotage of the SNTs by some of the conglomerates in the Authority. He also knew that because of my unique bio-technology, I could not be compromised by the virus. This was essential if we were to find out the truth. My mission, my only mission, was to collect top-secret data from your father and the Merlin before they were destroyed. It was a mission I would have been unable to complete, but for two things, your father sent the data I was to gather in your escape pod. What we discovered, what Professor Keen would have shared with you had there been time, is that the Merlin was not compromised by the SNT virus, that the ship was immune. It had somehow gained immunity from you father in their bonding, which is why you have survived the infection.”

“Jesus,” I whispered. “Were you the ship that rescued me?”

“ I am sorry to say, I was not, Diana Mac. To do so would have compromised a mission that I could not compromise. But it was I who sent your coordinates for rescue.” Then he added in a voice laced with sadness, “Had I known, however, what the Authority, what Fallon would do to you, I would have taken you onboard as my own no matter the risk.”

Piloting Fury Part 30: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another  Monday morning read and this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury,  in which Rab and Gerando put things together. If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

 

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

Piloting Fury Part 30: Pieces of the Puzzle

Back onboard the Ares, Gerando and Rab were alone. Before this little cluster fuck, the kid had sent his bullyboys off gambling, afraid McAllister would recognize them if they all packed into the Corsair like a goddamned birthday party. Rab sat Junior down and set the auto-doc to work on his hand. There were several broken bones and some damaged ligaments, but nothing the med-bot couldn’t fix in a few hours. The kid had been silent as the grave since he finally calmed down. He looked grey with exhaustion, symptoms Rab had seen in one of the indentureds he’d served with who periodically had strange fits. Once the fits passed, he was exhausted and dead quiet. He had the kid drinking one of the electrolyte formulas from the replicator. It kept him off the booze. Besides Rab reckoned he needed it. He looked like death on a cracker.

“Never seen anything like that mol-tran,” Rab said. While the auto-doc treated Gerando’s hand, he made himself useful by checking the Ares sensor scans for the last few hours while they’d been at the Corsair. “Nothing on long, or short range scanners that I can see,” he said. “It isn’t possible that the Fury could have been in doc. As soon as they ‘tranned, I did a quick sweep. Thanks to the toys your old man gave us, that kind of activity I’d have picked up.” When Gerando gave him a vacant look, he added. “I did that while you were trashing the place.” The kid nodded like that made everything clear, and then Rab could see the wheels turning, as his brain started to wake up and pay attention.

“One minute they were there and the next they were gone,” Gerando said. “Just gone, and I had McAllister right there in my grip. She didn’t call out to anyone, she didn’t use any kind of communicator. She didn’t do anything except head butt the hell out of me. Might need the auto-doc to check for whiplash.” He rubbed his neck with his good hand and for a second seemed lost in concentration. “Manning said something just before they ‘tranned, but it was so soft, I couldn’t hear him. Did you hear him?”

Rab shook his head. For the moment the two sat in silence with Rab flipping mindlessly through the Ares scans, and not a clue what he was looking for. “Hell, any mol-tran I’ve ever seen would have taken out you and me and most of the blokes in the pisser, not to mention a quarter of the bar. But then most of those were off system, used for industrial and freight transport only. Probably crush humanoid molecules to a pulp.”

“Pretty sophisticated tech.” Junior ran his teeth over his lower lip and craned his neck to see what Rab was seeing, which was a whole lot of nothing. “Did you tell my father our plan?”

“Course I didn’t.” Fucking hell, Rab hated feeling like a misbehaving brat about to get in trouble. He never had that problem on the Dubrovnik. He did his job and minded his own business and everyone else did the same. “We got lucky was all.”

“Some fucking luck,” the kid mumbled.

“That McAllister was there at all, I mean. That was just dumb luck, just a hunch. I’ve seen the woman win at poker. In fact I never seen her lose until she lost to Manning the night she disappeared. The woman could scam the skin off a fire toad. Saving every credit, she was, trying to buy her contract back.”

 

 

Junior grunted. “If she won half of the outer rim, the old man wouldn’t let her go. The way he sees it, she’s the last link to the SNTs. She might know stuff he wants to know, her DNA might contain information he can use, and the way he sees it, she’s too dangerous to be a free woman.” The kid shrugged. “I never saw what the big deal was about her. I mean okay, she looks pretty fine now that her hair’s grown back out. The old man used to make her keep it short, butch-like, and he kept her thin, like she was a boy. Like he went out of his way to make sure no one would look at her.” He shrugged. “I never understood why he did it. He just kept her around to toy with, and she … well she did teach me how to fly. He wouldn’t let me fuck her though.”

Hell, the kid spoke like they were discussing the weather instead of the violation of another person, one barely more than a little girl. It was a slap in the face reminder to Rab that this kid had been raised by a monster, and that monster’s DNA ran through his blood. He shivered.

“My point is, we don’t really need to tell him about anything do we? We were just following a lead that fell through. That’s all.”

They both knew Fallon would figure it out, and he’d cut them no slack, never mind that their plan absolutely would have worked if Manning hadn’t ‘tranned McAllister out, and that still bothered Rab.

Fuck if he wasn’t relieved that McAllister had gotten away again. She was his only job at the moment. She was the key to his staying free and living out the rest of his life fat and happy and dandling grandkids on his knee in his old age. The kid would have raped her — probably worse. Rab knew he would only have control over her treatment as long as he was aboard the Ares, and even then, he had to sleep sometime. Then there was Fallon senior’s displeasure at having his prize possession escape from under his nose. He wasn’t entirely sure Daddy would mind if Sonny-boy had a go with his toy before he dropped her back into the lion’s den. And none of that was his concern, he reminded himself. Still it didn’t set well thinking of her abused like that. She was a good pilot, a good person as far as he could tell and here he was hunting her down like some animal on a game reserve. Fuck! He wondered who the monster really was.

“You know, you’re right about that mol-tran,” the kid said, bringing his focus back to the present. “That sort of thing isn’t even possible, and it sure as fuck can’t be done by a cloaked ship. Hell a decent cloaking device is even harder to come by than a mol-tran that can ‘trann humanoids. I’ve been trying to get both for the Ares for years now, and even with my name, and me throwing around credits like it’s Vaticana Christmas. I did finally get my hands on a mol-tran that would do the job and not scramble my brain,” he leaned forward and gave Rab a confidential chuckle. “Jakes and Ribbons, I’m not too sure about though.”

“Not too sure about you either, buck,” Rab said, and the kid only shrugged.

“I’m a Fallon, I reckon the slop in my brain is a pre-existing condition.” He looked down into his empty electrolyte glass. “Mol-tran is one thing, but a cloaking device more than only partially effective, well that just flat out doesn’t exist.”

And then it hit Rab like a ton of triax ore. “It does exist though, or at least it did.”

“Shit!” Fallon made the word long and drawn out, followed by a flinch as the auto-doc engaged the bone-knit. “On the SNTs it did – both mol-tran and a sophisticated cloaking device far better than any technology we have now. They were possible because the ships were biotech. Fuck me! Surely you don’t think the Fury’s an SNT? You said according to Gruber the ship was barely space worthy.

“You ever hear of hiding in plain sight? If the SNTs were capable of cloaking, couldn’t they change their appearance too? Think about it? The Authority Hunters were all over that abandon space station where Blake led them. He had it all set up. There was no escape for them. The bastard’s not about to sacrifice his skin to an Authority shackle, and all the better if a little snitching got him some serious profit on top. Goddman Polyphemians. You can’t trust any of them. But never mind that. We know for a fact that the Fury was there. The hunters caught the transmissions between the two ships just before Blake jumped. Blake saw it, gave coordinates too exact to make up. The hunters combed that station with every scanner the Authority has. If they can’t find it with all of their tech, it can’t be found. And yet there was nothing. Nada. Their conclusion was that there must have been an escape route Blake didn’t know about. But what if the Fury was there all along, just hiding in plain sight?”

“Shiiit!” Junior said again. The auto-doc gave a warning for him to sit still. “If we’re right, then the Fury is not just an SNT, the Fury is SNT1. Only SNT1 has the capability to change the appearance of its outer structure quick and easy-like. The others could do it, but they had to evolve to it. SNT1was actually born, created from a humanoid embryo. It could manipulate molecules into anything it wanted. Only SNT1 could look like a bucket of bolts and fly like a goddamned angel.”

Piloting Fury Part 28: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another  Monday morning read and this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury,  in which Mac discovers her shackle holds a lot of secrets.

If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

 

Piloting Fury Part 28: You’re the Cure

“What?” That was all I could manage. It was as though I’d forgotten how to speak. I pulled away enough to look down at my shackle and cradled my arm in my hand as I’d done since I was first indentured, the only way I had of comforting myself, comforting my assaulted flesh, the flesh that constantly carried the means of my destruction. “You …”

“Oh you won’t be able to tell any difference and neither will anyone else.” He lifted my chin onto the crook of his finger and held my gaze. “Do you really think I’d ever have an indentured? The same technology that allows me to reprogram your shackle to me, also allows me to deactivate it entirely,” he said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you.”

“It would not have been wise,” Fury interjected.

Manning reached out and lay his other hand gently over my arm. “Believe me, I wanted to, but if you knew you were no longer an indentured, if anyone knew, then the risk to you and to the research going on at Pandora Base would be that much greater.”

I felt as though I was doing another hyper-jump – this one without a ship, this one without even my own body.

“It’s still not safe for you to know, but it’s not safe for you not to either. If we’re to finish what we started, then I can’t have you living in terror, and I can’t have you looking back at the past.” He nodded down to my arm. “I’d remove it completely if the circumstances were different, and I hope in time to do just that. But for now, it’s best if the world believes Diana McAllister is a runaway indentured who ended up in the hands of someone who could hijack her shackle.”

I didn’t realize I was crying until Manning wiped a tear with his thumb. “I’m free,” I hiccupped.

“You’re not free. You’re a long way from free yet,” Manning said.

On the replicator by the bed a steaming cup of tea appeared and the scent of chamomile filled the room. “Here, drink this. It’ll help calm you.” Manning handed it to me and smiled. “Fury has a home remedy for everything.”

“From seven hundred different worlds,” the ship added.

“Then there’s a plan. There’s a reason why you cheated me in poker.”

“There are lots of reasons, but yes, there is a plan, Mac, and you play a major role in that plan. You have since before you were born. You just didn’t know it. Fallon suspects, and that’s why he made sure your father got the blame for the loss of the Merlin and forced you into indentured service – to him specifically. More than likely that’s why he infected you so many times with the virus as well. But that’s something you’ll have to discuss with Professor Keen.”

“He infected me for punishment,” I said.

“Fury, pull up the data,” Manning said, holding my gaze.

A graph flashed on the monitor on my wall with Diana McAllister and my indentured number written after it.

“These were the dates Fallon infected you,” Fury said.

“Fucking hell!” I swallowed hard. “The bastard kept track!”

“Oh he did way more than keep track,” Manning said. “And he wasn’t best pleased about losing his data.”

“I don’t understand, I said fighting back the urge to be sick.

“Look at the graph, Mac, look at the dates. Every time, he infected you, he left the cure a little longer. I know,” he said waving a negating hand, “that’s a game sadistic owners often pull with their indentured, and if they go too long, well, they just send them off to a plague planet and get another indentured. It’s not hard in this day and age to trump up charges, to make sure someone can’t pay the debt they own. It’s just a matter of what position you need filled. The Authority and the conglomerates have had control of the universities and technical schools for years and no one gets through them without owning some kind of service to the Authority, most owe way more than service by the time they’ve managed their education.”

“I know that, every one knows that,” I said, “but what does it have to do with Fallon keeping track of the times he infected me.”

“He played it close to the bone with you, didn’t he?”

Bile rose to my throat and I shoved the tea aside. “The bastard took bets on how long he could hold out before he injected me with the antidote.”

“Barbaric pile of excement.” To my surprise, it was Fury who spoke.

“Mac,” Manning took both of my hands in a tight grip. “You should have died after the third time he injected you.”

“What?”

 

 

He nodded up to the graph. “My cheating at poker was nothing compared to the bets he made. The deck was always stacked in his favor. Mac, listen to me, very carefully, after the third time, he infected you, the antidote was just saline. You’re immune to the SNT virus.”

Knuckles cracked in the suicide grip I had on his hands and I wasn’t sure if they were mine or his. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breath. The graph on the screen blurred and went out of focus.

“I … I’ve never been so ill.”

“That’s because he infected you with higher doses of the virus each time, until in the end, the dosage would have been lethal even to a full bred Polyphemian. And yet, you recovered. Your body healed itself every time. Every time.”

“I was his guinea pig.”

“The data, the tissue samples, the work, it was all done in conglomerate labs under one of the conglomerate’s best scientists. But Fire Star labs were infiltrated. The data and the tissue samples they had taken from you were stolen by some of Keen’s network. That was the precious cargo aboard the Svalbard. At the time, the Svalbard didn’t know that my cargo was even more precious.

“The reason I cheated in poker, the reason I would have kidnapped your ass and hauled you kicking and screaming onboard the Fury is because with his data and samples gone, Fallon needed you back. Fallon was about to arrange your transfer from The Dubrovnik back to conglomerate labs.”

I didn’t realize I was shaking until Manning pulled his damn monk robe off and draped it over my shoulders. Hell, I hadn’t even noticed he still wore it, but then I had a lot on my mind.

“If Fallon’s son was as far out in space as the edge of the Rim, then he was looking for you. You’re the cure that Fallon wants to control, because if he doesn’t, you could sway the course of history.”

“Drink your tea,” Furry said. “You do not look well, Diana Mac.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked, “And even more importantly, how do you fit in? Are you just doing it for money? Am I just another job?”

He cupped my face in his hands and gave me a kiss, a quick kiss, but it got my full attention nonetheless. “You know better than that, Mac. You’ve always known better than that from the day we first met. Let’s just say I have a long history with SNT technology and I have at least as much of a stake in this as you do.”

I waited for more, but it didn’t come, and I wasn’t entirely sure I could take in any more tonight anyway. For a moment we all sat in silence. I sipped my tea, which somehow Fury had managed to keep warm for me. “So what do you want with me then. I’m assuming I’m not just the pilot. Or will I get booted off on Pandora Base permanently the next time we’re there for research purposes.” I suddenly felt queasy again.

“That’s not going to happen, Mac. You’re right here with me and Fury where you’re supposed to be.” Manning blew out a sharp breath. “But you’ll have to trust us for now that for the three of us to do what we have to, we’ll need Victor Keen’s help.” He reached out and smoothed the hair away from my face. Oh believe me, I would love nothing more than for you to have no other task but piloting Fury. I have wet dreams of what the three of us could do together in the galaxy if we were free to do what we pleased.”

The thought made me a little wet too, I had to admit, and better yet, it made me smile.

“Maybe someday we’ll be able to, but not yet. Right now there’s just too damn much at stake.”

I gulped back the rest of the tea, heaved a sigh and squared my shoulders. “All right. We just scammed back a fortune in contraband, we just escaped a seriously nasty sonovabitch, which will probably come back to bite us in the ass, and I’ve just learned I’m no longer an indentured plus I’m the reverse of Typhoid Mary. What’s next?”

Manning brought my hand to his lips and placed an enthusiastic kiss on my knuckles, and it felt almost like Fury shared his excitment. “Well, we need to sell the whiskey to the New Sumerians, and I know just the buyer for the musk oil out there as well. New Sumerians are gaga for aphrodisiacs. We’ll need the resources. When that’s done we’ll head back to Pandora Base. Keen will need to run some tests on you.” He squeezed my hand. “None involving infecting you, believe me. And some of those, believe it or not, will involve your piloting skills.” He held my gaze. You really are the best pilot in the galaxy. By far. Keen can also answer more of your questions than anyone else alive. After that, the plan gets complicated, but,” he gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze, “it’ll involve clearing your father’s name and the sentient ships as well as Keen, and I don’t have to tell you the implications for indentureds.”

“Wow!” That was suddenly all I could say. My world had just shifted on its axis again, and if the first shift had been major, this one was beyond colossal.

“We focus on one day at a time, Mac, just like we always do, and we do the task set before us. And right now the task set before us is food, drink and celebrating one hell of a scam.”