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Piloting Fury Part 30: A KDG Scifi Romance

 

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

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.”

 

Piloting Fury Part 25: KDG Scifi Romance

Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another  Monday morning read.

I’m off to glorious Northmoor in Devon this week for the annual writers retreat — my favourite week of the year, but Fury is ready with a brand new Monday Episode. Enjoy!

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 seemed like 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 25: Playing to Win

From low orbit, we Mol-tranned into the alley behind the Corsair and left Fury in charge of getting us back safe and sound. When we ‘tranned, Manning pulled me close like he was afraid he’d lose me. As we rematerialized, he stepped back and gave me one last head to toe, then gave me a wicked smile. “If I didn’t know what’s about to happen to the poor bastard, I damn near envy Blake spending the evening with you, and so will everyone else.” He touched my neck where the insert was. “The owner of the Corsair owes me a favor, so I got her to drop the shields that prevent Mol-tranning. Fury has a permanent lock on both of us, and you’ll be out of there in a heartbeat if anything looks even slightly suspicious.”

I nodded and turned to leave, but he pulled me back. “I’m serious, Mac. Nothing we’ve lost is worth losing you over, do you understand?”

I nodded again, already in the zone, knowing what I was about to do was something Manning couldn’t manage without me, and I really wanted to do it for the team I now felt a part of, in spite of the shackle in my forearm.

He took me by my shoulders and gave me a gentle shake, as he might have done to wake me up. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks, all right? You belong to me now, me and Fury. Trust us to take care of you, to keep you safe.”

If that wasn’t enough to make me feel warm and fuzzy clear down to my toes, the bastard took my face in his hands and kissed me. He kissed me like no one had ever kissed me. Oh it was just a quick dart in and back out again, but he left me with no doubt where I belonged. Jesus! He left me with no doubt that I actually did belong, and possibly for more than what I could contribute to Manning’s own Atlas account.

He checked the layer of Dermanew disguising my shackle and ID number one last time. Then he stepped back. “Go. Stella has a table reserved for you in the corner so you won’t draw too much attention. In fact, I paid her well to be sure it’s only Blake’s attention you draw. I’ll be lurking.” He pulled the hood of the New Vaticana monk’s robe he was wearing up over his head and gave my hand one last squeeze. “Good luck.”

Inside a woman with bright yellow hair piled high on top of her head led me to a table near the back without a word spoken. I wondered if she was Stella. I ordered a drink then pulled out the deck of cards and began a game of solitaire keeping one eye on the main entrance. Manning walked in and, at the sight of a monk, one of the Corsair’s good time girls bowed before him and brought his hand to her lips. He laid a palm on her head and offered her the iglacial symbol for the forgiveness of sins. I wondered how he’d learned to be so priestly. Adjusting his hood, he found a place at the bar, and his gaze moved slowly around the room until it settled briefly on me with a barley perceptible nod. Then he gave a casual glance toward the open door, now completely in the shadow of a mountain of a man. The yellow-haired woman greeted him with an affectionate slap on the back then guided him to a table that was so close it was almost in my lap.

While Banshee Blake was only slightly smaller than Fury’s shuttle, he was most definitely not a fat bastard – well perhaps he was a bastard, a good number of the folks who hung out in places like the Corsair were, but he wasn’t fat. He was just huge. Manning was tall, but this man towered over him by a good half-meter. The heavy brow ridge, the blazing eyes and the way he wore his hair in a top knot told me that at least one of his parents was Polyphemian. They were the giants of the known galaxy. Their size, plus the blazing eyes and luxurious hair were always a dead giveaway. No one with Polyphemian blood in the family tree could hide their ancestry. They were supposedly well endowed in all areas of their anatomy and were considered exquisite lovers. None of this information Manning had bothered to impart. I suspected his little possessive speech about me belonging to him and Fury may have been his warning not to let the guy seduce me. As if that would happen when there were credits to be won and a score to be settled. Manning, more than anyone, should know that by now.

 

 

The Ployphemian made no effort to hide his blatant ogling of me as I made an elaborate display of dealing the cards and setting them up for another game of solitaire. I pretended not to notice, pretended to be fully focused on my game as he called the waitress over. I could tell by the nod of his head he was ordering me another drink as well. I was dinking Hebridian ginger beer, but he certainly didn’t know that, and I was counting on him thinking I was drunk enough that, not only would he win, but he’d get a good fuck out of the deal as well.

“Thank you.” When the drinks came, I lifted mine in a salute. As I expected, he took that as an invitation to join me. “I was hoping for someone to play with,” I nodded to the cards but made sure he got the double entendre.

“I’d be happy to play with you, darlin’.” Gone was the flugelhorn bellow of our earlier encounter, replaced by what could only be called a bedroom voice, but that was also a Polyphemian trait. The voice they used with the opposite sex was as seductive as the voice they used with the rest of the world was annoying.

“Do you play Stygian five card?” I asked batting my lashes.

“Honey, I play whatever you want me to play.” He laid a hand on my thigh. In my implant, Manning said some rather rude things about the man’s parentage, and Blake just assumed my chuckled response was me flirting with him. I shoved the deck across to him, and said, “what shall we bet?”

By the third hand I had him empathetic, telling him the bits of truth I’d always told my marks, that I was a low paid pilot trying to make a little extra with a little gambling on the side. From that point on the details varied with the mark. This time I was working for a salvage ship, and business had been bad recently. When it was bad, I supplemented my income however I could, I told him. I left just exactly how I did that to Blake’s imagination and offered him a hint of a smile as he shifted in his seat to make his enthusiasm for helping a girl out a little more comfortable in his trousers. He was feeling generous from the deal he’d just made, he told me.

“I fucking bet he is,” Manning growled into my implant.

Blake lost magnanimously and graciously the next three hands while I proceeded to pump him for details about this great deal he’d made, and the asshole didn’t even try to hide the fact that he’d cheated Manning out of paying him. I knew that about Polyphemians as well. They were always pleased to get something for nothing, and their views on ownership were more about possession than the exchange of legal tender. With a few cleavage swelling gasps and sighs and an enthusiastic stroke of the tree trunk thigh now pressed against mine, I made my admiration for what he’d pulled off clear. Then I leaned in close and told him that the salvage ship I was on had just discovered the mother load of triaxium ore in a wrecked Aranian stingray class freighter. It had been lost ten years ago out near the Katis quasar, not far from here. But my crew had to mark it and leave it because they didn’t have the right equipment, and being an Authority sanctioned ship, they didn’t have mol-tran. So if he were willing to play for my share, I was willing to bet something worthy of such a Polyphemian deal. You could almost see the credit calculations whizzing through his mind. The obvious was that the New Hibernian whiskey was small change compared to a triax treasure trove.

By that time, I was making sure he got generous views down Fury’s exquisitely designed bodice and I was showing the first signs of having just a bit too much to drink. But while my inebriation was faked, his was not. A helpful piece of information Manning had given me was that Blake couldn’t hold his alcohol, but he loved Krinelian brandy, nonetheless. A little dealing under the table by Manning had Stella making sure the alcohol content in Blake’s brandy went up the closer I got to what I wanted. And celebrating his steal of a deal, as he was, fully expecting to take me back to his room for further celebrations, he kept the drinks coming. Now that there was a chance to sweeten the deal beyond his wildest dreams, he had even more reason to celebrate. I was very careful to lose the next two games spectacularly, gambling away all of my share of the triaxium salvage.

Piloting Fury Part 23: KDG Scifi Romance

Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another  Monday morning read. Here’s this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury.  

Last  week Mac got a crash course in smuggling. This week the deal doesn’t quite go to plan

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 seemed like 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 23: The Set-up

My gut twisted into a double knot. “Mol-tran him back, now.” Manning was already dematerializing from Blake’s ship before the words were out of my mouth while Blake bellowed a string of curses in several different languages.

“Blake is powering to jump,” Fury said as calmly as though he were telling me the weather.

“Fuck! He’s hanging us out to dry.”

I heard the bastard say something about sending us coordinates to finish the transaction. Manning’s lock I got, but somehow Blake had managed to shield the whiskey. Manning ended up sprawled ass over teacup on the deck cursing profusely, and Blake jumped. We, on the other hand, were well and truly trapped.

“I can’t jump from here, and they’ll have a visual in ten seconds,” I shouted as Manning strapped himself in, but he wasn’t listening to me.

“Fury, cloak,” was all he said just as the three Authority hunters came into view and then cruised right on by us at troll speed. I held my breath, hands pressed flat and sweating on the console, ready to ease out and make the jump, if we all survived that long. I would be plague bate if we were caught, but I’d made the decision ages ago when I first joined the crew of the Dubrovnik, I’d throw myself out the airlock before I’d let Fallon take me again. Nobody had cloak technology, not since the SNTs. It was highly illegal. It would be a plague planet punishment for Manning too if we were caught, or at the very least a shackle and a one-way trip to the triaxium mines. I said nothing. I barely breathed. I’d been so damn careful all these years, so afraid of what my punishment might be, so afraid that Fallon would toy with my shackle just a little too long, and I would end up dying by inches on some plague worlds. No one would ever know what had actually happened on board the Merlin. And my father would never be avenged. For one horrible second, I thought I would vomit on the console, and then I felt Fury rise up around me like a bird of prey on the glove aching to mount the sky and fly. For a moment I felt the embrace, and I looked up to find Manning’s stormy eyes locked on mine. In an instant everything that went before was over and my life was ahead of me. And from a split second I went from being sure I would vomit, feeling horrible gut-wrenching fear of the shackle to feeling free, an experience I’d never expected to have again.

“Can you jump while cloaked?” I asked Fury.

“I can, Diana Mac. Shall I?”

 

 

Manning was already entering the coordinates. He nodded he was ready and just as the backend of the last hunter past us, I made the jump with a bellow that would have put Banshee Blake to shame. But we’d barley made it before Manning was entering coordinates again and my stomach slammed against my backbone as we came out. “What the fuck?”

“We’re on the dark side of Outer Kingston,” he said without looking up at me. “If I know Blake, the bastard’ll be patting himself on the back for getting us in trouble with the authorities and getting off with one hundred thousand credits worth of New Hibernian. And doing his best to drink the profits.” He waved a hand in my direction. “Oh he has no intention of sending us rendezvous coordinates. He reckons we’ll be in enough trouble he’ll be safe for at least a year or so, and if he sees me again, all he’ll have to do is claim he had to dump the cargo and share in the bad luck.”

“So you know where he’s going then?”

“I know where the whiskey’s going because I tagged it. I always tag my cargo, and then when the deal goes down according to planned, the tag disintegrates. If the deal gets fucked for whatever reason, I at least have some recourse. There.” He pointed to a red blip on the grid of the space dock of Outer Kingston Prime. “Gotcha, you fucker,” He jabbed a finger at the monitor.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Well,” Manning drug his teeth over his lower lip and rubbed his chin. “We won’t be able to beam out the whiskey. It’ll be well shielded. In fact, it’ll be all but invisible, and if we turn the authorities on him, we’ll never see any of those hundred thousand credits.”

I undid my harness and stood on legs still none too steady from that last quick and dirty jump, then I began to pace. “I don’t suppose you’d know what watering hole he hangs out in?”

“It wouldn’t be that hard to find.” Manning watched me pace. “What do you have in mind?”

“Fury, you’re a fabulous ship, and you make a mean breakfast, but how are you as a seamstress?”

“Is your apparel not satisfactory, Diana Mac?” the ship asked.

Manning broke into a wicked chuckle. “Not for what she has in mind, Fury.”

“I need a sexy dress that might make a lonely smuggler like Banshee Blake want to buy me a drink and maybe pass a little time with a friendly game of poker while he admires my well-displayed cleavage.”

“I see,” Fury said. “How soon do you need it?”

“Just let me make a few inquiries,” Manning said. “I have a lot of friends in Outer Kingston, and since you’ve never been, and that fat bastard doesn’t know you’re working for me, he won’t even know what hit him.”

Piloting Fury Part 22: A KDG Scifi Romance

Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another sneaky Monday morning read. Here’s this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury.  

Last  week Manning made a few things clear to Mac, but only a few. This week, Mac gets a crash course in smuggling.

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 seemed like 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 22: Smuggling – A Crash Course

We skipped the scenic route to Outer Kingston in favor of the most direct, the one that involved three rough jumps and a slingshot move around a gas giant. It was a route that no one had tried before and frankly I was surprised when Manning gave me the go ahead. He said he’d rather be there a little early, never being sure of what Banshee Blake would do. “I trust the bastard about as far as I can drop-kick his fat ass through the nearest airlock,” Manning had said. He added that Blake had to have a special captain’s chair in his ship that would accommodate his size.

We came out of hyper and all but coasted to the rendezvous point with time to spare thanks to some seriously fancy flying, if I do say so myself. I could tell by the smile on Manning’s chops that he thought so too. He chuckled and ran a hand over his stubbled chin. “I think we just took the record for fastest trip from the Remote Inner Edge to New Kingston,” he said with a chuckle. “The McAllister Sling Shot, that’s what I figure they’ll be calling it one day.”

Sadly we both knew it couldn’t be made public, since we’d just paid an illegal visit to a plague planet carrying major contraband, and all that done with a Shanghaied indentured pilot. But I still had every plan to bask in the afterglow until Blake showed up.

“Nothing to do now but sit tight and wait.” Manning disappeared and returned shortly with a bottle of New Hibernian and two glasses. “Under the circumstances, I think a toast might be in order.” He handed me a glass and lifted his. “To the McAllister Sling Shot.”

I returned the toast.

He downed his in a single go. New Hibernian was more of a gulping whiskey, even the good stuff. It would get you there fast, and almost but not quite burn your taste buds off in the process. I followed suit.

He pushed the glass aside and stretched out his hand. “Let me see your device,” he said.

I gave it over and raised a curious brow as he typed something in it.

“There!” He handed it back to me. “As far as our little run to Pandora Base, well, nothing from nothing is nothing, but you’re welcome to half of that.” Before I could say anything, he nodded down to the pad.

“That’s the code to your Atlas account. It’s empty now, but while you’ve been doing the flying, I’ve arranged everything so that, as we said, twenty percent of all profits will automatically go into your account. Numbered only, for your protection, of course. Plus the folks at Atlas don’t give a shit that you’re indentured. Once we conclude the deal with Blake, the credits will be deposited. If you continue to prove yourself, I’ll up your percentage to twenty-five and from there,” he quirked his head and winked, “well from there we’ll see.”

I stared at the open account page until it became nothing more than an abstract jumble. “Does that mean you’re giving me the opportunity to buy back my indenture?” I managed around the excited hammering of my own heart.

“That means I’m giving you the opportunity to do whatever you want, whatever you’re capable of.” He held my gaze. “Naturally I’d prefer that whatever you do, you do it here with me and Fury.” Then he offered a blinding smile. “With a pilot like you who can gamble like you do, who can think on her feet like you do, I figure you’re my ace in the hole.”

Before I could offer more than a shocked thank you, Fury said. “There is an urgent incoming transmission from Banshee Blake.”

 

 

Fury patched it through. “Authority’s on my ass,” Blake’s voice was a nasal sharply accented tenor that boomed through the com like an out of tune French horn, like we were all deaf, or soon would be if we had to listen to him long. I guessed that’s how he got the name Banshee.

“Rendezvous point’s been compromised. Sending new coordinates.”

“Fury send a text only confirmation,” Manning said without switching on his com link. “I don’t know this place,” he added studying the coordinates Blake had sent. We both watched as a 3D image came up, closed in on our destination and then magnified it.

“It is a high orbit space station, abandoned five standard years ago as unsafe and too expensive to repair,” Fury’s computer said, as we studied the details.

“This is not like Blake,” Manning said. “He prefers open space for a quick getaway. That makes it easier for him to grab the cargo and run if he gets an opportunity.”

“I don’t like it,” I said.

“I don’t either. But then I never like doing business with Blake.”

“Then why do you?” I asked.

“Well, the deals are usually sweet and the profits high if you can manage them without him scalping you alive.”

“Fingers crossed then.” I entered the coordinates and stroked Fury’s console for luck. “I could use the credits. I’m broke.”

The space station was huge, and I wondered how the hell the giant hunk of junk had remained in orbit once it was left derelict. I also wondered why it hadn’t been dismantled. It had been used for the docking port for all ships coming and going to Outer Kingston until the new, larger, more streamline one had been built on the other side of the planet. Outer Kingston was the last and most remote port of call before the long trek to the Outer Rim. It was not really a part of anything, only a single rocky planet orbiting a small yellow sun, a planet that was almost entirely water other than the few small islands that served as hideouts for smugglers and ports of call for ships in and out of the Outer Rim. There had been a few efforts to make some of the more picturesque islands into holiday destinations, but the planet was just too far from the so-called civilized center of the Consortium of Planets. That meant most of those islands had devolved into illegal casinos and brothels, surviving and thriving just beyond the edge of Authority scrutiny. Though technically it belonged to the Consortium, it was too far out for any real Authority control, and that made the place a mecca of smuggling and illegal activity. We made our way in and out of the docking bays of the derelict space station until we found the rendezvous point. It was way too claustrophobic for my liking. I couldn’t keep from wondering just what else went on in a place that had trouble written all over it.

“It’s a good place for a sting,” I said.

“Too good,” Manning grunted, just as Blake’s ship appeared from a blind spot around the curve of the station.

“Wait a minute,” I said, “the man just came out of nowhere. That’s not possible. Something’s going on. We should have been aware of his approach.”

“Manning, let’s make this quick. I’m feeling a little twitchy after the week I’ve had.”

Manning kept the mic off. He laid a hand on my shoulder. “I need you to stay on deck and stay ready, Mac. We’ll Molt-tran the whiskey and me over at the same time, but separately. You know how to do that?” He waved a hand. “Fury does. Keep a lock on me and on the whiskey, but if worse comes to worse, we cut our losses and live to fight another day. I’ll need you to get us out of here fast. You got it.” I nodded.

He opened the mic. “On my way. Meet me in the belly with your manifest.”

“Shields dropped,” came Blake’s nasal flugelhorn response.

“I don’t like this,” I said to Fury, as I keyed in the mol-tran and watched first the whiskey and then Manning dematerialize before my eyes. “I don’t like this at all.”

“I am not terribly pleased at the situation myself,” Fury commented. “Banshee Blake is to be trusted less than most of our disreputable colleagues.”

Our colleagues?” I commented as Manning’s visual implant came online and I felt a whole lot better clapping eyeballs on him. “How much is he paying you?”

“Not nearly enough.” Fury replied, and in spite of the tense situation, I laughed. But the laugh died in my throat when Fury quickly added. “We have company, Diana Mac, three Authority jaegers converging fast off starboard.