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Piloting Fury Part 40: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another cheeky Monday morning read!  Huge apologies for missing a week. I’m catching up in Prague at the moment. It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks — first a glorious retreat at Gladstone’s Library and then a quick turnaround to Prague for a  long weekend.  In this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury,   we’re still learning more of Manning and 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 40: I Need You

“Will the Authority not pursue you when they learn you have escaped and are doing business again?” I asked.

“I’m a nobody, not important, and they’ll figure if I escaped, I’ll die of the virus anyway. To them I’m already dead.” I could not miss the bitterness in his voice, and I made my first effort to move my consciousness toward him, to comfort him. He tensed, then let out a little sigh and relaxed.

“I believe to them, I am also already dead,” I said. Then I added, more than a little excited about a future that was not at all what I expected, but at least hopeful. “Once you have given me the parameters you will need for a cargo ship, the refitting will not take me long. I have but to think it to make it so.”

“Fucking hell,” he said with a low whistle. “Great trick if you can do it.”

“I assure you, I can do it. When shall we begin?”

“No time like the present,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “Oh, there is one very important thing, Fury.”

“What is it, Richard Manning.”

“You’re going to have to make yourself look a whole lot less pretty. I need you to look old and battered and like I put you together with wire and a glue gun, can you do that?”

“Of course I can do that,” I said. “I am not attached to the way I look. I did not expect to remain as I am.”

“Good. Then with your insides meeting my parameters and your outsides looking like something that is barely space worthy, I think we’ll do just fine.”

That evening, I replicated another ancient Terran dish called tacos, which Manning ate with relish, washed down with a Terran drink called Margaritas. It was a celebration, he said, and so it was. It was a new beginning I had not anticipated, and while we were both awake and my decks echoed with his curses and his strange sense of humor, we both did well. But while Manning could not go without rest – especially not in his state of recovery, I did not sleep. For a few hours I worked with the schematics he had given me, creating below deck a cargo bay with another cargo bay hidden underneath for less than aboveboard goods, upgrading the shield and downgrading my outward appearance. I wished to surprise Richard Manning when he woke up.

My attention was on making my outer hull look as though it had been through several meteor storms when I heard him cry out in his sleep. While his vital signs were within the normal range, it was obvious he was in REM dream state and his dreams were not pleasant. I went to him without thinking. While I had avoided going into the chamber I had set aside for him, as much for his privacy as for the fact that it was to have belonged to my compliment, I entered now, and I was moved as I had never been moved before.

He lay naked with the coverings thrown off his body, which glistened with the perspiration of his stressful dreams, and he fought valiantly with whatever demon it was that had invaded his unconscious world. While I had seen him naked many times during his healing process, I had never seen him so vulnerable, nor had I realized just how nearly healed he now was.

He cried out again, loud enough that it would have startled another humanoid. It was then that I discovered I had the ability to do more than replicate molecules. With what, at the time, was little more than my ability to imagine what his caress had felt like against my console, I created such a caress and touched him gently on the shoulder.

“Richard Manning, wake up. You are having a bad dream.”

He came into the waking world with a shriek of terror, shoving himself into a seated position on the bed. His pulse was much too fast, and I found that I could create an embrace of sort, as I had seen represented among humanoids as an act of comfort, as an act of affection, as I had often imagined doing with my compliment. In truth Richard Manning was my compliment now, and seeing that his needs were met was paramount.

I had not expected tears when he woke up from the nightmare. I knew enough about the strange codes of manliness most humanoid males lived by to understand that the shedding of tears was not an acceptable show of manhood, that he might be embarrassed by the act. But I also understood that that this humanoid had been shaken to the core by what demons had confronted him in the world of his dreams. And I was feeling quite vulnerable myself under our shared circumstances.

“I’m sorry,” he managed between gasps for breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“You cannot disturb me, Richard Manning. You are the only humanoid onboard. You will always be my central concern.”

“That doesn’t make me particularly comfortable,” he said.

“You will get used to it.”

 

 

“Not that I’m sorry for you waking me up right now, believe me.” When he had calmed a little, and I sensed his unease at my closeness and I pulled my physicality back enough to eliminate his discomfort. “I am always at your service.”

For a time, he sat in silence, his hands resting on his thighs, but in that way of humanoids, I could see the tension, feel the slight acceleration of pulse that informed me, he wished to speak, but was not quite sure he should. “Richard Manning, you may always speak freely with me. If you wish to talk about your dream, I will listen. It is not as though I will divulge to anyone your secrets.”

At that, he offered a hiccup of a chuckle. “No, I suppose not.”

I replicated a glass of water for him and waited quietly while he drank it in thirsty gulps.

At last he spoke. “When the Authority arrested me, I wasn’t alone on the Bourdieu. My cargo was humanoid, a dozen fugitives escaping the shackle. Friends of theirs smuggled them off Terra Nova Prime on the night before they were taken. Three families with small children, and two promising young bioengineers. I was transporting them to the outer rim and to freedom. They were hiding in the cargo bay. When I smuggled people, I had a plan for if we were ever boarded. There was a space we’d created that was sensor proof. If we were boarded it would always appear that there was only one person onboard the ship. I always set the Bourdieu on a laid in course for the safest spot, just in case I was arrested. Up until that time it had never happened. The ship always looked empty, and while I might get a fine for some trumped up infraction, it was the most the Authority could charge me with, which I paid off, thumbed my nose at their backsides and delivered my cargo safely to their destinations. Of course as a smuggler, the odds are never in your favor if you get boarded. You learn to stack the deck. I knew that and my passengers all knew that. Whatever risk they were taking with me were risks they all took willingly, and with good reasons.” He paused for a moment, swallowing hard, his shoulders tense, his breathing harsh and uneven. I feared he might be about to vomit, but instead the tears returned to his eyes. “Fritz, the bastard who betrayed us thought he’d get the ship. Instead, he was lucky to get off without ending up in a shackle. The Authority Hunters, they didn’t give the ship to anyone. They didn’t even tractor it back to spaceport. They just blew it up. Fifteen people onboard in the hold, and the bloody fuckers knew it. They knew it. All I could do was watch.”

This time when I moved to embrace him, he did not push me away, and I formed the molecular structure as close to a humanoid hand as I could and stroked his back, making sure that I had enough of a physical form for him to hold on to and to rest his body against. “I am very sorry for your loss, Richard Manning. There has been so very much loss, and far too little hope. But you are free now, and you are with me. We will press on, as we must, in spite of our losses.”

He gave a slight nod against me and pulled closer to me. For what seemed like an age, and that to me, one who can measure the passage of space time in nanoseconds, we held each other. But it was long enough for me to perceive that his pain, though deeper than anything I could reach to heal, was manifesting itself in the humanoid way I myself felt but did not fully understand, in the desire to be intimate.

That I understood that desire, that I anticipated it and responded to it so quickly still astounds me, in that I had no experience of humanoid intimacy other than what I could call up in my database. But when Richard Manning sought me out with his lips, I was ready, my molecules forming and shaping to his needs, which were so deeply my own. I could barely comprehend that the press of his kiss, the exploration of his tongue, the movement of his hands over the shape of me that formed instantaneously at his body’s desire, were indeed my own desires, what I would have done with my compliment once we had gotten to know each other. I reminded myself once again, as he guided the hand I had formed down to his erect penis, that this humanoid, this wounded and damaged humanoid who needed almost as desperately as I did, was indeed now my compliment. It would be to him that I would give myself for the first time, for every time, as long and as often as he had desire for me – as we had desire for each other.

“Fury, I need you,” he whispered as he pulled away from my mouth just enough for his teeth to rake over the lips I had not known I could create, the lips I had not known could feel such electrifying sensations.

“And I need you, Richard Manning. I very much need you.” With that I guided his hand down to my own physical need, the biology of me, heavy and hard and more ready than I could have ever imagined, ready to explore this physical side of my nature. Richard Manning was willing and able and intuitive, as he guided me, for the first time, in the pleasures of the flesh and the intimate act that would, with time, bring healing for both of us.

 

“Fury, are you familiar with the ancient Terran term, TMI.” It was the sound of Manning’s voice that made me aware that I was floating in that space between wakefulness and sleep. Manning reached over me and slapped Fury on the flank.

“I am indeed familiar with the term, Richard Manning.” Fury reached to return the favor, pausing to kiss my neck. “But our Diana Mac knows us both intimately, and all she need do is look, and all will be revealed.”

“I wouldn’t do that. Not without permission,” I said.

“Permission is not needed amongst us, at least it should not be, and something passed between him and Manning that was lost to me because after such a dream, all three of us were in dire need of a cold shower if we didn’t take care of each other. And lying sandwiched between too such virile males, I was soon rendered speechless and probably would have forgotten my own name, let alone the need to pursue the intimacy issue between the three of us. After that, the sleep was dreamless.

 

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.”