Tag Archives: Piloting Fury

Piloting Fury Part 32: 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 Abriad Fallon demonstrates his power to his son. 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 32: The Price of Defiance

The rest of the tow into the bowels of the Apocalypse was made in silence, and when the hatch opened inside the shuttle bay of the big ship, there were four uniformed berserkers waiting to escort them to the bridge. Rab thought that was definitely fucking overkill, but then maybe daddy was taking Junior’s throw-away statement to heart. Or maybe Junior was dead serious. He reminded himself again that this was the same little prick that killed hookers on a regular basis, killed a respected notary, and damn near killed him. Fucking hell! How did he get mixed up in this mess anyway? Back at the beginning, just being free of the shackle seemed worth any price. Now, he wasn’t so goddamned sure.

The only orca class starship he’d ever been on was the Dubrovnik, and it was an early version, though the Fire Star Conglomerate kept it state of the art due to the fact that the Dubrovnik was by far the most profitable ship of the conglomerate’s freighters. Hell, Rab had been proud to work on the Dubrovnik. But the Apocalypse was a goddamn floating fortress. The Apocalypse was a crazy mix of military and up your ass, hoity-toity luxury, exactly what he’d expect from Fallon. He’d heard that the man was one paranoid fucker, that he never stayed in one place more than one night at a time – easy to do when one of your homes was a goddamn orca class starship. The man was one twisted sonovabitch. Explained a lot where Junior was concerned. But hell, being brought right to the heart of the beast’s lair was damn near enough to make a man shit himself. All Rab had signed on for was observing Diana McAllister and Captain Harker. That was what got his shackle removed, and back then he couldn’t see beyond his freedom. But he was beginning to think he was as much of a prisoner as he was when he had the shackle shoved in his arm. Hell, right now he was pretty sure shit was even worse. No good thinking about it now. The die had been cast, and damned if he knew how he’d get out of this game alive. That stopped being a sure bet when they lost McAllister.

It was only as the lift opened onto the bridge with its huge view screen that Rab realized the Ares wasn’t the only ship held captive by the Apocalypse. The ship being on screen was a raven class freighter, severely damaged. As they approached the console a lone man tall and lean stood looking out. He was dressed in the uniform of an admiral onboard a military ship, though Rab couldn’t recall that Fallon had ever served. He spoke without looking at them.

“You remember the Svalbard, don’t you, Rab? Or perhaps you don’t. The message about the Svalbard was, after all only one of the mindless, meaningless drone of subspace transmissions you sent me from the Dubrovnik over the years.” Before he could respond, the man turned, and Rab found himself face to face with Abriad fucking Fallon, icy eyes gluing him to the goddamn floor, eyebrows raised, clearly expecting an answer.

“I remember it. Yes. It was a distress call. A radiation leak. The Dubrovnik answered, as per ship’s protocol.”

The bastard offered a cold smile that never reached his eyes. “And you thought it strange that members of the Dubrovnik’s crew went onboard a ship with a radiation leak rather than dealing with it remotely.”

“It was strange.” The longer Rab was the center of the man’s attention the more he felt like he was being slowly strangled. “But Harker said there was extenuating circumstances and the ships doctor explained, details that meant nothing to me. I’m sorry.”

 

 

“No need to be,” Fallon raised a hand like he was some goddamn New Vaticana priest passing out absolution or some shit. “You did your job. You sent the transmission, and it has troubled me all these years, Leo Rab. It has troubled me, that strange encounter between the Dubrovnik and the Svalbard. Yes, it has troubled me until this very day. Until now.” With that he turned back to the view screen, and Rab was relieved not to be in the man’s evil eye. But the relief was short lived when the view changed to the bridge of the Svalbard, which looked like a war zone a goddamned war zone. It was deserted except for one battered looking man barely able to sit upright in the captain’s chair. “Captain Bryar,” Fallon said, “you may as well tell me what I want to know about the Fury and its crew, because I will find the answer. That is a promise.”

To Rab’s surprised it was the kid who cursed in a strangled breath. “You bloody fucking bastard.”

How the hell was it even possible for Abriad Fallon to make a smile look fatal?  “I believe it is you who are the bastard, Gerando, and of a whore as lacking in brains as she was beauty, though certainly not in willingness to spread her legs.” He turned that awful smile on Rab, like they were talking politely over fucking afternoon tea. “You see all of my children are bastards, Rab. I quite enjoy the uncertainty of that battle over my legacy. And of course the genetic soup can be so very intriguing.” Then he strolled leisurely to stand in front of his son and straightened the lapels of his jacket. Credit to the kid. He didn’t so much as flinch as his father addressed him almost nose to nose. “And if you make another unwarranted comment on my ship, on my bridge, while I am meeting with the good captain Bryar, then I shall have to punish you, boy.”

Rab wasn’t sure he could have spoken if he’d wanted to, and while Gerardo said nothing else, he fidgeted as though he had New Texan fire ants in his pants. Fuck, it was like the kid was asking for trouble!

Fallon sauntered back to the console and offered poor Bryar a beneficent smile. “Forgive the interruption, captain. Children are so disrespectful these days. One has to keep a tight rein on them. Now as I was saying, the way I see it you have nothing to gain by keeping silent and possibly a chance to live if you speak. I know the Fury is an SNT, and I know its destination is Plague 1. All I need to know from you is why on earth would anyone want to go there?”

“I’ll tell you nothing, Fallon. You may destroy the Svalbard and her fine crew. You may go after her allies, but there will be an answering. That I promise you. There will be an answering.”

Vaticana jesu! What the hell was the kid up to? The fucker couldn’t stand still, he was all but convulsing with nerves. The little shit was going to get them both killed, Rab thought, as he struggled to pay attention to what Fallon was saying while trying to calm the kid. He was beginning to wonder if he was about to have some kind of goddamned fit. Wouldn’t that just be the cherry on top? The thought was barely out of Rab’s head when Fallon did something on the console, and the Svalbard exploded, momentarily blinding them all as it flashed then vanished into nothing more than a after image in empty space. There wasn’t even a sign of debris to show that the Svalbard had ever been there.

Gerardo doubled over and puked. His father made a disgusted sound. “If you’ve not the sac for the task at hand, boy, then perhaps I should send you back to Terra Nova Prime to see if the scientists at the Fire Star Institute might clone you some balls.” He turned to Rab. “Get him off my bridge. The berserkers will show you to your quarters. I’ll send for you both in an hour. Get him sorted.” He nodded to Gerando, who now stood wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, eyeing his old man like he wanted to pull the sonovabitch’s liver out and stomp on it.

Piloting Fury Part 31: 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 get an unexpected visit from the old man. 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 31: A Visit from Daddy

Rab scratched his chin. “They would have had to jump like fucking jackrabbits to get far enough out of there and leave no trace to be followed.” He rubbed his belly. “Makes me green around the gills to even think about it. Anyway, how the hell do you know so goddamned much about the SNTs?”

If Rab didn’t know better, he could have sworn the kid blushed. “I know everything there is in the Authority data base about the SNTs and a few things that aren’t public knowledge.” He grunted a sour chuckle. “Even my father doesn’t know that I hacked him. I was obsessed with them. They’re the reason I wanted to be a pilot. I wanted to be compliment to an SNT. Woulda got me away from … shit. Then, you know … everything happened like it did.”

Rab looked up from his efforts at checking through the Ares’ computer scanners for something, anything. “Woulda never figured you for the compliment type. In your case, I doubt anyone would have blamed an SNT for offing its compliment.”

The kid gave him the finger with his good hand, then flinched again as the bone-knitting process got down to the more delicate work.

“If we had the exact time McAllister and Manning Mol-tranned out, we might be able to pick up something jumping an instant later.”

Junior made a one-handed effort to pull his device free from his pocket. “This won’t be exact, but pretty damn close. The old man messaged me, shit, it couldn’t have been a minute before I grabbed McAllister. I’d just had time to tell him to fuck off, I was busy. And then …” He fidgeted with his device, “ … he messaged me back. I felt the signal just as Manning appeared and grabbed McAllister away from me. I remember thinking it was something Manning had done to me. You know how it is in that split second when things don’t quite add up. By the time I connected the dots, they were gone” He pulled up the message and gave a bitter laugh as he read out loud.

Busy had better mean finding Diana McAllister.

“The sentimental old fart,” Rab grumbled. The kid handed his his device and Rab entered the time of the message into the search parameters of the Ares. “There it is. Gotta be.”

“Where? I don’t see anything.” Junior craned his neck and the both squinted.

“Right there. See. If you back up the scan, it’s there, it’s there, it’s there and then … it’s gone.”

 

 

And sure enough, it was. It was only a blip, a tiny blip that someone with vision not as good as Rab’s would have missed entirely. But it was there up until a split second after the message from daddy Fallon, and then it was gone. Just gone. “Had to have mol-tranned them from high orbit. That’s all I can figure, and the blip is so small, there’s no other explanation. Bloody hell! What else could possibly do that but an SNT?”

Over the next few hours they both buried themselves in research. Rab was surprised that sonny boy really was quit an expert on the SNTs. “We don’t want to approach your old man without enough evidence to keep him from thinking we’re just making excuses,” Rab said, getting what was definitely a crash course, more than he ever wanted to know about sentient ships.

“We give him the right information, he’ll believe it,” the kid said. He was stuffing his face with something he’d replicated that looked like dirty underwear, supposedly a delicacy from somewhere in the outer rim, sitting on the floor with several devices spread around him, all displaying different SNT articles. He added around a mouthful. “The old man kept a close eye on the project. He had spies on the inside. The scientists and technicians involved sure as fuck didn’t trust him. The SNT project was funded by the Free Universities and not one credit came from the conglomerates. No matter how much my father offered in financial backing, they wouldn’t take it. I have no idea where all the money came from. I didn’t think there were any universities left that could finance their own asses without conglomerate backing. But they insisted they didn’t want the conglomerates in control.” He laughed a bitter laugh that sprayed several of the devices with crumbs. “That meant no control for the old man. Well I’m sure you can imagine how much he liked that. But there wasn’t much he could do except stay close and bribe as many people on the inside as he could. He was actually friends with several of the scientists, including Adrian McAllister. They’d gone to school together or some shit.”

“Then you knew Diana Mac before she was your father’s indentured? That must have been awkward.”

“I didn’t actually.”

Could Rab hear sadness in his voice?

“Her father kept her a secret, kept her away from the SNT project as far as I know. No one knew about her until the year before her old man bonded with the Merlin, and all of a sudden he had a daughter who was to be by his side onboard the Merlin. I probably hated her as much for that as anything, even though I didn’t know her.” Junior was no longer looking at the devices in front of him, but staring back in time at memories that Rab would guess weren’t best pleasing. “When she became my father’s indentured, I wanted her to suffer. She’d gotten what I wanted most, the only thing I’d ever wanted in my whole life, and she was nothing more than the bastard daughter of a mad scientist. I was the son of Abriad Fallon. I had whole conglomerates at my disposal, and yet she got what I wanted. I wanted her to suffer. I wanted to be the one to make her suffer.” He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Turned out I was an amateur compared to the old man. When it came to making someone suffer, he’d been practicing on his kids for years.”

What the hell could Rab say to that? He felt a sudden chill, even though the atmosphere in the Ares was Terran standard for humanoids.

“After the SNTs fell, everyone suspected it was conglomerate sabotage responsible for the infecting of the ships,” the kid said going back to pouring over the devices.

“Is that what you think? Rab asked.

He spoke without looking up from his efforts. “Wouldn’t doubt one bit that my fucking father was at the forefront of their downfall. The old man always has to be in control. When the Free Universities wouldn’t give it over, well, business opportunity missed, plunder and pillage and all that shit. I mean what’s the point in having power if you don’t use it, right? All you gotta do is kill a few million innocent people and point the finger in the right direction and people will start screaming for heads to roll.”

Rab couldn’t argue with that, though he wished ha could. Into their silent introspection an orca class ship burst onto the view screen as if out of nowhere and before they could do more than curse, the Ares was locked in a tractor beam, being draw into the open hold of the flying castle.

“Sonovabitch,”Junior cursed. “That’s the Apocalypse, my father’s bloody ship.”

“What the fuck? Your father flits around the galaxy in an orca class ship?”

“The fucker doesn’t feel safe staying in one place, and with good reason. The Apocalypse is a flying fortress. I’ve never seen it before. He doesn’t invite any of his spawn onboard. Doesn’t trust us not to slit his throat in his sleep, I suppose.”

“Well I sure as hell don’t trust him not to slit mine,” Rab said as the Ares, seeming tiny and insignificant, was swallowed up in the maw of the Apocalypse.

Junior’s laugh was so bitter that it made Rab’s skin crawl. “Oh he’d never do anything to either of us that elementary. His kids, most of us anyway, we just want him dead. He, on the other hand, is more about making people suffer than snuffing them.”

The knot in Rab’s stomach had tightened to an icy fist, and he wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to puke. “What the hell is he doing clear out here?”

“Doing the job you two don’t seem to be able to manage,” came the voice of Abriad Fallon over the com, and they both jumped as though they’d been shot. The icy chuckle barely sounded human. “Careful, Gerando. Your sisters and brothers won’t be best pleased with you if you give away their plans for their old man.”

The kid tightened his jaw and the muscles along his sharp cheekbones spasmed, but he made no response. Fallon continued. “Once the Ares is onboard, I will expect the pleasure of your company on the captain’s bridge.”

Piloting Fury Part 29: 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 puts the pieces together and discovers the biggest secret of all.

Warning: This episode of Fury is NSFW.

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 29: Sentience

Fury replicated some scrumptious dish from one of the Feshun worlds so far beyond the Outer Rim that no one I knew had ever even been there, and if they’d managed it, they’d have never made it back in their lifetime. I couldn’t pronounce the name of the planet, let alone the dish, though after a couple glasses of Inner Dalmatian fire wine, both Manning and I gave it our best shot. Fury was a patient language tutor, but it quickly became apparent that his vocal processors far exceeded our own.

He informed us that we should be able to just make out the Greater Feshun Cloud from the observation deck. That sent us scurrying up for a look-see with the last of the wine in tow.

“I don’t see it,” I said, squinting through the scope.

“You’re just looking in the wrong place.” Manning moved in and hunched over me so that his face was close to mine, making it difficult for me to focus on anything but his wine-scented breath against my nape. “See the red Giant at nine o’clock?” He had shaved for dinner, a first as far as I could recall. He’d always been stubbled with hair slightly mussed, like he’d just gotten out of bed, and not because he’d been asleep. His smooth cheek now brushed mine as though he would guide my face with his. I was good with that.

“Hard to miss,” I managed around my sudden struggle to breathe.

He offered me an evil chuckle and stepped closer until I felt the full heat of his body, startling and intriguing in the hard landscape of muscles that shifted and undulated with the intake of each breath. “Focus on the damn scope, Mac.”

“Oh, like you’re not making any effort to distract me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” His lips brushed my ear as he spoke. “I take my astronomy very seriously.” He circled my waist with both arms and I let out a little gasp. “Now at five o’clock on the red giant, you’ll see a bright smear, sort of like Fury forgot to clean the windows.”

“I am a ship, not a housekeeper.” Fury commented. “Though there is seldom such a good reason to give the observation deck my full attention.”

“Fury, you’re as bad as Manning.” The words ended with a little gasp, and I felt as though Fury had moved in tight on the other side of me, nudging Manning over just enough to make room for his own embrace, and my neck goose fleshed at his phantom nearness.

“Yes, I see it.” The words came out little more than a harsh whisper. “It’s obvious when you …” I completely lost the ability to speak as Manning settled a warm kiss against my nape. And damn if Fury didn’t mirrored the action. “You really are a full-service ship,” I managed between gasps.

“If he can manipulate the molecules to make your clothes,” Manning’s hand splayed low across my belly stroking the soft fabric of the dress Fury had replicated for our dinner celebration, “then he can easily manipulate the molecules to make you feel really good.”

“It is true,” the ship said. “I am not without skills.” I could swear I felt a third hand sliding up the outside of my thigh to stroke my hip. I caught my breath and shivered with the oral attention being paid to both sides of my neck and throat.

“If you wish me to stop, I will comply,” Fury spoke, and his voice sounded as breathless as my own. “I understand that making love with a ship is not everyone’s kink.”

“I’m a pilot, Fury. Making love with a ship is exactly my kink.”

While it was true, ships – especially the smaller ones with smaller crews — were all programmed to pleasure their compliment during interstellar journeys if the need arose most were nowhere near this sophisticated, not even on the Dubrovnik. I had never been on the receiving end the ship’s pleasure programming. But then I had never been on the receiving end of anything that might be considered lovemaking or pleasurable until tonight.

Manning cupped my breast and ran the edge of his thumb over a peaking nipple while Fury’s attention to my flank became a gentle stroking and curling of fingers that scrunched the dress ever higher up my thigh.

“You seem to be having a hard time standing, Mac. Too much fire wine?”

“We don’t want our Diana Mac injured.” Fury spoke between nips of kisses down my nape and over my collarbone. “Perhaps we should make her more comfortable.”

Together they eased me down onto the carpet in a flurry of kisses and exploring hands, the floor suddenly felt like a soft mattress. That Fury was always seeing to my comfort made my pulse skip a little for reasons other than arousal. With only the dome of the observation deck between us and deep space, it was easy to imagine Manning and Fury as an inseparable unit, to imagine myself as a part of that unit. There were two sets of hands. I felt them as surely as I felt my own breath. One set moved down my shoulders and over my breasts, and the fabric of the dress dissolved beneath the touch as they cupped and caressed. The other impatiently shoved the vanishing hem of the dress aside and teasing my thighs apart, leaving me open, permeable to Fury and Manning, who touched me as though they read each other’s mind, as though they read my mind.

Fury settled beneath me so that my head rested on his lap, then he bent over me and covered my face in kisses, stroking my hair, caressing my shoulders, my neck my breasts. Manning rose above me, and for a brief moment, I could have sworn he leaned forward and took Fury’s mouth in a possessive kiss. Then I blinked and I was once again looking up into deep space with Manning kissing a humid path down between my breasts and over my belly, cupping my bottom in his large hands, opening me, lifting me, positioning me. His breath came in warm little puffs between my thighs, and I cried out and bucked against their gentle restraint. Then Manning found my center and moved down deeper, so much deeper, tasting and licking and caressing me, loving me in places that had known no intimacy, places that had known only brutality. Fury’s full attention turned to my nipples, tongue and teeth and lips stiffening them, and each move I felt down close to Manning’s mouth, as though their well-coordinated efforts were actually no effort at all, but a deep, intuitive knowing, a plan. Manning took me to the edge with his mouth, and Fury sent me over with a quick nibble and pinch of a nipple. Then they held me, whispering softly — things I couldn’t quite hear over my efforts to breathe, over the pleasure that coursed through every cell.

 

 

And when I had calmed just a little, Manning mantled me. I had not known when he had shed his clothes, but for a moment, all I could think was that he was beautiful, that I wanted to melt into his body and never leave, never leave either of them. He looked down at me from beneath hooded lids, kneeling over me restraining his erection in one large hand while the other smooth the hair away from my cheek. I reached out for him, took him in my hand and guided him home and we all three gasped as Manning began to move inside me. In my blissed-out state, I could just make out a shadowy humanoid shape like a halo behind him, larger than Manning. Much larger. For a moment, surrendered to Manning as I was, rising up to meet him thrust for thrust, I basked in the watchful gaze, and then Fury embraced Manning, expanded to embrace both of us and returned to himself with a deep sigh, just as I shivered and convulsed my release, with Manning doing the same.

If there was post-coital bliss, it was brief. The urgency of too much time dreading the touch of another human overwhelmed me. The pent-up need of never having more than a few moments stolen trembling against my own hand in what little bit of privacy was afforded me, now released would not easily be sated. I rose on one elbow and looked down at Manning, naked and dozing next to me, haloed in light that was Fury making sure we wouldn’t wake up in total darkness.

Manning was lean yet well muscled and nearly hairless except for the nest of soft curls in which his heavy penis nestled, stretched against the rise and fall of his lower belly. His nipples were pale pink and tight in Fury’s glow, and the slow in and out of his breath matched my own exquisitely. I leaned down and kissed his nipples in turn. He sighed and lifted an arm, as though it took tremendous effort, and curled fingers into my mussed hair.

“I always imagined you’d be insatiable, Mac.” His words were slurred, but I knew perfectly well it wasn’t from alcohol. “Jesus, you have no idea how often I speculated on just how insatiable you would be.”

“Pretty sure I do, actually,” I said, kissing the place where his ribs came together above the diaphragm. But the truth was, I never imagined that Richard, Bad Boy, Manning, who could have any woman he wanted and a good few men as well, would ever think twice about a lowly indentured, other than the possible turn-on of slumming. I slid my palm over the flat of his belly and he sucked in a deep breath as I bent to kiss his navel. He tightened fingers convulsively in my hair as I kissed down over his hip and onto his thigh, licking the taste of clean male perspiration from the muscles that tensed and relaxed beneath my teeth and tongue. “You spoke to me as though I mattered,” I said, running my tongue down over the hard bone of his shin, feeling his body shift against the floor as I worked my way down and lifted his ankle in my hand to kiss his instep. “As much as I wanted to know what it felt like to make love to you, what I wanted, what I needed more, was exactly what you always gave me. You always made me fee like I mattered.” He gave a wordless murmur as I nipped his big toe and then opened his leg so that I could see the weight of his sac, the under curve of his buttocks and its clench as I worked my way up the inside of his thigh. “To belong to you and Fury,” I cupped him gently, and he sighed. “To belong to you and Fury is no hardship.”

Then I knelt there between his thighs and took him into my mouth, tensing a little at the thought, but losing myself quickly in the act as the taste of him and me together flooded my mouth.

He groaned and drew his knees up so that his feet rested on the floor to either side of me. Then he held very still, letting me get used to the act I had never before performed for the pleasure of someone I cared for, letting me find my pace.

“Jesus, Mac,” he managed between barely parted lips. “You’ve always belonged with us. We just had to find a way to make it happen.” Then he went non-verbal as I became more confident, more sure of my ability to give Manning pleasure. Then he began to push back, to thrust and shift as he needed, as though it were a dance we did.

With a little moan of surprise, I realized that Fury had joined us. From behind, he fingered and caressed me open, still wet from Manning, and then the caressing gave way to positioning, as he cupped my ass and scooted forward until I could feel muscular thighs. I lifted my hips and held my breath. Manning, anticipating what was about to happen, stopped moving. Fury stilled behind me.

“Are you sure, Diana Mac?” I felt the warmth of the breath he didn’t really need against my spine. “It will not be like anything you could easily imagine.”

“I’m sure Fury. Very sure.” I reached behind me to caress a muscular hip.

The act of penetration was such a humanoid thing, and it was easy to sense the humanoid shape behind me, the penis that parted me and entered my body, the hands that pulled me closer, then sought to heighten my pleasure, but the connection was so much more. One thrust and then another, and I cried out feeling as though every circuit, every fiber optic, ever micro capacitor onboard the ship suddenly ran through me. In an instant every micrometer that was Fury filled my body. I could see and feel it all, the cold caress of deep space, the complex hum of the life support, the autopilot constantly checking and rechecking our course, the shields, the computers, the probes the telemetry, the connection between Manning and Fury. At the instant we all climaxed together I realized something that in my heart, surely I must have expected from the beginning. Fury was sentient. Fury was an SNT!

Piloting Fury Part 27: 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 something shocking about her shackle.

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 28: About Your Shackle

I materialized on my hands and knees on the deck of the Fury, trying hard not to vomit. Manning mantled me for a moment, then scrambled to his feet.

“We need to jump. Now,” came Manning’s calm voice, and when I was too shaken to move, he yanked me upright; half dragged, half carried me to my chair and belted me in. He’d barely gotten his own belt secured when the g-forces of the pre-laid in jump pushed us back against the seats. Fury was gone and us right along with him.

Once the jump was made, Manning grabbed my hand in a suicide grip. “Mac, I need you to focus. We need to jump again, and then again after that, as quickly as possible. Get us as far into deep space as you can in a quick jump. Just do it!”

“Do not worry Diana Mac, Richard Manning knows what he is doing. We will be very safe if you do as he says.” I had already laid in coordinates by the time Fury finished his pep talk. “Ready to jump,” I said. As we did, I was already halfway through entering the coordinates for two more fast jumps.

The whole sequence took less than five minutes and we came out of hyperspace with a bone-jarring jerk. I sat still waiting for my innards to settle back into place before. Manning spoke between barely parted lips. “Good thing I didn’t have my dinner yet. I’d be losing it about now.” He swallowed hard then laid his head back against the seat. “Nobody with any kind of desire for self preservations would have followed us through that, even if they could have.” Then he covered his mouth with his hand and swallowed several times before the green tinge began to fade from his cheeks.

“Which they could not,” Fury added.

“I ran right into him, and the sonovabitch recognized me. Gerando Fallon recognized me.” Suddenly I was shaking so bad I couldn’t have stayed in the seat if I hadn’t been belted in. “If you hadn’t had a lock on my, I’d have ended up … Christ! He was going to take me back to his father. I’m just a runaway indentured. I’m a fucking fugitive. Fallon would have infected me… There’ll be repercussions for Fury. Jesus, Manning, what are we going to do? What are we going to do?” The deck swam around me, and my vision blurred. Manning threw off his harness and grabbed me up out of my chair with me shivering and babbling like some loony. When I finally came to myself, I was huddled in the middle of my bed in Manning’s arms, as he crooned to me softly.

 

 

“He is never going to have you. Ever, Mac, do you hear me? You’re not a fugitive, you belong right here with Fury and me, and no one will ever infect you again.”

“Diana Mac’s vitals are better now,” Fury said. “The likelihood of shock is greatly reduced.” It was strange, but I felt Fury almost as intimately as I felt Manning – not terribly surprising as closely as I’d worked with the ship.

“Mac, listen to me.” Manning eased the combs from my hair and ran his fingers through it. “I promise you no one could have followed us through those jumps, and certainly Fallon’s brat won’t find any allies at Stella’s. Stella turned a blind eye for me because she owes me. That means all the surveillance cameras were turned off. Fallon would have had them turned off anyway. The fact that the man has a reputation of being a drunken asshole means no one will believe even half of what he says, probably not even his father.”

“Jesus, Manning! You can’t be that naïve! It was his father who sent him – sent him looking for me, because he knows the sonovabitch wants me almost as much as his old man does. And if Leo Rab is helping him, well Rab’s no slouch, and he works for Harker on the Dubrovnik. Don’t you get it? They won’t give up. Fallon will never give up. How could I have possibly thought that he would, and now you and Fury are under threat because of me.”

“Don’t you worry about Fury and me. We’re fine, and so are you. Do you hear me, Mac?” He gave me a little shake. “So are you.”

I nodded and gulped a deep breath.

He studied me for a minute as though he doubted that he’d gotten his message through, then he blew out a heavy breath. “As for the Dubrovnik, well it was Harker who helped me get you away. Rab, I don’t know, but I’m guessing he’s not the only one on the Dubrovnik, or any conglomerate ship, for that matter, who gets a little something extra under the table for snitching.”

For a long time no one spoke, and while I could sense Manning’s gaze on me, it was the Fury’s warmth that I felt, a micro-adjustment to the space where I lay, no doubt. Fury was all about the comfort of his crew.

To my surprise, it was Fury who spoke to Manning. “Are you sure it is a good idea, Richard Manning? There are risks.”

“There are always risks,” Manning said, “and it’s time she knew.”

“Knew what?” I asked.

Fury made what sounded like a tutting noise, but then I may have just imagined that. I didn’t imagine the charged air between captain and ship, which made my skin prickle.

Manning took a deep breath and cupped my arm in his hand, holding it so the place where the shackle was implanted was exposed. For a moment, we both stared down at the spot, and then he ran the fingertips of his right hand along the slight roughness of it. “You’re not an indentured anymore, Mac. You’re shackle is empty.”

 

 

Piloting Fury Part 26: KDG Scifi Romance

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Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another  Monday morning read. I’m just back from a wonderful week in Northmoor writing my brains out, but I didn’t forget about all of you. Here’s this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury.  

 

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 26: Winning Big

“Tell you what,” he said in a slurred voice that was dripping seduction and generously laced with greed, “how about I give you a chance to win it all back and more.” He looked me up and down, and I crossed my legs and leaned forward.

“What did you have in mind?”

“If you win, you take back your shares. If I win, you give me the coordinates for the triaxium.” When I started to protest, he placed a brandy-scented finger against my lips. “Oh don’t worry, sweetie pie, if you lose I’ll see that you have enough credits transferred into your account that you won’t have to resort to poker for a little while at least.” He pulled my hand to his lips and kissed the back of it to the tune of Manning’s rapid-fired, multi-lingual cursing in my ear. My lips twitched, but I’m no amateur. I made it look like I was about to cry.

“You would do that for me?”

“Of course I would, darlin’. I wouldn’t leave you destitute, now would I? But,” he grabbed up my hand again and began to stroke the backs of my fingers as though he were stroking something farther south, “I would expect a little … reward, if you know what I mean.”

I offered my best pout. “And what about me? What’s my reward? How do I know you can trust me, I mean you just stiffed your partner for a whole shipment of New Hibernian. I ran my teeth over my pouty lip and shook my head. “No, I think I’d better go face the music. I lost. I need to quit while I still at least have a job.”

“I’ll throw in the whiskey.” And there it was, what I’d been waiting for.

“A whole load?” I settled back into my chair, and his gaze followed my tits as I did.

“Look, I’ll be honest with you. I’ve got room in my freighter for a full load of triax from a stingray class, but not with the whiskey, which I haven’t sold on just yet. I was holding out to trade with some New Sumerians just in from the Far Outer. They’ll pay a fortune for it.

I leaned forward my biggest smile leading the way, then I looked around to make sure no one was listening. “How’d you like a new partner?”

“What did you have in mind,” he said stroking my arm and all but drooling in my cleavage.

“Well,” I wriggled in my seat. “My crew are losers. I can’t count the number of times they’ve cheated me out of my fair share, and they never listen to me. I could have made us a fortune in the Outer Rim several times over if they’d only just taken my advice, followed up on my research, but no. I’m just the pilot. I’m not the captain, who is an idiot, by the way,” I said with a wave of my hand.

 

 

“Watch it,” Manning chuckled into my implant.

“It’ll take them a week, maybe more to get the equipment together, and then there are the permits. They’re actually going to get permits, can you believe it?” His eyes were getting bigger and brighter by the moment. “Our cargo bay is empty, plenty of room for a load of whiskey, and I’m the pilot, I can drop the shields and we can mol-tran the whiskey right on over. You did say you had mol-tran, didn’t you?” I didn’t wait for his reply. “Then you’ll have room for all that triax. If we leave now, we can mol-tran the triax, sell it on, and be back in time for Carnival in the Riviera. We can just let my soft-headed crew have the whiskey, that’s nothing, that’s chump change compared to the triax. What do you say?” I reached into my handbag and pulled out a couple of decent sized nuggets of ore that Manning had onboard the Fury. “I couldn’t resist taking these little babies just for luck, you know?” I ran my palm over his chest and all but purred. “I’d certainly say my luck has just changed.”

“Both our luck, partner,” he said squeezing my hand. By this time I’d learned to totally ignore Manning’s ongoing derogatory monologue. “All I need are the coordinates, Layla,” Blake said. I’d told him my name was Layla Bridges. It was actually the name of a series of obscure bridges my father had taken me to visit in a remote region of the Plitak System. They were ancient, built of stone spanning countless, rivers and waterfalls. It was the last trip I’d made with my father before he was bonded to the Merlin.

“Here we go, I’ve just lowered the shields so you can mol-tran the whiskey. Oh heavens, I’m so excited.” I gave him Fury’s coordinates.

“I’m ‘tranning them over now,” he said.

“Hold it.” I brushed my cleavage against his arm and settled close enough to see his device while he set up the ‘tran lock. “What’s that?”

He zoomed in. “Polyphemian musk oil. Huge shipment,” he said. “I traded a Digan for it. Practically stole it. Poor bastard didn’t know what he had, since Digan’s have no sense of smell, they’re not susceptible.”

But everyone else was very susceptible, and I knew it. Polyphemian musk oil was one of the most expensive, most coveted aphrodisiacs in the galaxy. “Well, you’d better do something with it because you’ll need all that space for the triax, trust me you will, and even then I’m not sure you can get it all on board.”

The greedy bastard expanded the lock and this time Manning’s curses sounded more like a prayer of surprised thanksgiving. Blake and I watched as both the whiskey and the musk oil disappeared from his cargo bay. I passed the coordinates for the non-existent triaxium to his device just as Fury confirmed that our cargo hold was indeed very full.