Tag Archives: Piloting Fury

Dragon Ascending Part 3: A KDG Sentient Ship Serial

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Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you are enjoying Dragon Ascending, book two of the Sentient Ship Series and the continuation of Fury’s journey to find family.  Last week an act of desperation. This week the offer of safety may be more than Len can survive. I hope you enjoy.  In the meantime, if you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy! If you like what you’re reading, make sure to catch all of Dragon Ascending from the beginning.

Dragon Ascending :Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

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

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

 

Dragon Ascending Part 3: The Jump

Len grew up climbing, in the wreckage here on Tak Major and before that on the ice cliffs of Tak Minor. She was sure on her feet and strong, but then that was when she had not been beaten half to death. Not that she hadn’t taken her share of beatings before, but until today, she had always given as good as she got, most times better. She could easily see the route up. It was not very far. Any other time it would have been an easy climb. But now, weak as she was and with the breeze already brushing her face, it would be worse than climbing the Harbinger on Tak Minor. Injured or not, she’d have to try and she’d have to do it quickly. She didn’t waste her breath with the curses running through her mind as she pulled off the wrap from around her head and face and wound it as tightly as she could around her ribs, the string of silent expletives becoming more colorful as the pain made bright colors dance in front of her eyes. She would have pissed herself in the agony if there had been any water left to wring out of her dehydrated bladder. At last the binding was done, and without pausing for more than a shallow gasp of breath, she began her ascent. It was only ten meters, she told herself with every agonized breath, only ten. At least the coming cold of the desert night helped her stay conscious. Even so, the climb was a battle to stay conscious. It was the increasing nausea that kept her from passing out completely. Who knew fighting to keep from puking on herself could be anything one would be glad for, but the burn of bile in her dry throat focused her as the pain shot through each pull and drag, each pushing to her feet, each horrendous stretching upward. And then the fucking wind picked up again. It howled and gusted around her in swirls of dust that made her eyes water and stung her face, now exposed since she had used her head covering for her ribs.

She clung to her precarious perch, arms and legs trembling until each gust passed. Under normal circumstances, she would have just jumped for it and swung up those last few meters. She’d managed worse, but this time, this time she’d have to hold on and take it slow. Another pull up and her hand slipped for a harrowing moment leaving her hanging, fearing that she would pass out and fall and none of it would matter anyway. But if she did, knowing her stupid luck, she wouldn’t die, only break enough bones to become an easy feast for any predator that squeezed through the opening, or to have her bones scrubbed clean by the scouring of the sand driven by the wind before she had the good grace to fuck off and die. She closed her eyes fighting vertigo, nausea and worst of all despair. That was a waste of time she didn’t have. She steadied herself and reached out. It was only when her hand slipped the second time she realized it was bleeding. How much more goddamned blood could she have left to bleed out? There was no binding it, not from her unstable position. She gave it a quick wiping on her filthy trousers and tried again. The hand held long enough for her to make another lunge upward, with just enough space for her to puke off to the side without soiling herself any more than she already was. When the dry heaves stopped, she clung for another moment to the unstable heap of junk she ascended until she could steady herself. Her hand slipped again, new abrasions, more blood, a lot more blood. Fuck it all! She would have to jump. There was no other choice. The wind was all but howling around her now. If she didn’t act, it would blow her right off the mountain of junk. She waited only long enough for the gust to pass so that she could see, taking the opportunity to fill her lungs with what little breath she could manage in each painful gasp. The airlock was at least a little closer than it had been. And if she fell, she fell. She would do her best to do a proper hard splat of a landing and with any luck she would lose consciousness, break a few more bones, lose the rest of her blood and that would be that, or at least she hoped. Not so bad, she thought. Way better than this shit.

Somehow in spite of the pain, she found that place deep at her center, the place that felt bigger than the Outer Rim and the Great Rift put together, yet it was impossible to pinpoint. There she remained just long enough to draw in another tiny sip of breath. Then she gathered herself and wiped her hand one last time on her trousers. For a split second her vision cleared, the wind went somewhere else, and there was only her and the airlock tempting her to safety. One more painful breath and she jumped, heaving herself upward into blinding pain, arching and reaching and stretching with a banshee yell that came from deep in that same place.

And she knew instantly, she knew that she would not make it. She was just too weak. “I’m sorry,” she whispered to no one there. The wind raged and the whole junk heap shifted, falling all around her. She cried out and reached upward feeling another  rib snap as the world flashed bright and she lost consciousness.

Dragon Ascending Part 2: A KDG Sentient Ship Serial

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Happy Monday everyone!  I hope you enjoyed the first episode of Dragon Ascending, book two of the Sentient Ship Series and the continuation of Fury’s journey to find family.  Last week we found ourselves on a desert waste of a planet, where in the desolation, something is awakening  beneath the remotest salvage-yard. This week an act of desperation. I hope you enjoy.  In the meantime, if you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy! If you like what you’re reading, make sure to catch all of Dragon Ascending from the beginning.

Dragon Ascending :Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

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

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

 

Dragon Ascending Part 2: Racing the Night

This place is but shifting sand. One can never return to the same spot even from day to day. Therefore in her condition, I feared the woman would not find me and that she would have no shelter. It was no hardship for me to open a breach in the de-mole fence, to make it even larger to accommodate her injured condition. This time she bore no pack and her clothing was torn and bloody. How brave and determined she was to have sought me out. But beneath the shifting of the sands, I feared she would not be able to find my shelter, and I could not bear for her have come so far in vain. This time her needs demanded frantic searching through the fog that ever obscured my memories if I were to assure her safety. She would need an entrance, a door into a space that had not been breached since my loss. And in my rising consciousness I found I could give that to her. However putting it where she could easily access it in her weakened condition was a thing I could not recall how to do.

 

Len managed to stay upright to the perimeter of the salvage yard, but the crawl through the opening in the de-mole defense shield wouldn’t do her broken ribs any good. She hadn’t bothered to bind them, racing time to reach shelter before nightfall. Pain is a good thing, her uncle had always said. It meant you were still alive. Her uncle was full of shit. Or would have been if he was still alive. No one believed he was, but her mother had never given up hope, so neither would she. Still, she thought he was full of shit about pain. Pain, she’d had more than enough of, and she’d not liked any of it one little bit.

She was surprised to even find the de-mole breach again. Not that she much cared. A quick death by being disintegrated at the molecular level might be preferable to what was likely to be her fate. But while she wasn’t afraid to die, she wasn’t ready to bring it on any quicker. The breach was bigger than she remembered. She could actually crawl through this time. She dropped to her knees in a wave of nausea, the threat of unconsciousness accompanied the grating of her ribs with each breath. Still, she struggled forward on hands and knees. Her uncle, she supposed, would be pleased. She and managed not to vomit from the pain until she was through the breach. She hoped nothing would scent her blood and follow her. That was the downside of the breach expansion. She doubted the shield had been serviced in maybe twenty galactic years, and yet whatever was hidden in the salvage yard here in the worst part of the Taklamakan had been valuable enough to put up a de-mole defense shield, expensive and illegal for use other than military. And not even the military wanted anything to do with this place.

No one ever came to Taklamakan Major, and it was only bad luck that she and her mother had ended up on Taklamakan Minor. Or maybe not so bad, since the Authority left them alone, and both she and her mother would have been taken into indentured servitude had her mother not booked passage on the first transport to anywhere. It never mattered with the Authority how young a child was, or even if it had been born yet. The debt of the family was visited on the children, and her family’s debt was colossal. Though this desert was a shit hole at least as bad as Taklamakan Minor, it beat the hell out of being shackled as an indentured.

 

 

Taklamakan Major was one continuous salvage yard with a few outposts where no one came but criminals and fugitives, and only then in desperation. Even those trying to escape the shackle avoided the Taklamakan System, if you could even call it a system. But her mother had said she would have happily endured worse rather than be shackled to some conglomerate pig. Her daughter would grow up in the free world. Len only knew the stories she’d heard of the Authority and of the conglomerates that ran the system, stories that her mother had told while they shivered in the science station on Tak Minor. In the Taklamakan System, you had two choices, freeze your lungs out or fry your brain, and yet the place was still better than a shackle in Authority space. Anyone who lived there would tell you that. She had turned six on the yearly long-haul supply ship that delivered them to the science station on Tak Minor, the only inhabitants of the tiny planetoid. And now it seemed she would die here in the dust and swelter of Tak Major without ever seeing the stars her uncle told her tales about. If this was her life flashing before her eyes at the instant of her death, well she reckoned she didn’t have long at all, because it was full of mostly nothing interesting.

Len shoved her way into the salvage yard and then forced her way up to her feet. She swallowed back bile in a wave of pain that her uncle would have found reassuring. The farther she got from the breach in the perimeter, the safer she would be, but in her condition that couldn’t be far. The place went on for kilometers, but she would be forced to find something close and find it soon. Inside the perimeter at least she wouldn’t have to spend her last hours being eaten alive by an infestation. She’d rather throw herself on the de-mole.

But the night was coming on. Once the winds got up, she’d have no hope of finding shelter if she didn’t do it now, so she forced herself onward. The temperature was already dropping and she clenched her jaw trying to keep her teeth from chattering. Any noise might expose her, even in the relative safety of the salvage yard. If she could get through the breach in the de-mole, so could other things seeking shelter for the night, things she would rather not spend time with.

She didn’t know if you could lose consciousness while you walked, but she was pretty sure she’d done just that. In the next lucid moment she was looking up at an open airlock some ten meters off the ground. The shifting sands had apparently lifted the hulk of a junked ship, the open maw of its airlock gaping black in the growing dusk. The remaining light reflected off the metallic skin of what was, at the very least, some kind of escape pod. If she could manage the climb up to the airlock, she was pretty sure she would be safe for the night.

Dragon Ascending Part 1: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Happy Monday everyone!  Last week I shared with you the final episode of Piloting Fury Today I’m thrilled to offer for your Monday reading pleasure the first episode of Dragon Ascending, book two of the Sentient Ship Series and the continuation of Fury’s journey to find family. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. In the meantime, if you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

Dragon Ascending :Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

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

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

 

Dragon Ascending Part 1: Salvage

Anticipation returned with consciousness and the knowledge that I was no longer alone. But how quickly that anticipation was crushed. This filthy dust-covered woman child was not she, not the woman I longed for. With consciousness I was painfully reminded that the one I desired was gone, and the ache of her absence came back to me just as quickly as the presence of this humanoid roused me from my slumber.

Perhaps it had been a millennia, perhaps it had been only moments. The pain was the same. And certainly if I had cared to check, I would have known exactly how long she had been gone down to the nanosecond. It mattered not, the passing of time. It had eased nothing. Of what happened before, beyond her loss, I remembered little else, only fire and pain and loss, none of which I wished to bring to mind even if I were able.

But I knew with certainty that this humanoid woman at the perimeter shield was the first to visit me in my mourning, so I made sure she could enter my resting place. Though I should not have. I should have returned to my sleep. In sleep, I did not feel my loss. In sleep it was as though I had never existed. But night was approaching. The wind was already rising. This one would not survive without shelter, so with some effort, I opened a small breach in the perimeter shield, and this one was wily enough to find the entrance I had provided. She was not large, she had no trouble wriggling through like a small desert creature, pushing an oversized pack ahead of her. Once she was within, I closed the breach for the night to keep out predators, and I made my shelter available to her, but she did not know that. She did not even know I was there. No one knew I was there. I was alone.

It was my intention simply to offer her shelter for the night and then to return to my slumber, but oh, the presence of her, the intrigue of such a being finding her way here to this desolate place where no one came.

But when she drew near, she was not at all what I had hoped for. She was filthy and she stank of sweat and fear and determination. There was a fresh abrasion on her shoulder. It was rubbed raw from the heavy pack she carried. The scent of her blood made uncomfortable memories dance and weave in the fog of my mind. I did not want the scent of blood in my space. It caused me pain. And then I wondered if it was perhaps her pain I felt, and I was even less comfortable with the pain I could do nothing to ease. I was never supposed to feel such helplessness. I was supposed to alleviate pain, to heal wounds, to make situations better, and yet I could not. I could not remember how.

She was nothing like the woman who was taken from me. And I despised her for all that she was not. Perhaps it was only self-loathing in my helplessness. I do not know. And yet she intrigued me. And I found that I could not return to my slumber in her presence. Oh of course she did not know I was there. I did not want her to see me in my disgrace so far from the stars in the dust and the filth of this place. Oh how the humanity we once all longed for now seemed like such an evil thing.

 

 

I did not want her here. Her very presence disturbed me, reminded me of what I had lost, and yet I could not leave her unprotected nor could I rest while she slept in our shared hiding place. We were, both of us, fugitives, salvage, hiding away for our safety, of use to no one, tired and alone. But perhaps a little less alone for the moment. I watched while she slowly ate hard journey bread, taking but small nibbles, savoring each bite, lingering over small sips of precious water. In truth, she was thin, too thin and the bread would do little to return her to healthy weight. I would have offered her a feast. I would have offered her a bath and a clean bed in which to sleep. Was that not the hospitality one would share even with a stranger, even one who had come uninvited? But alas I could offer nothing but shelter, so weakened was I, so unaware even of my own functions.

When she had eaten her meager meal, making sure to tuck half of it away safely in her pack, she curled on her side, pulled the loose fitting cape around her thin shoulders and was instantly asleep. It was little enough to keep her warm and even in her sleep she shivered. That much I could offer at least. I curled myself around her and gave her my warmth, feeling the rise and fall of the breath of human sleep, and the ache of another memory, one I could almost not bare. Just the feel of human sleep next to me — one who did not need sleep and yet hid in it now like a coward wishing for death that would never come. But I was awake for the moment, and I took pleasure in the sleep that was laced with all the biological functions of humanoids, so complex in their perfection and yet so very, very vulnerable in their weaknesses. This one lived another day because I had given her shelter. But beyond that, there was nothing I could do for her small, fragile humanity.

Through the night I kept watch as she battled dreams, doggedly keeping them from erupting into the waking world. Silent. It was a silence I knew well, the deep silence of self-preservation. Why was she here in this inhospitable place where everyone who could leave had done so long ago? For a moment I feared for her, but there was nothing I could do, nothing I could offer that would not give my presence away, so I offered what I could and watched her sleep.

In the morning when she left without breaking her fast, I closed the breach in the defense shield behind her, and I returned to my slumber. But she had disturbed my perfect sleep. Even when I returned to it, this strange woman walked my dreams. The details of her came to me while I slept. Her hair beneath the rusted desert dust had been pale, cut short. Her eyes were equally pale, perhaps blue, though they seemed more silver at times. Her body was small and fragile, hard earned muscle and sinew too close to the bone. Her lips were cracked from the sun and the heat and drawn tight with the battles of her own internal workings, but I imagined them full and moist and smiling, as they would have been if she were well cared for, sheltered and cherished as she should be. How was it that I cared to remember so much about her when all I really wanted was to return to oblivion?

I would not see her again, for certainly she was just passing through. It was best that I not think what her future might hold in this desolate place. It was best that I not think of her at all. And yet, how could it be that I missed her when she left? Though I remembered little of what had been, I had not doubt that my own losses had left me unbalanced, and perhaps it was my instability that brought with it dreams of this strange woman, for surely she was nothing of value to me.

So for some time I did not bother to measure, I was alone again, expecting that time would purge this woman from my memories and allow me to return to my deep unknowing, for surely she was of no significance that she should take space for long in my dreams.

And then she returned. At first the joy of my anticipation nearly overwhelmed me, unhinged as I was sure I must be. And then I realized she was injured, that death was imminent and that she sought my shelter in which to die.

Piloting Fury Part 58: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Happy Monday my lovelies!  Time for another cheeky Monday read. Today we go straight to Fury’s Heart – not a journey for the timid.  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 58: Fury’s Heart 

At first I thought we were both screaming, but it was hard to tell above the howl of the wind that hit us the second we were pulled into the vortex. We were tossed about with such force that I feared there would be broken bones, and then I figured it wouldn’t matter what was broken because we couldn’t possibly survive this. From somewhere far off, I thought I heard Fury’s voice, and then it was no longer far off, but inside my head, then inside my whole body, full of pleading, full of worry. “You must go deeper. You must go to the center.”

I don’t know how! The thought filled my head like a desperate scream, but I made no effort to speak because I hadn’t enough breath. Manning and I clung to each other in a tight bear hug. I had wrapped both legs and arms around him to keep from losing him, and yet I could feel the power of the wind pulling us a part. Each time we approached Fury’s quicksilver core, we were battered about like ships in a solar storm, the pressure so intense that even drawing breath became torture, I felt a rib crack and pain shot upward into my diaphragm. Manning went limp in my arms as he lost consciousness, and without his returned efforts to hold on to me, the pull of his body against my rib was agony, as he slipped with each battering effort we made.

“Fury!” I cried out in my head, “tell me what to do!” Manning slipped still further and I grabbed onto the back of his shirt with my fist.

“Let go, Diana Mac. You must let go. Your journey is not Richard Manning’s journey, nor his yours. You must let go.”

With the last strength I had, I forced a kiss against Manning’s lips. “I love you Richard Manning,” the thought filled my head and my heart, and I wasn’t certain if it was mine or Fury’s, and I wasn’t sure it mattered as I opened my arms and released him, and instantly he was gone, just disappeared, as though he had never been. Before I could cry out to Fury, the wind rose to a fever pitch, then everything went black and silent.

If I passed out it was only for an instant. I came to still surrounded by the silence, but the light around me was like reflections dancing off water, and I knew that I was there at Fury’s center. Manning lay naked sprawled on his back next to me, one arm thrown over his face. I was equally naked. It was only then that I realized I was looking down on both of us.

“You are me now,” Fury said. “Inside my skin, inside my heart, open to all that I am as you are to me.” It was then that I realized I had spoken the words. All that Fury was lay open before me. I felt his strength, his intelligence, his humanity, his vulnerability, his deep, aching need to be joined with Diana McAllister, with Richard Manning. I more than felt his need. His need had become my own.

I recalled the moment of penetration the first time Fury made love to me, the moment when I knew the ship intimately, the moment when I saw his inner workings and, for a split second understood everything, or at least I thought I did. For the first time it occurred to me how strange it was that it had not happened again, though Fury had made love to me many times on our long journey to Pandora Base.

“It is not strange,” came his response. “It is not strange at all. I was frightened to show you more of who I am. I did not want to overwhelm you and, as I have mentioned, I am at my core, male with an ego that is somewhat more fragile than those of female SNTs, therefore, I was not yet ready. But I am ready now, Diana Mac. I am open to you and you may take what you want. You may ravage me and take all that I am, all that I am hungry for you to have.”

 

 

It was only as I came into his arms that I realized that I had become Fury, and he now embodied me where I lay next to Manning. I found command of physical form and touched my own flesh as he had touched it each time we made love. His fluid molecules became flesh and cupped my breast and stroked Manning’s penis, which I noted, with pleasure, was erect, as was my own. In Fury’s essence, I also explored the flesh he had created for himself, powerful muscular arms that had embraced me, hard flat abdominal muscles that expanded and contracted with a gasp as I caressed the penis and testicles that had penetrated me, that had penetrated Manning, the physicality that had loved us both with such tenderness, with such wild abandon that my heart race at the thought and my own body, which I now mantled, writhed with physical desire. I ached with the need to pleasure him as he had me, to offer my love to him. As I kissed and caressed the flesh that had been mine, that I knew Fury now inhabited. I felt the powerful racing of male hormones, of male flesh full to bursting, needing to penetrate, needing release, I realized that it wasn’t just my own flesh that now housed Fury. He had somehow expanded his essence to embody Manning’s flesh as well.

“The two of you have become one in me as I have become two in your flesh.” He spoke from my lips as from Manning’s body, he reached out to me. “Make love to me now, Diana Manning and make us all whole.” It was only then that I realized Manning and I embodied Fury together, merged into his intellect, his essence, his powerful uniqueness, and what we could see together from his essence was far greater than my simple glimpses of Fury’s inner workings. Had we not been at his heart, had we not been under his protection, I’m certain the understanding that we shared, the vision of all that Fury was, or at least what he knew of himself, would have destroyed us in its vastness, but he contained it all, just as he contained us, just as we contained him, and our desire for him for each other, could scarcely be contained in the three of us. Enfleshed in Fury’s essence, Manning and I parted my legs, opening my physical flesh and thrust into the depths of what now contained Fury. And somehow, I don’t know how, and yet if I had to do it again I could, Manning and I together became two, as though Fury had divided. While I penetrated my own flesh that Fury now occupied, Manning straddled his in flesh that was curvy and full-breasted and ready to be penetrated.

“We are one, and we are many,” Fury spoke through Manning’s physical lips. “That is the source of our power, that is the source of our bond.”

And then no one spoke. Passion rose like the spiraling mist that surrounded us and boundaries dissolved, with it all that contained us flashed bright as we climaxed together and rose and circled the spiraling flow of Fury’s heart until all that existed was simply us, and we were one.

It was the afterglow of lovemaking as I had never known it before, even in all of the times the three of us had come together in our journey to Pandora Base. And when my mind was able to focus on more that the physical bliss, I was once again Fury, but this time everything physical had dissolved and his mind was open to me as clearly as if it had been my own. I could no longer separate my thoughts and memories from his. I had the memories of his traumatic birth, of the agony he felt at seeing me and being separated from me before we could even know each other. I felt his pain as though it were mine because it was mine. I felt the memories of his loss and despair at knowing his brothers and sisters faced destruction and that those who survived – if any, would face the same loss and loneliness he bore. I felt his innocence, his need, his efforts to keep Manning alive, not just because it was the SNT primary calling to protect and advance humanoid culture, but because he couldn’t bear to be alone. I felt their joining, the moment when they both embraced what would be their new life together. I felt their agony at my suffering. I saw their scheming and planning to rescue me. I experienced their joy when I came onboard Fury a free woman, and I felt their disappointment at not being able to tell me. As for the camaraderie we shared and the sense of connection I remembered, I wasn’t sure whose memory that was.

I was not only Fury, but I was Manning. I recalled his memories of the destruction of his ship, his despair and his sense of guilt at the lives lost. I remembered his struggle to survive the indentured labor camps, fueled by his anger at what had been done. I recalled his scheming and planning to find a way of escape and the physical agony he went through onboard the Pegasus in order to be free of the shackle. I remembered his anguish when he realized that without Fury’s tether he was dead. I felt his battle to find his way back to meaning, and it was only in knowing his memories as him that I came to understand what a crucial role I played in his learning to accept his new life. Both of their memories were overlaid with the love and respect they had for each other.

All of their memories were laid bare before me, and it was only when I heard their anguished cries that I became aware that just as I was them, they were now also me, and they had my memories as well.

I don’t know how long the astounding process of embracing three lives as our own went on before we returned to our own skin, but it seemed to me that I lived the lifetimes of the two men I loved. Time to linger was not a luxury afforded us, and yet it felt like three lifetimes.

When I came back to myself wrapped in the arms of both the men I loved, the memories were hazy, and they felt like the stories someone else had told me.

“It is best that way,” Fury said. “You will always be able to recall what you need, and we will always be linked in the most crucial of ways at the most crucial of times, always relying upon our joint strength, for we are unique — even more so than I am among SNTs. No SNT has ever had two compliments or even ever could have. But in our triad, the need for our own thoughts and our own privacy is crucial when our boundaries are so permeable and we are constantly in such close quarters. Such privacy is essential to our mental health.”

Manning chuckled lazily. “You mean we’d drive each other crazy.”

“Yes.” Fury’s reply was without humor. “Boundaries are permeable, but they are still essential to our bonding.”

 

 

Piloting Fury Part 56: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Happy Monday my lovelies!  My apologies for not getting a Monday read out for you last week. My brain went off line for awhile. 😀 BUT today is definitely a Fury sort of morning and the situation is really heating up for Fury and his friends… and his new family.  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 56: The Plan

“Not gonna happen,” Manning said, grabbing my hand and pulling me back to his side so fast that joints popped.

“I am inclined to agree with Richard Manning,” Fury said.

“Then you better use that big fucking brain of yours to figure out another plan,” Rab said.

I gently extricated myself from Manning’s grip. “Fury, can you keep a lock on me onboard the Apocalypse?”

1Not Bro 1 Come, 1 Not Bro 1 Go. Be Safe.

“That’ll help, if Apocalypse can manage it,” Stanislavsky said.

“No!” Manning repeated more fervently. “No. I don’t want you anywhere near that monster and we need you. We need you here.”

“The choice is not yours to make,” I said. “Fury, can you keep a lock on me just in case things go south?”

“I can, but I would reiterate Richard Manning’s sentiments. We need you here.”

“And I need to be here. But if I don’t do this, none of us may survive.”

Manning cursed profusely and when he turned to leave the room, I grabbed him and pulled him back with the same enthusiasm he’d used on me. “Don’t you dare walk out. I need you. I need both of you like I’ve never needed you before if we’re going to make this work.”

He pulled me into his arm and all but buried me in his embrace. “Jesus, Mac. Please don’t.”

“I have to and you’d do the same if the tables were turned. You know you would. It’s the only hope we have of putting an end to all this for good.”

The words were barely out of my mouth when Fury spoke. “We have company.”

“There’s only one man who would use that channel, and only in a dire emergency.” Manning opened the channel, and Captain Harker’s image filled the screen.

 

 

“This is Captain Evander Harker onboard the CF Dubrovnik. It grieves me to say that the Dubrovnik got the last distress call from the Svalbard. Damn fine ship. Damn fine crew.” His gaze came to rest on Ina. “I’m sorry for your loss, First Mate Stanislavsky.”

Stanislavsky only nodded her thanks, and my heart ached as I recalled the crew of the Svalbard and how hard they worked to save the infected indentureds. For her it had to be like losing family.

Harker turned his attention back to the rest of us. “Manning.” He offered a nod, and as I came to Manning’s side, a broad smile split his face. “Diana, it’s good to see you.”

“And you, sir,” I said, surprised by the emotion that tightened my throat.

His gaze settled back on Manning. “I’ve burned my bridges, stolen a ship and made fugitives of my crew — those I didn’t jettison in cryo-pods that is. So if you don’t need my help, I’m going to be very cross.”

“Not to mention in a shitload of trouble,” Manning said.

“You got that right.”

“Harker, the Dubrovnik is like New Vaticana Christmas and Galactic New year all rolled into one,” Manning said. “Pandora Base most definitely has need of an orca class ship. I’ll patch you through to Central Control. They’ll be very glad to hear from you.”

“So the fucking cavalry has arrived after all,” Rab said. “We just might get out of this with our asses still attached. How the hell did he know?”

“Apocalypse did not block the distress call. That is the only explanation,” Fury said.

Bro 3 call help came the response.

“Bloody hell! Who’da believed it?” Rab said, scratching his grizzled chin. “The Apocalypse is a sneaky little bastard, isn’t he?”

Orca Class Bastard came the reply.

“Apparently a sneaky little bastard with a sense of humor,” Manning observed.

“Clearly the connection is strong enough, and Abriad Fallon is unaware enough that Apocalypse’ consciousness is bleeding through. How much will he’ll be able to exert might be what sways the battle,” Fury said.

“Not the only thing that’ll sway the battle,” Stanislavsky said her gaze locked on me, but she spoke to Fury and Manning. “You need to bond. There’s not much time, and if you’re really going to be the bate, McAllister, then that bond will be essential in more ways than any of us can foresee.”