Tag Archives: Piloting Fury

Piloting Fury Part 54: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Happy Monday my lovelies!  I’m in Scotland at the Mo, on the Isle of Bute. I’ll be doing a good bit of reading for my own pleasure while I’m here. And some writing, of course. How could I not be inspired on a beautiful Scottish isle? I have not forgotten your Monday morning dose of Fury! In this week’s episode Mac tries to make impossible connections. 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 54: Making Contact

Bro 123? Bro 123? I typed.

We waited and nothing happened. Keen was called away on more urgent business and I kept trying, getting more and more frustrated.

To my surprise it was Stanislovsky who came to me, her face drawn with grief from the loss of the Svalbard. But it wasn’t that she wanted to talk about. “So what now? Are you just going to let him suffer?”

I stiffened, shoulders that were already tight feeling like granite. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’ve been right here the whole time trying to help, trying to be useful. Surely he could get in touch with me just as easily as I can with him.”

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“He’s a fucking man! Seriously, McAllister, can you be that naïve?”

I ground my teeth. “As a matter of fact, I can. In case you’ve forgotten I’m not exactly experienced in the world of relationships and consensual sex. Now, if you’ve just come to make me feel worse than I already do, then there’s the door.” I nodded toward it.

“Yeah, well, welcome to the club.” Her face darkened and I felt like the asshole she probably thought me to be.

Of course she knew exactly what I’d been through. She’d been through it herself, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she’d just lost her entire ship and its crew.

“Look, I’m sorry.” I scrubbed a hand over my face and fought my own urge to mourn. “It’s just … I don’t know how to handle this. Have you been with him?”

“Of course I have. I’m a doctor. I was called to treat Fallon and Rab, and I’m pretty sure the infected are a lot less miserable than ship and crew. Manning’s like a Hibernian bear and Fury, well he’s gone none verbal. I mean he’s always been a bit brooding, but I’ve never seen him like this. I had to communicate with him on the fucking console, and even then all he would say when I asked what happened is that you left and you were very upset.”

“Of course I was upset! He ‘tranned Gerando Fallon onboard.”

“I understand that, and so does he, but you left without letting him explain why he did what he did.” Before I could respond, she nodded to the screen. “Vic told me you thought you might be able to make contact with Apocalypse because you were born to be Fury’s compliment. I thought I might be able to help since I was trained to be a compliment. I probably understand a little better the protocols and connections between a compliment and an SNT.

I nodded to the monitor and my efforts to communicate with Apocalypse. “Well, I’m certainly not having any luck. Any help would be appreciated.”

 

 

I barely got the words out of my mouth when the screen went blank and then flashed in big letters: bro1 needs bro1 needs, and then the words repeated until the screen was full of the words over and over again.

Bro1 needs what? I type. It took me several times, my hands were shaking so badly, but this time the answer was immediate.

needs go go! bro1 needs go!

go where?

Go BRO 1!!! 

This time the words were huge and they flashed red.

“It’s not a where,” Stanislavsky said leaning over my shoulder. “It’s a who, McAllister, and the who is you. I think he wants you to go to Fury.” She elbowed me aside and typed

1 not bro go bro1?

!!!!bro 1 need 1not bro!!!! gogogogo!!!!

“Wait a second.” She did something to the com system and with a few touches of the key reception switched to an obscure subspace channel, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. For an instant a sensation not unlike electricity coursed through my body. I thought I was having some sort of seizure. And then Fury’s voice filled my head.

“Diana Mac I need you. I need you. I need you. Diana Mac I need you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Nothing came up on the screen – no words, no symbols, which was just as well, since I couldn’t have seen them when my eyes were misted. There was no other sound in the room except my ragged breathing. Then I realized that Stanislavsky couldn’t hear it.

“Bloody hell! I didn’t know! How do I …?” I struggled to find a way to communicate on the channel.

“You don’t. You can’t. I took a chance that you might be able to hear. It’s amazing that it worked at all, but then you were born for him. You’re connected already in ways no one else could ever be. I took a chance that you might be able to hear it on his private sub channel. It’s sort of like train of thought for an SNT. It’s very private and no one taps into it unless there are problems. No one would ever have to in the case of a properly bonded SNT. I think Manning can hear it, but I’ve never asked, and I know that Vic has never felt the need to check out Fury’s sub-processor routine.” She nodded to the screen, I’m guessing that because Apocalypse is only a partially conscious SNT, a hybrid, that sub processor is what Gerando Fallon tapped into. How he managed it, how he even suspected it was possible is beyond me. Definitely a question that needs to be asked when he’s recovered enough to be questioned.”

1 not bro gogogo! flashed continually across entire screen, a symbolic effort to scream at me ,if that’s what it took to get my attention.

With trembling hands I responded 1 not bro go now!

“Go.” Stanislavsky shooed me out the door. “I’ll try to keep him talking and see if I can find out more.”

Piloting Fury Part 53: A KDG SiFi Romance

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Happy May, my lovelies! And what a warm one it’s starting out to be here in the UK.  It’s definitely time to read outside in the sunshine with a cold drink. I’m SO there!  Here is your Monday morning dose of Fury al fresco! In this week’s episode Mac discovers blood connections in strange places. 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 53: Family Connections

I went to the control center to see if there was anything I could do to help. I needed to be busy, and I needed not to think about the fact that I hadn’t felt this much pain since the last time Fallon had hurt me. The communications officer was putting out a subspace on a channel that no one else used but Pandora and the folks helping escaped indentureds make it to Pandora, and now with the Svalbard gone, there was one less. So far, they’d contacted two small freighters only marginally larger that Fury, and a science vessel that was even smaller still.

I was scanning frequencies for any help we might be able to find when Keen came in. “Diana, if you please.” He nodded for me to follow him, and once we were outside the control room and headed down the corridor toward his lab and office, he spoke. “You’re wasting your time. Even if there were enough ships, and there aren’t, none of them are close enough to help us. We’d need an orca class big enough to evacuate the whole base, surely Ina told you that. Our only option is to hope that Gerando Fallon is right about the Apocalypse.”

“I need to do something. Anything.”

He turned on me so fast that I nearly ran into him. “What you need to do is go back to Fury and get about the damn business of bonding.”

“Don’t fucking tell me what I should do,” I exploded. “He kept the truth from me, and what the hell kind of bonding would it be when he makes a unilateral decision against my will. Knowing that … I mean Christu Vaticanus, he has to know what that monster did to me, what his son did to me, and yet there he is convalescing aboard my …”

“Aboard what? Your ship? The one you love?”

“Fuck you!” I turned on my heels and headed back for the control room, but he grabbed me in a powerful grip of an arm made stronger still by doing the work of two and pulled me back.

“Perhaps your father didn’t educate you fully in the roles of a ship and a compliment, so let me enlighten you. When a ship makes a unilateral decision, the compliment stands by him because there are some things a ship understands better than a humanoid does.” He nodded back to the control room. “That message. That message is the only contact Fury’s had with an SNT since the destruction of the Merlin. Do you have any idea what that means to him? Fury would die a thousand deaths for you, Diana, but that Gerando Fallon has some connection with Apocalypse and that the SNT, this civilized part of the Apocalypse has found something in a monster like Fallon’s spawn worth trusting, can’t you see why Fury did what he did, why he had to do what he did? You above all people should understand his loneliness. And that an SNT has been forced into the service of Fallon makes it all the more important for Fury to learn what he can so that he can free Apocalypse – not just because he wants to know his brother, but because another SNT, especially one living as an orca class ship, would give Pandora Base a fighting chance. If we can just –”

“Wait a minute,” I said. And it hit me like a smack in the face. “Why Gerando Fallon? Why did Apocalypse trust Gerando Fallon of all people?”

“I don’t know, but clearly the kid has turned against his father and with damn good reason, I’d say.”

“I know that. There never was much love between the two to begin with, but it’s not just the matter of trust, it’s a matter of how the hell did he connect with Gerando in the first place if Apocalypse is only partially SNT and he’s controlled by Fallon, how could he connect unless …”

“Unless there’s a blood bond.” Keen said, scratching his chin.

“But I thought you were the donor for Fury?” I said, suddenly feeling as though the floor were tilting beneath me.

“No. I never donated. I figured it would make me connected in ways that wouldn’t be helpful, and it might bias me in my work, work that I couldn’t afford to be biased in. I thought of all of the SNTs as my children, and I loved them all equally, or I tried to. But Fury had my heart anyway, it didn’t matter that he wasn’t my child physically.

“Manning had always referred to me as Fury’s father, and in a way I am, as I am to all of the SNTS. But mine was not the sperm that gave Fury life.”

 

 

I felt as my heart would explode from my chest. “It’s Fallon then, isn’t it? Fallon was the donor. And Apocalypse is also from his sperm.”

“It’s more likely that Apocalypse is cloned from Fury. It’s not impossible that Fallon could have bribed someone for a sample of Fury’s genetic material before Fury was born. It’s always easy enough to trump up charges and threaten someone or someone’s family with indenture. That would explain why Gerando could communicate with the Apocalypse. Technically, they’re brothers, just like Gerando and Fury are.”

As we moved into Keen’s lab, I dropped into the nearest chair, my mind racing. “And Fury knows this.”

“Of course Fury knows this, though he didn’t before Gerando and the message from Apocalypse. It wasn’t difficult to figure out.”

“And yet I missed it. I fucking missed it,” I said, scrubbing a hand over my face.

“Of course you missed it. You were face to face with a man who had tortured you and made your life a living hell. That’s the reason SNTs can override their compliments when the situation demands it.” He laid his hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “But most of the time, most of the time, the compliment has the last word because it’s the humanity of the SNTs that makes them so powerful, and that humanity can only be fully accessed through the compliment.” He heaved a sigh. “I guess it’s the same as any mated couple. The two are always more themselves, stronger, better when they’re one. It’s not simple mathematics in a humanoid bonding. One and one is always way more than two. But that’s ten times more the case with a SNT bonding.” He chuckled softly and his lips curved into that inward smile I’d seen on people’s faces when they took a little private walk down memory lane. “I used to lay awake at night dreaming about what Fury would be like when he was bonded. I saw astounding results in all of the SNT pairings – every one unique, every one opening up possibilities that I would have never even thought of before the bondings. And Fury, well Fury was so much more than we could have ever imagined just by the nature of his creation. That you were created the same way, that you were so much his compliment that it was like you were already one even before he left space dock. I’ve ached for him and his emptiness so often. I tried to get him to bond with Ina, because the pairing would have worked, and because I didn’t think you would ever be free, I didn’t think you would even live to meet Fury.” He settled into a chair next to me, and held my gaze. “You see, Fury and Manning didn’t let me in on their little plan to rescue you from the Dubrovnik – not that I had contact with them all that often. They also didn’t tell me that they’d been keeping a close watch on you for a long time before that.”

I shook my head, fighting back emotions that if I lived, if any of us lived, I would one day have to deal with. “I wondered why I always felt close to Manning when we’d meet in ports, and we both laughed at the coincidence, which was no coincidence at all. And the first time I boarded Fury, it was like coming home.” I swallowed back the tightness in my throat. “He … he fit me, both he and Manning.” I forced a laugh, “I actually remember thinking once that we were like an old mated couple, like I was his wife, intuiting his needs and what he could do for me, and wanting to find ways to thank him, to please him. All right, I know that pilots are a superstitious, sometimes a bit loopy, but with Fury it was different from the beginning, like I’d found the other part of me.”

Keen touched my hand where it rested on the desktop. “Because you had found the other part of you. Listen to me, Diana, the one thing we don’t have is time, and we need a fully bonded SNT if we have any chance of surviving when clearly we can’t evacuate. As much as it will break my heart to do it, if you don’t bond with Fury, I’ll have to force the issue and bond him with Ina.”

The thought made my heart clench so hard, I thought it would stop beating, but before I could speak, Keen continued. “It won’t be right. It’ll break his heart and hers, and certainly Richard’s, and he won’t be nearly as powerful as he would be if he were properly bonded to his intended, the one born to him, but if I have to, if you force me to I will. There’s too much at stake.”

“I was born for him,” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it so hard that knuckles pop. “Keen, don’t you see, I was born for him. If I was created for Fury and Apocalypse is cloned from Fury, then surely Apocalypse will sense me and reach out to me in the same way, maybe even more so than he did with Gerando and Fury, if it’s true what you say and an SNT isn’t complete without his compliment then perhaps I can connect, communicate with him.

Keen’s forehead wrinkled in thought, then he opened a channel. “Well it’s worth a try.”

 

Piloting Fury Part 44: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another cheeky Monday morning read!   In this week’s episode Rab and Gerando are betrayed.  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 44: Revelations

“You making any headway?” Rab asked. He was pacing, just pacing. Fucking hell, what else could he do while the kid was trying to make contact with the damn ship?

Gerando shook his head without looking up. “Just the rudimentary niceties. The old man’s got lots of blocks and firewalls and gags in place to keep Apocalypse from talking. Fuck! Apocalypse! What kind of name is that for an SNT?”

“I doubt your old man cares much the ship’s feelings.”

They’d both had a shower and changed clothes. Rab figured Fallon senior might be suspicious at what the kid had been up to if he couldn’t be arsed to wash off the blood. Besides that, he didn’t care to see junior get the shit beat out of him again.

“You sure he’s even in there? Your … brother, I mean?”

“Oh he’s there all right. I can feel him. He’s just unable to communicate, other than through experiences that cause him great pain, and in that case, I really don’t know how the old man can’t feel it too. But then I’ve thought for a long time that he isn’t really humanoid.”

Rab couldn’t say he disagreed.

“Abriad Fallon wishes to see you in his study again,” Apocalypse’s computer said.

Before either of them could question, Gerando made a mad rush to the can and Rab cringed at the sound of the poor kid puking again. “Your brother has got to find a better way to communicate with you.”

When Gerando immerged from the bathroom still a little green around the gills, they both stopped in their tracks at the sight of a glass of something just replicated. “To make you feel better, Bro.”

They both froze. “It’s not good, is it, what he wants from us?” Rab asked.

“Drink,” the computer commanded. “You will need to feel better.”

The kid obeyed, nearly gagging with his first effort to drink the stuff.

“Need to feel better,” Rab managed. “Jesu and all the angels, I think we’re about to be fucked.”

“You must go now, Bro.”

“Thank you, Bro.” The kid placed a hand on the console and they stepped out into the silent company of the Berserkers.

This time when the door slid open for them to enter, they were surprised to see a small table laden with so much food, Rab wondered if the old fart had invited the whole damned crew for a fucking la-di-da cocktail party. Fallon greeted them with a smile too bright for that bastard’s face. “Come in, come it! Do have a seat.” He nodded to the table. “Something to eat? To drink? Honestly, where have my manners been? It was rude of me not to offer something before. I’m usually a better host than that.”

Rab doubted that very much, and after the things he had experienced so far onboard the Apocalypse, he wasn’t sure he would have trusted the food even if he was hungry, and he’d lost his appetite when the old man shanghaied them aboard.

But Fallon seemed oblivious to their lack of appetite and nibbled with on some foreign hoity toity gourmet shit Rab hand never seen, but he reckoned it probably cost more than he got paid in a whole year.

“Actually, I’ve laid this feast because we have yet more cause to celebrate.”

They didn’t ask, but the fucker told them anyway. “Acting science officer, Markov died a few minutes ago, but not without divulging some astounding and wonderful things.”

The kid went all green again, and hell Rab was feeling like he might puke himself. They both just stood there, like their feet were glued to the floor, but the old man didn’t seem to care.

“This,” he said, pulling a small silver vial out of the pocket of his jacket raising it so that it caught the firelight and sparkled like a New Luxorian diamond, “This is what the Svalbard, what Plague 1 is hiding.”

“Plague 1?” The words were out before Rab could stop them as he broke out in that nasty clammy sweat you always get before you heave your goddamned innards.

 

 

Fallon glanced at Rab and the boy like he’d forgot they were even there. “That was the Svalbard’s destination, believe it or not. And that’s not even the most astonishing part, gentlemen, oh no. Here’s the real reason to celebrate. You see Plague 1is where the Fury, along with Richard Manning and Diana McAllister all are even as we speak. And isn’t it wonderfully convenient that we are aboard the fastest, most advanced ship in the galaxy – other than the Fury, of course,” he said with a little shrug. “That means we can all be there to join the party in no time at all.” He leaned forward across the table his eyes bright like some goddamned wild animal. “Apparently, the good citizens of Plague 1 have developed an antidote for the SNT virus.” He shook the vile at them. “This antidote is not just for the early stages, but for any stage of the disease. Can you imagine?”

Rab gave a low whistle, and the kid swayed on his feet. Jesu Vaticanus, he looked like hell. The ship was really doing a number on him. Too goddamn bad it wasn’t doing the same to his motherfucking old man.

“My interrogators have learned from the Svalbard’s unfortunate acting science officer that we won’t even recognize Plague 1. It’s apparently been transformed to a mecca for runaway indentureds. Stunning, isn’t it?” He waved a hand wildly, “like one of those Edwardian spas in Old Terran England, you know where the people went to take the water.” How the hell would Rab know that? “It would appear that the Svaldbard’s intrepid crew were also in the business of transporting runaway indentureds. Shocking, isn’t it? Goodness, the captain and crew of that ship would have been in so much trouble if the Authority ever found out. Never mind. It seems that any indentured, no matter how badly infected, has but to show up on Plague 1, take the cure and begin a new life on a planet we all thought was dead. Why I was completely beside myself with excitement.”

Rab just fucking bet he was. He knew goddamned well the danger Plague 1 was in and the rest of the galaxy too now that this information was in the hands of Abriad Fallon. With a start, Rab found himself wondering when his sympathies had shifted so completely when his freedom and his fucking life were in the hands of this shit stain of a humanoid. He reckoned the kid was likely having the same thoughts, that and trying to figure out how the hell he was going to get through the rest of their audience without puking on the old man’s shoes.

“You’re sure Diana McAllister is there?” The kid asked.

“Mmm. And the Fury. And of all people, Professor Victor Keen. Why I bet the old rascal was instrumental in both the antidote and the new Plague 1 Spa and Resort. Who knew he would end up being so useful to me.” Fallon took the vial from his pocket again and twirled it between his fingers, eyeballing it like it was a bloody New Luxorian diamond. “Who knows, perhaps it is her blood they’ve used on Plague 1 to formulate the antidote.” When they both just gauped at him, he chuckled all smug-like. “I didn’t just infect dear Diana with the virus purely for the pleasure of it, boy.” He glared at the kid. “Though I wager she would have preferred my … experiments to being given to you as a place to dip your cock.”

The kid’s blushed bright red and fuck, Rab was embarrassed for him. But they both kept their gobs shut. “If you’d been interested in anything other than your cock or becoming a goddamn pilot, you might have noticed that each time I waited a little longer to administer the antidote, and each time I gave her a higher and higher dose of the virus.”

“She nearly died every fucking time you did it!” The kid burst out.

“But you see, that was it. She didn’t. She didn’t die. After the third time I infected her, I never gave her the antidote. I gave her a placebo, and her body fought off the virus on its own. Extraordinary, don’t you think? But then she is the Fury’s compliment, isn’t she?”

That little tidbit of information was an eyeball popper to Rab.

“ And now,” Fallon looked lovingly down at the vial, “now I’ll be able to control all the sources of the antidote.”

There was a knock on the door and a man in an engineering uniform slipped into the room. “Sir, the Ares is prepped and ready.”

“Good, then we can begin.” He made a shooing motion with his hand and the man slipped out.

“Drink, I insist,” he poured each of them a glass of Outer Dalmatian fire wine from a crystal decanter and raised his glass in salute. They both managed little more than a sip and the kid asked. “I’m assuming you have a plan then, one that involves the Ares.”

“Oh yes. Your help will be essential in my plan. In fact I’ll be relying on you to make first contact with both Diana McAllister and the Fury. I think it won’t be nearly as difficult as we all feared it might.”

It was when Rab realized he couldn’t understand what Fallon was saying that he figured they were fucked. When the kid all but fell onto the sofa behind him, he was certain of it. From a long way off, Fallon was talking, and as he dropped into the nearest chair, the wineglass tumbling from his hand and shattering on the floor in a pool that looked like blood. He had just enough wits left to realize Fallon was no longer talking to them, but to two men who now stood over them in the Authority uniforms of the sick bay. He tried to protest, when they came to him and gave him a injection on the inside of his arm, but he was unable to move. He thought he heard Fallon order, “shackle them. Shackle them both.” After that he remembered nothing else.

Piloting Fury Part 43: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another cheeky Monday morning read!   In this week’s episode Mac, Manning and Fury return to Pandora Base.  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 43: Pandora’s Base Revisited

The rendezvous with the Sumerians went even better than we’d hoped. We were able to sell both the whiskey and the oil for premium prices, then we celebrated. Fury created a celebratory meals and the three of us danced to ancient Terran rock and roll music. We ended up on the floor of the observation deck where there was room for the rough and tumble that quickly became a part of our lovemaking.

During the long flight back to Pandora Base, we fell into a routine that felt as though we had always been together. Fury said it was because we were always intended to be together. Who knew a ship could be such a romantic? As we drew nearer to Pandora Base, I became more and more nervous about what lay ahead. All my life I had wanted answers to questions, and never in my wildest dreams did I expect the answers I had gotten up until now. Nor had I expected that it would be Victor Keen waiting at Pandora Base who would give me the rest of those answers.

As we settled into orbit above Pandora Base, I was surprised when it was Keen who appeared on the view screen. “Welcome back. Hopefully you’ll have more hospitable conditions this time than you did last. Diana, I hear you did some damn fine piloting. Richard, I hear you did some damn fine sleeping.”

Manning offered a lazy smile. “Never miss an opportunity, that’s what I say.”

“Wise advice.” I didn’t miss that Keen held Manning in a scrutinizing gaze until Manning cleared his throat and looked away. “Glad you’re doing okay,” the professor said at last. Then, to my surprise, he turned his attention to the ship. “Fury I need you in space dock this time, if you don’t mind.”

“I didn’t even know Pandora Base had a space dock,” I said.

“You gotta remember, mol-tran’s illegal. Whatever shipments of supplies the Authority sent into Plague 1 had to dock to unload their cargo, which was then shuttled down. It was a job nobody really wanted. Nobody wanted to be reminded of how close they all were to the shackle. Eventually, they just stopped bothering with anything but automated drones, and even then the ones they sent weren’t much more than junk. If they arrived, Pandora Base got supplies, if they didn’t, no one was the wiser. Most arrived, actually, but not many returned.” Manning offered a wicked smile. “Keen and his crew have gotten to be experts at salvage, and they made friends with a lot of smugglers.” He laid a hand on his chest. “Plague 1 is a pretty safe for all of us, since no Authority ships have docked here for more than five years.

“Is it unusual,” I asked, when the docking crew contacted us for clearance. “Docking Fury, I mean.”

“Not unusual, no,” Manning said, then he added with an affectionate slap against a bulkhead, “Keen’s Fury’s father.”

“Didn’t see that coming,” I said.

“Neither did Fury’s mother,” Manning joked.

Fury gave Manning the mental equivalent of the middle finger and said to me, “I told you that I was birthed from sperm and egg just as you were.”

“Never could see the resemblance,” Manning said. “Personally I think it was really the milk man, you know what with Keen working long hours, leaving the missus at home alone. It happens.”

“I suppose it is possible,” Fury observed, and then he asked, “do you believe that perhaps this milk man had superior genetic makeup to that of Dr. Keen?”

“No, but perhaps he probably had a better developed sense of humor,” Manning replied with a twitch of a smile.

Fury made a rather rude sound with his vocal processors, and I found myself smiling at the degree of adolescent behavior that passed between these two, so incongruous with their tenderness toward each other and their stunning capacities for passion.

 

 

As I maneuvered Fury into space dock and eased back on the thrusters, my nerves must have been obvious in spite of my steady hand at the controls because Fury’s embrace was almost as obvious as the way Manning kept glancing over at me like he was afraid I might explode.

“Do not worry, Diana Mac, it will be all right,” Fury said. “You have been through the worst, and now the truth will be as a gift”

“He’s right,” Manning said. “Keen’s a good man. And he’s got answers you’ve waited most of your life for.”

While all that was true, I couldn’t help feeling like I should brace for impact.

I was surprised to find that when we opened the docking bay door, Keen was waiting. He gave Manning a one armed hug and a slap on the back, then offered me a polite smile.

“He nodded down to the bag in his hand that looked like a replica of something carried by an ancient Terran medical doctor. “Time for Fury’s check-up.”

“As you are well aware, Dr. Keen, I am self regulating and self-healing. There is little need for a check-up.”

Manning nudged me in the ribs with an elbow. “Typical father and son. Aren’t they just the cutest?”

“I think I can safely speak for both the doctor and myself when I say, Fuck you, Richard Manning,” Fury said with all the politeness and even timber we’d come to expect from him.

Keen raised an eyebrow at Manning. “Richard, you’re a bad influence.”

Manning just chuckled. “There are just parts of the boy’s training that a father can’t do. What can I say?”

“While I’m sure that’s true, there are modifications and upgrades that a reprobate smuggler can’t make, and that’s why I’m here. I have a new injection of modified nano cells that may make molecular adjustments easier and faster, and they may also help ease your condition, Richard.”

Whatever passed between them, it immediately became clear Manning did not want me in on, and he changed the subject. “Do you think Mac here can get a proper tour this time?”

“Ina should be here any second. She’s looking forward to doing the honors.”

“Wait a minute. I’m the pilot, shouldn’t I be in on this little upgrade?” I looked from one of them to the other and Manning’s jaw looked like it was made of iron.

“It’s not necessary, Diana.” Keen said without taking his eyes off Manning. “I’ll talk you through the upgrades if you want, but really there’s no need. You’ll know what they are immediately once you reconnect.”

“Go,” Manning said. “You’ll be bored if you stay, and I …” he forced a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I could use a little male bonding time.”

“By all means,” I said, trying not to feel left out and fobbed off on Ina Stanislovski, who would have been my last choice of a tour guide. But it was clear, for whatever reason, Manning didn’t want me onboard while these modifications were being made, and Fury didn’t seem too keen on it either. Whatever was happening, it didn’t include me.

Just as things were getting uncomfortable, Stanislovski showed up and made it worse. She offered me a cool kiss on both cheeks like we were at some fancy tearoom in Britannia Epsilon. “Good to see you again, McAllister,” she lied.

“And you,” I lied back.

She may have spoken to me, but her focus was clearly on Manning before I could even make an attempt at small talk. “Richard, how are you?” She pulled him into an embrace that was way more than that of a casual acquaintance and, even though Fury had told me that she felt responsible for Manning and for him nearly dying once, I still couldn’t fight back the jealousy when Manning returned her embrace like she was a long lost lover. When I was just about to suggest they get a goddamned room, she pulled away and gave him the once-over, this time checking him with her professional eye.

“Jesus, Ina, I’m fine. Stop looking at me like I’m a fucking plague case.”

It didn’t stop her looking though, not until she was satisfied that he was fine, then she took a deep breath and offered me a smile that she clearly had to work at making stick. “Well shall we then, McAllister? I think you’re going to find Pandora Base fascinating.” While that might be true, I couldn’t help feeling that we both wished anyone else in the whole damn galaxy was giving me the grand tour other than Ina Stanislovski.

“Mac, wait.” As we turned to go, Manning scooped me into his arms and gave me a kiss that could have melted the planet’s ice with its heat. He fisted his fingers in my hair and made sure the only thing closer to me than his body was my think layer of clothing. “Don’t go too far,” he whispered against my mouth as he pulled away, “Fury and I’ll both be needing you back onboard in a few hours.” He’d made damn sure I knew what for. I was the only one who heard, and felt, Fury’s affirmation of that fact, and suddenly it wasn’t nearly so hard to leave the space dock with Ina Stanislovski.

Piloting Fury Part 41: A KDG Scifi Romance

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Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another cheeky Monday morning read!   In this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury,   Gerondo finds himself empathetic in a way he did not expect.  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 41:  Empathy

“I don’t know what happened, I swear I’ve never felt anything like that.” The kid was still icy cold, and Rab was seriously beginning to worry that his fucking old man had figured some way of infecting him with the virus. He wouldn’t put it past the sonovabitch. As he handed him a warm cup of electrolyte formula infuse with calmatives for his stomach, he took a sneak peek at the inside of the kid’s arms, but they were clear. He was running no temperature according to the auto doc who proclaimed Gerando Fallon to be the epitome of health.

“Fuck! I know this makes no sense but I felt like I was the one being forced to blow up that ship, like I didn’t want to. Like it physically caused me pain.” He accepted the cup and sipped quietly for a moment. “I mean it isn’t like I give a shit what happens to the Svalbard. Hell I just want the old man to get McAllister back and leave me the fuck alone.”

“You and me both, Junior. You and me both.” Rab didn’t sound any more convincing than the kid. He wasn’t sure either of them had the stomach for delivering the poor woman back into that monster’s hands.

“He knew.” The kid said. “He knew about the Fury. How the hell did he know?”

“My experience, fuckers like your old man aren’t that easy to keep shit from. Only secrets that are safe from them are the ones you keep to yourself and then blow your goddamned ass out of the airlock for your own protection. Hell I wouldn’t be too sure it’d be safe even then. I heard they’re experimenting on some sort of zombie drug that’ll suck the memories right out of a dead man’s brain even while his corpse is already starting to rot. Sorry,” he said as the kid all but gagged at his words. “I’m not feeling all cherry cheerful and happy assed at the moment.”

Gerardo nodded as the sickly shade of green slowly left his gills, and he was able to sip the drink without dry heaving. “Something’s not right, Rab,” he said staring off into space like he might find whatever was wrong over by the replicator. “Something’s really not right and it’s… it’s making me sick.”

“Yeah well, it ain’t exactly making me feel great either, but fuck. I mean Jesu Vati and his goddamned mother. What he hell does any of this have to do with a bloody plague planet? Don’t you think that would be the last place in the galaxy Manning would take Diana McAllister?”

The door pinged and slid open and two berserkers stood there all at attention. They didn’t speak, berserkers, or so Rab had heard, but then they didn’t really need to, did they? Pretty damned obvious these two goons were their dates for the party on the bridge.

“Something’s not right,” the kid whispered under his breath again, then he gulped back the last of the electrolyte mixture and stood, looking as much like he was heading for his own execution as Rab felt. But they were still alive and neither one of them was shackled. Rab was as sure as he was of his own name that the old man would shackle his son without so much as batting an eye if it served his purpose. Thing is, right now they had no goddamned clue what his purpose was. He clearly knew a helluva lot more than they did. That made Rab really twitchy, made him wonder what the hell he was keeping them around for. But what the fist in his gut, he figured the shit was about to hit the fan.

This time they weren’t taken to the bridge, but to Fallon’s private quarters. Goddamned place looked like the libraries and studies belonging to the rich bastards in Old Terran films.

Fallon sat like the king of the fucking galaxy staring into what could have very well been a log fire in a stone fireplace for all Rab knew.  Course it wasn’t, but if they’d been in anyone else’s presence, Rab might have actually appreciated it more.

 

 

“Sit.” He waved them to a couch across from him. He took a deep breath and swirled the drink in a hoity-toity brandy sniffer cupped in his palm. He didn’t offer them so much as a glass of recycled water. Not that Rab could have stomached anything under the circumstances anyway. Truth was just being on the Apocalypse, knowing what the bastard had done, knowing what he might still do to them had him damn close to puking his guts just like the kid had. Still, what the fuck ever happened to common courtesy? “I have a lot to tell you, a lot you’ll need to know if we are to succeed in our mission.”

Our mission, Rab thought. Christ! When had it become their mission?

Waiting for him to continue, they sat on the edge of the sofa as stiff and uncomfortable as fucking statues. And didn’t Fallon like them just that way?

“While you were not as successful as I had hoped you would be in bringing Diana McAllister back to me, the information you did provide, no matter how blundering it might have been, helped me to find out some astonishing truths that will revolutionize Fire Star and the entire Authority.”

“You mean it’ll give you more control,” the kid said folding his arms across his chest like he wasn’t scared shitless.

Fallon shrugged. “Same thing, boy, same thing. I don’t like variables I can’t predict and there are a few too many in the direction the Authority’s heading at the moment.”

“And you think the Fury is your solution?” Rab asked, wondering why the fuck he didn’t keep his mouth shut.

“Of course the Fury is my solution. The Fury is SNT 1, the Fury is the formula, the template, for future SNTs that won’t be controlled by the Free Universities, that won’t be controlled by funding other than my own, and that of my investors, of course. But that’s just the beginning. There’s way more to the picture than we’re currently seeing, though that, I daresay, is about to change.”

He sat down his brandy and pressed a button, which slid aside a big-assed wall painting of an ancient sea battle to reveal a large view screen. “Computer, display our guest.”

It took Rab a moment to realize what was being displayed to him on the screen, and then his gut twisted. The kid groaned as though he was gonna puke again, then cussed like a sailor” Ever the stickler for detail, Fallon’s interrogation room looked like a goddamned ancient Terran dungeon, and this one was not empty. The bloody mass of a humanoid was barely recognizable as such. Poor bastard was strapped naked onto a wooden rack, stretched so fucking tight his muscles strained like they’d snap. His ribs rose and fell with each effort to breathe, which must have hurt like hell, because even with the poor lighting of the place Rab could see the man had several broken ribs.

With a la-de-da flick of a finger, Fallon turned on the com, and fuck if it didn’t feel like they were right smack dab in the middle of the dungeon next to the man. The surround-sound didn’t do a damn thing to settle Rab’s stomach.

“Gentlemen, forgive my rudeness. This is the Svalbard’s science officer and acting first mate, Katiel Markov. He is about to reveal to us all we need to know about the Svalbard’s mission and it’s connection with the Fury, and thus Diana McAllister.” Marcov cried out as a man dressed like an ancient torturer, complete with a fucking black hood, gave the rack another crank, and Rab grabbed at his own ribs in sympathy.

“You could have saved yourself so much pain and just told me what I wanted to know, Mr. Markov, what I will now find out anyway.” He nodded to the torturer, who took a stainless steel case from a bench all covered with ancient tools for torture, and took out a syringe that Rab was pretty sure was a helluva lot worse than all the other shit in the dungeon put together.

“When the serum has done its work, Mr. Markov, I will know the truth, and you won’t even know how to piss by yourself.” He gave a little nod of his head and the torturer emptied the syringe into the poor bugger’s carotid.

“There now,” Fallon said, watching the man’s eyelids droop and close. “In a few hours I’ll know exactly what the Svalbard has been up to and where we can find Diana McAllister.” He’d barely closed the com and shut off the monitor when the kid launched himself like a goddamned missile.

“You sonovabitch! You fucking sonovabitch!” He landed the first punch, but it was only a glancing blow, enough to piss his old man off. Then he let his fists fly, again and again. Hell, Rab didn’t know what to do. If he tried to intervene, he might be next, but he was afraid the sadistic piece of shit would kill his own son. Thank fuck, the blows stopped coming and the old man, breathing more like he’d just got laid real good than like he’d just given a beating, pulled the kid into a choke hold, and just as he was about to lose consciousness, he reached for the old man’s cheek and clawed him hard.

“You little bastard.” Fallon hissed like a mad cat and shoved him to the floor. “Remember, I have other sons.” He hauled loose and kicked the kid hard in the ribs. Then he turned away, leaning over the desk, sucking breath like he’d just shot his wad. “Get him out of here, Rab, before I have him escorted to the dungeon right next to Mr. Marcov.”