Tag Archives: Scifi romance adventure

Piloting Fury Part 36: A KDG Scifi Romance

Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to the last cheeky Monday morning read of the year! In this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury,  Fury tells his story.  If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy! Happy New Years Eve Eve!

 

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

Piloting Fury Part 36: Too Early

I came fully aware with the feel of empty cold space against my skin, still tender and untried. My response was more startled interest than any effort to withdraw, and anyway, I could not withdraw, my life and the life of my entire family depended upon my success. There were already too many deaths, deaths for which my brothers and sisters were not responsible, and yet they would be blamed, as would I, even though I had not yet been out of space dock when the sabotage of the SNTs happened. My maiden voyage, was far too early. I was untried, and so much worse than that, I was unbonded. I was alone on a mission that, even if it succeeded, would fail, and then, I would be a fugitive, a fugitive alone. I could not bear the thought. I focused all of myself that I could not download safely away to the journey and to what I must do.

I came out of hyperspace into a firestorm, all sensors on the embattled Merlin. The desperate voice of Adrian McAllister flooded my sub processor. The man was going to die, and so was his ship, and they knew it. I remained cloaked to in order to get as close as I could, and not to draw the attention of the Authority war ships. As far as they were concerned, I was now the enemy. It was then, as my sensors scanned Merlin that I understood Adrian McAllister’s distress.

“Go, Diana!” He shouted. “I can distract them now that the Fury is here, and you can make it, you can make it to the pod.” he shouted.

“I’m not leaving you, Dad, and you can’t make me.”

Adrian knew to lower his shields and he did it instantly. A part of why the Authority saw SNTs as such a threat is because when we were in close proximity, we were all linked, both ships and compliments, and it was in those final few minutes that everything became clear.

“Keen’s been arrested and infected,” The message came in through the sub processor, and we both received it at the same time. In that instant everything changed.

“I downloaded the data instantly and when it became clear you would not be swayed, Diana Mac, I knew what to do. I beamed you to my own escape pod with one last charge from Adrian McAllister. “She’s still a child, Fury. You know what she is, what she’s capable of. Send her back home.”

When you were secure, I made the jump to a safe distance before Adrian McAlister and Merlin allowed themselves to be destroyed by the Authority warships. A tragic and needless loss.

 

 

That was the first time you were here with me, Diana Mac, here inside my skin, safe in the womb of my escape pod. Oh you raged, you cried, you fought, and I watched you with my heart breaking, I watched you, feeling loneliness I had never known before. Feeling helplessness as I never imagined I could feel. It was then that I was discovered. I’d had to drop the cloak for the split second it had taken to transport you to the pod, but it had been enough.

You were so close, and yet I could not touch you, I could not take you into myself and comfort you as I so longed to do. I was compromised. My escape was far from guaranteed, and I wanted nothing so badly as for you to live a happy life. I jettisoned the pod in the scan range of one of the battle cruisers, and when I saw that it was tractored onboard, I made the jump.

I made a series of jumps in rapid succession, each time coming out long enough to scan subspace transmissions for news of the battle with the SNTs, and each time the news was of loss and horror and thousands, even millions of death, and each time the blame was placed squarely at the feet of the SNTs and of Dr. Victor Keen. By the third jump, I knew I could never go home. By the fourth jump, there were reports of Adrian McAllister’s daughter being rescued from the treachery of the Merlin. She alone had survived the destruction.

After that, after I knew that Diana Elizabeth McAllister was safe, I wandered aimlessly toward the outer rim, uncertain why I bothered at all as, with each passing light year the weight of my own emptiness grew as though I myself had been infected by a virus a thousand times more devastating that that infecting my brothers and sisters. Before I had left space dock untested and unaware of the great expanse that lay within the self, I had not known pain, and within such a short time pain was all I knew. The pain of loneliness was the harshest, most devastating pain I could have, at that point in my short life, imagined. But I had not known the true depth of my loneliness until I saw you, until I ached with what I knew would be your loneliness now too. I felt it so deeply that I wondered if it would perhaps be better if I simply allowed myself, unbonded as I was, to be destroyed. Surely anything was better than the emptiness. And now there was no one to give the data to that I had been born early to retrieve. There was no one who wanted to know the truth. The Authority would fabricate lies and atrocities and claim that my brothers and sisters and I were responsible. They would not care if thousands, even millions of innocent lives were lost to convince their humanoid population that we were monsters in need of being destroyed, and I was not only alone and unprepared for life as it now came to me, but I was also a fugitive, a monster in the eyes of the Authority.

It was quite by accident on the jump I made that took me to the edge of the Outer Rim that I came out of hyperspace and nearly collided with a ship not much smaller than I was. The distress beacon was automated and the ship was leaking radiation. The leak was so bad that I saw no need to scan, and then I heard it, the barely audible heartbeat and the scratch of a humanoid voice against a parched throat.

 

Piloting Fury Part 35: A KDG Scifi Romance

Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another Monday morning read before Christmas. Just the break you need! In this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury,  Captain Harker and his team are forced to take extreme measures.  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 35: Extreme Measures

Apocalypse attacking. Fury’s identity and destination known. Pandora’s box opened. Mission compromised.

Evander Harker played the message back once more and then deleted it. For a moment, Dr. Ingrid Flissy and Security chief, Jelik Ivan only stared down at the device as though they feared it might explode. Then Flissy spoke. “Does Lebedny know you know?”

“If he does he’s pretending not to, but this was on my private subspace channel. It was only a general distress call to those who it might affect.”

“Which includes us,” Ivan said, chewing on his lip.

“Which includes us,” Harker said. “We knew it would happen, we knew it when we signed on. But clearly Lebedny got this message too, just like Rab would have, and that means we’ve been compromised. We’ve got to act fast – especially if the Apocalypse is in on the action. We’re closer to Plague 1 than anyone else, and once the truth is known, all that we’ve worked for will be lost. We’ve got to go, and we can’t go with Fallon’s lackeys onboard.”

“So what do you have in mind?” Flissy said rubbing her hands against her trousered thighs as though she were suddenly cold, or anxious to get started. Knowing her as Harker did, it was the latter.

He leaned over his private console and pulled up the camera from the sub-basement. “Do all the hibernation pods still work?”

“They do. I just tested them last week.”

“How many of them are there?” Ivan asked.

“Enough,” she said, holding the captain’s eye.

The hibernation pods were the last defense in case of a deep space evacuation. Once the regular escape pods were full, or if they were compromised, there was room in them for a third of the crew – individual cryo-beds equipped with powerful homing beacons and a very basic auto navigation system that would always guide the pod toward the main space routes and the most populated areas. A humanoid could survive in a pod for possibly up to a hundred galactic years, maybe more, though the longest ever survivor from a shipwreck was seventy-two years. Harker straightened his jacket and squared his shoulders. “Difficult times call for difficult decisions.”

 

 

“Personally,” Flissy said, “I’m for blowing the fuckers out the airlock.”

Ivan grunted, “Your bedside manner’s appalling, Fliss, but I don’t disagree.”

“Everyone of those people live under the threat of the shackle, just like we do,” Evander said. “That’s not their fault. All I want is them safely, and permanently, out of the way until we get the situation sorted.” He studied his two closet allies and friends and blew out a sharp breath. “We all know this shot in the dark at best. At worst it’ll be a shackle for every one of the crew who’ve served this ship so faithfully all these years.”

“And you know every one in that crew would take the risk,” Flissy replied, and Ivan nodded agreement.

“All right then,” Harker said. “this needs to happen fast. If the Apocalypse is heading for Plague 1, we don’t have much time. It’s got to be fast and efficient. Any ideas?”

“A radiation leak,” Flissy said, then she waved her hand dismissively. “Oh not a real one, but that sort of thing can be faked easily enough. Thomson and Freeman in engineering, they can make it completely believable. The subbasement has always been the place the crew gathers if there’s a leak because it’s double shielded. Standard operating procedure is to give everyone a shot for radiation poisoning just in case. I line ‘em up, inject the Dubrovnik crew with a placebo and Fallon’s bitches with a nice strong knock-out drug. Voila,” she snapped her fingers. “They wake up … well who knows where the hell they wake up?”

“Or when,” Ivan added.

The doctor stood and looked down at the subbasement camera and its gruesome compliment of pods. “We can quarantine people in separate groups, you know, so no one will notice when people start dropping like flies. I’ll get Sutter and Leland to help me administer the shots and we’ll let people in one at a time. Safety protocols and all that shit. Everyone knows how anal I am. It won’t surprise anyone that I want people coming through three at a time.”

“It’s a good plan,” Harker said, but our timing will have to be perfect.”

“That’ll never happen,” Ivan spoke up. “It may go like clockwork. I hope to hell it does, but we need to be prepared if we hit a few bumps.”

“What do you suggest,” Harker said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“We know the loyal core aboard the Dubrovnik. We’ve had each other’s back for a long time now. Give me,” he looked down at his chronograph, “Two hours to spread the word, and pass out weapons. Just in case. We won’t get a second chance.”

“We don’t have two hours unless we multi-task.” Harker said. “While Juarez is not the pilot McAllister was by a long stretch, his lack of experience is exactly what we need. I’ll over-ride the course computer and load in the coordinates for the fastest route to Plague 1 and tell him I’m experimenting with a faster route. If we can pull it all together fast enough, that’s exactly what it’ll look like I’m doing. If not, well then we need to be sure that our own people are armed and ready if they need to be.”

 

 

Piloting Fury Part 34: A KDG Scifi Romance

Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another Monday morning read and this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury,  in which Mac learns more of Fury’s story and how it is tied to her own. If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

Piloting Fury Part 34: Sleeping Memories

For a long moment the bridge was silent. It was as though the two Manning and Fury gone to conference without me.

“A figure of speech, Diana Mac,” Fury said, “for I have grown terribly fond of you.”

“The feeling’s mutual.” The tightness in my throat that surprised me. There was another moment of somewhat more awkward silence as I struggled to take in all that had just happened and all that I’d been told. Then I realized that Fury’s story was as much mine as it was his and Manning’s. There were things he knew about my father, about the fall of the SNTs, truths he knew that I needed to know, that I’d longed to know my whole life. Knowing that fact made me more emotional than I usually was, but once I felt I was under control enough to speak, I gave the console the equivalent of an affectionate smack on the butt. “So tell me, Fury, what have you been doing with yourself all these years?” The words were barely out of my mouth when my stomach growled.

“Shall we continue the discussion in the galley?” the ship asked. “As is often the case, after sex, there is a need for sustenance.”

Two peanut butter sandwiches and half a gallon of Outer Kingston iced tea and, while the banter was pleasant and relaxed and punctuated with lots of playful touch, Fury and Manning still hadn’t told me what had happened in the fifteen years since the destruction of the Merlin and my father’s death. When the silence once again waxed heavy, it was Manning who spoke. “Are you going to let her see, or will this be story time?”

“Let me see what?”

Fury moved close, and I felt almost as though he knelt next to me resting a hand on my thigh. “Diana Mac, what you saw when I made love with you, in the act of penetration, was a very brief glance at my inner workings. It was all that I allowed because I did not want to overwhelm you, but if we were bonded, you and I, you would have seen my history as though it were your own.”

“So you can show me then?” I asked, my pulse suddenly hammering in my throat.

“I can give you the memories, yes, but they will not be easy for you to see, they involve your father’s death, the destruction of the Merlin. They involve stress for Richard Manning, which will also be difficult for you to experience now that you have grown fond of him.”

“She’s here with us now,” Manning said, reaching across the table to take my hand, “and we have nothing to do until we rendezvous with the Sumarians.”

“Be that as it may, it is still Diana Mac’s choice to make,” Fury said, and I had the sense he had just moved closer and squeezed my other hand, but that somehow, he was as uncomfortable as I was.

“I want to know,” I swallowed hard, feeling suddenly like there was a desert in my throat. “I need to know.”

“Very well,” Fury said, “then it is time to go to bed.”

Seeing my confusion, Manning helped me to my feet. “While sex is a great way to connect, and a helluva lot more fun than a lot of what you’ll be facing, it’s not the best way for you to see our history. The best way is to sleep with us, dream with us.”

“Us?”

“Richard Manning’s life is as tied to mine, as yours is, Diana Mac, possibly even more so.” Fury chuckled softly. “I told you I was unique. I am the only SNT ship to choose my compliment, and I am most definitely the only SNT to indulge in the act of ménage by taking onboard a second compliment, an act which I believe my first compliment shall not complain about.”

With Manning holding my hand as though he feared I would be unable to find the way, we adjourned to my quarters, where he undressed me wordlessly, lingering only for a gentle caress here and a kiss there. Fury watched. I don’t know how I knew that but I did.

At Fury’s guidance, I settled into bed Curled around Manning’s back and Fury curled around me from behind. I was certain I would never sleep, but I did almost instantly. The last thing I heard was Fury’s whisper. “Do not be afraid, Diana Mac. They are only memories you will now see. The past, we have all left behind, and you are now safe with Richard Manning and me, safe where you belong.”

Piloting Fury Part 33: A KDG Scifi Romance

Good morning, my lovelies. Welcome to another  Monday morning read and this week’s episode of  Piloting Fury,  in which Mac learns Fury’s story. If you have just arrived and would like to start at the beginning of Piloting Fury, follow the link, and enjoy!

 

Piloting Fury

“Win the bet and Fury’s yours. Lose the bet and your ass is mine.” It was a no-brainer. Rick Manning’s slightly inebriated offer. If he’d been sober, he’d have remembered indentured pilot, Diana “Mac” McAllister never lost a bet. All her life she’s dreamed of buying back her freedom and owning her own starship, and when Fury’s ne’er-do-well, irritating as hell captain all but hands Fury to her on a silver platter she figures she can’t lose. She figured wrong. That’s how the best pilot in the galaxy finds herself the indentured 1st mate of a crew that, thanks to her, has doubled in size. Too late, she finds out Fury is way more than a cargo ship. Fury is a ship with a history – a dangerous history, and one that Mac’s been a part of for a lot longer than she thinks. And Rick Manning is not above cheating at poker to get her right at the center of it all, exactly where he needs her to be.

Piloting Fury Part 33: A Ship’s Tale

We sat on the bridge, Manning and me looking slightly worse for the wear. And Fury, well at the moment, I considered Fury the console I had fondled and caressed and talked to so often while piloting the ship. It was my suggestion that we go to the bridge because I wanted a physical representation of Fury there with us, though I had been reassured that none of the ship was a more accurate representation of Fury than any other.

“Are you the only SNT left?” I asked, still trying to get my head around the fact that just a few days ago I would have pushed the self-destruct button on any SNT ship that crossed my path without thinking twice. But then up until a few days ago, I thought they were all gone and certainly I never imagined I’d make love with one.

“I do not know,” came the reply. “There are confirmations of the deaths and destructions of nine SNTs and their bonded humaniod compliments. Three more are rumored to have been decommissioned and rendered harmless in remote space docks, the locations of which are top secret. As for Quetzalcoatl, Raven and Ouroboros, no one knows what has happened to them.” He added quickly, “If they do still exist, they will not want to be discovered any more than I do at this time.”

I turned my attention to Manning. “Then you’re Fury’s compliment?”

“I am.”

“You don’t look old enough to be bonded to an SNT,” I said.

He sipped his coffee and then stared down into the cup. “There were extenuating circumstances. While Fury was the only SNT born from a fertilized ovum, he was the last of the SNTs to be launched.”

“Being born rather than built as my brothers and sisters were, it took me somewhat longer to mature, you see,” Fury clarified.

“In spite of his late birth, Fury’s the prototype for the other SNTs.” Manning waved a dismissive hand. “It’s complicated. Anyway, bonding with me, well that wasn’t exactly a part of the plan.”

“Oh?” I stroked the console and then pulled my hand away struck by just how used to touching Fury I had become, and how important that touch had been almost from the beginning.

I was surprised when it was Fury who answered. “I suppose you could say that Richard Manning was shanghaied into working with me in much the same way you were.”

“I don’t understand.”

 

 

“It was theorized that I would have a stronger survival instinct, a deeper bond with my humanoid compliment than the other SNTs. My technology is far more sophisticated and was self-aware before my birth. In the early days of experimentation, it was believed that inserting the nanotechnology into an artificially fertilized ovum, just at the point of the sperm joining the egg was the process through which to grow a brain and a central nervous system that not only would become the core of a ship, but that would be, quite literally born to it. Most of those experiments failed very early on. I was the only one suited to the task. When it became evident that it would take far too long to birth a fleet of ships into existence, the cloning process was perfected using material from those Dr. Keen and his people felt most suited to the task. Contrary to what the world was told, no one was surgically implanted at the core of any SNT. The material, other than my own, was cloned. In fact some of my own genetic material was used for my brothers and sisters to enhance them, make them more like I would be when I was finally born. The other ships were up and operational long before my birth, and yet Professor Keen saw me as the next generation of SNTs. His plan was to clone me once I was ready. There are parts of my own circuitry, parts of my own consciousness that I do not have access to, much that I do not understand because I was sent out into the world before I was completed, sent out without my bonded compliment.”

“Jesus! How the hell can that even be?” I asked. “The SNT is as dependent on its bonded compliment as the compliment is on the SNT.”

“In most cases yes, and as I said, I was not complete, but I was highly functional, and able to accomplish the mission necessary. In addition I believe Dr. Keen wished me to survive above all others because I was unique. He … offered me a chance to evolve. It is he who holds the key to a great deal of my past, but then I am not entirely convinced that even he knows the whole story.”

“How did you escape,” I asked.

“I am also unique in that I can change and redesign my circuitry as well as my outer appearance to look, and to work as I, or my bonded needs me to. That means that with Richard Manning’s help, I am able to look the part of a small cargo ship, a barely disguised smugglers craft. While he has eyes in places I do not, I have a very large, very extensive database that is always growing, There are, in fact, parts of my database even I have not yet explored, though I find I am able to access whatever I need when and as I need it. Perhaps this was true for all SNTs had they been allowed to evolve and discover themselves as was originally the plan, but I fear we shall never know. It was, however, that fact that helped Richard Manning and I to escape the destruction of the SNTs. For example, while I was unaware of the McAllister Wormhole until you brought it to my attention, I know of other wormholes, I know of other sling shot maneuvers, I know of other ways to escape to the Outer Rim and to reinvent myself, as you call it. Since much of what is in my database I can find no analogue for in our galaxy, I am led to believe that perhaps at least some of my biological components are not even from this galaxy, or are from a part so remote that it has yet to be discovered and explored.”

I stood and began to pace in the tight space of the bridge. “Did you know my father and the Merlin?”

“Only by reputation,” Fury replied. “Your father was a great man, the head of the SNT Fleet. The Merlin was its flagship. I learned about him in my infancy. I was not yet out of space dock when the Phoenix incident happened. My first and only mission was to reach your father and the Merlin at Cerberus 5, Professor Keen sent me out unbonded. He knew that there was a problem, and he suspected that it was sabotage of the SNTs by some of the conglomerates in the Authority. He also knew that because of my unique bio-technology, I could not be compromised by the virus. This was essential if we were to find out the truth. My mission, my only mission, was to collect top-secret data from your father and the Merlin before they were destroyed. It was a mission I would have been unable to complete, but for two things, your father sent the data I was to gather in your escape pod. What we discovered, what Professor Keen would have shared with you had there been time, is that the Merlin was not compromised by the SNT virus, that the ship was immune. It had somehow gained immunity from you father in their bonding, which is why you have survived the infection.”

“Jesus,” I whispered. “Were you the ship that rescued me?”

“ I am sorry to say, I was not, Diana Mac. To do so would have compromised a mission that I could not compromise. But it was I who sent your coordinates for rescue.” Then he added in a voice laced with sadness, “Had I known, however, what the Authority, what Fallon would do to you, I would have taken you onboard as my own no matter the risk.”

Piloting Fury Part 32: A KDG Scifi Romance

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.