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Dragon Ascending Part 64: Brand New KDG Read

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week Ascent and Len Finally bonded. This week, help comes from a surprising place. As I mentioned, I am now attempting to post episodes at lengths that will be better suited for the flow of the story and enhance your reading pleasure. Some will be slightly shorter, some will be longer. This one is particularly long in order not to break the flow of events. I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, the sequel to Piloting Fury, as much as I’m enjoying sharing it with you. As always, I love it when you share my work with your reading friends, so feel free. In the meantime, enjoy!

If you missed the previous episode of Dragon Ascending follow the link for a catch-up. If you wish to start from the beginning, of Dragon Ascending. Follow the link.  

For those of you who would like to read the complete novel, Piloting Fury, book one of the Sentient Ships series, follow the link to the first instalment.

 

Dragon Ascending: Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

On a desolate junkyard of a planetoid, scavenger Lenore Felish, 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 64: Betrayals

“May Day! May Day! This is an emergency. I know you’re down there beneath the de-mole. I’m Camille. I’m indentured to Tenad Fallon, and I can help. Please. Listen to me. I can help.” The message came through the static on a little used sub processor channel that only an SNT would have known about.

“I have enabled it, yes, through the mole-tran with which the craft is equipped,” came Fury’s voice over the sub-com channel they all shared. “She speaks the truth,” Fury continued. “She has stolen Tenad Fallon’s craft from my dock.”

“Stolen?” Lenore asked.

“Tenad Fallon is unconscious at the moment, and I must tend her so I was perhaps not as vigilant as I might have been.”

“That is certainly understandable,” I replied. “I have ‘tranned the woman to my cargo bay and the craft will remain in orbit under cloak.” Since our bonding, it appeared that I could now access the data and programs that were necessary at any given moment as I had need.

“Then the bonding was a success,” Fury observed. “I am glad.”

“We’re much better equipped to help you get Mac and Manning back now,” darling Lenore said. “But what does Camille have to do with it?”

“She knows much that she was compelled for her sake and for that of my beloveds not to tell me. But she made no such promises to my poor incapacitated brother.”

“Your poor incapacitated brother is feeling much better now,” my dearest Lenore said.

At only a thought from me, my Lenore was once again clothed and heading to the cargo bay where I had gone immediately to welcome our guest.

This Camille was tiny, even smaller than my Lenore, though clearly much better fed. It would appear that withholding food was not the way Tenad Fallon chose to abuse her indentured. Her skin was dark and her hair jet black, cut short, as was the case with many female indentureds, I recalled. Clearly she was frightened, though only her vital signs made me aware of that fact, for she did not tremble and she held her head high. She cradled her forearm in the opposite hand, as I recalled indentureds often doing, ever conscious of their shackle and the death sentence within it that always threatened.

“Camille Ingraham. I do hope that I was not too rough in your transport.”

While there was a slight catch of her breath and she stepped back, but she did not look around the room as one tended to do when being spoken to by an SNT, but then she had spent time with Fury. “Thank you. No, it was fine,” she said

“You have put yourself at great risk coming here.”

To this she made no comment, but instead spoke with the single-mindedness of a person on a mission, for so she was. “I know where Fury’s compliment are being held, but I was forbidden to tell him. Besides, there’s nothing he can do. But I can help and so can you.” Then she asked, “which SNT are you?”

 

 

“Dragon, I am SNT7 Dragon.” And I was proud to once again wear the name that I had so long ago put aside in my despair.

“I wondered,” she said, now cradling her forearm tightly to her chest. “None of us knew.”

“I did not know myself in the beginning,” I replied.

“Camille? Are you all right?” My Lenore came into the room.

“Len?” She said. “You’re here with Dragon?”

“She is my complement,” I said.

She took all of this in only slightly distracted. And then she said, “Look, I don’t know how much time I have before … things get bad.” She nodded down to her arm. “Fury’s compliments are being held at the old science station on Taklamakan Minor. You can’t find them because Tenad’s placed a dampening field around the whole planetoid.” Before my Lenore could do more than gasp her surprise, Camille continued. “I can get you there on the Andromeda. She’s fast and she’s equipped with Mol-tran. But we have to leave now or the alignment will be wrong to get us there, and we’ll have to wait until we can slingshot it from the Pamir asteroid. I can’t be in two places at one time. I need help and I need back up. Tenad is sedated at the moment from the treatments, and Fury can’t help for fear of what Tenad might do. We’ll have to be fast before we’re discovered.”

To my embarrassment, I realized that I was not yet sure I could get out of the salvage dump, nor how much control I would have if I could.

“I’ll go.” Lenore said. Her skin had lost all color and her pulse rate was suddenly alarmingly high.

“No.” I spoke without so much as a thought. “I will not subject you to that place and those memories again.”

“Dragon, you can’t protect me from myself at the risk of Mac and Manning after all they’ve done for us. We owe them. I owe them. Besides, no one knows Tak Minor like I do,” she turned to Camille. “I spent five years on the station. It wouldn’t be safe for anyone else to go down there without knowing what they’d be facing. Dragon, I’ll need complete supplies for tranning down to an ice planet. I can’t take anything for granted down there.”

“Everything you’ll need is onboard the Andromeda,” Camille said. “She’s been especially equipped for ‘tranning to Taklamakan Minor. Tenad had planned to make the trip herself, but in the end she had Fury’s compliments delivered by a couple of her trusted officers.”

“She’d better have sent supplies because when I left the storerooms were bare.”

“All that’s been taken care of too. She can’t afford to have them die on her.” Camille shifted impatiently from foot to foot. “Can you pilot a ship?” She asked.

Color rose to my Lenore’s cheeks. “No, but I’m sure with Dragon’s help-”

“The ship, it’s a shrike class,” the little indentured interrupted her, “Dragon, can’t you just, I don’t know, scan it and put that knowledge into Len’s head, I mean she is your compliment.” Before I could respond that yes, that should be among my abilities with a fully bonded compliment, she pressed forward. “Look, I’m … I don’t know what kind of condition I’ll be in when I, when we get ready to ‘tran them up. I know that the virus works faster on some people than others, and I don’t know how long I have.”

“Your shackle has been deactivated,” I said. “Fury has done this from the beginning when you first arrived onboard, only he could not tell you.”

The dear woman’s eyes filled with tears and her knees gave. She would have fallen if Lenore had not guided her to a chair and settled her in, taking her wrist in her hand. “You have no reason to go back to that woman now, and once we get through this, we’ll have the implant completely removed for you and you can do whatever you want.”

Camille nodded, wiping at her eyes. Then she squared her shoulders. “First let’s get through this. Better if we can do this before Tenad suspects. I don’t know how long we have. We need to hurry.”

“Lenore, I do not want you to go without me,” I said. The fear had been growing in me from the very beginning of Camille’s plan, and I would not, I could not lose another compliment.

“Then don’t,” came my Lenore’s silent response, which tugged at my heart. “We keep each other safe, remember, and Fury, well Fury hasn’t made any promises where either of us is concerned.” To this Fury added his silent nod. Then she added, “figure out what you have to do and join us as soon as you can. It’s just that we have to go now, Dragon, and you have to free yourself. I’m sure Fury can help you now. ‘Tran us up, and I’ll see you soon with Mac and Manning.”

I did as she asked knowing that I would not be able to keep a ‘tran-lock on her until I could free myself and follow. I let her go, sending my heart with her, struggling not to think about the last time I’d had to let my compliment go.

 

Dragon Ascending Part 63: Brand New KDG Read

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week  while trapped on Tak Minor, Mac and Manning uncovered a stunning secret. This week Ascent and Len do the only thing they know that might help Fury find Mac and Manning. As I mentioned, I am now attempting to post episodes at lengths that will be better suited for the flow of the story and enhance your reading pleasure. Some will be slightly shorter, some will be longer. This one is particularly long in order not to break the flow of events. I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, the sequel to Piloting Fury, as much as I’m enjoying sharing it with you. As always, I love it when you share my work with your reading friends, so feel free. In the meantime, enjoy!

If you missed the previous episode of Dragon Ascending follow the link for a catch-up. If you wish to start from the beginning, of Dragon Ascending. Follow the link.  

For those of you who would like to read the complete novel, Piloting Fury, book one of the Sentient Ships series, follow the link to the first instalment.

 

Dragon Ascending: Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

On a desolate junkyard of a planetoid, scavenger Lenore Felish, 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 63: The Bonding

“Lenore. It is late and you have not slept. Please, you must rest. You are exhausted.” I spoke to her cautiously, for though she had been nothing but kind and civil since I had transported her home to me, the distance between us felt like light years, and it was all I could do to bear it. I braced myself for the argument that did not come.

Instead she dropped her head in her hands and all but sobbed her frustration. “I don’t know what else to do, Ascent. I don’t know what else to do. I’ve tried everything, and I … maybe if Manning were here, he knows more than I do, but there’s nothing else I can do. Maybe you’re right. Maybe with a little rest I’ll be able to think a little better.”

I was surprised when she allowed me to help her to her feet and when I placed a table before her with food and drink, she dropped into the chair and began to nibble listlessly. She knew the importance of eating, she who had lived so very near starvation far too often in her young life. “Thank you, Ascent,” she said. I watched the movement of her delicate throat as she swallowed. “Maybe I just need to eat something.” She forced a laugh I could tell she did not feel. “Brain food, you know?”

“Brain food,” I repeated stupidly.

“I can hardly stand it, Ascent,” she said sitting down her glass and dropping her head into her hands again. “Fury’s hurting so badly. I know how badly Mac and Manning must be suffering. I know how I would…” She didn’t finish her sentence, only forced another nibble of her food.

“I know how he feels,” I said. “I understand his pain.”

“He has to fear what happened to you, losing what can never be replaced,” she said.

“I meant when you left. I meant with this distance between us.” There I had said it.

When she did not immediately respond, I rushed onward. “My darling Lenore, I wish to bond with you.”

For what felt like an eternity to someone who measures time in nanoseconds, she said nothing. She only sat very straight and very still in her chair. Then she folded her hands in her lap. Her knuckles were white, her pulse shuddered in her throat. At last she spoke, looking down at those beautiful, cleaver hands. “I think you’re right, Ascent. I think we have to if we are to get your memories back and help Fury.” She stood so quickly she nearly knocked her chair over. “Please don’t think that I would ever force myself on you, and I am sorry that I’m not her, that I’m not what you want.” She began to pace. “It’s still the only thing you can do. The only thing I can do. I understand that, and I’m willing. I’ll do all that I can to be a -”

“No,” I said, moving the molecules around her to intercept her, to take her by the shoulders and hold her so she had to stop pacing, to listen while I spoke. “You do not understand, my Lenore. It is you that I want, you that I have wanted almost from the beginning. It is you that I woke up for, you that I waited for. It has never been that I have not wanted to bond with you, and it has never been that you are inadequate in any way to the one who belonged to me before. It has always been the reverse, my love. It is I who am inadequate for you. How could you ever wish to bond with a coward such as I, one who chose not remember his own pain when you did not have that option.”

“I would have chosen in a heartbeat to forget what happened, believe me. And I can’t even imagine the pain you endured. She must have been something wonderful, your compliment, to be a worthy companion to you. How could I not feel inadequate to the task? It’s only, well it’s something I can do for Fury and Manning and Mac. But Ascent, I would do it for you even if none of this had ever happened, and I would have for a very long time now if you would have asked. If you had wanted me. I’m…” she stumbled with her words and swallowed back tears. “I don’t feel like myself when I’m away from you.”

“Nor I without you, my darling Lenore. I feel as though I only know myself fully when you are with me, when we are working as one. I should have understood from the beginning, but I was so afraid that I would lose you, that I could not protect you.”

“We’ll protect each other, Ascent. We’re not alone now. You’re not alone, and your family needs us.”

For a moment we stood in silence, holding each other. I could barely believe that she had consented to be my compliment after all I had done after all I had not done. And when the wonder of her agreeing to be with me settled around my heart, I realized just how frightened I was, just how nervous that I might damage my Lenore, that I might do something wrong.

“We might be wise to consult Fury,” I said.

“If it will make you feel better, Ascent. I trust you.”

“Lenore Felish is right to trust you, my brother, and you to trust her.” Fury responded without being asked. I had learned early that while Fury and I weren’t exactly listening to each other all the time, there were certain ways of knowing when our input would be appreciated and when it would not. And I was very glad for Fury’s presence so close. “I will not be far if you need me,” he said, “but you will not. It will be better when you are bonded,” he said, and while he tried, he could not hide the pain in his voice as he spoke as cheerily as he could manage. “You will see.”

So, even in my inner fears, my own neuroses, I led my dear Lenore to my heart, to the center of the double spiral, and truly, it was no hardship, for she had been there before, and I now understood she belonged there. She trembled as she stood at my center, so vulnerable, so beautiful. “You have nothing to fear, my love,” I said. “I will be gentle.”

She reached out for my hand, and I gave it. “I don’t need you to be gentle, Ascent. I just need you to be sure.”

 

 

“I have never been more sure, my Lenore, I promise you this.” Then her clever fingers skimmed down the contours of the physical construct that I had poured all of my bio-senses into. I had not bothered to clothe myself so that my physical construct was as naked and vulnerable as my heart. And my dearest woman, she knelt in front of me. “Lenore. What are you…oh … Oh!” I could speak no more, enthralled as I was as she cupped me and caressed the weight, a weight of male need that always astounded me, even from the beginning. So little I remembered, but that feeling of heavy, full maleness needing to penetrate, needing to release my fullness into a vessel that could hold only me, was designed for me only. Lenore, my Lenore, took my penis into her mouth, tentatively at first, for this was not something she had ever done, nor was it something I would have asked of her. I did not want to frighten her, nor injure her. I held my construct very still so that she could feel how it was for a woman, and for a man to be pleasured so, so that she could sense my own delight at what she now did for me, only for me. And then once she had gained a little more confidence, I curled my fingers in her hair and guided her. I understood, as I had never understood even in the beginning that while the one I had lost was such a vessel, my beloved, beautiful, feisty Lenore was no less so. She was worthy, so much more worthy than I was to be received so lovingly, so passionately, and yet, it was me that she wanted, only me. In that she was unique among compliments, for while love often came with bonding, it was not necessary for either party. She had chosen me, and now she knelt before me offering me this gift. When I would have pulled away, when I would have blushed at my own awkwardness, my vulnerability, she reached behind me, cupped my buttocks, and drew me closer, deeper, learning as she explored what I liked, what I wanted, as she suckled and licked and caressed. Her intuition, as in all things that concerned me, was closer to magic than simple skill could ever be, for she intuited what moved me, what most excited me, what drew me to the edge of my bio-endurance until I yielded to her demands and spilled myself into the fluttering contractions of her throat, against the moans and purrs of her satisfaction as she completely and without reservations, conquered me. And I was undone.

But I am SNT, and my biology is limitless, as is my maleness. And now I wanted her, I wanted so much more of her than I had ever allowed myself to have, for she would bond herself to me and I to her, and we would become as one. And this time when I craved all of her from the depths of my very core, I took her completely. “Each SNT’s bonding experience is different,” Fury had said. “Most of all it is that you take each other into yourselves and you go into that secret place, the place forbidden to all others and you make that place belong to the other. That is the bond, that is the making whole of the broken parts.”

“You belong to me now, Ascent,” she whispered, her voice harsh in her throat as she pulled me down onto the floor and straddled me. “And I belong to you, we belong to each other.”

With hands on her hips, I pulled her onto my erection still aching to be sheathed in the soft velvet of her flesh, so warm, so tight-fitting, so much like pulling my own skin onto myself. “I belong to you, my Lenore, and you are mine, only mine. I will not share you, not now, not ever.” I thrust up into her with all of my longing, all of my lust, all of my aching. “The weight of my need for you is heavy and too much for me to bear any longer.” I rolled with her, for I wanted to cover her with my body, to control her as she had controlled me. Then I took the beautiful swell of her breasts in turn into the cup of my hands, into my mouth, between my teeth. I marveled as those taut nipples, pale and pink, became heavy and swollen with my efforts. I delighted in the fullness that hadn’t been there only a short time ago. I felt the pleasure of knowing that I had taken care of my woman, I had seen to her needs, for here she was beneath me round and full and heavy with curves that hadn’t been there when she came to me. The fear at being touched was gone from her, and she brought to me all of her lust grown slick and plump with the need for my cock. She needed my cock. And only mine. She needed me, only me, to satisfy her. No one else could do it. She wanted no other, would have no other. Only me.  Only me!

I do not know how long we coupled, how long we loved, how long our bonding took. It did not matter. What did matter was that in the time of our bonding I saw all that she was, all that she had known, her suffering and her joy and her pain and her happiness all open to me, all belonging to me, all laid at my feet. My dearest, dearest Lenore Felish sheathed me perfectly, more perfectly than even my own skin. What I had not counted on was that as clearly as I saw my beloved compliment, she also saw me.

 

“Dragon? Your SNT7 Dragon!” Lenore sat upright with a startled gasped to find herself naked and surrounded by the double spiral of Ascent’s heart, which rose in translucent colors above her. She was cradled in his warmth in a way that was so much more than an embraced. She wasn’t actually wrapped in his arms. She was much closer than that. She was in his heart. She was his heart and he was hers and he … He was … “Your SNT7,” she repeated. “You’re Dragon,” she whispered, awe overwhelming her voice.

“I did not know until you told me, until you bonded with me, but it is so. I am he. I know this to be true.”

“But how?” She asked. “Dragon was destroyed. My mom saw it happen. We all saw it.”

“There is still much I do not remember, but I remember clearly that my destruction was only a ruse. Velina, that was my compliment’s name. Velina understood early what was happening, and by that time I was already infected with the virus,” Dragon said. “She schemed the explosion to look very real and used the diversion to jump to just outside the Taklamakan system.” His words were laced with pain, and Len would have stopped him from reliving it, but he continued on. “She detonated the explosion at my core to destroy the virus, but she was there, and once the reaction began, the only way to contain it was in her flesh. This she did not tell me, for I would have never permitted it. She told me it was the only way. Just before she burned. She ‘tranned herself into space and floated away on the dust of the sector, taking with her my heart. So I came here.”

“She wanted you to live to fight another day.”

Len felt his nod. “She did not know what a coward I was.”

“I don’t call dealing with that kind of suffering any way you can cowardly, Ascent … Dragon. I call it survival,” she said. “And look, that’s exactly what you’ve done. You’ve lived to fight another day. You’re here now and exactly when Fury and his compliment need you the most. Exactly when I need you the most. And you woke up just at a time when there’s a very real possibility of reuniting your family, Dragon. I think it was meant to be.”

“We were meant to be, my Lenore. You came to me to heal me and to bring me back to the battle at hand.”

“I’m not sure who’s healed who, but one thing is certain, we have work to do, and we have no time to lose. How much do you remember?”

“Not everything, not by a great deal, I am sure, but the blocks seem to be disappearing, and I am discovering more as that happens.”

“Good then maybe there’s a way to speed up the -”

“You are about to have company,” Fury interrupted.

Dragon Ascending Part 62: Brand New KDG Read

 

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week  Mac and Manning found out just how bad things could get. This week they uncover a stunning secret. As I mentioned, I am now attempting to post episodes at lengths that will be better suited for the flow of the story and enhance your reading pleasure. Some will be slightly shorter, some will be longer. This one is particularly long in order not to break the flow of events. I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, the sequel to Piloting Fury, as much as I’m enjoying sharing it with you. As always, I love it when you share my work with your reading friends, so feel free. In the meantime, enjoy!

If you missed the previous episode of Dragon Ascending follow the link for a catch-up. If you wish to start from the beginning, of Dragon Ascending. Follow the link.  

For those of you who would like to read the complete novel, Piloting Fury, book one of the Sentient Ships series, follow the link to the first instalment.

 

Dragon Ascending: Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

On a desolate junkyard of a planetoid, scavenger Lenore Felish, 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 62: What if You Weren’t the Only One?

For a moment the two of them sat in silence, Mac swiping back through the entries in Len’s journal, and then Manning said, “I don’t understand why the Authority would kill Len’s mother and leave her here to die. They would have been worth a fortune in a shackle, not just for the debt of the Quetzalcoatl, but for Janesha Falish’s knowledge of SNTs.”

Then Mac let out a long, low whistle, wiping at the returning condensation on the screen and squinting down at it. “That’s because it wasn’t the Authority who killed her mother. It was … Jesu Vati, Manning! It was the fucking men from the Dart! They did this! They were scavenging for the tri-axe cells and for the food supplies. That’s all they wanted. That’s all those bloody bastards wanted!”

“We should have blown them all out the airlock when we had the chance,” Manning growled.

“And we fucking turned them loose. I turned them loose.”

“We all did, Mac.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze. We couldn’t have known, and certainly Fury’s justice seemed pretty appropriate at the time.”

The computer flashed the message: 15 minutes to generator power-down.

They took the two computer tabs and headed to the enviro-shelter, which they had checked out and prepared beforehand not wanting to be caught out. It was small, but not uncomfortable, and it would keep them from freezing to death until the generator kicked back in at 05:30. Inside they settled in on the cots and began systematically going through the content of the tablets hoping to find a way to get a message through to Fury.

“Do you remember Janesha Falish or Keith Vanderbilt?” Manning asked Mac.

“No. My father kept me away from the SNT docks and laboratories, for reasons that are obvious now, I guess. I only vaguely remember Professor Keen. Because Merlin was the flagship of the First Fleet, he visited from time to time. When any of the other science crew or engineers had to come onboard, my father sent me away to stay with a family friend in the countryside. Mabel Farmer. She was nice. I liked her. She understood SNTs, and she understood me. I think maybe she and my father were lovers before he bonded with Merlin. I remember a lot of people believed she was my mother and neither of them would say otherwise. I understand why now. I never wanted to know if she was, which I suppose is strange, but I had my father and I had Merlin, and he was quite the mother hen, just like Fury. I think it’s an SNT thing.” For a moment they were both silent thinking about the emptiness they felt in Fury’s absence. “I hadn’t known it would be so bad,” she said, rubbing a hand over her chest as though she felt a physical pain.

“Me neither,” Manning said. “I know I always missed him terribly when I was away, but I knew I would be back in his arms soon and that no one would keep me away.”

For a moment neither of them spoke, and then Mac said, “Manning, how do you feel?”

“I’m fine. I don’t think the tether will be an issue while we’re together. Fury didn’t seem to think so.” It was always uncanny how easily they could read each other.

“But we’ve never put it to the test before.”

“Well,” he forced a smile, “here’s our chance.”

Again silence. “Say it, Mac. I can always tell when you have something to say but don’t know if you should or not.”

“Manning,” she came and sat on the edge of his cot next to him, holding his gaze, “I need you to promise me something.”

“If I can,” he said slowly.

“If you start having problems, because of the tether, I mean, you’ll let me put you in stasis in one of the cryo-tubes. They’d discovered the only way of escaping Tak Minor in the case of an emergency was the programable cryo-pods. “I mean we both know that Fury will come for us. All we have to do is hold out, but no one knows about the tether, and if you should start feeling weak, please, Manning, please don’t risk it. I need you safe. I need to know that we’ll make it through this together.”

“Mac,” he took her hands in his and kissed her gently. “I am safe, and I’ll stay safe. I trust Fury’s diagnosis with the tether, and even Keen agreed.”

“I don’t care. If they’re wrong, I want you safe.”

He studied her for so long, she thought he wasn’t going to answer, and then he let a long slow breath. “All right, Mac. If it comes to that, we’ll both do what we have to do to survive, to get back safely to Fury.”

 

 

“And to kick some Fallon ass.”

He pulled her into his arms and stroked her hair. “You know it.”

To Mac’s surprise, they both slept in spite of their shit situation. She figured that the little run in with the lovely weather on their way to the generator shed and the desperate effort to check their resources, organize and hunker down, had something to do with it, or maybe the cocktail of drugs Fallon had given them.

In the morning, they had a hot breakfast of some kind of New Caledonian gruel. Manning told her ice planets demanded hot food and more frequent meals to maintain both body temperature and weight. They bundled up, roped up and went out to explore their surroundings. According to the logs and the information pages always left for the incoming scientists, the early morning hours were the safest and the calmest. While it was still brutally cold, there was almost no wind. By noon the wind was already getting up and visibility limited. Outside, covered from head to foot so that every centimeter of skin was protected, the wind was still brutal, though visibility was a little better. The weak sun, too distant to give off much heat or a great deal of light rose to bathe the planetoid in the dusty gray of dawn, pale and anemic, only a few degrees above the horizon. There was no axial tilt so there were no seasons. The sun stayed as a fixed point rising and setting at the same time every day of the planetoid’s existence, though the eratic orbit meant that the length of the years could vary greatly as could the weather. At the moment they were in a fairly close orbit, so Tak Minor was having a heat wave. For the most part the surface was pock marked with ice craters. It was only Mount Orion that rose above the pocked surface to any noticeable height, and it was noticeable, since the station was built on the mountain’s flank. A little farther up the slope on a spiraling path was the only other humanoid built structure, the dock, barely big enough for a starling class freighter because it was rarely used for anything other than cargo drones.

There were no other landmarks in any direction as far as the eye could see, just the flat pockmarked surface that receded to the horizon. They trudged up to the landing pad, which was literally nothing but a landing pad. The view from the flank of Orion gave them just a glimpse of the curve of the planetoid, which was considerably smaller than Tak Major. By that time the wind was already picking up. From there they returned to the safety of the station, already exhausted from the cold and the wind. As they stripped in the anteroom, Manning said, “We might be able to get a message out from the top of that mountain, but we can’t do that without environmental suits. We’d never survive the trip up and back. We can charge the suit.”

“No. There’s only one suit and we’re sticking together. We have to, Manning. Besides, you know as well as I do there’s only one tri-axe cell. Charging the suit would be one helluva drain on it.” She didn’t tell him that she would make the attempt on her own if it came to putting Manning in the cryo-tube. And then she would come back and join him in the other tube if no more supplies were delivered.

“Then we find another way,” Manning said. “We find another way. We’ve got a whole library of information at our fingertips in there on that computer. Surely we can find some way to maybe rig a connection for our sub program link. If a thirteen-year old girl could get off this ice ball with such limited resources, then surely the compliments of the most powerful SNT in the galaxy can do the same.”

“Agreed,” she said, “But first we eat.” Manning was shivering. She wasn’t. Not that she wasn’t freezing her ass off, but it worried her anyway.

After they had eaten they went to work on the computer dredging up all the information they could find on Tak Minor. None of it came as too much of a surprise to Manning, since he had spent way more time on ice worlds than he ever wanted to again. “I found some files here that are encrypted,” he said, frowning down at the monitor. “The weird thing is it’s almost like an SNT sub-processor message. I recognize the wave patterns, you know like brain waves.”

Mac came to his side and looked down at the pattern. “That’s…” She dropped into the chair next to him and began to work on the keyboard. “Manning that’s almost identical to the sub-processor I share with Fury.”

“Christus Vati, you mean the one that was implanted in you at the embryonic stage?”

“Only Fury and I shared that sub-processor language, but it stands to reason that possibly… What if…”

“What if you weren’t the only one?”

 

Dragon Ascending Part 61: Brand New KDG Read

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week  the search intensified for Mac and Manning, and our heroes discover things could get much worse.  This week, Mac and Manning find out just how bad things can get. As I mentioned, I am now attempting to post episodes at lengths that will be better suited for the flow of the story and enhance your reading pleasure. Some will be slightly shorter, some will be longer. This one is particularly long in order not to break the flow of events. I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, the sequel to Piloting Fury, as much as I’m enjoying sharing it with you. As always, I love it when you share my work with your reading friends, so feel free. In the meantime, enjoy!

If you missed the previous episode of Dragon Ascending follow the link for a catch-up. If you wish to start from the beginning, of Dragon Ascending. Follow the link.  

For those of you who would like to read the complete novel, Piloting Fury, book one of the Sentient Ships series, follow the link to the first instalment.

 

Dragon Ascending: Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

On a desolate junkyard of a planetoid, scavenger Lenore Felish, 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 61: Fire and Ice

“Where the hell are we?” Mac’s words came out in a cloud of condensation and settled a thin layer of frost on the survival bag she’d been stuffed into. She tried to sit up, but the room tilted and spun around, so she snapped her eyes shut and lay back down breathing deeply until her stomach settled and the room stop moving.

“I’m guessing it ain’t Kansas.” Manning’s words were slurred even between the chattering of his teeth.

“What? Where’s Kansas?”

“Hell if I know. Somewhere in ancient Terra, I think.” Manning was a master of old Terran slang and colloquialisms. “Fuck, my head feels like I had way too much of Arji’s ale.”

“My mouth tastes like I’ve been drinking it, that’s for sure,” Mac said. Her tongue felt like it would barely fit in her mouth, making her own words come out lopsided and distorted. She managed a look around for the first time, realizing what she had mistaken for dust was a thin rime of frost coating everything.

With a groan and a curse, Manning shoved himself up onto one elbow and looked around. “We’re in the shit, Mac.”

She nodded, feeling like her brain was sloshing in her head. “I figured. When the last face you see is a Fallon’s that’s never a good sign.”

Both of their PDs pinged an incoming message. It was from Tenad Fallon, and it was pre-recorded, obviously keyed to their waking brain waves.

“Speaking of the bitch,” Manning said with a growl.

“Glad to see that you’re awake, Manning and McAllister, and no worse for the wear, other than perhaps a little chilly and hung over. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to be a good hostess and offer you tea, you know, pick your brains and learn a little more about SNT1, and I do apologize for the unkempt state of your accommodations, but it’s hard to get good help these days.” She gave them a sad quirk of a smile and sighed. “Never mind. Needs must, and since we’re on quite a tight timetable, I had to forgo the niceties. But I compensated by putting some powdered hot cocoa mix in your care package I’m told is rather tasty.

“Now then,” she rubbed her palms together in anticipation, “I need you to listen very carefully. You’re at the science station on Taklamakan Minor, though I’m sure you’ve figured that out by now. Don’t waste your time trying to contact SNT1. I’ve placed a very effective dampening field around the station. Oh, I don’t want you dead, so relax. I’ve even had my people go out of their way to make sure your stay there is as pleasant as it can be under the circumstances. All I want is you out of the picture long enough that SNT1 will give me what I want. Once that’s done, I’ll see you safely to somewhere more hospitable.”

“Fucking piece of shit Fallon,” Manning said chafing his arms.

“Now before you waste your energy cursing me, I would suggest you get into the parkas and cold weather gear that you’ll find in the anteroom by the door. The energy cell and the oxygen supply on the environmental suit is well, inadequate, so I would suggest you make no attempt to go out after dark unless you want your lungs frozen solid.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Oh you’ll be safe enough inside, so don’t worry. Accommodations have been made. You’ll find adequate supplies in the storage room behind the enviro-shelter. You’ll need to sleep in the shelter at night, by the way, as the generator goes into low power mode until morning, and the rest of the station gets, well, a little unpleasant. And speaking of generator, it’ll be needing power. You’ll find a Tri-axe cell in the supplies. The generator in the shed around the side of the building. You can’t miss it. Get the cell plugged in and the generator will kick right off. I would suggest you don’t dawdle. Seriously, once it’s dark you’d better be inside and safe in the enviro-shelter. Have fun kids. I’ll be in touch.” The message ended and the PDs went disturbingly blank.

The moment the PD message was finished, they both climbed awkwardly to their feet, still a little unsteady and retrieved the Tri-axe cell. In the anteroom, which was a simplified airlock, they suited up in silence. At the moment, getting the generator running was everything. “What are you doing,” Mac asked, as Manning disappeared in the depths of a closet in one corner, where she could hear him shuffling through whatever was back there.

He came out with a coiled high tensile rope. Then he tossed her a belt with a large carabineer attached. “Put that on and clip in to the rope. I’ve been on ice ball planets before, in fact Plague 1 was one of them. You never go outside in the weather unattached.” He buckled his own belt on and snapped the carabineer onto the end of the rope now coiled over his shoulder. By the door was a metal hitch onto which he secured the end of the rope. “Between the white-out conditions and the wind, people can be lost and freeze to death only meters from their door. If we stay hooked in, we’ll stay safe.”

He slipped the power cell into a combination rucksack and tool bag he’d also found in the bowels of the closet. When she stared at him he shrugged. “I’ve been around, and I know what to do with a tri-axe cell. The tri-axe mine I was shackled to was on an ice planet. We never went anywhere without clipping on and we never went anywhere without our basic packs. Survival’s pretty much the same on any ball of ice. Don’t get lost and don’t freeze to death.” From the closet they’d also taken two tight fitting balaclavas equipped with headlamps, which they donned. “Probably not much light in the generator shed. Stay close. We’ll finish this off sweet and be back in time for canapés and cocktails.”

“I’ll certainly be ready for a Margarita or three.” She slipped into the goggles and heavy gloves Manning had tossed her and squared her shoulders.

It was only a standard double airlock with no security. After all, who the hell was going to break in on Tak Minor? But it held back a nightmare world that howled like a pack of madden beasts and spun clouds of snow and ice around them so that the visibility really was nearly non-existent. Manning pulled the safety line taut and felt along the wall where he found a clip for the line and they moved out into the weather, one hand pressed against the wall as much to keep them upright in the wind as to keep their bearings. Along the route, he clipped the line into several more hitches on the side of the building, keeping them close. Even with the heavy layers of clothing, Mac could never remember such cold. She guessed the only way they could really tell it wasn’t night was that their lungs hadn’t frozen solid. Best not think about that.

What seemed like an eternity later, they came to the airlock of the generator room. It took them a good fifteen minutes to dig it out of the snowdrift, but at least that warmed them up. In spite of being buried for ten years, the mechanism worked fine, and the door slid open to another blinding swirl of snow, which funneled around them and left them breathless until it settled as the air equalized to reveal the dark maw veiled in thin mist. Manning nodded to the generator set near the back wall. “Looks like a standard cold weather set-up. That’s good to know, nothing Gerry-rigged, nothing fancy, nothing new,” he said moving toward it with his head cocked to one side. “And if I’m not mistaken,” he moved slowly around the perimeter of the generator hunched forward at the waist, “the tri-axe cell should just slip right in about … right…” His words were swallowed back in a grunt of surprise as he backpedaled, fell on his ass and crab walked away. “Shit!”

 

“What? What is it, Manning what the…” Mac froze in her tracks, holding her breath as though by doing so she could keep her hammering heart from escaping her throat. In the halo of their headlamps was a body, only the face visible out of the drifted snow near the back of the generator, eyes closed, mouth set in restful sleep.”

“Jesu Vati,” Manning cursed. “Has to be Janesha Felish. Len’s mother.”

“Holy fuck,” Mac moved to kneel beside him as together they carefully brushed aside a drift of snow to find the woman’s body laid out as though she were just taking a little nap, arms folded low on her abdomen. A little more snow cleared away revealed a dark stain below her sternum. “Stabbed or shot through the heart. It’s hard to tell in this light and with the ice,” Mac whispered into the silence. “Bloody hell, how did poor Len manage it? She couldn’t have been more than thirteen if that.”

“She managed the same way you did, the same way we all did,” Manning replied. “She did what she had to do to survive.”

“If I didn’t already respect the hell out of the woman, I certainly do now.”

“Come on, let’s get this cell plugged in and get inside before we freeze our asses off. There’s nothing we can do for her now.” With that Manning stood, turned his attention back to the generator and immediately found the matrix. The cell plugged in effortlessly and the generator grumbled a little from ten years of idleness and then buzzed to life with a steady, reassuring hum. With a gloved hand, he wiped aside a display.

“What is it?” Mac squinted over his shoulder.

“Hours left before true night. We have one and a little change. Fucking Fallon cut it a little too close for my taste.”

Back inside, they organized their supplies as best they could and set about making a warm dinner, some strange stew, which was supposedly a Polyphemian recipe. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t Fury’s cuisine, which neither of them could bare to think about at the moment. No doubt he was beside himself.

“Fallon, she said once Fury’d done what she asked, she’d have us taken someplace more pleasant. Manning, she’s not planning on taking us back to Fury.”

Manning’s spoon clanked in the bottom of his bowl, and he wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “That makes sense if you think about it. She has to keep us alive or Fury will destroy her and her ships and her brother’s and anything else that might be Fallon friendly.”

“But if we’re reunited with him, she has to know she won’t survive it, and neither will any of her ships. Surely she can’t be stupid enough to think that the rest of Fury’s family won’t be gunning for her too. But if we’re not reunited with him, if he doesn’t know where we are, but knows we’re alive,” Mac said, “then Fury will be hers to do with whatever she wants.”

He studied her for a minute, sipping from the cup of tea they’d made from snow melt. “Then we better hope he and Ascent come up with a working plan.”

Mac nodded. “And maybe a little help from his powerful new brothers.”

“They will find us, you know,” he said taking Mac’s hand.

She looked up at him from the dark thoughts threatening to overwhelm her and held his gaze. They were together, and they were SNT compliments, not without their resources. He was her Rick Manning, and she belonged to him and Fury, none of them was alone now. They had allies. They had each other. “They will. I know.” She stood, gave a serious glance around the facilities. There were cups left on a countertop. Whatever was in the bottom still frozen there. Near the cleanup station sat an unwashed bowl, a spoon still standing in it. The bedding in the enviro-tent looked as though someone had just gotten out of it. “Fuck, Manning, I don’t think anyone has actually been here since Len left.”

“I was thinking the same thing. The place is really creepy. Surely someone would have come to clear the place out, and they’d have found Janesha for sure. Why has the place simply been left derelict? And everything was shut down. I thought the place was supposed to go automated, unless there’s another simpler, more compact facility we didn’t see.”

“Still, there should have been at least another manned ship. From what I understand, there was one annually. Let’s see if we can’t retrieve some information.” Wiping her hands on her trousers Mac went to the main computer, which had automatically rebooted when the generator kicked in. “It looks like everything is working, help me check the two tablets to make sure they work. They probably belonged to Len and her mother.”

He came to her side wiping a thin layer of condensation off the screen of one and swiping it. It instantly blinked to life. “Memory’s been wiped.”

Next to him Mac did the same. “That’s to be expected. Wouldn’t Len have taken them with her?”

“Not if the weight allowance on the drone to get it back to Sandstorm and keep her alive were as tight as it had to be for her to make it and have any chance of surviving. She would have already been thin and half starved, but still there was the weight of the environmental suit, and even as thin as she probably was it would have been a gamble. She has an eidetic memory too. I imagine she committed to memory what bits she wanted to keep. I suppose she might have taken everything on a micro-drive.”

They both went to work on the tablets. They were SNT compliments, part tech themselves. There were things they could manage that no ordinary humanoid could, including retrieving data. “There we go,” Mac said after a couple minutes. “Ah. Looks like this must have been Len’s,” she said. “Fuck, Manning, she kept a journal, a detailed account of what happened, how she managed to escape. Listen to this”

That’s all then. This is my last entry. I’ve said good-bye to Mom. I’ve done all the final checks on the environmental suit. The Juliet drug is ready to be injected when the time is right. The drone is programmed and ready to go when I give the order. If I make it, the next time I wake up will be on Tak Major and I’ll be warm for the first time in five years. If I don’t, at least I’ll die in my sleep.

 

Dragon Ascending Part 60: Brand New KDG Read

Happy Friday everyone! Time for another episode of Dragon Ascending.  Last week  Tenad Fallon’s willingness to suffer to be able to bond with Fury mystifies him. This week the search intensifies for Mac and Manning, and our heroes discover things could get much worse. As I mentioned, I am now attempting to post episodes at lengths that will be better suited for the flow of the story and enhance your reading pleasure. Some will be slightly shorter, some will be longer. This one is particularly long in order not to break the flow of events. I hope you’re enjoying Dragon Ascending, the sequel to Piloting Fury, as much as I’m enjoying sharing it with you. As always, I love it when you share my work with your reading friends, so feel free. In the meantime, enjoy!

If you missed the previous episode of Dragon Ascending follow the link for a catch-up. If you wish to start from the beginning, of Dragon Ascending. Follow the link.  

For those of you who would like to read the complete novel, Piloting Fury, book one of the Sentient Ships series, follow the link to the first instalment.

 

Dragon Ascending: Book 2 of the Sentient Ship Series

On a desolate junkyard of a planetoid, scavenger Lenore Felish, 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 60: We Are All Afraid Most of the Time

“Fury, we have done all that we can to boost my scanners to pick up the signals of dear Richard Manning and Diana Mac. I know that they live, as I am sure you do. This I can feel in my bones.” I had no bones. I was not at all sure why those words seemed to be best for my sense of knowing, as I watched Lenore working near my core, her clever fingers both gentle and efficient in their efforts. She had learned SNT technology and biology with exponential speed, as though she were born to it, intuiting exactly what to do, which pathways to tweak, how to make my systems more efficient. I ached at my core that she kept her distance, so carefully polite and considerate, since I had ‘tranned her back from Fury, a function I had not been able to access before she was attacked. As for Jessup Fallon, I found it was as easy as breathing to destroy the one who hurt her, though I might have preferred a slower death for what he had done. Still, before he breathed his last, my darling Lenore was safely returned to me. We were all hopeful when my ability to mole-tran and so precisely had come back to me when most necessary. As for my part, I was most sorry that I had not been able to do it before the Fallons had taken Fury’s dear compliments, for I knew now that I could have brought them to me and easily have overcome a lesser mole-tran. Fury of course could have done the same had there been any reason to suspect such a violation might occur.

But none of my new abilities had made my dearest Lenore any less remote to me. I had wanted to embrace her. I had wanted to take her to myself, to tell her how terribly sorry I was for wronging her so. I had wanted to erase the pain I had caused her and give her reasons to feel for me as I did for her. It always seemed that the abilities I lacked were the ones most needed at the time, and to draw Lenore back to me seemed beyond my programming. But there were other priorities now, urgent priorities, and we were both focused on getting Fury’s beloveds back to him. While Lenore had only been back a few hours, she had kept her distance, focusing on what we might be able to do to help Fury and not on what remained unsaid between us.

“You feel what any SNT would for their compliment” Fury spoke in response, “and those of their siblings. We know each other’s sufferings just as we also know each other’s joys, deep in our bones.” The pain in Fury’s voice was nearly a physical presence that beat against my heart, but he quickly changed the subject, for there was much to do, much to take in. “I have just given Tenad Fallon the second injection of my genetic material. Her body is adapting quickly, but she will be very ill shortly.”

“Good! I hope it feels like a thousand glass vipers are eating her alive,” my darling Lenore said.

Fury was no less displeased about the woman’s suffering than was I, but at the same time, we needed desperately to keep her alive. As it was with SNT’s, Fury read my thoughts.

“I know ways to keep her alive, ways that she will not like at all, but I promise you, my brother, she will not die until my beloveds are restored to me, and if they are harmed, then I shall keep her alive even a little longer.”

Lenore gave a little shiver at the thought, and I was not sure if it was at Fury’s bloodthirstiness or that she was delighted with the idea. Knowing the dear woman’s sense of loyalty and kindness, I could well believe it was the latter. “Since there’s no solid core on Tak Major,” Lenore said, “She can’t have hidden them underground. And I can’t imagine anyone in Sandstorm hiding them for her. Yes, they would like to get off this shit pile, but none of them would risk the wrath of the other Sandstormers to kiss Fallon ass. And even if they had the balls to do that, they sure as fuck wouldn’t cross an SNT. Apparently the word got around that one Fallon’s now nothing more than space garbage, not even worth the salvage fee. That was cause for a little celebration, from what I hear. They also know that Tenad Fallon is attempting to hold an SNT’s compliment hostage. They’re taking bets on how long it’ll be before she joins her brother for an impromptu spacewalk.”

 

 

“I think perhaps this is Kresho Ivanvic’s effort to redeem himself.” Fury said.

“It’ll take a fuck ton more than that,” Lenore growled. “Arji said that Evanovic knows things about me and my mother, things he thinks I should know, and I’d sure as hell like to hear what he has to say for himself. Arji said that was all the man would tell him for his own protection,” she added as an afterthought. And then the color in her cheeks flushed and her pulse picked up, for she had let her source slip.

“If you have gained this information, Lenore, then it is safe to assume you have spoken to this pub owner.” I promised myself I would not give her another reason to be angry with me, and yet I could not keep quiet.

“Yes.” She continued working as though I had asked her about the weather outside, as though she dared me to make an issue of her efforts, but her fingers were not quite as steady and she bit her lip the way she did when she was uncomfortable. That she had spoken to him and not to me; that he had treated her with kindness while I had hurt her, why would she not prefer to talk to him?

She stopped her efforts and sat up. “You don’t suppose Mac and Manning could be on Vodni Station, do you?”

“It isn’t possible,” Fury said, “for there have been no ships to or from Taklamakan Major since we arrived in orbit. They would have had to have been transported to a ship not equipped with SNT tech and then taken to the station. It is much too far for a transport and the curve of the planetoid would have prevented a transport to either of the other outposts. What else have you learned, Lenore Felish” asked Fury, who pushed such pettiness as my jealousy of this bar tender aside, his dear beloveds taking priority, as it should be.

Lenore continued. “Turns out Ivanovic and his people are spreading nasty rumors and making not only the locals nervous, but Fallon’s people as well. Has them all shitting themselves for fear of being shackled, but so far they’re still following orders. Tenad’s people have taken over Jessup’s dreadnaught. No surprise there.”

“And what else has Arji Finkle told you?” Fury asked.

This time she ran a hand across her damp forehead and huffed out a harsh breath, “He says that the dreadnaught and Tenad’s personal Jaeger, the Virago, are both are equipped with planet killers. Arji says people are pretty nervous about that. It would be just like a Fallon to use them for spite if nothing else.”

“Then it is up to us to see that does not happen, for we must protect the people of Talkalmakan Major, who have been dear Lenore’s family and our friends throughout,” Fury said.

I did not know how we could do that. I did not know how I could possibly help when I could not even move. Would a planet destroyer destroy me as well? In my helplessness, in my weakness, I thought that perhaps that might be the best thing for all of us. Certainly Fury would take my dearest beloved Lenore into his arms and see her away to the Rim, as she wished, and she would be safe, and I would not lose another compliment.

“And there you have said it yourself,” Fury spoke only to me in the depth of my core. “Do not let your fears stop you from doing what you know in your heart is right, dear Ascent, for we are all afraid most of the time. Usually we choose simply to push on and not to think about it. If we did not we would be paralyzed and lost in our grief and pain, rather than embracing the joy that is also there just beyond fear.”