Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit (20 page)

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The next morning,
Naero awoke from a particularly terrible nightmare to another crashing, summer lightning storm, complete with lashing winds and driving rain.

A drenched
Bahan shook her, screaming at her in pain and fear.

“N
aero, please wake up. We need you, halaena. Only you can help us!”

She forced herself to snap awake, and jumped up, pulling away from him, looking around.

“What’s going on, Bahan? What’s wrong?”

The tribal leader was usually so calm. Now he
shook and muttered, even whimpering.

“I
t’s…it’s Iika. The fire from the sky struck her. She fell onto some of the meat drying racks.”

“L
et’s go.”

Ignoring the violent storm, they quickly climbed down to the ground
level below. About twenty Tua hovered around.

“L
et the halaena through!” Bahan shouted. They parted for her, bowing their heads.

Om,
I really need your help here.

What is it?

She knelt down at Iika’s side.

Iika looked badly scorched, injured, and frightened, her chest heaving. She was soaked through and bleeding
badly from several wounds.

The Tua positioned several screens of hide from the drying racks to keep the rain off of them.

“Naero!” Iika cried out, spotting her. Desperately grasping for and clutching her hand. “Help…me. Please…”

Her eyes rolled back white. She toppled
to one side and collapsed in Naero’s arms. Going into shock. Dying.

Om. Please. We must
save her.

Multiple wounds. Struck by lightning. First and second degree burns from the back of her head to her right leg and foot. One lung punctured, three critical piercing wounds on the back and left side. She has lost a crucial amount of blood.

What do we do? Tell me.

She
’s going into shock and dying. We don’t even have a medkit. Short of biomancing, there’s little we can do. I’m still mostly offline.

Naero clutched her skul
l without hesitation and focused her knowledge and abilities, everything she had learned.

To perceive and reach the damage
d areas in her own brain.

She traced the path of the mind control needle.

Om had done what he could–a relentless, amazing job really–to heal and regenerate nearly all of the damage on either side of the blockages.

Three intricate choke points remained, dead areas and scar tissue,
completely blocking her from tapping into her unknown energies and the abilities beyond them.

Th
ose powers still lurked within her. Along with her own Dark Beast. Waiting eagerly. Tempting her to unleash them.

Yes, her
Dark Beast sensed her panic and bided its time.

Om attempted to caution her.

We have been through all this, Naero. We cannot go any further without risking even worse damage than we already have. Or you losing control.

Naero ignored him.

We can’t regenerate those areas completely. What if we open them up slightly, so that we can get a trickle of cosmic energy to ignite our potential biomancing abilities?

Possible. We might also short out your brain entirely and kill our current life form. Or leave you still physically alive, but completely brain dead.
Or rage out of control. Or explode.

I
’m going to give it our best shot, Om. I need you. Work with me here.

Very well. I know how stubborn you are. Let
’s go then. Together. Right now.

The
y simultaneously tried to stimulate and then regenerate and heal the three choke points, enough to get Cosmic energies and brain functions passing through the damaged areas.

Seal it off! Too much
, to much! Too much energy. It’s flooding everywhere!

She tried. It felt as if someone lit her head on fire
from within.

Like trying to control and reverse a massive explosion within her own mind.

Almost…almost…don’t let it destroy us!

Suddenly Naero shrieked, convulsed, and fell back, completely drained.

Her Dark Beast roared inside her mind, struggling to rip free. To tap into Janosha’s energy flows and feed.

Naero
blacked out.

When she came to and blinked
a few instants later, she felt rain still dotting her face.

The Tua still clustered around her, petting her and whimpering.

Bahan sat in the mud beside her, holding Iika’s limp form in his arms, rocking and shaking.

Iika
’s lips turned blue.

Naero sat straight up and gulped in air.

Cosmic power rushed through her. All around her. It infused her and pulsed all around her in shock waves.

For the second
time since she arrived, she was at one with Janosha.

Her third eye blazed to life in the middle of her forehead, and her flesh glowed with a great light
, as if lit from within.

Tua stared and crawled away
from her in awe.

For a few fleeting, flaring instants. She was an energy being.

Naero knelt down and put her arms around Bahan and Iika. She immediately sensed Iika dying, her life energy ebbing away.

“I
need you to help me save her, Bahan.”

He nodded.
“Take my life, in place of hers,” he said.

Om. The blocks…they
’re shattered. Completely gone. I’m biomancing. The rush of energies. I can hardly believe it.

Yet
Om remained damaged from the very intensity of their efforts. She sensed it instantly. Only garbles emerged from his intellect.

She could
help repair him later.

Saving Iika was all that mattered now.

First she healed Iika’s mortal wounds, regenerating them in seconds.

To do so, s
he drew much needed blood and life force energy directly from Bahan, transferring it into Iika.

He grunted and gasped, clenching his eyes and teeth and endurin
g the pain. Then he passed out.

Naero didn
’t have time to figure out how to form blood and life force energy out of nothing, and replace them on her own. She simply wasn’t that skilled yet.

She needed
all of that now if she was going to bring Iika back from the brink.

Using Bahan as a donor was
the clear, logical solution.

That left b
oth Tua weak and unconscious. For now. But after careful rest, more healing, and food, they should recover and live out their lives.

They had
all saved Iika. Together.

Naero
stopped glowing at some point, expending all of her pulse of Cosmic biomancy to affect the miracle at hand.

H
er block was finally gone.

All of her abilities would
eventually emerge again. And she would need to learn to control and master them.

Including her Dark Beast.

Or be destroyed by them.

All at once s
he could begin to apply everything that she had learned in the mean time. Everything Vane had taught her about Chaos Wisdom and Cosmic energy fields and biomancy. Janosha was a huge, constantly-available raw Cosmic power source.

Just
tempting her to tap into it.

But she
knew enough now not to rush into anything and most likely destroy herself one way or another. The risks were simply too great, and far too many.

Naero sensed instinctively that she was
also free once again to re-learn to teknomance, and access all of her former powers, and more.

On a whim, she insta
ntly bypassed Master Vane’s Tek-dampening and activated the programming in her flight togs.

T
hen her wristcom.

If she located enough iron and copper, she could
eventually refine the raw materials to make a fixer.

Haisha! She still had the inert one in her duffle.

Not only that–the millions of insights she had gained on biomancy suddenly all made perfect, precise sense to her. Like having Zhen’s healing sight jacked up to the highest degree.

Yet s
omething still felt terribly wrong.

What
was it? What was she missing? Forgetting?

She remembered Master Vane
’s ability to levitate and propel himself through the air at will.

With but a thought she
used that ability in an instant. She floated off the ground and lifted Bahan and Iika up with ease.

She
carefully tucked them away in their cave to rest.

Yet t
he intense feelings of unease only continued to increase.

Something was wrong. She was doing something wrong.

Her mind raced with possibilities. She flitted around without purpose or direction. The rush of energies intoxicating as ever, overpowering.

They were
just that–overwhelming.

W
aves of cosmic energy continued to flood into her. Going critical. Literally. Filling her way too full.

Like a
n energy bubble, expanding out of control.

In terror her mind saw the immense conclusion.

What happened when the Cosmic bubble popped?

She
’d explode.

What would the
blast radius of such limitless Cosmic energies be?

Would she take out the region?

The entire planet? She shuddered and convulsed in spasms.

It terrified her
to her core. What were her limits? She just didn’t know.

Om. Biomancy
. Teknomancy.

Fix Om.

She need him and the KDM desperately. Bring him back on line. Get him up to speak with her.

Drain off some of that
wide-open energy rush.

Did the Kexx have a cure for this?

For stupidity and ignorance?

Om. Om Come back to me. I
’m doing everything to fix you and your protocols. Talk to me.

Please. I…I don
’t know what to do. I keep filling up with so much…so much of this energy. Help me. Please, help me!

Naero? What
’s happening? The blocks are completely gone. There’s nothing between us and the raw power of the entire planet. What did you do? We’re…expanding exponentially. We’re going to detonate!

I know, I know! What do we do with all of this power?

Transport, transport!

What?

Translocate. Like Master Vane does, tapping into the cosmic flows of the planet. It takes huge amounts of energy to transport. Use some up. Burn it off. Take us somewhere you remember. Anywhere!

Naero focused.

Hurry!

Island. Volcano. Sea birds and marine reptiles.

She struggled to remember the entire process, all the principles and abilities involved. Exactly how Vane transported them from place to place.

Naero
miscalculated.

They appeared
a thousand feet up in the air over the island.

Right over th
e volcano. They immediately plummeted downward, accelerating rapidly.

She panicked
, trying to recall how to levitate.

Again. Transport
again. Still too much energy. Again, while the process is still fresh in your mind!

The island winked out.

Next thing she knew, they tumbled roughly across the savannah, slamming into the soft ground and short grass.

A
s if on cue, an akakoth erupted to attack her.

Om
responded instinctively, setting it on fire, consuming it in seconds. The creature shrieked and reduced to ash.

Naero gasped and fell forward on her hands and knees. The energy flows flooded them again
, but they had gained a short respite.

It
’s the planet. Janosha itself. The flows are too strong. Break away to stop the power surge. Sever the link!

I don
’t know how. Help me Om!

Her skin began to glow all over once more. To shine.

Haisha! I’m transforming into an energy being again. I can’t control it!