Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit (35 page)

Hashiko came to screaming
and thrashing, as if out of a deep, traumatic nightmare.

Naero and Danjen attempted to hold her still.

“It’s all right,” Naero tried to tell her. “You’re free of it. We got you out. You’re safe!”

Hashiko broke down and wept
, for the first time since Naero had known her.

Then she
glared up at Naero and snarled like one gone insane.

“Y
ou fool. None of us are safe now. They want all of us!”

Naero quic
kly teknomanced some togs for Hashiko to wear.

T
hen to their horror, the other two machines nailed Gaviok repeatedly with several desperate shock charges as he tried to rip them apart.

The tough mantid
finally collapsed, smoking to one side, struggling to get back up.

The two
heavily damaged machines scuttled off, dragging themselves away from the powerful mantid instinctively.

Even they had h
ad enough of him, and now sought only to escape and survive at this point.

But the opportunistic machines
caught up Shalaen where she still lay unconscious, and crawled toward the exit, dragging her with them. Feeding off her and attempting to regenerate at they did.

“N
o!” Naero said, trying to crawl after them.

Danjen looked around
weakly, swaying, barely able to stand. “I…I don’t see or smell any more explosives.”

“W
e can’t let them take her. Use anything you have to cut her free. They’ll use her power against us!”

“I
can’t,” Danjen said. “No strength left. I’m going back…try to help revive Gaviok.”

Naero
also neared the point of collapse. None of them had any strength left.

She had to try something.

She couldn’t let them take Shalaen.

Not when she was this close
to saving her.

Naero understood now.

The enemy would put Shalaen…put all of them, inside one of those damn things.

Then she felt hands
struggling, barely able to lift her up.

Hashiko.

Both of them were too weak still. They collapsed against one another and fell back down to one side.

Naero came to moments later.

Shalaen. Get Shalaen.

Hashiko rested on her side nearby,
out cold.

“W
ake up.” Naero insisted. “Get up. Do something, dammit. Heal me. I know you know how better than me. We have to go after them.”

She flipped Hashiko over and slapped her, as hard as she could.

“Get up, damn you!”

Hashiko
’s eyes flashed open with anger.

“I
’m trying to regenerate, you idiot! Do you know what they did to me?”

Naero shook her head.

“Don’t care. We can’t…let them get away. They’ve got Shalaen.”

“W
e’re lucky to be alive. We can’t fight them in our condition.”

“T
hey have Shalaen. They’ll feed off her and heal themselves. They’ll put her in one of those things, just like they did you. We have to save her.”

Hashiko shook her head. “No way. You
’re insane.”

“I know you can do it. You
’ve been biomancing much longer that I have. Heal us…as best you can, and then let’s go finish those things off. We can’t let them use her powers against us!”

Hashiko shoved her away.
“Get the hell off me.”

She panted, catching her breath. “Give me a moment…
and I’ll do what I can. It will work better if I charge you up first, and then you do the same for me. We’ll both get more out of it.”

After several long moments,
they stood back up, holding onto each other. Hands locked on their forearms.

B
oth of them felt regenerating energy coursing back and forth through them again and again. They healed and recharged each other.

It
shocked Naero that it could be that fast. But every second still counted.

She pulled away from Hashiko.

She even summoned a Chaos katana.

“L
et’s go get those things…and save Shalaen.”

Hashiko doubled over, gasping
as she dropped to one knee.

“
Damn it, give me a sec, Maeris. Gotta…catch my breath. I don’t have the same bottomless reserves you do–deep inside. This surge won’t last long for either of us. Maybe one fight at best.”

“T
hat’s all we need, Hashi. Let’s make this work.”

Hashiko steeled herself. Then she nodded.

44

The two of them raced down the tunnel after the two scuttling alien generators.

Charging back out the breaching tunnel the Dakkur had made.

Up ahead, beyond the lighted opening into the surrounding mountains, Naero swore she heard the sounds of strange starship engines.

S
ignatures unlike any ship engines she had even heard before.

One of the alien vessels perhaps?

The battle between the Ejjai and the Marines still raged all around them nearby
, drawing ever closer.

Naero felt confident that the invaders could not hold Walker
’s elite marine forces back much longer.

T
hey emerged beneath the bright, blinding sky. Naero pulled Hashiko to one side behind some boulders while their eyes adjusted.

The alien gray octagonal ship had
indeed landed nearby.

Naero
squinted and matched the sounds of its engines to it in her head. She would remember them from this point on. No other drives sounded like that.

As her vision cleared more, she
peered over some rocks and spotted the two damaged machines scuttling toward an extended loading ramp. Still dragging Shalaen’s unconscious form.

A full company of Ejjai
stood ready to defend the alien ship and made way for the machines. Dozens of Dakkur. But it looked as if the warship was getting ready to take off.

As soon as
the enemy loaded up its new prize.

A very large Dakkur emerged from the ship
. Dark green with bright yellow undersides. Twice the size of the soldier drones. A leader or champion perhaps?

Then Naero remembered.

She thought the drones had looked smaller to her. It was a larger Dakkur like this one that had murdered Gallan.

Maybe
it was even this creature.

The leader waved a
clawed hand, and drew Darkforce energy from the two generators limping up the ramp.

He formed a wormhole in the very air
next him.

“B
ring the Yattai bitch forward. I wish to examine and implant her myself.”

One of the drone
s spoke up nervously close beside him. “Master, our foes are nearly upon us. We must depart.”

The leader slashed the drone in two
with the barest flick of his tail, without even a glance, smearing the underling against the side of the ship. Bloody, glowing Dakkur dust exploded violently from the corpse.

“T
here is still time,” the leader said calmly. “I’m activating a new generator device. Awakening its hungry core. Let it receive its new power source and serve our will. Bring the Yattai to me!”

Dakkur
teks quickly brought forth what looked to be a new generator device out of the wormhole, suspended on gravlifters. Another dormant machine, just like the other two activated ones that remained heavily damaged.

The
teks opened the loading panel. The two damaged devices dragged Shalaen toward it.

The glistening black tentacles of the new devices began to twitch
and come to life, awakening its will to feed.

Naero
stared at the two damaged devices and had a sudden terrible thought.

Who was in
side of them?

What if one of them had Jan
in it?

“N
ow!” Hashiko screamed.

She rained orbs of exploding Chaos energy down on the
ir assembled foes.

Naero leaped in, cutting down all of the Ejjai near Shalaen
with her twin katanas.

The enemy took heavy fire suddenly from the sky.

Tarim and gravwing marines in stealth combat armor uncloaked and dropped right in on top of the enemy.

A
fierce fire fight erupted all around the alien ship.

Naero
cut Shalaen free and transported them off the bloody ramp. Out of sight among the rocks. But not for long.

Naero tried to lay her down in a safe place
so that she could turn at bay and fight.

Tarim came down with a heavy weapons team
to help defend them.

The enemy
forces tried to rush their position.

The marines
opened up, cutting most of the foe down close up.

Tarim stood over Shalaen, gunning down any leapers
and stragglers, blasting their heads off with clean, precise shots from his advanced pistols.

Hashiko attacked the leader, lashing at him with her Chaos whip.

The whip cut deep into his heavy head and neck, but he only smiled back at her.

“H
ow did you break free, little one? No matter. Once we have you back, you shall never escape us again.”

Hashiko snarled.
“I will die before you take me again!”

She didn
’t see the two damaged machines lashing out at her with their tentacles from behind.

“Hashi. Look out!”

Naero had to see who was inside of them.

Hashiko dodged one of the machines. But the other zapped her full force with shock charges.

She arched up
on her toes, screaming in pain. Transfixed by Darkforce lightning.

Hashi
dropped down to her hands and knees, gasping.

The machines scuttled toward her.
Hungry.

Naero raced in to help
, severing tentacles from the other two machines trying to capture them both.

The leader turned to
glare at her, while he snatched up Hashiko and tried to stuff her into the waiting empty device that stood ready for Shalaen.

“I
know you. I ate your big friend. You’re just another prize. Soon you’ll join your kin in our collections. And just like them, your powers will serve our path to triumph.”

So they did have Jan and Dan. That confirmed it.

Naero spoke two words.

“Y
ou are so dead.”

She rammed her Chaos katana at the leader
’s throat.

But he was even faster than the drones, and
withdrew.

Naero impaled her sword
up through the front of his thick jaw, and ripped the blade through his mouth and front teeth.

He grunted in pain
, but the grim wound was not mortal.

With the ba
ck stroke of one leg he sent Naero flying.

Then he
struggled to finish stuffing Hashiko into the yawning maw of the new generator.

The
two damaged generators rose up in full retreat and floated through the wormhole.

“N
o!” Naero screamed.

The leader laughed at Hashiko
, dragging them both back through the wormhole as she fought and resisted. Her strength failing.

“N
o matter. I’ll gather these others some other time. But we have you once again, little one. You will return with us.”

Hashiko thrashed, fighting and screaming to break free.

“I’ll take you down with me, but you are never putting me in one of those things again!”

Hashiko
’s head glowed red. Her entire body.

A blazing red third eye formed in the center of Hashiko
’s forehead.

First s
he nailed the leader with her sonic attack, driving him back. Then she set herself and screamed.

“E
ye of Annihilation!”

The blazing red ray punched
out of her third eye, slicing through the leaders claw that he held it up defensively.

The beam severed
the limb from his thrashing body easily.

Not only that, but t
he claw and the stump both pulsed and glowed with devouring scarlet energy and began to dissolve, eating away at him slowly and relentlessly.

The leader clutched his wounded arm
shrieking, keeping it stretched out away from him, pulling his body back through the wormhole. Dragging the empty generator back through with his tail.

The wormhole closed, severing the leader
’s extended arm arm stump before the destroying red energy could spread further up his body. The other bit of Dakkur arm fell to the ground, wriggled, and dissolved.

After the leader fled, the
enormous hatch to the alien ship snapped shut, cutting several drones in half as they scrambled to slip inside.

The alien gray ship immediately blasted off,
as the battle in the forests subsided.

Victori
ous Spacer Marines marched in and mopped up.

Dead Dakkur
already melted away into stink.

Naero knelt beside Hashiko. Helpless as the destroying red energy
of the prime adept’s own desperate attack continued to spread over her body.

Hashiko
kept the enemy from taking her prisoner again.

But
in doing so, she also doomed herself.

Hashiko
resisted it, but even she could not control the annihilation energy of such a high level Chaos attack, once unleashed.

The Eye of
Annihilation destroyed everything the beam touched up close. The lethal risk of unleashing the most powerful Chaos attack known to the Mystics–and the most unstable.

Hashi
no longer had the strength to keep the spreading power from destroying her. It fed on her, like a destructive aura.

Naero knelt down at Hashiko
’s side.

She
instinctively reached out to take her comrade’s hand.

“I
diot,” Hashiko said with a weak snarl. “Don’t touch me. The red death destroys all living matter that it touches.”

Naero pulled her hand back.
“I’m sorry. I wish there was something I could do.”

“S
top blubbering. I made my choice. Better to go on to the next journey than be trapped in one of those Darkforce torture devices again. Trust me. Don’t ever let them put you in one of those things.”

Naero sniffed.
“I won’t.”

“Y
eah, if they get control of all the power hiding deep within you, everyone’s in trouble. Do something right for a change, Maeris.”

Hashiko
’s feet and then her legs began to dissolve. She was slowly being destroyed.

“I
still wish we could have been friends somehow, Hashi. I respected you at least.”

“S
hut up and listen to me, Maeris. You have to stop them. Listen to me. The enemy crippled me. They stole secrets from my mind. I’m not sure what they learned. My death doesn’t matter. None of our lives will matter if these enemies defeat us.”

Only Hashiko
’s chest and face remained.

“
Warn our people, Maeris. Our leaders. These bastards will destroy everyone. They’re coming for us all, but they’re really after the–”

She dissolved away
before she could finish speaking.

At least her comrade was consistent.

To the end, Hashi never liked her.

Prime Adept Mitsubishi
Hashiko was no more.