Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit (37 page)

“U
m…Naero,” Tarim said. “I know you two are excited and all, but I’ve been waiting for days with very little sleep. Can you please bring Shalaen around? Then you and Zee can go sort out everything else.”

“R
ight, absolutely right. Sorry, Tarim. Sure thing.”

Naero made the mindlink with Shalaen
in a matter of seconds.

She kissed her old friend on the forehead, and filled her
to the brim with pure cosmic energy. Om monitoring their progress.

Even more power
suddenly roared back.

A flash of pure energy smashed Naero up into the
medbay ceiling.

She crashed
back to the floor, winded and surprised, but unhurt. Good thing she was a lot tougher now.

Another thing she could thank Hashiko for.

“Naero, are you all right?” Zhen yelled. Both her and Tarim stood backed up against the wall, staring in fear and surprise.

Naero
jumped up quickly. “Fine. Just startled me, that was all. What about our patient?” She shook herself and looked around.

The medbed was empty.

Zee and Tarim point up behind her.

Naero turned.

Shalaen floated up above the medbed. She started glowing with a blinding, white-blue light.

Something was
extremely different about her now.

Naero could sense it for certain.

Shalaen’s energies were even more off the charts.

Much more intense than before.

Shalaen opened her eyes.

They
had been bright blue before. Now they looked like pulsars.

“H
ello, my friends. I’m sorry if I frightened you. I’m compensating for these new energy levels. I’m not used to them. Thank you for saving me. For healing me. And for fully awakening me.”

“I
didn’t give you that much Cosmic power,” Naero said. “Where is all of this coming from?”

Shalaen smiled
, studying her shining hands. “You triggered a transformation. I am fully Yattai now. Nearly an energy being in this form. Such knowledge. All of these new powers and abilities…are indeed mine. My birthright as one of my mother’s people.”

She floated back down and hugged Naero. Then Zhen.

“Thank you for fully awakening me. Now I am free to try to contact my mother’s kin, if I can ever find a way to reach them in their dimension.”

She reverted back to her normal form, with the soft blue glow around her
as before.

Shalaen turned to Tarim and melted into his arms.

“Please, do not fear me,” she told him. “I’m still me, my heart. I am still who and what I have always been, and what I will always we be. Even more so now. And I am still yours.”

“
You can startle me, but I will never fear you,” Tarim said. “I’m just so happy you’re safe. And back with me.”

Shalaen looked at him
, her lips yearning forward. “You’re weary, and you have several minor injuries and aches that hurt you. Even from here I can sense your pain, and it hurts me as it does you.”

She place on
e hand gently upon Tarim’s chest.

Light passed between their touch
and filled him.

Now both of them
gasped.

Instantly
Tarim looked refreshed, and fully healed.

Even s
everal old scars on his face, hands, and arms also vanished.

Shalaen laughed, nearly weeping.
Still staring at her glowing hand.

“I
…I can heal.” She turned to them all in stunned wonder, tears of joy in her eyes.

“
I can heal now. Just like my mother once could. I can heal others!”

Shalaen flung the panels open wide and raced out into
the ship’s medical bay proper, still stuffed with wounded people, recovering from the battle. About sixty in all. Brought in for triage and emergency treatment where the ship landed.

Shalaen went to a small girl of four, whose legs had been ripped o
ff by the enemy. The small child was prepped for limb regeneration.

Shalaen placed her hands on the little girl
’s ragged stumps and encased them in her blinding light.

Two small, perfect legs emerged from that light in place of the stumps.

The child’s stupefied parents fell to their knees in wonder.

Shalaen raced to a wounded marine, shot through the face and missing part of one shoulder.

She laid her glowing hands on the young warrior’s terrible injuries.

Her light flared once more, and out of the radiance, the young marine became whole again, and raised one arm to shield his new eyes from her bright glare.

The angel of light swept from medbed to medbed, until all were healed and restored to their former selves. And those healed and those that cared for them stared in wonder and laughed, and cried, and rejoiced.

Shalaen swept back out of the medical bay beaming in joy, weeping tears of light that fell sparkling to the floor like gems at her feet.

All were so stunned, no one had even thought to thank her.

Naero, Zhen, and Tarim followed her back to her private quarters.

Tarim couldn’t wait any longer. He rushed forward and kissed her.

Shalaen
instantly fused herself to him and kissed him right back.

Shalaen
’s bright aura spread over both of them, growing increasingly brighter and brighter.

Zhen whispered
, shielding her eyes against the growing radiance.

“I
think I can safely say that our work here is done for the time being.”

“U
h…Yeah,” Naero said, clearing her throat and shielding her eyes also. “Looks like both our patients will…uh…definitely make a full recovery. And then some. Haisha! Let’s get the heck out of here. Before they blind us both.”

They closed
and locked the panel to the private medbay quarters behind them.

46

Shalaen called a meeting with Naero and Intel on her own the
very next day. They met with Klyne and General Thadian Ingersol on board
The Kathmandu
in the conference room for an interesting debriefing.

She
attempted to explain in detail what she had learned about the enemy from her brief contact and communion with them.

“I
don’t know exactly what the enemy wanted from me,” she told them. “But if we can figure it out, I think it was extremely important.”

“T
hat’s pretty obvious,” Naero said, fidgeting absently with her hands. She rubbed her eyes and hung her head.

The no sleep thing was really starting to catch up with her.

She started snapping a people when she normally did not.

Her crew began to notice.

Even Zhen was at a loss.

“
They want to use us all for batteries and suck us dry of any Cosmic energy to use in their Darkforce generators. They’d love to get their hands on any of the Yattai.”

“Let Lady Shalaen
speak, Captain Maeris,” General Ingersol insisted.

The other brother of the Brothers Jerk did not like her or have much patience for her either.

Shalaen shook her head. “But there was more to it all than that. Much more. I just can’t remember it or piece it together some how. As soon as they captured me and I lay helpless, those accursed machines immediately started probing and searching my mind. And they were not gentle about doing so.

“Yet I also sensed that t
hey seemed desperate in a way. Desperate to gain certain kinds of information they lacked. Stuff only Yattai would know. But because I was only half-Yattai, I didn’t really know that much. And of course, that fact frustrated them immensely.”

“W
hat do you think they were after?” Klyne said.

“I
can’t be sure, but I think it had something to do with the workings of interdimensional travel, and various types of temporal manipulation.”

“T
ime travel? What a bunch of crap. That’s theoretically impossible,” Naero said.

No one
else said anything.

Naero looked
nervously at Shalaen, and then around the room. She stopped back at Klyne.

“I
sn’t it?”

“We
’re not so sure. And that’s a problem. Even the High Masters are not.”

Shalaen spoke once more. “
I’d have to confer with my mother’s people. But I still don’t have a way to contact them yet. They normally inhabit an adjacent reality to our own. A dimension of almost pure energy. My mother had to reduce herself down to a fallible, physical form in order to exist here in your dimension.”

“N
ow I’m really getting worried,” Naero said.

She shot up out of her seat and began pacing.
“All of this new alien stuff is really starting to freak me out. I saw what they did to Hashi. And trust me, they are never going to get me into one of those damn generators. All of this is literally beyond anything we know. How can we possibly defend against stuff like this?

“
If these new enemies can…can tap into other dimensions, who knows what else they can do? Maybe capture some Yattai or other Cosmic beings. Then they’ll have all the batteries and all Darkforce energy they’ll ever need. There won’t be any limit to what they’ll be able to do in our reality. How can we fight forces like this? W-we won’t be able to stop them.”

“Maeris, you are losing it,” Ingersol observed, with some enjoyment. “Calm yourself.”

Naero sat back down in a huff, crossed her arms, and tried not pout like a scolded child.

“
We cannot simply fear what we do not know yet,” Shalaen said. “But I think their desperation also revealed how flawed and contingent many of their plans are, and limited by their own ignorance. Their strength and their dominance isn’t absolute. As we have seen. They can be defeated.”

Klyne knitted his hands in front of his face, resting his elbows on the conference table. “Did you get any other impressions about their mindset, their plans, or any of
their goals, long or short term?

Shalaen thought a moment. “Their resources and their working knowledge of the
universe is quite formidable. Yet there is much that they still do not know. They are very far from the level of mastery and dominion that they seek over others. And I got impressions that their motives and goals ran in many other directions as well. It all went far beyond mere power sources. They’re planning many dire things, and they’ve been planning them for a very long time. They must be very long-lived. When any of their plots do come to fruition–if ever–they’re going to be big. They’ll change everything we know.”

“Th
ey’ve already done that–several times over,” Ingersol quipped.

Naero couldn
’t take it anymore.

Just recently she began having repeating nightmares about being trapped and tortured in one of those alien generators.

Along with her brother Jan. And crazy Danner.

“A
auugh!” she groaned, clutching her hands to her pulsing, aching head. “This is just one of the reasons why my skull is always pounding. Why I can’t sleep. How in the hell can we act if we don’t know anything about all of these threats we’re facing?”

Admiral Klyne glared at her.

“Stand down, Maeris. I’ve never seen you so rattled. Something will turn up. Until then, I order you to take some time off and get some R & R, dammit. I know you’ve been through a lot recently. The pressure eventually gets to everyone. You’re no good to us if you let everything worry you and burn you out.”

“B
ut, sir…”

“
I repeat. This is a direct order. We have a respite and we don’t know how long it will last. Tomorrow, or six months from now. Take an old warrior’s advice, and rest up while you can. Train or whatever you need to do. Get drunk. Take some time to get your head back on straight.

“Because w
hen this war erupts again, we’re going to need you and your people on your game and at full strength. I’m certain of that.”

47

Klyne was pretty much
right on the credits.

She needed time off away from the madness. So many people had blamed her for so much that she started doing it to herself. And that couldn
’t stand.

Naero
stared at herself in the mirror wall of her mist shower on board her flagship.

She
was frazzled. By everything that had happened. And not a little frightened and freaked out.

They were
already up against a lot, and the vast majority of that and all of the factors and threats involved still remained unknown.

While the Cease-fire talks continued to hold and drone on, the Clans and Intel attempted to process all of the new data.
Determined to make the most of whatever time they had.

She needed to do the same.

So for the time being, even as her trade fleet set out, the first thing Naero needed to do was make an immediate call to her private wild card.

On a very secret, secure channel.

She and her fleet needed to catch up with Baeven and his crew to do some serious re-thinking, all on their own.

And
maybe enjoy some downtime too.

At least she
might be able to get some of her questions answered.

Baeven obviously knew a lot more than he was letting on.

To her surprise, Baeven not only agreed, but was thinking about some of the same things she was. Thus they arranged to meet in secret on Miretta-1, well beyond the edge of the Unknown Regions near Joshua Tech.

Out that way, between the spiral arms filled with stars, there were huge voids of uncharted, relatively empty space with far fewer planets on average, and even fewer life-bearing worlds and rich worlds suitable for mining.

Because there were fewer profit opportunities in what some called ‘blank-space,’ or ‘dead-space,’ no one bothered sending ships out that way.

Perfect for one of Baeven
’s many secret safeworlds, as he described them.

Somehow he
seemed to know about a lot of uncharted worlds that were good for one thing or the next.

Or to use as hideouts.

Baeven also happened to divulge that he had sent out an entire self-replicating network of advanced stealth probes to track, record, and alert him to the presence of any of the strange new alien ships.

Or anything
else out of the ordinary.

Once he had enough pings and data, he could
analyze their foes’tek more, where they appeared and went, and even how some of their tek functioned.

All he had to do was wait to collect the data feeds from his network.
But that would also take time.

Nor was Naero surprised that Baeven
possessed his own personal cloud of fixers–which he took the time to modify himself–and that they had turned a small part of Miretta-1 into a private resort for him and his crew.

Which he graciously offered to share with Naero and her fleet.

The majority of the planet happened to be primordial jungle. Complete with huge sauropods, ichthyosaurs, carnasaurs, and basically a lot of creatures that would have been perfectly at home on Old Earth during the Jurassic Period.

Naero and about three hundred of her captains and crew came down in shuttles, fighters, transports–even jump suits and gravwings.

They landed on an island lagoon beach of light blue sand, nestled within a coral reef, with a mostly dormant volcano on the peninsula behind them.

Baeven sat back barefoot in a beach chair, wearing colorful swim trunks, micro sun lenses floa
ting over his eyes. With a nanofreeze cooler of cold drinks of many assorted varieties well within reach, and a few empties already in the sand.

There was a nice tropical breeze.

Several of Baeven’s gleaming chrome-like emulators patrolled the area. She almost mistook them for fixers at first.

Naero
’s eyes bulged as she drew closer.

She
zeroed straight in on a couple borbles of Jett in that damn cooler.

“H
ello,” Naero called out. “What does a Spacer have to do to get a drink around here?”

Baeven waved at the cooler.
“Help yourself, gal.”

He didn
’t have to invite her twice.

A large plant-eating dinosaur with a huge neck, let out either a roar or some kind of song, and reached its long neck into the enormous tree canopy
nearby to munch on something.

Naero stared, hands on hips.

“Dinosaurs, Baeven? Seriously?”

He grinned.
“I’ve always liked them, ever since I was a kid. They kind of came with the real estate anyway. Repulsion fields similar to those on Janosha keep the nastier varieties away. Dinos also tend to poop a lot. Very messy. If you go out into the jungles, you’ll need to watch your step, as well as not get eaten.”

Naero kept looking around.
Out beyond the reef, a pod of colorful plesiosaurs raced into a school of proto-dolphins.

“I
brought friends, like you said. More will come when they hear about this sweet set-up you have.”

Baeven frowned.
“I don’t normally entertain so many guests at once, but I made an exception for you and your fleet. I’ve had my fixers erect a string of a few thousand huts, resorts, and some cabanas nearby on the south shore. Within walking distance. I’ve extended the repulsion fields to keep out the meat-eaters from the jungles and close to the shore. Tell your people to bring their own supplies, food, and drink. And have a good time. I know you and your crews could use a stand down. When the war heats up again–which it very well could at any time–we’ll all be in the mix again.”

Naero got on the horn and gave the general orders for the shore leaves to commence.

Whooping and hollering ensued.

The vanguard began to sweep toward the south shore as soon as they heard.

Baeven snapped his fingers, and a fixer popped up out of the sand and instantly fashioned another beach chair just like his out of the silica and available plant fibers and other raw material components.

Naero patted the little fixer, and studied it with her teknomancy for a sec.
“Make me a storage tub.”

Instantly a tub popped up behind her chair. First she took off her weapons and gear.

That took the longest.

“Y
ou travel heavy,” Baeven noted.

“W
hat do you expect? We just came from a war zone.”

Next, stripped down to her togs
. And then programmed them into a two piece light blue bikini swimwear pattern she had seen on the Buynet. Complete with holos of shimmering blue tropical flowers.

She almost felt naked. It was kind of frost.

The light blue sand was too hot on her bare feet.

Naero
sat down in her chair and snatched up a borble of Jett. She leaned back, enjoying the ocean breeze and the warm tropical sun.

“Y
ou’re skin’s too fair in this sun,” Baeven warned “Just like your mom. Put some sun gel on or you’ll regret in half an hour. Ask one of the fixers for some.”

“H
ey, Twinky,” she called to the one that made her chair and the tub.

It blinked its one ocular unit at her and actually responded in a tiny, comical toon voice.
“Who, me?”

Naero smiled
and even giggled a little. “Yes, you, cutie. Sun-gel me up. Lobster red isn’t my best color.”

“O
kay…here goes. Ready or not!” It even hummed a tune as it passed over her, spraying her exposed skin with just the right sun gel formula for her skin type.

“C
lose those gorgeous eyes, please.”

She did, feeling the
cool spray cover her face. She smelled and tasted palm oil. Then she felt it on her ears and neck.

“T
urn over please, baby-cakes.”

She flipped over on her stomach while
Twinky did her back.

“A
ll done, babealicious. Anything else I can do you for?”

Naero turned back over and sat up
grinning.

“T
hanks Twinky. Hey, I could use some shades. Sunglasses?”

“Y
ou got it, hot-stuff. Only takes a sec.”

Twinky fashioned a slender pair of spolymer reflective shades, tuned to block harsh radiation.

“You need the tint darker, good-lookin’?”

Naero popped them
on and looked around, not forced to squint any longer.

“N
o, these are great. Thanks, cutie.”

“D
on’t mention it…cutie!”

Twinky popped back into the sand and wiggled back beneath the surface.

“So, you taught the fixers to talk and flirt huh? Nice touch. I like it. Can I have that one for my very own?”

“
He’s all yours.”

“
Whoopee!” Twinky exclaimed from under the sand.

“You give them emotions too?”

“Just some of them,” Baeven said. “I thought it might be amusing. You can toggle it off if it bugs you.”

“N
o. I think it’s kinda sweet. I think my mom would have loved little guys like him bobbing around.”

Baeven smiled
happily for once. “You’re right. She would have. You’re mom had a great sense of whimsy. Only part of that which made her so beautiful as a person.”

They sat quietly for a while.

Laughter and parties and music erupted over on the south shore.

Max Li
i and his band and their fixers erected a zero-G stage and broke out into an impromptu throck concert.

In no time they we leaping and zipping through the air, doing their hits and other numbers. Cheering crowds flocked that way, and parties broke out within the range of Max
’s thrilling, hammering music.

Naero dozed off for a while, and then woke up to see
Gaviok and S’krin come down to the beach.

Most insectoids never wore clothes anyway.

They proceeded to quickly erect the largest and most elaborate sand castle Naero had ever witnessed.

Someone could actually live in the dang thing.

Then Danjen came down and pulled up a chair way off to the left, without saying a word. He looked very self-absorbed. He carried a small sack of what looked to be bags of various meat jerkies, cans of Spum, and lix packs of warm veg juice.

He
actually looked like an anime’ character in a kid’s toon, with his flippy straw hat, hairy body, bright swim trunks, and loud island shirt with scantily-clad hairy female holo-babes dancing across it.

That
’s right. Hairy females from Danjen’s own species–whatever the heck that was–busting up the dance floor on his shirt.

Yet
Danjen seemed completely devoted to his regimen, and remained sitting well away from them all.

He had a fixer set up a stand for his snacks.

Then he slowly pulled out a data pad…and began to read.

“W
hat in the heck is he doing?” Naero asked.

Baeven sighed.
“We made the mistake of teaching Danjen how to read. Now he’s a junkie. Mostly mysteries these days. He loves cheap mysteries. He’s always spouting off about how he’s going to be a detective some day. Like when he went on that westerns kick…and he wanted to be a cowboy.”

Danjen?
A cowboy? Naero covered her mouth and chuckled, recalling some old, old western vids.

Danjen would look pretty stupid as a
furry-ass cowboy, bouncing around on one of those horse-mammals.

“W
hat? Didn’t you explain to him that there aren’t any detectives or cowboys? That’s just in old stories and vids.”

Baeven lifted his head, apparently pondering that.
“Among the landers there still might be some somewhere. But I would strongly advise you not to tell him any of that. And especially not now. He hates to be interrupted when he’s reading. Makes him furious.”

They sat and enjoyed the sun and the ocean breeze a while longer.

“So, Naero. You going to get around to telling me why you’re really here?”

“I
have a lot of questions.”

Baeven yawned.
“Don’t we all.”

“A
nd I want you to train me. You trained with the Mystics for years. I still need to get both stronger and faster. And my endurance using Chaos and Cosmic energy still farts out in less than a day. I need more stamina.”

“I
s that all? Don’t you want to know how I kind of-sorta control my dark side? What you call your dark beast?”