Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit (4 page)

Klyne sighed and knitted his fingers.

“T
hen there’s only one explanation, as crazy as it sounds,” Naero said. “Somehow
The Dark Star
is running under its own power and has gone completely rogue.”

“I
s that even possible, Naero? What exactly did you do to those two vessels that could have caused such a thing? Is this something from the Kexxian Data Matrix? Self-aware ships? What if they gain the ability to create or command fixers to help them reproduce? What kind of real dangers are we looking at here, Naero? Machine intelligence? This sounds like an open Pandora’s Box to me.”

“K
lyne, I didn’t even know about this until two minutes ago. I don’t know what happened. Back then we were under attack and trying to stay alive. My teknomancer powers were completely new to me. I was barely able to make them work. I–I still don’t exactly know what I did.”

“T
ake a look at those sightings again, Naero. Notice any pattern?”

Naero studied them.

Then she gasped.

“T
hey’re heading straight toward me…and my fleet.”

Klyne nodded.
“We think so too.”

“W
hat do you want me to do?”

“C
ut to the chase? Make contact. Go out and meet with this phantom. Try to make peace with whatever intelligence or whatever is operating that ship. If we can get the ion cannon tek, so much the better. But either way–we can’t have a rogue ship that powerful running amok out there, armed with such dangerous weapons.”

“
Very well. I’ll hand-pick a strike force of my own ships and crews to accompany me on the intercept. I’ll make contact with
The Dagger
.”

Klyne nodded.
“As I hoped. But Intel will have a fleet waiting in the wings near the rendezvous, just in case. A comrade of mine, General Tobias Ingersol will be your liason on scene. He’s gruff and a little bit of an ideologue, but a very capable strategist. One of our best. Along with his twin brother, General Thadian in the High Command.”

“I
don’t know either of them, but I’ll do my best to coordinate actions with him if you say so. But Klyne, I have a personal request.”

“P
ersonal?”

“I
want to get tested…for the Mystics. ASAP. Things are getting…weird for me again, Klyne.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That might not be good for anyone Naero.”

“I don’t think it can wait any longer.”

Should she tell him about her pain attacks?
Trashing her quarters at night? About Om?

Klyne looked both grim and concerned
. “Very well. Take care of this matter for me and I will arrange the testing myself. But I want you to understand: once you step into that world, there’s no turning back. You will enter a new and much broader reality of discipline and enlightenment. A world most of your family stepped into bravely. And it will change you, Naero. Just as it changes everyone…for better, or worse.”

Great. Just what she needed.
Something else dangerous and uncertain.

More
shifting threats. Wahoo!

Well, at least the pain attacks
might stop. And she might be able to know love with another person again at some point, without taking the risk of slaughtering some poor snoozing slob in his afterglow.

Those two
things alone would be worth any risks.

She really
had no idea what to expect.

Anyone who trained with
the Mystics was honor-bound never to speak of it. On pain of death. Even her parents wouldn’t ever talk about it.

“A
ll right then, Klyne. Let’s do whatever we need to do.”

She rested her hands on her hips.

“Let’s locate that phantom ship.”

4

Naero had lunch with Zhen and Tyber in
The Dagger’s
mess hall the next day at noon standard. The round galley about fifteen meters in diameter, off-white duranadium hull walls and open view screens. A lighted ceiling and air filters another six meters up. News and vid screens and busy INS feeds.

The mess fed and sat about thirty to forty
, crew max. But their small ship didn’t book any passengers, and kept its crew contingent small during peace time. With transport staff and loaders, two dozen hands total.

Their cook, Tolen Kothari and her assistant, Eugene Blooding
, worked to serve regular, nutritious and tasty meals on a standard schedule.

Her Co-pilot Enel Maeris, another young distant cousin
, had bridge duty.

Surina Marshall her com officer, Passaendra Wilde, a gunnery and weapons specialist, and Rendar Nelson the engineer waved to them and continued eating, arguing
over stuff from the INS feeds at the next table over.

Lunch was a tasty pot roast of some kind of marinated brown meat with mashed pomatoes
, coupled with another kind of purple, tangy vegetable shoots with herbs. And white grabble-berry cobbler.

Eugene made this black mystery gravy that was out of this world and made anything under it taste
ten times as good. You could eat the damn stuff with bread or biscuits, or by itself with a spoon and roll your eyes as you slurped it up.

It was that tasty.

He claimed his ‘black gravy’ was a carefully guarded, ancient Clan Blooding recipe.

No one really cared, as long as he kept making it.

Naero enjoyed her chow while Zee and Tye teased one another.

They
always seemed so happy together. Naero liked that about her two friends.

If she couldn
’t be with someone and be happy herself, at least it was nice to know that people she cared about could do so.

Tye and Zee sat close together. He ate with his right
hand and had his left arm scooped around her slender back and waist.

Zhen absently had her left handed knitted with Tye
’s, and leaned into his casual embrace, eating with her right hand from her tray.

Since the two of them had been kids, they
were inseparable.

When they started dating, that
only seemed natural too, and everything that followed.

Now that they were all of age, the rest of
her friends’ future seemed certain.

Tye laughed.
“You’d better get around to marrying me some day,
Doctor
Zhentisa,” he warned. “You know, a fine catch like me isn’t going to wait forever.”

Zhen
’s eyes widened and sparkled with mischief. She even jumped and choked on a little of her chow. The she leaned away from him on one arm in wide-eyed disbelief.

“E
xcuse me? I think I just barfed in my mouth a little. You think you’re a fine catch? Who in their right mind told you that? Are you hallucinating? Should I scan you for a blast addiction? You’re a tek-monkey. I’m a skilled physician and surgeon. I’m five pay grades above you.”

Tyber grinned and twirled his spork
, chewing his food pouched in both sides of his mouth like a famished rodent.

“Y
eah, but who else can repeatedly make your eyes roll back up white in your head, while we’re having fun in the sack?”

Zhen blushed slightly and smirked. She glanced down at her food
trying not to laugh.

“W
ell…there is that.” She let him nuzzle her slender neck for a moment.

“G
ot ya.”

Zee sighed.
“You sure do, you loveable goofball.”

She smiled at him and ran her slender fingers through his messy
, curly dark hair. “You’re gonna be a great daddy to our babies some day. They’re going to love goofing around with you. You’re always so full of fun.”

“K
ids?” Naero said, trying to disguise her wide-eyed disbelief. “When is this going to happen? Not too soon, I hope.”

Zhen shrugged and flashed Tye
a smile again, patting his leg.

“N
ot for a while still. But some day. After I marry this greasy bum.”

“H
ey, I take offense at that. I may be a lot of things. But I am never greasy. Unless I’m working with grease. But I clean up well.”

Naero blew out a breath.
“Wow. I guess I just don’t picture any of us with kids yet.”

“L
ike your Aunt Sleak and Zalvano?” Tye said

“Y
eah, and twins even. Hard to believe that. But they’re old.”

“W
hat about Chaela and Remy?” Zhen noted. “They got married after the Alliance War. They might decide to have kids too.”

“N
ot for a handful of years at least, Chae says.”

“S
till,” Tye said. “It’s going to happen at some point. It’s just what people do.”

“I
guess.”

Naero still felt uneasy about the future. Even after the wedding, she still felt like something inside her kept trying to warn her about something.

What could it be? Just the future in general, or some specific threat?

Around dinner time, N
aero and Tarim took her shuttle over to
The Dragon’s Teeth,
an old burned out wreck of a strike carrier that they picked up for a song.

A long-
term project for their fixers to refit.

She put Captain Saemar and her fighter pilots, teks, and crew in charge of th
at mission.

Naero opened and
closed her hands, staring at her fingers.

She kind of missed tecknomancing. Merging with starships, fighters, and high tek gear. Feeling the flow of Kexxian tek data through every fiber of her being. Understanding and manipulating tek on an almost magical level.

She sighed. Even that pleasure was denied her these days. It figured.

Her lander friend
Tarim had settled in and performed well as her security chief and personal body guard.

Tarim had always been tall and lanky, but living with Spacers conditioned him into a wiry, athletic hunk with dark hair and eyes.

He wasn’t a Spacer, but his finely honed skills as a marksman and mastery with nearly all kinds of firearms made him a deadly shootist, and an impressive fighter in his own right.

She knew he missed his people
the miners, and especially the unusual romance he had with the enigmatic Shalaen, daughter of the Miner Consortium leader, Nevano Kinmal.

Shalaen was half-Yattai, a race of
Cosmic energy beings from a nearby dimension.

That alone made things…interesting
.

But their duties and obligations took
Tarim and Shalaen to different places, and for now they accepted that. They kept in regular contact as best they could.

Naero hadn
’t told Tarim yet, but she planned for their trade fleet to make a lucrative sweep through the rapidly expanding and developing mining sectors.

Now that Triax was gone.

And good riddance. Nobody missed the fallen Gigacorps.

The miners did very well for themselves
in the aftermath of The Annexation War. With the guidance and assistance of the Clans and Joshua Tech, the industrious miners created vast new spreading markets on their expanding boomworlds and colonies. Plenty of robust trading opportunities for all.

Their huge repressed populations expanded into the mining worlds and beyond into the colonies and even the
Unknown Regions out their way. They brought their growth and hope for the future with them. Everyone seemed to benefit.

Naero
hoped that they might even link up with Nevano and his amazing daughter at some point, giving Tarim and Shalaen a chance to rekindle their relationship.

Captain Chaela met them in the docking bay from
her refitted battleship,
The Ajax
.

All of them embraced.

“How’s Remy?” Naero asked. A twinge of discomfort.

Why did Chae have to be so damn tall? With her long blonde braids,
and her amazon physique, she always looked like a Viking shield-maiden from ancient times.

Chae grinned.
“Sweet and ornery as ever. Did I tell you he likes to cook for me now? Good thing too, cause I hate cooking. Unlike some people I know.”

“C
ooking isn’t so bad,” Naero protested.

Chaela just shivered.
“Ugh!”

“H
ow is Remy’s cooking?” Tarim asked.

“P
assable, very passable. He’s getting better, so I don’t want to discourage him. My honey’s such a sweet guy. When our work’s done each day, we can’t wait to relax and just be together.”

“T
hat’s nice,” Naero said, checking the time. “Uh-oh. Hey, we’d better hurry. Saemar’s going to be waiting for us.”

All of their
wristcoms chimed in unison as if on cue. Saemar’s voice blurted out.

“W
here are you guys? Hey, sweeties! I’ve got a dinner all prepared. It’s getting cold. What are you doing? What’s taking so long?”

“K
eep your knickers on,” Chaela shouted.

“C
’mon, sweetie. You know I never wear any. They just get in the way, ya know?”

“W
e’ll be there shortly,” Naero said, laughing. She closed the link.

“C
’mon, you guys,” Chaela told them. “We’d better not keep the Whore of Babylon waiting. You should have never given her this command, En. She was bad enough as a flight leader on
The Ajax
.”

“W
hat Saemar does in her private time has always been her own business, Chae. It’s not like any of us can stop her. You know her better than I do. She’s a force of nature.”

“I
sure do. She’s a force of something. Now she’s in full command of a bunch of randy, hot-headed fighter jocks. They’re not just competing with each other for top flight status, but for on-top-of-her status too.”

Naero lifted both hands.
“Be that as it may, she’s doing a great job so far. The rest is up to her. She thanks me all the time and tells me how she’s in heaven. How can that be so bad? Her people love her. They perform for her on levels that are off the charts.”

Chae rolled her eyes.
“Yeah. What’s not to love? Literally. But mark my words, if anyone can find a way to screw herself to death, it’s Saemar. And the female fighter jocks are starting to grumble, saying all the guys get special consideration.”

Naero shook her head.
“All right, I’ll talk to her. That can be dealt with. She can stay Saemar and still find a way to be fair.”

They entered one of the
few refitted repair facilities and were promptly greeted by Captain Saemar before a bustling team of handsome young aides and officers in front of a banquet table.

Afte
r listening to Chae, Naero half-expected Saemar to appear before them washed out and bedraggled from endless bouts of debauchery with her fawning, predominantly male crew.

Instead it pleased her greatly to see Saemar vibrant and energetic, looking fit and in top form. She wore a tailored, impeccable black duty uniform, but her cute
optional skirt was a little shorter than normal Spacer regs, accentuating her knock-out legs.

Although as a Spacer captain on her own ship, by rights Saemar set the uniform regs.

Which usually did not show cleavage.

Yet Saemar
’s ample breasts almost blasted out of her uniform top, half-revealed to all of the universe to gawk at. And she apparently liked it that way.

She bounced
over and hugged them all, her head and curly auburn hair bobbing in joy with the rest of her.

“T
hank you, thank you, En. Captain sweetie. I love this ship. Love it. Love my job. I can never thank you enough.”

Naero laughed.
“It’s fine, Saemar. You’re perfect for this duty.”

Saemar beamed.
“I am, aren’t I?”

“T
ell me how the refit is proceeding?”

“C
ome on, sweeties. Let’s sit down to our dinner and we can talk shop while we eat.”

They took their meal casually
. Saemar rattled on as she always did, blathering about this and that. Yet it all did make a whacky kind of sense somehow as she drew her conclusions.

“S
o, despite all of the issues we’ve been dealing with, we’re way ahead of schedule. Refit bays one, three, eight, eleven, and fifteen will be open for business in three days. The rest will all come on line within the week. We can practice by upgrading our entire fleet on the go.”