Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit (45 page)

56

“Jia,” Baeven called out to his unusual ship’s unique AI. “We need every ounce of speed.”

“S
orry, Bae. Proceeding at maximum velocity. Yet we still will not reach Janosha for 3.17 standard days.”

“A
nd what do the long range scanners show?”

Naero was afraid to ask.

Jia took a moment to check them and respond.

“
As we feared, massive enemy fleet presences converging on Janosha. Including the alien Dakkur hordeship. They will reach all three Mystic homeworlds in 1.739 standard days.”

“A
nalysis of the Intel fleets and defenses.”

“
Current forces remain insufficient. They will barely slow the enemy down.”

Naero closed her eyes and sighed.

“They’ll fight and die for nothing. Where is the alien G’lothc shadow ship?”

“C
onverging with a similar enemy strike force on Taeha. An even larger strike force is heading toward Oorrii.”

“I
nteresting,” Baeven said. “Our alien nemeses have divided their forces. They only seem to have the one Dakkur hordeship, and the one G’lothc shadow ship. That’s why they’ve sent twice as many Ejjai to Oorrii. So, they do have limitations to their tek, their resources, and what they can do.”

Naero snorted.
“Haisha! They’re about to assail all three of the secret Mystic Homeworlds all at once. I’m guessing they’ve calculated the odds and put them in their favor. They have no intention of losing.”

“W
e’ll be there in three days. They will have to hold. They will need to survive until then. Nothing else can be done.”

Naero clenched her fists and gritted her teeth.

“A lot of bad things can happen in three days time. And Janosha will be the most vulnerable of the three.”

She turned her head.

Without Vane and especially Hashiko there to defend it.

It wasn
’t just Vane’s body in stasis and any others.

Naero knew firsthand what the enemy did to the worlds they invaded. Every life form on Janosha would be at risk.

Including the peaceful Tua. Her friends.

No…her family.

“I have to get there faster!”

“W
e don’t have any way to do that,” Baeven said.

Naero reached out with her Mystic senses.

She was tuned to Janosha and its energies from three years of working with it.

She could barely sense those energies from such a distance away.

Perhaps when they got closer.

She
’d have to keep checking.

Baeven shook his head.
“Stop. Even Master Vane couldn’t transport to Janosha from this range. You’d kill yourself for nothing in the attempt.”

“I
can’t help anyone if I kill myself. But when we get close enough, and I think it will work. I’m going on ahead. So don’t try to stop me.”

“N
o promises,” Baeven said.

“I
’ll fight you with everything I have.”

Baeven looked her in the eye.

“And you’ll lose. Jia. Let’s give her some help, and calculate the odds as they change.”

“E
verything’s a gamble,” Naero said. “I accept that.”

Naero prepared herself over the next seventeen hours. Meditating. Channeling Cosmic energy. Resting.

She needed to be fresh.

Within hours, the badly outnumbered Intel forces would come under
heavy attack.

Then the polar bases and the planetary defense shields.

They could not hold out forever.

“H
ow long will it take them to locate Vane’s body in stasis?” Baeven asked.

Naero sighed.
“It’s well-hidden and passively shielded. Who knows? But they won’t stop until they capture it. And if they can hold us off for two weeks, they’ll have three years to finish the job. And do whatever else they want with the planet and all that raw, Cosmic power. Don’t forget that.”

Just the possibilities made her shudder.

“They’ll consume every life form,” Baeven said. “Clone plants. Fleet and weapons factories. Meatships. They’ll strip the Mystic Homeworlds clean, and steal every bit of Cosmic power from them and convert it all into massive quantities of Darkforce energy.”

“I
n three months’ time, they’ll emerge stronger than ever. With any Mystics they’ve captured powering those vile Darkforce generators.”

“W
hat about those wormholes they can make? Can they use those within the temporal fields once they’re inside of them.”

Naero rubbed her dry lips.
“I don’t think so.”

Om added,
Not in theory at least, but they were after temporal secrets when they stole information from Shalaen and Hashiko.

“But w
ho knows what they’ve been able to learn?” Naero said aloud.

Jia alerted them.

“The potential for surviving a long-range transport attempt to Janosha has gone from the lethal and improbable…to the possible.”

Naero stood up.

She could feel it.

Even at this range. She could sense Janosha
’s immense Cosmic power flows, tending toward the Chaos energy end of the spectrum.

And she could just barely tap into them.

It would have to be enough.

“T
ime to go. See you in a few days.”

Baeven grabbed her wrist from behind.

Naero resisted, glaring at him. “Do we really need to fight?”

To her surprise. Baeven pulled her to him and hugged her.

What’s more. She felt a vast amount of Cosmic energy flowing directly from him.

Surging d
irectly into her.

Baeven gave her his own energies.

He released her and stepped back, staggering slightly from his efforts.

“I
’ll have time to regenerate. You won’t. Stuff like this always takes more out of you than you think,” he said.

“I
…I don’t know how to thank you.”

“G
et there alive and do your duty. Give old Vane a slap on the puss for me.”

Naero smiled
wide. “Will do.”

She focused
.

Then
transported.

Baeven was right.

Such long range efforts did take more than she thought.

Haisha!
Would she even make it as it was?

Even with the Cosmic force Baeven gave her, she felt her energies waning fast. Too fast.

Would she hit Janosha alive? Or completely burned out…and dead?

57

Naero crashed into jungle trees on a
familiar volcanic island with tropical birds and marine reptiles.

Luckily she knew the place. Vane kept a small, secret starship hangar concealed beneath the volcano.

She crawled to it through the jungle. Then staggered.

Finally she made it
the concealed entrance.

Om barely teknomanced them inside.

Exhausted from her emergency journey, unfortunately she had sapped all of her energies just getting to Janosha ahead of the other defenders.

Now s
he desperately needed time to regenerate and recover her strength.

Time she did not have.

She connected herself to Janosha’s flows and slept in the secret hangar, curled up in a corner on the floor.

She awoke
a few hours later, and located some food and lix in one of the remaining ships.

Master Vane was not going to be happy at all when he returned.

She’d broken in on his carefully guarded toys. And more or less disobeyed him in almost every way.

Too bad.

She would need a cloud of fixers to make her ploy work. And great, she still wasn’t up to full speed yet. Transporting that far had nearly killed her.

She pulled out Twinky from her kit. The little guy woke up at her touch, bobbing and winking at her with his one eye.

“What’s cookin’, good lookin’?”

“You are.” Naero sucked in a deep breath. Then she gave Twinks his marching orders.

After that she had to lie down again. It took all of her remaining strength just to get the fixers multiplying and doing their thing.

Two more hours passed.

Then without any other warning, planetary defense sirens and alarms went off.

The
secret hangar locked down on its own, shielding and passively cloaking itself completely.

Naero staggered over to a com console to
assess the situation.

Some kind of jamming against three
emergency signals.

Signals originating from
the defending fleets and coordinates at both poles. Desperate calls for help.

The
defending fleets and the Intel early warning bases at the poles were getting hit hard.

The battle heated up fast
and Naero could barely stand. What good was she?

Om warned her also.

All given signs and data point to an imminent planetary-wide attack by a massive, hostile invasion force of Ejjai, led by the Dakkur Hordeship. Elite and highly advanced tek.

Help me Om. I need to re
generate faster somehow. I’m no good to anyone like this.

Compensating as best I can.

Why was time always against them?

Slowly she felt her strength return. Agonizing. Knowing full well with every second that passed, that the few allies she had nearby were being trounced and put down
hard.

Naero studied the coordinates to the polar advance warning bases.

We can’t just stay here. Twinky and our fixers are already on their way to the coordinates I selected, They’ll get to work. While they’re busy, let’s take a quick trip, Om.

We are still
very weak. And we’re not up against a simple Janoshan monster. Don’t go in just with your blades this time.

One of the other ships had an Intel armory.
Naero ducked in and geared up. Faster than she could change into it, she teknomanced a suit of stealth combat armor over her flight togs and sealed the helmet.

Shoulder micro cannons. Beam cutters in her forearms. Mark-5 plasma carbine. Micro-grenade casters. Two blaster pistols fixed to either leg.
Her energy cutlass behind her hips.

She
wore a small mek, locked and loaded. Ready to do battle.

Naero
tapped the Janoshan Cosmic flows and translocated them to the arctic. Right in the middle of a swirling, blinding blizzard.

Her stealth armor modified to the surrounding
s, keeping them camouflaged, cloaked, and virtually invisible.

They dropped into a snow bank within sight of the shattered advance warning base. Still on fire and smoking, but being put out by the weather.

Damn it, she was too late! That meant the enemy was already in system and searching. They had destroyed both bases most likely, and eliminated the planetary defense shield.

She moved in to investigate the ruined base.

At first glance, the Intel people had put up quite a fight. But they had only been a few dozen in number.

All of them dead now, according to the life scans.

Naero entered the shattered base and continued a passive scan as the blizzard around them picked up. Explosives. Weapon’s fire. Lots of both from both sides.

Om did his thing, analyzing the aftermath.

Something disrupted the base shields and cracked the facility wide open very quickly and with little warning.

A stealth ship at the very least, with big guns. Maybe even an ion cannon.
Probably the Dakkur hordeship.

The Intel people who survived suited up in combat armor similar to hers and slugged it out.

But they were heavily outnumbered.

Whoever the enemy was fought their way straight in and
eventually overwhelmed and blasted the defenders to bits.

Correction
. All of the bodies had been ripped or sliced apart and devoured, down to the bone.

Ejjai.

Yet the heads were all bitten cleanly off too, right through their combat armor.

Dakkur.

The green and yellow Dakkur champion thing that killed her best friend Gallan back on Egano-4 had killed like this. It was still a mystery what exactly the Dakkur did with the heads. Trophies of their kills?

She continued on and found three more Intel dead just outside the other end of the base.

This trio had gotten out and tried to get away in the storm using their stealth modes, just like hers.

They went down the same way
. Ripped up, sliced apart, and eaten. Their heads and helmets missing.

Naero cursed.

Bastards. I despise the way our enemies mutilate our people, Om.

I agree. There are multiple pools and splashes of Ejjai blood from their many casualties,
over a hundred in all. They must have taken their dead with them.

They eat
or process even their own kind, Om. The vermin wouldn’t waste the meat.

Something else was at work here, Naero. Something far more lethal than Ejjai shock troops.

I know. A Dakkur of the Champion Caste. The same one that killed Gallan.

She went to a com console that hadn
’t been shot up. She attempted to send out a secret distress code to the other polar base and the Intel fleets.

No
response. No answer from anyone, anywhere.

Perhaps the enemy
jamming is too advanced.

Or maybe everyone else is
already dead, Om.

She had failed them all.

The enemy is searching this way once more. Do not let them pinpoint our location.

Some of the scanners are still up and functioning
, Om. Looks like our foes have done it all by the book. They’ve hit the other base at the Southern Pole the same way they did here. The Planetary Shield has definitely been neutralized and destroyed.

Om.
I’m going to try something. The only ships who can receive this type of transmission are Baeven’s weird craft, and my people.

She quickly sent out a coded transmission explaining the situation. All out attack on Janosha by massive, hi-tek invaders. Master Vane
extremely vulnerable and still hidden in his trance. She gave what details she could, and the coordinates for her various bases and planned locations on Janosha.

If her message could get through,
Baeven would relay the tactical date she had gathered, and her call for help from the Spacer forces converging on Janosha.

Perhaps some of them could
find some way to arrive faster. She hoped.

If not.

She was on her own for quite a while.

Get us
out of here, Naero. The enemy has a lock on our proximity. Multiple targets, firing on our location. Destruction imminent!

Naero got them away just in time.

She returned to the island hangar. None of Vane’s vessels were large enough warships to make a difference in an all out fight. And she had no crews to operate them in any case.

Thus far, she did not sense any other Mystic adepts
on Janosha other than herself.

Again, very odd. There should be at least two. The two she and Hashi saw before they left for the wars.

Perhaps the enemy had already already killed or captured them.

Either way, t
he foe would eventually locate the cave complex, Master Vane’s body in stasis, and the other secret hangar in the mountains near there.

Only a matter of time.

Perhaps enough time to get the Tua away into hiding in a safe place. If there was such a thing.

Could she even explain the danger to them and convince them to hide? To thousands of simple Tua?

If help did not reach them soon, they were all royally
dead. Or worse.

And something else she hadn
’t considered.

H
ow could she get Master Vane’s body away if she couldn’t get into his shielded chamber?

She went
straight to Bahan and Iika first.

They went to their knees before her and tried to kiss her hands.

“We are so happy to see you, Naero. Where have you been?”

“W
e’ve missed you so. Everyone in the tribe has. We owe you our lives, our happiness.”

She pulled them up to their feet.
“No time to chat, guys. I need you to take all the Tua away from here and go into hiding, as far away as possible.”

They stared at her.

Then they started laughing like they didn’t believe her.

“L
ook, I’m not kidding.”

How could she explain it to them in a way they would understand? They didn
’t know anything about advanced war, or what a hi-tek military force could do to them all.

“W
e have nothing to fear,” Bahan said. “We are under the protection of the Great One, who controls all of Janosha.”

“A
nd you are great among the halaena. You would not allow any harm to come to us. No creature on all of Janosha can best you.”

“Y
ou two listen up. A threat has come, from the stars. A powerful danger brought by many enemies. I don’t know if I can defeat them all. I am one, and their numbers are countless, like the grains of sand by the sea. Even if I fought them here, the battle alone would destroy these caves and kill all of you in a matter of minutes. I could not stop that from happening. I cannot fight them all at once, and protect the Tua at the same time.”

Their eyes swelled up very wide and large. They covered their mouths with their hands and trembled violently.

“If this is true,” Bahan said, “you must re-awaken the Great One. He will know what to do.”

“H
e has not come back yet, and I don’t have time to reach him. The great danger could be upon us any second. You and your people have to flee. Right now. Do you have a place to hide?”

Iika paused and looked down, her eyes moving rapidly, her shaking fingers playing with her lips.

“There are…other caves. The deep trees. The other tribes. They would help hide us from these…these bad ones.”

“G
et going, as quickly as you can. I’m going to try to draw off as many of the bad ones as I can to another continent and try to fight them there, far away from this place.”

Convincing the peaceful Tua that they had to gather up whatever they could and flee was easier said than done.

It took almost half a day to get them all out of the caves and moving. Many of them still looked back, wondering why they had to go somewhere else, when there was no danger that they could see yet with their own eyes.

“D
o not come back to these caves,” Naero warned then. “Not until I or the Great One comes to you and tells you that it is safe to return. You must promise me that. All of you.”

They still did not understand all of her words.

“What does that mean?” Bahan asked. “Prom-miss?”

“I
t means that you will do what I told you to do. And you will not change your mind and do something else.”