Spacer Clans Adventure 3: Naero's Fury (51 page)

His mouth fell open. He could
n’t speak.

All he could do was nod like a bobble-head doll.

“Where are you two planning your honeymoon?” the eternally smiling main clerk brazenly inquired.

And with that, the spell was broken and crashed and burned right there.

No one said anything for a long moment.

Khai struggled to recover.
“Huh–What? I guess…I’d better get this stuff sent back to the ships.” He stood up, grabbed his crate, and left–a very dark, stricken look on his face.

“In a star…” Naero muttered
sadly, watching him go.

The clerk looked completely confused by
her words, and then shrugged and went back to her work.

On a whim Naero purchased the design
–at no small price–and stored it away. She set her togs back to normal, put her weapons back on, and sat down quietly beside the Enforcer’s empty chair.

Just a
s the doors flew open again.

Ty
brought Zhen back, everything smoothed over between them, finally.

They went back to picking out their outfits, for them and their wedding party.
Khai returned without his burden, and quietly sat back down, but not for long.

Naero and Khai
were pressed into awkward service and acted as models.

Khai
’s green skin clashed and looked a little odd with a color scheme that was based on sea foam.

He
still looked very quiet and extremely troubled.

“
What’s wrong?” Naero finally asked.

“
This isn’t right, Naero. I’m pretending we’re friends. But we’re not. I still have a duty to perform, one that there is no way I can avoid or deny. I cannot betray my Masters, my calling. I cannot betray myself and all that I am–not even for you.”

What did he mean by that?
Naero bit her lip. She placed a hand over one of his.

“
Please, if you were ever my friend. Don’t do anything here. Not now.”

“
All right. For you…I won’t.”

Naero turned to her friends
, her mind racing. “We’re starving. We’re going to hit that sit down place down the street. Can you join us there when you guys get done?”

Zhen smiled at her slyly,
completely misunderstanding her.

“
You two run along and have fun. We’ll join you in a little while.”

Like
the complete dope he was, Ty rose up. “I could go with them. I’m hungry too.”

Z yanked him back down
, gritting her teeth and clamping hard onto his arm. “You’re always hungry. You’re staying with me, tek-monkey.”

Naero led the way down the street to the
outdoor café of the local restaurant.

They
sat down quietly under a beautiful blue lander sky. They quietly ordered food. Then both of them picked at it as they sat there.

Khai spoke first.

“I’m truly sorry, Naero. But my duty is clear. I’m completely healed now, and we’re on the border. I can’t avoid it or put it off any more. When tomorrow comes, you must face me in single combat. This is a formal challenge. We can pick a place far away from here so that no one gets hurt. But you must fight me–for real this time.”

“
I can’t convince you to come with us, Khai? You know the enemy is real. You know what we’re up against.”

“
Will you not surrender yourself to me? Perhaps there is a way, that we can still save you. Nothing has been decided yet.”

“
You mean after the Mystics decide to destroy me for killing one of their High Masters?”

“
As I said, that judgment is not certain.”

“
But it is a distinct possibility. Right?”

“
Yes. I’m afraid so. I will not lie to you about that.”

“
I can’t do it, Khai. Not while our enemies are out there, planning to destroy us.”

“
You will face me then? I need your promise, Naero. On your honor. Otherwise, I will be forced to render all three of your vessels inoperative for a time, until our issue is decided in the morning.”

“
Don’t do that. Part of me will fight you, Khai–to the death if need be. But the better part of me wishes we didn’t have to do things this way.”

Khai shook his head.
“I just want to capture you, Naero. I will try not to kill or hurt you permanently.”

Naero suddenly glared at him
, her ire up. “Well, then–I guess I should be glad that the mighty Mystic Enforcer is doing me a great favor.”

“
I’m sorry about that, Naero.”

“
So am I. I don’t want to be forced to fight someone honorable like you–who’d I’d much rather have as a…”

Khai looked at her
pointedly. “As a what, Naero?”

“I-I was going to say, as a
friend and ally.” Naero could not meet his eyes.

Khai sighed once.
“Tomorrow then?”

“
Tomorrow, Khai. I’ll pick a place and send you the coordinates.”

Khai rose up and bowed.

“I’ll be ready. At dawn.”

He left his food uneaten. Naero paid for their meal and went back to the ships without calling her friends. She had a lot
to prepare.

Khai had an entire cooler of Jett delivered to
The Flying Dagger

Baeven and Jia we
’re waiting for her, too.

“
We have a lock on the enemy. It is definitely Hezzen-5,” Jia said.

Baeven showed her the scans.

“They already have several fleets concealed around that system. And the Cosmic energy readings are off the charts, even worse than before. They’re getting ready to do something. Something big and dramatic.”

“
We have to get out there,” Jia said.

“
Have we tried bringing in help from our other allies?” Naero asked.

“
We’re spreading the word, but we’re the only ones who can get there fast enough to do any good, for now. We need to be the vanguard in this fight, and disrupt their plans enough, so that others can pour through the breach, pile on, and mop up.”

Naero shook her head.
“I just made a promise to Khai, on my honor, to meet him in single combat tomorrow outside the city. To decide our issue.”

“
Then let’s go,” Baeven said. “It’s just words. What is that to the threats of the enemy? Big deal. So you break your word to someone who wants to imprison you or worse? We need you in this fight, Naero. Our enemies are using powers and tek we’ve never seen before. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”

“
I can’t go back on my word,” Naero said.

“
Then you’d better find a way, Naero. Haisha! Grow up.”

“
I don’t see a way out of this, Baeven.”

“
Then you’re just a stupid little fool. We’ll have to leave you behind, and face the enemy without you backing us up, and making sure we all don’t get killed. How many of us will die for the sake of your sacred honor?”

Gaviok
alone defended her. “Please, leave her alone, in this, my brother.”

“Yeah, I know.
When it comes to being a fool for honor…you’re as bad as she is.”

Naero sat down in anguish, and buried her face in her hands.
“I am a fool.”

She
had great difficulty sleeping that night.

She lay in her bunk, tossing and turning.

As the bells increased toward morning, she rose up to prepare.

Just before dawn,
the part of her that wanted to fight Khai arrived at the coordinates.

Khai was already standing there
, sword at the ready.

As the sun began to rise
, Naero drew her energy cutlass. The two of them charged together and clashed.

Naero gasped
, and fell back, Yii impaled through her breast.

“
No!” Khai cried. “What have you done?”

Naero smiled weakly. She sagged to the ground.

Khai held her in his arms. His hands went to her face. “No. No! I never wanted this!”

“
I’ve kept my word,” she said. “I met you in combat. But I’m sorry Khai. The enemy is moving against us all…I still had to trick you, one last time.”

She could even see and speak through
her astral link with it, but Naero’s replicant turned transparent, and slowly dissolved.

“
The enemy is planning something big on Hezzen-5,” Naero warned him. “Even you and the Mystics should be able to sense it by now. If you want to bring me in, you’ll need to track me there, and fight them as well. Captain Tyber and
The Darkstar
are waiting to bring you to us.”

Khai snarled and tore his sword free
of her replicant messenger, as it continued to fade.

“
Naero!” Khai roared.

Naero a
woke from her sending trance with a gasping start, rubbing her chest. The astral link she had with her replicant dissolved with it.

The Shadow Fox
and
The Flying Dagger
already orbited Hezzen-5, gathering vital intelligence on the enemy’s activities.

They had
jumped in the night before, as soon as Naero left behind her replicant on
The Darkstar
, and went into her sending trance to maintain her astral link through it.

Naero rose up and stretched. She left her quarters and went to the ready room.

“What do we know?” she asked.

“
It’s bad,” Baeven said. “Main viewscreen.”

Jia took over.
“The enemy is using an improved version of the Cosmic wormhole tek, apparently without the energy draining effects that we suffered.”

Naero
gaped, and covered her mouth.

On the main screen, a
new stable wormhole stood wide open. Several Ejjai fleets poured through. Then the Dakkur hordeship they’d seen before.

“
This is a staging area, for a major invasion,” Naero realized. “This is very bold–even for the enemy. How are they keeping that big wormhole stable for so long? It would take energy like that of Janosha to keep something like that open.”

“
Scanners are almost useless on the surface,” Jia said. “But we’re guessing they have several Darkforce energy generators working for them in tandem to accomplish this.”

It must be m
ore than several
, Om noted.
From what we’ve seen of their capacities, even a dozen of those foul machines could not accomplish such a feat.

Naero nodded.
“Good. At least we have them where we can strike against them. Let’s take them all down.”

“
Hold on,” Baeven said. “I’m all for taking the offensive, but we have to be smart about this. They could vaporize us all–easily–with that much power at their command.”

“
But think,” Naero said. “It’s taking all of that power just to keep that enormous wormhole up while they bring their fleets through. If we can disrupt those Darkforce generator devices while they’re using them at full capacity–bye-bye wormhole. So long, bad guys.”

“
And all of us right along with them,” Jia said. “We have no idea what the full effects might be. A quanta-blast this huge might destroy us all, perhaps even the entire system.”

Naero grinned at Baeven
, checking her combat gear and weapons. “I love this plan more every second. Let’s go. Every one saddle up.”

What
the heck is a saddle again?

46

Naero went
down to the surface with Baeven, Jia, and Gaviok to scout the situation on the ground.

Their primary mission
: shut down the enemy Darkforce generators.

If that disrupted the enemy wormhole and cut off
or damaged the enemy invasion fleet into the Alpha Quadrant, then so be it.

But something was
n’t right. Naero could sense that almost from the start. Her sense of warning was going nuts.

With this much Darkforce being manipulated, t
he Cosmic energy levels alone were on the brink of going out of control. They made absolutely no sense.

Naero
hoped that Khai and the rest of their allies were going to arrive at some point. But she didn’t have complete faith in that.

And even though their small scouting part was completely cloaked, they sh
ould have at least spotted some kind of enemy patrols or defenses by now. Something.

Why
was the enemy leaving itself so wide open? This was too easy.

Then
she felt the Darkforce energy close in around them in collapsing spheres and rings, sealing around them. It drew them ever forward. It slowly pulled them within like a living thing–like the force of gravity itself.

Naero, t
he enemy knew we would sense these intense energy signatures and used them as bait to lure us in.

“
We’re being pulled into a trap,” Naero announced.

“
Of course we are,” Baeven said. “With these foes, we’re always walking into a trap. We merely have to defeat and slay them all. Then we can go home.”

“
You have no home Baeven. You’re an outcast and a renegade, wanted dead or alive by just about everyone.”

He scoffed at her.
“And your point is? As long as I have Jia, she and our ship are our home. And no one is going to take that away from me without a fight to death. No one.”

“
What are you–”

“
The enemy wants it all Naero. Everything and everyone. You. Me. Jia. Our ships. Our friends. Our foes are the ultimate opportunists and exploiters. They will take everything they can get their hands on and use it all to their ultimate advantage. Right now they’re probably gloating. They think they have us all right where they want us. “

“
Then…let’s try to ruin their party, as only we can.”

“
I agree.”

They attempted to p
enetrate the enemy’s layered Darkforce shield spheres containing them, drawing them closer to the enemy base or landing site.

Their
initial attacks were merely disrupted or simply absorbed. They swept even faster toward the epicenter of the enemy position. The darkened, semi-opaque shield spheres made it difficult to make out anything within.

Their cloaking fields collapsed, and they became
visible to the enemy’s scans, hidden defenses, and myriad minions below as the exposed scouting team passed on overhead.

They
drew intense weapons fire, until Jia and Om could get the cloaking back up.

“They can’t see us again,” Jia said, “but they know we’re still contained within their concentric defenses. Let’s bore into that mountain range that is full of heavy metals. We’ll be better off going in after the waves pass. They might think our ship was vaporized, and we’ll still have it hidden as a way out.”

“
Great. Let’s do it,” Gaviok said eagerly.

“
Either that or the energy waves will kill us all,” Baeven noted.

Naero raised her hand.
“Yeah, let’s all vote against that outcome.”

Their plan kind of worked.

They ordered their nearby ship concealed in the mountain range, so that it wasn’t destroyed.

But the energy waves swept the
four of them along, even when they tried to use their gravwings. Like a gigantic cyclone, it sucked them in to the center of the Cosmic vortex.

Naero sensed him as they drew closer.

“I’ve got a lock on Danner. I’m going in.”

Baeven shook his head and tried to grab her.

“Don’t just charge ahead alone. That didn’t work before. We need to go in together, smart and united.”

“
Trust me. I’ll break Danner free and be the distraction. The rest of you fall upon them with the element of surprise and finish them off, while they’re all focused on me.”

Even Jia yelled at her.
“No, Naero, don’t. Wait!”

They were out of time. Naero
translocated as close to Danner’s position as possible, sensing high level foes nearby as well.

The
larger and more improved, Darkforce energy generators were like Cosmic beacons. The enemy was sucking their hosts dry in order to help them increase and expand their energies, and summon their new invasion force through the enormous wormhole, all at the same time. Perfect coordination.

With all of the energy flows near critical, Naero couldn’t
spot or pin-point their locations precisely.

But she did spot Admiral Korleth
Tulkas, bloated with Darkforce energy and warped by it, right as he smashed into her.

Korleth
laughed as he smacked her around, glancing about and checking the area as he did so.

“
Just the Spack runt? Really, a stealth mission? And here we were fully prepared to capture your entire strike force, for use in our generators.”

Naero stopped him in his tracks with a mindforce blast. Then she drove him into the side of the gigantic Dakkur hordeship with a sonic roar.

“Sorry to disappoint you!” she yelled.

Korleth recover
ed and rose into the air once again. “This is going to be simple. Seize her, my siblings. Keep her alive. Cram her into the new generator specially prepared for her. Activate it immediately, and her power shall become part of our own.”

He
grinned, baring all of his great teeth. “We’ll use her to bait the others, and seize them when they come to rescue her.”

Hundreds of
G’lothc possessed Dakkur phazed in all around them from being cloaked.

They tried to ensnare her in
energy chains and nets of Darkforce power.

They her
ded her toward an advanced, Darkforce generator capture pod. Just like the one they custom made for Danner and someone else–trapped within another one on the other side of the device yawning open to receive her as its new power source.

Dark energy tentacles ending in weapons writhed toward her and fired.

They would take her in a matter of seconds.

She had no choice.

Naero filled the air around them all with orbs and bubbles stuffed with startapped Cosmic energy. Until they covered and obscured everything within view.

Then she detonated them all in one massive air
burst, transporting away at the last instant

She had hoped to use
such a gigablast to tear Danner free.

Now she was forced to
use up her best new trick in a last ditch attempt to save herself, before they overwhelmed her.

A
nd…at the very beginning of their all-out battle.

Her
explosion obliterated the inert device meant for her, and severely damaged the ones containing Dan and the other mystery host.

The blast waves flung her back, and
scattered her foes far and wide, or crushed and splattered them against the hull of the Dakkur hordeship, that nearly flipped over, and now lay on its side with its keel exposed.

Naero could barely get back up to her feet.
She activated her gravwing. She raced in and used her swords to hack the mystery host free from its ruined generator.

It had a g
lowing blue energy form–exactly like Shalaen.

Holy Ka-Rap! It was a Yattai!

This Yattai looked to be in very bad shape, close to death, even. She pulled him or it free and carried him away, her own reserves fading fast.

Her
brief, massive assault left her almost completely drained.

Admiral
Korleth and his surviving minions recovered and closed in on her again. Until she regenerated, Naero had no way to fight them off. She struggled to keep going, just to not black out.

The Yattai placed his hands on her, filling her with Cosmic Power.

Thank you…
she heard him say within her mind.

Then he vanished, most likely back
into his own dimension

Wait until she told Shalaen she met another Yattai–and even rescued him. It.
Whatever. She’d tell Shalaen just that–if she lived long enough to have the chance.

The enemy fiends began to shift form
, merge, combine, twist together, and tried to fall upon her.

Naero whirled and kicked and fought, wreathed in blue-violet lightning. The daughter of the Invincible Cyclone, unleashed within a sea of lethal foes.

They fell upon her in waves, again and again.

Om poured out
a fury of last ditch KDM defensive measures that slammed into the foe, driving them back.

Om’s final energy pulse negated and disrupted all Cosmic energy in a short radius–including the Darkforce.
Korleth’s possessed minions dropped out of the air and in their tracks like dying birds, convulsing as if stunned, sapped of all their might.

That’s all I have, Naero. That last wave
of mine couldn’t hurt us, because we were already on empty. Now we’re both completely drained.

Yet somehow, t
he enemy admiral was the only one who could pop back up, ready to fight.

Even the
damaged megagenerator containing Danner twitched, sparked, and withdrew, limping back through a hatch and into the Dakkur hordeship, dragging with it the pieces of the empty machines Naero had shattered and destroyed.

Korleth
stalked toward her.

Naero backed away like a breathless crab, scrabbling to get away.

The other possessed Dakkur continued to shake themselves and attempted come around and rise back up.

Korleth hissed.
“My master said that you could be troublesome, Spack runt. Inconvenient indeed, but the megagenerators can be recharged and re-constructed. You’ve only succeeded in delaying our plans–not stopping them–and now, we still have you. No force or power remains that can save you. You friends are already retreating; they are not going to come to your rescue this time. Surrender.”

“Never!” Naero screamed.

The Flying Dagger
uncloaked and roared in.

Her flagship r
ammed into Admiral Korleth and his goons, crushing and scattering them.

The
rear loading bay snapped open.

Zhen and Tyber stood there with
Naero’s crew, bristling with autoguns and heavy weapons–ready to repel all comers.

Naero
desperately crawled toward them, screaming. “Get the hell out of here. It’s all a trap!”

“Not without you!” Tyber yelled.
Zhen and Ty zipped out with their gravwings to rescue her.

They floated
back with her toward the cargo bay “Baeven and the others were cut off,” Zhen said. “Now they’re retreating, blasting a way out of the enemy shield spheres with Alala’s help. They sent us in to get you. We’ll only have seconds to shoot through before those barriers close up on us again.”

“You guys have to get out of here!”

“Shut up,” Ty said. “We’re getting you out, or nothing.”

Her
crew unleashed hell from the starship and their packed weapons in the bay. The intense volley of fire drove the enemy hordes back again.

“
Time to go!” Tyber yelled “Nothing will hold these things back for long. Grab her, Z!” He fired right into the swarming hordes.

“I can’t
even walk,” Naero moaned.

Zhen scooped her
back up. “Don’t worry, I’ve got you, N.”

She shot up toward the loading bay
, blasting foes licking at their heels.

Zhen flung Naero over her shoulder with surprising strength.

Naero drew her blaster pistol and tried to help cover their retreat.

“
Stop squirming!” Zhen screamed. “Let me rescue your dumb ass!”

“
Get ready to punch it, Enel,” Ty shouted. “We’ve got them both!”

“
This is gonna be close,” Tarim said, pouring fire into the foe.

Zhen flew into the loading bay, dumping Naero into the arms of the waiting crew.