Spacer Clans Adventure 1: Naero's Run (26 page)

Adrin remained calm. “
Perhaps.”

There was something different about him, a puffy slackness around his eyes and mouth. Perhaps he’d been ill.

“Those who do not serve the Corps faithfully shall perish,” the Matashi rep chanted.

“I am not here to band
y words with slaves and cult underlings,” Adrin said. He suddenly looked ready to draw battle knives and go at them all.

Naero gulped.

Unknown to her, she had twice joked around with the Matayan Emperor, a man rumored to be so ruthless–he killed his parents with his bare hands in order to seize power. What would happen if she fell into such hands?

Would Baeven allow that?

“Finally,
I have it,” the Cumi blurted out. She continued to stare at her handcomp. “The Kexx sometimes encrypted their knowledge directly onto the pico energy level of a genetic pattern. This could be performed on an individual, or set to be self-replicating within a species.

“Such data can be limitless in quantity and
invisible to almost all normal scans. If the subject is slain, or there is a significant loss of body temperature, the data is lost. Other security codes could be added if need be. I just need to calibrate my equipment. Shouldn’t be more than a few moments, and we’ll have our answer.”

“Are you certain about this, Mx?” Baeven said.

“Quite certain. Similar processes were rumored to exist among the Driathans, and may have even originated with them.”

“What about the spack girl?” Na’Darroch insisted.

“Even a preliminary, deep level genetic detail scan on a wide range of parameters should reveal the encrypted data as clumps or scoring echoes on the surface of the individual’s DNA patterns, once you know what to look for and where. We should proceed to do so immediately.”

Mxgob
looked to Baeven once more.

The outcast nodded
.

She
punched up the scanning sequence.

“What about any security codes?” Director Prebin said.

“With these methods it could take hours, perhaps even days to implant or retrieve such data,” the Chikara rep said.

“
Yes,” the Cumi cautioned, “days to retrieve, but only a few minutes to detect. And simple detection will not activate any inherent security programs.”

“You hope. In theory,” Emperor Mellis added. “Otherwise, we’re all dead.”

“This creature could still be lying,” the Arnett Corps rep said. “How do we know it isn’t in cahoots with this rogue?”

“
I’m not so sure,” the Omni woman said again. “We have evidence to believe that the Kexxian Data Matrix does indeed exist, and that it could be encrypted on a person. It is possible that this spack girl has personally undergone such a process.”

Naero said nothing
; neither did Baeven.

The
preliminary scan finalized.

Everyone in the room waited, transfixed.

What is happening, Naero? Enemies attempting unauthorized access. Unacceptable. I must have access to our defensive protocols.

Om, I don’t have any answers for you. I don’t even know what those protocols are, let alone how to activate them. Are they part of the Kexxian Data Matrix?

In part, yes. Yet they are part of us now too. I could use them to defend us or our ship in case of an attack. I could free us and help us escape. But all access to them has been completely blocked and cut off. I can tap into the nearly limitless Cosmic powers locked in the depths of your mind, but much like your imagination, I cannot yet manifest anything and make it real.

Naero knitted her brows briefly. Cosmic power? Limitless? Om, what are you babbling about?

There is a great power hidden within the deepest recesses of our mind, Naero. I am barely able to touch it, but I haven’t found a way to use any of it. Not yet. I think your correct term for this is bloody hell, bullshit, or perhaps damnation. I begin to comprehend the concepts of swearing and frustration. Very useful.

Keep trying Om. Just check with me before you…unleash anything.

I will try. But if our defensive protocols ever do come online, I do not require your permission to defend us or our secrets. And you have secrets all your own that did not originate from me or our Kexxian Matrix.

What the hell are you talking about? We don’t have enough problems? Look where we are. Just keep trying and let me think to myself for a bit. My brain is already on overload.

Then Naero realized something.

Baeven
always played everyone.

He
wasn’t about to sell her to any of these bastards, especially if she actually had the Matrix.

S
he still didn’t understand his real plan.

Baeven analyzed the
final results of the scan at last.

“Definitive proof,” Baeven said. “
Traces in this young woman’s metabolism point to the fact that that she carries the Kexxian Data Matrix on her DNA. The pattern is there for all to see. Check your downloads on your screens. Most of you are techs; you can perform the cross-checking process yourselves.”

Several
more tense moments passed.

At first
no one said very much. Finally the Chikara rep snapped his head up and shouted.

“
I start the bidding at twenty gigamegs.”

“
Thirty!”

“
Fifty
!”

“One hundred g
igamegs,” the Omni woman said. “Our final offer.”

The
research base rocked violently from several small explosions.

Mellis Tarret stood up
, murder written across his face as if it were blood.

“
I offer all of you your lives and safe passage,” he said. “Any who oppose me shall perish for their insolence. The Imperial Matayan Fleet is upon you all. Our power will shine once more. Surrender the spack girl and my grandson’s clone to me unharmed, and I will guarantee your safety.”

Naero blinked. Grandson’s clone? Ellis was just a clone? Did he know that?

More explosions. The audience room erupted into chaos. Corps agents and bodyguards fought with each other. Matayan mercs in power armor ripped their way through the walls and surrounded Mellis Tarret VI.

Baeven flung himself over Naero
; she screamed in pain.

Several energy blasts passed
right through him, one went right through her face, but did no harm.

She should be dead.

Baeven phazed them both completely through the deck and into a shielded control room one level below.

He smiled at her. “Re-join
your friends, Naero. They’re waiting for you in an assault ship in Cargo Bay 2.”

“I...
I don’t understand,” she said.

“Our plan worked.
I’ll hold our new acquaintances off. Take the Kexxian Data Matrix to our people. It cannot fall into the hands of anyone else. The Corps will stop at nothing to find you now.”

“
Baeven, I–”

“Go.
I’ll lead them away and catch up to you when I can We have our answers.”

Naero
limped away, remembering the quickest path to Cargo Bay 2. Several bots stood around the craft. She spotted Gallan, Ellis, and Tarim strapped into their cockpit launch chairs, stunned or drugged.

As she guessed, the assault ship
stood fully loaded, armed, and ready to rip.

A massive pulse of energy beam blasted through the
complex, tearing a gaping hole large enough for her to fly through.

How nice.

She vectored the assault craft and shot forward into space.

Scans showed a
n intense naval battle erupting. Dozens of Matayan warships of every shape and size broke off from the main fleet to intercept her small escape craft and those of the Corps emissaries scattering in all directions.

Two of the emissary ships
got vaporized right in front of her.

Matayan mercs and marines swarmed over Baeven
’s ship, trying to board it. It fled and prepared to jump, dodging erratically.

A
direct hit from an old Matayan battleship spinal gun vaporized another emissary vessel.

A t
remendous volley of energy fire and close range missile strikes struck havoc among the Matayan forward elements.

No sign of where th
e attacks came from.

Formations of swift
pursuit craft tore after Naero in waves.

She p
unched it.

A
steroids rocketed up from the surface of the moon itself, ripping into the Matayan fleet at close range.

Powerful mass-drivers on the moon
’s surface zeroed in on them.

Five sleek
, black strike ships uncloaked, swept in out of nowhere, and formed up around Naero.

They
kept pace with her easily, layering their shields full to the rear to protect her escape.

Elite
Shadowforce escorts, unlike any craft Naero had ever seen before. No markings or insignia.

“
This is Shock Five-Leader. We have you covered, spacechild. Commence jump immediately. Get out of here.”

“You bet your ass.”
Naero checked her systems. Everything already preset. Baeven hadn’t missed a trick.

They’d need every second against the torrent of concentrated naval fire coming straight at them from the Matayan fleet.

Even the powerful flanking shields Shadowforce threw up couldn’t withstand that volume of intense fire.

Concentrated d
irect hits from multiple spinal guns.

Destruction imminent
. Access limited. Attempting level eighteen repulsing energy screen.

Two of her
rear-guard escorts vanished in flames.

A
ll her shields buckled.

Om cried out.
We face destruction. Unacceptable!

She re-routed her remaining power in the space of a heart beat, but it wasn’t going to be enough.

Then she gasped.
Haisha
. Something in her mind ripped free.

A huge pulse wave of energy tore through her.

For just an instant, a massive energy signature swelled up behind her craft, barely enough to deflect the enemy’s overwhelming barrage.

Naero seized that instant to blast
her ship into jump.

30

Naero came out of jump a few ho
urs later, far outside of the Memosan system.

Her
three surviving Shadowforce escorts followed her, maintaining a close protective formation around her battered craft.

One of the other pilots spoke up. “We should all be dead. What happened back there? None of us could have survived that level of fire.”

Their commander cut in over their secured link.

“Cut the speculation, Shock-Three. The point is we did make it out, even though we lost Shock-One and Shock-Four. Proceed on mission. Spacechild
, this is Shock-Five leader. Continue to rendezvous at uploaded coordinates. Anything goes wrong, jump to secondary destination and seek out your first trust code backup contact. Do you wish us to take any of your friends with us?”

“
Negative,” Naero said.

“
They’ll be easy to make while you’re trying to escape. You might be better off alone or with a single companion.”

“
I’m calling it. I won’t abandon my friends now.”

“We’ll
cloak for your approach and stay in orbit until you jump out of system,” the commander said. “We will not contact you further, but we’ll be around for a while, if you run into trouble again.”

“
Thanks, guys. Did Baeven tip you off?”

“
Unknown. We obey orders. Don’t trust the outcast. He’s notorious for pursuing his own agenda.”

“I figured that out,” Naero said. “W
as he really family at one time?”

“Emphasis on the ‘was.’ He got
exiled for many good reasons. Remember that. Over and out.”

Naero thought
hard about Baeven. He kept surprising her.

S
he still ached with each breath from his little lesson. Still tasted the faint coppery tang of blood in her mouth. Her own blood. But she continued to heal rapidly.

Yet without Baeven’s masterful power play during the fake auction, they would not have their answers and in a way, in theory at least, an ability to both detect and decode the Kexxian Data Matrix.

First she needed to know something.

Om, that flash of defensive screen there at the end. Was that you? Did you somehow manage to…

Silence.

Om? You still with me?

The response when it came, felt very weak.

Om…nearly destroyed. Must…shut down other functions, including contact with Naero. Must…affect repairs. Signing off.

Om? Om, what happened? What did you do?

Silence.

Whatever happened, Om sounded in pretty bad shape.

Naero unstrapped from her pilot seat and got out. She had her own worries.

She needed to hurry while they were still on approach to their rendezvous with Spacer Intel.

First some continued self-healing, and then–revive her friends.

*

One-by-one, Naero used the contents of a medkit to revive Gallan, Tarim, and Ellis inside the confines of the transport cockpit. The small ship still proceeded on auto-approach.

All three of her dazed friends remained strapped into their flight seats as they came around.

Their wits returned to them a few minutes later. They looked around and outside of the their cockpit.

“
What happened? Where in the hell are we now?” Ellis demanded. All of them still appeared groggy from being drugged.

“Just hang on,” Naero told them. “Regain your strength while I prepare to land, so to speak. As soon as we have time, I’ll do my best to explain what’s gone on, in a nutshell.”

Memosa-3 loomed larger before them, almost entirely blue with small polar caps of white and flecks of green scattered far and wide in between.

Naero reset the
programmable registration on their ship, just in case someone activated her auto-transponder.

Memosa-3. A
nother minor pit stop, a real backwater waterworld, with more than ninety percent hydrographics. The noted poles and several main patches of volcanic archipelagos were the only dry land.

Naero felt a
tight hand grip her shoulder.

“What’s taking so long?” Ellis said. “
I’m tired of all this crap. I want answers. You people aren’t going to jerk me around forever.”

She caught his strong scent again
. But this time, having him so close felt too much like a threat.

“Let go
or take back a stump,” Naero warned.

The hand released
her.

“
Don’t ever interrupt me when I’m busy trying to save our asses,” she added.

“We’re at the Me
mosan system,” Gallan said, checking the navicomp, wincing and rubbing his eyes. “Third planet.”

“Pilot to crew. We’re going for a swim,
boys. Hang on to whatcha got. We’re gonna get wet.”

Tarim
came to last of all. He covered his eyes and groaned.

The planet
’s surface raced closer. They penetrated the atmosphere.

Naero locked onto t
he coordinates for their rendezvous. The ship homed in on them like a beacon.

They descended
right into a tropical storm.

“
Just my luck,” she muttered.

The craft
shook and jostled from turbulence.

“
It might get a little rough, boys.”

“
What’s happening?” Tarim asked, naked fear in his voice.

“
Just a little tropical depression,” Naero said. “Not to worry. It won’t be a hurricane for a few days yet. But it just happens to be directly over where we need to go.”

Tarim started praying.

“And where is that?” Ellis asked.

She’d saved this guy’s butt repeatedly
. One would think that eventually a little gratitude might peek out.

“
I don’t know exactly who we’re rendezvousing with, but I have a trust code and a pretty good idea,” she said.

“Spacer Intelligence,” Ellis guessed.

“Our meeting point’s over two hundred meters below sea level.” She might even have time for a mist shower and clean togs. She reeked.

“
We’re...we’re going under water?” Tarim said. “Won’t we drown?”

“
Don’t worry, Tarim. Remember, a starship is a sealed environment, and our gravitics will work just as well under water. The ship will protect us from the increased pressure. We’ll just move a lot slower. But the water also affords us a convenient hiding place and makes us hard to detect or track.”

“Tarim, my friend,”
Ellis said. “You need to toughen up a bit. Stop letting everything rattle you so much. Deal with it. Be a man.”

“Leave him alone,” Naero said.”

“It’s embarrassing,” Ellis said. “And you keep protecting him like a child, Naero. Let him stand on his own.”

“
That’s enough,” Naero said. “We’re in this thing together, like it or not. Anyone who doesn’t pull together or pull their weight can go for a walk out in that storm, right now. Copy?”

Silence. Naero
strapped back in and focused on her final approach.

The ship
hit the ocean a little faster than she intended, but she wanted to submerge quickly.

The waves tossed them about
, even with their gravitic compensators.

Once they
sank far enough down, the dark world beneath the surface went relatively calm.

A warning
signal went off.

“
Naero,” Gallan noted. “We just took a hit on our transponder. Waiting for verification code response. Authenticate.”

“
We’ll punch it fast and blow back out of here if we don’t get the correct response,” Naero said. “We’re ready either way.”

“
Response confirmed and verified,” Gallan said. “They’re our contact all right, six kilometers north by northeast–locked on. Arrival in several minutes.”

Naero ran for the mist shower, calling it first.

Deep scans revealed an old Spacer battleship, probably long since hidden here during the last Spacer War. Rumors held that numerous ships had been secreted on certain Corps worlds, despite all the treaties.

In case of another war,
the mothballed ships could be crewed and emerge for quick strike missions behind enemy lines. Spacers called them Shadow Fleets.

Naero’s small striker
fit easily into one of the old battleship’s cargo bays.

Naero waited for the water to be ejected from the
sealed hold, listening to the groaning sounds of the big ship and the hum of its old pumps.

When the green
All Clear signal lit up, she and her friends emerged into the damp loading bay.

A panel slid
open. Aunt Sleak ran out, along with Jan, much to Naero’s surprise and relief.

Naero and
Gallan met them half-way. Several Spacer Intel agents, geared up in strike armor, took up positions around them. Pulse rifles ready.

“
Naero,” Jan said, tears in his eyes, “So glad to see you, N.”

“
We couldn’t believe it,” Aunt Sleak said, “not after the explosion on that freighter. We thought you and Gallan had been blasted to atoms until Shadowforce contacted us. We even held your wakes along with the other casualties from the battle.”

Jan grinned. “How does it feel to be a ghost, sib?”

Aunt Sleak didn’t say anything about her and Gallan disobeying orders. Yet.

T
hey still would have been abducted.

Jan gave her another big hug.
“Been lonely without you, sib. Who else can I plot the future with?”

“
I hear you have some new friends.” Aunt Sleak said. She glared briefly at Ellis. “A Matayan prince no less, Naero? How did you get linked up with him, and this lander kid?”

Naero rolled her eyes. “It’s a long story. Meet
Tarim, from the mining freighter. And this is Ellis, Prince of House Tarret.”

Naero wondered when she would need to broach the clone issue. Did Ellis know? Perhaps not.

But it came straight from the Matayan Emperor himself. He ought to know.

Aunt Sleak
’s eye’s went to black slits when she shot a full hard look at Ellis. She offered him no greeting.

At least she didn’t stab him, shoot him, or attack him outright.

Even Ellis turned pale under her withering gaze and swallowed hard.

“
Easy, Aunt Sleak,” Naero told her. “I know this is extremely weird, but Ellis is a friend...sort of. We rescued him from some Triax goon, who tortured him as a political hostage. He’s been running with us ever since. He’s been on our side, and hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“H
ouse Tarret’s corsairs helped take out your parents’ fleet,” Aunt Sleak pointed out.

“
Along with Triax and several other Gigacorps,” Naero said. “I don’t think Ellis had anything to do with that directly. Like I said, he’s been a Triaxian political hostage. The Corps are forcing his people to be their shock troops, against their will.”

“Yeah, they would never do anything like that on their own,” Aunt Sleak said.

There went that sudden throat full of dust again, always around Aunt Sleak.

“
I assured him that he would not be harmed,” Naero said, “and that we wouldn’t ransom him.”

Aunt Sleak’s eyes bulged. She cocked her head and put her hands on her hips in disbelief.

“I gave him my word,” Naero said.

Aunt Sleak folded her arms about herself, rocked back on her heels and nodded her head
. “Well, then damn me all to hell. How generous of you, Naero. Perhaps we should throw in a few megs for his trouble. Invite him to a banquet in his honor. May you always be so confident in your decisions.”

“
Captain, excuse me for interrupting,” Gallan said. “But we have vital information for Spacer Intel. All of us are emotionally strained; we’re exhausted and hungry. Can we get debriefed and sort the rest out later?”

“Works for me,” Aunt Sleak said, still fuming. “
You two, with me. These other two...will be seen to.”

Naero raised an eyebrow.

“And treated well,” the captain added. “Even his highness there.”

Naero
turned to Tarim and Ellis and whispered, “go on; it’ll be all right.”

“
I get the distinct impression,” Ellis whispered back, “that your aunt would like nothing better than to tear out my liver with her teeth and feast on it.”