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

2

The Keltin-5
Star base looked like a ginormous, gilded modular insect hive, rotating to maintain its own gravity. The base’s semi-transparent, reflective surfaces glowed with a faceted, golden light.

Illuminated from within and without.

The fleets and starships swarming to and fro, docking and departing on its hex-plotted surface served as the busy, buzzing drones. The com lines bristling with chatter and trade links.

Caught within a dizzying explosion of interstellar commerce, myriad
opportunities, diversions, and entertainments awaited, rippling among waves of goods and supplies and services, flowing in countless directions.

Spacers helped the Alliance run the modular
star base, which had expanded greatly with the trade boom. K-5 almost doubled its size in less than a standard year.

The base still ran more or less efficiently. But there were always growing pains to deal with.

But K-5, also known as Hondo-37 to the miners and Joshua Tech, now boasted a booming population of over thirty-three million and rising.

Many of the new additions would be fanning out soon, among the boomworlds and colonial borders
. Feeding the new exploration expansion into the Unknown Regions, out beyond the Alliance.

And this was
only just one port of call along the leading edge of the exploding expansion.

Naero and her
crew docked and immediately broke into a run, rushing into the surging station mix, racing for one of the grand event ballroom domes Clan Maeris had reserved.

No time to marvel at the
star base and its offerings like she usually would. They were late. No time to shop. No time to slug down some Jett or even crack open a pod of Spum.

Her heart sank when she saw the huge crowd of Spacers and other friends line
d up outside the dome. Waiting to gain entry.

Tarim spoke quickly with some of the Intel security people on hand.

Once they were confirmed as close family, they piled into a secured mover that zipped them right in to the wedding prep rooms.

Naero stumbled into the bridal dressing room. There were cases and stuff everywhere. She nearly tripped.

The service would start in less than fifteen standard minutes.

Aunt Sleak
turned to her and smiled. But then she took one good look at her.

“Y
ou look like hell, Naero. What’s going on with you?”

Naero cocked her head
and smirked. “Thanks. You look stunning as well.”

Her fantastic
tight body. Aunt Sleak really did look great in her white Admiral’s dress long coat and matching uniform, with a few slight modifications. The pregnancy had just occurred, so she wasn’t showing yet or suffering any morning sickness either by her own reports.

Lucky her.

Vomiting on your wedding day could be a bad sign.

Yet ever the fashion mover-and-shaker when given the chance, Aunt Sleak wore both a glowing mesh veil that looked like filaments of gold and silver fire, and a matching silk and mesh bodice that displayed her ample charms somewhere between tasteful, and what her dad would have called,
‘va-va-voom!’

Another twinge of pain that
both her parents, Gallan, and so many others could not be with them on a such a happy day.

Aunt Sleak had certainly done it again. Somehow m
elding a stunning wedding outfit with an admiral’s dress uniform.

Only
someone like her could pull off such a coup.

Naero hugged and kissed her Aunt, wished her good fortune, and went out to take her place up front with the close family.

Bright filtered light emanated from the system’s star. The hundred meter-high gilded dome and the people within glittered in their best. A gold and white theme. Flowers, decorations, and colorful holographic birds that didn’t poop. Coupled with romantic thiolin music.

More than a thousand people within the dome
’s inner circle alone.

Several thousand more in the rings beyond that, with even more waiting to pour in.

This wedding was set to be a major event. INS cameras were already in place throughout.

Floating holo screens to show the ceremony up close to those seated too far away from the center.

At Spacer weddings, the bride and groom only stood up with their chosen best mates. With Naero’s mother gone, and since Aunt Sleak was marrying her best friend and partner Zalvano, she had Admiral Klyne from Intel stand up beside her.

Zalvano
’s older sister Zeta flew in to stand at his side. The family resemblance very clear. Zeta had long dark hair like her brother and keen gray eyes. She and her family lived and worked on one of their Clan ships. Zeta a fleet doctor and surgeon, much like Zhen.

Fleets and ships
had arrived from all across the known systems for the wedding event. INS and Clan heralds announce the arrival of several dignitaries. Admiral Nathan Joshua from Joshua Tech, resplendent in his dress blues. Mining Consortium leader Nevano Kinmal, without his daughter Shalaen. Much to Tarim’s great disappointment.

Other Maeris
Clan fleets arrived, a dizzying array of distant cousins and relatives. Most of which Naero had never met and might not ever see again. Even Aunt Sleak did not know most of them. So far-and-wide were the Clan’s members. And this was just a sample of those who could make it.

Thus Naero and her crew watched her
stunning aunt walk up the aisle, lined with Spacer and Alliance Naval officers saluting them.

To be
married by one of the last remaining Clan Maeris Elders.

Tamerlane Atani Maeris, said to be nearly one hundred and fifty years old.

Most Spacers went onto the next journey around one-thirty or one-forty, tops. Spacers aged rapidly the last five or ten years of their lives.

The elder looked incredibly wise and ancient. His long blue-white h
air below his waist. His deeply-lined, clean-shaven face smiling. Gray-violet eyes still bright.

Naero smiled as the elder spoke clearly, running through t
he ceremonial words to join the couple together.

Then the overwhelming sense of warning overtook her again.

Here? At the wedding?

Something flickering buzzed near her ear suddenly.

An insect? On a star base? How could–

Then it zipped right into her ear and formed a mental link.

She winced and tried not to gasp, resisting the natural urge to jam a finger in her ear to dig it out.

Naero. This is Baeven.
Emergency.

What emergency?

Listen up. They’ve already infiltrated the base.

Who has?

They’re all around you. I’ll adjust your visual spectrum through my emulator drone in you ear. They’re all cloaked.

Who
’s cloaked? How many? Where are you?

Close by. Take a look around, but don
’t react yet.

Her
vision flickered as if she suddenly wore sensor goggles.

Everything aro
und her shaded into auras of multi-colored hues against a dark blue background of visible light.

Naero looked up and nearly gasped.

Four full squads of a dozen hostiles. Cloaked and swooping in with gravwings and heavy assault armor. Still getting into optimal positions to coordinate their fire.

All
of them aiming squad-level weapons directly on the happy couple and the Clan elder.

Even the
Intel security scans hadn’t picked up the intruders.

Baeven. I see them.
Haisha! What do we do?

Working on it.
Zipping among them. Quietly attaching disruptor pods. They’ll trigger in seconds. Our unwanted friends will all appear, disrupt, and fall to the ground hard. Then it’s a free for all. Alert who you can. Protect Sleak, Zal, and the elder.

Will do
.

She turned to Chaela right next to her. Maintain
ing her smile as she spoke in a low voice.

“C
hae. Cloaked enemy heavies on gravwings above us. Dropping down to attack in seconds. Four dozen. Get ready to fight.”

She turned to Saemar, who smiled back.
Her brown eyes twinkling.

“I
heard you, sweetie.”

Saemar spread the same message on her side. Hopefully
, acute Spacer hearing also let a few others in on the secret.

Not a
n instant later, loud pops and flashes filled the air.

T
he surprised attackers disrupted, turned visible, and slammed down into the ground. Just like Baeven promised.

The Spacers who weren
’t alerted leaped out of the way of the armored hulks at first.

T
he enemy cloaking fields still sparked, popped, and dissolved.

A few of the
powered armors locked up completely, trapping the stunned assassins inside.

Unlike most crowds, not a single Spa
cer panicked or ran.

All
of them immediately went on the attack.

Spacer
dress marines from the honor guard battled the foe directly, gunning down a handful as they tried to rise and cut loose with their heavy weapons.

A f
our-man enemy fire team flipped on back-up shields and waded through the crowd to get at the bride and groom.

Crew in the audience flung blasters to Sleak and Zalvano.

Both plucked the weapons deftly out of the air and knelt before the crouching elder, shielding him with their bodies. Punching through enemy shields and armor with well-aimed hits.

A full dozen of the assassins
tried to charge the right flank.

Baeven appeared, visible for barely the flash of an instant.

Blocking their path.

Green disruptor blade
s in his hands sizzled and crackled in the very air.

The
fools charged forward, trying to mow him down.

Baeven
swept right through them.

Blinding fast. No eye
in the room could follow him.

He scythed through them. Slicing each attacker multiple times.

The enemy squad’s charging momentum carried them forward.

They shot
past Baeven in bloody, exploding pieces or armor, flesh, and ordnance.

Baeven
vanished again the next instant.

Klyne was also a Mystic. He charged forward and unleashed a mind blast on three of the attackers, driving them back into a wall.

Another foe rose up and swatted him aside.

Chaela froze the face-shield of one attacker solid, leaped on the armored back and stabbed a blade deep into the neck joint.

Saemar attached micro bombs to its rear and abdomen.

A shock-
charge from the enemy armor stunned them both briefly, but the micro bombs took out the heavy for good, cutting its hips and legs off.

Tarim activated his personal deflector and began a gun battle with the armored suit on the far right.

Their weapons punched into each other, disrupting both shields.

Several clean hits blasted the head right off the armor
ed battle suit.

Tarim took a blaster shot to one arm and fell back.

Not normally the best of fighters, Zhen bounced a chair off the face shield of another attacker and flung every energized throwing star and spike she carried at the heavy to distract and slow it down.

The small explosions took out the shields
, but did little damage otherwise.

Tyber jumped on the heavy from behind, knocking it face down
with his collapsible jo staff.

He
sprang at Zhen, taking her in his arms, spot-transporting them both away from bursts of auto-cannon fire erupting from the heavy.

Other Spacers swarmed at the foe, cutting and blasting it to pieces
where it stood. Point-blank.

Naero charged the leader,
expending her shields to get in close.

She jammed one blade into its spinning guns as they attempted to reload. The weapon jammed and tore itself apart.

Naero unleashed a fury of flashing, spinning kicks, battering her opponent, crushing its armor. Shattering and blasting chunks of it away. Driving it back by sheer force and fury.

The lea
der staggered away slightly, chortling some weird kind of eerie laugh.

It raised
a blinking fusion bomb in its remaining hand. Already armed.