Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit (36 page)

45

On the third day after the Battle of Celonia-4, the Spacers and the miners held a wake in honor of everyone who perished during the attack.

Including Prime Adept Mitsubishi Hashiko.

Spacer Marine General Big Jim Walker and Bravo
Command organized all of the military aspects of the wake. Ceremonies. Military salutes.

Speeches for the dead.

Naero even came forward to say a few good words about her comrade, Hashiko.

Despite the animosity between them. Naero owed her big.
All of them did.

Without Hashiko
, by now all of them might very well be trapped in those infernal alien generators. Tormented, tortured, and giving their mysterious new foes huge supplies of tainted, Darkforce energy to do who knows what with.

All of them owed Hashiko a great deal
.

At least now t
hey had a much better idea of what they were up against. What these new aliens were after. And what they were capable of.

Yet l
osing a Spacer Mystic as well-trained as Hashi was remained a severe and bitter loss.

Tarim
stayed by Shalaen’s side at her medbed, armed to the teeth. He refused to leave. He barely slept on the floor beside her.

And of course,
High Master Vane demanded an immediate direct transmission with Naero, once he learned about valiant Hashiko’s fate.

She
could only imagine what was coming, and took the secure link onboard
The Flying Dagger
, in her private quarters.

She listened to him rant, and blame her, wish
ing over and over again that she had died in Hashiko’s place.

Vane
possessed few emotions besides manic glee at the expense of others, anger, or full-blown rage.

She guess
ed that this fit was his only response. His only way of mourning Hashi’s loss, according to his own limitations.

Blaming someone else
was the only apparent option.

Naero finally had to
interrupt him.

“
Look. We found her, we freed her. She went down fighting beside us, against our foes during the course of an intense battle. How is any of that anyone’s fault? In fact, Hashi more or less killed herself rather than be taken by the enemy again. She made that choice very clear.”

Vane screamed at her.

“I’M MAKING IT YOUR FAULT!”

Naero let him cool down a few seconds.

“Fine. So be it. But look at the facts. We still beat the enemy, against all odds. Yes, at great costs. But we still manage to beat them. They did not defeat us.

“And, in the process, we
discovered where they are getting their enormous supplies of Darkforce energy from. How they are using these Darkforce generators to do some of the amazing things they’re capable of doing. We brought the Corps’ alien allies into the light of day for all to see. We actually know who and what some of them are now. We can continue to study them, their tek, and learn their weaknesses.”

Vane shook his head and snarled.
“There’s always a silver-lining for you, isn’t there Maeris?”

“I
’m a realist, not a Chaos master. I take my victories where I can and keep fighting. Hashiko would do the same. She hated my guts, but she at least she was a fighter–to the very end.”

“Y
ou dare invoke her against me? I knew her since she was a child, Maeris. She was my star pupil. You never knew or understood her or her goals. And now she and they are dust!”

“I
’m sorry for all of that, but it’s not all about you, Vane. Or me. Or her. This is bigger than all of us now. Even Hashiko said so. Anyone in the galaxy who can channel Cosmic energy is a target now. Mystics. Yattai. The Oden. Psyons. Anyone else. These aliens are more advanced than any of us, and they mean to take us all down, damn it!”

Naero clenched her fists and grunted in frustration.

“Right now, they are our primary objective.”

Master Vane shook his head.

“Very well. Then stay with Intel and the Fleets, Maeris. Do what you do best. Destroy everything around you. You’re good at that. Find these new alien adversaries of ours and put them down. Hard. Do something right for once. Make yourself useful.”

Hashi had said something very similar.

Vane severed their link abruptly.

Destroy the enemy?

“I fully intend to,” Naero said out loud.

That evening, Intel held an intelligence briefing.

For hours, they went over and debated everything they knew about the new threats and how they impacted the war, the talks, and their current situations.

It only raised thousands more questions. Hosts of new unknowns. Worries. Fears. The new aliens were perhaps more of a threat than ever.

And what about the other strange ship? Where was it and what was it doing? Who controlled it?

Baeven was already
back out trying to track or find either of them.

Naturally, h
e and his crew bugged out early once the battle ended.

It wasn
’t as if they could hang around and expect a medal or anything.

Intel and the Mystics still wanted
Baeven in prison, or dead.

No matter how much good he did.

But Naero knew that Baeven did whatever he wanted to anyway. No matter the costs. He just didn’t care about much else.

But he was the only wild card Naero had, and against the vast unknown of the
se new alien threats, she needed to keep playing him.

Rolling the dice. Gambling at every turn. Everything they did was so risky.

Things kept blowing up in their faces and they could only react.

They needed to track their foes down and take the fight to them.

But first they needed to find them and bring their quarry to ground.

*

Naero struggled to find something positive while her people waited and recovered. Healing their wounded. Mourning their dead.

She
used her new biomancing abilities in combination with Zhen’s healing sight, channeling her biomancing right through her friend.

Through their psyonic link, using their talents in conjunction, they worked on
Arana’s ruined nose one day in the operating room on board her flagship. Zhen handled the surgical aspects.

Within one standard hour
, they reset Arana’s nose, as normal and pretty as it had once been when she was younger. Before the war and all the violence she had endured.

Arana had shown them some old pictures of herself as a guide.

No swelling. Contusions all healed up and tissues fully regenerated.

They brought her around, and all three of them smiled a
nd laughed at Arana’s restored image.

Arana
laughed and started crying as she stared at her reflection. “It’s…the way I used to be.”

She covered her face with her hands, and then opened them again.

For a long while, she hung her head and couldn’t speak.

Naero gave her a re-
assuring hug.

“Y
ou ready to see Jericho and the kids yet?”

“P
lease, let them in.” She sobbed. “I hope they recognize me still.”

Jericho carried Thai and
Naomi in, nestled in his big scarred arms.

For an instant. Naero smiled
and staggered a little, having a happy memory of her and Jan in her father’s huge arms. Just like that.

Arana
laughed, tears still on her face.

She held out her arms, turning her head for them all to get a good look.
She took in a deep breath.

“W
ell…what do you think?”

Jericho smiled.

The kids gasped.

“Y
ou’re even more pretty, mommy.”

“L
ike a vid star!”

They jumped from
their father into Arana’s arms, hugging her tight.

Jericho
calmly waited.

Arana
finally handed the kids off to Naero and Zhen.

Captain Jericho swooped in immediately, scooped her up in his arms, and planted a big wet smooch on her.

He smiled at her.

“B
aby, if you like it, I’m a happy man. But I already loved you with everything I had before. Nothing you can do can change that now.”

Some
times it was the little things–the small victories that made things worth it.

Naero and Zhen laughed as they said their goodbyes.

“They’ll be all right now,” Naero said. “As safe as any of us. The marines are making a new forward base here. That means fleets, and another boom for Celonia-4.

Zhen snorted.
“Especially after they see the new hospital and the buildings the fixer clouds built and repaired.”

“E
h, our clouds weren’t doing anything any way.” Naero chuckled. “I told Arana we’d make a few other improvements.”

Next
, after a quick break, they went in to finish healing Shalaen.

Tarim heard them come in, and woke up off the medbay floor
, instinctively reaching for a side arm.

And crack
ed his head on the bottom of Shalaen’s medbed.

Naero had hoped
Shalaen would recover on her own, but being drained of nearly all of her Cosmic energy had put her in a torpid coma. Perfectly fine otherwise.

She just needed a jump start of Cosmic juice.

Naero waited until she was fully recovered herself, to give her old friend the Cosmic jolt she needed.

First, Naero and Zhen gave Shalaen
a full inspection with their sight.

Naero stretched
while Zhen continued, being thorough. Tarim waited bleary-eyed in a chair. Pretty washed out, but still on duty.

“S
he ready yet, Zee?”

Get ready, Om. We
’re going to jumpstart Shalaen’s Cosmic batteries here.

It
’s a little more complex than that, and you know it. Don’t drain us too low trying to help your friend. There’s always a risk involved.

Zhen gasped.

“What is it?” Naero and Tarim asked in unison.

“I
’ve never examined her neurological profile this closely before. She has several…or at least she
had
several very intricate…and identical... What the…? How could they be identical?”

“I
dentical what, Zhen? Stop stammering, Doc. You’re not making any sense.”

“T
h…they appeared to be tumors. But they were all the same. Placed in key points within her brain.”

“C
an you remove them?”

“I
…I thought that I would have to study them more, but–”

Zhen gasped wide-eyed and pulled away.
Staring at her hands in disbelief.

“I
…I just biomanced. That’s what I’m trying to spit out. I just removed all of the tumors; with barely a thought. They were so tiny. I biomanced right through my sight. All by myself. Naero…”

She stared at her own hands
, blinking and shaking. “I can biomance now. How did you…pass the ability on to me?”

Just like passing the ability to teknomance on to Tyber.

Naero had done it by accident, without even intending to or understanding how it was even possible.

“I
didn’t know I could, Zee. It must have been through our link while we were working together on Arana.”

Zhen gasped, and
swallowed hard. “Apparently, I’m a fast learner. Once I see a technique once or twice, I can usually figure out a way to do it myself.”

Naero nodded in excitement. “I
’m the same way. That’s how you gave me your Healing Sight, which by the way–is very close to biomancing. I learned it from you.”

“En, this is something completely different. You
’ve enhanced my psyonic abilities and awakened a new one. In another person. This is groundbreaking!”

Naero held up her hands.
“Let’s keep quiet about it for now, Zee. We don’t know if it will last. But if you’re right, somehow I activated the ability to biomance in you. the Mystics would see this as a new type of quickening.”

Just another strange new ability as your powers continue to expand.

You got that right, Om. Apparently I’m still full of surprises.

Zhen struggled to recover still.
“You’re correct, En. Of course, we do need to study all of this more closely. The effects might not be permanent.”