Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit (7 page)

7

The Dark Star
set out on its first patrol mission a day later.

With a volunteer crew of two hundred
thrilled and eager young Spacers.

Newly promoted
Captain Tyber led them.

It was primarily a tek mission
after all.

Zhen
smiled and looked genuinely proud. Despite the fact that they would be apart for months at a time.

Yet S
pacer Intel went ballistic when Naero informed them.

At least b
lustering General Tobias Ingersol did.

He
yelled at her for twenty minutes straight, until Naero started shouting back. She instinctively did not like the guy.

“A
lala is self-aware, general. She is a new sentient life, in the form of an advanced starship. We have to respect her as a sentient. We’re not the Corps! What was I supposed to do?”

“D
o? I’ll tell you what you should do. Bend that damn Frankenstein that
you
created to our will. Gain her confidence and then cut her power access so that we can tow her in, take her part, and study her piece by piece.”

“I
’m sorry. I don’t betray others like that, general.”

“W
e need that ion cannon, dammit!”

“
Not that way. I promise you; I’ll get the specs on that tek. But let me do it my way. As soon as I’m tested by the Mystics and I regain my teknomancy abilities, I’ll be able to read the ship and understand the Tek in heartbeat. Just give me a few months. That’s all I ask.”

Ingersol
’s eyes almost popped.

“A
few months? Months? Look what just happened here. One rogue ship with rapid-fire ion guns took out an entire Intel fleet. Including our cloaked ships. In minutes. You can’t see the yawning disaster waiting before our feet like an open pit?”

“
Telling and embarrassing for you and your people, but I still don’t see what’s the rush? It’s not like we’re at war or anything right now.”

“W
ho says we’re not? We’re always at war, you idiot. We’re surrounded by enemies. And they already have this super secret weapon. Even now they could be refitting their fleets with it as we speak, preparing to destroy us all.”

“W
ow. You really need to calm down and take a vacation or something.”

“H
ow do you know you can trust this entity? What if it kills your crew and goes on a rampage? Our two fleets barely stopped it.”

Her fleet actually.

“And only because it wanted to make contact with you. What if it decides it has outgrown you and starts to kill? What if it learns that it likes to destroy?”

Naero began to state
that Alala would never do that. Alala was like her. Part of her.

Then
Naero decided to keep her mouth shut.

“I
did the best I could, General. I’ve kept my word. I made peace with the rogue ship and got some of my best people on board to work with and help guide her. I sent them out on patrol to assist people and get to know each other. We have to teach Alala how to work and co-exist with us. We can help each other. Betraying her or blasting her to bits wasn’t the best way to go about that. Not to my mind.”

Ingersol
pointed a finger at her.

“M
ark my words. If this goes bad, it’s going to be on your head, Maeris. You and your entire Clan…are always trouble in my book.”

“N
oted. Nice working with you, sir. I’m on my way to link up with Admiral Klyne for my Mystic testing. Safe journey to you and your crews. Captain Maeris, out.”

Ingersol was s
till red-faced and blustering when she signed off.

The current crisis dealt with, Naero
gathered her strike fleet back together in a matter of hours.

“A
ll ships. Good work. We’ll jump toward Chosin-9 on the border as planned. While I see to my testing, the fleet can trade at will among the nearby Mining and Joshua Tech systems. You’ll stay in contact with
The Dark Star
and her new crew as they patrol the border. My testing could take days, weeks, or months. I’m not certain how long. I’ll contact you as I can. The Fleet Council has agreed to manage our trade affairs in my absence. Captain Max Lii will work closely in conjunction with Captains Chaela and Saemar. Respect and obey them as you would myself. That is all.”

Well-
wishing messages flooded the com from all the fleet captains, officers, and crews.

Good luck, Captain Maeris.

Safe journey to you.

May
good fortune follow the bold!

Naero smiled.

She graciously declined yet another private dinner with Captain Max that evening–just the two of them–in his opulent quarters on his flagship, complete with a short, private concert in her honor.

Max was smooth, and a great guy in every way. It became increasingly difficult for her to keep turning him down
, and his romantic gestures.

Chosin-9 was a forward, Joshua Tech mining and trade-supply world
on the border with the rapidly expanding Mining Consortium systems.

While the rest of the
trade fleet sped off in several directions to go make credits, Naero received a secret set of coordinates to meet Admiral Klyne, and dock with his Intel ship,
The Kathmandu.

There he would pers
onally conduct her preliminary Mystic testing.

Naero and twenty-two
of her crew on board
The Flying Dagger
–minus Tyber–proceeded on in stealth mode, making as certain as possible that they were neither followed nor tracked in any way.

En route, Naero made another attempt t
o contact Baeven on their hyper-secure channel.

Nothing. No reply. She had not heard anything from the outlaw in
a long while on that matter. No leads. Not a single word on the whereabouts of Janner or Danner.

Where w
ere they? Who held them prisoner and what were they doing with them and to them?

Another pain attack
struck her without warning. They seemed to grow increasingly worse.

Naero
staggered to her private quarters to lie down, resisting the urge to dope up with pain meds that would either impair her, or do nothing.

Zhentisa came by to check on her and keep her company
, giving her a quick once over with her healing sight.

“C
aptain, as usual, your neuromedical scans are extremely weird and off the charts.”

“A
nother article for the neuromedical journals?”

Zhen shrugged.
“They could devote an entire clinic to study your strangeness. Frankly, I never know what’s going on up there. But I’m sorry it’s causing these terrible attacks, En.”

Naero grimaced, trying to hold her head together. As if it might rupture in several places from the miniature plasma borers trying to cut and roast their way out
of her brain.

She tried to laugh.
“Worthless quack. Can’t even cure a simple headache.”

“N
othing’s ever simple with you, En.”

Naero gasped and
sent a call out into her own mind.

Om, if you are doing this, please, give it a rest. You are murdering me.

Whether he could hear or not, the pain did not let up.

Zhen took her hand and applied a cold compress, adjusting the temperature until finally it eased some of the pain.

Naero started breathing a bit easier. But she still sweated heavily and sucked in air wide-eyed at times.

She desperately needed to think about something else.

“Talk to me, Zee. How are the wedding plans going?”

Her friend smiled
, a happy, far-off look in her large, hazel eyes. “We’re thinking a mountain waterfall valley on Gairos-3. The rainbows there are so spectacular. Natural rainforest flowers everywhere.”

“N
ice. But what about all the dangerous dinosaurs? And poisonous insects almost as big as us?”

Zhen laughed
, waving away other bothersome concerns. “Details. So we’ll shield the area against wedding crashers of all varieties.”

“A
nd the honeymoon?”

Zee
grinned. “We’ll rent a small yacht and cruise the Joshua Tech play worlds for a few weeks of endless sex, besotting ourselves with each other like good newlyweds should.”

“Y
ou guys don’t get enough of that? You’re practically joined at the hips as it is.”

“Hey, you
’re the one who just promoted my fiancé, gave him his own ship, and sent him away from me.”

“Sorry about that. But Tye was ready for a command, and he
’s perfect for this mission. It’ll be good for him.”

“I know that.”
Zhentisa giggled, her face beaming with love. “But even before, there wasn’t as much time for lust as you might think. We both had our duty shifts and kept pretty busy with the fleet, plus our rigorous training schedules. Unfortunately, we were stuck with this over-achiever fleet captain. Many days we were so exhausted, frankly we just stumbled home and fell asleep.”

“Y
ou’re kidding me? And here I had this idea that you guys got more action than Saemar.”

Zhen bl
inked. “I don’t think that’s possible. For anyone.”

They both laughed.

Naero held up both hands. “Not after I made her captain of an entire strike carrier of handsome fighter jocks.”

Zhen sighed.
“She can have all that. I just want my life with Tye.”

“I
know he’s right for you, Zee. You two are so good for each other.”

“H
e’s such a sweet guy, En. A bit of a goof, but he’s always so sweet and tender with me. Always finding little ways to show how much he adores me. Some days we can’t wait to get our life going and start having our babies together.”

Naero paused.

“Whoa. Babies, again?”

Zhen nodded with excitement and glee. She reached into her front pocket and pulled out a small
armored case, flipping it open to proudly show off the half-dozen nanofrozen capsules inside.

“N
ot right away, but we already have our first six kids picked out.”

“First six?”

“Of course, I screened their genetics myself. We know a lot about them already. When the time comes, we just have to pop ‘em back in the oven and start the timer.”

Naero struggled to keep her jaw from bouncing off the floor.

“How many of those jaspers do you plan on having?”

“W
e’re not sure yet, so we decided to start with six.” She pointed to the first frozen little capsule affectionately “This guy will be the big brother to all the rest. We decided to name him Gallan.”

Naero nodded.
“Oh, how sweet. Gallan was always good with kids. He would have loved that.”

More twinges of regret about losing Gallan. But f
uture children continued to be a new consideration.

Right now their trade group was mostly young single spacers,
hot only on furthering their careers. A few couples, and more that inevitably formed up between the various Clan ships.

Like all peoples, Spacers found a way to link up and get together.

Everyone but her, at least.

Eventually they
’d all have their own lives and families that would divert their time and attention.

A
natural progression. A part of life. Spacers had dealt with the natural life cycle for centuries, and had time-tested programs and policies in place to deal with every aspect.

Still, she
’d have to get used to kids of all ages being managed and educated and herded within her fleet. Just having young, driven adults on board was a lot easier and efficient for a time. But that wouldn’t last. Like all the Clans, they owed it to the next generations of Spacers to raise and train them well to both survive and thrive in a challenging and dangerous universe.

Another priority call came in. This time
directly from Admiral Klyne.

Naero
’s sense of warning spiked almost instantly.

“Naero…what
’s the current position of you and your fleet?”

Klyne tried to hide it, but the tension in his voice rose to a certain level.

“They just dispersed on trade runs throughout the nearby sectors.”

“Call them back this instant. I need you and as many ships as you can muster to race to the Joshua Tech colony on Haiku-4. You
’re the only available force of any size close to that location.”