Spacer Clans Adventure 3: Naero's Fury (10 page)

Then it lifted one hand.

A ray of intense violet energy punched out from that hand, expanded into a cone of the same might, and shattered all before it.

The spheres and energies of even the High Mystic Masters disrupted and shattered like glass, dissolving in mid-air
.

The three masters were hurled off their feet and flung back, battered and
set on fire, like mere children before a hurricane of violet flame.

They recovered their wits and retreated, transporting away.

The statue resumed its forward march, three-quarters of the way out of the crater, and nearly at the stricken defensive perimeter.

Intel forces
and the prime adepts led a brave, but futile attack from all directions, trying to slow the statue down.

The thing blasted and swatted them
away like insects and kept walking. Nothing could stop it.

The naval destroyer,
The Mikado
, swept in close to the ground and strafed the statue, pinpointing the area around it with heavy, concentrated cannon fire.

The statue absorbed the attacks as before.

Dazzling rays from its glowing eyes disintegrated the entire warship in a blinding flare of naked power.

One hundred and eighty stunned crew
slowly floated naked to the ground and lay still with the vanquished Marines.

Nothing known to Spacers or any other sentient race appeared capable of
stopping this thing–or even slowing it down.

Finally, for no apparent reason, the statue
mysteriously halted, shifted shape a few times, and then froze where it stood.

Master Tree cut the vidfeeds. “It has not moved
or even flickered since, by all reports.”

“
Why did it stop moving?” Naero asked.

Tree turned to her. “I believe that was the exact moment that you and I transported from the west coast camp, to the east coast camp here, Naero.”

“I’m guessing,” Master Jo said, “that once you were out of its sensory range, the very purpose for its actions was no longer present. It no longer had a reason to act.”

Naero shrugged. “
So, I am its reason to act. Why? I guess we could transport back in and see if starts advancing toward me again.

Even Master Vane’s eyes widened. “Oh, hell, no, Maeris. None of us are getting spanked by that infernal thing again,
just so that you can conduct a silly experiment.”

“
Are we certain that it is evil?” Naero said. “I did not detect any Darkforce energy, or any presence of alien tek, like that of our enemies, that makes you feel sick inside to be near it. And it appeared to go out of its way to avoid killing our people, when it clearly and easily could have done so. It selectively destroyed all weapons and gear, leaving our troops stunned and helpless–but still alive. How could it even do that? No weapon can do such a thing.”

Shalaen placed a hand on Naero’s shoulder. “The more important question to ask, my sister, is what does this thing want with you? Why is it so interested in you?”

Master Vane snorted. “Isn’t it obvious? Why do any of these strange, elusive beings want to capture Maeris and make use of her for their purposes? She’s a monster–a living, breathing, potential weapon of mass destruction–just waiting to be exploited and unleashed, and she also has the KDM within her. Isn’t that all enough?”

Shalaen shook her head. “I do not think that is it. We have all
witnessed but a fraction of this artifact’s frightening power. None of us can even conceive of matching it in any way. I think that it could very easily wipe out this entire world in an instant, if it but chose to do so. Yet it is not bent upon destruction. It wants something, and it clearly is not about to let anything stand in its way when it is about to move.”

Gaviok took up Shalaen’s train of thought. “I think I follow you. Yet the artifact does appear to have some kind of limitations, also. It stopped moving toward Naero once she was too far away for it to track and follow her exact location. Perhaps its sensory abilities are limited, in ways that we cannot understand.”

“Yes, yes,” Master Tree said. “It is specifically goal-oriented. Once the goal passed out of its range of perception–it stopped moving and went dormant once more.”

“
What does it want with me?” Naero said. “If it had been able to reach me…what would have happened? What would it have done to me?”

The three High Masters grew very silent suddenly.

All three of them were hiding something. Naero knew for a fact that her outcast uncle had directly encountered one of these things–a very similar alien obelisk or artifact–if not exactly alike. She didn’t know the details, but she more or less guessed that the results had been catastrophic in some way. Baeven and many others had been very nearly destroyed, including Naero’s mother, who was also present at the time, and somehow involved. Baeven had almost died as a result, and he had never been the same, since that time.

The encounter and his involvement with that artifact had helped destroy his life among his people.

It was Aunt Sleak who spoke up.

“
We need to know what happened with the other artifact like this one,” she said. “You mentioned that there was another one. What happened to it? Perhaps that will shed some light on what we should do now with this one.”

“
We cannot speak of such,” Master Tree said flatly.

“
We will not speak of it ever again,” Master Vane said flatly, “not upon pain of death.”

“
Cannot. Will not,” Aunt Sleak said. “What rubbish. Tell us what happened or at least why you will not even broach the subject.”

Master Jo spoke plainly. “
Because we can’t recall them. All traces of those events have been purged from our minds, by the power of the artifact itself.”

Tree nodded. “To this day, all that we know are the events leading up to the…mysterious occurrence
. And those that followed.”

Vane continued for them. “
We decided that when–
not if
–more of these immensely powerful devices were encountered, we would do our best to study and comprehend them, and seek to control any and all interaction with them. Also for the good of all.”

Master Jo gave their conclusion. “Only one person living truly knows what occurred on that fateful day in that hour. And by all logic, he should have been slain by whatever resulted from that cataclysm. We had meant to destroy him ourselves, not only for his gross disobedience and defiance of our will, our laws, and our very ways–yet somehow, he managed to escape and elude us. He even found some way to stave off the terrible fate awaiting him. When he fled Janosha, he was filled with such terrible Cosmic energies, raging so out of control, that he was a threat to anyone or any living thing that he came near to.”

Vane spoke once more. “We thought the outcast was merely running away somewhere to perish on his own. To our mind, no being could survive what he had endured–what was so unstable within himself.”

Naero rose up defiantly, her blood up, her fists jammed on her hips.

She had heard enough.

Aunt Sleak sensed her mood and tried to pull her back.

Naero jerked her arm away out of her aunt’s steel grip.

“
You filthy hypocrites. My Uncle Kean suffered great and permanent loss and harm at the hands of one of these devices. So dangerous, that you won’t even let yourselves remember what it was, or what it did to him.”

“
He is an outcast,” Vane roared. “He directly disobeyed us, and nearly destroyed all of Janosha–until you came along to finish the job! You of all your Clan have no right to speak his lost name ever again!”

Naero stood up to him. Let him strike her down,
if he must. “I will speak his name, if I so choose. I will dare to shout it from the heavens if I must. This isn’t about what Kean did at all. This is about all of you and your inadequacies. All of you failed, just as you are failing with this artifact. The High and Mighty Three Mystic High Masters–three frauds more like it–failed to control this device. And who bore the brunt of that failure? Surely not any of you, but my uncle did so–my blood!”

She stepped away enraged, and then whirled upon them, extending and accusing finger. “You blamed him for your failures, for unleashing forces none of you could control. And then you made him your sacrificial lamb. Once you murdered him and took his life, the problem would be solved. The terrible forces contained within him would be extinguished with his life.
Your guilt and your crimes would be covered up. Even if he escaped, you bastards fully expected him to suffer and die horribly, somewhere on his own, where you wouldn’t have to watch his torment. I’m glad he found a way to survive, and spite you hypocrites ever since!”

Naero crossed her arms in front of herself and whipped around, giving them her heaving back.

At that moment, she wished she could destroy them all. Perhaps she should transport herself to the artifact right now and fling her arms around the damn thing.

Master Jo tried to reason with her. “Naero, there is some truth to what you say. But there were many other things going on at that same time that also affected our actions, decisions, and what happened
, as well. Your then uncle openly defied and disobeyed direct orders–not once–but repeatedly. And many persons died because of that. He nearly killed your own mother, his sister, whom he claimed to care about. He was out of control, with what you would call his own Dark Beast. We were barely able to suppress and contain him, just as we did with you. But despite our best efforts, he was going to explode at some point, and possibly take out all of Janosha. We had to destroy him, before that took place, somewhere safe. But he broke free, and escaped before we could do so.”

“
And look at what happened?” Vane said. “Not only did the outcast survive, he became a renegade, and an outlaw, reviled for his treachery and duplicity–responsible for countless deaths on all sides of nearly every conflict since that time.”

“
A life the Mystics drove him to,” Naero noted.

“
A life he chose,” Aunt Sleak said, “but none of that can be changed. The question remains: What do we do now with this situation, and this artifact?”

“
The only thing we can do. We keep Naero away from it at all costs, while we continue to study the artifact, and learn more about its secrets.” Master Tree said. “That way, we avoid repeating any of the mistakes from the past. Our only defense will be knowledge.”

“
And once again,” Naero said, “I ask, what would happen if I did interact with this thing?”

“
Theoretically,” Master Tree noted, “some kind of merging or re-combination. The device will either become part of you–or you will become part of it. We’re not certain how much of either.”

Master Vane snorted again. “I’m still not certain Maeris’s mother was
n’t infected by that first device as well, back then. Look at the trouble we’re having with her three children–showing the same dangers as their former uncle?”

“
Those effects were triggered by their contact with the Kexxian Data Matrix,” Aunt Sleak said.

Vane persisted. “Can we be certain of that? Danner never came into direct contact with the KDM, for years.”

Jan jumped in. “Danner came into contact with it through his connection with me, at the same time that Naero and I did. Yet it is true that by then, he was already a powerful psyonic genius.”

While they still argued, Naero called up one of the holoscreens again and replayed some of the vid footage, zooming in on the artifact statue’s face.

Master Jo looked over at her. “Did we miss something, Naero?”

Naero paused.

Suddenly she grew even more worried.

Om noticed it at the same time.

“Its mouth was moving. The statue was saying something,” she said. “It was talking all the while.”

Everyone stared at her.

“What was it saying,” Master Tree asked.

Naero started watching the vid
close-ups from the very beginning.

“
It was speaking something in Kexxian,” Naero said.

No, Naero. It was singing
…in Kexxian.

Naero felt frozen
stilettos of ice slicing through her veins. “I…I recognize that tune. I know that song. I’ve heard it before. I’ve sung the words.”

“
Why would it be singing in Kexxian? What was it saying?”

Naero cleared her throat.

Yah-duu Ah Shah Lah! Shah hah lah shah-dae! Yah Jhah Vah Shah-Lae! Ae duu vah. Ae duu vah shah lah!

High Master Tree received an emergency com from Spacer Intel and the Marines back at the western camp. Tree brought it up on screen.

“Master Tree. The alien artifact has taken the statue form again and is on the move. It has turned due east, and is walking strait toward your coordinates on the east coast. Oh, no!”