Spacer Clans Adventure 3: Naero's Fury (27 page)

Ty waved a hand before her face. “Easy, killer. Take it easy. We ca
n’t tip our hand, just yet.”

But the secret base also alerted them to the fact that they were entering enemy territory. Even Jia felt that they were on the right trail this time.

Baeven had slipped off alone in an insertion pod. After his second jump in this direction, his crew had heard nothing back from him since that time.

Out of the black, Naero went to Womi and asked him. “Have you ever heard of a world called Xanathar?”

“No,” he replied. “I can’t say that I have. Is it important?”

“
No, just a weird legend. I was just curious, what with the Kahn-Dar being so far-traveled and all.”

“
Sorry. I am very grateful for our progress. I want you to know that I do intend to keep my end of our bargain, if you can fully restore me. I never thought I would say this, Spacer Naero, but I’m actually starting to enjoy myself with you. It would be a pity if your Cosmic illness destroyed you in the end. You must not let that happen.”

“
What do you know of such things, Womi?”

“
Not much, just that I can sense the Cosmic disease growing within you. You must find a way to stabilize your messed up internal energies, or they will most definitely destroy you. Such things are a very serious concern.”

“
Anything you can tell me? Any serious advice, something I might try?”

“
Not in the least. I have no idea what type of creature you are, or how the power Cosmic affects you. I’d be of little help. I can’t even regenerate myself.”

“
How long do you think I have?”

“
Hmm…depending on how tough you are, and how much pain you can stand. I’d say a few months at least, before the agony becomes unbearable. But I’m clearly guessing.”

More than ever, Naero needed to locate and rescue Baeven. She needed his counsel greatly. He was the only other person besides herself
, who had gone through something like this–and beaten it.

29

The very next day, they were in jump again, searching the vicinity.

They located another Ejjai freezeworld, with a similar number of billions of frozen enemy shock troops, just waiting to awaken and go to war.

It boggled the mind. How many such hidden bases could there be?

Then they came across something even more ominous, on the borders of known space.

They came across a vast debris field of asteroids and planetoids, stretching out over a great distance.

Concealed on those countless rocks, they detected even more countless batteries of robotic missile launchers and automated mass drivers.

“
An impressive, offensive or defensive battle screen,” Jia announced.

Naero ran a few projections with Om.

These weapon emplacements are many decades old, Naero. They are still fully functional, but they have been waiting here for a very long time. I sense that they are, in fact, Dakkur tek.

Naero c
overed her mouth nervously, rubbing her lips with one hand. “So many. Any attack from here would take time to reach us,” Naero said, “but the enemy could still rain death on our worlds from far away with such weapons.”

“
It might not even take so long,” Alala added. “Look at the possible variations on these missile payload delivery systems. These smartmissiles can jump, multiple times, as needed. They can cloak, and even phaze if need be, and they can carry any kind of payload packed into them–atomics, nerve agents, biochem warfare–gigabombs.”

Naero grew even more concerned. “
Not just a rain of death–a storm of total destruction. After we get Baeven back, Intel will need to send some spyfixer nebulae out here to take these systems over. We can pweak them and convert them for our purposes, against our industrious foes. Who knew that they’ve been working out this way for so long?”

Everything they continued to find was increasingly chilling. Their determined enemies seemed to be
way ahead of them, as far as the planning phases.

At their next startapping session, Naero and Om made a huge mistake.

Cosmic power rushed into them.

They took in too much, and it still kept coming.

Om, this is just like before–but a thousand times worse. What the hell do we do? How do we stop it?

I do
n’t know. I’m trying.

Even worse, her Cosmic disease latched onto the excess wild power
raging through her, and accelerated completely out of control.

Intensely painful glowing sores erupted all over her body.

Naero was forced to transform into an energy being to keep the Cosmic sores from melting her physical body into greasy slag on the spot.

She pulsed with Cosmic force, glowing brighter and brighter, beginning to shimmer.

Haisha, Om. I can’t see straight. We’d better transport out into space. If we detonate, we could vaporize the entire ship.

Hold on. I’m going to try something.

Om, it’s too late. I’m going to explode!

Even worse, her Dark Beast wrestled with her to break free, feeding on all of the excess power. Yet the raging contagion of her Cosmic illness sapped its strength and caused it just as much agony as it did her.
It suffered as she suffered.

Hold on, Naero. Hang on!

I can’t, Om. I’m going to burst. Help me!

In desperation, Om
took control. It felt like he was shredding them.

A bright flash
–pain as if they were being ripped to even smaller pieces.

B
oth of them shrieked in agony, but they finally broke the startapping link, and closed the floodgates at last.

They were alive.

They had survived…somehow.

Yet Naero instantly sensed that something was very, very wrong.

Naero shook herself, sat up, and stared.

Impossible
.

She
blinked and looked into the blinking eyes of an exact duplicate of herself, both of them slightly shorter.

Shorter.

Shorter? Damn that all to hell.

S
omehow…she was even shorter now?

Haisha!
She might as well blow up all over again.

Nobody warned her about
this
possibility.

Naero II–
the Sequel–grinned back at her like some flipped-out dope.

“H
aisha! Hey, at least we didn’t blow up, right?”

“
Naero…” another voice gasped.

Both of them glanced over and blinked at a very strange humanoid being, and covered their mouths.

This being was male, obviously naked, and he was pure black. Not just black–black, black. Black like a singularity itself, literally smoking with wisps of Cosmic ichor, vapor, and coruscating energies.

Even when he opened his mouth, inside of him was all black.

Only his eyes were a different color.

Deep violet eyes, just like
the two Naero’s he gawked at.

“
Om?”

“
Yes. It is I. What the hell, eh? At last, I’ve got my own body!”

This was
all too crazy. Waaay too whacked out. Naero checked deep within herself quickly–and panicked.

“
The KDM. Om, it’s gone. I don’t have it inside me anymore.” She almost panicked, then turned to the other Naero.

“
Is it in you?”

“
Hey, don’t look at me. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“
It’s in me, En,” Om said. “Don’t worry, I still have it.”

“
Om, what happened? What the hell did we do?”

“
I’m sorry. It was the only thing I could think of to keep us from being destroyed. I used all of that energy to fragment us into three parts. Myself, and the other you are replicants…if you will. Copies of you. I just happened to pweak myself and make me male–at the last instant–to match my personality.”

“
Well, good job. Haisha. We’re not dead. Now frickin’ change us back.”

“
Screw that,” Naero II protested, crossing her arms in front of herself defiantly. “I wanna live a little. This throcks.”

“
Uh…sorry, N. I…kind of don’t know how to do that.”

“
Say again, Om? Now get with it. Just…reverse the process, like re-absorbing a replicant.”

“
Very well. Tell me how? I don’t even fully understand how I did it. I just guessed. I haven’t a clue how to reverse it all.”

This was bad.
For once, Naero was speechless.

Om had done this–replicating
–even transferring his own mind and personality, and giving Naero II her own, independent, conscious thought.

For right now, it appeared that
Om had done all of this, and he would need to find a way to undo it.

Naero s
hook her head.

Damnation.

Naero II looked around, feeling her stomach. “What is this sensation? Oh, I know. Wow. I’m really hungry and thirsty all of the sudden. I’ve never felt that way before. You guys got anything to eat or drink?”

Naero didn’t know what
else to do, so she startapped briefly, and transported them back to her quarters.

She certainly didn’t want anyone to see her new…additions. How would she
possibly explain them?

She and Om had
gotten themselves into this mess.

Just maybe
, they could all find a way to fix it.

She gave Naero
II a borbble of Jett and a pod of Spum from her junk food stash.

“
Hey,” Om said. “I’ve never actually tasted food on my own before, either. Let me at some of that action.”

Naero
absently handed him the same meal deal, opening the borbble and the pod to show them how it was done.

Om and Naero II guzzled and ate with their fingers like starving people.
When they were finished, they tossed the empties on the floor and took turns belching and laughing back and forth.

“That was great!” Om said. “Give us some more.”

Naero II pushed past Naero and started raiding the junk food stash all on her own.

She looked back at Om
over her shoulder.

“
I’ve got all the good stuff, here. What’ll you give me in trade?”

Om grinned like a goof.

Naero’s mouth hung down.

Were her two replicants
actually starting to flirt with each other–right in front of her? Uh-oh. That would not do at all.

Okay, she had to do something–
try anything to slow things down. She needed time to think.

Tap.
Focus. Biomancy.

First she
needed to completely understand them, these replicants that were in theory, part of her.

While they focused on eating
more, Naero placed her hands on them and examined them all the way down to their genetics.

No surprise
s.

“
Hold still, now,” she told them.

“For what?” Om said.

Naero II giggled again. “That tickles.”

They were her. Both of them.

Genetic copies. Exact Replicants.

Like he said,
Om had just pweaked himself to be male–a slight variation.

But unlike her, mentally they were in part
, still like children. Short attentions spans–selfish–easily distracted. They were experiencing so much of the real world on their own for the first time. They had almost no frame of reference, other than some of her basic instincts and raw memories. They had her mind or at least its patterns and neural net–and at least some of her ideas and common experience.

Yet neither of them had ever had their own body before
, or were used to dealing with all of the stimuli around them. To them, existence was a total rush of power and stimulation. They were drunk–on reality.

Just as she
could be made tipsy by heady rushes of massive Cosmic power.

Naero
placed her hands on their heads gently, one at a time.

Being used to reality, she could modify their reactions and behavior. But at the moment, she needed time.

Time without having to babysit them so that she could figure out how to re-absorb them, and get them back inside of her.

Otherwise, this
had all the makings of a total disaster.

Sleep. She had to put them to sleep
for the time being, and triggered those needs in them.

“
Wow, I need to lay down,” Om said. “Is this what a food coma is like?”

Naero II
stumbled and yawned, stretching in true, catlike Naero fashion. “I’m sleepy too. Must be all this great chow.”

Naero
kept them from clunking heads and calmly helped them snuggle down on the nanobed in her quarters. She darkened the room.

A new terrifying thought occurred to her.

These two replicants had every potential ability she had.

And
perhaps…every flaw.

More frightening possibilities.
What if they had the same out of control powers, and startapped into the Cosmic flows, and got stuck in them, just like she did? What if they went insane like Danner?

What if they lost it and exploded?

Two Cosmic quantabombs detonating. Twice the bang. Twice the fun.

And not only that–if they were both like her–w
hat if each of them had their own Dark Beast?

Things kept getting more interesting, and more
terrifying each second.

And she could
still barely control herself.

Naero did
n’t know where to begin.

Tek. She needed t
ek. A medbed would help her analyze herself and them.

She transported to the medical bay, a part that was not being used currently.

It took only a moment to procure a medbed. She laid down upon it and analyzed herself first, using biomancy and teknomancy to determine the slightest changes in herself–including the deplorable loss of an entire three millimeters of height.

Her
complete self-analysis took over a standard hour.

Should she bring her replicants here, or the medbed back to her quarters? There was room in her quarters for the medbed, and with her greater need for secrecy, perhaps the latter would be best.