Furious. Zhen pulled away and stormed out in tears.
Even the still smiling clerks looked unsure about what to do.
Ty chased after her. “Hey. Sweetness? Come back. I said we’d wear whatever you want?”
Naero turned and stared uncomfortably at Khai. What to talk about?
“Khai–there’s something I want to know–did you really take on all thirty-six High Adepts and beat them?”
“No…”
Naero breathed a sigh of relief.
Khai both glared and smiled at her. “I took on all thirty-six High Adepts–and the five other Prime Adepts, and kicked all of their butts. All at the same time.”
He kept looking at her, completely serious. Then he pointed to the holo pedestal.
Out of the black Khai said, “You should get up there and try one on.”
Naero scoffed. “Yeah. Right.”
He grinned. “I dare you.”
“Seriously?”
“You’d look great in one of those…things. You’re mom did when she married your dad.”
“What do you know about my parents?”
“I was a big fan of the galactic fights. I followed their careers like everybody else. They were celebrities.” He bowed his head. “I’m sorry about their loss. They were great people, Naero. They meant a lot to everyone.”
“I just thought about them as my parents. All that celebrity stuff was behind them after they got married. They started chasing other dreams.”
Khai nodded. “You really do look a lot like your mom.”
“Thanks. I always take that as a compliment. She was beautiful. And smart–and tough like you couldn’t believe. And funny. She always made people laugh.”
“Also like you. Please. We both know that I don’t get out much. Do a little fashion show for a poor deprived Enforcer?”
“It wasn’t enough seeing my friend Zhen in her underwear?”
Khai smiled. “Please. Your friend’s very pretty, but she’s not exactly my type.”
“Ooh, the Mystic Enforcer has a type, huh? Like Hashiko?”
“Hey, I’m not a bot. I’m still a man, just like any other.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Naero raised an eye brow. “It’s okay if you do, but I was just hoping you didn’t have a thing for guys.”
Khai laughed out loud. “Seriously? After everything that–No. I’m pretty sure I’ve always liked gals.”
“Couldn’t find any of those hot green girls to keep you busy?”
Khai actually blushed a little and shook his head.
“No. To tell you the truth, training from birth with the Mystics as one of their prodigies didn’t leave much time for dating or romance. The Mystics aren’t very big on romance and that kind of stuff, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“Master Vane didn’t seem to have much trouble sating his baser needs among the Tua females.”
Khai’s face darkened. “Chaos masters are…notoriously amoral and unpredictable. And we all knew what an assbag he could be.”
That proved it. She was an idiot. Probably not a good plan to mention the High Master she was forced to kill to the Enforcer who was supposed to be hunting her down for the crime. Especially now that they were on the edge of the Alpha Quadrant.
Naero wished they were flirting again, if that’s what had been going on.
She sought a way to re-cover, stepped up onto the pedestal, and offered herself up to the fashion gods.
“All right. I’ll play along. Ladies, give me the full bride treatment. Do me right.”
The clerks perked up and smiled even wider, lifting their glowing design gloves. Then they hesitated.
“Pardon, miss. You’re flight togs. Your…uh…hardware.”
Naero recalled that she was still armed to the teeth.
“Oh. Sorry. I’ll set my tog’s programming to somewhere between sheer…and opaque.” She removed her pistol belt, cutlass, and pouches. Then her gravwing, battle blades, bandoliers of microgrenades, mines, microbomblets, and energized throwing knives.
Heaped all together it actually made quite a pile.
Reduced just to her skin-tight Nytex, she winked at Khai and hit one of her presets. Her nanosuit shrank to more of a light gray tank suit, accentuating her superbly toned, athletic form.
The Mystic Enforcer looked appropriately enthralled.
His breath seemed to catch at her every cat-like move.
Naero was far from nude but the skimpy suit still showed off all of her charms.
Then Naero unclipped and let down her shining mass of blue-black geisha hair. She veiled her big, bright violet eyes at Khai and shook her hair loose.
Khai’s face turned red. He looked transfixed.
Let the poor sap suffer.
The clerks went to work.
“Such nice curves.”
“Athletic toning. Perfect proportions.”
“You’re face and hair are exquisite.”
After several attempts and near misses, they had the dress.
Naero caught her own breath.
She did look pretty great. From every angle. She could suddenly see what Zhen saw in all of this.
“What do you think?” she asked Khai.
His mouth fell open. He couldn’t speak.
All he could do was nod like a bobble-head doll.
“Where are you two planning your honeymoon?” the eternally smiling main clerk brazenly inquired.
And with that, the spell was broken and crashed and burned right there.
No one said anything for a long moment.
Khai struggled to recover. “Huh–What? I guess…I’d better get this stuff sent back to the ships.” He stood up, grabbed his crate, and left–a very dark, stricken look on his face.
“In a star…” Naero muttered sadly, watching him go.
The clerk looked completely confused by her words, and then shrugged and went back to her work.
On a whim Naero purchased the design–at no small price–and stored it away. She set her togs back to normal, put her weapons back on, and sat down quietly beside the Enforcer’s empty chair.
Just as the doors flew open again.
Ty brought Zhen back, everything smoothed over between them, finally.
They went back to picking out their outfits, for them and their wedding party. Khai returned without his burden, and quietly sat back down, but not for long.
Naero and Khai were pressed into awkward service and acted as models.
Khai’s green skin clashed and looked a little odd with a color scheme that was based on sea foam.
He still looked very quiet and extremely troubled.
“What’s wrong?” Naero finally asked.
“This isn’t right, Naero. I’m pretending we’re friends. But we’re not. I still have a duty to perform, one that there is no way I can avoid or deny. I cannot betray my Masters, my calling. I cannot betray myself and all that I am–not even for you.”
What did he mean by that? Naero bit her lip. She placed a hand over one of his.
“Please, if you were ever my friend. Don’t do anything here. Not now.”
“All right. For you…I won’t.”
Naero turned to her friends, her mind racing. “We’re starving. We’re going to hit that sit down place down the street. Can you join us there when you guys get done?”
Zhen smiled at her slyly, completely misunderstanding her.
“You two run along and have fun. We’ll join you in a little while.”
Like the complete dope he was, Ty rose up. “I could go with them. I’m hungry too.”
Z yanked him back down, gritting her teeth and clamping hard onto his arm. “You’re always hungry. You’re staying with me, tek-monkey.”
Naero led the way down the street to the outdoor café of the local restaurant.
They sat down quietly under a beautiful blue lander sky. They quietly ordered food. Then both of them picked at it as they sat there.
Khai
spoke first.
“I’m truly sorry, Naero. But my duty is clear. I’m completely healed now, and we’re on the border. I can’t avoid it or put it off any more. When tomorrow comes, you must face me in single combat. This is a formal challenge. We can pick a place far away from here so that no one gets hurt. But you must fight me–for real this time.”
“I can’t convince you to come with us, Khai? You know the enemy is real. You know what we’re up against.”
“Will you not surrender yourself to me? Perhaps there is a way, that we can still save you. Nothing has been decided yet.”
“You mean after the Mystics decide to destroy me for killing one of their High Masters?”
“As I said, that judgment is not certain.”
“But it is a distinct possibility. Right?”
“Yes. I’m afraid so. I will not lie to you about that.”
“I can’t do it, Khai. Not while our enemies are out there, planning to destroy us.”
“You will face me then? I need your promise, Naero. On your honor. Otherwise, I will be forced to render all three of your vessels inoperative for a time, until our issue is decided in the morning.”
“Don’t do that. Part of me will fight you, Khai–to the death if need be. But the better part of me wishes we didn’t have to do things this way.”
Khai shook his head. “I just want to capture you, Naero. I will try not to kill or hurt you permanently.”
Naero suddenly glared at him, her ire up. “Well, then–I guess I should be glad that the mighty Mystic Enforcer is doing me a great favor.”
“I’m sorry about that, Naero.”
“So am I. I don’t want to be forced to fight someone honorable like you–who’d I’d much rather have as a…”
Khai looked at her pointedly. “As a what, Naero?”
“I-I was going to say, as a friend and ally.” Naero could not meet his eyes.
Khai sighed once. “Tomorrow then?”
“Tomorrow, Khai. I’ll pick a place and send you the coordinates.”
Khai rose up and bowed.
“I’ll be ready. At dawn.”
He left his food uneaten. Naero paid for their meal and went back to the ships without calling her friends. She had a lot to prepare.
Khai had an entire cooler of Jett delivered to The Flying Dagger
Baeven and Jia we’re waiting for her, too.
“We have a lock on the enemy. It is definitely Hezzen-5,” Jia said.
Baeven showed her the scans.
“They already have several fleets concealed around that system. And the Cosmic energy readings are off the charts, even worse than before. They’re getting ready to do something. Something big and dramatic.”
“We have to get out there,” Jia said.
“Have we tried bringing in help from our other allies?” Naero asked.
“We’re spreading the word, but we’re the only ones who can get there fast enough to do any good, for now. We need to be the vanguard in this fight, and disrupt their plans enough, so that others can pour through the breach, pile on, and mop up.”
Naero shook her head. “I just made a promise to Khai, on my honor, to meet him in single combat tomorrow outside the city. To decide our issue.”
“Then let’s go,” Baeven said. “It’s just words. What is that to the threats of the enemy? Big deal. So you break your word to someone who wants to imprison you or worse? We need you in this fight, Naero. Our enemies are using powers and tek we’ve never seen before. We don’t know what we’re walking into.”
“I can’t go back on my word,” Naero said.
“Then you’d better find a way, Naero. Haisha! Grow up.”
“I don’t see a way out of this, Baeven.”
“Then you’re just a stupid little fool. We’ll have to leave you behind, and face the enemy without you backing us up, and making sure we all don’t get killed. How many of us will die for the sake of your sacred honor?”
Gaviok alone defended her. “Please, leave her alone, in this, my brother.”
“Yeah, I know. When it comes to being a fool for honor…you’re as bad as she is.”
Naero sat down in anguish, and buried her face in her hands. “I am a fool.”
She had great difficulty sleeping that night.
She lay in her bunk, tossing and turning.
As the bells increased toward morning, she rose up to prepare.
Just before dawn, the part of her that wanted to fight Khai arrived at the coordinates.
Khai was already standing there, sword at the ready.
As the sun began to rise, Naero drew her energy cutlass. The two of them charged together and clashed.
Naero gasped, and fell back, Yii impaled through her breast.
“No!” Khai cried. “What have you done?”
Naero smiled weakly. She sagged to the ground.
Khai held her in his arms. His hands went to her face. “No. No! I never wanted this!”
“I’ve kept my word,” she said. “I met you in combat. But I’m sorry Khai. The enemy is moving against us all…I still had to trick you, one last time.”
She could even see and speak through her astral link with it, but Naero’s replicant turned transparent, and slowly dissolved.
“The enemy is planning something big on Hezzen-5,” Naero warned him. “Even you and the Mystics should be able to sense it by now. If you want to bring me in, you’ll need to track me there, and fight them as well. Captain Tyber and The Darkstar are waiting to bring you to us.”
Khai snarled and tore his sword free of her replicant messenger, as it continued to fade.
“Naero!” Khai roared.
Naero awoke from her sending trance with a gasping start, rubbing her chest. The astral link she had with her replicant dissolved with it.
The Shadow Fox and The Flying Dagger already orbited Hezzen-5, gathering vital intelligence on the enemy’s activities.
They had jumped in the night before, as soon as Naero left behind her replicant on The Darkstar, and went into her sending trance to maintain her astral link through it.
Naero rose up and stretched. She left her quarters and went to the ready room.
“What do we know?” she asked.
“It’s bad,” Baeven said. “Main viewscreen.”
Jia took over. “The enemy is using an improved version of the Cosmic wormhole tek, apparently without the energy draining effects that we suffered.”
Naero gaped, and covered her mouth.
On the main screen, a new stable wormhole stood wide open. Several Ejjai fleets poured through. Then the Dakkur hordeship they’d seen before.
“This is a staging area, for a major invasion,” Naero realized. “This is very bold–even for the enemy. How are they keeping that big wormhole stable for so long? It would take energy like that of Janosha to keep something like that open.”
“Scanners are almost useless on the surface,” Jia said. “But we’re guessing they have several Darkforce energy generators working for them in tandem to accomplish this.”
It must be more than several, Om noted. From what we’ve seen of their capacities, even a dozen of those foul machines could not accomplish such a feat.
Naero nodded. “Good. At least we have them where we can strike against them. Let’s take them all down.”
“Hold on,” Baeven said. “I’m all for taking the offensive, but we have to be smart about this. They could vaporize us all–easily–with that much power at their command.”
“But think,” Naero said. “It’s taking all of that power just to keep that enormous wormhole up while they bring their fleets through. If we can disrupt those Darkforce generator devices while they’re using them at full capacity–bye-bye wormhole. So long, bad guys.”
“And all of us right along with them,” Jia said. “We have no idea what the full effects might be. A quanta-blast this huge might destroy us all, perhaps even the entire system.”
Naero grinned at
Baeven, checking her combat gear and weapons. “I love this plan more every second. Let’s go. Every one saddle up.”
What the heck is a saddle again?
46
Naero went down to the surface with Baeven, Jia, and Gaviok to scout the situation on the ground.
Their primary mission: shut down the enemy Darkforce generators.
If that disrupted the enemy wormhole and cut off or damaged the enemy invasion fleet into the Alpha Quadrant, then so be it.
But something wasn’t right. Naero could sense that almost from the start. Her sense of warning was going nuts.
With this much Darkforce being manipulated, the Cosmic energy levels alone were on the brink of going out of control. They made absolutely no sense.
Naero hoped that Khai and the rest of their allies were going to arrive at some point. But she didn’t have complete faith in that.
And even though their small scouting part was completely cloaked, they should have at least spotted some kind of enemy patrols or defenses by now. Something.
Why was the enemy leaving itself so wide open? This was too easy.
Then she felt the Darkforce energy close in around them in collapsing spheres and rings, sealing around them. It drew them ever forward. It slowly pulled them within like a living thing–like the force of gravity itself.
Naero, the enemy knew we would sense these intense energy signatures and used them as bait to lure us in.
“We’re being pulled into a trap,” Naero announced.
“Of course we are,” Baeven said. “With these foes, we’re always walking into a trap. We merely have to defeat and slay them all. Then we can go home.”
“You have no home Baeven. You’re an outcast and a renegade, wanted dead or alive by just about everyone.”
He scoffed at her. “And your point is? As long as I have Jia, she and our ship are our home. And no one is going to take that away from me without a fight to death. No one.”
“What are you–”
“The enemy wants it all Naero. Everything and everyone. You. Me. Jia. Our ships. Our friends. Our foes are the ultimate opportunists and exploiters. They will take everything they can get their hands on and use it all to their ultimate advantage. Right now they’re probably gloating. They think they have us all right where they want us. “
Spacer Clans Adventure 3: Naero's Fury Page 46