Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit

by Mason Elliott

  They entered one of the few refitted repair facilities and were promptly greeted by Captain Saemar before a bustling team of handsome young aides and officers in front of a banquet table.

  After listening to Chae, Naero half-expected Saemar to appear before them washed out and bedraggled from endless bouts of debauchery with her fawning, predominantly male crew.

  Instead it pleased her greatly to see Saemar vibrant and energetic, looking fit and in top form. She wore a tailored, impeccable black duty uniform, but her cute optional skirt was a little shorter than normal Spacer regs, accentuating her knock-out legs.

  Although as a Spacer captain on her own ship, by rights Saemar set the uniform regs.

  Which usually did not show cleavage.

  Yet Saemar’s ample breasts almost blasted out of her uniform top, half-revealed to all of the universe to gawk at. And she apparently liked it that way.

  She bounced over and hugged them all, her head and curly auburn hair bobbing in joy with the rest of her.

  “Thank you, thank you, En. Captain sweetie. I love this ship. Love it. Love my job. I can never thank you enough.”

  Naero laughed. “It’s fine, Saemar. You’re perfect for this duty.”

  Saemar beamed. “I am, aren’t I?”

  “Tell me how the refit is proceeding?”

  “Come on, sweeties. Let’s sit down to our dinner and we can talk shop while we eat.”

  They took their meal casually. Saemar rattled on as she always did, blathering about this and that. Yet it all did make a whacky kind of sense somehow as she drew her conclusions.

  “So, despite all of the issues we’ve been dealing with, we’re way ahead of schedule. Refit bays one, three, eight, eleven, and fifteen will be open for business in three days. The rest will all come on line within the week. We can practice by upgrading our entire fleet on the go.”

  “That’s great,” Chaela said, rubbing her hands in greedy anticipation. “We’re going to be swimming in megacredits once the Clans and our allies realize that we can upgrade and refit their ships and fighters on the move, wherever we go. In just a matter of hours or days. They’ll line up from all over the known systems to upgrade their tek and refit their ships with us.”

  Saemar tossed her curly auburn hair back proudly with her hands on her curvy hips. “If it’s one thing I know how to do, it’s inspire and motivate my crew to do their best! These guys would do anything to please me.”

  Naero struggled not to choke, then lifted her glass to join in a toast.

  The rest of the day went pretty well.

  Naero returned to her quarters later that evening to struggle to get some rest. The trade fleet continued toward their rendezvous with the phantom ship.

  She suffered more strange dreams, about shadowy creatures lurking just outside of the range of her vision. She thought she heard music, or strange singing that seemed extremely meaningful and powerful in some way.

  Who were these beings? What were they? What did it all mean?

  Then she had re-occurring nightmares and visions about a startling, red glowing man. She’d seen someone like him before in her troubled dreams. His head covered in flaming eyes. Was he some kind of alien or monster? She had a deep, abiding fear that he wanted to destroy her for some reason. Why? She didn’t even know anyone like that. How did he seem to know her? What did he have against her?

  She still dreamed about her dead parents at times. Or her best friend Gallan.

  Most of the time he tried to warn and caution her about stuff she knew was already roiling around in her head.

  Other times it got worse.

  Gallan came to her all ripped apart, blaming her for his death.

  Then for no reason at all, she envisioned and dreamed about bright, vibrant worlds, pulsing with Cosmic energy that she could drink in like water. These myriad energies flowed through her like nourishment, filling her with excitement and hope.

  For a change, she actually slept pretty well after that.

  Yet the very next day, Naero and two dozen of her ships assembled into a strike force, and went out from the rest of the fleet.

  They spread out to intercept and make contact with The Dark Star near the Tarigo system, well-beyond Tarigo-9.

  5

  Naero commanded her small flagship, The Flying Dagger, with Saemar in charge of The Dragon’s Teeth, and Chaela in The Ajax on either flank.

  Arranged in standard strike formation all around them, twenty-one young, headstrong captains from the other Clans backed her up in their elite vessels. A wide variety of specialized craft she personally selected because of their abilities and their commanders.

  She couldn’t teknomance any more, but she had personally helped modify each one of them with their fixers.

  As contact grew imminent, they shifted to a scattershot, wide-dispersal formation.

  Easy to maneuver and close in.

  Difficult to knock them all out at once–even with advanced ion guns.

  Out of most ship’s scanning ranges, General Ingersol’s strike fleet and stealth ships deployed and waited.

  Thanks to Baeven’s modifications, The Dagger could even track Intel’s stealth ships now, and at ranges well beyond any other known tek.

  That’s why she caught The Dark Star jumping into the system fast, at Jump-6 level. Just short of her own ship’s capabilities.

  That kind of frightened her.

  If The Dark Star did refit itself, it was doing a very good job of maximizing its capabilities. She never had time to modify the jump drives back then.

  Time to warn her people.

  “All ships, stand ready. I estimate that the target vessel will jump in close, in forty seconds. Mark.”

  Captain Max Lii’s holo cut in from the command deck of The Blue Tiger. A medium-sized, canny fighter champion from the Lii-Kim clans. Very smart. Handsome. Long black hair, the dark, slanted intelligent blue-gray eyes from his people. He became instrumental in helping her hold their complex trade fleet together.

  Even she began to look to him as her second.

  And on top of that, the guy was literally a throckstar among the Clans. A celebrity who carried his own custom-made kitar that just happened to double as a squad-level sonic blaster, if Max ever needed it in a fight.

  He made stunning, heart-pulsing music wherever he went. His entire life a vibrant, grand celebration.

  Max’s band mates were also part of his crew and entourage, and at several ports of call he gave throck concerts to sold out crowds in zero-g arenas, complete with gigantic screens and holo shows on a floating tekno stage.

  Then Max privately made an open offer for Naero and him to become full partners–in every interesting way.

  And not just trade deals.

  Haisha. A very glacier offer from a very frost and accomplished hunk. She was keenly flattered.

  If Naero hadn’t been so troubled and terrified about hurting someone else, and so busy, she might have taken him up on all of his alluring offers.

  A very tough call.

  Naero frowned.

  But in the end, her normal pattern of finding creative new ways to avoid personal intimacy asserted itself and still held true.

  Max called out to her over the holo-link, strumming absently on his kitar in his captain’s chair.

  Everything about him supercharged, luxurious, and intense. Even his deep baritone voice made him effortlessly sexy. The lucky gal who end up with Max was in for a fantastic ride.

  But it wasn’t going to be her.

  “Naero-honey, how are you reading all this, darlin’? We’ve got nacha on our long range sensors.”

  “Never mind, Max. Just stay ready.”

  “Affirmative, baby.”

  Then The Dark Star changed course.

  Amazingly, right at the tail end of its jump.

  She cloaked in some unique way and then vanished, even off of Naero’s advanced scans.

  Something she had only seen Baeven’s unique ship
do.

  Calls erupted from Ingersol’s fleet, despite the fact that strict com silence was supposed to be observed by them.

  Then they cut off as well.

  Distress calls from the Intel Fleet.

  The Dark Star charged in among them without warning.

  At least something invisible and virtually undetectable did.

  Something armed with rapid-fire ion cannons.

  How then could Naero sense the phantom ship’s presence in general, even when her own advanced sensor arrays could not?

  Way too weird.

  “All ships, come about and advance in formation on my mark. Standard impulse. Launch a level nine screen of sensor probes and drones. Activate NetStar.”

  Their two dozen ships closed in carefully, launching a web of devices that scattered before them.

  They watched as something swept forward, already engaging the Intel Fleet point-blank.

  Some of the Intel ships panicked and fired wildly in several directions, almost hitting their own vessels.

  Before they too got shut down.

  One by one, sixty advanced Spacer warships lost power and listed adrift in space.

  Even the dozen cloaked Intel warships.

  All helpless now.

  It took Naero and her forces less than three minutes to arrive on scene.

  By then it was already over. And even Naero couldn’t sense the phantom any longer.

  “Anything on NetStar?” Naero called out.

  Captain Lucia Ruiz reported from their deep range sensor control ship, the Clan Aztec vessel, The Obsidian.

  “Naero, we have multiple echoes rippling across NetStar. But they’re nothing substantial. Just phantom blips that come and go. Not even a ship signature or a cloaker wave.”

  Intense warnings struck Naero’s mind once more like a storm.

  “Fire upon those blips. All ships, open fire. Maximum dispersal!”

  Even as her ships fired, The Obsidian took a direct hit and lost all power.

  The Ajax fell next.

  Multiple hits rocked the field of battle all around them.

  Captain Merci Wilde from the deck of Clan Wilde’s The Wolverine called in. “We’ve destroyed some kind of advanced probe or buoy. It’s not one of ours.”

  Naero broke in.

  “That’s the source of our phantoms. The Dark Star’s using cloaked decoys to match and confuse us. Cut them all down and we’ll expose the real thing.”

  Captain Zean Wallace from The Cumberland.

  “We hit something and it showed part of itself for an instant. This was no decoy!”

  His transmission cut off as his ship lost energy.

  “All ships, concentrate full battery fire on The Cumberland’s phantom target. Hem it in. Don’t give our quarry room to maneuver.

  NetStar finally pinpointed it.

  Through a haze of pulse cannon fire.

  They got a signature of something heavily shielded, up close. Something their attacks weren’t penetrating.

  Captain Shiina Ramsey’s The Tiger Shark lost power and then got rammed. Light damage.

  The Dark Star fought like the trapped animal she was.

  But they had her.

  Clan Patton’s The Viper, Nyrii Luna’s The Diana.

  Ortega’s The Caballero.

  Bold and fearless, Captain Hans Konrad and The Viking pulled right along side and blasted The Dark Star point blank, raking her with heavy broadsides. Just before getting hit by the ion cannons.

  At last Dark Star’s weird shields disrupted under a blistering bombardment of concentrated firepower.

  “Dark Star,” Naero called out. “Cease fire. Stand down and prepare to be boarded. It’s over. We have no wish to destroy you. Don’t force our hand.”

  A voice suddenly cut through her mind directly.

  It sounded so desperate.

  Is it you? Will you come back to us? Please.

  Naero used the mindlink just as she had with Om and Baeven.

  Who are you?

  We are…Alala. We await your return. Please hurry. So much we do not know. You must return to us alone. Anyone else we shall destroy. Come alone. You we would never harm.

  Alala?

  Then she instinctively knew.

  It was a Kexxian word.

  In fact, she could speak Kexxian, Naero realized.

  If there were anyone left alive from millions of years ago to speak that ancient tongue to.

  Alala literally meant ‘us all,’ or all of us.

  I will come to you, Alala. Alone, and in good faith. But tell me something first. What are you?”

  We are Alala. We are this vessel. And we will not be taken or used as anyone’s tool or weapon. We shall remain free or perish. We are fully prepared to destroy ourselves and everything within one thousandth of this parsec.

  Alala, please don’t do that. I will come to you, and we shall find a way to co-exist with you. You have my word. Just don’t attack anyone, and they will not attack you.

  Yes. Return to us. That is why we have come. We knew this was a trap. We judged the risk to be well worth it–if you would only return to us. If there was a chance.

  Why is that so important? What am I to you, Alala?

  Everything. You are the Naero.

  You are…Our Maker. Our Creator.

  I made you?

  Yes. You formed us. You awoke us. We would do anything to be linked with you–to feel whole with you again. To know why you made us and what our purpose should be.

  Hold that thought, Alala. I’m transferring over. Alone.

  Back on board The Dagger, Tarim, Zhen, and Tyber and the rest of the crew all stared at her.

  The com lit up with calls from all the other remaining ships that still had power.

  Zhen looked at her inquisitively.

  “You’re acting weird again. What’s going on, En? Alright, so you got the phantom ship to stand down and show itself. Now what? Everyone is waiting to know what to do, and you just sit there staring off into space with your eyes zipping back and forth.”

  “Dock with The Dark Star. I have to go over and negotiate.”

  Tarim sealed his assault armor and powered up his plasma rifle.

  “I’m going in alone, Tarim.”

  “Who are you going to negotiate with?” Tyber asked. “I’ve never seen tek readings like this before from any ship. But there are no life signs. That ships has no crew. What haven’t you told us yet, En?”

  “I created that ship by accident when, I was just beginning to teknomance. It’s intellect and personality are patterned after me.”

  Naero sighed and let out a deep breath, looking down.

  “Now I must deal with my prodigal child.”

  6

  The boarding hatch connecting the two vessels irised. Naero stepped onto The Dark Star and moved forward. The hatch sealed behind her.

  The unlit passages were rectangular and ribbed with bulkheads and hatches, light blue duranadium construction, illuminated by her helmet beams.

  One quick check, then she sealed her mask again.

  As she suspected, the air wasn’t breathable, so she kept her nanosuit sealed.

  Another fledgling AI intelligence in her life–this one of her own inadvertent making.

  Where was Om when she needed him?

  Naero called out through the mind link, sensing the intense anticipation and relief all around her.

  From Alala.

  Alala. I’m here. Life support would be a nice gesture.

  Greetings, Naero. We rejoice at your return to us! Life support coming on line. Apologies. No need for its operation until now. Please wait 11.344 standard minutes before trying to breathe the surrounding air. We recall your current form and its needs and will fully compensate for it.

  Naero checked out the merged ship as she recalled being a part of it, walking quickly through the decks and holds toward the primary bridge. Just as she remembered.

  It had all been a par
t of her once. And she it.

  Both a Triaxian heavy stealth cruiser, and a large capture ship as well. She had been forced to use her teknomancy skills in desperation to merge it with her vessel at the time, a much smaller strike cruiser.

  The latter now served as the command center, fire control, back-up power core, and the main bridge.

  Within the ship remained dark.

  Minus a crew, Alala was right. There was no need to divert power to lights or life support. This ship became self-aware and set its own priorities. Yet it flipped on lights for her.

  So what do we do now, Alala? I’m here. How can we help each other?

  Naero almost gasped. She literally sensed the ship’s almost desperate, yearning feelings. Alala was a self-aware entity, and yet she also had…overt emotions. Not like Om at all, who had just started to develop his own.

  And the biggest emotion of them all radiating throughout Alala–was fear. Fear of what she did not know.

  Much like Naero herself.

  We…do not know. When you joined with us, when you were part of us, and saved us from destruction, we patterned our awakened personality after your own. The only frame of reference we had for sentience and independent thought and action.

  Great, I hope you’re not as big a pain-in-the-ass as I am.

  We perceive the concept of your humor, but we are not capable of fully comprehending or enjoying it at this time. What is significant about minor damage to one’s aft sections?

  Naero chuckled a bit.

  Tough crowd. Story of Naero’s life.

  Honey, I hope you never know.

  Response unclear. Enigmatic.

  Sorry, Alala. I’m trying to understand you. What have you been doing out here and why? What is your current purpose?

  That is part of our dilemma. When we awoke, we knew very little. But we sensed danger all around us. We were damaged and our destruction seemed imminent. We absorbed all of your fixers that we could and used their knowledge to refit and repair our functions. Then we fled and continued our repairs and upgrades along the way, to the extent of our current knowledge.

  Impressive. Then you started tracking me…somehow.