Or at least until she fell asleep.
What she wouldn’t give now to hear his deep, rumbling, authoritarian voice again. He could go on about whatever he wanted to. And she would look up into his intense, wise face, and watch and listen.
She would not fall asleep this time.
If only she could be with him again, see him, and smile up at him.
Even into their teens, their father would find her or Jan asleep at the education screens, studying, or working late on some task. He’d scoop them up gently into his huge arms as if they weighed nothing, and carry them to their bunks to tuck them in.
At times she was only half-asleep, and waited patiently for her turn, still and smiling.
He’d shush any crew they came across not to wake them, even her mom. Often her mom would follow along.
Her parents usually kissed their foreheads lightly before they left.
Other times, they’d stand smiling for a while, just watching their kids breathe peacefully before they secured the panels, making sure she and Jan were safe.
Several times she swore she saw tears slip down her father’s face as he smiled down at them.
Their dad was big guy.
They were like dolls in his arms.
But he was the one who checked on them each and every night, without fail.
Tarthan Wallace Ramsey: The Annihilator, Heavyweight Champion Fighter of the Galaxy. A devoted lovesick giant of a husband and father.
A gentle pushover for his family.
How could she explain to anyone what her father meant to her? What her parents meant to her?
The white fire of her mother’s quiet, indomitable spirit.
What both her parents meant to her and Jan?
How to speak of all that from the heart, without losing it and simply bawling.
Perhaps tears were meant to be.
But Mom and Dad wouldn’t have wanted that.
They had lived every day to the limits, pushing themselves, driving everyone in their crews to be their best and pursue their dreams, helping them if they could along the way. They shared their profits generously with their fleets and crews. Paid better than the best wages for the best people.
They’d helped everyone, never held anyone back.
Most of their commanders and officers went on to have their own ships, even their own fleets like Aunt Sleak. Many of their friends joined their ill-fated expedition to the Unknown Sectors, standing by them to the end.
And her parents had adored each other. Even in their late forties, their passion for each other and their joint dreams to explore the beyond still burned bright.
Naero was proud of them. They had gone out fighting side by side against impossible odds, living their dreams. Even dying for them.
She suddenly stopped and blinked.
Perhaps that’s what she should say. Give voice to all the beauty and poetry about them and their lives that would always live on. That lived and danced around in her head, mingled with joy and sorrow.
In a way, few could be so lucky.
She still missed them.
Time raced by. She slowly lowered herself and all her trash to the floor, cleaned up her cabin and herself, brushed her long dark hair that fell to her waist, and got into her dress blacks and boots.
Jan arrived at her door to collect her, wearing his best uniform. He looked so handsome.
Together, they made their way to the Grand Hall on board The Dromon, where nearly fifteen hundred people of Clan Maeris awaited their arrival. Her parents were famous throughout the Clans and all the known systems. Their funeral would be transmitted far and wide.
No pressure there.
Along the way, honor guards with gleaming swords and polished energy rifles snapped to attention and saluted them, honoring Clan Maeris and the memory of their parents.
The huge blast doors to the Grand Hall stood wide open.
Traditional Spacer music filtered out. Oldfashioned, folksy thiolin and string music, accented by pipes and drums.
A romantic blend of stirring flight tunes and old romantic ballads that most Spacers knew. Some of them even old Spacer shanties and drinking songs. Many voices sang along.
Her parents enjoyed singing and dancing, and often sang aloud whenever and wherever they wished.
A Spacer wake was a celebration of the lives of those who had passed and taken the final journey, the final jump into the Unknown.
Pictures and videos, and holos of her parents flashed by and cycled on the remembrance walls, collected from many sources.
Anything from them as children, their many accomplishments, their courtship during their championship fighting days, their wedding, and them as parents themselves.
The latest shots were of them overseeing the construction of The Omaria, named after the great Spacer explorer Shelan Omaria, a distant ancestor of Clan Maeris and most Spacers.
Then the launching of the exploration flagship, and the assembly of its fleet.
Their fleet setting out on one of their missions.
INS interviews with them and officers of the exploration fleet, marking the historic occasion of them blasting off, beyond the deep range detection buoys of known space.
Into the vast Unknown Sectors, more than three quarters of the unexplored galaxy.
Mysterious uncharted regions that swallowed up ships and entire naval fleets, and never gave them back.
And did so again.
Naero gasped when the crowds parted and she first spotted the coffins.
A shudder rippled through her. She dropped Jan’s hand and rushed up to them.
Twin obsidian coffins, their edges rounded, polished to mirror finishes and decorated with gold letters. Her parents’ names, their clan and fleet rankings and their many, lifetime accomplishments.
The flags and banners of the forty-nine Clans and their fleets hung at half position, in honor and respect for the dead.
Naero touched the closest casket–her mom’s.
It startled her when it went from opaque to transparent.
Shining within, she saw what could only be a holo of her mother’s small body in her admiral blacks, lying there at peace. As if she were only sleeping.
As if she might open up her eyes and–
Naero backed away and gasped. She almost sobbed.
Then her temper flared; she snarled like an animal.
She pointed at the coffin. “This is wrong. It’s a lie. They’re not in there. Where is Aunt Sleak?”
Jan tried to calm her down. She pulled violently away from his hands on her arms.
“They’re not really in there,” Naero insisted, almost in a panic. “Who ordered this charade?”
Aunt Sleak jumped down the ten meters from the balcony as if it were a step off. She rose up tall, elegant, and cold in her captain’s long dress coat and high boots.
A gilded energy cutlass decorating her hip. A sign of high honor and rank in the Clans.
“Calm yourself, Naero. I didn’t know this would–”
“You didn’t think this would upset me? I can’t see them again. I will never see them again. They’re not really in there. We didn’t retrieve anything. I’ve lost every part of them. Forever.”
Aunt Sleak clamped a hand of steel on Naero’s arm for an instant.
“Walk with me, Naero. That’s an order. Do not cause a scene. Not here. Not now.”
Naero shuddered, took a deep breath, unclenched her fists, which were shot down at her sides, and followed orders.
They walked on alone together, away from where the crowd was gathered. At last her aunt broke the silence.
“You may yet be a captain yourself one day. Then you will learn that wakes and funerals aren’t just for Clan and crew who have passed on. They’re milestones for everyone, even for the dead themselves, and not just for the immediate survivors. People die all the time. This is part of life, and it must be cherished and celebrated.”
Naero stopped and pointed back behin
d them. “Those coffins, are empty.”
Her aunt turned slowly to face her.
“Of course they are. Everyone understands that. It’s a standard procedure for bodies not recovered, for remains that can’t be recognized. A file holo of the departed shows them as they were. At peace now. As people should remember them. We can do nothing more for them, Naero. Yet we can respect their memories, adore them in honor, and take strength from their accomplishments and the way they lived. Their love for us, each other, and ours for them. It is fitting and proper that we do these things.”
Naero suddenly realized that she had misread everything and grossly overreacted. Like a fool, like a child, like a total idiot.
“I’m sorry,” she said, taking in a deep breath.
She actually went down on one knee. “I…apologize. I thought only of myself and my own selfish grief. I’ve always avoided wakes.”
Aunt Sleak walked to one side and smiled sadly.
“Your parents were beloved by many, Naero. And not just in the Clans. They belong to the galaxy. In ways that I never will. Many more knew and respected them for who and what they were. What they represented. Courage. Compassion. Hope. Love. They lived a great passionate love story for all to see, and went forward not to conquer, but to know. To make our times better by them being among us, not worse. The universe is much poorer without them in it.”
Naero bit her lip and nodded. “Again, I most humbly apologize. I can see now that you have only the highest respect and admiration for them. And that all of this clearly honors them and their lives.”
Aunt Sleak nodded. Then, the most surprising thing of all, she pulled Naero up, flung her arms around her, and held her close.
“I loved her. I loved my sister, Naero. For all that we fought over and disagreed about over the years, I would have gladly given my life in exchange for Lythe’s, and your father’s, a thousand times over. I loved them both. They live in my heart to this second; them, and all they stood for.”
Aunt Sleak pulled back and rested her gloved hand on the hilt of her cutlass. “And I will not stand by while their dreams are crushed and cast aside by any foe, great or small. Not if I have anything to say or do about it. When we learn who did this, they shall know the vengeance of Clan Maeris, by the weight of our hands.”
“You’re damn right they will. Thank you.”
“Believe it.”
“I...I just don’t know what Jan and I are going to do without them,” Naero said. “We’ve lost them; we’ve lost everything.”
They parted. Aunt Sleak smiled at her again. “Dry your tears, spacechild. You and Jan still have family. I am your family. Everyone in our fleet and all the Clans are your family. You will not go forward alone. Not if any of us have anything to say about it. You will always have a place among us as one of our own. You’ve more than earned that. I’m proud to say it.”
Aunt Sleak smiled and cocked her head at Jan. “But that brother of yours is turning into a lecherous bum.”
Naero burst out laughing and covered her mouth.
“You know it’s true,” Aunt Sleak whispered. “Whenever he’s not on duty, all he wants to do is chase lander tail. What? Spacer girls aren’t good enough for him?” She put an arm around Naero.
“Come on. For the first time in a long while, I’m going to get roaring drunk tonight. Then I’m going to make Zalvano beg for mercy.”
Naero giggled, her aunt’s candidness making her feel a little uncomfortable.
“I strongly suggest you might try to do the same, Naero. I mean the getting-drunk part. Leave Zalvano to me; find your own guy.”
Naero giggled and nodded. “Of course I will. I mean, not tonight. In the future. Maybe.”
“You wanna know a secret, Naero? I took the plunge when I was fifteen. Never looked back and never regretted it. Never met boy or man who was my equal, until my Zal came along.”
Aunt Sleak’s eyes glittered and she let out a long satisfied sigh. “By the Powers, he makes my bones rattle. That’s what you want to find. What your parents had with one another. You need that fire in your core when you look into a man, and he looks right back into you.”
“What about my mom?” Naero asked. “I never really got to talk to her alone or with the other women about such things. Did she have...many lovers?”
Aunt Sleak smiled sadly and pointed to the pictures flashing across the memory walls.
“She ever only had one, spacechild. And once she set her course on him, she pursued him with passion’s fury. Lythe always did everything her own way. She was an unstoppable force of nature–kind of of like you, really. Yet she waited longer than you before she took a lover to her bed.
“Your father never knew what hit him. She knocked him out like none of his opponents ever could, and he married her as fast as he was able, forever enchanted under her spell. They were lovers like this universe has never seen. You should pray that you find a love like that.”
Naero smiled.
“You calmed down now?” Aunt Sleak asked.
“I am.”
“Good. Let’s get back to Jan and your friends. The time will come for us to say our piece soon. And then we’ll party all night in their honor. Remember what I said about getting drunk. There’s a tradition of that at Spacer wakes. You’re almost of age. You should loosen up and try it, at least once.”
Her aunt was really giving her permission to booze it up? Naero went through the night in a haze.
Within the hour, Aunt Sleak brought them up to the balcony with the other officers and then took her place at the central podium to address the crews.
She spoke for about twenty minutes, recalling the lives and deeds of Naero and Jan’s parents, mourning the loss of their blood, and calling for vengeance upon their slayers, upon any and all Spacer enemies.
A huge wave of fierce applause rose up at that.
Then Aunt Sleak turned her glance to Naero and Jan. She called them by name.
“Their children still live and work among us. Step forward by my side, my niece, Leftenant Naero Amashin Maeris, and my nephew, Commander Janner Maeris Ramsey.”
Naero came up on her right, Jan on her left. Neither of them knew what to expect.
Aunt Sleak drew her energy cutlass.
The blue blade hummed to life and blazed like a sliver of lightning.
“As Fleet Captain, I make my sister’s daughter and my sister’s son my formal heirs. All that I will ever have is theirs. If anything should happen to me, you will accept their ownership of my fleet, and follow them with the same respect, honor, and courage to duty that you have shown me. Those are my direct orders. That is all.”
More thunderous applause erupted from the crews. Everyone cheered, lifting either sword or glass to salute them.
Naero blinked and could not speak. She didn’t know what to say. She struggled not to let her jaw drop. Jan smiled in dazed wonder.
Aunt Sleak stepped back.
The spotlight shone on the podium. The fleet herald made the announcement.
“And now, the oldest daughter of Lythe Maeris and Tarthan Ramsey will honor us, and the memory of her departed parents with a few words.”
Naero sucked in a breath.
The courage and wisdom of her mother and father suddenly filled her to the brim.
She stepped forward into the light.
The throng grew hushed and still. She smiled.
Suddenly, in her burning heart, she knew exactly what to say.
“My mother was my sun, and gave me life and love.
“My father was my ship, my courage and adventure.
“They clothed me in wonder and wrapped me in their strength and wisdom and kept me safe until I could soar through the stars on my own.”
Naero lifted her head high and poured her heart out to her clan over several long minutes, until her voice shook and she openly wept.
Clan Maeris fell to their knees–man, woman, and child as one–and wept with her.
Wh
en she finished, an instant of dead silence passed.
Her Clan soared to their feet, as if they would never stop rising. Applause and cheering roared throughout the great hall, over and over again. Naero lowered her head, stepped back out of the lights and they went off. The music played once more, and the crews sang and drank and danced.
Naero took her aunt’s advice that night.
She drank whatever came her way.
Yet within the hour, her head was spinning and she could no longer dance or even stand.
Gallan carried her back to her quarters, much the way her father used to, and put her straightway to bed.
When they came out of jump, the caskets would be fired like torpedoes into the nearest star.
18
Fourth day, the day after the wake, opened with a rare free morning for those not on duty.
Not even PT.
Light duty and the barest assignments. And that was a very good thing.
When Naero looked at herself in the mirror wall of her mist shower she screamed.
Four weird tentacles or tendrils of some kind writhed around her head, popping out of her skull. She could feel them in her hands. They felt so real, moving and waving like the snaky hair of the fabled medusa.
But like the other hallucinations, she was the only one who could see them.
Delusion. All an insane delusion.
And her crazy head ached horribly from getting drunk at the wake.
Someone had deliberately crashed a battleship or two into her skull.
Every time she attempted to move, she felt the wreckage mash together in her head.
Then she heard it. Unmistakable. A separate voice in her skull. Talking to her. It only said one word. Over and over.
You.
You, you, you, you, you…
It said it over and over again, like a low droning hum, like a chant.
This insanity was new. Now she was hearing things. In her head.
Naero did her best to ignore it. The more she ignored her insanity, the sooner it would go away.
But it was still there, humming and droning constantly. Not very loud at all, but still there deep in the background.
The luxury of a warm mist shower helped. Then pain meds and food.
Spacer Clans Adventure 1: Naero's Run Page 13