“Jan? You’re with them?”
“Have been, sib. Whenever possible.”
He grinned and waggled his hands in the air. “All of you were so paranoid about Ellis. Oooh, a Matayan. Gosh. Too stupid to notice the obvious. The Corps needed an inside man. How do you think they knew where to intercept Mom and Dad? It was me. I set them up.”
“Mom and Dad? Jan, no. You couldn’t have.”
He shrugged. “They were already well on their way to becoming dead anyway; they just didn’t know it, N. They thought they alone could control a secret this big? Not a chance. Then they made the colossal blunder of actually giving it to both of us. But they didn’t expect the process to change us all so drastically, did they?”
Jan’s eyes glowed for an instant with scarlet fire, aching to be unleashed. “And here’s another surprise. I’m not Jan. That young fool did his best to resist my efforts. But in the end, it was so easy for someone like me with my psyonic powers to slowly take over his unprotected mind. Even he didn’t suspect it until it was far too late. But I am your brother, at least genetically. Didn’t you hear the story?”
“Danner? You’re Danner? But you were murdered.”
“I didn’t die. I only wished I had. The Hevangians put me back together, somewhat, and sold me to the Corps, to Triax. My parents, my family, my Clan, my people–they all abandoned me and left me to be tortured and experimented on for years as I grew.”
“Danner…everyone thought you were dead.”
Danner snarled. “But somehow I survived, thriving on pain…and hatred. A prisoner in my own mind, my powers grew exponentially, until even my captors feared me and my abilities. I allied myself with them in order to get what I wanted: Vengeance. Through me and my sporadic links with Jan, we were able to spy on you and your parents, and Jan didn’t even know, until it was far too late. With my abilities, I slowly took over Jan, mind, body, and soul. In order to exact my revenge…on everyone.”
He paced around her, hands clasped behind his back.
“Of course, Jan’s half of the Kexxian data was easy to retrieve once I had control of him. But you, you became the real problem. So adept. So resourceful. Every time I set you up–I gotta hand it to you–you came up with some way to screw everything over completely.”
“That’s why we could never get away. You were letting them on to us.”
“Right as rain, sib.”
“Danner, no one knew you were still alive. Let us know where you are. We won’t stop until we rescue you. We can help you. Don’t do this to Jan, to me. The Corps are the ones who did this to you. They’ve been lying to you for all these years. They took you from us. They can’t be offering you enough to betray everyone, Jan, me, your parents, your family–your own people.”
“Are you kidding? Now I have this great new body that isn’t crippled and shattered. I’m not just some thing floating in a lab. With my brother’s body, I can go anywhere I wish. Do anything I want. None of you ever gave a shit about me.”
“That’s not true. Our parents were heartbroken. If they knew you were alive, they would have never stopped trying to find you.”
He glared at her, his face twisting like a maniac’s. “I’m glad they’re dead. I want all of you, everyone, dead!”
“Where is Jan?” Naero begged. “What have you done with his mind? Where is he? Our Clan and I wont stop until we free him from your madness.”
Danner laughed. “I just switched with him. He simply doesn’t know how to switch back. He’s trapped in the same crippled hell I was stuck in for seventeen years. Let him rot there. Whatever form you die in when you die, you’re still just as dead.”
He patted her on the head. “To hell with all of you. The Clans. The Corps. Everyone. Screw all of you. They’re paying me an awful lot, Naero. I yearn to join the ranks of the gods. Go where I want, do as I please, however and to whomever I please, whenever I feel like it. That’s what they’re offering me. I can play anywhere I want; do anything I want. Complete and total freedom, with absolute impunity.”
His grin widened. “You know, they gave me a taste. They gave me some other bodies to try out the mind-swapping process. Sure, I burned them out with my abilities and they had to put me back into mine in the end, but I got a taste of being a god.
“They let me kill…everyone…every living thing on an entire continent of some nameless, backwater world no less. It was…how shall I describe it? Liberating. Exhilarating..”
“You’re insane, Danner. They’ll continued to use you like a weapon. As soon as they have what they want, we’re all good as dead. They won’t keep their word. You’ve betrayed everything, destroyed your entire life. For nothing.”
“I. Don’t. Care. Everyone wants the same thing, N. Power. Nice abilities of your own, by the way. Very different than mine. Didn’t know you had ’em in you. But I’ve been growing as well, in secret. My new skill? Quite convenient really…
“I can absorb the abilities of others, like eating their heart out of their chest with a spoon. How about I take those new powers of yours for my own? You won’t be needing them any more.”
He advanced on her as she hung helpless in the air. She couldn’t resist in any way.
Drianne called over to him. “We don’t have time for this, Lord Dan. Get her on board. That meddling uncle of yours could still turn up.”
Danner smiled, fastening the grav restraints on her ankles.
He clucked his tongue. “Later then, when I’m good and hungry for a little snack, sib. Every new ability you have will become mine. In time, I’ll even find a way to suck your half of the Kexxian Matrix out of you, and then I’ll control it all. And you? You’ll just be an empty toy, a hollow little shell for me to do with as I please. Perhaps I’ll hang you on a hook somewhere like our brother and let you twist and rattle in the wind. The way I used to.”
Naero struggled with all of her might against her restraints, managing only to twitch slightly.
Danner laughed. Then he mock-applauded.
“Haisha, I’m surprised you can even do that. How impressively useless. Try all you want; there’s not a thing you can do on your own to defeat that teeny tiny little sliver in your skull.”
Almost…get ready…
She was not alone.
Naero had no idea what Om attempted, but splitting pain filled her skull where before it had only been numb for a time.
It crippled her. She felt as if she was about to shatter into fragile pieces. Either that or explode.
Om! You’re killing me!
Her third eye formed on her forehead again, spraying blood.
Dan pulled away, suddenly uncertain about what was happening.
“Don’t get any ideas, Naero. Illusions can’t help you. You can’t even move. Stop grunting and wiggling and get on board.”
He punched controls and floated her toward the loading ramp of Drianne’s ship.
Om slowly ejected the bloody control sliver out of their head, right through the very center of their third eye.
The scarlet, crystalline sliver disrupted and turned to dust as it fell.
Done…up to you. I can…no longer…
Om went silent in her head.
Naero lifted her gaze. Her eyes narrowed to slits.
Her third eye burst into blue flame.
“I can’t believe it, Dan. You let them kill Mom and Dad. Even if you never knew them, how could you?”
Dan watched her every move, circling, unnerved and uncertain of her abilities now, ready and wary.
He sensed her attack, clenched his fists and shielded himself in blood-red flames.
His pyrokinetics had increased exponentially.
He stared straight back at her with eyes of red-hot flaming hatred. His booming voice echoed.
“The truly great are beyond sentiment, Naero. I’ve learned that much. They become a natural law unto themselves. No bonds restrain or obligate them. They do as they please, with absolute impunity.”
&nb
sp; She glared at him. “You’re describing a monster. Is that what you’ve become?”
“You’re one to talk, sis.” Dan laughed. “The cattle and insects always see the gods so. So be it. Let them know the meaning of fear–the fear of true power!”
“You want power? I’ll show you power, brother.”
Naero disrupted her restraints and shot up into the azure sky. Wings unfolded from her back, keeping her in the air, giving her mobility. Tendrils and ribbons of light and darkness rippled from her in numerous directions.
“Shoot them,” Drianne ordered into her comunit. “Call in reinforcements. Neutralize them both with the new ion cannons, before they destroy us all!”
The Triaxian princess retreated into her warship.
Naero and Dan floated out of the hangar onto the scorched, open ground, clearing their field of battle.
Several enemy units tried to converge on them and unleash attacks.
She and Dan swept the enemy ground forces away to a half kilometer on either side, disrupting their tek, melting some, imploding others.
“You bastard!” Naero raged, seeing her opening.
She swooped in and collided with him. Fighting through his powers with her own.
He grappled with her, his might immense. Horrifying.
“That’s it, sib,” he said. “Let me feed upon you. Let me steal everything that is yours and add it to my own, as my powers continue to grow, and yours weaken. Just like I did with Jan.”
She felt it. He drained her energies, sucking them into a vast black hole within himself.
Given enough time, he might absorb her entirely. She flip-kicked him twice in the face and barely tore free.
Drianne’s advanced battleship rose up behind them, crashing up through the entire side of the hangar.
It pulled just far enough away, aimed its massive tri-barreled ion neutralizer and fired point-blank.
At Dan.
The neutralizer struck him full on, driving him to his knees. Now he was being drained of his energies.
Triax would capture them both.
“No, you fools!” he screamed in defiance. “What are you doing? I almost had her. You will not stop me!”
A massive triangular sheet of black energy fanned out vertically from him, expanding. It struck the battleship and neatly sliced it vertically into two halves.
They fell to either side, disrupting and exploding onto the naval base.
Dan went to his knees again.
His powers were not infinite, either; Naero sensed her chance, perhaps her only one. The ion blast had weakened him considerably.
Her dexterous tendrils, scores of them, snaked out and snatched up stray weapons from the battlefield. In seconds she had a cloud of them, all pointed at Dan.
She unleashed a hail of fire at him, battering him, driving him one way and then the other. Giving him no time to recover or strike back.
She poured it on, pulverizing the ground around him. Slowly his defenses grew weaker, until he cowered in a quivering, curled-up ball at her feet.
“You are no longer my brother, no longer my family. You are dead to me!” She sucked at a wound on her forearm and spat her own blood on him.
“I banish you. by the blood of my Clan. You no longer stand as one of our people. Worse than a traitor. Filthy outcast; your name is dead. YOU HAVE NO NAME AMONG US!”
He laughed again, lifting his smoldering head.
“I was always dead inside. Are you done? Good. My turn!”
54
He sprang upon her. So fast. She didn’t even think he could still attack.
She shouldn’t have let up. Shouldn’t have gotten so close.
He had her now.
Both of them knew it.
Both his hands locked on her throat. He drove her back.
She couldn’t break free.
Even worse, he drained her energies as fast as he could.
The outcast shuddered with pleasure, feeding on her rapidly.
Her third eye vanished. Her tendrils faded, dropping her useless weapons.
“That’s it, sib; just accept it. Accept defeat. I’ve finally won. Just relax. It’ll all be over soon.”
“Hey,” she said. “You dropped this.”
Naero fired the sliver gun straight into his forehead.
He released her, staggering back, gasping in surprise.
He crumbled into a quivering, convulsing heap, twitching and jerking on the ground. Still trying to fight his own defeat.
He tried to lift himself up.
It terrified her that he could do that much.
“Oh, no you don’t.” For good measure, she shot a sliver into each of his temples.
Dan finally collapsed, eyes staring, mouth frozen open, bloody, black, steaming foam and ichor draining from every orifice.
He flopped away from her. Naero turned him back over and mind-linked with him, his eyes staring with frozen hate.
You’d better kill me now, sib. Even this won’t stop me forever. I’m too strong. I’ll find a way. I’ll come after you. I’ll kill everyone. Destroy everything. You can’t stop me. No one can.
“Wrong, outcast.”
Naero fully perceived how he did it now.
She took him by the throat, and began draining him.
She didn’t want his energies or abilities. She used his powers, Jan’s, and her own to seek a much more permanent solution, no matter what it cost her.
“I’m stripping you of your abilities. All of the power in the universe won’t do you any good without them. You’ll be a true nud. I’m taking everything, including your half of the Kexxian Data Matrix.”
You can’t! I…won’t…let you!
Naero snarled and rammed him back down.
“You lie there and take it, you sick, twisted fuck. While I gut you hollow!”
It took all of her strength, every ounce of her own energy until she felt completely burned out, but at last she finished the job.
Naero rose up, weak and dizzy.
She spat on the outcast.
“There, now you’re completely empty; just a mere mortal again. Maybe I’ll send you back to your friends at the Corps. See how they treat you now, after they realize you’re completely useless to them. But I’ll be coming after Jan–my real brother. I’ll find a way to switch him back.”
She looked up at the sky. Bright flashes and explosions flared beyond the atmosphere.
Aunt Sleak and the Clan Fleets had arrived, pushing the Corps back, taking charge of the space around Moon Durris.
Naero stumbled, hoping she could remain conscious long enough to check on her stunned friends back in the ruined hangar. Before help arrived.
She called to Baeven on her com.
“Baeven? Where are you?”
“A little busy destroying that planetary shield. Ahhh…finally, it’s down. And help has arrived; good timing. Did you and Jan get away? We did our best to clear a path for an escape route.”
Naero shook her head, looking at the devastation all around her.
“No, it’s a long story, but I’m still stuck down here. The fighting’s over for right now. I’m not a prisoner or anything, but I’m going to pass out any sec. You’d better send help fast.”
“On the way. Stay put.”
Her friends. She had to reach them.
Naero staggered back into the hangar.
A shadow passed over her.
A booted foot smashed into her face, knocking her into the hangar wall.
Lady Drianne hovered over her in a gravwing. She held a long, slender, ornate sword in her right hand, pointed directly at Naero’s heart.
“Finally out of juice, huh? Took you long enough. You and those brothers of yours are really something.” She clucked her tongue. “Very, very troublesome.”
Drianne called into her com on her left wrist, “Gather up the boy and get out of here. That’s an order. I’ll secure the girl and be along shortly, in the last stealth ship.”
Naero drew herself up. “You’re not taking me anywhere. Help’s on the way. The Clans are closing in. There’s no escape for you, princess.”
“I don’t think so,” Drianne said. “You can barely walk, let alone resist in any way. Now get moving to my ship, or I’ll toss a grenade among your sleeping friends over there. That’s right. I haven’t forgotten about them.”
They moved out of the hangar where she directed.
Naero tried to stall for time.
Drianne jabbed her with the point of the sword until she bled. “Keep moving. Don’t slow down. We’re almost there. The Kexxian Data Matrix will still go to the Corps, and Triax will be the first to implement its secrets, destroy the Clans, and rule the galaxy.
Naero saw flashes of shining ships descending rapidly from the upper atmosphere.
Naero waited until they were well away from the hangar to make her last stand.
Then she simply leaned against a vehicle and stopped.
“I’m not going any further. If you want to take me, you’ll have to carry me or drag me, and right now, you don’t even have time for that. If you want to escape, you’ll have to leave me.”
The Triaxian merchant princess sneered in fury. “You really are too much trouble. Just like your filthy parents; it was an immense pleasure confirming the orders for their deaths.”
Drianne swooped down, lunging at Naero with her long slender sword, aiming right for the heart.
Naero tried to sidestep, still too weak and too slow.
The scalpel-sharp blade snagged her right side instead, twisting through her ribs and into one lung.
Drianne pinned her to the vehicle. Naero gasped at the pain.
“See? You don’t have to be in one piece for us to get the Kexxian Matrix from you. Perhaps this is better...doing it the hard way.”
She withdrew her sword and pulled back slightly in the air, then leaned in close to gloat, whispering. “First I’ll hamstring you, cripple your arms and legs. Then I’ll drag your bleeding carcass onto my ship.”
Naero backhanded her with all the strength she could muster.
Drianne recovered, her face bleeding, She lifted her sword.
Aunt Sleak stepped out into the open from behind the ruined vehicle.
Spacer Clans Adventure 1: Naero's Run Page 38