“Haisha. Haisha!” little Jonny squealed, clapping his hands together. “Please, please tell me about some of your adventures.”
Shetanna held her arms open, and little Jonny sprang across like a Tocharian yellow monkey, wrapping his arms around her neck and hugging her close.
Naero closed her eyes, smiled, and patted the boy’s back.
“I’ll do better than that, Jonny. I tell you stories about the brave man you were named after. He who is your blood, on your mother’s side. This is the blood you come from, Jonny. And then I will tell you stories about your parents, and how all of us were mates, and fought side by side together. We saved each other’s lives many times over.”
Jonny pulled back and his eyes were wide and his little mouth hung open. “Really? Is all of that true?”
Shetanna nodded. Then she used her powers to cast transparent holo images of Spacer Marine armor and arms around Chime and Pete. “See, Jonny. You never knew that your parents were such heroes, did you?”
“Haisha!”
“They were elite Spacer Marines of Bravo Command, the best of the best. They were all my best mates, my abani, like family to me. And they were mighty warriors. They fought the Ejjai to save all of humanity, their valor knew no equal, and together with all of our allies, we won a great victory to save many lives on many worlds.”
Naero allowed the holos to dissolve, fading away with her Shetanna look. Jonny stared at his parents and was speechless.
“Thanks a lot, N,” Chime said in mock anger.
Pete grinned. “Now we’ll never get the little bugger to shut up!”
Naero smiled her half-smile and nodded. “You’re welcome. I just though the lad should know that his parents were heroes.”
Together they brought the children into the mess hall, or on The Bookwyrm, what they referred to as the Café.
There they heard raised voices. An older Spacer woman, who could only be Chime’s greatgran, was arguing with two landers in expensive clothing, one male and one female. It sounded as if they were talking politics over the latest blow up with the Corps on the INS feeds.
Chime and Pete came over with the kids and Naero in tow. They pweaked up a play area for the kids from the nanofloor, right next to the nanotable and seats.
Little Jonny walked with them, holding his mother’s hand, and joined the girls.
“Naero Amashin Maeris, meet my greatgran, Thelian Lygia Fox.”
The older woman was old even by Spacer standards. Her face and her skin were wrinkled and her limbs atrophied, signs that only showed themselves during the last ten to fifteen years or so of a Spacer life. Her hair was a shock of bright white fluff, almost as white as Naero’s Shetharra.
But her green eyes still twinkled with life and energy.
Naero bowed her head in great respect. Elders were living history, legends in themselves, and they were so few. “All honor to you, Elder Fox. It’s a great pleasure to–”
Thelian cut her off. “Now don’t give me any of that Elder crap. You just call me Theli, or Greatgran, like everybody else. You’re Naero, Naero Amashin Maeris, are you? Daughter of Lythe and Tarthan?”
“I am,” Naero said. “They are the blood I come from.”
The old woman suddenly held back tears. “Bless you, child. Chime told be how you were mates with my boy Jonny, and the way you honored him after he passed. Thank you for all of that. Let me kiss you, spacechild. They never told me you were so pretty, just like your mother.”
Thelian kissed her on both cheeks, and then kissed both of Naero’s hands and began to cry.
Naero was a few seconds away from crying herself.
“You honor me and my blood greatly,” Naero said. She kissed Thelian on both cheeks and then her wrinkled, but still powerful hands.
“Our Clans have known great sorrow and loss, have they not?” the Elder said with a very deep sigh. “For one hundred and thirty nine years, I’ve seen so much. So many idiotic wars, so much loss. Yet I still have pretty little Chime, and she and this good man of hers have blessed me with sweet Jonny and my little angels of light. I’m so fortunate to have them in my final years. I’m very thankful for that.”
She knelt and the kids came to her and covered her with hugs and little kisses. Greatgran closed her eyes and was in paradise for a few seconds among them. Then she told them to go back to playing, and she returned to the adults.
She sat down. “Well, this is a merry meeting, indeed.” She banged the table with one hand. “Come along now, let’s all sit together and have some food and drink. Tonight we’ll have to get drunk after the kids are sleeping. I’ve got a whole cooler of Spacer Poteen we can raid, dammit!”
Chime chided her in part. “Greatgran, we told you to lay off the sauce, you old reprobate. The ship’s doctor says your boozing days are done. It’s not good for you.”
“To hell with that,” Thelian protested. “It’s the only vice I have, and I’ll be hanged by my tits and skinned if I give it up now! Whenever I do go on the next adventure, I’m good and ready. It’ll be nice to see Jonny and all the rest. If they have Poteen in the Beyond, we’ll all get good and blitzed over there.”
The two landers just stared, eyes wide.
Thelian point at them. “Let me introduce the writers traveling with us on our book tour, bestselling authors in thirty systems, Renni Clooney and Myke Bickels. They write great books, but they only pretend to know something about interstellar politics. They’re still too young and dumb to know runny shit from hand soap.”
Naero grinned and shook hands with the two authors.
“Renni Clooney,” the thirtyish woman with dark brown hair and brown eyes said, as they shook hands. “Do you read like, Chime?”
Naero smiled. “Nobody reads like Chime. But I’m a reader, when there’s time. What do you–”
“Mostly romance and young adult romance-adventure. I’ve tried my hand at a few mysteries. And this is my counterpart, Myke Bickels.”
Bickels was stocky and dark brown of skin with black eyes. “It’s a great pleasure to meet you, Admiral Maeris. A high honor.”
“Just call me Naero,” she corrected.
“Got it. I write thrillers mostly, but I’m branching out into middle grade SF and Fantasy. It’s huge market.”
Greatgran and Chime went off to fetch food and drink for their little party. Chime kept a loving arm around Thelian as they bantered back and forth. They seemed to know each other so well.
“Thelian’s something else,” Renni noted. “Has she always been so feisty?’
Myke laughed. “Feisty? She’s a total kook!”
Naero shook her head. “I knew Chime and Pete from the service,” Naero said. “I just met greatgran. But she is what my dad would have called, ‘a real pistol.’”
Within minutes, they were feasting and drinking and sharing treats with the kids, everybody gabbing all the while. Crew came in to eat and watch, and to meet Naero.
But it was still more or less a brunch, so Chime was adamant about greatgran not unleashing Poteen on everyone this early.
Thelian cornered Naero at one point. “Naero, I never knew much of your family, but I did know Thackery Ramsey for a few years. Some of us Foxes were on the same trade fleet ship with the Ramseys.”
Naero blinked. “You knew my great, great granddad Ramsey on my father’s side?”
“Yep. I was fifteen and he was sixteen, just before he went off to serve his two year stint with the Spacer Marines.”
“We’re you guys good friends?”
“I hope to think so. We spent hours in the zero-G havens and the slider tubes. The kids call it spiraling now. Thack was a pretty good swoocher, let me tell you. Lovely boy. My first love, really. But I never saw him again. I always regretted that.”
“Haisha, Greatgran. No way. You and Thackery Ramsey…were an item?”
“I know it seems amazing now, Naero. But back then, I was as glorious as you and Chime. And Thack was the most handsome boy
in the universe to me. But he was kinda handsy, if you know what I mean. Things got so hot between us that I had to kick him away a couple of times. If he hadn’t gone off to serve, I might have ended up part of your bloodline.”
“I would have been honored,” Naero said.
It was funny and strange to think of one of the great elders of her father’s family as nothing more than a horny, lovesick teen at one time in the past.
Every person grew up and had their moments.
When she had a chance, Naero checked in with Chime and Pete.
They would delay their book tour a few days to take her to Oorrii. Just a quick stop off. Then they would catch up on their schedule.
When they admitted that their ship did not have a cloaker, Naero stepped into engineering for a bit and teknomanced one for them.
Naero did not want to attract any danger to her friends, and it was better to be safe than sorry.
While she was at it, Naero and Om gave The Bookwyrm several other valuable upgrades, like jump-7.
Perhaps Naero was just being cautious, but ever since she had left Tae’ha, her sense of warning had remained on the verge of going off, and there was no telling what that meant.
Her friends did put on their drink that night, after dinner and the kids were in bed. But Naero did not let herself get tipsy.
Just in case something did happen.
She felt much better once they were in jump, on their way to Oorrii.
8
Om woke her early the next day. Naero had slept well for once. It was almost nine bells.
Haisha, she never slept in that late.
Nothing seemed wrong, her sense of warning wasn’t going wild. Om couldn’t even say exactly why he woke her up.
For some reason, I just felt like I should.
Naero used teknomancy to go from naked to suited up and ready for anything in less than two standard seconds.
Sitrep, Om. Where are we? What’s happening? It feels like we’re out of jump.
We are. In fact, we’ve made an unscheduled landing on Mikril-6, a far flung earthlike with not much around it to lure in anyone from the trade routes. It’s scheduled for exploration, but there’s no one and nothing there yet.
Someone or something is doing this, Om.
She called out throughout the ship. “Chime? Pete? Greatgran? Please respond!”
N. Wait…I’m having troubled concentrating myself.
Naero’s warning sense spiked, big time.
Things grew creepier by the second.
Naero used teknomancy and all of her abilities to shield them every way that she could think of and prepared for for a fight. Om said he felt better.
Scan the ship Om. Where is everyone? What’s happening?
They’re gone, Naero.
Naero shuddered. Her mouth went dry. Gone, Om? Where the hell did they go? Almost forty people on board, and they just land in the middle of nowhere, for no reason, and just walk out–”
That is exactly what everyone did, N. Every hatch and exit is wide open. Cold trails lead off into the jungle. Various ore samples in the rock deposits and outcroppings are limiting further scans.
Naero scanned for psyonics. No traces. If the enemy was using one of those weird psyships, she would know it.
This was something completely new, and far more dangerous.
Clearly it was all a set up, an elaborate trap. And whoever was in control were clearly playing the game as if they had already won.
They were just jerking her around now, making her worry.
Where are our fixers, Om?
Asleep or disrupted. I can’t seem to activate or awaken them.
Extend our shields to them and try again. I’m checking the ship’s log, vids, and systems for any signs of an attack.
The shielded fixers are coming back online. Attempting to isolate the shielded component that is shutting everything down.
Stranger and stranger, the logs showed nothing. No warnings. Nothing. Normal scans did not detect anything.
Naero suddenly wondered why whatever it was didn’t just zap her as well and have done with it? Perhaps it couldn’t.
Whatever this was, why didn’t it work on her? Was she immune somehow? Even Om had started to lose it. Why didn’t she suffer any effects?
What were their shields keeping out that could take control over an entire Spacer crew, Om, and even their fixers?
No direct connections yet, N.
The vids simply showed the crew going about their duties. Then, as if it were completely normal for them, they proceeded to divert and land on Mikril-6.
Then everyone calmly stopped what they were doing, proceeded to this location, flung the starship wide open, and proceeded to wander off into the jungle with no supplies, equipment, or weapons.
Chime and Pete did carry their kids with them.
The entire crew was now at risk.
Send out our shielded fixers, Om. Scan and the sweep the entire area and try to locate our people, on visuals if need be, and anything else we need to know.
In process. Fixers spreading out in a standard, low-level detection pattern, grid by grid.
This was bad. Whoever took the crew could just as easily kill them all–with ease. Such possibilities troubled Naero something fierce. All she had wanted was a simple ride, and now something very sophisticated and dangerous was turning that journey into something far more sinister.
She and Om had seen and faced a great deal, but nothing like this, thus far. Was it the G’lothc? Had some of those evil spirits escaped the cusp of oblivion somehow and acquired hosts? Or perhaps this was the work of a full grown, Dakkur Black King, seeking vengeance through powerful psyonics.
Baeven and Jia had both warned her about such formidable and lethal beings, and she had barely triumphed over an immature Dakkur prince. The psyonic powers of such creatures were nearly on par with the G’lothc themselves. Or worse, what if the G’lothc managed to possess a Dakkur king?
Naero shook herself. Speculation was worthless and disheartening. Focus. Find her people and save them, if they could be saved.
Anything on those scans, Om?
Sorry, N. Nothing thus far. Continuing.
Wide scan, Om. Send out all of our fixers. Extend the range.
Naero created a skeleton replicant crew for The Bookwyrm in minutes. Keep everyone and everything shielded and protected, and now cloaked. Naero wasn’t taking any chances. She wouldn’t let the enemy use the ship and its weapons against them.
Where were the damn crew? That much was starting to freak her out. Her friends. The little kids. How could all of this be happening, and she and Om had no warning, awareness, or control?
No attacks. No signs of anything.
What could do this?
Something barely warped the air just behind her.
Naero whirled and slashed at it with her Chaos katanas.
Nothing.
Haisha. Now she was tilting at shadows.
She asked Om if something had actually been there.
Om wasn’t sure.
Something was watching them. Something stalked them. Naero could feel it.
Whatever it is, they finally figured out that it was interdimensional in nature.
They couldn’t attack it. They could barely even see it.
Just glimpses, flashes, and flickers of movement here and there as whatever these things were, barely showed ripples of themselves in the Prime Material plane.
Whatever these creatures were, they hovered and moved just outside of reality, most likely peering in at Naero’s dimension.
If they possessed such vast powers and abilities, what possible interest would the Prime Material plane be for such advanced beings?
Why would they even bother to intrude or dabble in the boring normal realities?
Om did find the missing crew finally. One hundred kilometers to the west, all huddled together as a knot. They had either been stunned or psyonically paralyzed.
Let’s go spring this trap and meet our hosts, Om.
They transported directly to the location.
They transported right into the middle off a vast, savanna grassland, with rivers and streams, and tall grasses, vast patches of which soared over ten meters high.
When Naero first spotted them, the forty or so crew stood gathered together in a clump, standing up to their elbows in thick, grayish black mud in a large mud hole.
She spotted Chime, Pete, Greatgran and the kids among the rest.
Everyone of them had their eyes closed. They appeared to be standing there in the mud, asleep or paralyzed.
No harm has come to any of the hostages yet, N.
Let’s keep it that way, Om. The first chance we get, let’s get them out of here.
Will do, if possible. Our fixers can’t actually touch them right now. I’m guessing we can’t either. They’re shielded somehow.
Naero stepped out into the open savannah and used the voice, her words rolling out across many kilometers. “Enough of this. I’m here. You’ve gone to all of this trouble abducting my friends and dragging us out here. What do you want?”
Something like a dust storm erupted from the northwest and swept their way, twenty klicks out.
What is it, Om?
A complete, hi-tek army just popped in out of nowhere, N. Moving fast. Ten thousand strong, converging on this position fast.
Naero looked back at her friends.
She startapped, and kept startapping, ramping up her energies.
If nothing else, mastering Order energy taught her how to increase, harness, and store her base energy by a hundredfold.
Thank you, Master Tree.
Let’s go out and meet them, Om. We can’t fight them around here with the hostages. We leave some reps to watch over them while we go boogie.
Naero, I don’t know what the hell boogie is, but against ten thousand advanced foes we have not engaged yet, it better be good.
Have I ever let you down, Om?
Hmmm…trying to count.
Stop it. Let’s ride. Head for those mountain foothills to the northeast, with all of the rich mineral deposits.
N, cloak all of that energy. You’d probably glow in the dark. They’ll be able to track you for sure.
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