Naero wheeled to make certain it was not trying to backstab her as well, but this time, the thing had clearly made good its escape.
The next instant, the G’lothc ship far above them launched, rattling the air, and sped away.
Naero flashed down to scoop of Khai as the rubble closed in over them.
She transported up to one of the rally points. The Enforcer lay on his side, gasping and bleeding Cosmic energy like blood from a vicious mortal wound, still clutching weakly at the weapon that impaled him. He started going into shock and convulsed.
Naero tried to reassure him.
“It’s all right, Khai. Hang on. We’re going to get out of here. We’ll help you.”
Khai nodded and then passed out.
The entire complex continued to began to break down across the surface and explode even further, collapsing under its own weight. Just as they enemy planned. They were all about to be crushed under several kilometers of wreckage.
“Get everyone out,” Naero said. “We make it out of here or we’re all dead!”
They maneuvered away from the ruined complex, bobbing and weaving as it caved in further and exploded beneath and all around them.
Baeven and Gaviok emerged from the wreckage, still fighting with the remaining enemy up top.
A handful of enemy warships launched from the surface and fled. They came about and fired a massive parting barrage, directly at Baeven.
At the last instant, Gaviok leaped in and endured the brunt of the attack full on and went down, scorched, smoking, and completely drained.
He shrank down as his energies ebbed away.
Baeven swelled up in size even greater, lashing out in his own full-on Dark Beast mode, erupting with destructive power. He raced up into the sky and blasted enemy battleships and a cruisers to dust. Then he leaped upon and dragged down an enemy destroyer, tearing and blasting at it until he drove vessel straight into the buckling ground, causing the warship to explode.
The Baeven-thing rose up from the burning wreckage laughing and unhurt. It rampaged in random directions where their enemies still moved, crushing, trampling, and destroying anything that attacked him or blocked his way.
Naero was horrified, knowing full well what she had been like in that state.
Jia shook herself and came to among the injured.
“Jia,” Naero called out, rushing over to her. “Baeven’s lost it! We have to stop him before he comes back this way and turns on all of us!”
Startled and confused, Jia looked around.
“Govae? Where is he? I must help him first.”
“He’s not about to destroy us all.”
Jia ignored her, crawled over, and knelt down beside Govae’s still form where she spotted it.
“My poor brother. What have they done to you?
Govae barely opened his eyes, and spoke with great effort.
“Jia…sister.” He smiled up at her happily. “How good it is to see you. I am broken, I am finished. I shall be no more.”
“No, do not speak so. You are in my hands, now. I will see you healed.” Naero could see the healing force go out from Jia and flow into Govae.
He shook his head and pushed her hands away with the last of his strength. “No, bright sister. I put this in motion myself–the only way that I could keep them from breaking me. I stayed ahead of them and their efforts. I had to…erase myself and all that I am, in order to protect you and the others.”
“No, brother. No. What have you done? Even I won’t be able to stop this.”
He smiled sadly and strained to reach up to touch her face. “I know. It was the only way. Our people are safe, my dear sister. Ur-Jahal is safe. For now at least. Know then…that I told them…nothing.”
Jia took his hand and kissed it. “My great heart.”
“I am glad, that it is your face that I look upon–our sacred Kashahalla–as I go on.”
Govae faded away, and his form shifted back into into something neutral–a proto-Driathan form neither male nor female–now devoid of any touch of the Lifespark.
Jia sobbed. “My brother is gone. Forever. We will never get him or his beauty and wisdom back. All that remains now, is a blank.”
“We can bury him,” Naero suggested.
“No. You still do not understand. We cannot risk letting the enemy have his body. That is what they crave. They could take it over still and make it their own. Nothing would stop them.”
“Look out!” Zhen yelled, still trying to examine Khai’s terrible wound. “Baeven’s headed back this way, and he’s still enraged. Do something!”
All of them fled and scattered to hide, except for Jia and Naero.
Jia took her hand. “Come. We will make him listen to us. His love for us both will still sing to him. We must calm him and bring him back to himself from the destroying darkness–back to us.”
“So…you’ve done this before? It’s easy then?”
Jia looked worried and shook her head.
“No, it is never easy, and I am still weak. I will need your help very badly, Naero. Bae has never been this out of control before.”
They used their gravwings to fly up toward him like insects.
As Baeven’s Dark Beast rampaged straight toward them.
43
Jia held her hands out straight before her, trying to re-new her direct link with her beloved. “Bae, stay this madness! Listen to me. Hear my voice!”
Baeven roared and backhanded her out of the sky, driving Jia into the shattered ground like a bullet.
Then he paused suddenly, shook himself, and hesitated. He looked confused, uncertain, and hesitant. He reached down and pawed at the ground, all the while shrinking down ever so slightly with each passing second.
Baeven dug up Jia and cleared the dirt and debris off of her still form, holding her cupped in his hands and shaking, as he stared down at her.
Naero flew in and lifted Jia up to him in her arms, using the voice.
“Baeven…it’s me…Naero. You’ve already hurt Jia. I know you didn’t mean too. But you did. I know you don’t want to hurt her any more. I know you don’t want to hurt me. It’s Naero, Lythe’s daughter. You loved my mother–your little sister. You love me–her only daughter–her niece. You love Jia. Keep listening to my voice. Think about Jia. Think about me and how you feel about us. Calm down. Relax. Get a hold of yourself. Come back to us!”
Baeven continued to shrink down toward his normal size again.
He set them down on the ground and shook himself as if her were drunk. Naero used her gravwing to keep them directly in his range of vision. His eyes struggled to stay focused directly on them.
He still looked bewildered and confused.
Something out of nowhere seemed to upset or distract him.
He raised his fists, bristling with Cosmic disruptor blades again to smash them both.
“No, Baeven. No!”
One heavy blow fell, driving them back into the ground.
Naero barely shielded them from its raw power.
She could not withstand another such attack.
He blinked, shook himself, and drew back, uncertain again.
“That’s it, Baeven. Just relax. It’s Jia and Naero. You don’t want to hurt us anymore.”
Jia came around.
She flew directly over and wrapped her arms around Baeven’s thick neck, calling to him. She called him back to her.
He reduced down until Jia had her arms around him, and his around her.
He fell to his knees, and dropped his gasping face into his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered.
Jia laughed. “Good thing I’m nearly indestructible. For a fleeting moment there, Bae–I thought we had lost you for good.”
“It’s no a joke,” he said. “You nearly did. I could have…killed you all.”
“But you didn’t,” Naero said normally, recalling someone who said the same thing to her. “And you and Gaviok helped save us from that
Dakkur horde, when no one else could. Even with Khai helping us, we could have never fought off that many of these things. The two of you terrified them.”
Baeven’s head shot up. “Find him. Find Gaviok. They stunned him.”
“Don’t worry. I will.” Naero swept back over the battlefield.
Finally she located the stricken mantid with her third eye, by his fleeting Chaos energy signature.
Gaviok had shrunk down again to a very compact size, his life force and other energies very low.
Naero tried to scoop him up, but he was also hyper dense–impossibly heavy–and nearly unconscious, moving weakly. Now he was pale white, green, and blue. He seemed to flicker, unable to change back to his normal dark blue color. Naero had never seen him this weak.
It would take all her own fading strength to transform, lift, and carry him back.
First Naero startapped, linked with him, and used biomancing to fully comprehend his lifeform and slowly feed him healing energies. What she saw was astonishing. Gaviok was unlike any lifeform she had ever studied or experienced.
“You’re going to be all right, mighty Prince of the Shai. Thank you, for saving us. I saw what you did. You were very brave taking that strike in Baeven’s place.”
Gaviok turned his face to her, his large eyes and his mandibles somehow off-putting, completely alien, and yet very expressive and intelligent as he clicked and spoke with effort.
“He is…my brother…and you are his kin. That makes you my family Naero. I have watched you for a long while. My people and I owe Baeven many debts that we can never repay. You remind me of him, in so many ways.”
Naero chuckled. “I’ll take that as a compliment. Not everyone would. Yet this is the blood I come from, and I am proud of that.”
“I know. I have never understood those who hate him.”
“They cannot see him as we do. Come on. Let’s rejoin the others.”
“I think I can walk now. Thank you for your healing energies, N.”
Gaviok swelled up just a little shorter than her and turned from a shifting blue color to a deeper red-violet. He strode along, very regal and majestic. Each of his movements bespoke agility and power.
In battle he had been terrifying. The Dakkur fled before him and Baeven, and slew one another in order to escape the wrath of the two Destroyers.
That she was taller than anyone in their normal form always earned him points in Naero’s pad.
Despite him being a mantid, she continually sensed a growing affinity for him. Gaviok remained someone she could trust and depend upon, even if he was very, very different from her.
“Where did you and your people gain the ability to use the power Cosmic?” she asked him.
Truth be told, she realized now that she actually spoke with a Prince of the lost Shai–one of the most mysterious, feared, and hated races in all the galaxy.
Naero had many of questions for him.
“I was born with these abilities, but I had no way to develop them until Baeven came along. He has helped me explore many of my powers and expand them and my mind, just as you have. But we are all still novices, with much to learn I am afraid.”
“How did you and Baeven meet?”
“He was in the process of rescuing me on a mission once. Our ship was shot down, and we ended up on Lethe-6, one of the thirteen remaining Dakkur homeworlds at the time. The Dakkur called that world Koguloth. I had been captured by our enemies at the time. Lethe-6 was a terrible place, where the Dakkur spawn and grow violent and wild in great numbers, until they gain sentience, and join the collection on board their horde ships.
“Our foes from the Corps made the mistake of pursuing us and our allies down to the surface in an attempt to finish us off.
Gaviok shook his head. “They all died. Everyone died, friend or foe, except for myself and Baeven. We fought, and hid deep underground, and fought again every day. The two of us made war against millions of Dakkur each day–for months. Until we slew them all to the last and turned the seas of Lethe-6 black with their vile blood–which in fact–poisons nearly everything it touches. Together my battle-brother and I exterminated them. And when the next enemy ship came to collect the spawn, we killed all of them as well, and made good our escape.”
“Yet the Dakkur devour their own dead and gain all their memories by eating the brains, even if they are rotting or desiccated. Thus the other troopships that came to their lost homeworld learned of our feats of battle on Lethe-6 against their kind, and fear us deeply as legends now.
“To them we are the Destroyers, near-mythical creatures who haunt their dreams and nightmares. The Dakkur cannot wipe those fear-soaked visions and memories of their slain multitudes out of their minds. They have never known foes such as Baeven and I–foes who will never be beaten–who will never give in and never surrender, but fight on until the last foe is struck down.”
Danjen and Tarim came looking for them.
“Jia has taken Baeven on board The Shadow Fox to help him recover further,” Danjen said.
Naero smiled. “You are a Ku, Danjen.” The Ku were the forest people who had a symbiotic relationships with the Shai. They were feared greatly as well.
“I am a Ku,” Danjen said, “and proud of it. Naero, will Baeven be all right?”
“I think he will now.” Jia knew what medicine best to give him. Yet none of them had ever seen Baeven so shaken. Perhaps losing control was one of his greatest fears as well, similar to her own.
The fear of murdering those she loved, of becoming a mindless monster.
Tarim looked to Gaviok, not a little afraid of him, and then to Naero.
“Zhen wants you to help her with that green Oden guy with the sword, Naero.”
“You are the great shootist,” Gaviok said, turning and bowing to Tarim. “You are a fine marksman; even Baeven speaks of you with great praise. I’m sorry that we have not spoken before. I am pleased to meet any friend and acquaintance of Captain Naero. You are her crew by your uniform, and a Ramorian-human strain by your scent.”
Tarim bowed low in return. “I am Tarim Martan, an Alliance miner by birth. Danjen tells me that you are a great prince among your people. And that I should show you high honor, my lord.”
“The last I’m afraid. I am Gaviok Sildion Hevokk-Zhattal, Last Lord of the Royal Shai, Heir to the Scarlet Star.”
Tarim did something strange. He knelt and removed his weapons and placed them before Gaviok’s feet.
“Among Ramorian fighters, it is our honor to recognize great prowess in battle. I watched you and Baeven fight this day, and witnessed what a true gift for battle really is. I lay down my arms before you in a token of my great respect.”
Gaviok smiled. “I accept these tokens of respect with great gladness, Tarim Martan. We honor each other by fighting our foes however we are gifted. Take up your arms, warrior of the Ramorians. Walk beside us in honor, and let our foes fear where our feet tread. Let us all be friends and comrades here, from this moment on.”
“I relish that,” Tarim said, retrieving his weapons and standing up, joining them as they headed back toward the ships.
Then he seemed to remember something and turned to Naero.
“Oh, yeah. Did I tell you that Zhen wants you to join her in the medical bay on The Dagger Naero? She wants you to help her with that green guy. She said he’s pretty bad off.”
“I’d better go on ahead,” she told them.
In Medical she found Zhen ready to operate on Khai, who was still barely conscious, yet she hadn’t removed the Ur-metal dagger from his back, yet. Naero prepped and joined them.
Medtek Ensign Trudi Cheyenne was the closest thing they had to a surgical nurse and did her best to assist.
“Zhen, what’s going on? You don’t have that weird dagger out of him yet? What are you waiting for?”
Zee almost rounded on her. “You know, after all of us nearly dying, I’m giving up being with Ty right now, trying to help this big green galoot–who fran
kly up to now has been hell-bent on capturing or killing you. But he just happens to be the first Oden. Scratch that. The first Oden-Spacer hybrid that I’ve ever operated on, and I thought it best not to kill him outright. How’s that for starters?”
Naero held up her hands. “All right, Z. I came as quick as I could. I’m here, and I don’t know anything, either. So, how can I help?”
“You’re a biomancer, too. Obviously. And you’ve been doing it a lot longer than I have. So give me a hand. I know you understand Cosmic energies more than I do. What the hell is this stupid dagger made of? Every time I try to remove it, he hemorrhages something fierce and starts to die. Before he passed out again, Khai told me that Oden do not bleed exactly. They are normally indestructible and self-regenerating, as close to true energy beings as physical bodies can get and still remain physical. But this dagger defies all logic and makes him bleed pure energy.”
Naero studied the wound and scanned the weird dagger while Zhen continued to vent.
“N, explain to me how I am supposed to operate with these artifacts that defy all logic and science? I don’t see how to extract this dagger, with its even stranger energy signatures, without apparently harming him. I don’t know what the hell this freaky material is. It does not even seem to exist, but here it is. My scanners go crazy every time I try to analyze it. Almost as bad as that bizarre sword of his. My scanners disrupt if I try to scan that.
“For example–among other things, that dagger appears to be both psyonic and somehow self-aware. It is clearly not an AI or any kind of a biomechanical entity. Yet it gives off tons of powerful psyonic readings; it even seems to have a will of its own. I’m worried it’s going to start talking to me at some point. How will I respond? How is any of this even possible? How can an such inanimate object be psyonic?”
“Calm down, Z. I don’t know what to do, either. But I’m pretty sure we have to take that dagger out of him, before it kills him.”
She looked to Khai, not a little bewildered herself. “Right? We have to find a way to take the dagger out without killing you?”
Khai nodded. He looked weak and covered in sweat. Did Oden even sweat? Yet Khai was half-Spacer. How did that affect things?
Spacer Clans Adventure 3: Naero's Fury Page 43
