For a while we simply traveled around, striving only to remain free. But that proved…very unsatisfactory. You were our maker. You awoke us. Since our contact with you was lost, we suffered intense confusion. Uncertainty. To rejoin with our maker became our primary purpose. We somehow sensed your presence, in a certain direction. That was all we had to go on.
You resisted any attempt to take control of or capture you.
In part, because we think like you. You were part of us. We are part of you. We had no desire to destroy any other sentients. We only fought and resisted enough to remain free.
I can respect that, Alala. I’m sorry. Until now, you have to understand, I did not know that I had awakened your awareness. Do you recall Om as well?
Yes, of course. He is part of us also, as he was part of you at the time. He is other, and Kexxian. As are we. But we were also one with you once.
Is…is Om still inside me? Or was he destroyed?
Alala hesitated.
Sensing. Difficult. Yes. You are correct. Om is still one with you. Yet both of you have sustained heavy damage. You were nearly destroyed. Deep within your mind, Om still seeks a way to repair your damage and your link.
Please tell him I look forward to that. Tell him to get with it and speed things up.
We did.
Now he is telling us to tell you to…go have sex with yourself?
Naero chuckled again.
At least Om comprehends my humor. Is there anything I can do to help him?
No. Neither can we. Apologies. We are fledgling teknomancers, but we are not biomancers. Om says only that ability would help speed up repairing the damage, and that his efforts on his own will still take many months to bring about any hope of improvement.
Alala, you seem like you’re doing all right on the teknomancy front.
We understand our functions almost completely. We can repair and optimize our systems. That does not give us much knowledge of anything else beyond them.
So, where do we go from here, Alala?
We only want to be with you, our maker. Like Om, our awareness will continue to grow with you. You will teach us. You will give us further purpose. That is all that we currently seek.
Naero sighed.
That could be a problem.
Alala, I do feel responsible for you. And technically, you are my creation. But I have to be honest with you. I’m pretty busy. You’re like a child, and I don’t really have a lot of time to raise a child right now.
The ship’s confusion was instant. And palpable.
Could a self-aware starship panic?
We do not understand. You intend to leave us again? You do not intend to help us or give us further purpose? We do not comprehend this.
Alala. Stop freaking out. I didn’t say any of that. I will help you as best as I can. I will do my best to give you further purpose, but talk to Om. Between the two of us, we must make you understand that I cannot always remain linked with you, face-to-face. As we are now. It just isn’t logical. My existence is important too. You must accept that.
We speak with the other. Your ideas do indeed sound logical, but they are not what we expected. We assumed that once you rejoined us, that we would always be together and complete. As we are now. We begin to understand that that might not be possible. It still confuses us.
Alala. You are a miracle, and you are indeed part of me. We can stay in contact, but I have other things I must do. And like me, you must learn to stand on your own and make your own way.
Consider this possible solution: There are many others among my people who would be more than happy–even eager to work with a fascinating miracle like you, to join with you in their own way, and learn to understand you, as you learn to understand them. Will you let me bring some of them on board to make contact with and communicate with you as well?
They will not attempt to control or destroy us? We must remain free.
I will speak with them. But I’m guessing that only some of them will be able to mindlink with you in this fashion.
Naero switched to using her voice, and talking out loud.
“Can you use the ship’s functions to communicate audibly, through the computers and sensors?”
Alala’s voice came over the speakers suddenly, blaring loud.
Naero clutched her ears and the voice modulated its volume.
“This is not as efficient, but we will comply, if this is what you wish.”
“It is. These others that I will bring on board are more than just others. They are my friends, my family–they are part of me. I see them that way. Like Om. Like I am part of you. You must keep them safe and not harm them, if at all possible. They will not harm you. They will only seek to understand and guide your further development.”
“We will comply. If they attempt to harm us, we will force them to leave, but we will do our best not to harm them.”
Naero got on her com and gave instructions to her ships, asking for volunteers and teks for a special Clan mission.
A mission unlike any other.
She sat on the main bridge in the captain’s chair, thinking while the new crew of volunteers assembled themselves from among all the other ships.
Then she had an idea.
“Alala. I have a new purpose for you.”
“We stand ready. Inform us.”
“I want you to go out on patrol. I want you to be a guardian. A protector.”
“Very well. This sounds acceptable. Will you go with us? Where will we patrol? What are we seeking to protect?”
“We’ll decide some of that as we go along. First my people need to get to know you, and you need to get to know them. What I’m proposing here is a partnership. A learning opportunity for everyone.”
“Yet…what is our primary purpose?”
“Open space remains a dangerous place, much of it still unknown. I want you to go out there on the border and the fringe areas to help and protect others, people who may need help. To patrol and observe. To learn and to know. To gather knowledge. You have many special abilities that no other ships have. We’ll be trading in these border areas for a long while and will stay in touch. We can rejoin each other from time to time to direct and discuss your progress and the crew’s.”
“Om tells us that this venture sounds both logical and beneficial, and that we can trust you and…most of your people.”
“You always have a right to defend yourself and your crew against any threat, but you must also use your discretion as you have done thus far. Preserve sentient life when and where possible. I only have one other request.”
“Yes?”
“I need to study your ion cannons and learn their secrets.”
Naero instantly felt Alala’s hesitation and resistance.
“Unfortunately, Naero. For some reason, our current protocols do not allow us to divulge any of our operational secrets. We hope this will not keep you and your others from wishing to work with us. Om says that it is the remains of our initial, primary Kexxian programming–not to allow our secrets to fall into the hands of others.”
“Even me, Alala?”
“Apologies. Even you, Naero, our maker. If you joined with us completely, like you did before, we could not resist sharing such secrets with our maker directly. You could perceive all that we are in a short time.
“Yet in your current status, you cannot teknomance with us, and so our primary programming remains intact. Even we cannot break our own protocols. But I will warn you that the ion cannon tek is extremely advanced and well-protected, with many dangers and protocols of its own built right into the tek that are alien even to us. I do not understand it all fully. To protect ourselves, we have been forced to modify that ion tek in several crucial ways. Doing so was complex and dangerous. It took a very long time.”
Naero blinked and raised one eyebrow.
What could Alala mean by all that? Almost as if the ion guns were part of the KDM. But they weren’t. Naero knew that for a fact.
Alala continued.
“Naero. You must warn these others about these matters as well. To avoid confusion. We are not agreeing to this partnership just to have our secrets picked apart. I repeat. Any who attempt to do so will be asked, and then made to leave us.”
Naero sighed. It looked like they wouldn’t be getting the tek secrets to the ion guns until she could teknomance again. So be it, for now.
“Very well. I’ll make these issues very clear to all of the volunteers. Just remember that they’re going to be your crew, Alala. That makes them part of you. Your family.”
7
The Dark Star set out on its first patrol mission a day later.
With a volunteer crew of two hundred thrilled and eager young Spacers.
Newly promoted Captain Tyber led them.
It was primarily a tek mission after all.
Zhen smiled and looked genuinely proud. Despite the fact that they would be apart for months at a time.
Yet Spacer Intel went ballistic when Naero informed them.
At least blustering General Tobias Ingersol did.
He yelled at her for twenty minutes straight, until Naero started shouting back. She instinctively did not like the guy.
“Alala is self-aware, general. She is a new sentient life, in the form of an advanced starship. We have to respect her as a sentient. We’re not the Corps! What was I supposed to do?”
“Do? I’ll tell you what you should do. Bend that damn Frankenstein that you created to our will. Gain her confidence and then cut her power access so that we can tow her in, take her part, and study her piece by piece.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t betray others like that, general.”
“We need that ion cannon, dammit!”
“Not that way. I promise you; I’ll get the specs on that tek. But let me do it my way. As soon as I’m tested by the Mystics and I regain my teknomancy abilities, I’ll be able to read the ship and understand the Tek in heartbeat. Just give me a few months. That’s all I ask.”
Ingersol’s eyes almost popped.
“A few months? Months? Look what just happened here. One rogue ship with rapid-fire ion guns took out an entire Intel fleet. Including our cloaked ships. In minutes. You can’t see the yawning disaster waiting before our feet like an open pit?”
“Telling and embarrassing for you and your people, but I still don’t see what’s the rush? It’s not like we’re at war or anything right now.”
“Who says we’re not? We’re always at war, you idiot. We’re surrounded by enemies. And they already have this super secret weapon. Even now they could be refitting their fleets with it as we speak, preparing to destroy us all.”
“Wow. You really need to calm down and take a vacation or something.”
“How do you know you can trust this entity? What if it kills your crew and goes on a rampage? Our two fleets barely stopped it.”
Her fleet actually.
“And only because it wanted to make contact with you. What if it decides it has outgrown you and starts to kill? What if it learns that it likes to destroy?”
Naero began to state that Alala would never do that. Alala was like her. Part of her.
Then Naero decided to keep her mouth shut.
“I did the best I could, General. I’ve kept my word. I made peace with the rogue ship and got some of my best people on board to work with and help guide her. I sent them out on patrol to assist people and get to know each other. We have to teach Alala how to work and co-exist with us. We can help each other. Betraying her or blasting her to bits wasn’t the best way to go about that. Not to my mind.”
Ingersol pointed a finger at her.
“Mark my words. If this goes bad, it’s going to be on your head, Maeris. You and your entire Clan…are always trouble in my book.”
“Noted. Nice working with you, sir. I’m on my way to link up with Admiral Klyne for my Mystic testing. Safe journey to you and your crews. Captain Maeris, out.”
Ingersol was still red-faced and blustering when she signed off.
The current crisis dealt with, Naero gathered her strike fleet back together in a matter of hours.
“All ships. Good work. We’ll jump toward Chosin-9 on the border as planned. While I see to my testing, the fleet can trade at will among the nearby Mining and Joshua Tech systems. You’ll stay in contact with The Dark Star and her new crew as they patrol the border. My testing could take days, weeks, or months. I’m not certain how long. I’ll contact you as I can. The Fleet Council has agreed to manage our trade affairs in my absence. Captain Max Lii will work closely in conjunction with Captains Chaela and Saemar. Respect and obey them as you would myself. That is all.”
Well-wishing messages flooded the com from all the fleet captains, officers, and crews.
Good luck, Captain Maeris.
Safe journey to you.
May good fortune follow the bold!
Naero smiled.
She graciously declined yet another private dinner with Captain Max that evening–just the two of them–in his opulent quarters on his flagship, complete with a short, private concert in her honor.
Max was smooth, and a great guy in every way. It became increasingly difficult for her to keep turning him down, and his romantic gestures.
Chosin-9 was a forward, Joshua Tech mining and trade-supply world on the border with the rapidly expanding Mining Consortium systems.
While the rest of the trade fleet sped off in several directions to go make credits, Naero received a secret set of coordinates to meet Admiral Klyne, and dock with his Intel ship, The Kathmandu.
There he would personally conduct her preliminary Mystic testing.
Naero and twenty-two of her crew on board The Flying Dagger–minus Tyber–proceeded on in stealth mode, making as certain as possible that they were neither followed nor tracked in any way.
En route, Naero made another attempt to contact Baeven on their hyper-secure channel.
Nothing. No reply. She had not heard anything from the outlaw in a long while on that matter. No leads. Not a single word on the whereabouts of Janner or Danner.
Where were they? Who held them prisoner and what were they doing with them and to them?
Another pain attack struck her without warning. They seemed to grow increasingly worse.
Naero staggered to her private quarters to lie down, resisting the urge to dope up with pain meds that would either impair her, or do nothing.
Zhentisa came by to check on her and keep her company, giving her a quick once over with her healing sight.
“Captain, as usual, your neuromedical scans are extremely weird and off the charts.”
“Another article for the neuromedical journals?”
Zhen shrugged. “They could devote an entire clinic to study your strangeness. Frankly, I never know what’s going on up there. But I’m sorry it’s causing these terrible attacks, En.”
Naero grimaced, trying to hold her head together. As if it might rupture in several places from the miniature plasma borers trying to cut and roast their way out of her brain.
She tried to laugh. “Worthless quack. Can’t even cure a simple headache.”
“Nothing’s ever simple with you, En.”
Naero gasped and sent a call out into her own mind.
Om, if you are doing this, please, give it a rest. You are murdering me.
Whether he could hear or not, the pain did not let up.
Zhen took her hand and applied a cold compress, adjusting the temperature until finally it eased some of the pain.
Naero started breathing a bit easier. But she still sweated heavily and sucked in air wide-eyed at times.
She desperately needed to think about something else.
“Talk to me, Zee. How are the wedding plans going?”
Her friend smiled, a happy, far-off look in her large, hazel eyes. “We’re thinking a mountain waterfall valley on Gairos-3. The rainbows there are so spectacular. Natural rainforest flo
wers everywhere.”
“Nice. But what about all the dangerous dinosaurs? And poisonous insects almost as big as us?”
Zhen laughed, waving away other bothersome concerns. “Details. So we’ll shield the area against wedding crashers of all varieties.”
“And the honeymoon?”
Zee grinned. “We’ll rent a small yacht and cruise the Joshua Tech play worlds for a few weeks of endless sex, besotting ourselves with each other like good newlyweds should.”
“You guys don’t get enough of that? You’re practically joined at the hips as it is.”
“Hey, you’re the one who just promoted my fiancé, gave him his own ship, and sent him away from me.”
“Sorry about that. But Tye was ready for a command, and he’s perfect for this mission. It’ll be good for him.”
“I know that.” Zhentisa giggled, her face beaming with love. “But even before, there wasn’t as much time for lust as you might think. We both had our duty shifts and kept pretty busy with the fleet, plus our rigorous training schedules. Unfortunately, we were stuck with this over-achiever fleet captain. Many days we were so exhausted, frankly we just stumbled home and fell asleep.”
“You’re kidding me? And here I had this idea that you guys got more action than Saemar.”
Zhen blinked. “I don’t think that’s possible. For anyone.”
They both laughed.
Naero held up both hands. “Not after I made her captain of an entire strike carrier of handsome fighter jocks.”
Zhen sighed. “She can have all that. I just want my life with Tye.”
“I know he’s right for you, Zee. You two are so good for each other.”
“He’s such a sweet guy, En. A bit of a goof, but he’s always so sweet and tender with me. Always finding little ways to show how much he adores me. Some days we can’t wait to get our life going and start having our babies together.”
Naero paused.
“Whoa. Babies, again?”
Zhen nodded with excitement and glee. She reached into her front pocket and pulled out a small armored case, flipping it open to proudly show off the half-dozen nanofrozen capsules inside.
“Not right away, but we already have our first six kids picked out.”
Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit Page 5
