Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit

by Mason Elliott

  We can’t teknomance. I can barely keep talking to you. Run. We can’t win this fight.

  I’m healing, Om. Every second we hold him off.

  How many grenades do you have left?

  Five.

  Not enough.

  Shut up, and fix the damn blaster!

  Naero took Urrek back into the thick dark fir trees of the tree line forest.

  For a creature who could bore through solid rock, he merely tore his way through them.

  That ploy didn’t work any better the second time around.

  Naero relied on her agility.

  She was still smaller, quicker.

  Urrek cut through huge trees and branches with his tail alone.

  She couldn’t let him get close yet.

  Suddenly the monster charged right in on her.

  Naero flipped, slashing his spine with her energy cutlass.

  Urrek roared in pain. Shields still didn’t stop blades.

  He spun like a drill, knocking her high into the air.

  Then he leaped up at her, ready to drag her down.

  Even worse, Urrek’s deep wound on his back sealed up and healed almost completely, right before her eyes.

  Dakkur regenerated?

  And apparently a lot faster than Spacers.

  Her damaged gravwing still did not respond.

  Naero tried to levitate. Nothing.

  Summon wings. No dice.

  She gnashed her teeth and plummeted, thrusting her cutlass out in front of herself protectively.

  Naero, we can’t win a head on fight in this state.

  No choice, Om.

  She tried to maneuver, but Urrek came straight at her, roaring a challenge that chilled the marrow in her bones.

  He rampaged straight up through the trees, smashing through all the thick branches in his way.

  Naero turned to snap off a quick shot with her blaster. No effect.

  Something that felt like a furry rock blind-sided her out of nowhere.

  It snatched her away and carried her out of Urrek’s outstretched claws.

  Haisha!

  40

  Naero grunted. Stunned and winded for an instant.

  What the flaming hell?

  A short powerful, hairy arm encircled her as they rapidly passed through the trees at incredible speed.

  The creature was breath-robbing fast, up there with Baeven. And an acrobat in the trees like nothing she had ever seen.

  Even carrying her under the one arm, they leaped and flipped and raced through the trees in a flash.

  Naero struggled to break free, but the creature was also incredibly strong for its compact size.

  She dropped her blaster.

  The thing actually flipped and caught it. With its tail, and secured the weapon back in her holster.

  While it kept going.

  She tried to slice it with her cutlass, but the thing was too quick for her.

  The damn tail again. It ripped her weapon from her hand and sheathed it back behind her hips in the scabbard.

  Then it spoke to her.

  “Don’t try to cut me, dammit. That thing is sharp.”

  Naero twisted in panic, fighting for all she was worth.

  Long whiskers swiped across her face. She tried to get a look at her captor. Difficult while they swung through the trees and bumped around at high speed.

  She glimpsed an intelligent mammalian face. Large green eyes and many sharp white teeth. White whiskers tipped with blue.

  She scratched and bit. Her efforts flustered them both.

  “Hold it, spacechild,” the creature said, its voice almost a snarl. “Stop your damn wiggling, or I’ll drop you!”

  “Then drop me!”

  She re-doubled her efforts to break free, but the thing matched her strength. At first she feared it might be an Ejjai, but this creature wasn’t like anything she’d seen before.

  And no Ejjai could ever climb or flip through the forest like this.

  “Ugh! Do I have to knock you out or something?”

  “Okay…I give up. Please, don’t hurt me.”

  She faked giving up–to get a hand on one of her blades.

  But the thing wrapped its tail around her arm and nearly crushed her bones when it squeezed.

  “Stop fighting me,” it warned. “We don’t have time to wrestle with you!”

  It called up into the tree canopy. “S’krin. Get down here and give me a hand tackling Baeven’s little hellion!”

  Laughter filtered down through the leaves, along with a musical, almost child-like voice calling back down to them. “What’s the matter, Danjen? Can’t handle a little girl?”

  “Aaughh! Little girl? She just bit me again! I can’t control her much longer without breaking something on her. And Baeven insisted that we protect her.”

  The other voice kept laughing. “Who’s going to protect us from her?”

  “Seriously!”

  Naero stopped fighting.

  These were…Baeven’s friends…from his mysterious crew?

  Something flew overhead, its shadow passing over them.

  “Make ready for battle, Danjen–our foe comes straight for us.”

  Naero couldn’t look up in its direction the way she was held.

  What in the hell were these aliens? Not from any of the known species. That was for sure.

  With Urrek attacking, she had to break free.

  Naero sank her teeth deep into a furry forearm once more. The muscles wiry and tough, like biting into hardwood. It hurt her jaws.

  “Arrghh!” Danjen roared. He flung her into the brush below. “You little idiot! Stop biting me. We’re friendly, damn it.”

  An insect woman flitted above Naero, like a giant damsel fly in iridescent armor. Four diaphanous wings helped her maneuver, but Naero guessed that the gravdisks she wore front and back helped uphold at least some of her mass, on worlds with heavier gravity.

  Each of her six hands held an energized weapon of some kind.

  Naero had read about several insectoid races, but none like this, and with such humanoid faces. “I am S’krin,” she said, “Please believe us. Baeven sent us here to find and protect you.”

  She finally got a good look at Danjen, still licking his bleeding arm. About her height and covered with longer, light brown fur, darker and ringed around his ankles and wrists. His face also humanoid, but mammalian, more like that of a Terran weasel or ferret.

  He wore little else except an ornate battle harness, his several weapons, and a striped blue loin cloth.

  Then Naero heard Urrek roaring through the forest, catching up fast.

  Danjen sniffed the air, dropped to the ground right in front of Naero on one knee in a firing position. He squinted through the sights of some kind of hi-tek carbine.

  “Dakkur are tough and fast. We’re in for a fight. Here it comes!”

  “Too bad Gaviok isn’t with us.”

  “Yeah, he loves fighting these things–by the dozens.”

  “Or Baeven.”

  Danjen snorted. “The two of them would make these scum shit themselves.”

  Naero scrambled to draw her pistol, even as Danjen and S’krin’s weapons tore into their foe.

  Bright sprays of warping energy burst around it.

  Dammit. Urrek’s shields still held up.

  Naero sprang up into the trees and hit Urrek with her last grenades.

  The blasts drove their foe into the ground, but it spun, rolled away, and sprang into the air faster than weapons could track it.

  Urrek’s tactics remained sudden, abrupt, and blinding fast.

  S’krin unleashed a cry that nearly split Naero’s ear drums–an actual vocal, sonic attack. The air warped around it in pulsing rings.

  She swept down at Urrek, fearless, force blades blazing and arcing.

  They collided in mid-air. S’krin fast. Urrek a match for her.

  Despite her six limbs, armor, and multiple weapons, they smashed into a sixty m
eter tree, slashing and slicing at each other.

  Their fighting shattered the heavy tree into splinters and severed most of its main branches. The trunk uprooted and crashed down, torn completely out of the ground by their ferocity.

  S’krin finally took his shield down, but Urrek gained the upper hand, pinning her down. Pummeling her unmercifully. Somehow she endured and kept fighting back. Whatever race she was, she was tough.

  Danjen leaped over to help, seeing an opening. His own blades drawn.

  Naero drew her blaster to help, then her cutlass again.

  Unfortunately, with the three of them fighting and thrashing back and forth…

  Her first shot kinda hit…S’krin.

  “Ugh! Hey, watch it you fool!”

  “Sorry, sorry!”

  She charged in and tried to run Urrek through.

  Instead she jabbed Danjen in the butt as he jumped in. She even cut his tail slightly.

  “Ow, my tail! Dammit, girl. Will you stay out of this and just heal up for a bit? We’ve got this.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  Urrek punched Danjen right through another big tree.

  She wasn’t used to any of their odd moves and fighting styles.

  But neither was she convinced that Danjen and S’krin had the situation under control.

  They all took a pretty good beating, as bad as they dished out, and Urrek was a terrifying combatant.

  They’re holding Urrek off, giving you a chance to gather your strength and help them.

  When it came to raw speed and agility, Danjen was faster than Urrek, faster than Naero and anything she’d seen before, outside of Baeven’s Mystic-honed speed.

  But Urrek was more than three times their size and mass, and Danjen no taller than Naero herself. But he sprang upon the back of the Dakkur with his own war cry and sank his blades in deep.

  Urrek reared up in pain.

  Danjen used its momentum to flip it off of S’krin. Naero finally snapped off a few clear shots, with Urrek’s dense hide, they seemed to do little damage.

  Urrek flung S’krin aside when she attacked. It writhed and nearly twisted itself in knots trying to crush and rend Danjen.

  The small, furry fighter stayed one step ahead.

  Danjen dodged, kicked and slashed, slowly wearing Urrek down through attrition.

  The Dakkur went mad trying to get at Danjen.

  Naero, I’ve finally managed teknomance your blaster to penetrate Urrek’s tough hide. I’ve exhausted myself. You only have two, maybe three shots. Get in close. Make them count.

  Thanks, Om. Will do.

  Urrek spotted Naero as soon as she attempted to close in. He reversed his attack and and lunged at her suddenly, ignoring even Danjen’s blades.

  Naero side-stepped at the last instant, driving her energy cutlass deep into Urrek’s right eye. Even as he snapped at her with his bone-splintering jaws and broke off the blade.

  He just barely missed biting off her arm.

  Urrek thrashed wildly in pain, partially raked her with one claw, and then pinned her to the ground with a clawed arm heavy as titanandium.

  She shielded herself briefly with Chaos energy covering her body like a thick glaze. She kicked and punched.

  He tried to crush her.

  Urrek’s yawning maw sped toward her neck and head.

  Then he threw back his jaws and screamed.

  Danjen appeared at Naero’s side, just as she thought she might black out.

  He drove one blade deep into Urrek’s neck until his blade also snapped off, and then rammed his other short sword into the Dakkur’s skull.

  S’krin sprang upon Urrek from above, a long energized halberd flashing down.

  She severed Urrek completely in half with one powerful stroke, just above the hips.

  Hot steaming blood and glowing, dusty entrails exploded in a gritty cloud of stench, as if under extreme high pressure.

  Even in his death Urrek’s two halves thrashed and fought them, knocking Danjen aside, raking S’krin.

  But he leaped at Naero again, one arm useless, except for helping him crawl.

  Flying at him, Naero kicked Urrek backwards, rocking his jaw and splintering several teeth. Another flip-kick knocked him all the way over, skidding to a halt in a gory heap.

  Urrek shuddered and tried to right himself.

  Naero trod upon his thick neck and rammed him back down with one booted foot. Some of her strength returned.

  Urrek snarled at her.

  “My kind and our masters will swarm over your worlds and rend you all,” Urrek said with a gurgling, laughing hiss.

  Naero pressed her blaster right to its head.

  Close enough Om?

  “Roast in hell, monster.”

  She fired and kept firing until her blaster clicked.

  Urrek jerked as his skull blew apart and exploded in flashes of fetid dark energy. Until his ruined, smoldering face stared straight ahead and fell lifeless to one side.

  “Not bad.” Danjen said, kicking Urrek’s corpse a few times to make sure. “If it’s dead, you’d better step back.”

  Naero stared at them and raised one eye-brow.

  “Haisha, if it’s not dead by now, we’re in trouble.”

  All three of them pulled away.

  The corpse smoked with curls of black ichor and a sickening dark energy that made Naero’s flesh crawl. What the hell was this? Where had she sensed something like this before?

  In the ion gun chamber back on board The Darkstar.

  Then Urrek’s carcass dissolved and disintegrated right before her eyes. Leaving the ground blighted and blackened beneath it, and the same foul odor on the wind.

  Danjen put his hands on his hips and turned to S’krin.

  “Kid’s got talent. She’s Baeven’s blood alright.”

  41

  Danjen sniffed the air. His sharp, pointed ears shot up in alarm.

  “Uh-oh. We’re screwed. The rest of the drone pack will be on us in seconds. I can smell and hear them coming.”

  “We must flee,” S’krin said.

  “We can’t all get away from that many,” Danjen said plainly.

  He drew his weapons and strode forward with determination.

  “Take the girl, S’krin. I’ll buy you guys as much time as I can.”

  “Danjen. You can’t face this many. They’ll kill you.”

  The furry warrior grinned.

  “I can only die once, and it will be glorious. Go!”

  S’krin scooped Naero up.

  “We can’t leave him!” she shouted.

  As they rose higher, Naero saw the pack closing in on Danjen down below. Converging and racing in from a few klicks away.

  More than thirty drones in all. So fast.

  And it had taken all three of them to kill just one.

  Then Naero sensed it. Something mighty plummeted down from the sky. Something streaked down like a flaming red meteor.

  It struck the ground in front of Danjen and blasted a small crater into the trees.

  A cry of delight escaped S’krin. She circled back around and down.

  From the glowing crater, another insectoid creature rose up, very different from S’krin.

  This creature swelled in size until it towered over ten meters up into the trees, glowing blood red. A huge mantid.

  Naero could not believe it.

  Chaos energy.

  The insectoid rippled with raw, pulsating Chaos energy, enormous and menacing. Not a construct. A living creature that could channel huge quantities of raw Chaos power.

  She hadn’t seen anyone outside of Master Vane be able to channel that much Chaos energy.

  One of the Dakkur saw him and backed away, emitting a cloud of grayish dust from beneath its tail and hind legs.

  S’krin laughed. “Dakkur expel pulverized waste as dust,” she explained. “That one just soiled itself.

  “Who in the hell is the big red mantis-guy?” Naero asked.

/>   “That’s Gaviok. The Dakkur live in total fear of him, and one other great warrior. And with very good reason.”

  Naero shook her head. “I’m not following you.”

  “The Dakkur vermin have hive minds that share their experiences, sort of like a group memory for their race. They instinctively know the mortal enemies to their fell kind on sight. And instinctively fear the two Destroyers of their kind. Visions of the Destroyers are forever etched in the Dakkur mind. None of them can escape those visions or the terror they incite. Perhaps you shall hear the full tale told one day. It is a mighty story.”

  As one the Dakkur hissed and seemed to turn pale, a lighter color at least. They backed away to turn and flee, emitting the same purple, toxic gas clouds to cover their escape. Belching it from their bowels.

  The poison gas clung to the ground and obscured the area as they swirled it around with their whipping tails.

  So that’s how they did it.

  But as the Dakkur turned to race away, Baeven instantly stood blocking their escape, scorching green disruptor blades outstretched in each hand.

  Yet even he was different this time.

  Naero had never seen him like this, and the Dakkur dropped their jaws and froze in terror.

  Baeven pulsed with dark black energy that whorled around him.

  Naero knew in an instant exactly what it was.

  She could sense it. Like her, Baeven possessed a dark beast all his own. Deep within him.

  This was what it looked like when it took shape and emerged

  Green disruptor blades suddenly jutted out all over his dark glowing form, like thorns and curved knife blades.

  The Dakkur shit themselves and screamed in panic.

  “The Destroyers!”

  The enemy fled in broken fear, scattering in all directions.

  Gaviok and Baeven flashed into the swirling purple mists, moving faster than them. Faster than any normal eye could follow.

  Multiple bursts of dark energy, explosions, flashes of scarlet Chaos power, sizzling green blades, and strange lights.

  Naero shivered, hearing the Dakkur shrieking and screaming.

  They even fought each other to get away.

  Yet none escaped.

  Seconds later, the toxic mists cleared, swept away by the mountain winds.

  Shredded pieces of Dakkur lay everywhere. Some ripped apart. Others looked like they had been melted or reduced to ash somehow.