“You dare invoke her against me? I knew her since she was a child, Maeris. She was my star pupil. You never knew or understood her or her goals. And now she and they are dust!”
“I’m sorry for all of that, but it’s not all about you, Vane. Or me. Or her. This is bigger than all of us now. Even Hashiko said so. Anyone in the galaxy who can channel Cosmic energy is a target now. Mystics. Yattai. The Oden. Psyons. Anyone else. These aliens are more advanced than any of us, and they mean to take us all down, damn it!”
Naero clenched her fists and grunted in frustration.
“Right now, they are our primary objective.”
Master Vane shook his head.
“Very well. Then stay with Intel and the Fleets, Maeris. Do what you do best. Destroy everything around you. You’re good at that. Find these new alien adversaries of ours and put them down. Hard. Do something right for once. Make yourself useful.”
Hashi had said something very similar.
Vane severed their link abruptly.
Destroy the enemy?
“I fully intend to,” Naero said out loud.
That evening, Intel held an intelligence briefing.
For hours, they went over and debated everything they knew about the new threats and how they impacted the war, the talks, and their current situations.
It only raised thousands more questions. Hosts of new unknowns. Worries. Fears. The new aliens were perhaps more of a threat than ever.
And what about the other strange ship? Where was it and what was it doing? Who controlled it?
Baeven was already back out trying to track or find either of them.
Naturally, he and his crew bugged out early once the battle ended.
It wasn’t as if they could hang around and expect a medal or anything.
Intel and the Mystics still wanted Baeven in prison, or dead.
No matter how much good he did.
But Naero knew that Baeven did whatever he wanted to anyway. No matter the costs. He just didn’t care about much else.
But he was the only wild card Naero had, and against the vast unknown of these new alien threats, she needed to keep playing him.
Rolling the dice. Gambling at every turn. Everything they did was so risky.
Things kept blowing up in their faces and they could only react.
They needed to track their foes down and take the fight to them.
But first they needed to find them and bring their quarry to ground.
*
Naero struggled to find something positive while her people waited and recovered. Healing their wounded. Mourning their dead.
She used her new biomancing abilities in combination with Zhen’s healing sight, channeling her biomancing right through her friend.
Through their psyonic link, using their talents in conjunction, they worked on Arana’s ruined nose one day in the operating room on board her flagship. Zhen handled the surgical aspects.
Within one standard hour, they reset Arana’s nose, as normal and pretty as it had once been when she was younger. Before the war and all the violence she had endured.
Arana had shown them some old pictures of herself as a guide.
No swelling. Contusions all healed up and tissues fully regenerated.
They brought her around, and all three of them smiled and laughed at Arana’s restored image.
Arana laughed and started crying as she stared at her reflection. “It’s…the way I used to be.”
She covered her face with her hands, and then opened them again.
For a long while, she hung her head and couldn’t speak.
Naero gave her a re-assuring hug.
“You ready to see Jericho and the kids yet?”
“Please, let them in.” She sobbed. “I hope they recognize me still.”
Jericho carried Thai and Naomi in, nestled in his big scarred arms.
For an instant. Naero smiled and staggered a little, having a happy memory of her and Jan in her father’s huge arms. Just like that.
Arana laughed, tears still on her face.
She held out her arms, turning her head for them all to get a good look. She took in a deep breath.
“Well…what do you think?”
Jericho smiled.
The kids gasped.
“You’re even more pretty, mommy.”
“Like a vid star!”
They jumped from their father into Arana’s arms, hugging her tight.
Jericho calmly waited.
Arana finally handed the kids off to Naero and Zhen.
Captain Jericho swooped in immediately, scooped her up in his arms, and planted a big wet smooch on her.
He smiled at her.
“Baby, if you like it, I’m a happy man. But I already loved you with everything I had before. Nothing you can do can change that now.”
Some times it was the little things–the small victories that made things worth it.
Naero and Zhen laughed as they said their goodbyes.
“They’ll be all right now,” Naero said. “As safe as any of us. The marines are making a new forward base here. That means fleets, and another boom for Celonia-4.
Zhen snorted. “Especially after they see the new hospital and the buildings the fixer clouds built and repaired.”
“Eh, our clouds weren’t doing anything any way.” Naero chuckled. “I told Arana we’d make a few other improvements.”
Next, after a quick break, they went in to finish healing Shalaen.
Tarim heard them come in, and woke up off the medbay floor, instinctively reaching for a side arm.
And cracked his head on the bottom of Shalaen’s medbed.
Naero had hoped Shalaen would recover on her own, but being drained of nearly all of her Cosmic energy had put her in a torpid coma. Perfectly fine otherwise.
She just needed a jump start of Cosmic juice.
Naero waited until she was fully recovered herself, to give her old friend the Cosmic jolt she needed.
First, Naero and Zhen gave Shalaen a full inspection with their sight.
Naero stretched while Zhen continued, being thorough. Tarim waited bleary-eyed in a chair. Pretty washed out, but still on duty.
“She ready yet, Zee?”
Get ready, Om. We’re going to jumpstart Shalaen’s Cosmic batteries here.
It’s a little more complex than that, and you know it. Don’t drain us too low trying to help your friend. There’s always a risk involved.
Zhen gasped.
“What is it?” Naero and Tarim asked in unison.
“I’ve never examined her neurological profile this closely before. She has several…or at least she had several very intricate…and identical... What the…? How could they be identical?”
“Identical what, Zhen? Stop stammering, Doc. You’re not making any sense.”
“Th…they appeared to be tumors. But they were all the same. Placed in key points within her brain.”
“Can you remove them?”
“I…I thought that I would have to study them more, but–”
Zhen gasped wide-eyed and pulled away. Staring at her hands in disbelief.
“I…I just biomanced. That’s what I’m trying to spit out. I just removed all of the tumors; with barely a thought. They were so tiny. I biomanced right through my sight. All by myself. Naero…”
She stared at her own hands, blinking and shaking. “I can biomance now. How did you…pass the ability on to me?”
Just like passing the ability to teknomance on to Tyber.
Naero had done it by accident, without even intending to or understanding how it was even possible.
“I didn’t know I could, Zee. It must have been through our link while we were working together on Arana.”
Zhen gasped, and swallowed hard. “Apparently, I’m a fast learner. Once I see a technique once or twice, I can usually figure out a way to do it myself.”
Naero nodded in excitement. “I’m the same way. That’s h
ow you gave me your Healing Sight, which by the way–is very close to biomancing. I learned it from you.”
“En, this is something completely different. You’ve enhanced my psyonic abilities and awakened a new one. In another person. This is groundbreaking!”
Naero held up her hands. “Let’s keep quiet about it for now, Zee. We don’t know if it will last. But if you’re right, somehow I activated the ability to biomance in you. the Mystics would see this as a new type of quickening.”
Just another strange new ability as your powers continue to expand.
You got that right, Om. Apparently I’m still full of surprises.
Zhen struggled to recover still. “You’re correct, En. Of course, we do need to study all of this more closely. The effects might not be permanent.”
“Um…Naero,” Tarim said. “I know you two are excited and all, but I’ve been waiting for days with very little sleep. Can you please bring Shalaen around? Then you and Zee can go sort out everything else.”
“Right, absolutely right. Sorry, Tarim. Sure thing.”
Naero made the mindlink with Shalaen in a matter of seconds.
She kissed her old friend on the forehead, and filled her to the brim with pure cosmic energy. Om monitoring their progress.
Even more power suddenly roared back.
A flash of pure energy smashed Naero up into the medbay ceiling.
She crashed back to the floor, winded and surprised, but unhurt. Good thing she was a lot tougher now.
Another thing she could thank Hashiko for.
“Naero, are you all right?” Zhen yelled. Both her and Tarim stood backed up against the wall, staring in fear and surprise.
Naero jumped up quickly. “Fine. Just startled me, that was all. What about our patient?” She shook herself and looked around.
The medbed was empty.
Zee and Tarim point up behind her.
Naero turned.
Shalaen floated up above the medbed. She started glowing with a blinding, white-blue light.
Something was extremely different about her now.
Naero could sense it for certain.
Shalaen’s energies were even more off the charts.
Much more intense than before.
Shalaen opened her eyes.
They had been bright blue before. Now they looked like pulsars.
“Hello, my friends. I’m sorry if I frightened you. I’m compensating for these new energy levels. I’m not used to them. Thank you for saving me. For healing me. And for fully awakening me.”
“I didn’t give you that much Cosmic power,” Naero said. “Where is all of this coming from?”
Shalaen smiled, studying her shining hands. “You triggered a transformation. I am fully Yattai now. Nearly an energy being in this form. Such knowledge. All of these new powers and abilities…are indeed mine. My birthright as one of my mother’s people.”
She floated back down and hugged Naero. Then Zhen.
“Thank you for fully awakening me. Now I am free to try to contact my mother’s kin, if I can ever find a way to reach them in their dimension.”
She reverted back to her normal form, with the soft blue glow around her as before.
Shalaen turned to Tarim and melted into his arms.
“Please, do not fear me,” she told him. “I’m still me, my heart. I am still who and what I have always been, and what I will always we be. Even more so now. And I am still yours.”
“You can startle me, but I will never fear you,” Tarim said. “I’m just so happy you’re safe. And back with me.”
Shalaen looked at him, her lips yearning forward. “You’re weary, and you have several minor injuries and aches that hurt you. Even from here I can sense your pain, and it hurts me as it does you.”
She place one hand gently upon Tarim’s chest.
Light passed between their touch and filled him.
Now both of them gasped.
Instantly Tarim looked refreshed, and fully healed.
Even several old scars on his face, hands, and arms also vanished.
Shalaen laughed, nearly weeping. Still staring at her glowing hand.
“I…I can heal.” She turned to them all in stunned wonder, tears of joy in her eyes.
“I can heal now. Just like my mother once could. I can heal others!”
Shalaen flung the panels open wide and raced out into the ship’s medical bay proper, still stuffed with wounded people, recovering from the battle. About sixty in all. Brought in for triage and emergency treatment where the ship landed.
Shalaen went to a small girl of four, whose legs had been ripped off by the enemy. The small child was prepped for limb regeneration.
Shalaen placed her hands on the little girl’s ragged stumps and encased them in her blinding light.
Two small, perfect legs emerged from that light in place of the stumps.
The child’s stupefied parents fell to their knees in wonder.
Shalaen raced to a wounded marine, shot through the face and missing part of one shoulder.
She laid her glowing hands on the young warrior’s terrible injuries.
Her light flared once more, and out of the radiance, the young marine became whole again, and raised one arm to shield his new eyes from her bright glare.
The angel of light swept from medbed to medbed, until all were healed and restored to their former selves. And those healed and those that cared for them stared in wonder and laughed, and cried, and rejoiced.
Shalaen swept back out of the medical bay beaming in joy, weeping tears of light that fell sparkling to the floor like gems at her feet.
All were so stunned, no one had even thought to thank her.
Naero, Zhen, and Tarim followed her back to her private quarters.
Tarim couldn’t wait any longer. He rushed forward and kissed her.
Shalaen instantly fused herself to him and kissed him right back.
Shalaen’s bright aura spread over both of them, growing increasingly brighter and brighter.
Zhen whispered, shielding her eyes against the growing radiance.
“I think I can safely say that our work here is done for the time being.”
“Uh…Yeah,” Naero said, clearing her throat and shielding her eyes also. “Looks like both our patients will…uh…definitely make a full recovery. And then some. Haisha! Let’s get the heck out of here. Before they blind us both.”
They closed and locked the panel to the private medbay quarters behind them.
46
Shalaen called a meeting with Naero and Intel on her own the very next day. They met with Klyne and General Thadian Ingersol on board The Kathmandu in the conference room for an interesting debriefing.
She attempted to explain in detail what she had learned about the enemy from her brief contact and communion with them.
“I don’t know exactly what the enemy wanted from me,” she told them. “But if we can figure it out, I think it was extremely important.”
“That’s pretty obvious,” Naero said, fidgeting absently with her hands. She rubbed her eyes and hung her head.
The no sleep thing was really starting to catch up with her.
She started snapping a people when she normally did not.
Her crew began to notice.
Even Zhen was at a loss.
“They want to use us all for batteries and suck us dry of any Cosmic energy to use in their Darkforce generators. They’d love to get their hands on any of the Yattai.”
“Let Lady Shalaen speak, Captain Maeris,” General Ingersol insisted.
The other brother of the Brothers Jerk did not like her or have much patience for her either.
Shalaen shook her head. “But there was more to it all than that. Much more. I just can’t remember it or piece it together some how. As soon as they captured me and I lay helpless, those accursed machines immediately started probing and searching my mind. And they were not gentle about doing so.
“Yet I a
lso sensed that they seemed desperate in a way. Desperate to gain certain kinds of information they lacked. Stuff only Yattai would know. But because I was only half-Yattai, I didn’t really know that much. And of course, that fact frustrated them immensely.”
“What do you think they were after?” Klyne said.
“I can’t be sure, but I think it had something to do with the workings of interdimensional travel, and various types of temporal manipulation.”
“Time travel? What a bunch of crap. That’s theoretically impossible,” Naero said.
No one else said anything.
Naero looked nervously at Shalaen, and then around the room. She stopped back at Klyne.
“Isn’t it?”
“We’re not so sure. And that’s a problem. Even the High Masters are not.”
Shalaen spoke once more. “I’d have to confer with my mother’s people. But I still don’t have a way to contact them yet. They normally inhabit an adjacent reality to our own. A dimension of almost pure energy. My mother had to reduce herself down to a fallible, physical form in order to exist here in your dimension.”
“Now I’m really getting worried,” Naero said.
She shot up out of her seat and began pacing. “All of this new alien stuff is really starting to freak me out. I saw what they did to Hashi. And trust me, they are never going to get me into one of those damn generators. All of this is literally beyond anything we know. How can we possibly defend against stuff like this?
“If these new enemies can…can tap into other dimensions, who knows what else they can do? Maybe capture some Yattai or other Cosmic beings. Then they’ll have all the batteries and all Darkforce energy they’ll ever need. There won’t be any limit to what they’ll be able to do in our reality. How can we fight forces like this? W-we won’t be able to stop them.”
“Maeris, you are losing it,” Ingersol observed, with some enjoyment. “Calm yourself.”
Naero sat back down in a huff, crossed her arms, and tried not pout like a scolded child.
“We cannot simply fear what we do not know yet,” Shalaen said. “But I think their desperation also revealed how flawed and contingent many of their plans are, and limited by their own ignorance. Their strength and their dominance isn’t absolute. As we have seen. They can be defeated.”
Klyne knitted his hands in front of his face, resting his elbows on the conference table. “Did you get any other impressions about their mindset, their plans, or any of their goals, long or short term?
Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit Page 31
