Spacer Clans Adventure 1: Naero's Run

by Mason Elliott

  NAERO’S

  RUN

  Mason Elliott

  High Mark Publishing

  www.highmarkpublishing.com

  Seattle & Portland, Chicago, London

  NAERO’S

  RUN

  by

  Mason Elliott

  Kindle Edition

  © 2012 by Mason Elliott. All rights reserved.

  Published by High Mark Publishing

  ISBN 978-1-930451-04-9

  Watch for other titles by this author in the future.

  Cover Art by

  Frank Miller

  frankmillerdesign.com

  License Notes:

  This book or ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This work in any format may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  Call for Book Reviews

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  NAERO’S GAMBIT Preview

  1

  The stars belong to everyone.

  That’s what Spacers believe.

  All of the sentient races–everything that exists–came from the stars. No one owns them.

  Whatever any other sentients and the Gigacorps claim.

  The stars are always free.

  In the end, everything and everyone returns to them.

  Naero’s parents, her friends, and her space-faring people taught her to cherish and respect the harsh beauty of space for what it was and for what it offered: Freedom. Challenge. Everything.

  Her mother was her sun, and gave her light, life, and love.

  Her father was her ship, her courage and adventure.

  In her Spacer Clan she found herself, others–knowledge, strength and joy. Naero woke up in her quarters and scribbled down the poetry and thoughts that had danced in her head while she snoozed. She scrawled on an old-style lighted pad with a pen she kept in reach of her bunk, the same way her illustrious father did.

  The way he taught her. To be a poet warrior.

  A philosopher king…or queen.

  She let the pad fade, lay back down, and drifted off again, one night before her nineteenth birthday. One year before she’d come of age and could captain a ship–her own ship–just as her famous mother had done at that age.

  A strange dream overtook her; a nightmare, really.

  She struggled against some kind of devouring darkness. It penetrated her very flesh, violating her mind with horror and abject agony. No matter how she resisted, it absorbed her like a giant amoeba.

  Yet the attacking darkness came from within her as well, and that was the most frightening part of it all somehow. The fact that such negative energy and twisted desires were part of her, and she part of them.

  Parts of her secretly enjoyed some of those demented feelings–even yearned for them.

  Lusted for the destroying power to subjugate everything and everyone to her will, and inflict suffering and misery upon them all, crushing and decimating them under the grinding heel of her enraged might.

  Just as her strength to resist failed, right on the verge of her being swallowed up by the insane annihilation, the darkness parted.

  A shining, beautiful, green young man with flowing golden hair appeared, his blinding sword cutting through the deep shadows.

  She thrust both arms toward him for rescue.

  He plunged his blade through her forehead, transfixing her gasping face upon its blazing length. She heard, felt his voice in her mind.

  I’m sorry. This will not hold the Chaos back for long.

  He jerked his sword free…

  *

  Naero awoke in a voiceless scream, thrashing in terror and clutching her throbbing forehead.

  She sat up in her darkened gray, three-by-four meter cabin, still serving with her aunt’s Merchant Clan Fleet, still on their way through Triax Corps space to Irpul-4.

  But in an alarmed daze, she glanced around at her inactive wall and ceiling screens rising two and a half meters above her bunk panel.

  Her morning alarm chimed.

  She sprang naked from her cluttered bunk–Naero always slept nude.

  She tripped over the stinky junk on her floor, and punched up a blinding splash of lights and a mirror on her port screenwall.

  Her wild movements scattered and splashed muted pics and vids of family, friends, and new ship designs and schematics she could only drool over all across the other screenwalls and ceiling like panic-stricken birds.

  Her preset systems struggled to light, wake up, and compensate in response to her frantic movements. Winking as they came online.

  Naero gasped for air and pulled her long raven hair apart. Checked for the gaping wound in her forehead that she fully expected to see there.

  Nothing. Not a damn thing.

  Just a few inflamed zits and her stupid pale forehead under her slender, trembling hands that held up her long, jet black hair over wide, dark violet eyes. Eyes and hair she got from her pretty mom.

  She caught her heaving breath, nostrils still flaring. She stepped back and let her hands fall back to her sides, her black hair droop back down over her face.

  Her nightmare had seemed so real.

  She sat down slowly on the edge of her bunk, still confused and shaking.

  Naero shook her aching head, staring down at empty ration cans of Spum, the only blue meat on the market, in its mysterious sweet-and-sour blue jelly sauce. Along with various packages of other assorted bizarre snacks and junk food, hoarded from numerous interstellar ports of call.

  All gathered together for one orgasmic private pig-out session the night before her birthday. She had even skipped dinner with her mates in anticipation of her little guilty pleasure feast.

  The smell in the aftermath grew rank.

  Eating all that crap must have really done a number on her brain. No wonder she’d had nightmares and flipped out.

  Four time. The first four bells of the new day. Her birthday.

  No time like the present to get her ass in gear and get on with life. Plenty to get done before her duty shift.

  Back on Old Terra it would have been April first by the old calendar, the basis for the Spacer standard year, day, hour, etc.

  What once people on the old ho
meworld called April Fool’s Day–before humans finally left their dying world behind, took to the stars, thankfully, and some had the foresight to evolve into Spacers.

  Her ancient history said that it had once been a day for people to play tricks on each other and fool one another with fake nonsense.

  Hell, Naero played so many goofy jokes and scams on her friends and family already. They expected them from her on a regular basis.

  Almost.

  Therefore, in honor of her birthday, she had a special joke planned for everyone. A master stroke of genius if ever she had come up with one.

  And only she could pull it off.

  First she had to get her mates started for their secret training session.

  She punched up Gallan on her com.

  “You up, big guy?”

  Her extra-large bestest friend answered, his holo floating in the air at about half-size as he slipped into his togs, sealing them up.

  “Just getting dressed. Meet you in Practice Room 35 with the others. Sheesh, put some clothes on, N.”

  “I intend to. Nothing you haven’t seen before, buddy. What do you care? You like guys.”

  He grimaced. “Still, it’s just courteous. See ya.”

  Next, wake her Spacer gal pals.

  Punch up Chaela.

  Audio response only; holo blocked. Animalistic groan.

  “I will kill your dumb ass.”

  “Uh, okay, Chae. I’ll get back to you. It’s Naero? Remember, we agreed to–”

  Another louder groan.

  “I will hurt you!”

  “I’ll just check back in ten. Bye.”

  That hadn’t gone too well.

  Call up Saemar. Always taking a chance with her as well, in other ways.

  Holo blocked on her end this time, thank goodness.

  “Hey, Saemar. Wakey wakey.”

  “Oh, Naero? Hi, sweetie. Thanks for calling.”

  Unfortunately, Saemar flipped her holo on, revealing flashes of some strange guy’s naked back, arm, and hairy butt.

  Naero could even hear the guy snoring.

  “So…can you join us, Saemar? You aren’t too…busy, are you there?”

  “What, him? We were at it all night in one of the flight simulators. He comes over ta my place for a couple more runs–and then he passes out on me.”

  “Who…is that? Bad, bad idea. Scrap that. I don’t wanna know.”

  Naero heard a groan and the guy mutter. “Wha? It’s…not even five yet.”

  “Just some tek from maintenance; a new one. Had ta break him in, ya know. Hey, you–”

  “Don’t wake him up!”

  “Hey, chum, what’s your name again? Wadda ya mean, why? Because my friend wants to know. Oh, you’d really like her, she’s just like me, a real looker.”

  “Uh, join us in P.R. 35…if you can. Saemar.”

  “Of course ya gotta get up. Hurry up and roll over already. I gotta go. Okay, sweetie. See ya there. Just gimme a few. Ten, twelve, maybe fifteen tops. Won’t be too long. Like a lotta teks, this guy’s pretty quick. Ya know what I mean?”

  “Uh…sure. Saemar.”

  “And let me wake Chae up. You know how she gets just a little testy when it’s early like this.” Saemar signed off.

  Noted. Fighter jocks. If Naero hadn’t trained with them so closely, she’d have never understood their type. Saemar was worse than Jan, even. Different guys all the time. Any time. But it hadn’t always been that way with her. Chaela, on the other hand, had a steady guy from accounting.

  Naero flipped up Zhen and of course got the bonus of Tyber right there with her. The eternal odd couple, giggling and cooing together, their heads bobbing in their mist shower.

  “Hey, Naero,” Tyber called out.

  “Good morning, spacechild,” Zhen added formally. “Don’t worry. We’ll be there. Happy birthday, by the way. You sure you still wanna try out that alien psy helmet? As your physician, I still think that’s exponentially ill-advised.”

  Naero laughed. “Who asked you? You’re still just a medtek, you quack. What do you know?”

  “Hey, you’re the one who gave me an illegal neural-medical stimulation device to check out for you. That thing could fry your brain like a Spum meatball.”

  Naero grinned, glancing at the empty ration paks littering her floor. “I like Spum. Just be there to monitor me.”

  All hands accounted for. All of her best friends coming to her rescue on her birthday to help her trigger her psy talent, once and for all.

  She ignored the general disorder of her quarters and ducked in for a quick mist shower herself, a relaxing, refreshing start to any day. The firm cleansing mist massaging her toned body. She didn’t even bother using mist wash.

  Nano particles wicked the excess moisture away, leaving her small, slender, well-muscled form instantly and comfortably dry.

  Naero peeled open a package and snapped out a crisp new set of black flight togs. The best thing next to one’s skin besides nothing at all. She slipped into the luxury of the nanomaterial, attached her gear, her hidden blades, and a few other weapons. Next she put on her wristcomp and programmed or ‘pweaked’ up her three blue, glowing rank bands on her forearms.

  No way she’d forget them.

  Especially the rank she’d worked so hard to earn in the Maeris Clan Fleets.

  The Nytex smart-material adapted and held all her gear tight and trim, as well as regulated her temp, controlled body odor, and monitored her vitals, ready to obey the presets she programmed into them. She could form boots, gloves, pockets, pouches, or even pweak up a quick bubble face shield and a sealed EV-suit in a pinch.

  She could change the color or pattern if she desired, or add flair, the way some of the Spacer kids did. But she’d always liked basic Spacer black.

  Unfortunately short and small like her champion mom, if she couldn’t be tall and stacked with bulging muscles like her champion dad, at least she could still look great.

  She pulled her long black hair into an efficient ponytail with a golden clip that had once been her mom’s, and then pweaked her wallscreens back together, more or less.

  Naero glanced at her pitiful life savings account for her first ship.

  The ship she and her mates all dreamed about, with her as their captain, and them her crew.

  Sigh. 6,713,448.21C.

  Less than seven megacredits.

  Even the cheapest, lousiest crap buckets that could still jump ranged around forty to fifty megs at least. And she had been scrimping and saving like a fricking miser all her life.

  The sleek, showroom-new beauties lining and sparkling on the walls of her dreams were nearly beyond reality. Five or six times that much or more. Better than most of the stuff in most fleets, even among Spacers.

  Her younger brother, Jan, however, was just the opposite of her in almost every way possible. He blew every chunk of change he could get his hands on and was always either flush with creds right after pay day, or broke soon thereafter.

  Usually on girls–Spacer girls, even lander girls. He didn’t much care as long as they were female and willing. Janner had become a hound early on, and a full-fledged-womanizer by the ripe old age of seventeen, two years younger than her. Jan was always on the make for a good time.

  While Naero herself–so busy earning rank and trying to get ahead–was still pretty much a virgin.

  Even her closest friends didn’t suspect the embarrassing truth.

  Oh, sure, a few close calls and hot, steamy near-misses with cute Spacer boys here and there that she made believe went farther than they did. Everyone just naturally assumed.

  But she was just so damn busy.

  And driven.

  And choosy.

  And completely hopeless.

  Not only that, worse than her pathetic romantic life–as a Spacer, she had yet to develop a psyonic gift or talent.

  Most Spacers had at least one. Her parents were famous for theirs. Even Jan was already a strong, albeit l
azy, pyrokinetic.

  While she was quickly in danger of becoming a nud. Some washed-out loser without any kind of psyonic talent at all.

  A virtual evolutionary dead end.

  Sigh again.

  And nobody ever got a talent after their coming of age.

  Ever. Twenty standard years was the rock-solid cut off.

  She opened a hidden stash compartment and brought out her emergency kit. Its contents weren’t exactly legal, even among Spacers: psyonic enhancing and stimulating treatments and genetic drugs from several worlds and alien races known to have psyonic abilities. Even her crowning glory, the outlawed psyonic trigger and amplification helmet.

  The Corps dominated known space and remained brazenly human-centric. Spacers were also homogenous and kept to themselves for the most part. The Corps kept all of the other known races oppressed and marginalized.

  This made acquiring such a stash of psyonic boosters incredibly difficult.

  All desperate, last-ditch efforts to avoid nudness. She was going to develop her talent, or at the very least trigger it, and figure out what the hell it was. Or reduce part of her brain to mush in the attempt.

  Naero felt more than tired of her friends’ jibes and annoying allusions to her lack of psy abilities. And her little brother was worse than all of them put together.

  Today could very well be the day all of that could end. Yay. Happy birthday to her.

  No time to eat. No time to lie around writing or reading poetry like her gigantic dad. Time to meet the troops for a little secret training session, before morning PT with Jan and Aunt Sleak. Training, and then their duty shift making the fleet transport deliveries.

  Haisha, wasn’t that all enough?

  Naero slipped out of her trashed quarters and let her panel auto-secure behind her, kicking some of the junk back in so it could.

  2

  Saemar sparred with her first in Practice Room 35, a semi-circular slice of empty, flat gray-black nanoroom wedged into the ship’s hull, ten meters along its widest length, four meters along the shortest, five meters high.

  Her other friends sat watching the match on a preset bench they pulled up from the nanofloor. As their medic, Zhen stood by a little closer, scanning them both for psyonic activity.