“If what he said to you is true, Naero, then you and your brother are in serious danger. You may be right. We might want to talk to him, to learn his game. I’ll have to contact some of my friends in Spacer Intel again.”
“You know people in Shadowforce?”
Aunt Sleak frowned. “It’s time you learned the truth, spacechild. Most of our family was Shadowforce until about fifteen years ago. You just weren’t old enough to be told yet. All Spacer merchants collect data for Intel. Some more than others.”
“That’s where you and Mom knew this Baeven guy from, right?”
Aunt Sleak averted her gaze for an instant. “Your mother was very close to him at one time, Naero. Before his disgrace.”
“She...she loved him,” Naero guessed aloud.
Aunt Sleak nodded. “We both did, in our way. But Lythe was always closest to him. She even fought to defend him, even though it hurt her own career. He nearly took her down with him.”
“What about you?”
“After a while, he and I never got along very well. That’s all I’ll say. You don’t need to know any more about him. If Baeven turns up, I don’t want you and Janner alone with him, and don’t go anywhere with him. I want to be present when you talk to him, and our people need to watch him at all times, understood?”
The terminal signaled that the chip was decoded and ready to play.
“There, got it finally. Listen closely. I don’t know what we’re going to get.”
Naero held her breath. Aunt Sleak punched up the coded message. Both of them leaned in, making out two voices.
“What do you mean it’s not there You’d better have it! This little intercept cost enough, damn you. Nine elite strike ships destroyed, two in tow, five others damaged. We’re risking another Spacer War. What do you mean you can’t deliver? What do you think we keep your kind around for?”
“Your intelligence was in error. The item in question was not on board the Spacer exploration flagship. We’ve gone over the wreckage and all of the bodies repeatedly. Both mine and your own teams are going over it all again. But I can assure you...there is nothing to retrieve.”
“Then we’re dead, you bastard. Within a month, we’ll be swimmin’ in pain bugs. But you go first... I go down, you go down.”
“There is another possibility...”
“Better be rutting good.”
“These Spacers didn’t have their son or daughter with them.”
“So what?”
“Spacers almost always travel with their children. They must have known how dangerous this trip was going to be. But this wasn’t the first run they made into the Unknown Sectors. Perhaps they didn’t even know what they had found. What if they left the secret to the Kexxian Data Matrix with their children somehow? Their kids are probably traveling with some relative.”
“Find them, find the missing secrets, and perhaps we’ll both survive this.”
“Thin. Very thin. But snagging those kids might buy us some time. Do what you need to. This is an Alpha Negative Priority. The Corps will cover your activities. Gut those brats and their entire spack family if you have to, but get what we need. There’s blood between your house and theirs. That ought to make it easy enough.”
The recorded transmission cut off. Where had Naero heard one of those voices? The calm one?
It was a Matayan voice.
The blurt ended. Naero nodded to her aunt. “So, I guess Janner and I will be sticking close to the fleet for a while.”
“Not tonight,” Aunt Sleak said. “We’re going to that Corps party on Lady Drianne’s yacht with Janner. We’re deep within Corps Space. If we panic now and try to escape, they’ll run us down. They don’t know if we even have anything yet. Running will make it look like we do. They’ll hesitate doing anything in public to avoid another costly war.”
“We don’t know if we have anything either,” Naero said.
“There’s too much we don’t know and too many big players flooding the game. I want to sort out a few things. We’ll go to that party tonight and see what shakes out. Just stay on your guard.”
“On the blurt they mentioned the Kexxian Data Matrix,” Naero said. “What the hell is that?”
Aunt Sleak breathed out hard. “Just a legend. The Kexx were an ancient race of near-godlike beings who ruled much of the galaxy in the Unknown Sectors, millions of years ago before most sentient life was somehow wiped out during a galactic event known as–”
Naero finished her sentence. “…The Great Destruction.” Extremely ancient galactic history.
“We don’t know anything more about the Kexx or what happened–yet. That’s...something your parents were trying to find out.”
“Think Baeven will show up tonight?”
“He might. If someone is after you and Janner, going to this party might flush them and their reasons out into the open. We’d better have a talk with Jan about all of this. And Naero...?”
“What?”
“I want you fully armed from now on, and not just kid stuff. Talk to Zalvano about some suggestions from my personal armory. He’ll fix you up with items that’ll make it past Corps security. If there’s any trouble, I want us all to be ready. I’ll keep the fleet on standby, and bring enough of our people along to back us up.”
Naero nodded. “Sure thing.”
What in the hell were they all getting into, and who were the bastards that murdered her parents and all their crews? And for what?
The deeper they went, the more they didn’t know.
12
Lady Drianne’s yacht.
Larger than either The Slipper or The Shinai. A seven-hundred-ton pleasure palace glittering in space, decked out to the megs. No cost spared. No opulence or extravagance too great.
Who could guess how many worlds had been sucked dry and how many generations of Corps wage slaves had given their all so that she could indulge herself and all of her lackeys and sycophants in such decadence?
Waves of food, drink, entertainment, and every pleasure lay wide open and available for the guests on board.
Each room a palace. Each hallway and corridor a priceless art gallery. Furnishings and decorations taken from untold worlds and cultures. Diversions, games, shows, delights. Debaucheries.
Levels filled with whores, and sex slaves from a thousand races and the several known genders, more than a match for any imagined taste or the indulgence of any vice, fantasy, or perversion
Arena levels with blood sports and gladiator death matches, where warriors and dangerous beasts and monsters pitted themselves against one another for sport and gambling and sheer delight.
Naero, Jan, and some of her friends entered the lair of the beast beside Aunt Sleak, with Captain Zalvano and their Spacer retinue right behind. They stepped into the Casino just beyond the opulent landing bay, about threescore in all.
She noted the row upon row of viewscreens, brazenly offering all of their enjoyments and much more, directing guests to where they could all be found.
“Triax Gigacorp, the worst of the worst.” Jan noted. “This Triax princess sure has megacredits to spare.” Even he sounded stunned and amazed.
Naero frowned. “Yeah, despite trillions on the Triaxian wageslave worlds wallowing in poverty and despair.”
“They refer to them as ‘useless eaters,’ sib. No one cares what happens to them.”
“Jan, the cost of any small section of this yacht–even one of their bathrooms–would be more than enough to purchase a fine trade ship, the modest likes of which you and I might never see now. We could work our entire lives and never save enough. Remember that tonight.”
Even Saemar, voluptuous in a tight, hot pink dress, was amazed. “Look at what they’re doing on that screen. Even I’ve never done anything like that.” She sighed and nudged Naero. “Too bad we’re on duty, huh sweetie? Chaela’s gonna miss a good time tonight.”
Naero endured a twinge of pain. She still felt responsible for Chae’s injuries. Her a
bsence left another gaping hole.
But Naero tried not to look at many of the screens after she got the gist of what was going on in them. Somehow it was worse than porn, flaunted so brazenly for everyone to watch and join in if they wanted to.
Liveried servants waited to escort them to the zero-G play rooms, beach rooms, winter mountain ski slopes, underwater rooms, several convenient costume shops, and vomitoriums for the hordes of enormous, feasting gluttons and their grav implants.
Finally they arrived at the primary reception hall. Everything around them dazzled and sparkled, like a spectacular Algedian casino palace.
Naero glanced at Aunt Sleak and then at herself, suddenly feeling somewhat self-conscious and out of place. Even with her concealed weapons. Without her flight togs she felt half-naked, and it wasn’t just because of her slinky dress.
None of her friends or clan could see the insane eye in her forehead but to her it was still there. Naero had checked, filled with horror every time it stared back at her.
She strategically kept a thick wave of her raven hair covering her forehead and another eye partially.
She reminded herself that she agreed to go along with this public display.
The Akoran nightsheen gown she wore shimmered with the ambient light from bluish-black to blackish-red. She caught herself in a mirror and struggled not to blush. The top was cut much lower than anything she thought she’d ever be allowed to wear. Her ivory breasts were ample but not overly large; at least they were firm and natural.
Unlike the various pairs of wobbling grav-implants all around her that seemed to float and bob freakishly with lives of their own.
Part of her felt embarrassed on several levels.
Until she saw what other people were wearing. Some no more than holographic screen tattoos or body jewelry. She’d seen vids and clips of Corps fashions from hundreds of systems and usually just giggled and considered them a joke.
Experiencing the true range and madness full force was both shocking and a bit overwhelming.
They went all the way from austere to exhibitionist.
This wasn’t her game at all. She still didn’t understand how exactly to walk that fine line between looking sexy or like an Arabalan prostitute.
Aunt Sleak was an old hand, it appeared, and had fashion moxie to spare. Which was also somewhat surprising.
Perhaps Naero simply needed to trust her suddenly flamboyant aunt and follow her lead.
They passed through the reception hall, and the crowd parted to get a better look at the arrival of the renegade, unpredictable Spacers.
If Naero turned heads, Aunt Sleak made them gape. That amazingly tight body of hers.
Her aunt wore a long semi-opaque gown of Ovadi EM-silk. It collected the low-level electromagnetic pulses around her and radiated harmless miniature lightning bolts all about her body, teasing onlookers with brief glimpses of the sleek, fluid form beneath. It didn’t show much top or leg, but it was dazzling.
Zalvano, Janner, Gallan, Tyber, and the other Spacer men struck dashing, virile figures in their impeccable black Sovani-styled evening jackets, jeweled throat and chest bands, tight leggings, and high boots. All the Spacers looked superb, but were stunning to a lesser degree.
Aunt Sleak was the main attraction.
Janner seemed to be the most pleased of them all, eating up the attention and envy that seemed to erupt all about them wherever they went. His gaze roved over the crowd, looking for something hungrily, and earning not a few hungry glances in return.
Zalvano, on the other hand was a study of class, calm, and reserve. When his glance did stray a few times, it went to Aunt Sleak, and then he would linger and only smile slightly. He looked very pleased with the universe.
Aunt Sleak followed her own instincts, nodding to a few persons as she made her way through the party into the main ballroom.
Thousands of people; dancing, cavorting, and singing. The rectangular chamber stretched almost the length of the entire top section of the ship; the ceiling more than thirty meters high, set with holos that periodically flashed and displayed the skies of various worlds.
At last they reached the thickest part of the crowd. Persons of import and their retinues made way. A final barrier of personages parted and Naero caught sight of Lady Drianne and her daughter Devi.
Devi wore a short skirt of some clingy material that was so radiant it looked white-hot. It ended just under her ribs, exposing the rest of her from there on up.
If the wild young girl had implants, they were damn good ones.
Even Janner blushed. She spotted him and bounced through the crowd to take him by the hand. “Oh, Jan, I’m so glad you and your people could make it.”
Janner gulped for air. “Me too,” he said, a fog over his eyes.
Devi giggled and looked them all over. “You guys look great. That’s your aunt? Mother will shit. C’mon and meet her.”
Naero wanted to slap the little bimbo silly. Other than the obvious, what could Janner possibly see in the girl? Their aunt was right. She’d have to have a talk with him about developing some serious taste in women.
Lady Drianne looked like a queen holding court. Perhaps she was. Her flawless body was draped in a filmy gown of what looked to be either gold foil or liquid gold. As she moved, it split, tore, and reformed, more than skin-tight against her slender yet ample body.
The competition between Lady Drianne and Aunt Sleak erupted almost immediately, like two Schedarian wasp queens maneuvering for their death strikes.
Sometimes they killed each other.
Naero quickly appraised the two while they exchanged opening civilities. Lady Drianne had a slightly prettier face. Aunt Sleak the slightly better figure. Some of the drooling hangers-on about them looked torn as to which one to leer at.
Naero suddenly caught sight of the middle-aged merchant from the sky limo. He wasn’t watching them at all, but listening intently to a group of businessmen and businesswomen talking animatedly with some high-level Corps military officers nearby. He said very little, and suddenly stifled a yawn.
It was then that their eyes met. Recognition brightened his gaze along with surprise. He nodded to her in salute with his glass, excused himself from his circle, and disappeared into the crowd.
“My dear Sleak,” Naero heard Drianne say. “How good to see you. You look well. Why, I was stricken with grief when I heard about the tragedy involving Lythe.”
Naero turned her attention back to the Corps princess. Aunt Sleak only nodded.
Lady Drianne slipped in like an old friend and took Sleak’s arm in hers.
“But come now, let us talk business. I have numerous lucrative proposals for you. We’ve always made good profits together.”
Janner had already disappeared with Devi. Zalvano stayed with Aunt Sleak and Drianne. Naero wandered off a bit with Gallan and her friends, declining several offers to dance or to indulge in one of the nearby drug or pleasure suites.
“This crowd is mostly humans and near humans,” Gallan noted, “punctuated by an occasional non-human.”
Most of the latter were relegated to the positions of servants or guards. She saw an Ejjai in person for the first time, a matriarchal race of hyena-like humanoids. By all reports they were tough, vicious fighters.
A servant came by with a tray of wild-looking drinks.
Naero impulsively chose a tall, clear crystal-goblet with what looked to be a pale wine or liqueur, fruity by the smell of it. A small holo of a flaring sun floated in the liquid, which smelled of warm citrus.
“Hold it,” Zhen said, quickly scanning the drink. “Okay, it’s safe.”
Fast-absorbed endorphics rushed through Naero’s body with the first sip, radiating mild, harmless pleasure from the center of her abdomen. The slight tingling sensation felt very nice.
She’d still rather have a borbble of Jett. Triax probably had an entire room of it somewhere. She just had to locate it.
Tyber and Zhen danced in the
ir matching orange and black outfits like they were a dance team. Gallan with Saemar.
Naero felt a different tingle of warning in her mind as she watched her friends dance. Again, like someone trying to speak to her.
The same feeling she had on the loading dock before the accident, but not as intense yet. Her crazy delusional eye even throbbed.
In a mirror wall, she caught sight of Lady Drianne’s Matayan bodyguard following her, back in the crowd.
She turned immediately and blew him a kiss.
The man’s face darkened into a violent sneer again as she made him. He turned his face away as if to ignore her, but he did not move off. She was about to walk up and ask him to dance when a figure stepped up beside her at the edge of her vision.
The limo merchant again. Still dressed soberly, although wearing a slightly fancier head wrap and jewels. “Perhaps I intrude,” he said, “but I would not provoke that Slayer, if I were you, miss. No good would come of it.”
So Drianne’s bodyguard was a Slayer, a Matayan warrior with more than a hundred kills, whether in the military, as a gladiator, or perhaps as an assassin. He had a ring of at least ten stars tattooed on his broad chest.
Leave it to a Triaxian princess to hire the best she could find.
“I was just wondering if he would like to dance,” Naero said. “It might help pass the time, since he’s been assigned to watch me. Do you think he might try to kill me right here at his boss’s party?”
The man studied the Matayan Slayer for a moment, almost as if he knew something about him or his kind. That made Naero a bit more nervous.
“No, I don’t think so. He’s probably fantasizing about it, but he won’t act–not without orders or provocation.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
He hesitated and smiled. “Just a business man, looking for profits where he can find them. Your name young lady?”
“Naero. Naero Amashin Maeris, of Clan Maeris. My aunt is Captain Sleak Maeris.”
“Ah, yes. I have heard of your illustrious aunt and her equally illustrious family.”
Spacer Clans Adventure 1: Naero's Run Page 9
