Glowing swing lines in changing, pulsing hues, and flashing, shifting push plates stuck out in various places.
Teen throck and tekk music pulsed. The best dump tunes from over a hundred systems played and throbbed and shifted over the speakers and panels in random waves of sound and image that could hit like sonics.
The younger kids were all gone. This was teen time.
You had to be between fifteen and nineteen to get into to this scheduled spiral. Naero barely fit the parameters.
About fifty Spacer teens spiraled around in zero-G, laughing, chasing each other, flirting and pairing off.
Of course, everyone knew that spirals were monitored by fleet security so that pairings and the occasional fight never went too far. But swooching and makeout sessions allowed the young to sneak off, let loose some steam, and get together.
Under the Rules of Conduct, young Spacers remained free to approach each other and just talk. Free to work out problems and disagreements. Free to propose, refuse, or change romantic pairings at any point.
Despite the regs, spiraling was a still a blast of release and sheer freedom, compared to ship duty.
Flying and swooping around in null gravity always felt liberating. As if one could, in fact, fly. A great sensation for the young and anyone under a lot of pressure.
Sometimes even Spacer Elders reserved the chambers so that they could float free and chat and recall their younger days.
Jan grabbed her and snagged a push plate with one leg, swinging her in a wide arc down to the core.
Naero laughed, and loosened her long, dark hair, letting it spin free with the rest of her. She soared down and caught a swing line, whipping herself around and rocketing back up off a spinning push plate.
Jan dove at her, smiling and giggling. Then he swung away and shot down a flashing pulse chube.
Naero right on his heels.
Friends they knew called out them. Some even came after them.
They chased each other through other orbs, pushing off and swinging. Other teens swooching here and there, their faces locked together in passion, clinging to each other so desperately.
Various stages of teen hookups. Some just starting out and tentative. Others ending, pulling away from each other, shaking their heads.
Spiraling was uncertain, scary, and great. Every part of it.
Naero realized she did miss it.
Why did she ever think she was too old now?
A cute, skinny kid shot out of chube and nearly crashed into her. Naero held him at arm’s length. They spun and laughed together.
“Well, hello, pretty girl. Name’s Danaldi. Haven’t seen a sweet little thing like you in here before.”
Naero chuckled and rolled her eyes. Her petite stature often misled others into believing that she was younger.
“How about we play tag for a while,” he said, one eyebrow raised suggestively. “I catch you... and then you’re It?”
Naero grinned. Then she flashed her rank bands at the boy. They flared blue in the muted light.
“Whoa. A three-striper.”
“You’re sweet, Danaldi. But I come of age soon. Sorry.”
“Don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Oh, please.” She whipped him around and spun him into the nearest chube.
“Good luck with the younger girls, sweetie!”
“Wahoo!” Danaldi shouted.
Jan popped his head down from another chube and yawned.
“Wow, you used to be sooo much better at this, N.”
Naero shot toward him. “Sib, you are gonna pay for that. I am gonna soak you.”
“Big talk…from an old lady.”
“Oooh. It’s flaring now.”
It only took the length of two chubes before she caught Jan by his ankles and kicked him into a glowing water ball in the next orb.
Splashes and glorbs of the shining nanolit liquid scattered in several directions.
She splattered him good.
They chased each other for a long while. Then they floated and took a breather, sighing and talking quietly face-to-face, in an orb all by themselves.
“Aunt Sleak wants me to say something...about Mom and Dad at the wake,” Jan blurted out.
He hung his head. “I...I can’t do it, N.”
Naero nodded. “It’s all right, Jan. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
“What are you gonna say?”
“I’ll think of something. We loved them. They’re gone. What’s there to say? You okay, Jan?”
He shook his head. “I dunno. I feel so weird. Ever since that long medtest for that plague, I’ve been having these awful headaches, and really weird dreams. Like someone’s been torturing me–for years. Pretty scary stuff. Sometimes, sib…I think I’m losing it.”
Naero put her arm around him as they floated. “I’ve been having similar problems. We’re stressed out. We need to work through it and keep it together. Just remember the good times. That helps.”
Jan started laughing. Then he covered his face. “Mom was such a terrible cook.”
Naero sobbed and caught herself, covering her mouth with one hand.
“Dad wasn’t much better. Good thing they hired some good ones to work the galleys and mess halls.”
The two of them hung upside down against the wall like a couple of old Terran bats and cried together. Their tears floated out around them, bobbling like crystal gems.
Naero reached out and took her brother’s hand.
Jan squeezed back. Both of them broke down.
In spiral, it was okay. No one bothered them. No one judged them or any of their actions.
*
After a few hours of updated gunnery and fighter simulation training that evening following dinner, Jan snoozed at his comp tutor, mildly drooling on his arm. Their screens were the only glowing lights in the darkened library.
Naero finished up her own work.
Go figure.
Jan lived and breathed advanced math and interstellar physics.
History and system archeology put him to sleep. He couldn’t care less about all of the various known cultures and races in the galaxy.
Humans and near humans: gray-skinned Besh and their small ears. Red-skinned, tough Ramorians from the mining sectors. Matayans. Naivatch and their dark purple skins and strange culture. Furry, leopard-spotted Mahri and their tapered, tufted ears. Silesians and their sonorant throat bags. Zotchans and their floating hair tendrils that they used to sense and communicate with. Quick, tiny Piettos that stood only as high as your knee or hip.
True aliens, some of them not even humanoid in any way. Sleek, agile, cat-like Mndar. Feathered bird-like Quess in astonishing varieties, stoic and wise. Gigantic but gentle Moh-Karran, five meters tall with multiple eyes and tentacles. Blobby, floating, gelatinous Blurgs and their glowing brains.
Just as exhausted, but being Jan’s opposite, Naero ate up anything about alien worlds and their ways. Her parents’ love of alien cultures, archaeology, and exploration lived on in her heart.
Reality; always better than fiction.
She poured through captured classified Corps text-only files, centuries old, about the lost Ku-Shai, and the bizarre alliance between the two odd races. A unique partnership that led them to sustain an empire for over three thousand millennia.
Too bad the Corps stumbled upon them during a period of decline.
After several disastrous wars–bad for both sides–the Corps banded together as they had never done before and had never done since, to eradicate nearly every trace of the Ku-Shai from the known universe.
Spacers had no further contact with them. The eradication all took place in Corps space.
She couldn’t even find a picture, a vid, or even a description of what the two species looked like. The Corps did their insidious best to wipe out all information on them from all archives for some reason, and make it appear as if they had never existed.
All of their history, art, cul
ture–everything. Completely deleted.
The Corps simply couldn’t withstand any serious competition in their sectors, alien or otherwise.
Would they do the same thing to Spacers one day? Re-write history to make them vanish? Only time would tell.
Strangely enough, there was even still a bounty on Ku-Shai. Despite the fact that none had been sighted or known to exist for many decades.
Jan snored louder. Naero finally quit when she began to nod off herself. She dumped Jan into his quarters, and stumbled back to her own to pass out.
16
Naero dreamed and mused in flows of poetry and emotion.
Then her nightmares returned, more real and horrifying than ever.
This time, she dreamed about murdering her friends.
She stalked them one by one and cut them down, shot them, throttled them, or crushed their pleading faces as they begged.
The dream was terrifying, chilling, and secretly exhilarating.
She couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t break free and wake up.
Was this really in her?
Part of her insanity?
They kept trying to get away. She shot Gallan in the back and gunned him down, shooting him to pieces with a blaster.
He died with his head twisted around, staring up at her in shock and terror.
Why?
Then she went after Jan, stalking her brother in the Spiral, slaughtering anyone who came her way. He looked so afraid.
Orbs of blood everywhere. Her arm and knife hand dripping with gore. She was splattered with it.
Get away, Jan!
A blast of blinding light caused her to draw back.
A female form took shape, comprised entirely of light, her hair like white-hot plasma, her eyes like the flare of pulsars.
Naero could barely look at her.
The glowing girl stood radiant and defiant before her, interposing a glittering hand to stop her. Her voice rang out.
“Who are you? What and where are you? Is this what you want? Is this what you want to become? Choose carefully.”
Naero snapped straight up in her bunk.
“No!” she shouted.
She covered her face with her hands and slipped back down.
Haisha! The only thing she had to console her were the happy faces of her dead parents on her walls.
They both had taught her so much. They’d taught her everything she knew.
They were her mind, her heart, her hands. They had taught her to look out and to see. To touch, taste, listen, smell, and fell. To learn and do. To crawl, stand, walk, run, and climb. To tumble and fall, get back up, and keep trying and going forward until she could go no more.
They were her head, heart, and hands. Her wings. They had taught her not just to fly, but to soar.
They had taught her how to protect and defend herself and all that she loved.
With great passion and controlled violence should the need arise, in a dangerous and uncertain universe. As borne out in their own fates.
Five bells gently sounded.
Naero and the crew spent the second day after morning PT in more flight simulation of various types of craft and vehicles.
Of course, she and Jan relished piloting the simulation programs of all the great starfighters throughout history to the present.
Together they were an almost unbeatable team.
Only Zalvano and Aunt Sleak could take them on, and even then it stayed a pretty fair fight.
Naero and Jan spent a lot of their extra time in the simulators, making sure they could fly most of the major rigs available to both Corps and Spacers.
Their obsession paid off big time against anyone who chose to take them on.
Naero spent her down time later that day taking it easy in her quarters. Still moping.
Cleaning took a little while. Not much, really, just the stuff off the floor. Yet even that made her cabin seem bigger all of the sudden.
She watched some silly vids with half-interest, romantic comedies or action-adventure dumps.
She got out the oldfashioned journal her dad had given her. The one that could erase or archive any sketches or writings put on the pages.
The last entry she made was from before her parents departed. For the last time.
Naero hadn’t known that then.
Her parents were always overly concerned about unintentionally bringing back some kind of deadly unknown alien plague or super virus from their explorations.
They had forced her and Jan to take all kinds of routine, boring medical scans. Some took over an hour.
Of course, they all turned up absolutely nothing.
The Cumi–one meter tall mouse-like aliens and their medteks who partnered with her parents–repeatedly gave them totally clean bills of health. Plague- and virus-free.
As usual, Naero had been furious with her parents for wasting her precious time again. She had fumed at them the whole while.
Instead of telling them how much they meant to her.
Naero fished out a pen and tried to write a new poem in her journal. But the words kept dying in her mind.
Her father had been a fairly decent poet, actually. He even had a few collections circulating among the Clan literary circles. But they never got much serious attention. Naero smiled.
The Poet-Warrior. The Philosopher-King.
Her father always said that they should strive to become just that. That was what the universe truly needed. The wise and harmonious mind of the inventive artist and benevolent leader to guide people into the future. Not just for the benefit of the self, but for the mutual benefit of all.
When she found herself staring at the pictures of her parents flashing by on the walls and crying too much, she decided to break out.
It dawned on her that she was famished. Naero stared at her delusional hands with their added fingers. She might as well put them to good use.
It was already late night when she snuck into the mess hall galley to cook for herself. Unlike her parents, she had drawn enough duty with the cooks to learn how to prepare several dishes that she and her family and friends cherished.
Naero made a small pot of seafood chowder in a nice creamy white sauce. A few of the ingredients she had to program in the food synthesizer. Potatoes and fresh lobster, scallops, and crab meat.
She ate it in a small, hollowed-out loaf of soft, orange Dovanian sweet bread, with the bread chunks and tiny salted crackerlets that always went so well with soups.
Gallan found her in the mess hall, eating there alone. She smiled at him. He pulled out the large spoon he always kept with him, like a knife fighter drawing a battle blade.
He sat down across from her, helping her finish the soup and then the loaf itself, tearing off delicious, soggy pieces.
“I love it when you cook,” he said. “This is so good, N. I think you should be a chef.”
“Yeah. That’s my dream.” She stood up and smirked. “To be a cook.”
The uneasy silence opened the gulf between them once more.
This time, Gallan said his piece.
“Naero, I’m sorry about your folks. Everyone loved and respected them. They treated me like I was your brother.”
Naero touched his hand. “You are, abani. You’re just like Jan to me. You always have been, since we were little.” Abani was a Ramoran word that Naero liked to use with Gallan–a term of great respect an endearment, for one’s closest family and best mates.
“I know. I feel the same way. I’d do anything for you, Naero. I...I know how much you must be hurting. Is there anything I can do?”
Naero shook her head and leaned against him briefly. “No. There’s nothing I can do either. Just keep being my friend. That’s all. Stand by me.”
“I can do that. Always will.”
17
Third day came.
Finally, a break from the nightmares.
Naero woke up and checked her hands first thing.
Extra fingers? Gone, tha
nk goodness.
What would it be next? She shuddered to think.
After PT, they studied biology, medicine, healing, and advanced first aid. The fleet surgeons, medics, nurses, and first response teams kept them updated on the latest med tek. The instructors broke the students off into rescue teams, and finally worked with them one-on-one in various scenarios, dealing with different kinds of emergencies.
Some of the scenarios were live training with casualty holograms and robotic simulators, or others were Spacers pretending to have certain illnesses or injuries.
Naero ran into Danaldi again, the young flirt from the spiral, pretending to have a Vegaran throat parasite.
Naero winked at him. He blushed.
Gallan, who was a particularly and astonishingly terrible actor, kept busting up everyone in his exercise into suppressed laughter. Even the instructors.
Despite his fake, slap-on blaster wounds to the chest and abdomen.
She had lunch with several friends. Saemar brought Chaela, her foot in a regeneration cast. Chae was just glad to be mobile once more.
On her own, back in her quarters after lunch, Naero struggled to figure out what she’d say at her parents’ wake that night.
She sat down and tried to recall and write down everything they ever taught her.
In desperation, she turned off the gravity in her quarters.
Somehow she found it easier to think in zero-G.
Even that didn’t help.
She floated and bobbed about with all her junk that wasn’t locked down. Mostly crumpled sheets of paper with false starts and goofy rambling. Snatches that babbled on for too many pages.
She read some of her ideas out loud to herself.
“Freedom. Freedom is the most import gift and treasure my parents ever gave to me. It’s the most important thing anyone has. We should never trade or give it away–whether for security, wealth, access, or power. Anyone or anything that tries to take any part of our freedom away from us makes themselves our enemy.”
She stopped herself again.
“Wow. Now I sound like my dad expounding on his soapbox.” Just like that in fact. When she was young she could listen to him expound, going on and on for hours.
Spacer Clans Adventure 1: Naero's Run Page 12
