Spacer Clans Adventure 1: Naero's Run

by Mason Elliott

  He continued to smile while Aunt Sleak blinked and just stared at him. “One fleet? The last we heard, Triax alone had three fleets right next door, waiting to attack.”

  Nathan grinned. “Actually they have five fleets.”

  “Five?”

  “Yes. Five. And five more one or two weeks away.”

  “That’s ten. Ten to one odds, Nathan.”

  “Those are only the Triaxian fleets. They also have a Matayan Fleet, which they always spend as shock forces. And their allies from the other Corps–Omni, Stellar, Matashi, Krupp, and Gelden–also have three to possibly five fleets positioned close by to join in, if need be. With more on the way.”

  Aunt Sleak took a breath and looked away, glancing up at the holo display of the enemy’s known forces.

  A raging fire of endless little red dots spreading out in arcs and fans and various strategic vectors in front of them and to either side.

  “What about our allies?” Naero asked.

  Small patches of green blips appeared near the blue ones. Not many.

  “The miners have pieced together about two dozen vessels that could loosely be called warships,” Nathan said. “After their civil war, the Matayan Prime Minister has about half a fleet left. Good solid ships with good crews. We have the fixers and other programs running, but there aren’t enough ships and not enough time.”

  “Two fleets,” Aunt Sleak said flatly. “Two fleets against thirty to forty enemy fleets. That’s twenty to one odds.”

  “The call has gone out,” Klyne said. “At least one of the Shadow Fleets will be able to reach us by the time things heat up.”

  “I feel so much better,” Aunt Sleak said. “Three fleets against forty. One hundred and fifty warships against three thousand or more.”

  “We can do the math,” Klyne said.

  Aunt Sleak shook her head. “We might as well float out there and throw rocks at them.”

  Jan giggled.

  She rounded on him. “You think that’s funny, boy? In a week or two, most of us are going to be dead hunks of meat, frozen in space. Or blasted to pieces on some rock. I went through the last Spacer War. I know what’s coming.”

  “We’re ready to fight,” Naero said. “Don’t yell at us, and don’t try to scare us. What about our people? Will they send any help? Have we heard anything? Will they get here in time?”

  Admiral Joshua looked to Klyne.

  Klyne gritted his teeth. “We won’t know until they show up, if they can even make it here in time. Until that happens, we need to fight with what we’ve got and make the most of it.”

  Aunt Sleak studied their stats. “All right then. We’ll fight the same way we defended the Spacer Sectors. Flat out, all or nothing. Victory or Death.

  “Nathan, I want everything that can fly up in space. Freighters, transports, shuttles, yachts, pleasure boats, everything. Everything and everyone fights. Every Spacer is trained to pilot and fight; let’s suit them up.”

  “We still have more pilots than ships,” Naero reminded them.

  “That needs to change. We’ll use the fixers to convert all drones and probes into weapons. If it can’t shoot, we’ll pack it full of explosives and ram it down their throats. We fight smart. We lure them in, make them think they have us bent over. Then we hit them with everything we’ve got from all sides.”

  Admiral Nathan Joshua smiled. “I like your thinking, Sleak.”

  Aunt Sleak snarled. “Haisha! Nobody’s gonna like any part of this. We keep at them until they’re finished…or we are. Pass the word. We all better get ready for sheer hell, because it’s coming.”

  46

  Prime Minister Adrin positioned his Matayan fleet nearby, securing their right flank at several levels. Then he joined the planning session. Ellis and his clone uncle embraced.

  The prince would soon command half of that fleet–the attack wings–while Adrin and his flagship held the line.

  The miners arrived last, and scattered their beat-up, cobbled-together fleet on the left flank. Even they knew that they were the weak link in the defense around Nuratine-5. Yet they had Shalaen and her powers, a definite wild card.

  Plus, Admiral Joshua reinforced them with mine-layers, short- range system defense gunships, and mass drivers.

  Nevano Kinmal arrived at the planning session.

  Tarim approached him when the formal greetings were over. “Sir, how is your daughter? Is Shalaen all right?”

  Kinmal embraced Tarim. “She’s doing well, son. She sends her personal greetings and tells you to take good care of yourself during the coming battles. She hopes to see you once more, after the fighting is over.”

  “Tell her I…tell her from me to do the same, sir. Good luck to you and our people. Fight well.”

  “Fight well. I’ll tell her everything you said. She’ll want to know.”

  “I love her, sir. I would give my life for her.”

  “She knows that, son. That’s why you can’t be with her in this. She doesn’t want to lose you.”

  For three hours they made they final plans and adjustments.

  Admiral Nathan Joshua reported to them.

  “This is it, my friends. The enemy’s making their first move; they’ll hit us in less that twelve standard hours. After the initial contact, we’ll have to continue to adjust and shift our strategies on the fly, according to the flow of battle.”

  “How many are they sending in?” Aunt Sleak asked.

  “We mark three attack groups on three optimized vectors, two hundred ships, four fleets each. The Matayans will hit us first.”

  “Well, at least our foes are taking it easy on us,” Klyne said with a grin. “That’s only twelve fleets against our two. But at least one of our Shadow Fleets is on the way. Its vanguard should reach us in a matter of hours. Your remaining ships are with them, Sleak. And they’re ready to fight. You and I will divide up the Shadow Fleet between us and lead them on the attack.”

  “Good. Got it. Admiral Joshua. Give the order.”

  Joshua nodded. “To your ships, everyone. Good fortune. Fight well. May the Powers That Be guide our hands. Battle stations. Let’s give them a fight they’ll remember.”

  The assembly raised their fists and took up the cry.

  “Battle stations!”

  Naero hugged and kissed her friends on both cheeks. Even Aunt Sleak, Klyne, and Admiral Joshua.

  After Adrin, she came to Ellis.

  The jerk smiled at her. He still looked handsome in his new Fleet Captain’s uniform. Even if he was a Matayan bastard.

  “Don’t die, Captain Naero. I would very much like to see you again, privately, after our coming victory.”

  “Then don’t get your cute little ass shot off either. Maybe I’ll let you prance around for me, my prince.”

  He chuckled, drew close, and whispered to her, “I’d like that. I still cannot forget our kiss, and when we held each other close, Naero.”

  Naero caught her breath and could only nod at first.

  She found her voice again as he and Adrin departed. “Prince Ellis. Luck to you. Fight well.”

  Now it was his turn to grin at her and nod.

  47

  Naero had only a handful of hours to help oversee the loading of hundreds of fighters and gunships into huge bulk freighters to ferry them out to the battle.

  Spacers worked together with miners and Joshua Tech personnel around the clock to coordinate the transports.

  She wore a gravwing to help her flit back and forth from one landing bay to the next, packing the ships in and lining more up for the next ride.

  While she was up in the air, she spotted glittering fields of shining metal, kilometer after kilometer in the distance.

  She called the west tower. “Tower, what is all of that stuff shining and glowing out to our west?”

  “Captain, that’s the naval graveyard where all the junkers and obsolete craft from the last three centuries rot and wait to be scrapped and smelted.”
/>   Naero blinked.

  Graveyard?

  She had visions of Boon-3.

  She called excitedly over her com. “I want every fixer available sent over to this damn graveyard. Let’s see what we can raise from the dead. Get every pilot and stunt jockey who can fly and fight over here to suit up. Get armies of flight teams and teks over here and some of the admiral’s people to organize them into new fighter wings.”

  “Captain, I can’t authorize that. And neither can you. It would take an admiral to–

  Voices cut in almost instantly.

  “This is Admiral Nathan Joshua. Follow Strike Captain Maeris’ orders to the letter. Give her whatever she wants.”

  “This is Admiral Sleak Maeris. Haul ass, people. Send all available fixers and shipless fighter pilots to that location. Toss those birds in the air and make them fly. Get on it.”

  “This is Prime Minister Adrin. Captain Ellis will be sending down several thousand Matayan pilots from our training programs, if you should happen to have any extra empty fighters that need them.”

  In minutes, clouds of fixers roared in.

  Flight teams and unit organizers arrived in waves, stacked up right behind. They pocketed the empty fields and dry lake beds blowing up clear plasteel bubble tents and hangars, exploding like a virus, spreading out over the entire western landscape in organized chaos.

  Naero and Om led the fixers directly into the graveyard, and put them to work.

  Gutted ships. Derelicts. Rust buckets. Famous old fighters of legend, long obsolete.

  Haisha, haisha…

  Naero knew them all.

  They were the ships of legends she grew up with.

  She knew their history, their armaments, their specs and performance. Who made them, their variations, how long they served, and what battles they fought in.

  From the time she could float she had flown all of them in simulation.

  The Gamma-67 Lightning, The Chikara-88 Rocket Dog, even the Gelden-11 Fox Cat.

  She and Om directed the fixers to not just re-configure each model, but to upgrade and improve upon their core designs and mutate them up to speed, with modern, advanced capabilities, shields, and armaments.

  The result? Exciting hybrids of the old and new blended together.

  On top of that, an AI fixer merged with each new craft to assist the future pilot in both rapid flight learning and training, and during actual combat.

  Then Naero spotted them. Like broken, ancient warrior gods lying in the grass, still in their shining armor.

  Hundreds of corroded Stellar F-59E Ghost Dragons, crumpled and forgotten–abandoned in the weeds. Famous legends from the past.

  Ghost Dragons.

  Finest all purpose fighter of the Third Spacer War through 2451. The ship that almost defeated the Clans. So effective that Spacers captured and virtually copied it, calling theirs the P-24 Valiant. First fighter to ever have its own deflector screens.

  Naero almost drooled. She couldn’t help touching them.

  “Some of these are going to be mine and Jan’s new personal fighter squadron. The Ghost Dragons are going to scorch the stars once more. I want every possible upgrade pumped into them.”

  She and Om personally oversaw the re-configuring of the first advanced prototype.

  Eight heavy hyper-velocity pulse cannons, level-four shields, close-in rapid-fire nose and aft defensive blasters. Micro-fusion bomb and missile racks. Twin Joshua Tech E-353 Micro-pulse core reactors, jump, and sublight accelerator drives. One quarter the weight and a hundredfold the energy and flight capabilities. Advanced gravitics, avionics, and electronic defensive packages.

  Good work Om.

  I could not orchestrate any of this without your precise, intimate knowledge of these fighters. You are guiding this program as much as I.

  A collaboration, then. How long until we can fly them?

  The first formations will be ready for test flights and training in forty standard minutes. Are we expecting visitors?

  Why?

  Several dozen persons in flight gear and gravwings are converging on our location.

  Naero gasped and looked up. Out of the sun, multiple gravwings shot down straight at her.

  She prepared to flee, drawing her sidearm and her battle blade.

  We’re they trying to capture her?

  “Don’t shoot us, you idiot,” Chaela barked over her com.”

  “Sweetie, we came to fight with you,” Saemar said. “I mean, not literally fight with you, ya know?”

  Saemar and Chae nearly collided with her, and the three of them laughed and cried and hugged each other, spiraling slowly to the ground.

  Tyber and Zhen joined the hugging circle a few moments later.

  Each second, a growing circle of crew and Spacers from Clan Maeris and several other Clans joined around them, swelling their ranks.

  Several fighter pilot hunks hovered around Saemar, and seemed to have caught her scent.

  Naero raised one eyebrow at her friend. Saemar didn’t say a word.

  She just rolled her eyes, struggling to suppress her little smile, and shook her curly head in apparent anticipation.

  “Ya know, sweetie,” Saemar whispered. “We could all be dead an hour from now. We might as well have us a little taste of heaven while we can.”

  Zhen flung her arms around Naero, crying. “We thought you were dead. And then all of us almost got killed, and so many others died. It all made me realize how much I miss you, N.”

  “We need to stay together,” Tyber insisted. “You’re a strike captain now. We can serve with you. Have us assigned to your unit.”

  “I will.” For the first time in weeks, Naero savored real joy, however bittersweet. All of them were going into battles they had little chance of surviving. But Naero would do everything she could to bring them through.

  Sorry to interrupt.

  Better be important Om.

  Several enemy stealth ships have uncloaked and are launching fighters just outside of the atmosphere above our position.

  What!?

  This far behind our lines, there are currently no effective ships in range to intercept them, and their attack wings will hit our forward positions here in a matter of minutes.

  Do we have any fighters ready to send after them?

  Negative. Twenty Ghost Dragons are the closest to launching, but they will require fifteen standard–

  Naero called out to her forces just as the warning sirens went off. The fleets were now aware of the attackers, also, for all the good it did them.

  “Everyone, take cover,” she shouted. “Prepare for an enemy attack on these positions.”

  How did the enemy find them again? And just happen to launch sorties against their precise location. Their foes would destroy their new ships on the ground, before they could get them in the air.

  She had to do something. Naero just didn’t know what.

  48

  Naero jumped in Ghost Dragon-1, her new fighter, the fixers still humming and droning all around her.

  Om, what can we do to speed this process up?

  Nothing. The fixers are already operating at their limits.

  She clenched her fists and teeth and groaned in frustration.

  “Aauughh!”

  There must be something. We have to think.

  Why don’t you just merge with this vessel? With your knowledge and our teknomancer abilities, together we could complete the reconfiguration much faster than the fixers. Assume control of the process and finish it…in seconds.

  Om, I’ve never done anything like that. I don’t know how.

  Yes, you have. When you created the first fixers. Just think of the ship as a larger, more complex unit with a different design and purpose.

  Naero closed her eyes and tried to focus.

  No, not like that. Join with the ship. You’re an expert pilot. You’ve done so many times without even thinking about it. Become one with the craft. Then instead of making a
fixer, complete the ship.”

  “Everyone get back,” she said. “I’m going to try something.”

  People glanced at each other oddly, but obeyed her commands and pulled away.

  It helped if she closed her eyes.

  Om did his best to guide her efforts.

  “Make a fixer…”

  A fixer flashed together in her open hand. Even with her eyes closed she could sense every part of it come together.

  She knew it.

  For a brief instant she was it.

  She was part of the fixer, making it exactly what it was supposed to be and do.

  In theory, Om was correct. The principle was the same, no matter the size of the object or device.

  “Make a ship…not just a ship…a fighter…”

  And not just any fighter.

  A Ghost Dragon.

  Naero gasped at a brief flash of pain like someone sucking her bones out of her flesh.

  She felt it. She merged completely with the craft. Feeling each of the droning fixers working steadily and methodically on the reconfiguration. She was the ship; merging with it made every part of her tingle.

  Naero not only saw what the ship was, she inherently knew what it should be and do. What it could be.

  She noted how far along the fixers were at each stage, absorbed them in an instant without hesitation for the raw materials needed, and completed the task, like energy and tek filling up the empty fighter like water.

  She heard her friends and the other Spacers gasp and pull even farther away as the fighter morphed right before their eyes.

  Naero even started the gravitics and hovered the ship off the field a few centimeters.

  Systems, propulsion, and O&D.

  She opened her eyes and climbed back out, rushing to the next fighter to lay hands on it and complete the same re-fit.

  Tyber alone flew after her with his own gravwing. He wept openly, stunned and amazed, pale and gaping.

  “Naero, what the hell did you just do? I still can’t believe it. Haisha…you completed the refit on that wreck in seconds. In a flash. It was like–like a miracle of some kind. I’ve never seen anything like it.”