“Second, as I said, if they even sensed each other within the same quadrant, they would be overcome with the desire to pit themselves against each other until one of them, and all of their queens, were slain. They are mental about competition and about any of their own kind threatening their dominion, and their territory.”
“But, hypothetically by that logic, the enemy could have a Dakkur King and a nest of queens causing trouble in each of our four quadrants?”
Baeven halted. “I suppose it could be possible, in a technical sense, but it still would be highly unlikely. It would not occur naturally.”
Since when was anything about the enemy natural, in any way, shape, or form?
Next, they discussed the eventual arrival of the enemy’s massive Armada, lurking in the next galaxy closest to them.
“That is a major concern as well,” Baeven said. “Eventually, the enemy will cobble together enough tek and energy to find another way to send them through. If we can detect it soon enough, we might be able to fight them to a standstill and shut down their access point once again. Then we wear down the remnants of anything that came through.
“That is precisely why I have been expending much time and effort on expanding our fixer net of detection throughout the four quadrants of our galaxy.”
Naero shifted her weight and stretched her back, sipping some more cold water. It was surprisingly refreshing.
“How soon will it be complete?” she asked.
“Only a hundred and forty standard years, and that’s if the expansion continues at optimal rates of replication.”
Naero rolled her eyes. “Great…after we’re all long dead.”
“Ahh…but I’m concentrating on the two quadrants closest to our neighboring galaxy.”
“But they could come through anywhere,” Naero protested.
Baeven frowned at her. “Must you find fault with all of my allusions and suppositions? At least I’m doing something. I don’t see the Alliance tackling the matter.”
Naero sucked air in through her teeth. “I’m sorry. But that’s another thing entirely. The Alliance is getting spread too thin. Spacers and our other allies can’t shoulder all of this alone. As soon as the landers get done kicking out the Corps, they’re going to need to modify their fleets and shoulder a big part of the load with us.
“At the very least, they’ll need to defend much of the Alpha Quadrant while we hunt down the enemy strongholds hiding in the Gamma Quadrant. Spacers can’t be everywhere, and we can’t be expected to do it all–not with everything we’re up against.”
“I’m not arguing with you there. But I must say. You’ve really come into your own, Naero. You parents would be proud. You’re quickly becoming one of the great leaders of your generation. I’m nowhere near as good with people as you are.”
The Shadow Fox whispered in above them and opened a hatch. Baeven and then Naero floated up through it and it sealed behind them.
They went onto the bridge, and Naero embraced and greeted Jia, Danjen, and S’krin.
They exchanged their usual jibes and good-natured ribbing and quips.
She observed that Danjen was off his mystery kick, and back to dressing up like a wild west gunslinger, except for the blaster pistols in his custom made holsters.
He actually looked amazingly stupid with his furry ass hide, his brown and white cowhide chaps without pants, and his prehensile tail bobbing around out the back of his loin cloth.
The goofy ten gallon hat only completed the idiotic look for the fuzzy moron. What an imbecile.
The Spacer and human descendants of Old Earth where the actual cowboy originated probably didn’t even know what the heck a cowboy or a gunslinger was any longer in any case.
“Howdy!” Danjen exclaimed with manic glee.
Naero just shook her head and looked away. She hugged the fuzzy goofball anyway.
“Hey Naero. Maybe you can help me. I’ve been doing some more wild west research…”
Oh, no. Not again.
“I want to get some spurs, but I can’t figure out what they exactly were and what they were for.”
“Danjen, what the hell do you need spurs for in any case? If I recall, they were worn on the ankles and heels of boots so that riders could jab them into horses and other such mounts to encourage them to run faster on command. You don’t have a horse, and you wouldn’t know what to do with one if you did. You aren’t going to wear leather boots on you hairy legs any more than you wear pants, which just makes you wearing chaps and a loin cloth both obscene and silly.”
“Hmmm…guess I’ll pass on the spurs, then. But I still like the chaps. They’re nice and breezy, and they protect against rattlers in the low country.”
She slapped her hand over her eyes, and dragged it down over her nose and mouth. “Haisha, Danjen; you’re on a starship. There are no rattlers, and no low country. Now get the hell away from me, just in case your brand of madness is somehow catching.”
He laughed. “Good to see you too, N.”
Naero still had a week before she would rendezvous with her fleets and Khai. She had other places to go, and she hoped that Baeven and Company would join her.
First they caught up Jia and the crew on what they had been discussing.
“I need to touch base with Shalaen and Tarim,” Naero said. “They’re out this way overseeing part of the expansion for the Mining Consortium. Did you hear? Their wedding is scheduled to take place in less than a year, about ten months away.”
“I’ll plot it in,” Jia said. “If it’s not too much trouble, Bae and I will make an appearance. But we don’t want to ruin anything by any of the authorities trying to arrest us.”
Naero grinned. “That does make social appearances a bit of a hassle. It almost happened at mine and Khai’s wedding, but I told Klyne that I would never forgive him if he tried anything.”
“We were all very thankful for that, N.” Jia noted.
“So,” Baeven said. “Where will this meeting with Shalaen and Tarim take place?”
“Oh, it’s close by on Rieger-8. Jia, did you confirm my requests, under my naval codes?”
“Affirmative. Under way as we speak,” Jia said. They went into jump. “Arrival in fourteen minutes plus. Have a cold drink and we’ll be on the ground and docking.”
Yet when they arrived in system, Baeven insisted that they came in under stealth mode, simply out of old habit on his part.
The small, frontier starport on Rieger-8 did not transmit or respond in any way.
That was both odd and alarming. Someone should be on duty to answer.
“Check the assigned Alliance fleets nearby, protecting this system,” Naero said, out of curiosity.
Jia and Om replied almost at once.
Every one of those fleets had been drawn off to neighboring sectors because of increased enemy activity.
Rieger-8 was barely a dust speck on the fringe, on the very rim of the expansion. As boom settlements went, it was just beginning, with a starting population of less than a hundred thousand.
But that was about to change, because the Mining Consortium knew full well that one of the next threads of the exploration expansion out into the unknown was going to explode into dozens of new earthlikes just discovered, and rich mining worlds ripe for the picking.
Rieger-8 was going to be the staging point for another big push. The expansion was turning out to be the lifeblood of the growing Alliance. It fueled exploration and the dreams of trillions of former Gigacorps slaves yearning to be free and wishing to carve out something for themselves in the bold new future during their lifetimes.
They kept coming and pushing out further into the unknown in all directions, despite the risks and uncertainties, despite all of the dangers.
Naero shook herself back to the problem at hand.
Something was very wrong on Rieger-8.
They scanned the system and its lone starport and colonial settlement, on the western edge of an oceanic continent
just above the tropics. The place was a paradise, except for an occasional major earthquake and or tsunami every century or so.
There were forty-one starships of various types docked at the small, pop-up modular starport of Joshua Tech design. It was almost at the full capacity of fifty ships that it was designed for.
Not a single ship was moving in or out of the system or even preparing to do so. Again, highly unusual.
They could scan the area more closely after they entered the atmosphere. They kept fixers and stealth probes deployed and active as they went in.
“I’m close enough, now,” Naero said, “and I’m worried about Shalaen and Tarim. I’m going in with my fixers. They’ll pump everything I see and find back to you. Follow on as you–”
“I’m going in with you,” Baeven said. “Like we said, we need to pair up and stick together more.”
“Copy that,” Naero said with a nod. “Let’s ride, and go in in phazed stealth mode.”
“Sound good, N. Ready to pop.”
“He we go.”
In a flash they were on surface, just a few meters outside of the starport.
Om reported immediately, at the same time that Naero and Baeven read the same thing.
Naero, high levels of psyonic activity. Be careful.
Fixers spread wide, maximum gathering dispersal, Om. Where is everyone and what are they doing?
Of the eighty-six thousand, three hundred and twenty people in the colony, most of them appear to have been stunned, N. They’re scattered more or less everywhere, concentrated in dwellings, work areas, and public zones and on the starships, just as you might expect.
Sounds like one of the enemy’s mass stunning ships, Om. They could nail an entire, small, tight colony like this in four our five hits and take out everyone. But why would they stun them? Why would they want everybody alive? The enemy doesn’t usually work this way at all. Normally they murder everyone first thing, and ask questions later.
It wasn’t a mass stunner ship, N. The signatures are all wrong. Take a look at them with teknomancy for a moment. I’m having trouble making the details out.
All right.
“What’s going on?” Baeven stopped and asked her. “You got something?”
Naero held up one finger. “Everyone’s been stunned. I’m trying to figure out who did it and how. Give me a moment to analyze. Info flooding in.”
Whatever this was, it was very powerful, acted quickly, and operates on a very wide scale, N.
Naero gasped. We’ve faced this threat before. I’d recognize these signs anywhere, but our foes are doing their level best to cover their tracks better. The trace energies are Cosmic, and from stepped up, Darkforce powers. The patterns are messed up and off the scales, but it’s a mental pattern of a demented mind.
“Baeven. Be on your guard. Danner’s on scene somewhere and I’m guessing he’s brought plenty of friends with him. He’s trying to remain hidden and avoid detection.”
“Got it. Until we waltz right into his trap.
“What the heck is a waltz, any way?”
“An old fashioned dance from ancient times. You see it in old vids sometimes. It’s actually very pleasant. Is Khai a good dancer?”
Naero snorted. “Only if you like your feet stomped on. So, no. But the man has many other endearing qualities that more than compensate. We simply won’t be entering any dance contests anytime soon.”
“So, who gets to waltz in and spring the trap?”
“Let’s shoot for it, uncle–one, two, shoot.”
Naero went with blade, which beat kick, but lost out to blaster.
Baeven chose blaster and won.
Haisha, she should have trusted her gut and went with kick, which would have disarmed and beaten blaster.
“All right,” Baeven said eagerly, “I’ll slip in quietly and make it look good when they expose me. You and the others back me up. Jia and the rest should be here soon. Tell them to keep watching the sector for any new enemy forces jumping in.”
“Will do. Good luck.”
“Thanks.” Baeven transported into the main Mining Consortium stronghold bored into the mountain rock nearby.
Naero continued to monitor his progress and send instructions to Jia.
“Some kind of jamming already, Naero. My fixers can’t penetrate ahead of us and down into the bunker compound. Are you still getting this?”
“Baeven, your feeds are breaking up, but I still read you.”
“It’s going to cut off at some point. Perhaps you should–”
And as if on cue, Baeven’s feeds cut off at that point exactly.
An alert from Jia. “Bae and Naero, enemy attack fleets pouring in from several jump points. Lot’s of company your way within one hour or less.”
“Alliance response fleets?”
“Already here, cloaked and waiting. Called in on your naval codes hours ago, just as you requested, before we jumped. Fireworks should start up in seconds.”
It was good to be an admiral at times. And it wasn’t even a hunch.
Naero had come under every type of attack imaginable, so many times that she just naturally started planning for them as if they were routine.
If she went somewhere and wasn’t attacked, now that would be a surprise.
“Come down and stay out of sight while I go in after Baeven. I think you’ll know when we need help.”
“When things start exploding, we’ll be ready.”
Naero grinned. “You know my family too well.”
When she transported to the point of Baeven’s last transmission, it led her to a series of wide, underground mining access shafts.
It was miner policy to first bore out a defensive stronghold for any colony on the fringe. Vulnerability in the Unknown Sectors demanded it.
Too many colonies could simply be wiped out otherwise. And by the time help arrived from the Alliance fleets, the attackers could be long gone, leaving only death and devastation behind them.
The miners learned early on that if they dug themselves a deep enough hole first thing and supplied it, that they could hold out for a few days up to a few weeks. By then, hopefully some kind of help would swoop in to relieve them.
Naero sent fixers in all directions to scan the system.
It extended four kilometers down and spread out in an expanding radius of twenty kilometers.
Clearly, Rieger-8 had been slotted to become a major expansion hub from the get go, with an emergency bunker that size.
But she couldn’t locate Baeven, or get a link back up with him. Definitely some kind of major jamming going on, and it was psyonic in nature, too.
By now the Darkforce signatures were so intense and powerful that they all bled together and became meaningless.
Then Naero came across the stunned bodies of colonists of many different ages, including older children between seven and the upper teens. A few here and there at first, and then piles of them, even some choking the corridors.
Many of these people had been stunned with powerful psyonics.
Shalaen.
Others had been shot with stun needles and stun bolts.
Tarim.
Finally her fixers made relay contact with one of Baeven’s. He was proceeding down further into the main underground compound. The various blast doors cut off the strongpoints where the colonists would hold out in bunkers in case of attack.
Baeven ran into thousands of people who seemed to be under some kind of mind control.
Naero instantly checked the Cosmic flows. Yes, most definitely. The energy control signatures were feeding off of Shalaen’s Cosmic energies, the more she channeled. And they used that power to take over the minds of the colonists, and turn them against Shalaen and Tarim.
That’s why all of these people had been stunned. Her friends clearly had no wish to kill or harm their own people.
But they couldn’t allow themselves to be taken by these pawns either.
A garbled transmission fr
om Jia tried to punch through. But it was cut off.
Naero guessed that they would see Danner or some other such enemies arrive shortly to collect whoever they could capture. And the enemy wasn’t picky. They’d gladly take her and Baeven as well as Shalaen.
Naero had a few surprises ready for them.
Like Baeven, she would need to get past the thousands of colonists further within, who were still under enemy control.
For the time being, she went back to being cloaked and phazed.
The controlled colonists were massed around one of the blast doors, pounding on it in futility with their bloody hands and fists.
An enemy vesper tried to slip in and whisper crap to her about defeat and how she had no chance.
Naero cut the thing off psyonically and then crushed it.
Then she turned to the colonists massed before the blast doors and shielded them all, encasing them in a huge hollow pod of specialized Cosmic force.
Cut off from the alien assholes pulling their strings, the puppets all crumpled to the ground.
Naero sent agonizing, Lifespark jolts of feedback shooting through those strings and connections. Any kind of positive energy was like antimatter to the foul G’lothc. She hoped that it zapped their asses good, and roasted their chestnuts, if they had any.
She shielded that entire chamber, so that the bastards could not return and pick up where they left off.
Naero then used telekinesis as gently as she could to scoop and move the stunned colonists away from the outer blast doors. She was certain that Baeven had already phazed his way through, and was probably with Shalaen and Tarim by now.
She attempted to do the same thing, and passed through the shelter’s heavy defensive barriers with phazing.
At last, there was Shalaen and Tarim with Baeven as expected, talking things over in a meeting chamber. Her two good friends rushed to her when she popped in on them. It was a huge relief to find them safe.
The enemy most likely could care less about anyone but Shalaen. Individuals who could wield Cosmic powers were rare and valuable commodities.
Naero's Mastery Page 17
