Naero's War: The Citation Series 3: Naero's Trial (30 page)

SF Author Mason Elliott’s Contact Information

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About the Author

Mason Elliott grew up loving Science Fiction and Fantasy in all of their myriad forms. That love has transferred into his dedicated writing. Like most writers, he lives a spartan lifestyle and yearns to devote his life even more to his writing, and someday retire on the Pacific Coast. So be a fan, buy his stuff, and enjoy!

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Mason’s Acknowledgements

I must forever be grateful to the staff at High Mark Publishing SF.

And finally, let me thank all of my best friends in my beta readers, my amazing online writer’s group, and of course, the rest of my family.

Please enjoy this teaser from the next cycle in the Spacer Clans Adventure Series, Book 4:

Naero’s

Mastery

Amazon Link to Naero’s Run: TBA

by Mason Elliott

The large nanosparring room was like a small arena and rang with the sounds of fighting and laughter.

A two year old Spacer child all but flew and zipped and wheeled through the air as if she were made of white flame.

Her long, blazing white-gold hair was pulled up in a high ponytail with an antique, golden hair clip, Spacer battle style. Her radiant hair matched her ivory skin and set off her dazzling blue eyes–as blue as pulsars.

She punched and kicked and snapped combinations lightning fast, driving back even the large green Mystic Enforcer who was her father. Her tiny blows from her small fists and feet cracked and struck with force. She flattened Khai and put him on his back.

Shetharra Lythe Maeris planted one small foot on his large chest, clenched her little fists, threw back her head and shouted her cry of victory.

Then her father scooped her up and they wrestled together, as he tickled her into submission, made raspberries on her little belly, and they continue to laugh.

Naero could not resist, and came down to wrap her arms around both of them on the practice floor. She kissed her daughter, and then her husband, looking into his golden eyes as they all smiled together.

Their small daughter kissed Khai, and then her mother.

“Mommy, I beat Daddy again. I want to fight you again now. Please, please?”

Naero hugged her and patted her on the back, regaining her feet and holding her close. “No, practice is way over for today, my little duck. It’s way past time for your nap. Come on, Shetharra.”

Shetharra rubbed her eyes with a tiny fist. “Don’t need a nap,” she protested. Then she yawned.

Naero held her close and kissed her daughter’s head. Khai followed after them.

“Will you sing to me, Mommy?” Shetharra asked.

“I always do, don’t I?”

“Yes. But sometimes Daddy sings to me, and sometimes Aunt Sharah, when you aren’t there. She sounds a lot like you.”

“They like to sing to you, too, Little Duck.”

“Quack-quack!” she said, followed by giggles. “I know…I want you all to sing to me.”

“Sometimes we can,” Naero said.

Khai and Naero brought Shetharra back to their quarters to put her down for her nap.

Naero made the mistake of putting her child on her feet. Shetharra squealed and ran up to the secured statue of the knife fighting girl.

“Hello, sister!” Shetharra jumped up and planted a kiss on the statue’s face. Then she ran giggling from her father, who chased her around the room.

“Shetharra, quit running around and come take your mist shower,” Naero said.

The child peeled out of her togs and came running to her mother naked and laughing, and leaped into Naero’s arms.

Naero bathed her child quickly and then combed and brushed her long hair.

Khai assisted where he could.

Naero teknomanced little togs back on her daughter and pweaked the presets to soft pajamas with twinkling holographic stars and the Maeris Clan logo on them. The stars faded on their own.

“I wanna sleep naked like you and Daddy, Mommy. I don’t like to wear clothes.”

Mommy and Daddy smirked at each other and rolled their eyes.

“Mommy and Daddy wear clothes now, Little Duck. So you need to wear clothes too.”

She laid down beside her daughter on the big nanobed, with the little nanobed right next to it. Khai got in on the other side, smiling at them.

“What shall we sing today, Shetharra?”

The little girl giggled, wiggled, whispered, and turned over on her belly, kicking her little feet. “The one little duck.”

Naero rubbed her tiny back and began to sing softly. Then she made her first three fingers walk slowly up Shetharra’s spine.

One after another, the little ducks went out to play, over the hills and far away.

When Mother Duck quacked, fewer and fewer ducks came back

Shetharra began to laugh and scream in anticipation.

Then Mother Duck quacked really loud, and all of the little ducks hurried back.

Naero used three fingers walking across, “The third little duck…”

Then two fingers walking, “The second little duck…”

Shetharra howled, “No, no! Not the one little duck!”

And finally one finger walked, and poked, and tickled unmercifully. “And the one little duck!”

A few short minutes later, Shetharra breathed easily, deep in sleep.

Naero brushed her daughter’s glowing white hair from her angelic face, just enjoying looking at her. Then she glanced at Khai who watched both of them very intently. “Go ahead and move her to her bed, sweetie. You never seem to wake her.”

Khai scooped his daughter up in his big hands. He carried her over as gentle as could be, and tucked her into the child’s small nanobed. He and Naero both kissed their child.

Four small female guardian Shai softly approached, and took up their positions around the bed, glowing pink and almost white with the deep love they felt for their Spacer family. The mantid warriors looked small, not much bigger than the child herself, but woe unto anyone or anything outside the family who approached their little girl without permission.

Khai called to them. “Krin, Mizha, Jintil, Ethra–you’re on duty.”

They all nodded their mantid heads.

Naero sighed and leaned her head against Khai. He wrapped a big green arm around her.

“Now let’s go check on the twins,” Naero said.

They crossed over through the corridor, leading to the quarters across the way. There in the nursery was their nanny, Naero-3. She had now taken the name Sharah, had long, dark brown hair and lavender eyes. She also nursed the oldest of the twins, Daeyen Wallace Williams, who was three months old, only a few hours older than Kathron Zhentisa Maeris, his sister.

They talked about the kids for a bit. Everyone seemed to be doing fine.

Sharah had an assistant nanny, Kyra Apache, plus another set of four Shai guards, stationed in the four corners.

When Naero and Khai hesitated and looked at the floor, Sharah came out and asked them straight. “All right, just come out and say it. Are both of you leaving this time, or just one? I don’t mind. I just want to know. And while you’re at it, please tell me how soon you need to leave, and how long you’ll be away this time.”

Naero sighed heavily and a sick look washed over her face. “That’s the problem, Sharah…we don’t know if we’ll be coming back this time.”

Naero’s

Mastery

Release Date: TBA

If you have not read Book One of
Mergeworld
, however unlikely that might be, please enjoy this teaser by Mason Elliott and Garan R. R. Faraday. Available now! Here is the Amazon purchase link:

http://amzn.to/1uboBDC

1

David Pritchard woke up gasping from one nightmare and went straight into another. A terrible agony tore through him as if the universe twisted him inside out.

Then he snapped back again.

What in damnation had just happened? Something…was very wrong.

Startled, groggy, it only took an instant for his bleary mind to figure out.

Flames engulfed the front of his college apartment building. The stench of smoke, screams, and breaking glass outside only confirmed it.

He was dazed and blinked his scratchy eyes. The first thing he instinctively reached out for was the framed picture of his dead parents.

That was the last picture he had of them from a few years back, right after he started college in South Bend.

They hugged and smiled at each other in medieval garb at the Bristol Renaissance Fair up in Wisconsin. The picture froze both of them happily in time, retired in their forties. Unlike many parents that age, they weren’t divorced and they still loved one another. One of their ren-fair pals took that picture for them on their digital camera.

The same camera retrieved from the car accident on the Illinois highways on their way back home from Bristol. A tractor-trailer jackknifed in the heavy rain and took them away.

The same weekend David begged off going with them.

He blew that picture up in Photoshop, printed out an 8 x 10, and bought a nice oak frame for it. He kept it with him wherever he went. He’d die before he’d part with it, fire or no.

All that history and pain flashed through David as he clutched their picture close to him in the dark. He didn’t even have to see it, just cling to it in his hands. That picture always sat prominently behind his small alarm clock on his night stand with his smart phone and wallet while he slept. That was how he found it, even in the semi-dark. He also grabbed his phone and wallet.

His clock normally flashed bright green. Power outage, probably from the fire. And the back-up battery must have gone dead. Light switches? Nothing, of course, do to the fire.

The growing reek of smoke triggered his desire for self-preservation. Once he got out, he could call his friend Mason Tyler, who lived in a duplex over on Allen Street. His buddy Mace would help him.

Somewhat more awake now, David struggled not to panic. He staggered out of his room like a robot. His lanky, five-eleven frame stumbled down the hall toward his front door. He stubbed his little toe hard in the darkness. A second later he grunted and cursed the sudden blinding spread of pain, but kept moving.

Oh, hell. No way out the front.

Dangerous ribbons of smoke curled violently through the metal front door frame and snaked up across the ceiling like an upside down waterfall. The paint of the metal fire door already bubbled and blistered. David choked and swallowed hard.

If that door had been wood, his entire apartment might have already been completely engulfed. He might not have even come to. He saw no sense in touching the steaming door knob.

The apartment building stairs acted like a natural chimney, funneling the fire and heat straight up.

A window–climb out a window. He was only on the second floor.

His three richer roomies were already off on spring break for the next week, to the Bahamas or some such. Their parents could afford such junkets. David could not.

He suddenly realized two very important things. The fire hadn’t spread to the back part of the apartment building yet.

Next, he was only wearing navy boxers and a gray T-shirt over his shaking frame.

Early April in South Bend, Indiana could be any weather from sun and sixties to a flippin’ blizzard.

Clothes. Only seconds to throw some on. Even in the dim, flickering orange light spilling out of the thick curtains, he spotted his laundry basket on the couch.

The smoke in the living room grew thicker. He put his precious picture, smartphone, and wallet down for only a few moments.

Jeans. On. Socks. On. He snatched up his thick blue, gold, and green hoody from the back of the old couch where he usually left it, and pulled into its soft, warm, comfort. Stocking cap. Popped on his head. Wool scarf. Around the neck. He sat down and jammed on his old gray Nike running shoes, feeling a pair of thin gloves and keys in his hoody pockets still, when he bent over.

Ready to ride, or, at least climb out the back window to escape burning to death.

He stuffed his folks’ picture, wallet, and smartphone into his dark green Jansport backpack with his pad, gel pens, and a few books. He zipped it all up.

To the back window. He pulled the curtains aside and yanked the big panel open.

He jumped slightly, at some guy who already climbed down the back of the building from the third floor. Their eyes locked, only a window screen between them in the dim, pre-dawn light and the cold morning air.

The guy looked utterly terrified.

“Watch out!” he warned, trying to keep his voice low. “Those things are killing people. They’re everywhere!”

“What things?” What was this guy freaking out about?

The guy jolted wide-eyed and then choked.

A bloody iron arrowhead jutted out the front of his throat. In the time it took them both to blink, another arrow punched through the front of his chest, out of his T-shirt. The poor guy’s mouth gaped and worked. Then his eyes rolled up white. He fell backwards, head down.

David grabbed for him, but missed, his hands blocked by the barrier of the screen. He tore it away and stuck his head out the window.

He spotted strange movement down in the darkness.

Two dark, twisted, hunched-over figures loped in on bandy legs and clawed feet wrapped in fur and rags. They were smaller than humans, about four to five feet tall and very skinny and wiry.

Whatever they were, they were definitely not human.

One of them slit the dead guy’s throat from ear to ear with a long, wicked-looking rusty knife.

Blood spurted bright black in the night.

The other creature sniffed the air and snarled up at David with a greenish-black, twisted, inhuman face. Long pointed ears stuck out of holes in its ragged hood. It had a big warty nose, and gleaming green eyes. It gave full draw to the same kind of short, black bow of jagged horn that the other one carried.

The creature took dead aim at David.

And fired.

(Mergeworld, Book One, Amazon Link:
http://amzn.to/1uboBDC
)