Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit (33 page)

In the ion gun chamber back on board
The Darkstar
.

Then Urrek
’s carcass dissolved and disintegrated right before her eyes. Leaving the ground blighted and blackened beneath it, and the same foul odor on the wind.

Danjen
put his hands on his hips and turned to S’krin.

“K
id’s got talent. She’s Baeven’s blood alright.”

41

Danjen sniffed the air. His sharp, pointed ears shot up in alarm.

“Uh-oh. We’re screwed. The rest of the drone pack will be on us in seconds. I can smell and hear them coming.”

“W
e must flee,” S’krin said.

“W
e can’t all get away from that many,” Danjen said plainly.

He drew his weapons and strode forward with determination.

“Take the girl, S’krin. I’ll buy you guys as much time as I can.”

“D
anjen. You can’t face this many. They’ll kill you.”

The furry warrior grinned.

“I can only die once, and it will be glorious. Go!”

S
’krin scooped Naero up.

“W
e can’t leave him!” she shouted.

As they rose
higher, Naero saw the pack closing in on Danjen down below. Converging and racing in from a few klicks away.

More than thirty
drones in all. So fast.

And it
had taken all three of them to kill just one.

Then Naero sensed it. Something mighty plummeted down from the sky.
Something streaked down like a flaming red meteor.

It struck the ground in front of Danjen and blasted a small crater into the trees.

A cry of delight escaped S’krin. She circled back around and down.

From the glowing crater, another insectoid creature rose up,
very different from S’krin.

This creature swelled in size until it tower
ed over ten meters up into the trees, glowing blood red. A huge mantid.

Naero could not believe it.

Chaos energy.

The insectoid
rippled with raw, pulsating Chaos energy, enormous and menacing. Not a construct. A living creature that could channel huge quantities of raw Chaos power.

She hadn
’t seen anyone outside of Master Vane be able to channel that much Chaos energy.

One of the Dakkur
saw him and backed away, emitting a cloud of grayish dust from beneath its tail and hind legs.

S
’krin laughed. “Dakkur expel pulverized waste as dust,” she explained. “That one just soiled itself.

“W
ho in the hell is the big red mantis-guy?” Naero asked.

“T
hat’s Gaviok. The Dakkur live in total fear of him, and one other great warrior. And with very good reason.”

Naero shook her head. “I
’m not following you.”

“
The Dakkur vermin have hive minds that share their experiences, sort of like a group memory for their race. They instinctively know the mortal enemies to their fell kind on sight. And instinctively fear the two Destroyers of their kind. Visions of the Destroyers are forever etched in the Dakkur mind. None of them can escape those visions or the terror they incite. Perhaps you shall hear the full tale told one day. It is a mighty story.”

As one the Dakkur hissed and seemed to turn pale, a lighter color at least. They backed away to turn and flee, emitting the
same purple, toxic gas clouds to cover their escape. Belching it from their bowels.

The poison gas clung to the ground and
obscured the area as they swirled it around with their whipping tails.

So that
’s how they did it.

But as the Dakkur turned to race away, Baeven
instantly stood blocking their escape, scorching green disruptor blades outstretched in each hand.

Yet even he was different
this time.

Naero had never seen him like this, and the Dakkur
dropped their jaws and froze in terror.

Baeven pulsed with dark black energy that whorled around him.

Naero knew in an instant exactly what it was.

She could sense it. L
ike her, Baeven possessed a dark beast all his own. Deep within him.

This was what it looked like when it took shape and emerged

Green disruptor blades suddenly jutted out all over his dark glowing form, like thorns and curved knife blades.

The Dakkur shit t
hemselves and screamed in panic.

“T
he Destroyers!”

The
enemy fled in broken fear, scattering in all directions.

Gaviok and Baeven flashed into the swirling purple mists, moving faster than
them. Faster than any normal eye could follow.

M
ultiple bursts of dark energy, explosions, flashes of scarlet Chaos power, sizzling green blades, and strange lights.

Naero shivered, hearing the Dakkur shrieking and screaming.

They even fought each other to get away.

Yet n
one escaped.

Seconds later, the toxic mists cleared
, swept away by the mountain winds.

Shredded pieces of Dakkur lay everywhere. Some ripped apart. Others looked like the
y had been melted or reduced to ash somehow.

Thirty of them
–an entire hunting pack. Massacred in mere seconds. Then the enemy bodies began to dissolve.

Naero shuddered slightly herself.
Baeven and Gaviok were indeed The Destroyers.

With the enemy
completely slaughtered, Baeven and Gaviok shrank back down to their normal sizes. Gaviok reverted back to a bluish-green color–and apparently–he normally stood shorter than Naero.

S
’krin set her down; Naero ran up to Baeven.

“T
hey’re after Shalaen!” Naero said.

“T
hey’re after all of us,” Baeven told her. “The enemy wants anyone. Any being who can channel Cosmic energy in any form.”

“W
hat for?”

Baeven shook his head.
“I’ve yet to learn that. But I think we shall discover shortly. Come, the enemy has breached the mountain stronghold close by. Already they seek to enter the bunker and seize your half-Yattai friend.”

Even as they spoke, a battle royal erupted down below
in the forest between the entrenched Ejjai shock troops and Walker’s advancing Spacer Marines.

Then Naero felt blasts of air press down on them from above.

Out of nowhere, a hatch in the sky opened up.

Baeven turned quickly to Naero.

“More enemy fleets have arrived. They’re attacking the planet with mass drivers and fusion missiles.”

“T
hey’re trying to wipe us out with atomics?”

Baeven nodded.

“Jia says we must help shoot them down. S’krin, with me. Danjen, stay with Gaviok and Naero. Don’t let the enemy take her or the half-Yattai girl. If you find Adept Hashiko, try to rescue her. Be careful. I sense the enemy is tormenting her in some strange way nearby. Their strengths and abilities are unknown–even to me.”

“Y
ou have our word,” Gaviok said. “We shall defend them all with our lives.”

Baeven grinned.
“I’m sure that will suffice, my brother.”

S
’krin flew up into their invisible ship. Baeven leaped up within and the invisible hatch sealed behind them.

Naero and the others felt more blasts of air as
Baeven’s unique ship sped away.

Danjen held a scanner out.

“Now that I understand their energy signatures, I’ve got a lock on the enemy’s coordinates,” Danjen said. “Just a few klicks southwest of here, around the mountains…that way.”

“N
o time to waste. Let’s go,” Gaviok said. He sped away at a high rate of speed, his insect legs churning up the ground as he ran.

Danjen went bounding right after him.

It was all Naero could do to keep up with the pair.

And she thought the Tua could run.

4
2

They cut down a few dozen Ejjai
in their path, left behind to guard the Dakkur tunnel bored through the solid rock of the mountain.

The Ejjai clones were no match for the three of them.

And Gaviok fought on a level that only Baeven seemed capable of matching.

Naero
still worried about Shalaen and her people. Yet strangely enough, she yearned to find Hashiko and free her even more.

The enemy did not have Shalaen yet.

But they did have Hashi.

And Baeven said they were torturing her in some strange way.

What was the enemy doing to her? Why did they want to capture them all so badly?

To do the same thing to all of them? To serve what purpose?

And Baeven was correct. What were these strange, scary energies
she sensed as they drew closer? Energies that made her very flesh crawl.

They raced into the
dark tunnel. Questions and fears flooding her racing mind.

Danjen studied his scanner. They could hear the Dakkur far up ahead,
half a kilometer, churning and ripping through the solid stone.

Then the sounds stopped.

Danjen called out quietly.

“I
think they’ve breached the bunker, through an abandoned mining shaft. That’s what they were aiming for.”

Shocks of e
xplosions and sounds of weapon-fire lit up the area ahead of them moments later.

Naero felt ice-
icicles shoot up her veins.

“The miners are trying to defend themselves. They won
’t hold out long against a pack of Dakkur.”

Gaviok sounded somewhat concerned as he spoke.

“Something else awaits us up ahead. I sense a power of some kind that none of us has ever faced before. Something much more formidable than the Dakkur spawn.”

If
this new threat had Gaviok spooked, it sure had Naero’s attention.

Like him, a growing feeling of
great uneasiness grew as they approached the battle.

They caught the first whiffs of toxic Dakkur gas.

Danjen and Naero put on their respirators.

She glanced
over at Gaviok.

“I
’m immune to their stench,” he said. “But that is not what worries me. You are an adept of the powers Cosmic, just like my battle-brother and I. I can see it in you. Do you not sense something strange and terrible up ahead?”

Naero focused
, finally able to re-open her third eye.

Danjen drew back slightly. Even Gaviok seemed surprised.

Naero concentrated her perceptions.

She gasped
.

“Y
es, I sense two very different Cosmic powers. Warring with each other. One I know to be Shalaen. The other also seems familiar, but I can’t identify it. It has been…tainted and twisted somehow. Almost beyond recognition. Its very nature is corrupted, foul in ways I cannot begin to fathom. Almost an anti-energy, some kind of negative power, and it is incredibly strong. There should be no power such as this. It makes me want to vomit.”

“T
hen you see our foes truly for what they are. You are correct, spacechild. Such power should not exist, and yet it does. This is the naked might or our true enemies. All else are but their slaves and puppets.”

They breached the mining shaft and raced within.

The mining guards put up a valiant fight, but they had been ripped apart. All of their heads missing.

Near could feel the shocks from the cosmic battle up ahead of them
as they drew closer.

“I
cannot obtain my full battle-size in these confines,” Gaviok warned them. “But I will crush the Dakkur drones. They cannot stand before me for long. Once I begin my assault, I will create an opening for you and Danjen to charge forward and help your friend. Go to her. She slowly loses her fight from what I can tell. If only she were a full Yattai.”

Naero nodded. “We have to help her. Please, get us in there!”

Seconds later, Gaviok swelled in size and turned bright glowing red with Cosmic energy. The Dakkur hissed in horror and fell back at the fury of his onset. Gaviok tore into them, literally shredding them.

Danjen and Naero
saw their chance and raced past, toward the fierce Cosmic battle being fought up ahead.

At last Naero
regained enough energy to form one Chaos katana, and gripped it tightly in both hands, summoning all of her prowess. She called upon Om. Hold on, Shalaen. We’re coming!