Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit (39 page)

Naero drew in a deep breath and shuddered.

No outcast in the history of all the Clans had ever managed to do so.

Not a single one.

Naero got out of her chair and knelt at Baeven’s feet, as if he were a great and noble prince in exile.

To her he was.

She reached out, and kissed his hard right hand. She let her tears fall upon it and dot the sand before his feet. She looked up at him with a smile.

“W
hatever you say, Baeven. Whatever you call yourself. I am proud that you are my blood. I say that you will regain your name and your place among us in honor one day, and I will help you and be there to see it. I believe in you. I will stand and fight beside you just as she would. For you have my love, just as you had my mother’s.”

Baeven smiled sadly, but he seemed to be a man incapable of tears or great emotion. Yet he did reach out and touch her long dark hair and smooth it slightly.
His fingertips barely trembled.

“Y
ou honor me Naero. So deeply you cannot know. You are indeed my beloved sister’s daughter. Lythe was always so beautiful, from girl to woman. I see so much of her in you. She still lives and breathes in you, and for that–I am very glad indeed.”

Naero rose up and smiled, placing her hands on her hips.

“Well, I guess we’d better get started then. If we’re going to live up to all that. We’ve got a lot of training to do.”

Baeven lowered his gaze.
“Understand, Naero. We’re going to train very hard together, to both of our limits in every way. I’m not going to cut you any slack.”

Naero grinned her half-smile.
Klyne was right. She had found the exact therapy she needed to pull herself together again.

A challenge, and a way to keep improving herself.

A way forward.

Naero set her hands on her hips defiantly.

“Bring it, outcast. Don’t expect any from me either.”

48

A few w
eeks passed into a few months on the island sanctuary on Miretta-1.

Both
Naero and Baeven sat down after another painful sparring match. Naero always had to regenerate more than he did.

She also had speed training with Danjen, and strength training with Gaviok.

But under Baeven’s rough hand, she steadily improved and increased her stamina and endurance. And that was key. Even with her growing prowess and abilities, she could not sustain them for more than a day without exhausting herself.

Baeven helped her build up her reserves.

Naero even started to get a few licks of her own in here and there.

Against him.

That much alone encouraged her.

They spoke about the Mystics at times, but other than general stuff, Baeven didn
’t seem to enjoy talking about anything personal. Especially his own experiences among them.

He told her lots of great stories about her mom that she never heard before. Mostly about what her mom was like as a child growing up.
Then as a teenager and a young woman.

Yet Baeven
was adamant about one thing.

“
I can help prepare you, but you must find a way to complete your training with the Mystics. You will never achieve your full potential as an adept if you don’t.”

“I
’ll find a way.”

“A
nd don’t give Vane an excuse to destroy you. Don’t let him bait you into anything…like he did me.”

“I
’ll do my best. Hey, there’s something else I wanted to ask you about. Danjen and S’krin keep alluding to how the Dakkur live in total fear of you and Gaviok. What’s up with all that?”

“H
mmm…that’s a long story. First you have to know a great deal more about the Dakkur. They are a vile, opportunistic race.”

“O
kay. Enlighten me.”

Baeven quickly explained the Dakkur and their culture to her. They weren
’t even from the Spacer Galaxy, but the next one over. They had been servants of the G’lothc in the war with the Kexx and the Drians.

“T
hey are horde and hive creatures. There are four different types of Dakkur–four distinct castes. The small gray-black soldier drones are the lowest caste. The greenish-yellow champions are twice as big. After that come the white queens. Less numerous, perhaps a score of them or two for an entire horde.

“
Queens are twice the size of the champions, and lay all the eggs for the horde. They are also incredibly tenacious fighters, and will defend their nests and their king to the bitter death.

“T
here’s a King Dakkur?”

“T
hey are black as the Abyss itself, and huge. Twice the size of the queens. And some can even wield Cosmic abilities. They are extremely formidable foes.”

“H
ow do you know all of this about them?”

Baeven narrowed his eyes and smiled.

“Don’t worry; trust me. Gaviok and I have both had extensive, firsthand knowledge. You must understand, I would give my life gladly for my battle-brother, Gaviok. The Dakkur race are among our mortal enemies. And we always fight them without quarter whenever and wherever we clash.”

“S
ounds like the two of you have clashed with them quite a bit.”

“At times
.”

Naero waited.
“That’s all you’re going to tell me for now?”

“Y
es.”

“A
ll right, then tell me about Gaviok and the rest of your motley crew. Where did you run across all of them? And where did you get your ship? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Alarms suddenly went off among Baeven
’s emulators and all the fixers, popping up along the beaches.

Spacer
s everywhere dropped what they were doing and organized themselves to report back up to the fleet. Pronto.

Naero rode up with Baeven on board
The Shadow Fox.

Any further questions would have to wait.

They heard and read the incoming reports pouring in.

The cease-fire negotiations finally collapsed.

Without any further warning, the Corps unleashed their war once again.

Much like the Spacers, the Corps
modified both their tek and their tactics, and increased the capabilities of both their weapons, shields, and defenses.

They renewed their steady advance, pushing Spacers and their allies back once more with superior weapons, numbers, and new fighting methods
and tactics.

No one knew how to stop them this time.

The Clans had run out of tricks and ideas.

49

While their side continued to lose the
renewed war on all fronts, Naero and Baeven redoubled their efforts to track down the aliens.

And they worked with Om to try to
glean any tek secrets from the KDM that might help them survive or turn the tide. But they had the same problem as Intel. Searching the KDM was like looking for needles in infinite haystacks.

And what they did find was
usually so far advanced–so beyond their current tek as to be unintelligible.

Only a Kexx could
fully understand it, and they weren’t around any longer.

Baeven
’s stealth probe network finally managed to pull in a few leads.

Traces of the aliens traveling here and there
in their Darkforce-powered ships.

But Baeven had yet to put the pieces together to track the enemy down or reveal anything coherent and useful.

There didn’t seem to be a pattern of any kind.

That was
just one major problem.

The aliens
simply appeared to vanish. For days at a time with no further sightings or information.

Naero held mindstorming ses
sions where they and the other captains and Intel people mulled things over and tried to come up with something useful.

“I
t doesn’t make any sense,” Chaela said. “The Corps can beat us at this rate, but it will still take years for them to fight their way through our territories.”

“R
ight,” Naero added. “Why would the aliens hold back, now of all times, when their advanced tek could prove decisive? They could use it to crush us even faster, at every key battle. Anywhere we made a stand.”

“B
ut they’re not doing that,” Tyber said. “Where are they and why not?”

“M
aybe there’s only a few of them,” Saemar said. “Maybe they can’t risk being destroyed. They’re going to beat us at this rate any way. Why not just sit by and let the Corps take us out? Who cares how long it takes? They’ve got time.”

“I
t doesn’t match up with what we know of them,” Baeven said. “They’ve done things urgently in the past. They even seem desperate to locate certain things for their plans. Why suddenly take a slow approach to the war now? And why are they in such a hurry to capture more hosts behind the scenes?”

“W
e just don’t know,” Tarim said, looking over the reports. “Where have they gone and why? What are they doing? You can bet they’re not just sitting on their hands. They’re plotting something all right. Everything I’ve seen of them has been wheels within wheels. They always seem to have contingencies, far into the future. They’re long range planners. You can bet they’ve taken an extended view and plotted out their game many moves and strategies ahead. I think that scares me the most.”

Chaela blew out a deep breath.
“Well right now, they’re off the scanners. Content to let the Corps spread chaos and confusion, and wear us down in their own sweet time.”

Something like one of her old pain attacks struck inside Naero
’s head and staggered her.

She cried out, clutching her head and leaning against the bulkhead in the conference room.

Baeven and Shalaen seemed affected as well.

“W
hat was that?” Baeven said.

Shalaen gasped.
“I fear something has begun. Something terrible, on a very wide scale.”

Alala hailed them.

“Did you all sense that?” she asked

“W
hat’s going on?” Naero demanded.

Within seconds
, more dire reports poured in, from Spacers, the Alliance, and even the Corps worlds along the forward border of the war.

Multiple
wormholes with the alien signature opened up.

Waves upon waves of Ejjai fleets and shock troops poured in.

A full scale invasion.

When the Clans were already fighting a harsh retreat.

Everyone studied the harrowing reports.

Led by the Corps
’ new alien allies, the invading hordes of Ejjai attacked world after world.

“This is very bad
,” Baeven noted, running a strategic simulation. “Look at the extent of this. All of these worlds are in key positions. Each will resist as best they can, but within a matter of months, the Ejjai invaders will seed them with Ejjai cloning facilities and fleet construction bases.”

Everyone saw it.
Right at the forefront of the battle.

Baeven continued. “
What’s more, the strategic pattern does not discriminate between worlds held by Spacers and their allies, and the Corps themselves.”

In fact, about half of the worlds under attack
were in fact, Corps worlds themselves.

“T
he Ejjai are under strict orders, and will began processing all of the worlds they’ve invaded–taking them over and using the human populations as slave labor, and food to feed the growing clone armies. If as little as forty-one percent of all of these worlds fall to the enemy, the process will expand exponentially. Neither we or the Corps will be able to stop it.”

Even at the outset, t
he exploding horrible accounts of the blatant atrocities against civilian populations were difficult to read, view, and process.

Most of Naero and her people were in shock.
But they had an idea what to expect. Even Baeven seemed stunned at the scope of the invasion.

Everyone
was shocked.

They stared at an evolving master plan for the subjugation
–and potentially–the elimination of the human species.

They faced
massive, full-scale Cosmicide across the board by a hyper-violent, new invasive and opportunistic uplifted species.

At the same time that a
vast naval war ground on with the combined Corps that they couldn’t win either.

Even with the info Naero gathered on the ion cannons from Alala, Intel
was still stymied, and hadn’t had enough time yet to come up with viable solutions.

Naero
rose up.

“W
e have to put a stop to this madness. These invaders aren’t going to stop what they’ve begun. No matter what anyone thinks, says, or does. We need to show the Corps fleets what is going on back home on their own worlds. And what it means. What their new allies are not just doing to us, but to Gigacorps worlds and populations as well. I can’t believe they would sacrifice hundreds of their own worlds to take us out. Can’t they see? Once we’re gone, what would stop their new allies from taking them out too? These are foes that all humans must defeat, both Spacer and lander.”

She paused and took a deep breath. “We have to make them see the
colossal ramifications of this threat.”

Baeven shook his head. “But how do we convince them of that when they are winning? When they are crushing us everywhere?
They’re not going to listen to us.”

“We have to show them what is happening on their own worlds, to their own people, they
’re own families. We know what the Ejjai will do. Forget the Corps. If they can’t see the threat, they’re morons. We need to rally the landers as a people everywhere. And we must rally the Clans, as we have never rallied our people before. Everyone must fight. Everyone has to fight. Young. Old. Not just for the survival of Spacers, but for the survival of all humanity!”

Baeven nodded.

“Jia has just completed her analysis of the enemy’s strategy. It may very well reach a point where neither side will be able to halt the invasion as it proceeds and progresses. It will take all of humanity, banded together against a common foe, to stop them.

“
Spacers and landers must find a way to work together against these new foes, if we are all going to survive.”