“
I’m ducking back to my quarters,” Naero said, her head still woozy.
“
Don’t be late,” Jan warned. “Aunt Sleak’s training with us today. You know how she prizes punctuality.”
Naero raced down the corridor.
4
In the early afternoon t
hey all met for lunch before their duty shift.
Aunt Sleak
’s lead ship,
The Slipper,
which they served on, was only the third largest in the Clan Maeris Merchant Fleet at 500 tons. But it was the newest, the fastest, and, ton for ton, the most advanced and heavily armed of the fleet’s five main ships.
With a comple
ment of 230 working crew, and some of their clan families,
The Slipper
was home to more than 300 souls.
It
’s oval, domed Mess Hall comfortably sat and fed about a hundred people at once, so the crew and their families ate in rotating shifts.
Now that the ship was out
of jump and proceeding through sub-space in system, they could see the other ships of the fleet in tight formation nearby. The Mess Hall had its blast screens down, so it was possible to look out across a stunning 360-degree vista as they continued, on course to Irpul-4, just one leg of the fleet’s major trade run through Triax Gigacorp space.
Naero spotted their sister ship,
The Shinai,
slightly behind them on their port side, protecting their flank, 600 tons, 300 crew.
Right behind them were the fleets’ two smaller trading ships:
The Nevada
, 300 tons and 80 crew, and
The Ardala
, 200 tons, 60 crew.
The massive
Dromon
, a planetoid ship, brought up and protected their rear. At 300,000 tons it obviously couldn’t enter a planetary atmosphere, but it carried a crew of 1,200 hundred and had, nearly unlimited hold space, as well as almost more firepower than a ship of the line battleship.
The mess hall on
The Slipper
currently had about 60 people in it, coming and going, eating, communicating with the other ships, watching the news on INS,
the Interstellar News Service feeds from various sectors, feeds primarily controlled and manipulated by the sixteen Gigacorps.
Even a decade after the last
Spacer War with the Corps ended in 2585, the old tensions remained strong in many places.
Old hatreds did not fade easily, and the driving force of most of the
Gigacorps to dominate and control everything and everyone, including space remained relentless.
Only the
Spacers and their staunch ally Joshua Tech–the only Gigacorp to side with
them
–remained independent and free.
When the other fifteen
Gigacorps weren’t fighting with Spacers, they fought amongst themselves for dominance, or even within their own systems.
Naero
stared at her lunch tray while they shuffled along in line, still feeling queasy from her morning ordeal. Usually the chow was okay.
She
ignored INS, having little interest in Interstellar politics and spin today. She still struggled to accept the fact that she was a nud, and not mope about it. What else could she do but push on?
She also had a busy duty shift ahead of her.
The only bright point in her birthday was her master plan.
By
lunch time it was working perfectly.
Tyber checked the table and benches they were about to sit at with their food trays with his scanner. So did Zhen.
“I don’t detect any traps,” he said. “Nothing sticky.”
“
No nanoglue or stungel,” Zhen added. “It’s okay to sit down.”
“
Guys, just eat your food. Seriously. I didn’t do anything. I’m not going to do anything. You’re my mates.”
“
Yeah, you’d like us to think that, wouldn’t you?” Chaela said. “Then we let our guard down, and wham!” She hit the table so hard that their trays jumped, as did some other Spacers nearby.
“
That’s when you strike. You’re just waiting to pounce on us all. So go ahead. What are you waiting for? We know you wanna play some clever trick on us. Just get it over with already.”
“
Saemar, look me in the eye. Tell them how dumb this is. They’re getting all paranoid for nothing.”
Saemar stopped waving and flirting and winking at the entire male half of the crew and looked into her eyes.
“You’re absolutely right, sweetie. I do know you.” Then she looked at their trays.
“
Oh my gosh, I figured it out. She’s done something to our food. Nobody eat anything! I bet the servers are in on it.”
Everyone stared and gaped and dropped their spoons and forks in midbite
as if on cue.
“
I bet it’s laxatives,” Saemar said. “That’s what I’d do. By tonight we’ll all be shitting ourselves inside out like Lorlduvian sky whales. Don’t eat nuthin’.”
“
Okay, okay,” Zhen said. “Everyone just glacier. If Saemar will shut up for five seconds I can scan everyone’s food.”
Tyber looked over at her. Naero just grinned innocently.
“She’s smiling at us,” Tyber said. “Oh, hell. Why is she smiling at us like that?”
“
I’m just so happy to be with all my good friends.”
“
Dammit. Saemar’s right. I already ate some. I feel it going through me already. I’m going to die. I’m going to detonate like a shit bomb. Damn you, Naero.”
Naero held up her hands.
“You’re not going to shit yourself, Tyber. I didn’t do anything.”
Zhen turned off her med scanner.
“Relax, Ty. She’s right. No poisons.” She glared at Saemar and shook her head emphatically.
“
No sooper laxatives. Everyone go ahead and eat. Just another false alarm.”
A
wkward silence passed for a minute.
Saemar blurted out. “Well, it’s a good thing. You don’t want to mess with those extra-strength laxatives, ya know. I know a guy who took some, cause–you know–he was all plugged up inside. Well, he takes too much. Next thing thing ya know,
bawoom
. He’s crapping his teeth out his ass. The guy had to get new teeth, I swear. True story. It liked ta killed him.”
“No way,” Tyber said. “No one can shit their teeth out. It’s impossible.”
Gallan threw his fork down again and pushed his tray away in complete disgust. “I don’t think I can eat anymore.”
“
The question remains,” Zhen said, licking her spoon and then waving it at Naero. “What is she going to do, and how and when is she going to do it to us all?”
“
You guys are being silly,” Naero told them.
“
We’ll never see it coming,” Chaela said. “She’s probably already set it up and is just waiting for it to blow up in our faces. That’s the way she usually does it.”
Tyber pointed a finger
right at her. “You know, one of these days, Naero, someone’s going to pull one over on you. A real work of art. And all of us are going to be right here to see you go down in flames.”
“
Hey, here’s a disturbing thought,” Gallan said. “I know her better than any of you. What if this time her master plan is to do nothing?”
“
Nothing?” Zhen said. “That’s not her style. She’s going to do something, you can bet on that.”
“
Right,” Tyber added.
“
Think about it, ”Gallan said. “All she has to do is sit and look innocent while the rest of us squirm and flip out and get all paranoid, watching and waiting and fretting about something that could happen at any moment. She can drive us all crazy for free. That way, we keep doing it all to ourselves.”
“
Nahhh…” Saemar said. “She’s got something planned, all right. Just look at her.”
Naero stretched leisurely and stood up, grinning all the while.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I gotta go get ready for work. You guys comin’ along for the ride?”
All five of her friends turned
as pale as moons.
“
She’s going to get us on the job. Can she do that to us?” Tyber asked the others. “Isn’t there a limit to what she can do to us while we’re on duty?”
Saemar gasped for air again.
“Check your EV-suits for hidden suppositories. She could still get us with auto-suppositories.
Bungo
! Right up the escape chute. Our suits’ll fill up with pressurized poop. We’ll all choke on it.”
Zhen held up her hands as if they were claws, dragging the corners of her mouth down and gnashing her teeth in frustration.
“You total moron. Will you shut up about the laxatives already? What an idiot! She’s not going to get us with laxatives. Nobody in their right mind would ever do something like that, except maybe you. It’s not. Going to be. Laxatives.”
Everyone stared at her.
Saemar had to have the last word.
“
Well, it could be laxatives. How do you know?”
“
Aauughhh!” Zhen abandoned her tray and the table, and stalked away, her fists clenched and her arms straight down stiff at her sides.
Tyber went after her.
“Time to go to punch the clock,” Naero said, struggling not to giggle.
Then Jan walked
into the mess hall, his face ashen.
He focused on her. Swallowed hard, and came straight for her.
“Hey Jan. Why so glum? One of your bimbo’s stand you up?”
“
N-N-Naero, there’s no good way to say this, so just listen. Mom and Dad’s exploration fleet has been…wiped out in deep space. They’re all gone. Dead. Mom and dad…they’re dead.”
Naero gaped for a minute.
Then she started laughing. She turned back to her friends, who all looked dumbstruck, completely unable to speak.
“
Okay, I see what’s going on here. Nice try, guys. Good one. You almost had me, but I’m not falling for it. Smooth. My birthday, old April Fool’s Day. Getting Janner to play along with your little scam.”
Gallan
stood up and lifted his hands. “Naero, this isn’t a scam. Your brother just said something terrible happened to your parents. I think you need to listen to him.”
Naero backed away slightly, shaking her head
. “No, no. It can’t be. Tyber just said you’d all get me back for all of my tricks. That you’d all be there to pull one over on me and see me go down in flames. They can’t be. My mom and dad can’t be–”
Janner slapped her. Hard.
Naero gaped, taken completely by surprise.
“
You think I’m kidding?
Haisha
!” Jan sobbed. “You think I’m making this up?”
An
INS bulletin cut in over the regular feeds on all screens.
We have disturbing, breaking news. A deep space exploration fleet has been completely wiped out in the far regions of the Spacer Extents. Spacer sources have thus far released few details concerning the incident. It is not known whether the fleet was destroyed by some dangerous phenomena or perhaps a heretofore unknown, advanced alien threat.
All that is known is that thousands of
Spacers are now dead. All ships and all hands lost. There are no known survivors. Stay tuned for more information concerning this tragedy as the facts unfold. All of the corporate governments and navies have offered their sincere condolences and their complete cooperation and assistance to the Spacer authorities.
Does some grave new alien threat lurk beyond the boundaries of known space?
Gallan
tried to put his arms around her.
Naero pulled away and floated out of the Mess Hall.
In complete shock.
5
Naero spoke with Aunt Sleak briefly before going on duty.
Jan retreated to his room.
Her face still ached. Not physically, but emotionally from how he
r little brother had struck her and why.
She blamed herself, not Jan; but she
still couldn’t have known.
Her aunt gave her the option to shunt her duty shift onto someone else, given the circumstances. Something Naero had never done before.
She never missed a duty shift.
And she wouldn
’t now. Her crews needed her.
“
Thanks, but I think I need to stay busy,” she said flatly.
Aunt Sleak respected her decision.
Few details reached them concerning the destruction of
The Omaria’s
expedition into the Unknown Sectors. No one seemed to know much more yet. Not the Spacers or the Corps.
One phrase stuck in Naero
’s mind.
All hands lost.
All hands lost.
All joy and gladness sucked out of her life as if into a swirling black hole of despair.
Everything
had changed forever. Everything already different and worse.
She couldn
’t dwell on all of that.
Time to sort it out later. For the present she had a mission, a
n important duty shift to focus on and keep her busy.
Naero sucked in a deep breath and shook herself at the stiff controls of her lumbering transport, checking her autovector on the orange glowing Joshua Tech flight console directly in front of her, angled slightly down on its gunmetal titanadium swing arms. Swaying slightly. One of the swivel locks still broken.
Big surprise. The teks hadn’t gotten around to her work order yet. She’d have a word with Tyber.
The tight protective orb of her transport
’s flight command pod enveloped her like a protective egg, designed specifically for that purpose. Barely enough room for a pilot, but this time, she welcomed being so closed up. The solitude, the quiet, her heart and mind racing, torn in several directions at once. She needed something to hold herself all in.
So that she didn
’t explode, and crumble into little pieces.
Being held in the arms of a ship was second nature to her. Flying a ship through space gave her solace, re-assurance.
According to their readouts, her four-Spacer load team hung suspended at their stations in the cargo bay, charging their glifters in their docking stations. Some of them no doubt had locked up and were snoozing during the ride.
Load
ers worked hard. Shifts could be days long at times. Naero had been there right with them performing such duties in the past, before she earned her second of the three blue rank bands on her arms.
S
he could still recall the stress and satisfying fatigue of those long days. Smart loaders seized the luxury of sleep whenever it came their way
She wasn
’t sure herself if she would be getting much sleep in the near future.
Naero kept her clear flight helmet off, even during their approach. Against regs, but she preferred to look ahead and a
ll around clearly, without the distortion of the helmet’s lensing effect at the edges of her sight, and sometimes above or below
Her small, slender left hand, gloved
in the same thin black Nytex of her flight togs, reached absently around her stained lix holder for another borbble of Jett. Her fave.
She
had broken it out of her stash and brought it with her for the trip in an attempt to console herself. But she had already nervously guzzled them all, inhaling the last delicious fruity drop of her hoarded lix fourpak half an hour ago, and had recycled the empty borbble with the other three.
Naero shook her head. Thirst and hunger needed to wait. Not that she was very hungry, despite skipping two meals
and throwing up. She had a couple of semi-tasty energy bars somewhere in her togs, but no desire to ferret them out and pick at them.
Thirst
remained another matter.
She licked her lips;
they felt dust covered. Damnation. Nothing more to drink. And the air still smelled sweet, tangy, and tantalizing with the succulent flavor of Jett. Even on her own breath.
An involuntary shudder snaked through her
lithe, athletic body, causing her to snap slightly in her form-fitting EV-suit.
Naero sighed, struggling to relax and collect herself. Again.
The entire trip telescoped out into a long tunnel of malaise and uneasiness, as if she couldn’t make up her mind how she felt about anything.
The news affected her
deeply on so many levels, even through her shock, finally starting to hit home.
She reached back and massaged her stiff neck, and checked her long black hair,
clipped up tight in a knot behind her crown with her mother’s gold hair clasp. Spacer-style to fit into the orbs of their flight helmets.
Great…with her hair pulled back, she could tenderly feel
the big inflamed zit swelling up right smack dab in the middle of her forehead like a small blemish volcano. How wonderful.
Well, s
he might be a mess inside and out, but she still had work to do. On the job, it didn’t matter how bad she looked–pimples, boils, and all. Parts of her cared; other parts did not.
Aunt Sleak would join them shortly
after the Merchant Fleet Command Ship–
The Slipper–
landed only an hour or two behind them.
Naero
led a vital but relatively standard delivery mission to Irpul-4’s dumpy, dangerous starport.
Whatever her inner turmoil, duty demanded that she keep good order and fulfill her obligations to her clan and her team.
She shifted and turned slightly in her green gel-chair
, encircling her like a spongy cocoon that mostly filled the inner egg of the flight pod.
She found herself c
ompletely incapable of getting comfortable in what was normally a favorite environment for her. She squirmed and shifted all the way.
Piloting anything that moved or flew
usually relaxed her, but not today.
A
nother spell of pain crashed into her skull. Zhen warned her that she might suffer them in random waves. They could hit at any time, night or day, ranging from dull aches to almost knocking her out.
To hell with that.
Naero wouldn’t stand for it. She’d deal with the pain and consequences of her actions, and find a way to muscle through them, just like she always did.
Her hands fidgeted on the fligh
tsticks on either arm of her flight chair. Each stick was covered with delicate controls, allowing her to maneuver in almost any direction.
As mission leader, she piloted the lead transport of seven
bulk haulers, with three formed up on her mark in tight formation to either side. Their glifter crews were no doubt snoozing blissfully like her own.
She focused on the thr
ee open view screens before her: left, right, and forward and slightly up. Shining slices of reinforced screen with the blast shields open, looking out into the Irpul System.
The fourth planet bal
looned at their rapid approach, swirls and patches of deep violet, lavender, several shades of blue, and gray, punctuated by a few spatters of light here and there as they approached on the side of the world shrouded in night.
She switched over to manual controls on final approach.
The dual stick controls of her lumbering GV-hauler resisted, stiff and sluggish like her big friend Gallan wrestling with her.
Haisha
!
Sometimes she kept these old transports up and on course by muscle and force of will alone. Just the way her parents...
She winced and flared her small sensitive nose, drinking
in machine smells and the ozone of high energy impulses from advanced electronics. All of her acute senses seemed further heightened in flight, especially because of her elevated emotional state.
Landing shields full-front.
They entered the atmosphere, punching through in radiant sprays of sparks and flames.
Stop sulking over them.
She couldn’t do anything about their deaths now. They wouldn’t want that. They’d taught her and her brother better. Go forward. Complete the task at hand.
Who was she kidding?
A gaping, aching hole sucked a cold roaring hurricane of despair and loss straight through where her heart and soul used to be.
She loved her parents dearly, though she didn
’t give voice to that so much anymore. And to make matters worse, when last she’d seen them, they hadn’t parted well. Naero argued and fought with them intensely and repeatedly about her and Jan having to go work for Aunt Sleak again. Their less-than-favorite and only aunt.
Cold, demanding, hardnosed Aunt Sleak, who never cut anyone any slack. She
always drove them and worked them to the bone, while their parents always went off on some lark, pursuing their dreams, exploring the dangerous Unknown Sectors, like some kind of endless vacation.
Naero regretted her words now.
She had always understood what they were doing was risky. Already she missed them more than she could bear.