Spacer Clans Adventure 3: Naero's Fury (37 page)

I feared what I had seen within myself. I could never let that thing out
, ever again.

And then there was something like a voice, trying
to speak to me from deep within, yet it was too far away for me to hear what it was trying to tell me. None of it made sense. Half of the time, I thought I was going insane.

So did others.
Most thought me mad.

Master Vane recovered quickly also, and immediately began his campaign with the other High Masters to have me executed.

The only good thing was that Lythe came back around. She was the only one who seemed healthy and unhurt, and she hardly left my side from that moment. She grew worried, and had the other adepts keep us informed on what was going on around us.

All three of the High Masters studied me and came to the same conclusion. From my ordeal
of interacting with the artifact, I had contracted some kind of rare, ancient Cosmic sickness. The energies surging through me were unlike anything that anyone had ever seen before. I was clearly going to waste away or explode at some point, and no one knew exactly when–within a standard year, or the next few seconds.

That was all part of the problem
that demanded an urgent decision to be made.

In that
climate of fear, terror, and ignorance after the incident, no one knew anything. And therefore, they did not know what to think.

The artifact was no more. Completely destroyed, except for the arms, that has twisted and frozen into two
indefinite shapes of precious Ur-metal. Yet compared to the artifact, they now seemed completely inert by comparison.

The artifact had affected the High Masters as well, and burned out part of their memories concerning the event. all they knew was the little I chose to tell them.

Regardless, Vane insisted that I had grossly disobeyed him by saving my sister Lythe. If I had listened to him, and left the planet, the incident would not have occurred. Even if something did happen–Lythe might have lived or died in any case–but that did not matter to Vane. He claimed that he was trying to protect everyone, and could not fail to do so, at the cost of the life of one adept.

I knew I had made the right choice.

I did make the mistake of trusting the other two High Masters. I told them about the monster I had within myself, how it had emerged during the struggle, and how it nearly escaped during the incident.

All three High Masters seemed to grow incredibly paranoid about this information. It seemed to go along with one of the old Cosmic prophecies somehow. Vane started ranting that I was clearly revealed to be a Destroyer, a legendary force of destruction feared by many astral and interdimensional beings that the Mystics had congress with.

Destroyers were doomed to grow mad, and could be consumed by the Darkforce. Ancient legends said that they could devour entire galaxies–even collapse and disrupt entire universes–if that could be believed. But the legends insisted that such events had all happened before in the past, and could very well happen again at some point in the future of every possible universe.

These Destroyers could only be checked or stopped by other legends, such as Cosmic Tricksters, various types of Champions–even other Destroyers like themselves–whether they slew each other or canceled each other out somehow. Many times, the Destroyers could not be stopped, and that universe ceased to exist–completely negated.

All three of the High Masters quickly turned against me.

The fact remained that I had disobeyed them and went against their will in several serious instances. They said they had no choice when they sentenced me to death. I could perish it any moment, and take half the planet with me. For the good of all, my life needed to end.

They made me swear to them, on my honor as a Spacer and a prime adept, that I would not resist, and accept my punishment willingly.

My sister Lythe was my only defender.

She alone stood up for me before all of them, utterly fearless, and pleaded my case with all of her passion and devotion.

Her pleas for me fell upon deaf ears–even when she insisted that I could be exiled somewhere, on a world where I could not hurt anyone else but myself. They would not listen. They were
still afraid.

So in the end, I
did not fight. I calmly gave them my word.

But
from that moment forward, I never had any intention of keeping it.

Lythe offered to go with me–willingly into lawlessness. I could not
allow her to do so. I swore a promise to her, and made her swear a promise to me, that she would pursue her own life of honor, and forget me if need be. I did all of that for her sake.

She could not be a part of what I was going to become
–what I already was. And I did not want her to see that. Her Mystic training was nearly complete any way. She could move on to better things. I had no wish to poison her life, the way mine was going to be.

Two days before my execution, I broke out and made
good my escape in a fast Intel courier. I injured many, but I strove not to kill anyone. I was slightly wounded initially, but I would recover.

From that point I was an outlaw–a renegade–with a high price and a death sentence on my head. Anyone could kill me, no questions asked. I became one of the most sought after criminals in known space.

Every hand was against me, and many sought my life.

I survived under many names and guises. I used every ounce of skill and power to survive and remain free, descending into the criminal elements everywhere.

I learned that everywhere there were secrets, and secrets meant power and wealth to those who could manipulate and control them. I became a rogue agent, dealing in the direct commodity of information and secrets, playing all sides against each other.

Our universe remained a dangerous place. I exposed plots and things that even cost many Spacers their lives. But had I let them go
on unexposed, they would have cost far more. Everyone on both sides just assumed I was a traitor, so I used that to my advantage. Even when it appeared that I was betraying my own people, I made sure that in the long run, things worked out to benefit them.

I hid out a lot on the fringes, and in the Unknown Regions. They became my havens. I had several specialized ships I used. When things got too hot for me, I would go exploring for a while into the Unknown. I strove to have the latest tek. I always tried to have a way out set up–or several if I could
manage them. I had aliases and disguises in many places.

But it wasn’t enough. The Mystics and Intel sent a special ten person kill team after me. They track
ed me down relentlessly through the Astral Plane. They came not to capture–but to slay me outright. I barely escaped, badly wounded.

Yet during our battle,
I had been forced to kill three of the ten adepts on that kill team. Your friend, Admiral Klyne, was one of those who survived. All of them had been former friends and comrades of mine.

Several Intel fleets clos
ed in on me. My ship was damaged. My jump drive crapped out just as I made it to the Gytoran Wormhole. My ship was being cut to pieces, even as I plunged into the vortex.

And, as everyone knows, the Gytoran Wormhole is completely unstable. It
can spit you out anywhere in the galaxy–three quarters of which is unexplored. No one had ever come back from it yet–although a few like me have managed to do so since that time. But back then, for me it was either a one-way trip–or death.

When I emerged from the other end of the wormhole, completely at random, I had no idea where I was. I still don’t know where I came out exactly to this day. I couldn’t get back there if I tried.

My ship was severely damaged, I was badly wounded–dying really. My Cosmic disease had grown so bad that I was close to exploding again, or unleashing the monster inside of me.

I barely managed to crash land on a strange world that seemed to be the nearest earthlike. Boy, was I both wrong and fortunate at the same time.

I was on Zoa, Jia’s gateway world to
Ur-Jahal
, the secret Driathan homeworld hidden by their masters, the ancient Drians. Jia still won’t tell me or anyone else what quadrant of our galaxy Ur-Jahal is hidden in.

Jia extracted my broken, diseased body from the wreck of my ship, took pity on and saved me. To this day, I do not know what it was that she could possibly see in me.

She healed me–and from what she says, that was no simple task. In order to do so, she had to become part of me, and I had to become part of her, in ways that I still do not understand. But it was as if the two of us became, in fact, part of each other.

We also
we fell in deeply love with each other, in so many ways too marvelous and fantastic to imagine or explain–the most magnificent thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life. I am devoted to her, and she to me–for all time. We are everything to one another.

Jia gave me so many gifts.
The Shadow Fox
is in fact, a Drian ship. It is a living ship–with or without Jia’s soul essence imbued within it. the most advanced starship I have ever seen. I have learned many of its secrets, but not all. I have learned to use Drian tek to aid my various efforts.

Jia came with me, because we could not be parted. For reasons she keeps to herself, she insisted on leaving her mi
raculous, immortal body behind.

Baeven
paused and shook his head and gasped, obviously in fond memory.

I cannot speak to you in the words of any known language and tell you how beautiful my Jia is to me. It is something that a person could only witness and experience for themselves. But know this: Jia was the pinnacle of the Drian powers of creation. The Drians
specifically
created her to be as much like they were as possible, in order to guide, protect, and lead her people. If the Driathans have a goddess…it can only be Jia.

Naero,
I hope that you will be so fortunate, one day, to behold my beloved completely, in all her splendor and majesty–as she truly is.

The Driathan legends say that they were meant to be the gift of the Drians to
all the galaxy–to the entire universe after the horrors and devastation of the Great War. That was why the Drians protected their creations so much–some say even at the cost of the Drians’ own existence. And in the Cosmic Prophecies of all the sentients, the Driathans are specifically mentioned multiple times–as having their own important roles to play in the fate of the universe.

To escape from
Zoa, Jia had to seal away the Cosmic gateway to Ur-Jahal. She had our ship locate other naturally occurring wormholes that would return us on a one-way trip to the Alpha Quadrant. We have returned to Zoa on two other occasions since that time, but I still have no idea where it is located, either.

When I returned, I could control my monster within
–at least partially, after the fashion that you have seen. And that has served me well, indeed. But I also learned that I had been made an outcast. I was no longer a Spacer. I had no name. No honor whatsoever any longer. I was seen as a rabid animal, who only needed to be put down.

*

Baeven leaned back and knitted his hands behind his head.

“There, now you know what happened to me, the alien artifact I interacted with,
Naero. How I became an outcast, and how I met Jia and gained my ship. Now, I need to hear your story. All of it.”

“But wait
,” Naero said. “I want to hear more about Jia, and you, and your Drian ship, and the Drian tek you use. And what about your crew? Where did they all come from?”

Baeven
now crossed his arms in front of himself. Apparently a characteristic Maeris thing to do. “Naero, I’ve told you quite enough for the time being. Now, I insist that you tell me what I want to know, or you and I are going to have a very interesting sparring match.”

Naero laughed. “Hey, you’re still recovering.”

He glared at her as only he could. “Try me. I’m feeling much better every instant. Now talk.”

Naero laughed. “All right, all right
, but first I need a–”

Baeven sat up, and
telekinetically yanked a frosty cold four pak of Jett out of a hidden lix cooler. Naero barely caught it, and went back a bit to keep it from smacking her in the head.

She cracked the first borbble open before telling
him about her own ordeal.

36

As if they didn’t have enough major problems, Jia informed them that even at Jump-7, a journey to Zoa and back would take almost two standard weeks.

No one
knew what kind of time they had to work with, and there were no known wormholes out their way that could get them any closer.

The enemy certainly held a major strategic and tactical advantage over them with that ancient wormhole tek
of theirs. The G’lothc cruiser and the Dakkur hordeships could travel back and forth at will over great distances.

Naero had another healing session planned with Womi later that day. If things went well enough, perhaps he would tell them where in the Gamma Quadrant they could find the new enemy homeworlds that had been established there.

While both ships remained docked together, Baeven worked with Naero, Om, Ty, Alala, and Jia to to teknomance and pweak the drives on
The Darkstar
to make them even faster and more efficient.

Yet sadly, B
aeven’s miraculous Drian ship was still far more advanced. He tried to explain some of the differences.

“
We’d need advanced materials that we just don’t have access to, in order to top out Alala’s specs to come to anything close to
The Shadow Fox
.”

Naero sighed.
“We’ve learned so much already from you and Jia and your ship. I keep working with Alala and Om and our fixers, trying to fabricate the advanced materials we require. We have the specs you gave us, but I never thought just synthesizing materials could be so complex–and exhausting. And there are tons of basic things just like that in the KDM that are simply way over our capabilities right now.”

Baeven laughed.
“Don’t beat yourself up too much, Naero. If it’s still beyond Jia and Om, it’s going to take a little while for us and them to catch up. But we have to continue to advance, working on overcoming our weaknesses, building upon our strengths.”

Naero nodded.
“Our people have always known that. While our enemies still seem to have knowledge far beyond our own. That puts us at a serious disadvantage.”

“
We’re lucky they can’t seem to duplicate those ships they have, or all of their weapon systems.”

“Baeven, we can’t afford to give them time to do so. Ty, w
hat about that new leap drive, the one we cobbled together from those KDM concepts that Om gave us? Any luck on getting that working?”

“
We’ve assembled a prototype projector generator, but it would still take a massive amount of raw Cosmic energy just to test it.”

Cosmic energy.

She turned to Baeven. “You and I can generate Cosmic energy. Perhaps we could power it. If we could get that prototype working, jump drive tek would become obsolete. Our foes would no longer have the advantage over us. We could leap across half the galaxy or more in an instant.”

They walked
back over to Ty and his tek crew, who brought out the experimental device on grav lifts and with Jia’s kind assistance, popping the device up from the floor. It was even more compact than a jump drive.

“
I wouldn’t advise a full test right now,” Tyber warned. “There are still too many variables. We don’t know what any of the effects could be for certain. It might torch any ship trying to use that thing–including this one. We might reach our destination alright…as a burned out cinder.”

“
There’s currently a fifty-seven percent chance that the device would function properly,” Jia said.

“
I say fifty-six,” Om projected.”

“
Buma-luma,” Naero said. “Or potato-patata, take your pick.”

What in the heck is a p
atata?

Naero ignored Om before giving her opinion.

“So–in principle–we’re basically talking Space-Time travel here, right? If this Kexxian leap tek works, we could get places faster than anyone. Maybe even faster than our enemies. That would be a huge advantage. I don’t think we can ignore the chance at such a possibility.”

“
But we can’t help anyone if we’re all dead, either.” Baeven said. “I’m up for taking risks as much as anyone, but let’s pweak our chances of success a little more than fifty-fifty, before we do an actual test run.”

“
Om, Jia, Alala,” Naero said, “keep working with Ty and the uber-geek squad here “Let us know what our chances would be by the end of this standard day. If they’re high enough, we’ll give it a shot. Keep working with Baeven too, if he feels up to it.”

“
Will do,” Alala noted. “These Kexxian schematics are amazing. Even this Drian ship is not as complex as this one Kexxian device, and that’s saying something. Om and I are probably the only ones who can even understand the concepts of just parts of it. Some for them are even beyond us.”

For now at least
. I continue to study them and make progress.

Baeven clapped a hand on Naero
’s shoulder.

“
In the mean time, you and I have some work of our own to do. If we’re going to be fighting G’lothc possessed foes, Mystic Enforcers, Dakkur, and who the hell knows what else. Haisha. We both better be in top form. You’ve had further training with the Mystics, Naero.”

And she might not get any more.

“That’s good progress. And you now possess many abilities that I do not. But I trained with Master Vane and the other two High Masters completely, for many years. There’s still much for you to learn about raw fighting, increasing your speed and strength, working in the Astral Plane and other dimensions, and honing all of your Mystic skills. As well as the ones that are unique to you since your encounter with the artifact.”

Naero nodded and looked up at him.

Baeven was telling her, once again, that they were going back to training hard together.

And
, that he was going to do his level best to beat the hell out of her while doing so.

But
Naero knew for a fact that she could take it, and give back plenty of her own. Baeven would learn things from her, too. It was always that way with talented opponents.

“
I’m up for all of that. And let’s be honest about something else,” she said. “We both have similar problems controlling our Cosmic abilities. We both have our own Dark Beast within us that yearns only to break free, rampage, and destroy.”

Baeven looked at her and nodded.
“You know now that it is Jia in part, who helps me control myself and the monster within. Without her–without her love and compassion for me–I would have ended up a mindless monster, or worse, long ago. Just as the High Master’s feared, they would have been forced to take me out.”

“Thank goodness for Jia, then.”

He looked into Naero’s eyes. “You have held her soul within you. You sense what she is–her great dignity and honor. Her goodness. She is my angel, my savior. I cannot put into words what Jia is to me, and the depths of my feelings for her, Naero. Sometimes I would give up the entire struggle and everything–all that I am–if only to have her in my arms for one entire day. Nay…for one mere hour of bliss and peace, alone with her.”

“
I have never seen a Driathan,” Naero said. “Are they really as beautiful as the legends say, Baeven? Or did you just tell me that because of your love for Jia?”

Baeven sighed.
“One day, Naero. You will tell me if I have spoken the truth or not. Each of the Driathans was a miracle, fashioned lovingly by the hands of the Drians in their enduring image and imagination. Perfection, immortal, indestructible, self-regenerating. And Jia was created to be their paragon–the closest thing to being an actual Drian, without them actually re-creating themselves entirely in her mirific, android form.

“
In the absence of their beloved masters, when they awake, and come into their power, she will be more than a mere queen to all her kind–she will be the nearest thing they have to a goddess.”

“
Is she that beautiful then?”

Even Baeven took in a deep breath.

“I have been many places in this universe, Naero, and I have seen many wonders. Yet nothing has come close to her. When we first found each other I was broken, dying, diseased and accursed. At that point I yearned to die. Jia healed me, slowly and tenderly in her embrace and brought me back from the brink of my own dark abyss.

“
She looked upon and within me and I her for months at time, speaking only to each other with our eyes as I slowly regenerated, and bathed and healed within the grace of her all-encompassing light. For all that time, I was unable to speak. Not a word. But we forged our great bond, and the powerful link between us was formed on levels that even we cannot describe. Without her I would be a terrible wretch–beyond nothing. A witless, destroying beast that would need to be killed.”

“
Where are the Driathans? What are they doing?”

“
That is difficult to explain, Naero. Even I do not fully understand it all, and I am closer to Jia that anyone. Perhaps she could attempt to explain it to you. They adored their creators so very much, their beloved masters the Drians. It pained them greatly that the Drians suffered so much and even felt corrupted from the Great War with the G’lothc and their formidable allies.

“
When the Drians bade their beloved children all farewell and vanished, it came as a huge shock to the Driathans. Just imagine what that would be like. If you had amazing gods living and working and teaching among you–an enormously enriching and endlessly rewarding part of your entire life–and then one day, all of them were suddenly gone. Millions of Driathans mourned, and the grief that came out of what they call The Great Sundering left them stricken with loss and despair.

“
To assuage this pain, the Driathans hid themselves away on their miraculous living homeworld of Ur-Jahal. A marvel in itself, constructed lovingly for them by their creators. The Driathans hid their entire planet and put themselves into a deep slumber in order to contemplate and heal from their immense loss. The Cosmic legends say that they shall only awaken, when the fate of all the Universe–of all Existence is to be decided. If they should fall prey to Darkforce before that time, then all of that shall be lost.”

“
So what are these sentinels Jia speaks of?” Naero said.

“
Jia is their leader, the leader of all her kind. To protect Ur-Jahal and all of their slumbering people, the sentinels keep watch from numerous hidden locations for any sign of the Darkforce growing or being used. The guardians only take measures and actions, if need be, to keep Ur-Jahal safe and secret. Its location is one of the true mysteries of our galaxy. Each sentinel is in touch with Ur-Jahal, for their living homeworld has a will all its own. Yet no one sentry bears the knowledge of the complete location, and only has a clue. Only Jia can go there at will, for she is one with it. But she goes there by instinct. Even she could not point to a map and tell you its coordinates.”

But our fear is that if the enemy capture
s one Driathan sentry, they can break that one and use its knowledge to deceive, track down, and break all the others. Then they can put the pieces of the puzzle together.”

Naero gasped slightly and covered her mouth.
“That’s exactly what the enemy has always wanted. If the lost G’lothc spirits found the Driathans all sleeping, they could conquer them, possess them all with their vile spirits, and take over their immortal android bodies with ease.”

Baeven nodded.
“They’ll seize power and dominion over these galaxies. And the Kexx and the Drians are no longer here to stop them. The great enemy would indeed become unstoppable–virtually the new gods–by fiat.”

“
Where is she, then?” Naero asked. “Where is Jia’s body? Why can’t the two of you be together?”

For the first time since she had known him, Baeven
’s composure nearly broke. He almost sobbed. Then as she looked on, he steeled himself the very next instant.

“
That is a long tale for another time. Some griefs, and sacrifices are too difficult to speak of Naero, even for a brutal outcast such as I.”

Naero laughed.
“Well, you can keep playing the slimy villain to the rest of the universe all you want, and I know that role serves you and the rest of the galaxy well. But if someone as great and good and beautiful as Jia can love you, uncle–as she so clearly does–with all of her heart and soul. Then you could not be so totally evil.”

He shook his head and his countenance clouded.
“We all still have many choices to make, Naero. Both you and I. Who can see what the end of all things shall be? We both need to be fearful of that.”