Spacer Clans Adventure 3: Naero's Fury (7 page)

8

Naero survived three more days of sparring, practice, and instruction with the Three Orders. She continued to make friends among the other adepts. Not everyone cared for her, but that was as it always was.

The other Chaos adepts finally agreed to play with her, and their first real practice session was pretty fierce.

It more or less broke down into a free for all. But Gaviok and the contraries were on her side–usually–so that made a big difference. The others could not simply decide to swarm on her with impunity.

And the new third eye
forcebeams that the four of them used evened many scores. The other Chaos adepts struggled to adapt, and began to mutter that they wished Naero would find a way to upgrade some of their abilities and techniques as well.

None of them possessed the ability to quick
en others in quite the same way that she could. And as Naero shared her gifts freely with the other adepts of the other orders, the sulking Chaos adepts quickly found themselves to be at severe disadvantages when they sparred with the others.

She’d help them out eventually, but let them stew on that for a while
and suffer being outmatched.

Naero trained and worked more and more with the High Masters each day she was assigned to
one of them.

They
carefully studied her every power and ability in great detail. They mindlinked with her as she performed certain actions and techniques, studying the flows of Cosmic energies through her brain, mind, and body. They tried to duplicate some of her feats and abilities. Some they could, to varying degrees. Many others they could not. Certain abilities remained unique to her in both kind and degree.

Surprisingly,
Naero found Master Tree almost as difficult and unyielding to work with as Master Vane. In his own way, Tree was relentlessly demanding, exacting, and exhausting–almost brutally so.

Everything had to be perfect.

Everything had to be exact, precise, and complete.

Sessions with the Order
Master were relentless tests of endurance bordering on physical torment and agony. It was a paradox that Tree was at once kind and understanding, and yet still a very harsh taskmaster. He used every moment of their time together efficiently and effectively.

Naero got used to needing a nap after their marathon sessions.

And worst of all–Tree demanded to understand the minutiae of every, little, thing. Naero wasted almost an entire day with him trying to perceive and understand the KDM within her. Yet those efforts remained a complete bust in the end.

At least
Naero felt more reassured, now that none of the High Masters would ever be able to sense Om within her mind–since he was part of the KDM.

Her sessions with Vane were, as he promise
d, kept to the bare minimum. No less, no more. But she did manage to learn things from him as well. The opportunities were always there if she looked hard enough. But she could never expect anything extra at all.

She actually began to appreciate their Cosmic sparring sessions together.
Whatever stoic position he claimed, Vane still enjoyed beating on her, and he was in fact, an opponent like no other. Vane remained a superior foe that she could endlessly strive to best, and measure the overall progress of her skills against.

From h
er experience, that only made her better in the long run.

Truth be told,
Naero enjoyed her sessions with Master Jo most of all. She seemed to learn the most from him, and Change wisdom made the most sense to her. It fit in the most with her patterns and general view of things. To Naero’s way of thinking, Enlightened Change made all things seem possible.

On top of that, High Master Jo was
a hoot–the most delightful prankster–a true mercurial trickster after her own heart.

At the most unexpected moments
–maddening moments–he would pull off some of the most astonishing gags with perfect timing, in ways that were both masterful, inspiring, and scintillating.

Like when he filled the cave they were practicing in with horrible smelling gas, and laughing, holographic apparitions within the glowing vapors.

He stink bombed them all!

But what Naero cherished and learned most from Master Jo was a true sense of joy
and sheer appreciation. He did everything with a sense of élan and even pure whimsy, whenever he could manage to get away with it. The Eternal Wise Child–he could be both completely serious, and infinitely playful at the same time.

Another
truly wonderful paradox.

More than any other power, Naero could sense High Master Jo’s love and compassion for all things. They seemed boundless, infinite. Vane seemed incapable of such; his was a raw, harsh justice, stark and untempered by any mercy
, whatsoever. Tree was somewhere in the stoic middle between the two. Doddering, verbose, ponderous, slow to act–and more concerned with order in the end than fairness–as one might guess.

But it was Master Jo who truly seemed to have full empathy for things, and he was never afraid to change his mind, or look foolish, or do what needed to be done
in order to accomplish the right and best thing. Truly Wisdom and Justice, tempered by Mercy and Compassion.

With the help of all three
High Masters, each in their own way, Naero began to truly perceive the value and the wisdom of each order, and how they all grudgingly cooperated and worked together to form a rational, and consistent, working whole.

It was never perfect
–it never could or would be–but it did manage to work. It could work, but only if everyone tried in good faith to make it work.

The
overall objective: To create a Harmony of thought, principle, and idea that were the basis for an enlightened, forward thinking path–a path for Spacers–or any sentients who could see and accept the value of it.

Finally the first, seventh day came. The first Free Day for the adepts, including Naero, Jan, and Gaviok.

She met with them at midnight, as soon as their free day actually began. They all embraced, and Shalaen joined them as well. She had not tested to become an adept herself, but she did stay around to work with the High Masters and Intel very closely, in an attempt to locate and contact her people, the Yattai.

Naero
wanted to hear all of their stories, but first–more than anything–she wanted to get back onto
The Flying Dagger
, and pilot her own ship back up into orbit around Thanor-4.

To get away from the pressure and sleep in her own quarters, and sup in her own galley with all of her crew would be an indescribable luxury
, suddenly.

So much had changed within the space of a mere week.

Tarim and Zhen met her at the wide-open, rear loading bay, the ship all prepped and ready.

They fell in behind her, and Naero walked through
the start of a small, cheering, applauding gauntlet of her twenty-one other crew. They welcomed her back aboard, as she made her way almost frantically toward her bridge:

Jima Ortega

Juan Keller

Fenton James

Prentiss Fox

Kayleen Flynn

Tommis Barrett

Naero passed through into the midship decks of her vessel.

More crew waited for her, lined up on either side in the galley.

Harra Ahmed

Spenser Gordon

Chandra Adams

Trudi Cheyenne

Lakara Donovan

Her cook, Tolen Kothari, had a special late meal of steaming, Hovari blue crab prepared and waiting for her. One of Naero’s favorites. She could smell the unmistakable succulent aroma of the Hovari bay spices in the air.

She could almost taste the melted butter and sliced, white lemons, waiting in small
dishes, ready to drizzle and dip the long, thick, juicy tubes of crab meat in before devouring them.

“
I can bring your supper to you as soon as you are ready, Captain.”

Naero licked her lips eagerly.

The assistant cook, Eugene Blooding, called out from over at one of the stoves.

“
Captain Naero. I’m fixing up a nice pot of my special black gravy that you like so much. I’ve got fresh, medium-rare, Gynarian cattle steak, and Loshin sweet bread and butter to enjoy it with. We’ll bring it all up with your big platter of blue crab.”

Naero almost stopped and feasted right there, but she wanted to get up in
to orbit first, and then contact Baeven privately in her personal quarters.

After that, then she could relax and eat.

She passed through medical, and then the crew quarter deck.

Finally, she reached the open bulkhead leading to the bridge.

A final cheering gauntlet of her bridge crew, plus Rendar Nelson, her chief engineer, shouted their ecstatic welcomes at her.

Enel and Surina grinned at Naero, and spun her captain’s command chair around for her to take he
r rightful place.

Then they
all took their posts. Enel as pilot, next to cute co-pilot, Sying Lii. Enel’s radiant lover, Surina, at her comstation. The other bridge crew were already waiting.

Naero settled in and almost cried.
Even after just one week, it felt so good to be home.

Her home
–the one she had made for herself and her people.

Her ship.

Her fingers touched her controls with the tenderness of a lover.

“
Prepare to launch,” she commanded, choking up.

They shot into the sky seconds later.

The freedom Naero felt.

In minutes, they were in high, geo-synchronous orbit above the
Spacer Mystic colony on Thanor-4. She could see Nashara below them.

Naero breathed a sigh of relief, and turned helm and command over to her pilot, her second.

“Enel, I…I need a few moments to freshen up.”

She went into her
private quarters to be alone for a short while. On a whim, she curled up on the soft, luxuriant black nanofloor.

It pweaked around her, form-fitting as if she were a small white-and black jewel.
It warmed to the perfect temperature. The way it was used to doing, whenever she chose to sleep naked and alone on her floor.

She got up and went to her comstation.

The call to Baeven went out. It had to.

Was he still nearby?

Was he still waiting to hear from her? She hoped so.

Naero took a few minutes, snuggled back down, closed her eyes and breathed evenly. Even without pweaking up her oval nanobed, she could relax at last in her own space, and feel comfortable, secure, and safe.

But time passed, and no response came from Baeven or his ship.

She called Enel and Surina. “Hey, either of you have any word from
The Shadow Fox
? Are they gone?

“
I have an update, Captain,” Surina said. “Let me join you in your quarters.”

It must be something important, then. Naero made sure all of her security was up and running properly. Security systems Baeven had helped her install.

Rina appeared at her entrance and chimed, a second later.

“
Enter,’ Naero said. Her panel slid open, and Rina step within, allowing the panel to close behind her.

“
Captain,
The Shadow Fox
departed two days ago. Something important came up.”

“
Did Baeven say anything? Did he provide any details?”

“
He said that he was leaving a coded message for you on your private comstation–one that only you could decipher and listen to.”

“
Thanks, Rina. Rotate the duty shifts so that everyone can take a turn with me in the galley. They don’t have to bother bringing anything up. I’ll be down in less than a quarter hour. I expect a full report from you on the trade fleet’s activities.”

Surina smiled. “Ready and waiting, sir. Captain Max
and the others are really raking it in. Did you hear that he just got engaged?”

Naero’s heart fell only a little. “Who’s the lucky gal?”

“Vanna Fae. Word is they got together somehow, and now they can’t keep their hands off one another. Each of them is besotted with the other.”

“
Captain Vanna Fae, Piper’s older sister? She always was a stunning beauty all right.” And she was almost as tall as Max, too, dammit. Curse the tall.

Naero smiled
with good nature. “Well good for them, Rina. Sounds like a great match. They’re both great people–part of our family–and they deserve their happiness. I’ll check in with them both at some point, tomorrow. Let’s make sure some greenhouse flowers reach them. Something radiant, fragrant, and pretty for young lovers.”