Aunt Sleak
pulled back and rested her gloved hand on the hilt of her cutlass. “And I will not stand by while their dreams are crushed and cast aside by any foe, great or small. Not if I have anything to say or do about it. When we learn who did this, they shall know the vengeance of Clan Maeris, by the weight of our hands.”
“
You’re damn right they will. Thank you.”
“
Believe it.”
“
I...I just don’t know what Jan and I are going to do without them,” Naero said. “We’ve lost them; we’ve lost everything.”
They parted. Aunt Sleak smiled at her
again. “Dry your tears, spacechild. You and Jan still have family. I am your family. Everyone in our fleet and all the Clans are your family. You will not go forward alone. Not if any of us have anything to say about it. You will always have a place among us as one of our own. You’ve more than earned that. I’m proud to say it.”
Aunt Sleak smiled and cocked her head at Jan.
“But that brother of yours is turning into a lecherous bum.”
Naero burst out laughing and covered her mouth.
“You know it’s true,” Aunt Sleak whispered. “Whenever he’s not on duty, all he wants to do is chase lander tail. What? Spacer girls aren’t good enough for him?” She put an arm around Naero.
“
Come on. For the first time in a long while, I’m going to get roaring drunk tonight. Then I’m going to make Zalvano beg for mercy.”
Naero giggled, her aunt
’s candidness making her feel a little uncomfortable.
“
I strongly suggest you might try to do the same, Naero. I mean the getting-drunk part. Leave Zalvano to me; find your own guy.”
Naero
giggled and nodded. “Of course I will. I mean, not tonight. In the future. Maybe.”
“
You wanna know a secret, Naero? I took the plunge when I was fifteen. Never looked back and never regretted it. Never met boy or man who was my equal, until my Zal came along.”
Aunt Sleak’s eyes glittered and she let out a long satisfied sigh. “By the Powers, he makes my bones rattle. That’s what you want to find. What your parents had with one another. You need that fire in your core when you look into a man, and he looks right back into you.”
“What about my mom?” Naero asked. “I never really got to talk to her alone or with the other women about such things. Did she have...many lovers?”
Aunt Sleak smiled sadly and pointed to the pictures flashing across the memory walls.
“She ever only had one, spacechild. And once she set her course on him, she pursued him with passion’s fury. Lythe always did everything her own way. She was an unstoppable force of nature–kind of of like you, really. Yet she waited longer than you before she took a lover to her bed.
“
Your father never knew what hit him. She knocked him out like none of his opponents ever could, and he married her as fast as he was able, forever enchanted under her spell. They were lovers like this universe has never seen. You should pray that you find a love like that.”
Naero smiled.
“You calmed down now?” Aunt Sleak asked.
“
I am.”
“
Good. Let’s get back to Jan and your friends. The time will come for us to say our piece soon. And then we’ll party all night in their honor. Remember what I said about getting drunk. There’s a tradition of that at Spacer wakes. You’re almost of age. You should loosen up and try it, at least once.”
Her aunt was
really giving her permission to booze it up? Naero went through the night in a haze.
Within the hour, Aunt Sleak brought them up to the balcony with the other officers and then took her place at the central podium to address the crews.
She spoke for about twenty minutes, recalling the lives and deeds of Naero and Jan’s parents, mourning the loss of their blood, and calling for vengeance upon their slayers, upon any and all Spacer enemies.
A huge wave of
fierce applause rose up at that.
Then
Aunt Sleak turned her glance to Naero and Jan. She called them by name.
“
Their children still live and work among us. Step forward by my side, my niece, Leftenant Naero Amashin Maeris, and my nephew, Commander Janner Maeris Ramsey.”
Naero came up on her right, Jan on her left. Neither of them knew what to expect.
Aunt Sleak drew her energy cutlass.
The blue blade hummed to life and blazed like a sliver of lightning.
“As Fleet Captain, I make my sister’s daughter and my sister’s son my formal heirs. All that I will ever have is theirs. If anything should happen to me, you will accept their ownership of my fleet, and follow them with the same respect, honor, and courage to duty that you have shown me. Those are my direct orders. That is all.”
More t
hunderous applause erupted from the crews. Everyone cheered, lifting either sword or glass to salute them.
Naero
blinked and could not speak. She didn’t know what to say. She struggled not to let her jaw drop. Jan smiled in dazed wonder.
Aunt Sleak stepped back.
The spotlight shone on the podium. The fleet herald made the announcement.
“
And now, the oldest daughter of Lythe Maeris and Tarthan Ramsey will honor us, and the memory of her departed parents with a few words.”
Naero sucked in a breath.
The courage and wisdom of her mother and father suddenly filled her to the brim.
She stepped
forward into the light.
The throng grew hushed and still. She smiled.
Suddenly, in her burning heart, she knew exactly what to say.
“
My mother was my sun, and gave me life and love.
“
My father was my ship, my courage and adventure.
“
They clothed me in wonder and wrapped me in their strength and wisdom and kept me safe until I could soar through the stars on my own.”
Naero lifted her head high and poured her heart out to her clan over several long minutes, until her voice shook and she openly wept.
Clan Maeris fell to their knees–man, woman, and child as one–and wept with her.
When she finished, an instant of dead silence
passed.
Her C
lan soared to their feet, as if they would never stop rising. Applause and cheering roared throughout the great hall, over and over again. Naero lowered her head, stepped back out of the lights and they went off. The music played once more, and the crews sang and drank and danced.
Naero took
her aunt’s advice that night.
She drank whatever came her way.
Yet within the hour, her head was spinning and she could no longer dance or even stand.
Gallan
carried her back to her quarters, much the way her father used to, and put her straightway to bed.
When they came out of jump, the caskets would be fired like torpedoes into the nearest star.
18
Fourth day, the day after the wake, opened with a rare free morning for those not on duty.
Not even PT.
Light duty and the barest assignments. And that was a very good thing.
When Naero looked at herself in the mirror wall of her mist shower she screamed.
Four weird tentacles or tendrils of some kind writhed around her head, popping out of her skull. She could feel them in her hands. They felt so real, moving and waving like the snaky hair of the fabled medusa.
But like the other hallucinations, she was the only one who could see them.
Delusion. All an insane delusion.
And her
crazy head ached horribly from getting drunk at the wake.
Someone had deliberately crashed a battleship or two into
her skull.
Every
time she attempted to move, she felt the wreckage mash together in her head.
Then she heard it. Unmistakable. A separate voice in her skull. Talking to her. It only said one word. Over and over.
You
.
You, you, you, you, you…
It said it over and over again, like a low droning hum, like a chant.
This insanity was new. Now she was hearing things. In her head.
Naero did her best to ignore it. The more she ignored her insanity, the sooner it would go away.
But it was still there, humming and droning c
onstantly. Not very loud at all, but still there deep in the background.
The luxury of a warm mist shower helped. Then
pain meds and food.
Despite her new craziness, it
surprised her how good she felt about the wake after it was all said and done.
It did help. She could focus more. It all didn
’t weigh her down so much. She could go forward.
Strangely enough, she felt a desire to spend the day reading. Maybe write some poetry.
After lunch, however, the rigorous Spacer training schedule snapped back into effect.
That day
was weapons and small unit tactics.
Jan
, being viciously clever and tricky, had a special knack for them.
Naero
usually did better on her own than as a unit leader or part of a team. But she recognized that as a weakness in her nature, and struggled to overcome it. The lone wolf bit didn’t always pay off.
Part of her simply didn
’t like depending on others who weren’t as adept as she, but it was sometimes good to have mates watching her back.
Naero led her four-person strike squad of Gallan, Saemar, and their other friend Trendan, on a simulated snatch and grab against Jan’s security forces guarding a Corps building.
They got in and got the package–a set of restricted codes–but then alarms went off on their way out.
Jan
’s forces outnumbered them three to one. Not good odds.
They got in and got the package, a set of restricted codes, but then alarms went off on their way out.
Jan and his people closed in fast and a pitched firefight erupted.
“
You’re boxed in, N. You’d better surrender, sib.”
“
He’s right,” Saemar said, returning fire with her machine pistol. “No way out.”
Trendan took a stunbolt, stiffened
, and dropped.
Gallan
kept firing his heavy pulse SAW. He took out two of Jan’s troops who tried to rush them.
“
Better think of something quick,” he shouted.
Naero pulled out a live detonation charge and activated it on the wall.
“Stun grenade!” Saemar yelled.
“
Deflector pulse,” Naero said. She set hers and hardly turned around.
The heavy EMP pulse and flash from their personal deflectors barely kept the rest of them from ge
tting stunned when the enemy grenade went off.
Naero glanced bac
k at her detonator. “Keep ’em on. Overload them, now. Burn ’em out.”
“
You’re insane; that’s a live charge,” Gallan said. “You’re going to kill us at this range!”
Naero reach over and overloaded Trendan
’s deflector as well.
“
Break for it after the blast. Shield your eyes.”
The shaped-charge micro-explosion flared, knocking an actual hole through the inner hull wall.
The backblast negated their deflectors and knocked them all into Jan and his unit charging forward for the kill.
“
Up. Get up!” Naero shouted, forcing herself to rise against the pains in her battered body and her smoldering strike armor.
Gallan
and then Saemar struggled to their feet.
They systematically zapped the shell-shocked enemy as they struggled to rise.
Naero pointed her stun carbine at Jan and kicked his weapon aside.
“
Bang. Got you, sib.”
They carried Trendan out the gaping, smoking hole and made good their escape, while real sirens and fire detection alarms sounded.
Aunt Sleak rushed in with a fire suppression team.
She was livid. Her jaw dropped.
“Naero! This is a standard training exercise. What in the holy hell were you thinking? Live explosives? You could have killed someone. And just look at the interior damage to this bulkhead? You put a real live bloody hole in my ship!”
Naero smiled and looked at her team. Then she shrugged.
“Some things you just can’t simulate. We improvised. We overcame the odds.
“
We won.”
“Well, savor the victory, because heir or not, you’re on report,
former
leftenant.”
“Report?”
“You heard me. You know this was way out of line. Maybe losing a stripe or two for a while will make you a little less cocky next time. Not to mention stupid. Now assemble your team and move on to the next training exercise. And you’d better believe we’ll address this matter fully during the strategy and tactics analysis session.”
Sleak shook her head at the damage. “Damnation. Somebody repair this blasted hole.”
Naero set her teeth and snapped to attention, saluting smartly.
The rest of her squad followed suit.
“Yes, sir, Fleet Captain, sir.”
“
Get out of my sight, you clowns.”
She might get demoted for a few months,
but Naero’s friends clapped her on the back for being both brazen and crazy enough to break the rules to get them their win.
Later, when she was studying with Saemar and her other friends, they broke into a running argument concerning the ramifications of her actions, the consequences, and a favorite philosophical hot button: real freedom.
Saemar laughed. “True enough, sweetie, you was free to act, even to use illegal, live explosives in a training exercise. But as our superior, your auntie also has the right to hold you accountable for those same actions, especially when your actions threaten others, and cause significant damage to her property.”
Naero laughed
back. “Dad always said that we must aspire to be worthy of our freedom, and responsible for our own lives and actions. Part of being free is to not seek to cause harm to others or enslave them to our will and opinion, even if we are convinced we are absolutely right.”
Saemar reclined back in her gel chair, hands folded behin
d her head, staring up at the ceiling.
“
Well, you didn’t check with me to see if I wanted to get blasted across the room,” she said. “I crashed right into two of Jan’s people. I nearly broke my leg on one of their helmets. I’ll be sore all night and won’t be able to enjoy my nightly exertions as much with whoever, thank you very much.”
“
There wasn’t time to take a vote on it.”
“So, then I guess this is a gray area where you decided to make that choice for everyone. Don’t they call that the will of the tyrant, sweetie?”
“I guess so,” Naero said. “To be free, we must allow others to be free, but all within reason of course. Sometimes decisions must be made, and quickly. Freedom is not an excuse for a failure to act.”
“
So I guess it was reasonable then to blow us all the hell up?”
“
I knew our strike armor and overloading the deflectors would save us…kinda.”
Gallan
chuckled. “Glad you did, N. You surprised the holy hell out of me. I like to crapped myself. But you should have seen the look on your sib’s face when he realized he’d lost.”
They
all laughed together.
Gallan sighed.
“Ahhh...it was classic. But seriously, N. It was a training exercise. So we got stunned. So what? It happens all the time. We don’t have the right to harm or oppress others ourselves by action or inaction. We establish laws and authorities over us to enforce the rational limits we agree to set.”
Naero nodded.
“Alright, I admit it. Live explosives don’t exactly fit under the definition of rational limits.”
“Your dad was a philosopher, N. Oops, sorry, sweetie.”
“It’s okay, Saemar. You can talk about him and my mom. Really, it’s all right–all of you. We should talk about them and remember them all we want.”
“
But come on, sweetie. Wouldn’t even he agree that if we are reckless or break those laws, we pay the price for those consequences?”
“Yes, but only in a system where the wise temper justice with fair judgment and mercy.” Naero lifted her arms, now missing a stripe of her glowing rank.
“But now this–this is completely unfair. A severe demotion, loss of rank and pay.”
“You aunt said it was only temporary,”
Gallan noted. “Just a month or two.”
“Privy to her review.” Naero still sulked.
Gallan patted her arm gently. “Then you’ll be reinstated as a fleet leftenant. The individual enjoys freedom in an educated, enlightened culture where he or she can excel and expand their talents and abilities. And shows good judgment. Like not blowing crap up.”
“I’m just saying, the punishment didn’t fit the crime. Where’s the justice tempered with mercy in that, abani?”
Yet the culture, like ours, a society of enlightened individuals, has a right and even a duty to sustain and even protect itself from the license, poor judgment, and harmful whims of individuals. No one can just do whatever they think is right, regardless of the potential or real harm to others.”
“
No one got hurt, Gallan. Well, not permanently. Maybe banged up a bit.” Naero winced at her own healing bruises.
“
Not this time, N. But if your parents were here, they’d side with your aunt. The universe as a whole and societies within it do not exist for certain individuals to flagrantly ignore their reasonable rules and restrictions and impose their will or opinion on others, for good or ill. Where will that lead?
Naero rolled her eyes and threw up her hands.
“Okay, okay. So, I was wrong.”
Gallan pressed his point. “And what does history teach us? Look at the Corps.”
Naero threw up one hand again. “That lies, sophistry, and individual philosophical deceptions always lead to tyranny. Tyrants tie themselves in knots to justify their self-serving actions, fake traditions, and institutions to entrench and perpetuate their tyranny.”
“How does it feel to be a tyrant?”
Naero smiled. “That’s the worst part about it. I’d say it feels pretty damn good. That’s probably why human beings are so addicted to power and so easily seduced by it.”
Saemar sighed and then chuckled.
“Heaven help us if you should ever get a ship of your own, sweetheart.”
“
You can count on that,” Naero said. “The me getting a ship part, not all that tyranny crap.”
“
Oh? And why not?”
Naero stuck up her nose.
“For I, like my my father before me, am a philosopher king. Er, queen. No, I’m a queen. Not my father; he wasn’t a queen, I mean.”
Gallan
poked her. “I think you’d better quit while you’re behind, your majesty.”