Concern for
Gallan and her crew overrode all else.
“
Clear and cover!” she shouted over their open channel.
“
All crew, clear and cover!” Gallan looked up. Spacers dropped their loads and zipped in with their glifters, risking their lives to snag the plummeting Corps workers.
Only
an instant before impact.
Naero
accelerated and smashed into Gallan, where he still stood staring up. With him being nearly half again her height and twice her mass, she used her gravwing and her genetically amplified strength and quickness to knock him back, driving him off his feet. Pushing him under the protective overhang of the lower level and into the wall of freight stacked beneath. They hit hard.
She winded
Gallan, but at least they’d survive.
Where they had stood
a sliver of time before, crashing freight, debris, and equipment pelted the loading bay floor and their armored transports. The resulting tumult deafened everything. Then more screams split the air.
The dust
still settled when Naero and Gallan emerged to assess the damage. Bits of wreckage and debris continued to crash down at random.
T
he front of her transport looked badly battered, but nothing beyond repair. The screaming started again nearby. Naero flitted toward it, dodging falling debris. Gallan ducked into his GV after a medkit.
She spotted part of a crushed
Spacer glifter and one of the Corps people’s broken legs, sticking out from under a pile of wreckage.
Then she s
aw Chaela’s blond braid trailing out from the protective cage of her smashed glifter.
“
All units,” she said over her com. “Spacer down, one lander. All working glifters converge and secure.”
She surveyed the structures above them.
“All working transports–provide cover over rescue site. I want four teams to secure and reinforce the collapsed structure, if possible.”
“
My legs, my legs!” the trapped Corps worker shrieked. Gallan scrambled up with the medkit and hit the man up with a sedative.
Moments later, the
Spacer transports formed up close and hovered over them protectively, shining their lights down on the wreckage. Saemar swept in in her glifter.
“
Who is it, sweetie?” she asked. “Who’s down? Oh, no–Chae. How is she? We have to get her out!”
“
Glacier that,” Naero said. “Coordinate with the rest of your team.” Glifters bobbed around them in an instant, awaiting orders.
“
Teams one and six, assemble around the rescue site and remove the wreckage. Carefully. I don’t want them hurt worse just because we’re in a hurry.”
The eight
Spacers in their glifters cautiously hovered around like humming drones, carefully picking the wreckage off Chaela and the Corps worker, handing it back to the other teams to set aside.
In the end,
with the glifter teams working methodically, it only took several seconds, but it seemed a lot longer to Naero and her crew as they stood by and watched.
Lander med
teks with two floating medbeds arrived much more quickly than Naero expected.
“
What happened here?” the lead medtek asked.
“
As near as I can figure,” Naero said, pointing at the collapsed structures. “A faulty platform up there gave way and dumped its load on us.”
By then, Gallan
had the Corps man out and stabilized. The big Spacer lifted him up and placed him on one of the medbeds. Naero had had extensive emergency medical training. From the looks of things, other than two broken legs and cuts and bruises, the lander would probably be all right.
“
What about the other casualty?” the medtek asked.
“
She’s alive,” Saemar shouted. “She took the worst of it trying to protect that guy. Her crush cage saved her. We’ll have to cut her out.”
Naero hovered of them.
All four glifter cutter torches fired up bright and blinding at once.
In another few moments,
Gallan went back in and carried Chae out. Even she was small in his big arms. He placed her gently on the other medbed.
Na
ero didn’t wait for the medteks to come over. She landed and shut down her gravwing; it folded up neatly. She and Gallan went to work on their own. Chaela’s right foot was crushed beyond saving; Naero quickly amputated it and sealed it off.
She shuddered and blamed herself.
Any time one of her crew got hurt, her guts twisted. It bothered her something fierce. They were her people, her Clan. They trusted and depended on her to keep them safe. She was responsible for them.
Unfortunately
for Chaela, losing the foot meant lots of regrowth treatments, and even more physical therapy. But at least she survived.
She
’d lost consciousness from a nasty gash on the top of her head. The medbed kept her stable and strove to eliminate any pain. She bled from several other serious wounds on her arms and legs. Naero worked on cleaning and closing the head wound. Gallan went after the others.
Suddenly she smelled the acrid tang of Spican harstick. The taste of it even cut through the dust
and the smell of blood.
“
Let me through, you idiots!” she heard the Corps dock captain bellow. She tried to ignore him until he got a thick-fingered hand on her arm and yanked her away from working on Chaela.
“
You listen here, you stupid little gash. We’re going to sue your entire spack clan into the next century. Just look at what you careless spacks–”
Naero shook free of him in anger.
As fast as a killing viper, one hand seized his throat and her other clamped onto his groin through his thin coveralls. She squeezed until his breath caught and his eyes bulged and popped wide like small bloodshot balloons.
A new length of harstick drop
ped from his mouth into the dust. She hoisted the oaf up on his toes at full arm’s length and slammed him into a duranadium beam.
Because of her slender size, her genetically enhanced strength and bone-muscle density that she inherited from her father almost always startled others
–especially landers.
“
Now
you
listen, scumbag. Our vids recorded everything, and I bet I can find stress fractures and maintenance violations all over this cheap hole. My people just saved three of your people; one of mine is down. I don’t have time for any shit from you. Get the hell away from me, before I am forced to hurt you.”
With that she let go and turned her back on him.
He gasped and collapsed on the floor.
“
Why–you!” He scrambled back to his feet, and lunged in toward her.
Gallan
stepped in, towering over the fat oaf.
He
grabbed the man by the back of his short hairs and lifted him up gasping onto his tip toes once more. He puppet-walked the guy a few meters off and shoved him out of the way into a pile of junk.
Saemar
scowled and positioned her glifter between the muttering dock captain and the medbeds, casually testing her cutting torch.
Naero went back to Chaela
. One of the lander medteks finished sealing the head wound. He turned to her, incredulous. “I’ve never seen Spacer smartblood at work before. Her wounds have stopped bleeding. They’re already beginning to seal over and heal up.”
Naero shook his hand.
“My people and I thank you for your help, Doc.”
Chaela groaned and looked up
at them. “The lander?” she asked.
“
Alive,” Naero said with a smile. “Two broken legs, but he’ll live.” She nodded to Gallan, who prepared a stronger sedative that would work better on a Spacer metabolism.
Chaela smiled
and groaned. “I thought the game was up when all that stuff hit us, N. Everyone else?”
“
Fine, Chae. Gallan’s going to give you something to help you sleep and heal. You did good, my friend.”
No reason to tell her about the foot until later.
Chaela gasped in pain. “Tell your aunt what a hero I am. I’ll expect that bonus in my pay.”
“
You’ll get it. I’ll make a full report.”
Chae
nodded once and was out.
The medte
ks followed them out of the loading bay, scurrying alongside the medbeds.
“
I’m curious,” the medtek asked. “Can I examine you? Do you or anyone else need to be checked out? Do you want us to keep her overnight for observation? What’s the average Spacer rate of regeneration?”
Naero smiled, but
this guy seemed a little too interested in them.
Spacer
s took care of their own whenever possible, and not all Spacer secrets were for landers.
“
Thanks for the offer, but we’ll borrow your medbed to take her back to our fleet. She’ll be all right.” The medtek looked amazed, but Naero was used to that from landers as well.
In the end, they finished
unloading and loading all of their transports and left the Corps workers to clean up the mess. Just under the two hour time limit the surly dock captain set. Naero neither saw nor smelled him again.
She suffered another pain spell for a few instants.
She tried to punch up Aunt Sleak on the com, but she could only reach the Fleet Second-in-Command, dashing Captain Zalvano. She made a full report on the incident, and met with
The Slipper
to load the transports and speed Chaela to Medical.
The
very long day continued to stretch out. At least the excitement of the accident at the Omni Depot kept her mind off the loss of her parents. For a little while.
Her shift
ended.
Normally she
’d go back to her messy quarters and get some rest.
Naero wasn
’t sure if she could even do that.
7
Her mother was her sun.
From the very beginning she gave Naero life, as suns gave life to their planets. Naero’s life revolved around her mom, following her mother’s cycles and becoming part of them. Her mother warmed her, nourished her. She helped Naero grow, smile, and dance.
She taught Naero everything. To laugh, to love, to learn and try hard.
Her mother was her light in the darkness, and without her now, Naero learned what true darkness and sorrow were all over again.
Yet her mother also taught Naero to shine on her own, to become her own light. To pull away from even her mother and move through the universe under her own power and force or will with joy and confidence.
All these things her mother taught her and more.
Naero sat naked in the darkness of her cluttered quarters with the lights
and screens off. Everything off. Her arms wrapped around her shins, hugging her knees to her hot, wet face, her gleaming, long, blue-black geisha hair–another gift from her beautiful mother–draped around her like a veil, like a dark shroud over her shuddering alabaster flesh.
She hardly picked at her dinner in the mess hall before shutting herself up within her secondary quarters on board
The Shinai
, the second largest starfreighter in the fleet. A formidable, six hundred-ton Enforcer Class, built by Joshua Tech.
The Slipper
landed next to them. Naero recognized the high pitched whine of its signature, Armstrong Corps Tech A-38J engines as they cycled down. Naero and Jan had personally helped their aunt replace one of those massive engines on the port side.
She
couldn’t cry in the dark forever. Her parents wouldn’t want that.
Naero slipped back into the second-skin comfort of her black flight togs and
tried her com again. She loved the soft, glove-firm feel of Nytex on her body as it compressed and seemed to hold her together.
Aunt Sleak st
ill unavailable, busy with high-level trade negotiations. As usual.
Naero
also felt pretty sure her aunt scrambled to gain more detailed info on the loss of
The Omaria’s
expedition.
Whatever their differences, this was a Clan matter, and the two Maeris sisters had always been close. Aunt Sleak also liked and deeply respected Naero
’s father, perhaps because of his reputation as a champion fighter, much like herself in her younger days.
When she
activated them with her fingertips, Naero’s walls flashed alive with past dreams. Now even further away from her reality now.
Images and schematics of trade and merchant ships,
transports, and fighters of every make and manufacturer.
From an early age,
practically every Spacer worked toward and dreamed about owning their own ship, or at the very least a share in one.
Her mother, Lythe Ivala Maeris, had
purchased and captained her first tiny ship right at her coming of age of twenty. An old, obsolete craft that she barely kept flying.
Yet it was all the start Lythe
needed, and she expanded her merchant fleet from there, thriving and even surviving the Spacer Wars long enough to train with the Spacer Mystics and become a champion competitive fighter along with her older sister, snag a fine husband, combine forces and fortunes, and have a family. A full life for anyone. A life to be proud of.
Naero turned twenty in
about a year, just a few months.
She
somehow doubted that her coming of age would hold so much promise.
She
stared at her silly, childish dreams flitting across her wallscreens. Sleek new ships, top-of-the-line craft.
Way beyond anything she could ever hope to afford.
Especially now.
One by one, she deleted and trashed those stupid pipe dreams. She could not afford to be a child any longer, living on whims and fantasies. If she was going to make anything of herself now, she
’d have to do it all. On her own.
She stopped at the specs and schematics for her
parents’ flagship, and the lesser support ships of their lost expedition. She’d keep them.
Her father and especially her mother had been so proud of
The Omaria
. They had traded for years, saving their profits, selling everything they owned–including their combined merchant fleet–to their second-in-command, Aunt Sleak. All to have Joshua Tech custom design
The Omaria
just for them. To spend the rest of their lives together, exploring the wonders of the perilous Unknown Sectors.
Now both
they and their dreams were dust.
Naero checked the report updates on the news blurts and the
INS
Spacer channels.
From w
hat little was still known, their expedition
had been intercepted by a vastly superior, unregistered naval force of mysterious origin.
Conspiracy nuts rambled on about secret alien races, mysterious super fleets, and looming massive invasions of extermination.
But everyone guessed at the perpetrators. Filthy Matayan bastards.
No warning. No attempt to capture or board. The enemy fell upon the expedition in deep space and opened fire. No chance of any help reaching the expedition way out in the middle of nowhere.
Many presumed that that the expedition, trapped and hopelessly outgunned, put up a fight briefly, right before it got blasted into oblivion. A brazen, overwhelming attack that reduced
The Omaria
and the support ships of her expedition to nothing but shattered wreckage, floating and spinning off into eternity.
The location was
somewhere along the borders of Omni Corps known space and the Spacer Extents, near the ancient lost Cumi Regions of the Sagittarius Coreward Arm.
Several Corps Navies had nevertheless raced at top speed to the scene, promising full investigations.
Naero punched up holovids and stills of her parents–laughing, smiling, kissing. During and after their days on the Galactic fighting circuits, later shots with her or Janner growing up, or all of them together.
She filled her blank walls with
a wild flurry of memory.
The
y looked so happy, less than a year before.
Naero
reached out and tried to touch her parents’ faces on the screens. She recalled something her father told her.
“
It’s all right to have your eyes on the stars, spacechild. Just keep your hands sure and steady on the controls.”
She considered
performing Shekanda, the Spacer act of shouting at the stars. A form of spiritual and emotional catharsis to release tension and pent up thoughts and emotions. Usually it was done in private, in space. But not always.
Yet a
nother stab of agony in her skull. She dropped and put her head between her knees at this one, gasping and focusing on her breathing. Letting it rip through her and pass.
Zhen said she
’d pay a price for those psy-drugs and wearing that trigger helmet. The spasms continued to hit without warning, on top of everything else Naero was dealing with.
No. She didn
’t feel ready for Shekanda just yet.
Instead, she
cycled through all the images of her parents from their years. She set them to play across her screenwalls in random waves and loops.
Memories and images. A
ll she had left of them. And when last they parted, she had screamed at them like a spoiled brat not getting her way.
Hot tears fell again
. Naero made no attempt to stop them.
Finally t
he timer on her wristcom went off, calling her back to duty.
Naero
strapped her com back on her wrist, washed her face and tossed the wipe into the recycler.
She glanced
around at the normal disarray of her quarters. She’d always told her parents, and then Aunt Sleak that she’d put her gear in order. Someday.
Silently she promised
herself she’d straighten, like she always did to others. But at least this time she made her bunk and stowed it away.
It was a start.
She tried to contact Janner.
According to his server, Jan was
already off duty in the starport somewhere. Perhaps that was a good sign, Jan out shopping and goofing off with the Irpulian locals–like normal. And yet like her, Jan had no great love for landers either. Naero never understood why he spent so much time around them. She could take them or leave them.
Jan sought
constant distraction and stimulation. She wondered if he might take off again, arranging for the fleet to pick him up somewhere else in a while.
He could always hitch a ride with one of the other Clans to link back up with them.
Naero secured her slightly less messy secondary quarters behind her.
She stopped at a terminal on her way out of the primary cargo bay
to check the duty list. She uploaded her handcomp with third rank orders from the bridge. Jobs at her level that still needed completion.
Captain
Zalvano, the Fleet Second, noted her availability, and sent her to check on a delayed delivery from Triax Corp. An important shipment, but checking on it was still cake work. The Fleet Second was a good guy; he always tried to be nice to her.
With
the Irpul-4 starport an Omni Corps base on a Triax world, their warehouses naturally stood closest to the starport, within a klick or two. The other Corps fanned out beyond that, each in their own heavily advertised sections. Blurt boards and holo screens advertising their various goods and services.
No sense taking a transport.
She had her gravwing and she could walk there in twenty minutes. That would give her more time to think. By the time she got back, her shift would be over anyway. Then she’d snag Jan somehow and they’d have a long talk with Aunt Sleak about whatever she had learned.
She spotted
Gallan and Saemar in
Shinai’s
primary loading bay, working glifters to help pack it full.
“
What’s up?” Gallan called out, trying to read her face.
“
Nothing much. Going to have words with a Triax shipper. They’re putting us off again for some unspecified reason.”
“
Want someone to come with?”
Naero shook her head.
“I can handle it.” She still wanted to lose herself somewhere, if only for a little while. Get away from everyone and everything. Like that was possible.
Perhaps Jan had the right idea
“
Safe journey,” Saemar said.
“
Watch out for the locals,” Gallan warned.
She snorted.
“They’d better watch out for me.”
Despite
Gallan’s cautions, Naero wasn’t too worried. She’d handled squabbles, prejudice, and fights with landers since she was a kid. She knew when to stand and when to run. Usually.
The world bey
ond the port and the bubble cities around the port was still somewhat foreboding, a thin harsh atmosphere with occasional caustic storms.
During jump she
had studied how Irpul-4’s native plants, insects, and animals adapted, with mid-sized reptiles dominating the surfaces and the shallow seas. Feeble attempts had been made to terraform the planet, especially around the inhabited bands, but no one had done a proper job of it.
At least the air
inside the domes was more or less breathable. Everyone in the fleet had taken an acclimating compensator dosage upon arrival. AC-Ds were SSP–Standard Spacer Procedure–for non-normal atmospheres.
The autodirection
feature in her comp led her through the net of avenues and buildings meshed together. Once out of the starport itself, she realized she wasn’t missing that much. Naero despised old Gigacorp starports and trade hubs all over again. Drab, uniform, no art, no vision. The station at Irpul-4 was a classic example of their lack of style, nearly two centuries old.
What a dump.
Even several feeble revamps hadn’t helped the place over the years. In fact, most of the changes had been superficial, merely cosmetic. Some parts were from this era, other windows or facings, or screens or spolymers from an earlier time.
At some point, those in charge had simply given up, leaving a mis-mated hodgepodge
of tek and style, spattered about like the worn refuse of several decades. A trading slum.
And that wa
s exactly what too many Gigacorp starports were like.
What a dif
ference Spacer starports were. Each one beautiful and aesthetically unique. A challenge to the imagination.