Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit Read Online Free PDF Page A

least the pain attacks might stop. And she might be able to know love with another person again at some point, without taking the risk of slaughtering some poor snoozing slob in his afterglow.
    Those two things alone would be worth any risks.
    She really had no idea what to expect.
    Anyone who trained with the Mystics was honor-bound never to speak of it. On pain of death. Even her parents wouldn’t ever talk about it.
    “A ll right then, Klyne. Let’s do whatever we need to do.”
    She rested her hands on her hips.
    “Let’s locate that phantom ship.”

 
     
     
     
    4
     
     
    Naero had lunch with Zhen and Tyber in The Dagger’s mess hall the next day at noon standard. The round galley about fifteen meters in diameter, off-white duranadium hull walls and open view screens. A lighted ceiling and air filters another six meters up. News and vid screens and busy INS feeds.
    The mess fed and sat about thirty to forty , crew max. But their small ship didn’t book any passengers, and kept its crew contingent small during peace time. With transport staff and loaders, two dozen hands total.
    Their cook, Tolen Kothari and her assistant, Eugene Blooding , worked to serve regular, nutritious and tasty meals on a standard schedule.
    Her Co-pilot Enel Maeris, another young distant cousin , had bridge duty.
    Surina Marshall her com officer, Passaendra Wilde, a gunnery and weapons specialist, and Rendar Nelson the engineer waved to them and continued eating, arguing over stuff from the INS feeds at the next table over.
    Lunch was a tasty pot roast of some kind of marinated brown meat with mashed pomatoes , coupled with another kind of purple, tangy vegetable shoots with herbs. And white grabble-berry cobbler.
    Eugene made this black mystery gravy that was out of this world and made anything under it taste ten times as good. You could eat the damn stuff with bread or biscuits, or by itself with a spoon and roll your eyes as you slurped it up.
    It was that tasty.
    He claimed his ‘black gravy’ was a carefully guarded, ancient Clan Blooding recipe.
    No one really cared, as long as he kept making it.
    Naero enjoyed her chow while Zee and Tye teased one another.
    They always seemed so happy together. Naero liked that about her two friends.
    If she couldn ’t be with someone and be happy herself, at least it was nice to know that people she cared about could do so.
    Tye and Zee sat close together. He ate with his right hand and had his left arm scooped around her slender back and waist.
    Zhen absently had her left handed knitted with Tye ’s, and leaned into his casual embrace, eating with her right hand from her tray.
    Since the two of them had been kids, they were inseparable.
    When they started dating, that only seemed natural too, and everything that followed.
    Now that they were all of age, the rest of her friends’ future seemed certain.
    Tye laughed. “You’d better get around to marrying me some day, Doctor Zhentisa,” he warned. “You know, a fine catch like me isn’t going to wait forever.”
    Zhen ’s eyes widened and sparkled with mischief. She even jumped and choked on a little of her chow. The she leaned away from him on one arm in wide-eyed disbelief.
    “E xcuse me? I think I just barfed in my mouth a little. You think you’re a fine catch? Who in their right mind told you that? Are you hallucinating? Should I scan you for a blast addiction? You’re a tek-monkey. I’m a skilled physician and surgeon. I’m five pay grades above you.”
    Tyber grinned and twirled his spork , chewing his food pouched in both sides of his mouth like a famished rodent.
    “Y eah, but who else can repeatedly make your eyes roll back up white in your head, while we’re having fun in the sack?”
    Zhen blushed slightly and smirked. She glanced down at her food trying not to laugh.
    “W ell…there is that.” She let him nuzzle her slender neck for a moment.
    “G ot ya.”
    Zee sighed. “You sure do, you loveable