Read Spacer Clans Adventure 1: Naero's Run for Free Online Page A

hardnosed Aunt Sleak, who never cut anyone any slack. She always drove them and worked them to the bone, while their parents always went off on some lark, pursuing their dreams, exploring the dangerous Unknown Sectors, like some kind of endless vacation.
    Naero regretted her words now. She had always understood what they were doing was risky. Already she missed them more than she could bear.

 
     
     
     
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    Irpul-4 ’s third class starport consisted of a series of old multilinked bubble domes offering access to starships and other craft along the sides and at key junctures above. The port itself covered nearly thirty square kilometers and formed the central hub of the Gigacorp city sprawled around it.
    Naero and her crews received their delivery orders and dropped down to land, unload, load, and confirm payments. Gray, blue, purple, and brown corrosive dust hurricaned around them, even as they decelerated.
    Viewed from above by Spacer eyes, the old starport looked just like any other Corps dump hole.
    Naero ’s jaw ached from clenching it during the flight in, but she ground her teeth again.
    Her brother Jan remained on The Slipper with Aunt Sleak, choosing to seclude himself in his room with his feelings about the news.
    It might go harder on Jan. He kept everything inside and always tried to act cold and aloof. She worried about how hard the loss could be for him if he shut himself off from his grief. At times he went off on his own for months at a time, pulling away from everyone. Even her.
    How was he coping?
    Not to mention, that on a real universe, practical level: losing their parents and their entire fleet also meant a serious loss of Clan status, influence, and wealth for the both of them. Their parents had sunk every meg they had into that venture.
    Now all of those investments were gone , completely wiped out.
    Naero and Jan ’s temporary assignment to Aunt Sleak’s small merchant fleet, the one she bought from their parents, looked more and more like a lifetime appointment now.
    They had nowhere else to go.
    An aft stabilizer froze up. Naero compensated before it spun her out of control, crashing into her starboard transports.
    Naero gripped the shaking controls harder, steeled herself, and struggled to remain focused. She had a shift to fill, and three blue bands of merchant service rank on her arms to live up to–rank she had fought for and earned, despite her youth. In nearly fifteen years of duty to Clan Maeris since the age of five, she had never missed a shift, never ducked a duty.
    She couldn ’t let that slack, no matter what had happened, regardless of how she felt about her and Jan’s loss.
    Up ahead loomed Omni Gigacorp’s primary shipping depot, an old pyramid structure a few klicks high. She and the other six transports made their landing approach. The massive doors of the designated loading bay opened for them.
    “ Form up on my mark and vector in,” she commanded.
    Naero piloted her lead transport inside and set it down easy, stiff controls be damned. She plugged in orders to have her crew fix that faulty stabilizer before they left.
    She went through the motions and coordinated the landings of the other six transports and dozens of her aunt’s people sent to unload Omni’s shipments.
    Her teams assembled in front of their glowing, open cargo holds, each Spacer garbed in the same uniform: tight black Nytex Spacer uniform togs, high boots, loading gear, and glowing azure bands of merchant fleet insignia displayed proudly on their arms.
    Naero pushed her inner tension and shock aside once again.
    As the lead pilot and team leader, Naero wore a gravwing strapped to her like a small pack with auto-deploying spolymer nanotek wings. But she hadn’t activated them yet.
    Instead , she walked straight up to the waiting, meaty dock captain, a heavyset lander in faded, dark blue Omni Corps coveralls. He leered at her with a scarlet face, gnashing a short dark stub of Spican harstick,