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

weakly.
    Her mates laughed nervously along with her.
    “ Naero,” Zhen said, “I’m sorry. I apologize for going off on you like I did. It was wrong. I was upset about the scanner, which I still don’t know how I’m going to explain or pay for. But I’ll think of something.
    “ Anyway. I said stuff that wasn’t right. I didn’t mean it to come out as harsh as it did.”
    Naero licked her lips again. “No, you were right. All of you guys know it. I am too proud. I can be a real pain in the ass. Stubborn. Hot tempered. Impatient. Argumentative.”
    Tyber kept going for her. “Bossy. Demanding. Inconsiderate.”
    Even Naero had to laugh along with them.
    “Not to mention all the lame, cheesy tricks and scams you’re always pulling on us,” Tyber said. “Like the time you switched my body wash with hair remover. I was bald and hairless all over. For a month.”
    They laughed harder at that.
    Zhen smiled and ran her fingers through his curly dark hair. “Aww…you were cute. Like a hairless kitty.”
    “ Like the time she hacked all our accounts and left us all with a single cred,” Saemar recalled. “ After she insisted we go to that expensive restaurant on Darius-3.”
    “ Or the time,” Chaela noted, “when the three of us were on that live training exercise, and you somehow filled the cockpits of our fighters with expanding crash foam.”
    “ Yeah,” Saemar added. “They had to tow us back in and get us out with pressurized foam solvent. They never pinned it on you, but boy, was your aunt pissed. That stunt had you written all over it.”
    “ I admit to nothing,” Naero said.
    Gallan groaned. “What about all the times we were kids, and she hacked the codes on our rooms and set goofy traps for us.”
    Zhen laughed. “Or snuck in while we were sleeping and drew tattoos or stupid stuff on our faces.”
    “ Yeah,” Chaela said, turning red. “I spent an entire day walking around like that, going from one training class to another. And none of you bastards would tell me. I wondered why everyone was giggling. I didn’t find out until I went home for dinner that evening and my parents gaped and stared at me like I was a fricking alien or something.”
    “ And keep in mind,” Gallan said, “today’s her birthday. That old joke day back on Old Terra.”
    “ April Fools’ Day,” Zhen corrected him.
    “ Whatever. Who knows what she has planned for us all today. So watch your backs. You all know what’s coming.”
    Naero sat up a little more. “I have absolutely no idea what you people are babbling about.”
    “ Riiight,” Tyber said. “That squares it. We’re in for it now, people. I bet she has something absolutely diabolical planned.”
    “ I do not,” Naero said.
    She grimaced and winced, suddenly rubbing her temples.
    “More pain?” Zhen asked. “I warned you about that, N. You’ll probably suffer episodes several times a day. Maybe for quite a while. You haven’t started hallucinating or seeing anything strange yet have you? Delusions could set in.”
    “ I’m fine. I’ll handle it.”
    Despite the bouts of pain, h er plan for her master joke on her mates was working to perfection.
    Naero hesitated.
    “Seriously, you guys must really hate me sometimes. I know I can be a jerk. How do you put up with me?”
    “ Well to tell you the truth, it’s not easy,” Tyber said.
    “ Screw you.”
    “ Really, N?” He threw his arm around Zhen’s slender waist and yawned. “Hmmm…I’m kind of booked up. How about next month sometime?”
    Zhen made a face and pushed away from him. “In your dreams, tek-monkey.”
    Naero sighed. “Well, I guess today the joke’s on me then.”
    She pulled away from Gallan and stood up. Her friends rose up with her.
    “ I’m a nud. I’ll just have to accept that. Happy birthday to me.”
    All of their coms chimed at once, calling them to morning PT, mandatory for all Spacer crew in the fleet. Six times out of a standard seven day week.
    The