“Oh, Z. I’m so sorry.”
“I still don’t want you to let me go,” Zhen said, shaking her hard. “I want to live. When I drift off this time, take my soul again. Promise me. Naero Amashin Maeris, you promise me–right here and now–on your life and your honor, on the honor of Clan Maeris. You’ll try to find a way…some way for me to come back. Just keep me inside of you for a while and try. Please, I’m begging you!”
Naero nodded. They clung to one another and sobbed. “I will, Zee. You have my word.” She reached into an armored, shielded pouch and pulled out the small, battered cryo case that Zhen had pressed into her hand for safekeeping that fateful day.
She place it back into Zhen’s hands. Zhen shoved it right back at her.
“No, you keep that, N. I’ve given you my family. You must protect them and keep them safe. Help Ty find a way to have them born, and raise them all, and keep them free. They’re the only part of me that will go on. If anyone can make it happen–you can. Tell my babies about me, N. Please…Let them know what I was like.”
Naero stammered. “I…I don’t know what to say. I will, Zhen. I’ll see it all done. You…you could still be a part of all that, you know. There is a small way.”
Zhen’s mouth fell open. “I don’t…how? What do you mean?”
“Well, after the wedding, and you and Ty have your brief little honeymoon, how would you like to give birth…to your son, Gallan?”
Z stared at her in wonder. “N, you can do that for me? How is that even possible?”
“It’s your choice. Shalaen and I talked it over. We can use biomancy to speed up the development process. You can safely give birth to your firstborn, and you and Ty can hold him together in your arms, before…before the end. But if you think it’s all too much–”
“No, no, I want to. Oh, N, yes, let’s make it happen. I don’t want to waste any time.”
They re-implanted the child in Zhen’s womb and made sure everything was ready…for later. Chaela and Saemar arrived just in time for the wedding.
Fleet Captain Naero Amashin Maeris performed the brief ceremony for Tyber and Zhen beneath the mountain waterfall valley of Gairos-3. The spectacular rainforest and the iridescent rainbows made for a perfect setting, just as Zhen had planned.
Zhen made for a beautiful bride in her spring ivory dress, beaming in happiness next to her beloved Ty in his matching sea foam tux. Everyone present wept for joy.
After the short ceremony and a brief reception, Zhen and Ty launched back up into orbit for a honeymoon on a small yacht that lasted only a handful of hours.
Then it was back to the medical bay on board The Dagger. Trudi was so emotional, she could hardly assist, but with Naero and Shalaen and Jia present, there wasn’t that much to do.
Naero carefully progressed little Gallan through his gestation, while Zhen watch him grow with her healing sight, tears racing down her face as he did so. The birth was made quick and relatively painless–as much as any live birth could be.
In less than a standard hour, Ty and Z sat together holding each other and their new son, beneath the vista of the stars overhead through the wide, open viewport on board The Darkstar.
Friends and crew filed past to greet the little newcomer and congratulate the parents.
Just after dinner, Zhen’s head sagged and her strength began to leave her.
My friends,” Z called out, with effort. “It appears…that I don’t have much time, now. Thank you all…so much…for what you have given to me this day. It’s been an honor serving with you all and getting to know you. I love you all. But now…if you don’t mind, I want to spend every second I have left with my Ty and my little Gallan–alone–if you can forgive me. Thank you all once again. If I do not see you again, farewell. Safe journey, my Clan, my friends.”
They put her on a medbed and returned her to Tyber’s private quarters immediately.
Everyone waited, somber and still, as the minutes ticked by.
Two hours later, they got the call.
Less than a half hour after that, with Ty cradling her and their son in his loving arms, a smiling, Dr. Zhentisa Maeris gently drifted away again.
And true to her word and promise, Naero took her abani’s soul back into her gentle keeping.
51
Days later, Naero transported alone, down to the surface of lo-tek, backwater Thanor-4, overlooking the Bay of Thanarra.
It was late at night, and even from up in the sky on her gravwing, the four city states all seemed to be on fire.
She teknomanced and gathered data feeds from the spyfixer network she had left behind.
The city states had prosecuted their war against each other ruthlessly and with great cunning on all sides.
The massive armies of the Vaedo began it. It started with them. Months of grinding battle swept over the lands, destroying towns, burning crops.
But starting a war was not the same thing as sustaining a war or finishing one.
The Thanes, the Kall, and the Maedo joined together, fighting their enemies on land, on sea, in the desert, the forests, and the mountains. The allies brilliantly ground the Vaedo down hard, over weapons of iron and steel and wooden ships, and drove them back over their own high walls. Then the allies broke through those walls and tore them down.
Yet as the city state of the Vaedo burned–raised to the ground and their people set free–the allies were yet in danger of losing the brutal war.
For Emperor Vauk, the golden dragon godking, had still managed to outmaneuver them all in the end. While the allies liberated his slaves and burned his golden city, putting it to torch and flame, Emperor Vauk and another army of five thousand elite warriors stormed the mountain fastness of the Maedo.
This fortress overlooked the great desert on the opposite side of the high passes.
Vauk lost over three thousand troops reducing the mountain fortress, yet in the end, the stubborn Maedo defenses fell.
Naero went down to that area, cloaked and prepared to observe whatever she found.
The Vaedo had indeed broken through and slain the defenders–a mix of Thanes, Kall, and Maedo–all who fought bravely.
They gave their charges precious hours to escape down into the desert and flee toward the coast of the bay.
Emperor Vauk and his sixteen hundred soldiers left even their wounded behind and now raced to overtake the nearly five thousand children from all the allies–between the ages of six and sixteen–fleeing in terror before them.
Naero infiltrated the Vaedo host, to spy upon Emperor Vauk.
Surrounded by his bloodguard of hundreds, the godking was being raced along in a great golden wagon with six gilded wheels, pulled by a dozen, sweating, foaming draft gult in their glittering harnesses. Each of the wagon’s wheels and their spinning, anti-personnel blades were already stained with human blood.
Vauk shouted, jostled around among his servants and concubines.
“Run the vermin down. How can they be so far ahead of us, still? We’ve only been able to bloody my wheels with stragglers–the weak and the crippled left scattered behind. Catch them all out in the open. I want to slice through hundreds of them and mow them down! Leave a gory trail of the little wretches chopped to pieces and screaming behind us!”
His troops fanned out to either side, forming two wings or arcs out on the edges. Hundreds of Vaedo light skirmishers and cavalry spearheaded the charge.
The fleeing children were burdened by having the older kids forced to carry the younger ones, all of them exhausted. Their faces strained in terror. They struggled to reach a dried up river canyon gorge that would lead them down to the delta salt marshes of the bay.
The children might reach it before the enemy overtook and encircled them.
Vauk stood up and gripped his golden railing, continuing to rave.
“After we capture the bulk of them, we will drive them to the beaches. I will reward my valiant troops by allowing them to ravage the spawn of our foes all night lon
g in a great, drunken, bloody orgy. Do as you will with them! Then in the morning we shall impale all the brats–living and dead–all along the shore and leave them rotting in the sun for their parents to find. Then our triumph shall be complete, and the final destiny of our world decided. There shall be no further generations of our enemies–no more fools who dare to challenge a god!”
Even more important from what Naero saw, the rocky gorge was very narrow in several places, and would greatly delay troops, giving the children–at least some of them–the best chance at getting away.
The deadly race continued along the ridges and up and down the dunes.
Naero blipped over to check on the children.
They weren’t going to make it.
They were being led by Princess Laikalla of the Maedo, age fifteen, and Prince Shondar of the Thanes, age fourteen. They were backed up by Maedo Prince Tavul, thirteen, Kall Princess Vaxxalla, also thirteen, and finally, Thane Princess Iiden, age twelve.
Laikalla called out to all the others. “We need to hold them off. Five hundred of us–the biggest and best fighters, ages fourteen to sixteen–will hold the narrows for as long as we can last. That will allow the others to make it through and look for the ships. Tavul, Vaxxalla, and Iiden will lead the retreat from this point on. The rest of us, take up your position in the rear guard. We must hold with whatever weapons we have. Pick up every rock and stone that you can gather. We fight to the last the breath!”
Prince Shondar hugged his weeping sister goodbye. Then he drew his sword. “Go, Iiden! You and the others must lead the little ones to safety as best you can. Come, my friends. Prepare for battle!”
Naero had seen more than enough.
She took up a position on the top of the last dune crest leading down into the gorge that the children just started to rush through.
Naero clenched her fists and her teeth.
To hell with non-intervention. No one gave a damn what happened here any longer. These brave kids weren’t going to be cut to pieces and the others weren’t going to be butchered, raped, and mutilated that night.
Not under her watch.
The Spacer Mystics had abandoned Thanor-4 to its fate.
Naero no longer agreed with that premise. In that case, she was now free to act.
The Vaedo swept up the rise to run down their quarry.
Time for some theatrics.
Every second would buy the kids time.
A scarlet bolt of lightning crashed down, and Naero uncloaked in full-on Shetanna mode. Her violet eyes blazed, and the winds of night from the mountains swept through her dark hair and cloak.
The Vaedo halted for a moment, staring up at her in fear and wonder. From her vantage point, she could hear their words.
Emperor Vauk’s golden wagon trundled up. “Why have you stopped? Forward. In and take them! Run them down!”
“But Emperor,” one of his captains said, pointing up at Naero. “That woman appeared in a flash of blood-red lightning. She is either a goddess, or perhaps even–a demon!”
Vauk went into a rage. He flung his full golden wine cup and smashed the captain in the face with it, the red liquid splashing everywhere. “A woman? You halted my advance for a single bitch? I don’t care who or what that whore is. You are led by a god! Attack, my champions. On to victory! We are thousands! What can one woman do?”
Naero smiled and used the voice.
“Shetanna, the Dark Angel of Death, is upon you all. Not one of you shall escape.”
She formed her Ur-metal blades in her hands and the earth split around her. Then she summoned her scarlet katanas over them.
Naero startapped all the Cosmic energy that she could muster.
With her battle cry ringing upon her lips, she sprang down and fell upon the rampaging Vaedo in vengeance and fury.
The children of Thanarra paused and shrank in fear within the adjacent gorge, stricken with horror by the fell blasts of scarlet lightning that erupted just over the next rise. Strange waves and bursts of light and power flared–amid the wailing and shrieking of the Vaedo army as it perished. The ground all about that area trembled and shook.
When all went deathly quiet, Princess Laikalla and Prince Shondar led a sortie back up that rise to stare down at the fate of the Vaedo forces that had pursued them all with rapacious and murderous intent.
Some of the enemy had been incinerated into piles of ash where they stood or swept forward. Yet the vast majority hung impaled, scorched to ash, and their skeletons still burning–upon glowing red, twisted blades of hot glass.
Death came so swiftly that most perished while they still charged forward. Few had time to turn and run.
The hot, glowing, hissing blades of thick, jagged glass had ripped out of the sand itself, and punctured and burned most of them alive–hundreds upon hundreds.
The deep trough had been transformed into an eerie, razor-sharp, glass orchard of red death, set within a smoldering black glass crater–a cauldron of glowing oblivion.
Naero dragged a stunned and muttering Emperor Vauk up to the crest of the rise and flung him down at their feet.
They drew back from her in fear, as if she were some apparition.
“His power is broken forever,” Naero told them. “He meant to violate and murder you all, but now he is fallen in complete disgrace. He will not kill anyone…ever again.”
Naero pulled down her mask to show them her face.
Princess Laikalla and Prince Shondar blinked and recognized her.
“Sister Naero!”
“Shetanna!”
They wept with great relief and joy, and rushed to embrace her.
Dammit, all of these kids were taller than her.
The vanguard of the ships of the Kall met them on the beaches within hours. Princess Kutira and The Blue Vixen led the fleet in the twilight.
She drew her blue-steel cutlass and her eyes blazed with rage and vengeance as she glared at Emperor Vauk, lying helpless in a filthy heap, under guard.
Her voice trembled. “Why does that scum still live!”
Naero stepped forward and stayed her hand. “It is for the Kings and Queens of your world to decide his fate, Kutira. He will meet his end.”
She snarled and visibly shook with rage, barely able to restrain herself. “I must turn away then. I can not be near the Darkheart without taking his life.”
While they awaited for the arrival of the other royals, the Kall saw to the rescue of the children. Several thousand of them in one spot quickly became increasingly messy and smelly, badly in need of aid.
The mariners dug hasty pit and trench latrines for them in the sand along the beach, and the children washed themselves clean down in the warm surf.
Food and kegs of water were opened and doled out.
Then the ships with the royals pulled up.
The Sea King, Haikoda, set foot upon the shore for the first time since he had been born, leading the others behind him to decide the fate of Emperor Vauk.
Naero greeted them, and turned to lead them. Cries erupted just ahead.
As they rushed up, Emperor Vauk held a little girl, threatening to cut her throat open with a small concealed blade. “I want a ship! Get away from me, all of you. Stay back!”
He looked like the madman he was.
Before even Naero could act, Kutira swooped in, swinging on a line. She sprang upon the emperor, booting him aside.
She stabbed and slashed him with her karath and cutlass, screaming in ferocity.
Naero lunged forward and caught the child before the little girl hit the ground.
Vauk fell onto his back like the sniveling coward he was, whimpering and pleading, sliding down into one of the nearby catch-pit latrines on his shiny, slippery, golden silk robes.
Kutira rode him down into the pit, continuing to ram her weapons into his face, throat, and chest until both her blades chipped, shattered, and broke.
The thing that had been Emperor Vauk, the godking, slipped head fir
st into a pit of human waste, gurgling, gasping, and spluttering, until the bubbles stopped, and his twisted, twitching, blood-soaked fingers and limbs froze.
Kutira rose up and still spat on him.
“Scum! Blackheart! You who have butchered so many. You killed my beloved brother, Jigan. For nothing! Burn in all the hells at once–and may the devils feast upon your stinking flesh and your putrid soul–if even they can choke you down their flaming gullets!”
Kutira held up her broken hilts. “Bear witness, all. My steel shattered upon his black heart. We always knew the scum had a black rock in his chest in place of a human heart. Here is the proof of it!”
She cast her broken weapons away in disgust. “My lords, we be at peace. I have slain the Emperor of the Vaedo. I have done this thing for the good of all. The long, terrible war of our world…is now ended.”
King Haikoda strode forward and took his little sister in his arms. “If you had not done, so, beloved sister, any of the rest of us would have. You are the bravest of us all.” He kissed her on top of her head and held her close.
“Jigan’s blood is now avenged.” He motioned to their brothers, the remaining princes. “Nokarro, Yeshida. Drag that piece of filth and shit out to the deepest part of the sea, weigh it down with stone and iron chain, and feed it to the sharks–if they can stomach such corruption.”
King Arrok held up his empty hands. “So passes the false god of our world. Let there be no others. I hereby proclaim peace over all our lands, my brothers and sisters. Our children shall no longer live in fear or want, and together–side by side–we shall make our world a paradise!”
“You have grown both wise and strong,” Naero said to them using the voice. “Keep this hard won peace, therefore. You have all proven yourselves fit to rule over your peoples with courage, justice, and mercy. You no longer have any need of anything from the gods. You are worthy to rule yourselves. Do so, with the greatest wisdom.”
Naero chose that moment to vanish from among them.
Yet she still had work to do. A promise yet to keep.
Spacer Clans Adventure 3: Naero's Fury Page 51
