On the ground, Spacer Marine forces surrounded the enemy forces that had encircled each city in a ring of death. That ring of sweeping fire took the enemy from behind and closed in, driving the panic-stricken invaders before them, right into the waiting guns of the equally astonished defenders.
Naero felt they had set some kind of record.
The Spacers helped defeat a major planetary invasion within the span of three hours.
She went down to the surface, backed up by Khai, Ra, Tarim, and several of her replicants, all in Shetanna mode. Naero personally congratulated General Walker on the victory.
“Great work, Tara.”
“Thanks, N. Just like the old days, huh?”
Naero smiled. “Even better, I’d say. What’s happening here?”
Tara glanced at her bodyguards. “Perhaps you and your people could lend us a hand.”
“Name it.”
“Between the Mystic Enforcer and these others, that’s a lot of Cosmic juice, I’d say. We have a situation. A few thousand slashers and other assorted goons and slaves have a bunch of Mechan children held hostage in what appears to be a sports arena of some kind. Of course the enemy has the whole place rigged to blow. We have stealth fixers in there disarming the bombs ASAP. But we could use some Mystic assistance.”
Naero nodded. “Put us where you need us most, Tara.”
Naero and her people slipped in with the Marines and took up their positions.
On the way, they passed several hundred dead Mechans of various ages, cut down and destroyed by the foe. Even though they were machine people, it made it no less grim. Their lifesparks were gone now, and they weren’t coming back. All of these Mechans had been unique individuals with lives of their own.
Dead was dead. And in that moment, Naero realized that the horrors of war were the same for all sentients. She saw the same exact tragedies she had seen on countless worlds and in countless war zones.
Helpless civilians had been gunned down, murdered in the act of trying to flee, trying to hide, trying to cover the young and the ones they loved with their own bodies in a futile effort to shield them.
The slashers especially despised Mechans because they couldn’t eat them or feed them into the meat ships, but they still had fun torturing them, just like they did everything else. But the Ejjai left the bodies wherever they fell. Given time, the invaders would recycle the dead Mechans for scrap.
Naero and Khai and their group took up their positions and waited for the signal to perform the assault.
They were at one entire end of the arena, where several hundred invaders were herding and menacing the Mechan young, and setting up auto guns and defensive positons.
The signal finally went up.
Two dozen Shetannas took out many of the enemy with multiple Cosmic blast attacks, lightning, and then their signature red swords.
Khai flashed through the enemy right flank, a green blur, Yii hewing through armor, gravtanks, and anything in his path. Everything behind him within a few meters appeared to explode.
Ra tripled his size out in the open and trampled, and churned through everything on the left flank.
Naero charged right down the middle, using her own blades, whirling, smashing, and kicking in true cyclone mode. She transformed into a whirling buzz saw of Cosmic energy throwing off sparks and sprays of destroying force. Tarim flew backwards behind her with his machine pistols blazing, chewing up any threats that still moved or popped up, covering her back.
In a matter of seconds the rescue was over. Marine snipers had done their work also. While she was fighting, Naero saw multiple foes at key positions dropped with clean headshots from afar without a sound. Whispering death came from the snipers.
Like children in war everywhere, the Mechan kids were still in shock. Many of them didn’t know what to do. Mechans were machine people, but they did have emotions after their own fashion. They could experience both fear and grief. Naero saw a Mechan child half her size, hugging its legs, cowering under some stands.
She went to the child and held out her hands. “You can come out now.”
“Is it over?” the child asked, keeping its head down. Mechans did not have gender. But the poor thing was shaking like any child would under such conditions.
Naero nodded. “It is. My people are allies with your people. We came to help. The invaders here are all dead now.”
The Mechan child looked up at her with its large amber eyes. “They killed my parent. They shot my parent to pieces and forced me to this place.”
Naero picked the child up in her arms. Its normal reaction was to cling to her. It was about the size of a seven-year-old human child, and it was still shuddering with terror.
“What’s going to happen to me?” it asked.
“You’re going to be all right. Your people will take care of you.”
Naero held onto the child, but there were so many others just like it, and at other ages.
“What is your name?” the child asked.
Naero smiled. “My friends call me Naero.”
“That is a strange name. Are all Bios as strange as you, Naero?”
She laughed. “Some of them are a lot stranger.”
“Gratitude and appreciation for saving me, Naero. I will remember your name; you, and these other Bios who saved us.”
“You’re welcome. I’m sorry all of this happened to you and your world. What is your name?”
“I am Taemin. My companions call me Taem.” Taem suddenly slumped forward slightly and then caught itself.
“What’s wrong, Taem?” She checked him with Teknomancy to see if he had been injured.
“I am…tired,” Taem said. “I have not been able to recharge for nearly a day. If we could find a power node, I could replenish my energies.”
“Sure, Taem.” The Mechans had power nodes all over the place. She took Taem to the nearest one. He placed the palm of his hand over the node and absorbed energy.”
“Feel better?” Naero asked, when he was fully recharged.
“I always feel better,” Taem said, “after a good recharge.”
Naero looked around. Khai and Tarim were giving her the eye.
“Taem, you’re going to have to go with the other children with your people.”
Taem suddenly clung to her tighter. “I…I don’t want to go with them. I want to stay with you. What if the enemy Bios come back?”
“Taem, you can’t stay with me. I must go. You will be better off with your people.”
Naero never thought she would see a Mechan child slump down and sigh the way Taem did. “The other Mechans will care for me, but they will never know me the way my parent did.”
Naero hugged Taem. “The you must teach them to know and care about you.”
A large force of Mechans did arrive at the arena a few minutes later, half of them armed, almost completely surprised to see their new allies. The locals were equally astonished to see that the arena had already been liberated, and the enemy taken care of.
The Marines helped the locals secure the young, and begin to transport them out on dropships that came down. Naero couldn’t believe how bad she felt when she handed Taem over to the locals. He looked so small compared to the adults. But there was nothing for it. War everywhere multiplied the tragedy and sorrow of orphans.
All across Corvine-3 the story was the same. This world had been ready to fall. The Spacers snatched it back and crushed the invaders in every way possible.
The Mechans cheered their new allies even as the Spacers packed up to leave.
Several Mechan fleets arrived too late, but took over the defense of the system with great thanks.
Naero and her First Contact team returned to Fleet-1 and the rest, now heading toward a meeting with representative Sezzim and other Sa’shom leaders on their outer defense world of Zekad-1.
Yet explosions rocked the command center as soon as they docked.
According to the scanners, some kind of attack betw
een the locals erupted within.
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Khai called out from the scanners. “Confirmed Naero; it appears to be an internal matter. Sa’shom are fighting Sa’shom, but they are only stunning each other. I see a few injuries, but no deaths as yet. Do you really think we should get involved? We don’t know what is happening.”
“I still think we need to check it out. What if the enemy is involved somehow?”
Khai snorted. “Then I think we would see a lot more actual death.”
That was probably true. “Our superior personal shielding should protect us from the Sa’shom stunning attacks,” Naero said. “Ra. Tarim. Suit up and bring our fireteam with us, just in case. We have a meeting scheduled. If this is a coups, let’s go see who we’re meeting with at the moment.”
“What if we meet resistance?” Tarim asked.
“Then we stun them, just as the natives are doing,” she said. “No lethal attacks unless they start up. And if things do go hot, we cloak and get the hell out fast. Got that? Make sure everyone understands my orders. We’re here to negotiate deals and agreements with whoever is in charge, not start our own war with these people.”
They entered the landing bay they had been originally cleared to enter.
Naero noted that their shields began to glow with a red aura. That was odd.
Tarim tapped into the vidcams and feeds for the planet and the area around the Prime Minister’s gigatower for the Zekad-1 system. “N, these stunning battles have spread all throughout the system.”
Naero teknomanced the feeds and flashraced them through her mind. Thirty-six percent of the planet’s population with blue auras around their shields were systematically attacking thirty-four percent of the population with yellow auras around them. They were each doing their best to stun all of the members of the other side in the contest. While the remaining thirty percent, mostly elderly, children, and adults with green auras did their best to stay the heck out of the way.
Some few of the greens also got stunned in the various crossfires. There was no avoiding that. Thus far, the contest between the blues and yellows was a stalemate. Neither one side nor the other seemed to have the upper hand.
Naero and her party kept making their way toward the lifts and movers for the Prime Minister’s gigatower.
They spotted some locals over that way and went toward them, also noting several yellows lying stunned on the ground, their snake-like lower halves jumbled about. Scale and skin coloring among the Sa’shom varied widely. Even their humanoid halves above the waist showed a great deal of variety in skin tone, eye and hair color.
The blue aura Sa’shom present were clearly paramilitary, in urban camo fatigues or outright suits of combat armor. With their lower halves being two meters in length, coupled with their upright, one meter torsos, this made them rather threatening and odd to look at.
About ten blues were holding five yellows prisoner who weren’t unconscious, and had them trussed up on the ground with plasbinders, and their stunners confiscated.
The blues stared at Naero and her party with great curiosity, talking calmly amongst themselves.
“Offworlders are reds?” the apparent leader remarked. “What the hell do we do with reds? Do we stun them or ignore them like greens? Oh my word–what is that reek? Is that them?”
Naero addressed the leader quickly before they could decide. “I am Admiral Maeris from the Spacer fleets. We have an important meeting with the Prime Minister and your representatives in lest than a standard hour. Can you show us to the meeting areas.”
The leader stiffened. He flicked two of his followers with his tail to get their attention. “Hey, snap to it guys. We’ve got a bloody alien admiral right in front of us!” he whispered. The others murmured and whispered.
“Look, suck it up. I don’t care how bad they smell.”
Naero sniffed. The Sa’shom had their own odd scent, but Naero did not think that she and her group smelled bad.
The troops came to some form of attention, and the leader even saluted. “Sergeant Vietta of the 731st Tolpaedo infantry light strikers, Admiral. You’ll have to excuse us. We’re right in the middle of a surprise election. The aftermath is still working itself out.”
Naero blinked and had to think on that for a moment. “Sergeant Vietta. If you don’t mind me saying, this appears to be more a planetwide coups than an election. Would you mind explaining to me just how your electoral system functions?”
Vietta shrugged, and his troops drifted back to goofing off and taunting the captive yellows.
“Well, sir,” Vietta said, and began gesturing expansively with his hands. You see, it’s like this. We have these two political parties or factions, basically the blues and the yellows. With the war going as badly as it is, the yellows have fallen out of favor with the population this month.”
“This month?” Naero asked, raising one eyebrow.
“Yeah, last month it was the blues who got forced out–almost exactly like this. It’s been flip-flopping back and forth for the past year, ever since the invaders hit our worlds. We only have 256 worlds left that we control. But neither faction has really been able to stop or even slow down the steady invader advance.”
“But, if the blues have won the elections, what is with these stunning campaigns?”
“Oh, that. I know it seems confusing, but the losing side can still choose to resist and hold out, in a final trial by mock combat. A thousand years ago the rebellions and elections were hot, and fought with real weapons. That caused a lot of death, and even several civil wars. But we aren’t that barbaric any longer. Now we just use stunners.”
“I still don’t understand. The election losers can still try to resist, and fight one of these stunning campaigns in order to remain in power?”
“Exactly. Now you’ve got it straight. It doesn’t always go this far. Often the losers simply concede. But the contests can go this way, and some people even look forward to it and find it fun, enjoyable, and amusing.”
“What if one side or both go hot and use real weapons?”
Vietta snarled. “That would be taboo–against all of our laws, sir. Those who did so would be killed or captured and executed as traitors to our political system. No one has attempted a betrayal like that in over eight hundred years. Everyone in both factions would quickly suspend their conflicts and fall upon such killers to wipe them out.”
“How does it look for the yellows?” Naero asked.
Sergeant Vietta checked his wristcomp for a few moments. “Things are slowly turning against them. I apologize, sir, but it will most likely take a few more hours to work itself out. You might want to wait back on the safety of your transport.”
“What would signify a victory?” Naero asked.
“Oh, when all of our aura’s flash the winning color, and then everyone goes back to being green. The first side to reduce the other side down fifty-one percent will usually trigger a victory, or if one side concedes. It’s all of the supporters of one side against the other side, all over the planet, in streets, homes, and businesses. Doesn’t usually take more than a day. Let the stun fest play out!”
“I see. How amusing. I notice that the aura for myself and my party is red,” Naero noted.
“Yes,” Vietta said. “You are not Sa’shom, and so, as aliens, you are outside the parameters of our technopolitical system. It probably assigned a color to you at random.”
Even as they spoke, all of the native auras present flashed blue, and then switched over to green.
“Wow, that was fast,” Vietta said. “Either the yellow leadership just got captured or decided to call it quits for some reason.”
The conflict was over, just like that. Everyone was on the same side once more. And to Naero, it all seemed crazy as hell. But the locals appeared to believe in their system and that it worked for them. The former blues released their captives and even gave them their stunners and other gear back. A few of the victors even helped the losers up and we
nt to help the people passed out on the ground.
The levels of tension dropped rapidly, and even though the two former sides did not seem overly friendly, they were no longer overtly hostile and aggressive. Although the former yellows left, and the former blues hung around to take charge of the lifts and movers for such an important political building.”
Naero asked Sergeant Vietta if he would check for them, to see if anyone in the apparently revolving government was going to see them that day.
It took several minutes to get an answer. The newly installed Prime Minister actually insisted on seeing them ASAP.
Naero and her group were ushered into a very spacious, official meeting room and apparent press room. It was filled with celebrating formerly blue, now green, troops and paramilitaries.
A very attractive Sa’shom with long, honey-gold hair and glistening jet black eyes slithered over quickly to greet Naero. She wore a very smart tangerine blouse and striped blazer, with a blaster still strapped on her right hip.
She wrinkled her pert nose and her eyes widened slightly.
In fact, more than a dozen stunned members of the former regime in smart, expensive-looking business attire still lay stunned in a tumble about the room. That included former Prime Minister Mevad, lying behind the minister’s desk, still tangled up with the Sa’shom weird, bench-like chairs.
The new prime minister extended her manicured hand. “Admiral Maeris. Sorry for the unfortunate confusion, I’m certain that you have many questions. I’d be more than happy to discuss them and the agreements that we wish to confirm with the Spacer Navy and the Alliance of the Alpha Quadrant. I am Jerena, the current Prime Minister.”
Naero glanced over. “A pleasure to meet you, Prime Minister Jerena. I’m guessing that former Prime Minister will not be joining us?”
Jerena smirked. “No, I’m afraid not. My husband won’t be coming around for an hour or two. Come, let us speak together.”
“Husband,” Naero said. “You had your paramilitaries zap your own husband?”
“No, not at all.” Jerena smirked. “I nailed that bugger myself. You should have seen the look on his face!”
Naero's War: The Citation Series 3: Naero's Trial Page 16
