“Do you have a mate, Admiral?”
“I do. He is a general of our ground forces, and we are very happy with each other. Our duties keep us extremely busy, especially with the war now, but we mate several times each year, and each joining is wonderful.”
“Very well. Let me ask about something completely different. How do you see our enemies?” Naero asked.
“I see them for what they are–the greatest threat to our existence that we have ever faced. They see us mostly as food, or to be captured and turned into mindless slaves and shock troops for them.
Beremel shuddered. “I have seen these slaves that they make of our unhatched. They are mindless killers, who cannot be reasoned with, even though they look like our own. We exterminate them with great disgust. That our foe turns our own offspring against us is a crime for which we shall never forgive them. There can be no quarter with such a foe. Either we destroy them, or they will destroy us and all that we could ever be.”
Naero took a chance. “I have heard of others of my kind who have met an Amavar female named S’krin. Do you know–”
Admiral Beremel stopped in her tracks and shuddered. She whirled about, her face a mask of emotions, one of them rage.
“You have seen and met with Dellessa Shehanniel Kevatthia S’krin?”
“I have only heard of other Spacers who have, back in the Alpha Quadrant. Who is she?”
“The Alpha Quadrant,” Beremel said. “It figures that she would go there to avoid her responsibilities.”
Naero didn’t follow. “Admiral, you have me at a loss here.”
“This S’krin, as you call her, as she now calls herself was the only high daughter of the former Amavar Empress. S’krin was genetically engineered and specially groomed to produce the next leap forward in Amavar evolution. Yet when the old empress was dying, and S’krin was hatched and being trained to assume the mantle of the new empress, she rebelled and fled, betraying her people–insisting on being free to go off on her own to have her own selfish life, without thought to her people and their greater needs.”
“And another empress could not be produced?” Naero guessed.
“No, not at all. Not one such as her,” Beremel said. “The old empress died, and it had taken almost and entire lifetime to prepare another, even with her assistance. Do you happen to know where this S’krin is?”
“Not currently. They are but rumors I had heard.”
“She is considered worse than a renegade. Worse than an enemy. To my people, she is traitor of the highest rank. All of our people have orders to kill her on sight. If you learn of her whereabouts, please inform us, and we will send a fleet after her to bring us her head.”
“That all sounds terrible,” Naero noted.
“It is. In all our long history, no empress or queen has betrayed our people so utterly. It is one of our greatest shames as a species.”
Baeven sure could pick ‘em. Apparently, she and Baeven were more or less in the same boat with their species.
No wonder S’krin said not to mention her name.
On their way back, Beremel insisted that they stop off at a nearby moon, to observe a research and mining colony that the enemy had recently attacked and destroyed.
Everything was destroyed, and most of what remained were scorched Amavar exoskeletons of nearly all castes and ages. The enemy had focused on using flame guns, flame cannons on their gravtanks, and incendiary bombs against the colony. The Amavar feared burning to death, and even buried their dead at sea or otherwise under water. They did this because of a spiritual belief that all life originally came from water, and that the dead must be returned to water. Just as Spacers believed that the dead should be returned to the stars.
All that Naero saw on the lost colony were the skeletons and remains of the lost, the slaughtered, and the murdered. Amavar men, women, and children of all castes and ages. Perhaps in a way, the immolated dead had been more fortunate. The other dead and the living who could be eaten had been long since tossed into the enemy meatships.
Naero always looked with horror upon dead children of any sentient species. A murdered child on any world was still a murdered child. And the murderers needed to be stopped and then destroyed.
22
Breakthrough.
The word finally reached them from Baeven.
“Naero; we’ve got them! Attacking immediately to reach Naero-3. They have her in some kind of high powered shield. Get here ASAP!”
Naero launched every fleet she had available that wasn’t assigned somewhere. That also included her and fleets 1 through 11.
This was it.
The Black Spot and The Dark Star also converged. They would reach the coordinates before Naero could, but not by much.
If it had been closer, she would have risked transporting straight down to the surface. She teknomanced, and flashraced through the rest of the data.
‘Here’ turned out to be a top secret enemy research base on Xatrex-3, in an area of dead space.
They arrived into an all-out slugfest between two Spacer fleets, Fleet-86 and Fleet-89, taking on five enemy fleets who had been concealed nearby on other planets and moons. The enemy forces moved in to support the base.
Naero turned command over to her XO, certain that her people would make short work of the enemy defense force.
“We’ll go down together in one of my spheres,” Khai said. “That will be fastest.”
Naero frowned. “I know a faster way, for me. You guys follow on.”
Before anyone could protest, she homed in on Baeven’s signal, and transported.
She was in the base.
Baeven had just been there and was now somewhere up ahead.
Everything was trashed. All of the enemy were dead. And not just dead…in pieces or reduced to burning goo or slag.
“I’m here, Baeven,” Naero called over their link. She tried to follow his signal, but it kept breaking up, with all the enemy tek going wild.
The link he came back to her on was telepathic. “Fighting Danner…in some huge, enemy Darkforce generator mek. Very tough. Almost got him down. Couldn’t break through to Naero-3…in that enemy shield sphere. Strongest damn shield…I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m almost there, Baeven. Hang on!”
Several massive Cosmic energy signals flared up ahead.
Transporting was too risky with the energy flows this crazy.
Time for the direct approach.
She startapped and keep startapping.
Naero summoned her Ur-metal swords and formed her Chaos Katanas over them set at full power.
Baeven screamed in agony over their link and then cut off.
Naero surrounded herself in erupting, exploding Cosmic power.
Spinning and whirling rapidly, Naero rocketed straight toward those energy sources, blasting, slicing, and kicking through enemy troops, defensive barriers, walls, and solid underground rock.
A plasma borer could not have drilled through those areas as fast as she fused and melted her way through them.
When she came to a halt, she basically stood within a smoldering crater. All of the enemy lab equipment was melted into slag or completely fried. A massive explosion had blown the entire roof off the complex, from a hundred meters or more beneath the surface.
Naero didn’t see Naero-3, Baeven, or Danner. They had just been locked in a pitched fight in that location. Where was everyone now?
The Cosmic energy flows were completely out of control, and unlike anything Naero had ever witnessed.
What the hell was going on?
Khai, Tarim, Ra and the Spacer Marines led the charge of forces pouring into the enemy lab complex. Any surviving foes were put down fast and hard.
Yet the mystery continued.
Then Baeven phazed back in out of nowhere, and he looked somewhat beaten up. Most likely from his battle with Danner.
Naero rushed up to him. “Where is she? What happened?”
Baeven shook hi
s head. “I put Danner down, but the core with him inside escaped in some kind of energy pod that just blasted free and phazed away. Then the remaining enemy teks blasted me with some kind of experimental projector. They were powering the projector with the energy field around Naero-3.”
“So they zapped you out of phaze? Were you stuck in the Astral Plane or some kind of pocket dimension?”
Baeven shook his head. “No, you don’t get, it, N. They were conducting experiments in Time itself. It was some kind of Time gun–a temporal cannon.”
Naero examined him quickly. “It didn’t appear to damage you. What did it feel like?” She knew that the enemy had been conducting temporal, dimensional, and interdimensional experiments for a long while.
“I couldn’t move,” Baeven said. “I couldn’t transport, phaze, or do anything. I vanished out of sight because I was out of phaze with Time. I was in limbo somewhere–in nowhere. After a few minutes of being frozen like that, I phazed back in to our time.”
“Baeven, I want you to tell me everything you saw. Naero-3. How did she look?”
He frowned. “Pretty bad. She was just a floating torso, and she appeared to be in some kind of stasis. She wasn’t conscious. All of her arms and legs were missing: burned, blasted, or yanked off. Her wounds were sealed, but it looked as if she had put up a pretty tough fight. She must not have had time or energy to attempt to regenerate.”
Naero did her best to suppress her own personal rage. Poor Naero-3. She was suffering in Naero’s own place, at the hands of ruthless foes who were utterly without honor or mercy.
But despite all that, Naero would continue her program of making several replicants each day. A growing legion of super soldiers for the ongoing war effort.
Naero contained her continuing frustration and thought upon what must be done. “Pick this place clean and let’s get out of here,” she commanded. “We depart in fifteen standard minutes. Keep everyone moving! We carpet bomb this place as we go; leave nothing behind for the enemy to use.”
They had gotten very close once more. And they wouldn’t stop. From what Baeven said, it sounded as if the enemy was siphoning off her unborn daughter’s energies, using her like a battery to power their experiments.
That meant that they still hadn’t found a way to crack her child’s amazing defenses. That was something, at least. But those powerful enemies were nothing if not persistent.
They would eventually devise a way to get past those defenses and get at Naero’s child. That was also only a matter of time.
Her XO reported from the fixernet. Hundred of enemy fleets were heading to intercept them at Xatrex-3.
“Do we call more of our forces to fight them here?” Darius asked her.
“Negative. This was a raid, and the raid is over. This is not the main battle we want. Everyone jump out. We’ll be gone before those bastards get here. Our fun will start in a few days. Then we’ll really put it on them.”
Baeven had already slipped away at some point, as Khai pointed out. He never hung around very long once the action was over.
He contacted Naero shortly thereafter in private. “We’ll keep trying, N. I’m sorry about today.”
“Not your fault, uncle. I know you tried your hardest. We’ll get them. Thank you, for all of your hard effort.”
The site of the enemy lab complex lit up from orbit, just before Naero and Fleet-1 were the last to jump out and vanish.
*
Two days later, Naero and her new allies were ready to bring the pain and inflict it wholesale on the enemy. First they made several major feint attacks at the opposite end of their enemy’s territory, giving all the appearances of the start of a major naval offensive.
As Naero guessed the enemy might, they responded with massive retaliation to drive the attackers back.
Then the foe also mounted coordinated heavy attacks against all four of the Alliance races and their homeworlds, on several fronts.
Those defenses would need to stand firm and hold for the Alliance. There were very few reserves being held back to send to their defense. And they could not be everywhere at once.
The enemy seemed very confident and self-assured about these events. They apparently thought they had the entire situation well-managed.
Next, Naero expanded her attacks in numerous exposed weak areas where the enemy was already rushing most of their forces and reserves.
Then, once it was clear that the enemy was fully committed, engaged, and overextended, the four actual major attacks struck the enemy’s forward naval bases and shipyards on the opposite side of the enemy’s worlds. The Alliance stormed into those systems in complete fury, with everything they could muster that could fly or shoot.
As soon as the enemy recovered and engaged the attackers, Naero and her Spacers struck like surgeons, each strike force backed by twenty-five hi-tek fleets to gun down the enemy’s strongest forces from behind. This was not a battle. It was a slaughter.
The Spacers were there not to fight the enemy, but to wipe the enemy out, destroy the fleets stationed there, and eradicate those four enemy hardpoints.
If they could pull that off, they would collapse over one third of the enemy’s overall captured territory, crush the expanding advance, and force the foe onto the defensive.
All four of those battles started off well, but almost an entire day of heavy fighting lay ahead of them.
Naero trusted all three of her very able admirals.
Then, as things continued to go against the enemy on all fronts, as expected, Naero received a call from Captain Tyber and Alala, aboard The Dark Star.
“Better be good, Ty. A little busy here.”
“We’re tracking an enemy spyship similar to The Black Spot; Jan’s coming to assist us. We are certain by the energy signatures that they have Naero-3 on board. But we’re surrounded by ten enemy fleets. What are our orders?”
Naero thought for a second. “Where are they headed, Ty?”
“They’re making a dead run straight at the enemy Homeworld of Naggoth. There are over four hundred enemy fleets in between here and there, Naero. What do you want us to do?”
Naero sighed, focusing on her battle displays. “Nothing for now, Ty. I’ll send Baeven to assist. If he thinks you can free her somehow, follow his lead. Otherwise, track where she goes and learn what you can. If we win the day, even a stronghold like Naggoth will be in striking range. Stay safe, my friends. Whatever you do, don’t get nabbed.”
Naero broke off the link. Her duty was to her fleets during a major operation at this level.
She closed her eyes for a second. Even if that cost her the life of her own child.
But she would deal with the pain of that decision later.
Chances were, even Baeven wouldn’t see much hope of rescuing Naero-3, surrounded by that many foes. And it was only going to get worse on their way to Naggoth.
But no war was won all at once.
Naero turned her burning eyes to her enemies and focused on the battle holo arrays, fingers flashing, sending orders rapidly and optimizing fleet attack profiles at will.
She was going to use all of her skill, all of her gifts, to make them pay.
Let the enemy come. Bring their fire. It would pale and melt before the hell she was going to unleash upon the foe. Until the moment they drew their last breaths, she would continue to hammer, and punish, and incinerate every enemy fleet that dared to get in her way.
And they would surround Naggoth itself and reduce it to dust, if that’s what it took to get her own back.
The Allies smelled invader blood in the black, and closed in like hungry sharks, hungry to throw back their foes with great loss and take back some of their own.
No one that day was in any mood for mercy or to hold back.
All of them had suffered enough.
Mayrun-5 was the first enemy stronghold to fall. The fixer nebulae were even sent in to strip the wrecks clean, the base, and the shipyard. They departed as if giant spa
ce locusts had left nothing behind.
Next came Klytasso-2. By the time three bells rang, eighty-seven enemy fleets were left in burning pieces for the fixers to strip and collect.
And as always, before the Allies departed, they left behind clouds of cloaked attack drones and seeker mines to give any other enemies a warm welcome home–to a home that would no longer be there.
The enemy would clearly withdraw and abandon those now worthless and vulnerable forward positions. If they could be destroyed once, they could be destroyed again.
And for the simple fact that there was no longer anything there that was strategically worth defending.
The starbase and naval shipyards at Chomatta-4 took much longer to capture and then destroy. Not only were they more extensive, but the enemy kept dumping reinforcements into those zones that had to be taken out also.
The allies waited, poised like wolves.
Finally the additional fleets stopped coming, and the enemy gave up on Chomatta-4 as another lost cause.
Brattemul-7 was the final hold out, and the closest of all the four bases to the enemy’s next most forward line of defensive positions. For an entire day, the battle there had bogged down into a bloody stalemate.
Then Naero sent in all of her remaining ships from the other three locations that could still fight. A quite substantial number of Alliance fleets.
The enemy matched those numbers with five hundred extra fleets gleaned from Naggoth and all of their other systems.
This was the largest, most complex battle yet, stretched out over several nearby systems.
Finally she gave the orders. “We are going to form a death strike. Get all of our largest, rapid-fire ships into Echo-Radio-5 ribbon formation, and we take out all of the bigs that we can. Then we loop back around and shatter the rest. The remnants should break and jump out, if we can make the death zone hot enough!”
Two hundred Spacer and allied battleships came in on a concentrated attack vector at maximum speed and brought the heat. They raked the enemy front lines with devastating continuous fire, and destroyed three hundred and forty enemy bigs with the first pass.
Naero's War: The Citation Series 3: Naero's Trial Page 19
