Ra avoided her attacks by shrinking down to his smallest size, slipping under her thrashing bulk and rising up again behind her. He leaped upon the length of her body. It coiled and snapped and flexed, trying to pulverize him against the hard rock and metal reinforced shielding and supports of the palace.
The prince of the Shai stayed one step ahead of the huge queen, but as he passed over her, he ripped off her spines and stripped away much of her weaponry and blades, causing her great pain.
As Bazretul writhed and screamed, she unleashed a sonic shriek attack, so loud and so powerful that all who heard were dazed or even stunned.
Even in her partial Dark Beast form, Naero took a step back, and Cosmic ichor and vapor poured from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.
She attacked the enormous creature head on, slashing at its thick, hyperdense skull with her blades.
Bazretul was still shielded somehow, more than even a dreadnaught. What now? Even Naero’s Cosmic energy blades could not slice through the queen’s defenses.
The smaller Chaos swords of the Shetannas had little effect, and the queen continued to thrash about and lash out, crushing and killing more, even the replicants.
None of Naero’s assault teams had weapons that could hurt the queen in this state.
Naero quickly ordered them all to pull back and defend the area nearby against any lesser foes attempting to come to the queen’s aid.
Ra showed Naero the way–raw, direct physical attacks. They pitted strength against strength, power against power.
Dakkur Queens were hyperdense and difficult to kill, especially a large one such as this, with so many Cosmic energy protections. Yet they were still living beings. And if they were alive, that life could be ended.
At first Naero attacked the head, ripping and tearing at its block-like density. No good. The head was the most armored part on a Dakkur, especially a royal.
She switched to attacking the neck at the front, while Ra focused on trying to pin down and sever the deadly tale blade.
But the tough Shai took a pounding as the queen thrashed and lashed her tail every way that she could. Bazretul battered, pummeled, and whipped Ra against the chamber walls, ceiling, and floor.
Chunks of her tail blade also broke off, whether from Ra’s direct attacks or her own exertions. The blade gouged deep slices and gouges out of everything in its path.
Naero felt glad that she had withdrawn the rest of her troops. They couldn’t have done much but die against a foe this massive and powerful. That tail blade alone would have cut them all down.
The Dakkur queen’s neck was still too thick to think of severing it with the weapons she had. No way to cut off the head or neck quickly and nothing to do so with.
While Naero ripped at the thick neck, the queen’s powerful foreclaws ripped at Naero. Even in her partial Dark Beast form those claws did significant damage to Naero, draining her form of Cosmic energy as if it were gushing blood.
Naero struggled to get into a position where she could startap and seal her wounds.
The queen tried to crush Naero against the floor.
Before she could no longer move, Naero desperately ripped a large gash through the shields and across Bazretul’s neck and chest, filling it with unstable Cosmic energy. Naero transported away from beneath the monster, at the same time that she detonated all of that energy.
The resulting explosion tore out a hideous wound in the queen’s lower neck and breast. She howled, but thrashed and twisted, faster than even Naero could guess.
Naero felt both of the queen’s ferocious claws close about and begin to crush her, squeezing her tighter and tighter. Naero fought with all her strength to break loose, tearing at the claws and unleashing several Cosmic attacks.
Bazretul dashed Naero against the wall, trying to smash her open, or at least daze her. “I have you now, you annoying spack wretch. You dare to attack me in the depths of my strength? Well, it shall be a rapturous feast to snip off and consume your head!”
Those immense jaws descended.
Naero opened her third eye, but there wasn’t enough time.
Then the Dakkur queen pulled away on her own and shrieked, snapping her head behind her.
Ra had just broken off half of the queen’s battered tail blade and even ripped out part of the dense spine bones that had connected it.
That must have hurt plenty, because the queen even dropped Naero, letting her slump to the ground, and went completely after Ra. Then Bazretul began to glow, pulsing with Cosmic energy.
She attacked Ra in a rage, driving him back against and even into the solid rock of the wall.
Ra covered up and shielded himself, one of his special defenses, making himself incredibly dense and invulnerable.
Queen Bazretul put that to the test. She lashed her head back and then forward, spraying a thick torrent of Cosmic energy and lightning out of her vast maw in an array of colors.
Ra shielded himself as best he could with his own energies.
Bazretul chortled. “Ah…my kind has not had the pleasure of destroying a prince of the Shai and feasting on him for many an age. Do you like what we’ve done with the old homeworld of your defeated kind? Join all those others in defeat and death!”
The queen pulled her head back to unleash another torrent strike.
It seemed uncertain whether Ra could withstand another such attack.
Bazretul glowed brighter and brighter.
Then her chest and neck suddenly burst open. The energy within her went out of control, and her entire body first imploded, and then rapidly expanded and burst.
When the dust and the destruction broke and began to clear away, Queen Bazretul lay defeated and dead, her headless, neckless, and lifeless body flung back in pieces and laid wide open, burning and twitching within the shattered domain of her once mighty palace.
Naero hefted the section of the queen’s own tail blade in both hands as if it were a huge scythe or cleaver.
With such a blade, she had thrust it into the queen’s chest all the way through, charged with Naero’s own explosive Cosmic force.
Her blast disrupted all of the destroying energies building up inside of the queen to destroy Ra. Instead, Naero used all of that power to destroy the queen herself.
Bazretul lay dead, and Naero went to Ra to help him recover and regenerate.
After that, together she and her great friend hung the remains of the dead queen from the highest spire in the enemy gigacity, on display for all to see.
The enemy fought stubbornly to the last on Nazol for days. Yet against the matchless armies of the Shai, and with the enemy queen dead, none could stand against the Allies for very long.
They took over the continent and fortified it, seizing the spoils of all of the tek, ships, vehicles, armor, and weapons of their defeated foes. They modified and upgraded everything they needed for their own use.
The Alliance knew very well that the other three enemy-held continents were watching them closely and all that they did.
Naero and Ra went out repeatedly each day to survey troops and newly erected defenses, showing no signs of damage or fatigue. Yet in secret, they were still regenerating from their many grave injuries, and that took several days.
While doing all these things, Naero and Ra made no pretense of consolidating their gains on Nazol. Then they began preparing their forces for another assault.
The Allies did their best to try to keep the enemy guessing about which continent would be the next to fall.
And from the fixer spynet, the foe was very busy fortifying their remaining three strongholds.
Princess Shiival and Princess Kunali, Ra’s brides, took command of Nazol, renaming it with its old Shai name of Kala’duan. Each of the brides based their new expanded nests on the west and east coasts respectively, and swore to Prince Ra that they and their children would defend the fabled homeland to the last, whatever happened.
The very next day, another attack would be made
on the continent of Kolf, in and around the gigacity capital of Grux. But this posed a problem. Unlike Nazol, which was isolated by large oceans, Grux and Dunt were close to each other and even shared a land bridge–an isthmus between the two.
It would be far too easy for Grux and Dunt and their two queens, Memetok and Akathri, to join forces and support each other.
That could be very bad for the Allies.
And even though Naero and Ra always came back from each major contest even stronger and more knowledgeable. Still, it had taken both of them working together to barely defeat and slay even one Dakkur Queen.
How would they fare against two such monsters trying to destroy them at the same time? And with twice the number of troops to contend against?
Naero and her people took great thought upon these challenges, and did everything they could to come up with various potential solutions.
The war they started was on. They had no choice but to continue to pursue its conclusion, especially when they had the momentum.
31
Scouting told Naero and the Allies that at least to start out, both enemy queens stuck to the Dakkur pattern. Each remained in their territory, apparently determined to defend their nests and hold out to the last.
Therefore, Naero chose first to attack Queen Memetok in the capital gigacity of Grux on Kolf.
Yet when Naero led her strike force into the queen’s underground bunker and palace, the Dakkur Queen was nowhere to be found, and the raiders met only token resistance.
Naero got them all out just in time, before the resulting explosion entombed them all deep within the palace fortress.
Above ground, the two queens attacked the Shai directly, causing great destruction and loss of life.
This time, the enemy armies rallied behind their queens out in the open and held the Alliance back. They even drove the Alliance forces back wherever the queens were.
Naero split her forces to keep the two queens separated. The plan was to divide and hopefully conquer. Jan and Regiment Shetanna went after Queen Akathri, to slay or at the very least keep her busy and distracted.
Akathri moved quickly within the battle, lashing and whipping around like a white ribbon of Cosmic power, crushing and slicing up the Allied forces. She had a special taste for Shai heads.
Meanwhile, Naero and Ra double-teamed Memetok.
With her greater, expansive bulk, Memetok could still move plenty fast when she needed to. But she mostly rolled and thrashed around, heedless of which troops she crushed and smashed beneath her weight, as long as many of them belonged to the Alliance.
Out in the open it grew more difficult to contain and control the two queens so as to be able to attack them.
If things got too hot for them in one place, they could quickly zip over to another where their forces could help protect or even aid them.
The fight was grinding down into a lethal stalemate, or Spacer standoff. Naero could not allow that. At this rate, one or both of the queens might even manage to escape somehow.
These two queens both needed to die. That much was imperative.
Naero hated to resort to it all so soon, but she called in her reserves. The sky above the continent of Grux filled with captured, upgraded enemy warships, each captained by a Shetanna replicant, and an able crew of trained Shai.
Most of their ships were now painted a bright, holo-metallic blue, and configured for ground assault and close support mode.
Those vessels began raining death on the enemy from above, circling in tighter and tighter, closing the ring of destruction.
Attacks rose up to meet them. More enemy ships and fleets raced in to fight them, and the battle continued relentlessly.
Any Alliance ship that was about to fall or explode ignited its engines and drives, and ploughed into the foe, blazing a path of destruction, above or below ground.
Jan transformed into his own partial Dark Beast. His form was a titan over ten meters high, composed entirely out of intense, blue flame. He scorched even Queen Akathri with that fire, and she avoided his blazing touch. They continued to duel and spar.
Just hold the skinny one off for a while longer, Jan, while we take out the fat one.
Naero had energized her newfound prize–the tail blade section from Queen Bazretul. She had even gone so far as to transform it into a proper Cosmic weapon with both biomancy and teknomancy. Since the tail blade naturally channeled Cosmic energy, such was not hard to do.
She gave the gigantic sword a name–Heartcleaver. She mystically bound the weapon to her own partial Dark Beast form. Whenever she assumed that form, Heartcleaver would appear with her, hot and ready upon her back, ready to be wielded.
Naero wielded it now, even though the blade remained a bit outsized in her near form. She still swung it with ease, and it blazed with an even greater intensity of light now, even during the daylight.
She slowly began to slice, and cut, and carve Memetok open like a pan of roasted meet.
Memetok shrieked in fear and rage at the wounds from a weapon fashioned out of one of her fallen sisters.
Naero took wounds and injuries herself while they dueled so fiercely. Whether it was being clawed by those fast, raking hands, snapped at and bit by those cavernous jaws, or blasted by the monster’s energy attacks, usually from her maw–Naero and Ra did not come off unscathed.
Ra did his best to strip this enemy queen of her weapons in the same fashion that he had done with the other. Yet he was careful not to fall into her clutches, become trapped in her coils, or beneath her great mass. Then he focused on wearing down that lethal, murderous tail and blade.
Occasionally, Naero and Ra were distracted by lesser enemy troops. They simply ignited these lesser foes up like torches and left them behind to writhe, scream, and burn.
“You fools shall die this day!” Memetok shouted, redoubling her efforts to drag her opponents down and kill them.
Naero flashed in, trying to help Ra sever the thick tail and blade.
But Memetok flipped and snapped at them, spearing at them with her surviving, multiple spines and blades.
Naero tried to reach Ra and transport them both out of the way.
Ra did not understand, and swatted Naero away from harm.
Memetok’s long energized spines caught Ra across the midsection, and impaled him up against solid rock, with three of her thick spines stuck through him. Naero struggled to reach Ra, came to his side, and this time whisked them both away before the queen sliced them in half with her tail blade.
They appear right in front of Memetok’s block-like head.
“Now, Ra!” Naero shouted. “Combine our attacks.”
Both of the Allies opened their third eyes and bored into Memetok’s skull, destroying and blinding her eyes permanently.
Memetok fell back thrashing in pain and clutching and clawing at her face and ruined eyes.
Ra was gravely hurt and fading quickly. Naero turned him over to several Shetannas.
Naero went after Memetok with Heartcleaver once again. She severed the tail, both forearms, and the rest of the energized spine blades.
Finally she drove the great sword into Memetok’s bursting heart.
After that, she split the Dakkur queen open from breast to groin, nearly cleaving her in two, straight down the middle.
Even as Queen Memetok toppled back and died convulsing, a great wail of terror went up from the enemy forces.
Ra would recover, but Naero could not hesitate. Jan needed her help now.
Many Shetannas had perished in that great contest. And Jan had taken harm also. But he had done what was expected of him, and Akathri, the skinny queen, was clearly wounded in many places as well and slowing down.
Naero joined the fight just in time. Taking a cue from Ra, she first went after the queen’s spine blades and tail weapon, hacking them off and doing no small amount of damage.
Naero tried to dodge at first, and then transported, as Akathri reared back her neck for another
Cosmic torrent attack.
The gout of energy and lightning shot out of the queen’s maw, struck Naero a glancing blow as she winked out.
It still punched through most of her shields and swatted her away–driving her back several kilometers.
Then Naero felt Jan cry out in great fear and pain, and transported back into the battle immediately.
Haisha. Akathri had snapped up Jan in her jaws and was attempting to gulp him down whole.
Jan stoked into an inferno, and the queen tried to spit him out far too late.
Naero looked on as her brother melted the queen’s tongue in her mouth, scorched even her teeth and then immolated the Dakkur Queen’s brain–boiling it inside her skull.
Flames shot out of the dying queen’s stricken, ruined eye sockets.
Jan transported and blew the skull apart from within with a Cosmic blast.
Naero looked around for her brother. Jan was nearly unconscious, and plummeted down from out of the sky like a flickering comet.
Naero shielded herself, assumed her energy being form, and caught her wounded brother.
She healed him with biomancy and brought him to where Ra was being tended.
Bereft of their queens, the continents of Grux and Dunt would fall to the Alliance in a matter of days or weeks at best.
Shai Princesses Ishidar and Cliiofarah came forward to lead the final pacification of the two continents, which they returned to their original Shai names of Anasha’dah and Nu’arrah. These names somehow sounded partially Kexxian even to Naero’s ear, but such could well be possible.
The Shai and the Ku were also child races of the Kexx and the Drians.
Once her brothers were healed and had grown stronger, the Alliance would make their final assault on the last enemy capital city of Riyok, on the continent of Uldren.
But there was still much fighting to be completed on these two continents first.
Naero began to wonder if they should attempt to play it safe, consolidate their gains, grow their numbers more. Perhaps they should hold out for the final days or so before the Time dilation subsided. By then they might very well need the help of Khai and the rest of the Alliance.
Naero's War: The Citation Series 3: Naero's Trial Page 26
