“Yes.”
“The training will begin. Defend yourself.”
Without warning, Makita’s attack smashed into her.
She blocked one or two out every four or five blows.
A snapwheel kick sent her flying twenty meters, nearly winding her.
The only things that saved her at all, once again, were the experience and knowledge she gained from her training sessions with Baeven.
Makita proved stronger and faster than her, but he still paled in comparison to the outcast’s terrifying prowess.
Makita charged her.
Naero met him part way.
She took several punishing strikes, but flipped him hard to the ground.
He swept her legs.
They tangled on the ground, wrestling, slipping out of holds, twisting like snakes. They pummeled each other all the while.
They broke, crouched low, and launched themselves at each other again, like Telurian fighting blue cranes.
Naero landed a whipkick on the side of Makita’s head.
He clipped her under the chin, grabbed her leg and ankle and swung her hard into the floor, stunning her.
She struggled to get up.
For a few dizzy moments, she couldn’t.
She rose up and staggered back into her fighting stance.
She half-smiled.
“Come on.”
Makita bowed his head, just slightly, and drew back.
“Defend yourself, “Klyne said again.
Naero whirled to face Iselle.
Too late.
An invisible force slammed into her arms and torso, flinging her back.
She rolled with the strike and came back up into her stance.
Iselle fought her from a distance, punching and striking with her hands in rapid combinations.
Naero struggled to advance, to close the distance between them, while heavy, unseen blows rained down on her from every direction, knocking her one way, and then the other.
“Telekinetic combat,” Klyne called out. “Try to sense and block the blows. You cannot see them. Reach out with your battle senses, with your mind. Feel them coming. Counter and deflect them. True masters can fight thus, without even moving, simply by concentrating.”
At least Iselle still had to physically move in order to project her attacks. That was some help.
Closer. Get closer.
Iselle thrust both hands forward violently.
A wall of force drove Naero slowly back. She pushed against it, slowing it even more.
“Resist. Focus on the energy before you,” Klyne told her, “before it smashes you into the far wall. Fight back. Defeat it.”
She rolled to one side and then the other. The barrier felt solid.
Naero leaped up four meters, felt the top, and flipped herself over it.
Iselle withdrew a step, cupping both hands loosely on the sides of her face.
Spinning orbs of pure telekinetic force shot out, rapid-fire.
Naero barely perceived them where they warped through the air; they made explosive popping sounds.
She tried to dodge them. One whirred past her head like an invisible ball at high speed.
The next clipped her left shoulder, spinning her aside.
Another knocked one leg out from under her.
She kept her feet and ducked, weaving to either side in turns.
Iselle directed her attack at Naero’s feet.
Naero lost her footing, slipping and sliding on what felt like a bunch of invisible ball bearings cast beneath her.
She tried to roll back to her feet, but panes of force battered her from all sides, keeping her off balance.
It felt like being a rubber ball, bouncing around in a box that someone shook.
The sides of the box rapidly closed in.
They tightened all around her, threatening to crush her.
She couldn’t breathe.
Iselle released her without warning.
Naero sprawled, gasping, face down on the floor.
“I’m somewhat surprised,” Klyne noted. “Preliminary tests demonstrate no psyonic aptitude or innate talent to my trained senses whatsoever. That in itself is very rare. After your battle with the former Danner entity, we simply assumed that you would exhibit some kind of psyonic ability.”
“I burned myself out dealing with the entity. I burned both of us out. I’m a nud once more.” She admitted it openly. “None of my former abilities have returned.”
So she wasn’t psyonic anymore. Not even a teknomancer. Disappointing, but not the end of the universe.
“Yet I sense something incredibly strange within you,” Klyne said. “What could it be?”
Was it Om? He was still inside her somewhere. He had not emerged again either.
“Take your place at the center of us once more. Face me again.”
Naero did so, resisting an urge to massage several bruises.
Klyne positioned himself directly in front of her, sitting lotus fashion just like her and the others.
“I’m going to attempt to merge directly with your mind telepathically, one of my gifts. I’m also an Auralcognitor. Once I link with your mind, I can sense any type of psyonic energy field you might have, active, passive, or latent. I might even be able to trigger or bring them out to the surface. There might be some discomfort. Shall we proceed?”
“Sure.”
“Do as I do. I will show you how to place your hands to effect the mind merge.”
Klyne cupped his left hand firmly behind the base of her skull.
Naero followed his lead.
He placed the fingers of his right hand on precise spots on her face.
Thumb on her forehead, directly between her eyes.
Index finger on her left temple.
The next two fingers curled slightly in front of her left ear. His smallest finger hooked at the point of her ear and jaw.
As soon as Naero placed her right hand the same way, she gasped slightly.
Thin hairs of what felt like burning hot energy threaded their way slowly through the layers of her awareness.
She could feel Klyne connecting with her thoughts, joining their two minds.
The dull ache continued to grow.
“You should be feeling the initial discomfort. Hold still. Keep focusing. Almost there. Almost...”
A spike of pure agony exploded within her skull.
Naero screamed, transfixed as if by lightning.
Through the torment, a voice awoke in her mind full-force.
Protocols unlocked and engaged. We...are.
Interface...partial.
Om awoke, reacting instinctively with fear and vast power.
Threat detected...Protect all access.
Neural net...INTRUSION. UNWARRANTED.
LEVEL 1.359 DEFENSIVE RESPONSE.
An intense blast wave of white-hot psyonic energy fanned out rapidly from the epicenter of her immolated mind.
Naero continued to scream.
As if far away in the distance, Klyne and his two adepts also shrieked.
*
Naero blinked, her eyes and mouth frozen open.
She lay with her head to one side, in a puddle of her own mixed blood and spittle.
More pain struck her when she attempted to move.
Blood continued to stream from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth–a bloody mess.
It felt as if a fusion grenade had blown her head open.
She reached up with her hands, to make sure her skull was still intact.
Some kind of noise.
Warning alarms sounded.
A ship. Yes, they were on a ship. The Spacer Intel Ship The Kathmandu. She was...being tested, for the Mystics.
Something had gone terribly wrong.
Naero focused, getting to her hands and knees.
She heard other voices, groaning and whimpering.
Makita lay sprawled in a broken tangle, blasted across the room. His gray clothing had be
en shredded and scorched into tatters. He choked and coughed.
To the other side, Iselle fared little better. She lay convulsing, blasted, scorched, a yellow-white bone of her forearm sticking out of her wrenched flesh. One side of her face was blistered, her red hair burned, some of it still smoking. She trembled and shuddered in pain and terror.
Naero looked around for Klyne, and found the instructor in a burned, bloody heap, lying beneath a dark red smear on the far wall. His hands were charred black, and he was missing fingers.
Naero could not walk. She couldn’t even stand. She crawled to Klyne as quickly as she could.
He still lived, just barely.
Then she noticed the intense effects of the blast, all around the room, less than a meter up.
A massive expanding ring of Cosmic force had sliced into the duranadium hull of the smartwalls, punching a deep crease right through them where they buckled, all along its full diameter.
The force of the strike disrupted all systems. The entire training room was compacted, crushed, and heavily damaged.
Rescuers struggled to force their way through the various ruined doors and access panels.
(Naero’s Gambit Amazon Link: http://amzn.to/1lx5Tyy)
Want to find out what happened during the High Crusade? Please enjoy the following teaser from the next book in this new spinoff series that we call:
THE CITATION SERIES, BOOK TWO
NAERO’S
WAR:
THE
HIGH
CRUSADE
by Mason Elliott
General Walker’s Marines from Bravo Command maneuvered into position under the cover of darkness using their stealth gear.
Naero agreed to slip in ahead and bait the trap, in her battlefield role as Shettana–The Dark Angel of Death.
Get ready, Om. The show’s about to start.
I will need some time to prepare, concentrate, and focus enough of our energies in reserve, before you deplete them all.
Just get ready and keep us ready. I’m going to set our game plan in motion.
I will do all that I can to assist. Call upon me when you require me. Good hunting, Naero.
Thanks, Om.
The invaders would do anything to have a chance to destroy or capture her.
She was–in fact–the actual, literal bait, and the trap was being set for an entire invasion force of Ejjai elite, ravaging the Corps border world of Tholos-4.
No local planetary army, military, or militia had been able to stand before the horrific onslaught of the alien invaders.
The Ejjai hammered the local landers into submission with advanced artillery, orbital bombardment from Ejjai fleets, and close assault gunships and gravtanks.
Then the terrifying collection process began, and all the living, wounded, and dead were hurled into the shrieking, whining processing blades of the robotic meatships.
The horrible sounds of the meatships warred with the screams of their countless victims.
Given time, Ejjai mass cloning factories and robotic ship and weapon-building factories would also be established onworld.
The murdering bastards had already wiped three major cities and their mixed populations off the surface of the hapless planet, before Naero and the Marines could even deploy on world.
The enemy left those lost cities little more than red, blackened, burning scars and stains that could be viewed from orbit.
Nothing left alive.
Ejjai hyaenanoids loved carrion.
Every man, woman, and child of any kind, species, or age that the enemy captured was routinely tortured, killed, and processed into rotting ration blocks in the horrific, robotic meatships of the invading aliens. That included any sentients, pets, livestock—anything and everything that was meat.
The meatblock rations were only frozen to keep them from breaking down, and decaying completely.
Hatred was too gentle a word for what most humans felt for the Ejjai invaders and their extreme methods. Spacers, landers, and each of the other known races that encountered the Ejjai quickly learned to feel the same way.
This vile, uplifted, intrusive and opportunistic species needed to be completely exterminated, wherever it was encountered.
The invaders proved that they were incapable of co-existing with any other living things.
The Ejjai could only dominate, torture, and destroy all life that they encountered, anything they could sink their teeth and claws into. Uplifting them, and giving them advanced weapons and starships had only turned them into a galactic abomination, an interstellar menace, a virulent plague.
An utter nightmare.
One that needed to end for the poor people of Tholos-4.
Naero and her Marine allies were here to see to that.
It was amusing that the Ejjai always saw themselves as invincible, the supreme warriors.
Shettana and Bravo Command quickly intended to disavow the foe of such jaded notions, time and time again.
The Marines of Bravo Commander were the textbook picture of professional warriors. A legend among all the known systems.
Naero loved serving with the elite of the elite. Together they made a fantastic team.
Even the Ejjai had learned grudgingly to fear them from their initial engagements, and the proof was there.
Every invader force that came up against Bravo Command had been completely wiped out–in record time. And then Bravo quietly packed up and headed on to the next world, ready to do it all over again.
The enemy struggled to halt the Spacer advance and throw it back.
They tried everything they could think of.
Increased enemy numbers.
Different tactics.
New weapons–traps and tricks of many different kinds.
The Ejjai generals turned themselves inside out trying to find a solution–way to achieve victory against the Spacer advance.
Bravo Command slipped in and ruined the invaders’ sick, twisted party, every single time.
And Shettana, The Dark Angel of Death, used all of her amazing, Mystic powers and abilities to help the Marines keep up the pressure, and drive the enemy to terror, madness, and distraction.
General Walker worked closely with Spacer Intel, always making sure his leathernecks had the latest high-tek toys, weapons, and armor that came online.
As a result, they landed an entire Marine Division on Tholos-4 and slipped into position, without the enemy even knowing they were there yet.
By the time the Spacer Fleets swept in to destroy the enemy naval forces–Bravo Command would already be implementing their plan to put the foe down hard and fast on the ground.
Three Marine infantry regiments, one artillery regiment, plus specialized units of meks, armor, and air-to-ground support.
The ghosts of Bravo Command spread the impending Shadow of Vengeance and Death over their foes like an unseen net, without any knowledge or awareness among the invaders themselves.
Bravo and Shettana prepared for another stunning series of lightning attacks.
All became poised and ready, while the heedless enemy celebrated their vile victories and atrocities.
Naero struggled to remain silent as she slipped in among the foe. Death and damnation to any invader who thought they could invade the human sectors with impunity, death, and Cosmicide.
On every world, the invader needed to be taught that bloody lesson.
Naero strode right into the belly of the beast.
Alone.
Defiant.
Confident in her skills and abilities and all of her comrades depending on her and backing her up.
Her cloaked combat armor made her virtually invisible. The Ejjai could not even smell her.
She used her gravwing to slip into the most heavily guarded command and control bunker the enemy possessed. With her skill and her tek, she could crawl upside down on the ceilings like an unseen insect.
Her miniature vidcams and audio collectors fed data to Intel in r
eal time, covering everything she saw.
Naero’s small contingent of cloaked Intel fixers and microdrones stayed close, ready to disrupt key enemy systems and communications when ready, planting microbombs and detonation devices as they went.
The Invader High Command celebrated their latest triumph with what one might expect from them–a huge, decadent, disgusting feast–held within a shielded bunker.
They set up their victory celebration within a huge underground arena, probably used by the Tholosians for some kind of urban or regional sporting event.
Ejjai got drunk on stinking, fermented grog made from human blood. They shipped it in from the meatships by the tankerful.
Under the bright lights of the hi-tek arena, tens of thousands of Ejjai feasted and celebrated their latest victories. The enemy generals praised their troops and used the huge arena vidscreens to plot out their next attacks on the three nearest Tolosian cities.
On the center of the playing field, Ejjai transports and appropriated trucks had also hauled in and dumped huge piles of human corpses from the local population for their undefeated troops to feed on.
Piles of fresh and not so fresh meat, diverted from the enemy meatships to help sate the troops in large numbers.
One of the piles was all dead children and infants.
Even worse, to Naero’s horror, some of the bodies in the various meat piles were somehow still alive. They twitched or cried out in pain and terror. Some weakly attempted to crawl away, despite broken or missing limbs.
The Ejjai quickly seized them and began tormenting them even further, laughing hysterically at the sport. They stabbed, cut, and skinned them alive—or otherwise got creative.
As Ejjai were wont to do.
Ejjai were among the vilest, most disgusting creatures Naero had even encountered.
She resisted the very strong impulse to cut loose on them right then and there.
But she couldn’t–not yet.
These monsters needed to die. Every single one of them.
And very soon, she would have a direct hand in launching the attack that would accomplish just that.
The timing had to be just right, so she steeled herself.
B00M0CSLAM EBOK Page 49
