Nevano Kinmal shook his head.
“After Heaven-7, we all know what Triax is capable of,” he said. “But we still cannot guarantee that any of that will not repeat itself in the future. Triax is controlling these genocide devices and their use, not us.”
Naero jumped in. “But we can still do all that is possible to prevent as much death and destruction that can be avoided, for the good of all.”
“One major problem with that. It can’t work,” Aunt Sleak said, looking down at her data pad and shaking her head.
Everyone stared at her.
Sleak looked up at them. “Look at the raw math–the logistics. We’d need so many ships, crews, Intel agents, boots on the ground. Hundreds of liberated worlds to pacify and cleanse already. Hundreds more coming online. Billions, trillions to protect. To accomplish all that, would bring the war to a whimpering halt, and that cannot be. Above all else, Triax must fall.”
Shalaen glanced at Naero.
They held hands for a moment, looked into each other’s eyes, and then nodded to one another.
“There is still another way,” Naero said.
“Impossible,” Admiral Joshua said. “Admiral Sleak is correct. You would need another force–almost the size of the Alliance itself. There is no such force in existence.”
Naero placed her hands on her hips.
“Wrong. There is such a force. We already control hundreds of billions–trillions of Triaxian prisoners and populations. And tens of thousands of captured Corps fleet ships, military and private. Even among the Alliance, we can’t train crews fast enough to refit and re-launch those ships in time to be used for the war effort. So why not let the defection teams use them as is? They’ll work just fine for that.”
“What are you saying?” Nevano Kinmal stated.
“Recruit the Triaxian naval prisoners. Put Admiral Sandusky and his network in charge of the defection process, on a scale we could never hope to organize. Let the peoples of these liberated worlds pursue the zealots and terrorists directly harming them–as only truly free people can.”
Aunt Sleak nodded, staring down at her shifting calculations again, adding the new parameters.
“That…could work. But there will be infiltrators, turncoats.”
Naero held up her hands. “Then they will be put down, with extreme prejudice. What do we have to lose? No system or effort is going to be perfect during wartime. Yet this will still save many more lives than if we do nothing, and simply prosecute the war to its end. And this way, the liberated worlds will taste their own freedom and responsibility for the first time, and join the Alliance in these ways, protecting their own worlds and populations against what they see now as their true enemies.”
The three admirals conferred and came to a quick agreement.
“We will need to discuss these matters in great detail with Admiral Sandusky, and Spacer Intel,” Aunt Sleak noted.
Very grudgingly, her aunt added briefly. “Good work, captain. This has the potential to be a major breakthrough that we weren’t even looking for.
Naero smiled, and let out a great sigh.
“Of course,” she said. “Thank you, sir.” Naero saluted.
And she meant it.
21
Once she regained her command, Naero learned that The Silver Devil had somehow gone missing during its pursuit of the enemy phantom fleets.
It happened, unfortunately, during the events on the surface of Vaelos-1 and thereafter.
Naero and Strike Fleet Six went immediately to join the wide search to help track and locate the lost vessel, scanning near its last reported positions.
The Silver Devil was a three-thousand ton light missile frigate, with a crew of one hundred and thirty, led by Captain Kono Decker. Their crew also included a Spacer Marine rifle platoon of forty-eight Marines from the 3rd Division Death Eyes, commanded by Second Leftenant Mickey Flynn, and Staff Sergeant Kaely Chang. Naero knew them all well.
The longer the search went on, the more Naero grew worried about what they would find, if anything.
In any interstellar naval war, the distances were so vast. A small ship on extended patrol could get separated, ambushed, and destroyed by larger enemy elements before any help could reach them. It could happen by nothing but unhappy chance.
Yet it continued to be strange that no distress calls had come from The Silver Devil, reporting any initial trouble. Just her last auto-reported position…and then, nothing.
In most cases like this, there was at least something to go on.
Enemy jamming during such an attack was possible, but warships did not normally vanish without a trace. Even if they were blasted to pieces, there would be wreckage or debris left behind that would show up on scans.
On the second day of the search, they finally located her.
The Silver Devil floated lifeless and without power in an asteroid field. That’s why they couldn’t find the ship until they got close enough.
Naero guessed the ship had been attacked and then dumped there to hid it.
Towships ventured into the asteroid field and brought the lost ship out.
Everyone understood at this point that nobody on that ship was left alive. Scans showed many bodies, but no survivors. This was a recovery.
Naero insisted on joining one of the investigation teams, once it was determined that there were no enemy booby-traps or demolitions awaiting the investigators–ready to detonate.
Tarim insisted on accompanying Naero, her regular guards, and her recovery team.
Leftenant Hayden had led the initial boarding and inspection team, after several full scans of the wreck. On closer inspection, The Silver Devil was found to be riddled with holes that could be clearly seen on visuals, more than twenty in all, at key breach points around the hull.
Yet the scans also revealed that none of these breaches in the hull were from enemy cannon fire. There had been no naval battle.
All these holes–were clearly from boarding tubes and boarding insertion craft.
Even on the largest warships, most boarding attempts by the enemy occurred during the heat of battle, when crews were naturally kept busy by their duties and actions during a fight. But even then, the boarding access points were no more than ten or twelve at a time.
Each enemy boarding party could be from twelve to two dozen, heavily armed attackers. Even if they couldn’t take over a ship, they would obviously do whatever they could to damage and disable it as much as possible–before the intruders were cut down or captured.
Several times, Naero’s ships had suffered heavy damage from such enemy boarding and sabotage teams, right in the midst of important battles. It continued to be a major concern.
“What do we have here, Jeremiah?” she asked over their link, on the way over with her people. “What happened to Kono and her crew?”
“Captain, it looks like they put up one hell of a fight, but they were boarded–apparently by surprise–and eventually overwhelmed.
“How many attackers?”
“I’m estimating nearly four hundred. Join me on the bridge for the walk through. That’s where the attack started. Be prepared, Cap. This isn’t pretty; not at all.”
Naero pursed her lips and gritted her teeth. Poor Kono and her brave crew. None of their family and friends knew that they were all gone yet.
Marines stood by preparing pods of body bags for the recovery, once the investigation was complete. Teks and their fixers already scurried about, under close guard, trying to get the vessel up and operating again. They’d tow it if they had to.
Hayden and the rest saluted Naero as she joined them on the bridge.
She saw Spacer dead everywhere, in bunches and ones or twos.
She saluted in return. “Leftenant, proceed with the walk through. I trust your expertise in these matters. Tell me how you think it went down.”
“The attack began here on the bridge. Captain Decker and seven of her crew were completely surprised and quickly di
spatched. They were killed, right at their stations. It’s hard to tell that now, because the bodies have been floating around.”
She spotted the eight bodies–one of them Kono. More spacer dead floated just inside the bulkhead blast doors leading into the bridge, and even more bodies down the corridor leading away.
“How were the captain and the bridge personnel killed so quickly, Leftenant?”
Hayden held up a clear evidence pouch.
Naero recognized the bloody contents–the infamous shape of a long, broken, metal battle blade. She knew that pattern very well.
“We took this out of the captain’s back. She was stabbed repeatedly, and the blade broke off at the hilt most likely. Do you recognize this style of–”
Naero cut him off. “I know my signature blades, Jeremiah. It is a ritual shokkog–the infamous calling card of the Hevangian Imperial Assassins of Triax Gigacorps. I’m guessing these blades were highly poisoned, too?”
“Indeed,” he said. “A cocktail of lethal, synthetic poisons–powerful enough to kill a whale. Even our Spacer metabolism couldn’t handle anything this toxic. The other seven bridge crew were knifed or cut down by them as well. All it had to do was enter their system. Even just a cut.”
“I get it. Continue,” Naero said.
Hayden led her out the bulkhead. “The rest of the bridge crew raised the alarm and fought their way off the bridge. Now it turned into more of a gun battle, and people fell on both sides. There was still gravity working on board, so you can still make out the bloodstains on the nanofloors and walls. Scans reveal which bloodstains were from Spacer crew–by name, and which were from the enemy invaders.”
Hayden sighed briefly and went on. “More combatants on both sides perished at the bridge entrance, and made a brief stand in the corridor, waiting for help to arrive. Where even more fell, during the course of the intense fight that progressed.”
Leftenant Hayden led them back through the vessel, explaining how the battle progressed throughout the ship.
“I can only think that the enemy must have jammed the ship, keeping anyone from getting off a distress call. The crew rallied and armed themselves, and made their way toward the forward areas of the ship to deal with the attackers. From the numerous blast impacts, the enemy held them off with grenades and explosives.
He pointed to the first access points of the enemy boarding teams. “Once the crew surged forward, the enemy gained further access to the ship from these many, undefended rear areas, in multiple locations, at well-chosen points. The foe had excellent timing. They then flooded the ship with more attackers–killed personnel wherever they were found–captured key areas, and then surrounded the remaining crew on the remaining decks, and swarmed on them to cut them down with heavy weapons and grenades.”
Naero studied the schematics of the ship, and where they found the largest piles of bodies. It looked like Hayden had it about right.
She saw where Marine Leftenant Mickey Flynn went down with one of the crew’s last stands, defending the access points to decks three, four, and five.
Jeremiah pointed out a failed push by Staff Sergeant Kaely Chang–and about forty Marines and crew–who nearly reached the power core with fusion charges, in a last ditch attempt to blow up the ship.
“For what it’s worth,” Hayden added, “the enemy took their dead and wounded with them–and there were a lot of them, by all of the blood spots left behind on the nanofloors. Bioscans tabulated–like I estimated–nearly four hundred enemy KIA or seriously wounded.”
Naero sighed deeply.
“Kono and her crew took the enemy down more than two-to-one. But in the end, all of our people still died–cut off and without help. This cannot be allowed to happen. Whatever we need to do to prevent and avoid this, we need to do it. All long range patrols will be in pairs from now on, and they must keep a few fighters deployed around them, at all times.”
“Captain,” Tarim protested, “That will spread the fleet too thin, and pull our long range patrols further back. More Alliance ships will be required to patrol the same areas. You’re talking a logistics nightmare. The Admirals will never buy it.”
Naero snarled and looked around her. “Then I’ll sell it to them, as hard as I have to. I’m not losing any more ships like this. Haisha! Damn it all.”
She leaned against the hull and took a few deep breaths.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Leftenant Hayden said, his voice low. “Do we have your permission, to begin the recovery phase.”
Naero shook her head. “Yeah. Go ahead. Have the teams collect our people, and prepare them for wakes and burial. Have the teks keep working on refitting the ship enough for us to bring her in.”
She stopped for moment.
“Jeremiah,” she said. “One thing still bothers me.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“I believe, just as you said, that the attack began on the bridge, and then from the other boarding points, once the crew charged forward to retake the bridge. But that still doesn’t make any sense. How did they penetrate the bridge to begin with? None of those twenty access points were anywhere near the bridge.”
Hayden shook his head, too. “That’s the mystery part, sir. I can’t figure it out either, but that’s how it went down.”
“Kono and her people were dead before they knew it,” Naero said. “How in the hell did the initial, enemy assault forces get on the bridge, and surprise Kono and her people so completely? It’s as if they came through the blast doors and the hull–and fell upon the crew like ghosts, or something. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does not. The enemy doesn’t have teams of psionic users who can phaze through walls.”
Naero snorted. “I’ve met a few Spacers who can phaze through solid objects. It takes a lot of concentration, and usually they have to be naked. They can only do so slowly, and it’s very risky and even potentially lethal–especially if the user gets stuck in a solid object.”
“Perhaps more information will come out, sir.”
“I hope so, Jeremiah. We don’t need any more mysteries like this one.”
22
Naero held another sword practice days later, designed especially for the ship captains of Strike Fleet Six–this time focused on the use of the energy cutlass.
They met in one of the sword rooms, specially-designed practice rooms on board The Hippolyta, filled with various types of swords, from thousands of worlds.
By now, she and Ima had also helped modify their special practice rooms for knife fighting. Many Spacers prided themselves on their skills with various blades, so they expanded the program.
With some like Naero and Ima, such skills bordered on being an obsession. They had been raised by their families to master such weapons.
The energy cutlass was widely recognized as one of the badges of a Spacer ship captain.
It was not just a gilded accessory, but a deadly weapon in its own right. And it took long years of practice and training to achieve and maintain one’s skill level with it.
At least thrice each week, when possible, Naero made time for her people to train with the energy cutlass–and other swords–if they were so inclined.
Her captains saw it as a chance to blow off some steam with her on a personal basis.
And several–being competitive as Spacers naturally were–strove to best her, at something at least.
A few had come close, thus far–but Naero had not lost a sword match yet.
Naero set that bar high and defended it, as usual, with all of her exceptional ability and skill. If she lost a match one day, she lost. But she would make the victor earn such a victory.
Yet today, all the chatter was about the new ship captain arriving with one of the replacement ships. A new advanced battleship, The Strongheart.
But it was the new captain of The Strongheart that had everyone talking, whispering, and buzzing.
And these weren’t just rumors any longer. He was actually here.
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Max Lii–the famous Spacer Throck Star joined Naero’s strike fleet–the vibrant young hunk whose dreamy, powerful music and catchy lyrics pounded the airwaves everywhere, as many ships shot into battle.
He was especially popular with young female fighter pilots, who all but swooned for him.
Max had a thing for female fighter jocks, and openly dated several top, starfighter pilot aces, who also happened to be incredibly hot themselves.
Other than her parents in years past, Naero had never spent much time around a real celebrity before.
This could prove to be interesting.
Captain Max had already promised that he and his various bands would help entertain the crew on shore leaves. Like many others, Naero enjoyed several of his hit songs and had many in her personal mixes. They were heady, romantic, even wild and heart pounding. Max was clearly a superb entertainer. But he was also a Spacer.
He had insisted on being assigned to Naero’s strike fleet.
Aunt Sleak insisted that despite his fame as an entertainer, Max was an excellent leader, pilot, and a fine warrior.
He’d better be–if he was going to command one of Naero’s newest heavy battleships, The Strongheart. That ship was the permanent replacement for the loss of The Wombat.
Max could show up at any time for his first sword practice.
Naero dueled with captains as they came and went, but everyone seemed to be hanging around that day, hoping to meet their new fleet celeb.
She crossed swords with rugged Mike Marshall, her fleet second in command of their lead Carrier, The Condor.
Mike was tall, lanky, strong and quick–one of the seven who kept coming close. But everything with him was overpowering full-on, frontal assaults with nothing held back. Daunting and formidable, but Naero still used several clever tricks to slip around his predictable attacks and defeat him.
Citation Series 1: Naero's War: The Annexation War Page 14
