Naero's Mastery

by Mason Elliott

  More applause and cheering.

  “You are free to join the Alliance, or not join the Alliance. The only thing that will not be allowed is for the arbitrary and insane tyranny of the Gigacorps extremism to continue to shackle humanity and hold it back. That is now illegal. Never again will they dominate and enslave others as they once did. Humanity is now free to truly face the challenges of the future. But we must remain cautious and vigilant.

  “As we have all witnessed, we have cunning alien enemies who are still out there in depths of space and even lurking in other dimensions, hi-tek foes who constantly plot our defeat and destruction. If humanity is going to survive such threats, they must learn to work and stand together in the defense of this galaxy as never before! These monsters have clearly infiltrated our worlds and our leaders, but now we have the means to expose and take them out. We will not allow these enemies to manipulate and destroy us from within!”

  Another round of tumultuous cheering erupted.

  “If we stand together, and continue to ally ourselves with other sentient races who respect and honor freedom, we can rise to the challenge and face the threats and possibilities that the future will bring together. We can explore our galaxy and eventually bring freedom, reason, and peace to every part of it!”

  She shook both of her fists in a gesture of triumph and challenge.

  “Live free or die, humanity!”

  With that, Shetanna turned and swept away, floating the remaining captured shapeshifters along with her to turn them over to Spacer Intel for questioning or eradication and further study.

  Cheering and celebration continued over multitudes of liberated worlds, now basking in the uncertain glow of new freedom.

  Naero knew full well that the declaration of liberty was just the easy part up front. Taking responsibility for one’s freedom and managing and sustaining liberty for planet after planet was going to be the hard part.

  Doing so might take generations.

  But at least now, humanity had the opportunity to do so.

  With the delegation completed, Naero would contact the Spacer Mystics. She had already spoken to Khai before he left, and he was in full agreement and support with her decision.

  She had put these things off far too long.

  Naero checked in with Khai, and then with Sharrah. Fleet-1 happened to be one sector over by coincidence, but Naero wasn’t planning on going back. Just a daily call to see the kids and everyone.

  While she and Sharrah were catching up, the alert warning erupted in the nursery.

  “What is it, Sharrah. What’s happening?” Naero demand.

  Sharrah remained calm, checking with the bridge and ship security. “I have to go Naero. We’re under heavy attack. Enemy phaze teams are boarding us. Get here if you can! We’re going to be all right.”

  Sharrah pweaked her combat armor up, drew a blaster, and summoned a blazing katana with a purple energy blade in her other hand.

  Then enemy jamming cut off the link.

  Naero instantly phazed into battle mode herself and sealed up.

  She contacted Khai and told him to get to the flagship if possible.

  She left a message for Ty through Alala and Om, and then they transported out into space. Naero startapped until she was topped off with Cosmic energy.

  From there she focused, got a lock on The Holy Ghost, and transported directly to it.

  Fleet-1 was engaged and fully involved in heavy combat against ten alien fleets. Naero’s Fleets-3, 4, and 5 busied themselves carving up the invaders and waiting for reinforcements on their way.

  But the flagship was covered with enemy stealth and phazed boarding craft that now showed themselves and who troops penetrated the ship proper to duke it out with the crew.

  Starfighters blasted off the boarding vessels, like removing ticks from a hound, but by then it was too late. The enemy boarding teams had already inserted.

  Clearly this was a suicide mission trying to take out Naero’s family, once she and Khai were gone.

  The largest concentration of boarding craft were clustered closest to the flagship’s nursery.

  Naero and Om analyzed the situation, noting where the highest concentration of foes were.

  Of course, they were on all sides of the nursery, fighting with the crew response teams, ship’s troops, and doing everything they could to break into the nursery itself.

  At one key point they were about to do just that.

  Naero ignited her swords and transported straight in.

  3

  The first thing Naero and Om noticed as she sliced through the initial dozen or so assassins with her blades was that these were not the same, freeze-pop Ejjai shock troops.

  These were second generation, enhance killers, larger, faster, and stronger. Even smarter, dare she say it. They weren’t as stupid as regular Ejjai and they thought and performed with greater military and tactical discipline and precision.

  Explosions rocked the nursery and the flagship up ahead. Naero nearly panicked.

  She raced in.

  Anything that looked like an enemy she exploded with Cosmic force, nearly reducing them to ash, whether they were moving or not.

  She was not fooling around.

  Naero, fifty three enemy dead. They resorted to suicide fusion bombs, taking out most of the nursery blast shields, chambers, and themselves in an attempt to gain entry.

  Where are my kids Om? Fuck these slashers. Cut to the chase. Are my babies all right? Because I’m about to lose it.

  Stay calm. Everyone’s fine, for the moment. Sharrah transported herself, the kids, and the entire staff into the large greenhouse and hydroponics chamber in the adjacent green zone. But the enemy is tracking them somehow, after the explosions, and giving chase. I count three hundred and twelve enemy boarders closing in from several directions, including heavy meks and flying gunsuits. Response teams engaging from the other ends.

  Naero transported into the greenhouse and saw Sharrah and the staff using a shield generator to protect themselves and hold the enemy off.

  They were already under fire from multiple enemy incoming, smashing their way through the plant pods and decorative trees and flowers.

  Gunsuits opened up with autoguns.

  Naero incinerated twenty three of them in seconds

  Then she impaled all of the meks on Cosmic energy rods and caused them to implode, reduced to hyper-dense balls of hot scrap.

  Another corridor blast shield door exploded off its hinges, and more foes poured in.

  Little Shetharra stood up and extended both hands. Here glowing hair became so radiant that it was blinding.

  A beam of white hot force as wide as she was tall arced through the room, destroying everything in its path.

  The beam went straight down the corridor packed with assassins, and annihilated them, blasting what little remained of them straight through several bulkheads and out past the ruptured hull of the flagship.

  When the squad level shield generator disrupted, Sharrah stepped in defiantly, shielding them all with her own energies.

  The raw firepower smashing into her shields continued to build.

  Little Shetharra stepped in front of Aunt Sharrah, and the shield instantly pulsed and became completely impenetrable.

  Naero raced down the middle of the attackers, gutting them, exploding their heads as she passed through them with her swords extended.

  From the corner of her eye, Naero saw several small things scuttling through the greenery of the chamber at high speed.

  Eight Shai mantids suddenly rose up behind the packed flanks of foes, foes concentrating on firing their weapons or hurling bombs at their targets. The Shai warriors towered twelve meters in the air, and their mood colors had switched to near jet black with fury and rage.

  The enemy was in for a very harsh surprise.

  Naero focus on transporting and phazing bombs and grenades outside into space, beyond the ship.

  She grinned, knowing full
well what was about to happen.

  The Shai mantid warriors hit the enemy and sliced through the attackers faster than the spinning blades of an Ejjai meatship. They literally mowed them down like a buzz saw passing through a field of wheat.

  A wounded attacker rose up behind Naero and tried to set off a huge fusion charge on its back.

  Kyra Apache leaped on the monster, a blazing blue energy blade in each hand. First she sliced off its arms, then she leaped into the air and severed its head with both blades slashing in opposite directions.

  Her war cry echoed throughout the chamber.

  She wheeled and kicked the enemy corpse away. It was over twice her height and mass, but it was also dead.

  “Mommy!” Shetharra yelled.

  Naero held up a hand and shouted. “Stay where you are until the ship is secure, sweetie. Stay with Sharrah.” She floated in the air and opened her third eye.

  She startapped and systematically hunted any other foes nearby with psyonics and exploded their heads, by the dozens.

  They weren’t getting any closer.

  When she was satisfied that all of the nearby connecting decks were clear, she went over to hug her kids, and check with Sharrah and the staff.

  Naero, the other ship battles are winding down. The Marines and the crew are quickly polishing the last pockets off. Reinforcements have arrived, and the remaining enemy warships are on fire, limping away.

  Thanks Om. I want a full analysis of all of this new enemy gear, and their second gen slaves. We can’t let them hit us the same way twice. When they adapt and try something new, we need to react and counter it quickly.

  Already in process. They are continuing to radically adapt their tek to neutralize and get past ours. We’ll try to stay ahead of them.

  Naero heard some heavy crunching sounds around the greenhouse.

  The Shai actually liked eating Ejjai, and helped clean up some of the mess on hand very quickly.

  Then they resumed their smaller size, and gathered in protectively as well. Their mood color began to fade from blue to red violet, and then pink around their edges.

  “No harm has come to our little ones?” Krin asked, her mandibles moving rapidly.

  “Thanks to all of you,” Naero said. She stepped forward and embraced each of the Shai mantids and planted a kiss on their heads. “many thanks to you, Krin, Mizha, Jintil, and Ethra.” Naero kept going until she had thanked all of them by name, and gave them high praise.

  All of the mantids bowed their heads and went from pink, almost to snow white. Each of them would have given their lives if need be, without question.

  After that, Naero personally thanked Sharrah for her clever thinking and action, and brave Kyra and the rest of the staff.

  Naero kissed her twins and the scooped up Shetharra in her arms. “You were very brave my little duck.”

  “Did I do good, Mommy? I couldn’t let them hurt Sharrah or anyone. They were mean and scary. I had to stop them. You’re not mad at me, are you?”

  “You did very well, my sweet girl. I couldn’t be prouder. Just, can you try not to punch holes in Mommy’s nice new ship?”

  “Okay, Mommy. I’ll try not to do that.”

  Khai showed up seconds later, his face worried until he locked eyes with Naero. One look, and he knew things were all right. They didn’t even need to exchange words.

  Both of them worked with Om and the flagship’s command staff in an effort to try and make sure that such a thing could not happen again. The outer hull and scanners were adapted, and special detector screens and onboard fixers were put in place to detect any kind of similar infiltration.

  These protocols and new tek specs rapidly went out to the entire Alliance Navy.

  Privately, both Naero and Khai were furious, and vented once they managed to be alone.

  “They went after our family directly,” Khai said, clenching his great fists, and hammering the hull until he dented it. “They clearly waited for us to leave before they struck.”

  Naero folded her arms in front of herself, experiencing a slow burn. “I’m so sick of reacting, just waiting for them to hit us again. We’ve lost track of them in the Gamma Quadrant, that’s where their bases are. They’ve gone into hiding almost. We need to take the fight to them, and hunt down their leaders. Their slaves are pushovers without them.”

  Khai sat down and shook his head. “I’m worried about my father’s people, the Oden. They’ve had to leave their homeworlds and go into hiding with the help of Intel and the Mystics. The enemy has a price on their heads, and are seizing Oden wherever they can attack and capture them. And we know all too well what they’re being used for.”

  Naero sighed. “Of course, dammit. Hosts for the many varieties of the enemy’s Darkforce generators, helping power the alien war machine and all of their vile plots. But we can’t take them down if we can’t find them.”

  “That’s exactly what the Mystics want me to do–go hunting. But how can I? How can we go off and do anything while we’re worried about something like this happening?”

  “Don’t worry. This time I’m leaving sixty of my best replicants to guard the Nursery in shifts. They can handle almost anything.”

  Khai let out a deep breath. “Well, I suppose that will do it. We’d better get going now that everything is under control. You don’t want to be late for Master Tree. You know how he is about punctuality.”

  “Screw that anal tool bag. He can damn well wait after what we just went through!”

  Khai burst out laughing.

  Naero joined him the next second.

  4

  Naero kindly requested that Strike Captain Tyber, the living ship AI Alala, and The Dark Star to personally escort her to the Spacer Mystic Homeworld of Tae’ha.

  A stealth ship should do the trick.

  Alala and Om were great friends, and spent the entire time rapidly gabbing back and forth over many hi-tek, teknomancy matters through their networks of tiny spyfixers. They did so, so as not to bother Naero.

  Naero suggested that the two AIs get a teknomancer room together somewhere.

  Om got the joke and replied, if only.

  Alala had no idea what they were babbling about, and perhaps that was a good thing.

  But with Om busy and happy, that gave Naero days to catch up with and enjoy Tyber, and his and Zhen’s young son Gallan, who was now four, going on five. Seeing the bright little boy almost made Naero cry, missing her two best friends from the past who had died well before their time.

  More than that, Naero still had a promise to keep. Zhen’s soul still resided within her, dormant, waiting for her to bring her friend back into existence somehow.

  Thus far, such a way had eluded her.

  He was never pushy abut it, but at some point, Ty would inquire, and she would tell him not yet.

  Naero could do many amazing things, but the vast majority of the Lifespark’s secrets of life and death still eluded her, and all other mortals.

  Whenever she got the chance and the time was right, she sat little Gallan on her lap, and hugged and kissed him dearly, while the little boy laughed and giggled and hugged and kissed his Aunt Naero back.

  Of course, she wasn’t really his aunt exactly, but they always said that, just the same. I was what was in her heart that mattered.

  Naero would tell him about his namesake, what a fine young man Gallan had been, how he was strong, and a loyal friend, and a brave Spacer warrior. How he was funny, how he liked to eat good food, and enjoy life with his friends. Naero told stories about all the trouble the two got into growing up.

  Little Gallan surprised her by asking about his mom, Zhentisa. It should not have surprised her, but it did make her cry.

  She showed him pics and vids of his pretty mother, and told him stories about her, how she, too, was the best of friends. And she was a healer, a great physician and surgeon who helped people. Even as a child Zhen had had a gift to heal things. When Naero and all of their crazy friends d
id something stupid and got hurt, Zhen was there with them, to patch them up and begin the healing process.

  And even though she was not the greatest of warriors, she was still a fighter who believed in freedom, and stood by her friends and companions with undaunted bravery, until the very end.

  When Naero cried, Gallan would wipe Aunt Naero’s tears away and kiss her eyes as only a little loving boy could.

  She savored dinner one night with Ty, Alala, and Jynel, Naero’s replicant that she had stationed with Ty and his amazing ship to help advise and protect them.

  Except for her same size, Jynel had altered her appearance as many of Naero’s replicants chose to do. She had bright straight, shoulder-length orange hair with many shimmering highlights, cascading around her and halfway down her back, with green crystal eyes. Her skin was slightly darker and more tan.

  Whenever Naero rejoined with one of her reps, she always upgraded them as much as possible, passing on any new powers or abilities that she could. She did so almost instantly when they embraced.

  Naero could never pass on her greater Cosmic abilities, which always remained unique to her, yet many of her other powers and talents continued to grow, like her new ability to detect and expose the enemy shapeshifter symbiots. That was vital to pass on to the allies.

  And just as Naero shared her memories since their last meeting, Jynel shared hers, like how she thoroughly enjoyed being a part of Ty and Alala’s amazing crew, and her natural affection for little Gallan.

  Naero smiled at her ‘sister’ as she had begun to think of them. “You know, you are always free to go off and live your own life, any time you want.”

  Jynel smiled. “Not a chance. This is my place, my ship and my crew. This is where I choose to be. Thank you, eldest sister. How I would love to see your and Khai’s children again.”

  Naero spoke with her friends about their explorations, about their secret Intel missions hunting down the enemy.