“Keep it up until we’re out of the gigacity,” she commanded. “Bail out before they blow!”
Both dueling megatanks exploded just outside of the gigacity. Shetanna and the Marines on both vehicles just barely got out in time.
By then, all four megatanks were neutralized or destroyed, and the rest of the enemy invaders were hunted and cut down in a matter of two hours after that. Victory had at last been achieved.
36 celebrated on Sixthday Binge Night. Naero and Jonny scored some bottles of Spacer Poteen and went to get drunk with Chime and a few other of their mates.
But when they found Chime, she was all by herself in her bunk with what looked like a new book.
And a blaster pistol beside her within reach.
Even her cousin Jonny and Naero approached cautiously. Chime didn’t always like to be interrupted when she was reading. She had been known to get a bit testy.
They watched and observed her for a bit, all the while inching closer.
As long as Chime’s hand didn’t drift to her pistol, they were fine.
Suddenly she slipped her golden book mark in, snapped the hardcover book shut, and tossed her head back with a deep and satisfied sigh.
Chime closed her pretty brown eyes, gritted her teeth, and stamped her drumming bare feet under her blanket in a little happy dance. She literally squealed with glee.
Jonny’s mouth drooped open. “Wow. That must be some book!”
Then a serious look washed over Chime’s enraptured face. “Haisha!” she yelled. “I’ve been reading all day. Get out of my way, guys. I hafta pee!”
Not wanting to get wet, they made way for her as she streaked for the head.
When she returned, they were still waiting for her.
Without even being asked, Chime began gushing about the book. “Guys, this was one of the best books I’ve read, in years. It’s called The Library of Alantia, by Jack Ruel. There’s this magical library, see? And it has the power to roam from city to city and world to world. Some of the books are magic as well, and allow the readers to actually enter those worlds. Those special books are actually magical gateways into still other worlds and dimensions.”
Chime barely paused to suck in a breath.
“But the best part is the main character, named Chimaera. And it’s scary, because this character is me. And I mean, she isn’t just like me. She is me. Scatterbrains, and book crazy and all. She even looks like me. But Chimaera is in great danger. There’s all of this sorcery and intrigue. Her parents died in a mysterious fire years ago that destroyed the book they were in and part of the library itself. And get this! Chimaera was raised by her batty grandfather, one of the chief librarians–and by and within the magical books themselves! And there are these evil mages and dark demigods trying to take control of this library, which is the last of its kind, thanks to the bad guys. Then there are the Vixani, the werefox people who are both allies and trickster guardians of the ancient librarians. Jimmy the foxboy is a shapeshifter friend that Chimaera grew up with, but they get into dire trouble up to their necks. And then, just when you think Chimaera is dead, this beautiful dark wizard boy named Aston saves her and they become allies and lovers and it is all so terrifying and wonderful, heartbreaking, and romantic! His own father is the leader of the dark mages, but his mother was one of the demigods who actually wrote the magic books for the libraries, and she passed that power on to her son–before her husband murdered her–but Aston doesn’t know that yet. Whatever Aston writes in one of the Cosmic books actually happens in some dimension somewhere. The bad guys want to destroy the library, the magic books, and the remaining demigods who write them–
“Chime, Chime!” Naero kept shouting and waving her hands above her head to get her friend’s attention. “That’s great. We’re all very happy for you. Where in the hell did you get this book?”
That stopped her in her tracks. Chime’s mouth fell open and she looked completely stupefied. “Why…I…I don’t know. I didn’t buy it. I just found it on top of one of my crates today. I opened it up and started reading out of curiosity, and I just couldn’t put it down.”
They all chuckled.
Then Peter Cooper from Squad 4 walked up. “I gave you the book, Chime,” he told her. “In thanks for all of the Reading Nights and great books that you’ve shared with all of us. With my great thanks.”
Pete was one of the quiet and sturdy ones, a bit lanky, but still ruggedly handsome. He wore his dark hair rather long, and he had dreamy gray eyes that looked as if they could drill through titanadium.
Yet those eyes looked softer and even yearning whenever he looked at Chime. They hadn’t noticed that much before, until now.
She glanced up at him and her lips parted slightly and caught her breath. “How did you know, Peter?”
He smiled at her. “Know what, Chime?”
“How did you know that I would love this book so much?”
Peter sighed, holding her gaze. “Because I’m the author, Chime. That’s my pen name. I wrote that book for you. I know you from all of your books. I know what you like to read. You’re exactly right; you are Chimaera. In every way.”
Chime trembled and sucked in a deep breath. She came forward, placing her hand on Peter’s chest, lifting her brown eyes to his.
Now it was his turn to gasp and close his gray eyes at her touch.
“You’re Aston,” Chime said. “In his language in the book it means the stone…the stone that never breaks. Just like Peter is for Petra, the rock. You wrote this book for me?”
Peter nodded. “And don’t worry. Once you reach the end, it stops on sort of a dire cliffhanger, but I am working on a sequel!”
Chime clenched her fists. “Oooh, I can’t stand this. I must read the rest now. Then you can show me the work in progress.”
“I can’t,” he said with a laugh. “It isn’t finished yet. You’ll have to wait. Why don’t we pick up where you left off. I could read some of it to you.”
Chime was suddenly like a lantern or a beacon, lit from within. “I’d like that. We can read together. You do a chapter, and then I’ll read the next. Oh, you must sign this copy for me.”
“I already did. Didn’t you see it?”
“Haisha, how could I have missed it? I just started reading. Who looks at the front matter anymore?”
They grabbed the book and strolled off together, babbling away.
Naero and Jonny Fox just stood there staring at them.
“What the hell just happened here?” Jonny said.
Naero giggled and tossed him a poteen bottle. “You’re cousin’s a lucky girl, Jonny. I think she just fell in love, and apparently with a secret admirer she’s had for quite a while. How about that? Pete’s crazy for your crazy cousin.”
Jonny just stared after them, a worried look on his face. “Huh.”
“Oh, come on,” Naero told him. “Chime deserves someone exactly like Pete. We know him. He’s a good guy, and a great Marine. A bit quiet, but the guy was practically made for her. Be happy for Chime.”
Jonny Fox nodded. “I am, N.” But he still looked slightly worried.
26
The invaders tried something different on Jamie-8. Unfortunately this was one of the first worlds where the invaders had struck, and they had been there a long while. Meatships and cloneships were running full tilt.
After losing half of its Capital Class System population of fifteen billion humans and near-humans, the entire planet was in disarray and abject confusion. Resistance was sporadic, and the invaders held sway over half of the planet.
While the Marines of Bravo Command attacked, the invaders suddenly cut their losses and attempted to flee, taking with them anything they could steal.
On Jamie-8, they had amassed fleet after fleet of all manner of stolen starships: merchant craft, liners, couriers, mine haulers, and yachts. Every type of vessel and starship imaginable.
These thousands upon thousands of starships, taken from their murd
ered owners, gave them many cobbled-together fleets.
Bloodships.
The invaders launched all of them at once, hiding behind the dense screen of smaller vessels.
At first the Spacer Navy closed in, trying to blockade the way. They started systematically blasting the ships trying to escape, cutting off others, and using Marines to board and pacify them when and where possible.
Then the Marines reported that the ships were packed not only with Ejjai and contraband–but with human captives and hostages, many of them pregnant women and children. Such prisoners were always the prized prey of the vile invaders.
“All ships, stop firing,” Major Luna told the Navy. “Trap the ships or have fighters disable them. We must capture them and keep them from jumping. The Ejjai have filled all of their bloodships with hostages! I say again…”
The naval blockade closed in tight, closing off any attempt to escape. The Spacer warships still destroyed the invader warships–including the cloneships and meatships.
Marine boarding craft began systematically clearing the trapped ships. They stunned everyone on board or pumped the ships full of sleep gas.
Then the Ejjai started blowing vessels up on their own, rather than allow them to be captured.
Om, this is going to a bloodbath. Think. How can we head this off?
More rapid-acting stun gas, N. Have the fixers or Marines slip onboard and flood each of the bloodships with the new stun gas. If the boarding craft or naval ships can get in close enough, they can use mass stunners. That’s the only way to neutralize the Ejjai and do this fast enough to save lives.
Naero proposed those exact courses of action straight up the chain, clearing them through Spacer Intel and Command. Om had already coordinated every fixer cloud and instructed the medical fixers to prepare large quantities of fast action stun gas.
The fixer clouds swarmed on the bloodships and filled each one that they could with the fast-acting gas. Even where the Ejjai wore EV suits or combat armor, special Intel cloaked insertion drones slipped onboard and immobilized any foes who could not otherwise be taken down by the gas. They used stun needles or actual shock charges or stun grenades, if nothing else.
Even so, with that many ships, it took a long time to dispose of that many Ejjai on all of the captured vessels. Marines and naval crews and landers chucked the invaders out of airlocks. Many of the Ejjai got sucked back down into the planet’s gravity well and flared in bright sparks, burning up on reentry.
It would be a major undertaking to reclaim and deal with all of those remaining starships and captives onboard each of those vessels. But eventually, the bloodships were systematically landed in safe areas and emptied out.
There were still some pockets of heavy fighting onworld as well. Naero and Bravo Command focused on eliminating them.
The enemy did their best to conduct their military actions right in the middle of the most densely populated areas. It kept them from being bombed into oblivion outright, and allowed them to do the most damage possible before they were put down.
At times, Naero grew tired of the constant, brutal fighting.
But she was really good at what she did. As an MCL, she was one of the best, if not the best.
Killing and exterminating Ejjai, perhaps one of the vilest and most hyper-violent species ever encountered by humanity, was an art form to her now.
Each time Naero looked down at a dead civilian, sprawled upon a war torn street, she realized very clearly, exactly what her duty was: to utterly defeat and destroy the Ejjai.
The invasion had to be crushed, as quickly as possible, world by world. Every second that she kept fighting perhaps just brought the war that much closer to being over. And just maybe, fewer helpless people of all ages would be mutilated and killed.
For all defenders, dead civies and especially dead children were always the worst thing to run across. The invaders did not always have time to collect all of the dead for the meatships right away, especially in heavily populated areas. Yet that did not keep them from killing everyone in sight and then pushing on.
The invaders actually enjoyed rotting carrion.
They could always come back, given the chance.
Like everyone else among the defenders, Naero was sick to death of seeing dead kids. Their dead faces haunted her when she slept, and several times she woke up, already sobbing. Their slack, open, helpless little mouths, sometimes filled with water, dirt, mud, or blood. Their milky dead eyes. Their stiff, pathetic little bodies, limbs, and hands and feet. Sometimes they were in pieces.
Even worse, sometimes they were only near death.
Sometimes they could be saved.
Sometimes all efforts to do so failed.
Everything about the war became a living, walking, breathing nightmare.
If only Naero could go through the rest of her entire life without seeing one more dead child.
Part of her would be willing to give almost anything for that. But the sickening war still raged on each day, on too many remaining worlds ahead of the High Crusade to save humanity.
Realistically, her personal wants simply did not matter. The war was the reality. The war was what it was.
Damn the invader scum.
She fought them, and slew them in great numbers wherever she and her brave Marines were sent, on world after broken and shattered world.
They brought hope and victory, where before there was none.
Shetanna slew the invaders–calmly, efficiently, and coldly–as fast as she possibly could.
When the invaders lay vanquished and dead on one world, it was then time to pack up and exterminate them on the next. She knew that many of the Marines of Bravo command felt almost completely the same way.
She knew by now that her good friend Jonny Fox was also something of a slight psyonic healer. Since he had saved her, she saw him also do the same for others. His talent wasn’t very strong, and he used it only in great need, to sustain life by giving his own life force directly to another. Doing so taxed him to a state of exhaustion and left him vulnerable or even helpless.
On three occasions that she knew of, her friend Jonny had saved the life of other wounded Marines in this fashion, keeping them alive at great risk and cost to himself until better help could be found.
One day, after a wild, pitched battle, Naero found Jonny passed out and near death himself, next to a dehydrated, dead lander boy of three. Jonny had clearly done everything he could to save the child, but in the end, it had all been for nothing. The little boy had been too far gone.
Naero used her own biomancy powers of healing to save Jonny’s life, and carried him back to his squad. Neither of them ever spoke about the situation thereafter.
She had seen the tears streaked down Jonny’s face that he had shed before he passed out, trying to save that poor lost little boy.
Everyone longed for the war to end. Haisha, let it end. And yet it dragged on.
Kill off the invaders to the last.
Rid all humanity of this scourge; end the atrocities.
End the vilest of wars that humanity and Spacers had ever endured.
And because the Bravo Marines so stoically shared her pain and torment each step of the way, Naero felt a deep abiding, familial love for her brothers and sisters. She fought jealously to protect them when she could, even to the point of exhaustion and taking harm herself.
Yet, in truth, they needed little protection. The elite Marines of Bravo Command were the premier warriors of their age, and warrior-for-warrior, they knew no equal.
With them, Shetanna grew to become even more than a legend among legends, revered even by the landers of the Corps worlds who had, before than time, hated and despised all Spacers and slurred them as murdering spacks. Now, Shetanna was nearly worshipped, much to the chagrin of the waning, out-of-favor Gigacorps who caused this entire mess.
In return, Naero’s Marine brothers and sisters loved and defended her with a loyalty that far surpassed all de
votion and ferocity.
They knew her weaknesses very well. Her Cosmic abilities taxed her, and many times she fought until the point of complete fatigue.
When she dropped, Bravo was waiting there to catch their dark angel in their arms and whisk her away to safety.
Woe to any foe who came against her to take her life.
The Marines fell upon any such threat that came against their fallen angel with an astonishing fury that was unmatched, and could hardly be believed, until it was actually witnessed up close and in person.
Shetanna’s protectors fought like guardian angels, and shattered all comers. They crushed such attackers with absolute and astounding, stunning annihilation.
General Walker himself even joked that Shetanna should simply exhaust herself on a daily basis in order to channel the fierce loyalties and awesome ferocity that she awoke in Bravo Command. The end of the war would simply come that much faster.
Naero didn’t have the heart to inform the general that that was how many days at the front actually went.
On Jamie-8, Shetanna and Bravo Command crushed the invaders without halt or mercy in nine of the ten largest gigacities on the planet.
Wherever they went, the lander leaders recognized them now, and cheered their names, flinging flowers at their feet, and heaped praise and adoration upon them.
Yet that wasn’t what any of the victors really wanted.
They just wanted the fucking war to end.
27
Chickamauga-7 was a funny little world–an earthlike moon, actually, in an area of blank space, with only five hundred million people.
It wasn’t even important enough to be part of any major trade route. Yet it was, just barely, a mining outpost, and a small naval base and research facility. Rumor had it, on good authority, that the system had been first colonized by accident, and then used as a hideout by smugglers and pirates for a time, before becoming slightly more respectable and useful.
Naero's War: The Citation Series 2: The High Crusade Page 26
