Citation Series 1: Naero's War: The Annexation War (17 page)

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 3
rd
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 dispatched. 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 float
ed 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 bo
arding 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 to
ok 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 Ko
no 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 a
nother sword practice days later, designed especially for the ship captains of Strike Fleet Six–this time focused on the use of the energy cutlass.

The
y 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, s
he 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.

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 c
ould 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.

H
e 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.

As with knife-fighting practice, of course they did not use real energy cutlasses. In routine practice and for technique training, they used flex swords that simply bent
.

Yet for actual sparring matches, they used holosword blades with flex filament shock markers
.

A holo blade could appear to penetrate a body if enough force went behind a hit. And the shocking filaments would hit a person with an appropriate, painful shock charge, and leave behind a bright
, programmable fluorescent stain, showing exactly where a hit occurred.

Match
AIs tracked hits and would call out serious wounds or outright kills. All of this resulted in a realistic, but non-lethal form of fencing that was as real as sword practice could get.

Naero spun to the side and ran Mike Marshall through from armpit to armpit. He gnashed his teeth as the shock charge hit him
.

“Instant kill,” the match AI announced
.

Naero patted him on the should. “Better luck next time, Mikey
.”

Peni Kim, of
The
Black
Mosquito
, jumped at the chance to get her licks in next.

“Get ready for a fight today,
N. I’m in top form and I’m coming straight at you.”

“Then bring it, gal
. Let’s see what you’ve got!”

Peni leaped in and the fight
heated up, intense and flashing from the very outset.

Another of the seven, Peni was small and fast, like Naero. Her skin was light brown chocolate, her long, shining black hair divided to either side of her like
dark ropes in hair clasps.

Her hair glittered like her large black eyes. Her wide
, expressive mouth snarled like that of a lioness. She was a skinny little fireball, built like a teen girl, but with a ferocity ten times her size–unlike anyone Naero had ever fought.

They clashed and spun, and whirled and kicked
.

Today might just be the day
.

No one was on top forever
.

Then a commotion erupted behind their match
.

People began to shout and scream
.

“He’s here. Max Lii is here!
”

“There he is!”

“Haisha, he’s gorgeous!”

Music erupted, loud and throbbing
.

Peni Kim couldn’t help sneaking a glance
that way.

Right as Naero cut her down
.

“Instant kill,” the AI announced
.

They said Max made music everywhere he went
.

He hammered out one of his hottest tunes on his holo-spolymered kitar–the one shimmering with blue
holo flames. His expert hands and fingers blasted out notes from the heavy triple strings, in a flaring rendition of
To the Stars!

He was in fact a
hot, dreamy mug. Naero had to give him that much. She could see what all the excitement was about; pictures and vids didn’t do Max justice. His perfect, wild plume of black hair, dark looks, and killer, cobalt-blue eyes. A tall, lanky, athletic form. That low, sultry voice of his that could roar, croon, or whisper–like hot velvet.

It was instantly clear that Max Lii would never spend a night alone–if he didn’t want to
.

Everybody swarmed around him like a bunch of teens
.

The women, and even a few guys, stared at him like they wanted to eat him for breakfast, lunch, and dinner–right then and there
.

Max’s aura and his personal magnetism were that potent
.

“Hey, everybody. I’m
Captain Max Lii. Happy to be here. I told them to send me and my ship to the top unit they had. My people and I are ready to join you, and give our enemy hell, and we can have some fun along the way too. I’m very proud to be here with you all.”

Everyone clapped and cheered, and then made way to introduce him to Naero, their fleet captain
.

Naero grinned and decided to take the direct approach
.

Even though he was
much taller than her…

Haisha!
Almost everyone was taller than her, but she never let that slow her down.

Naero stalked right up to
Max.

She grabbed him by the front of his
pistol and sword belt and yanked him in right up against her.

Max actually paled slightly and dropped his kitar
.

Someone caught it
.

Naero flashed her own big, violet
search lights right up into his eyes.

“Welcome aboard…C
aptain Lii.”

She could feel him tremble against her with excitement, every bit of him iron muscle
.

She snaked herself around him, curling one arm and hand up behind his neck and
his thick mane of hair, bending his handsome face down to her as she tipped her steamy lips up at him.

Everyone present held their breath
.

No one expected anything like this. Ever
.

Naero’s other hand felt around his slender hips, until she grasped the hilt of his energy cutlass, sheathed and inverted in custom rig, behind his hips and up his broad back
.

Naero could feel his heart and breath quicken—right along with her own
.

She th
rust herself against him, and smiled up at him wickedly.

He jumped as if she sent a heavy s
hock charge through his entire body.

She whispered to him tenderly
.

“I’m your
sweet little fleet captain, Max. But you’ve gone and interrupted my sword practice. Now I must know…can you use this thing…on your hips?”

Max Lii
swallowed hard at that.

She shoved him away, sprang back, and held her
own blade out and at the ready in a flash.

She grinned her half-smile once again
.

“
…Or are you all just for show?”

Max’s lips parted slightly in
eager wonder.

Then he smiled too. He kept his eyes on her and slowly circled
around, looking her up and down, licking his lips. He obviously liked what he saw, up close and personal.

“I am sure going to enjoy…serving under you, sir
.”

Naero laughed. “
Let’s dispense with rank in the practice room, Max. Here we’re all just friends and Spacers. Now grab a blade…and try to surprise me.”

“Oh, I’m just full of surprises, Naero, honey
.”

He drew his energy cutlass slowly from behind his back
.

Max
apparently preferred a wide blade, one that blazed white-hot like lightning.

Naero laughed. Impressive
.

She turned to the crowd and rolled her eyes, speaking aside to them behind one hand
.

“But…like
all guys…he still only has just one.”

Everyone oohed and ah
hed at that, and then burst out laughing and cheering again.

Naero went on
, extending both arms. “And as always, the question remains. What can he do with it?”

More jeering and cheering
.

Max didn’t give an inch of
ground.

“Give me a chance here
, honey…wait for it.”

Max
smiled and reached up with his other hand, and in the same slow, fluid motion.

H
e drew out another matching cutlass, a twin to the other, and held them crackling in both hands.

The crowd went crazy, laughing and roaring. They couldn’t believe it
.

Max tossed his pretty head
of dark hair. “As a matter of fact, I do have two. Surprise!”

He snapped into a fighting stance
.

“And surprise again, I even know what to do with them.” He grinned and glared at her once more
.