Citation Series 1: Naero's War: The Annexation War (38 page)

Other Spacers noted her attacks and quickly imitated her
.

Soon
the enemy numbers found themselves caught in a slashing hurricane of energized blades.

When her blades cut out, Naero sank one into a sterodan face. The next into an Ejjai belly
.

At last, it looked like they had a chance to win
.

Then the flagship groaned and buckled. Suddenly accelerating forward
.

Oh, no
.

Haisha!
The star’s gravity had them.

Even if they won the fight,
now there wouldn’t be any time to escape.

No
more time to think about that.

Just k
eep fighting.

Down below, she caught sight of Captain Hayden dueling
straight up with Admiral Dreth.

Both of them circled the other, firing pistols at ea
ch other. Shields went down. Shots penetrated both their armors.

Neither combatant let up
.

Guns empty, they drew energy swords
.

But something went
weird with the enemy Admiral.

Even as Naero tried to fight her way
down to help Hayden, she watched as the Marine captain ran the admiral through the chest and abdomen four times in as many instants with his glowing blade.

How was Dreth still standing? S
till alive after such terrible wounds?

Naero drew her
own energy cutlass and sliced an Ejjai in half.

Then what looked like either steam or ichor of some kind roiled off of the admiral, and he literally began glowing from within, as if there
were a power core inside of him.

His veins seemed to
pulse and glow with weird, coruscating energies. His very flesh radiated like hot orange and greenish-yellow coals, translucent and glowing. The energies burned right through his ragged combat armor.

Captain Hayden ran the
admiral through the throat, but Dreth only laughed and backhanded him–sending him flying twenty meters to smash against the wall.

Dreth yanked the energy sword out of his throat as it were an annoying insect. He broke the sword over his knee and cast aside the pieces
.

All of his terrible wounds seemed to seal back up
.

Two more
Marines stepped in and fired their heavy blaster cannons right into Dreth.

What ever kind of monster
or thing Dreth had become, he strode forward impervious, crushed the armored helmets of the two Marines with his fists, and incinerated them in their powered armor where they stood.

Naero heard them scream
.

Captain Hayden swept back in, nailing Dreth with
microgrenades.

They did little damage to the Admiral-thing, but they did knock him back a bit
.

The flagship rocked
and shuddered again.

Naero saw the blast shields of the bridge dome shatter and buckle in
.

Somehow Enel and Surina on board
The
Hippolyta
had gotten the planetoid dreadnaught moving again.

They rammed it right
back into the flagship.

One of the ship’s big quad guns yawned its immense
, 16 m maw down at them like a huge glowing eye of death.

Naero flashed down and sliced at the Admiral-thing with her energized cutlass
.

He chortled at her as the deep wounds she inflicted re-sealed right before her eyes
, like some kind of energized gel.

“You filthy, arrogant spacks can’t kill me
now. None of you can. But I’m dragging you all straight with me into hell. You can’t stop me from destroying our sun–and everyone in this entire system!”

More Spacers and
Marines poured in through the breach, battling with and cutting down the remaining foes.

“You’re wrong,” Naero said. “You’ve already lost, Admiral. We’ve disarmed the stellar disruption devices
.”

She flipped and sank her sword through his shoulder and
hewed nearly down to his thigh, almost cutting him in twain.

Dreth kept laughing, and wrenched the cutlass from her
.

He melted it into slag with his bare hands as she watched
.

His
horrifying wound re-sealed again.

Dreth
seemed to be made of raw, gelatinous energy within.

Invulnerable.
Unstoppable.

He lifted both hands and came at Naero
, still laughing.

“Doesn’t matter, spack
s. Fuck everyone. Even if the devices are deactivated and dismantled, the raw components in them will still ignite once they hit the sun. You can’t stop this ship. You can’t prevent the cataclysm.

Dreth laughed.
“Now I’m going to roast those pretty violet eyes of yours, you little spack whore. Right in that beautiful face of yours, so like your mother’s.”

Naero stepped back and drew two battle blades. Setting them to explode. She steeled herself
.

“Come and try!
”

“Die, monster!” Captain Hayden rushed the thing
unseen from behind, thrusting an activated bunker buster into its torso with his left hand.

Hayden screamed
.

He lost his hand
, melted down to his forearm.

Dreth backhanded him as before
, sending him flying.

Naero
got her flickering shields back up and kicked Dreth in the face twice to keep him distracted.

She pressed her attacks
in spinning fury.

Whirling, battering him with rapid, wheeling kicks
.

Then she shot around
Dreth, grabbed Hayden where lay dazed, and tried to zip free of the blast zone.

The fusion device
Hayden implanted detonated. The raw force of it smashed Naero and Hayden into the wall again.

Dreth swelled up within like a toad
on fire from deep inside, ballooning and about to burst.

Glowing energy shot out of his mouth and eyes and several rents
.

Yet
unbelievably–he still did not die.

He stalked
and staggered toward them where they lay. The thing he had become wobbled, struggling to reform itself.

Naero st
rained to catch her breath, to rise up and fight this vile thing somehow.

It stalked toward her
and Hayden, silhouetted before the gigantic glowing bore of
The
Hippolyta
’
s
main cannon number one.

Naero called to her ship
.

“Enel, Surina
–anyone. Fire main cannon number one. Immediately!”

“Captain?”
Enel’s voice asked.

T
he Dreth-thing was almost on them.

“Fire, damn you!”

Naero grabbed Hayden and tried to zip away.

Her battered gravwing failed
.

The bore of Cannon
Number One whined and heated up white hot.

The Dreth-thing’s fingers
stretched out to tear her life from her.

Somehow, Hayden rose back up to his feet
right beside her.

Both of them
punched and kicked the Dreth-thing side by side. Trying keep it distracted and hold it off.

Naero staggered and tried to launch herself at the monster again
.

Jeremiah stepped in
directly in front of her, emptying a pistol in Dreth’s face.

The monster smashed a large fist down on Hayden’s head and shoulders with a terrible crushing blow
.

At the last instant
, Naero lunged back in, sinking both of her last battle blades set to explode. But the blasts only delayed the monster.

She
leaped away with all of her bunched strength, dragging the stricken Hayden with her as he crumpled.

Naero
rolled them back, barely out of
Hippolyta
’
s
line of fire.

The world went blinding white, and then strangely black
.

A
vast hissing SHHHZZZTTT blazed and sizzled through the flagship.

When the air cleared,
the horror that had once been Admiral Dreth was gone. The massive beam annihilated all matter and and energy within its path.

A
16 meter wide, yawning, glowing tunnel had been bored straight through the length of the flagship.

Naero felt like cheering
.

“We got him!” she couldn’t help shouting
.

Then she stopped, staring
down into the cold dead eyes of her battle brother, Captain Hayden.

His neck and shoulder
s looked scorched and crushed badly, right through his ruined armor.

Th
at last blow from the admiral must have crushed and snapped his neck and shoulders.

A blow he withstood for her
.

It was like losing Gallan all over again. As if she lost Jan–like her brother lying dead in her hands
.

Her mighty
abani
was already gone, his great spirit fled.

A
n immense sorrow overtook Naero–an agony far worse than any physical wound.

She and
Jeremiah had fought side by side throughout the conflict.

They were mates
.

Naero
kissed Hayden’s cold lips. What did it matter now? Then his forehead.

Naero
sobbed, smoothing his hair.

They had lost a
brave Marine, a great leader, and a good man and friend.

“Sorry Jeremiah,” she whispered
through her tears. “Sorry I won’t be able to send you home…to your family.”

She would never be able to thank him
for his valor, for his mighty sacrifice. He had saved them all. A heavy debt that she could never repay.

Ty
staggered up to her, bloody and covered with medpaks. Yet all of his concern was for her.

“
N, what happened?”

“The good captain’s dead,” she said plainly. “He died well
, fighting valiantly to the last against a mighty foe. His death is a great loss.”

“Well,
N–if we don’t find a way to stop from falling into the sun, we’re all going to join him very shortly. If we die, Tisa’s going to royally be pissed at us both!”

The two tangled vessels lurched to a halt again, and star
ted drawing back the other way. Naero could feel it.

Both ships moved a
way from the sun.

Naero called out over her wristcom
.

“
Surina? Enel? Did Rendar get the drives working again?”

“Not enough to pull us back from the brink, Captain.”

Then…how?

Another familiar voice cut in over their link
.

“This is
Admiral Nevano Kinmal, Naero. My daughter Shalaen is close to passing out, but we aren’t about to let you and your people get incinerated today. Prepare for rescue.”

Naero picked Captain Hayden
’s body up and looked around. The fighting was over. The rest of their enemies lay dead and defeated. Her fierce people made sure of that.

Ty
and she leaned on each other.

The
Alliance had won, at immense costs.

Yet
victory still remained theirs.

Her own words sank in deep
.

Triax—the worst of the worst—was gone
.

No more
.

The Beast
no longer existed to plague or torment anyone.

Triax Gigacorporation joined the
rotting garbage heap of history.

The
Annexation War—was finally over.

5
0

Alliance fleets surrounded the
living star of the last Triaxian Capital Class Homeworld to fall.

Triax, most decadent and brutal of all the Gigacorps…
no longer existed to murder or poison humanity, Spacers, landers, or any of the other known, sentient races.

It
s former slaves knew freedom now that had not existed for centuries.

With the Annexation W
ar finally concluded, the Alliance forces gathered together at the appointed time and place to honor and pay tribute to their fallen, and to each other.

While Naero waited
in her dress blacks for the ceremonies to begin, she was greatly pleased to be introduced to Jeremiah’s widow, Veronica Hayden–a very pretty, very pregnant redhead with gray eyes. She was also a Spacer Marine, and proud of her son, Jason, a fair-haired boy of three who had his father’s beautiful brown eyes.

Naero could tell at a glance how much this woman had loved Jeremiah, and part of her felt glad that at least the two lovers had known that much joy together
.

Veronica
looked to be every bit as brave as her husband. She and Naero made small talk and got to know each other a bit, before they were called to take their places.

When the time came, S
trike Captain Naero Amashin Maeris stood at attention on the launch deck of the massive Joshua Tech Fleet Carrier,
The
Undaunted
.
She stood beside all the surviving captains of Strike Fleet Six, and the proud Marines of Captain Jeremiah Hayden’s Third Division command, assembled in his high honor.

All of her friends stood nearby. Zhen and Tyber. Chaela. Saemar. Tarim and
the radiant angel, Shalaen.

So many others–
all her family now.

She smiled sadly
.

Zhen had been so glad that Tyber survived, that she cried and slept beside him in his medbed for the first full day thereafter
.

Naero scanned the tens of thousands assembled
.

Each of them a hero
to her mind—many times over.

All resplendent in their dress uniforms. Each of them majestic in their valor
.

Beautiful
beyond all song, poetry, or mere words.

They stood with their heads held high
, among the very best that the courageous blood of the Free Forty-Nine Spacer Clans and their allies had to offer.

They had fought long and hard
, against terrible foes and odds.

And never knew defeat
.

First their Admirals spoke
.

They praised them all with great praise
.

Then the Captains who wished to speak said their piece
.

When Naero’s turn
finally came, she stepped up with her battle smile fixed upon her face.

And every eye fixed upon her
.

“My beloved brothers, my beloved sisters, my mighty Clans and our valiant allies—whom I honor and cherish more than the breath of life itself. Nothing…no words or treasure can ever match the blood we have shed together, for the sake of Freedom and Liberty
.

“All of you know how I see you. My fierce
st lions. How you fought–for me–for each other–for Liberty itself. How you fought for trillions in enslaved chains that you do not even know–that you will never know–yet still you gave the last full measure, without question, in order that all may know and live in Freedom.”

She looked down.
“Our losses are beyond all tears and sorrow.”

Naero choked up and drew her cutlass
. She saluted the honored dead gathered together with them in rank after rank of shining casketpods.

She knelt down, and the gathered thousands knelt with her
.

She kissed her blade and offered it to the fallen, in high
est token of their mighty sacrifice.

Many present followed her lead and did
the same, just as she did.

She bowed down low, placed her sword before her, and touched her forehead to the floor.
She gasped and watered the deck with tears that rained down from her eyes.

She
finally rose up, saluted again with a flourish, and sheathed her blade. Then she found her voice once more.

“My swords of light. May you shine bright in the honor and glory that is
forever yours. None can ever take it from you. But we the living are gathered here today to pay honor to our victorious fallen. Those whose’ valor and sacrifice are beyond question. Their precious lights have been extinguished in this life. Their fierce, shining blades have been shattered and broken, along with our hearts. Their loss among us can never be equaled or replaced.

“We return them to the light that burns forever, just as their memory shall always
shine and live on forever in our hearts.”

She paused and placed her hands behind the small of her back
.

“
So many deserve special note. The fearless crew of
The Kit Carson
–three brave starfighter pilots who stopped a missile at the cost of their very lives. Yet, if we read all of their hallowed names, it would take more time than is possible.

“
We must, therefore, go on and live our lives in their names, in their honor. As they would want us to. Our joy, shall be their joy. Our love shall be their love. Our children, shall be their children. For they can no longer do so for themselves.

“Yet I will pause to
speak one name for the sake of all, and praise my good friend, Major Jeremiah Hayden. The bravest warrior that I have ever known, and the embodiment of what it means to be a both a Spacer, and foremost: a Spacer Marine. My brother in battle, who fought bravely until the very end, and gave his life for me, and for the sake of us all. You must all know and remember this fact for all time—without his great sacrifice—the enemy would have slain me, all of our people, and murdered our fleets, and all the trillions that now live in freedom within this very sector. All of us would be dead. Therefore, let the highest of all Spacer honors be bestowed upon Major Jeremiah Allen Hayden, and upon his Clan, in his mighty name.”

Admiral Sleek Maeris stepped forward, holding aloft the gleaming Spacer Medal of Valor, set in a priceless frame
.

The crowd gasped in wonder and wept when
Admiral Maeris gave it over into the hands of Jeremiah’s proud widow, Marine First Leftenant Veronica Cherokee Hayden, holding their sleepy, fair-haired son Jason close to her heaving breast.

She smiled sadly, tears streaming down her
red, stricken face.

Aunt Sleak embraced her
.

Veronica
remained heavy with their second child, the girl they had chosen to name Lydia, after Jeremiah’s deceased, Marine Colonel mother.

Yet he had
surpassed even the latter. Not even his valorous mother had won such fame.

In all the history of the
Spacer Clans and their legacy of courage–the bravest of the brave–less than a hundred such apex awards had ever been bestowed. Only three upon those who had still lived.

One of those was Lincoln Maeris, during the Second Spacer War
, Naero’s mighty kin of old.

A
t her own command, Aunt Sleak went forward and placed another such medal respectfully and gently into the opening casket that held Jeremiah’s body.

She kissed her fingertips and touch the casket as it re-sealed
.

Then the admiral stepped back and nodded to Naero
.

The time had come
.

Strike Fleet
Captain Naero Amashin Maeris stepped forward and launched brave Major Hayden’s casketpod out toward the star herself. She saluted and knelt again and wept for the loss of his blood, and that of so many other brave warriors and
abani
among their allies taking the next journey.

Haisha, such a stirring sight it was to behold
.

Naero rose up to stand at attention and salute the
brave fallen a third time. The casketpods for
The Kit Carson
and the three pilots shot past her.

T
hey all saluted, as waves of shining silver, mirror-finished caskets, filled with the either the remains or the memories of their valiant dead, followed Major Hayden into the star.

So many others
.

They r
eturned Spacers, and landers, Matayans and miners, and all else who fought on their side, back to the stars from whence they came.

The living
sang songs in honor of the dead and the living.

They wept, openly and proudly.
Tears blazed on their proud, uplifted faces. The faces of warriors forged into shining steel in the crucible of courage.

The drummers thundered, the pipers piped, and waves of Ghost Dragons and other fighter w
aves roared over in formation and back around again.

They filled the heavens in all that sector with blazing, shining light, enough to rival the star itself
.

Thiolins broke out in rich, sweet, swelling Spacer music
.

None less than the four masters of their age: Mit
subishi Yuzuki, Grandon Kowalski, Rhiannon Fae, and Seamus Flynn, stepped forward to honor them all, and play for the brave Alliance, before the stars.

They played two songs, and the crowd cheered in awe
at each one.

Then the four masters bowed low, and stepped down in homage
.

For th
e grand tribute was not yet complete.

An elder Spacer in long black
flowing robes, a long shining white beard, and platinum white hair stretching down his back, took the primary stage, and all others gave way before his magnetic presence.

In honor of the fallen, Grandmaster Thiolinist Ezekiel Luna Alexander too his place before them all
. He began to play, silhouetted against the stars at the prow of
The
Undaunted
.

The Maestro played three
, heart-stopping tunes, flawlessly with his aching, nearly crippled hands.

Three melodies, e
ach one sadder, and sweeter, and more beautiful and radiant than the one before.

For they spoke to
the heart and soul, and pierced to the very core of the Clans in deepest, reverent memory.

E
very heart was moved, and no eye remained dry.

And though the tunes all had lyrics that e
ach Spacer knew well from birth…

The
same beloved words caught in every throat, and could not be voiced by any breast or heart pounding within.

Even by an entire multitude of
assembled heroes.

And thus the sweet tunes of the lone
thiolinist sang out across the Void and across all ships and worlds, and spoke for all.

The grandmaster
gave voice to the heart and soul of the vast multitudes and hosts arrayed, silent and thoughtful, beneath all the Powers and the lights of heaven, and all the glories and mysteries of the known universe.

With his mighty gift, the Maestro
thundered what could not be put into words, and expressed in music–all that their bursting hearts and souls could not utter.

When he finished, Zeke shattered his priceless thiolin and his bow over one knee, and cast the glittering fragments out beyond the launching screen
shields and into the black.

Toward the bright star
.

The Maestro never played again
.

Less that a
day later, he slipped away peacefully in his slumber, and his spirit joined the Alliance fallen, on to the next journey, in highest honor.