Naero's War: The Citation Series 2: The High Crusade (25 page)

“I’m serious, N. That’s just not my way.”

“Get a brain, Jonny. So, what do you want these two-to-four kids to do with their lives? Wash or load ships in some backwater starport?”

“Oh, I don’t care very much what they choose to do–as long as they’re Spacers and happy. I’m not going to push them into anything.”

Naero stared at him. “Well then…what if they want to become Marines?”

Jonny Fox sighed. “I mean what I said, N. I’m not going to push or prevent them. When they come of age, they’ll make their choice. I’ll love and support my kids in whatever they choose to do.”

“That seems pretty fair.”

He smiled and belched real loud. “I think so.”

A big commotion broke out suddenly nearby.

Tavis Marshall and Luke Barrett both happened to be drunk and mean-dog ornery at the same time. In seconds they were fighting and trying to kill each other–for real. Luckily it was just hand-to-hand.

Naero and Jonny raced in, helped break it up, and separated the two idiots before they did any real damage.

The officers on duty came in and dressed both of the goofballs down, telling them to save it for the slashers.

23

Bravo’s fleet ships were overdue for repair and refit in the fixer clouds, so they were sent back behind the lines to Naraden-6, for a few days of well-earned rest and leave.

It was spring on that world. Spring on an earthlike planet in all its verdant glory and exploding new life. Radiant sunny days, cool breezes, and warm rain showers.

The Marines of Company 36 were at a very low point. Several of them had wrestled down Nick Kowalski in Squad 3, Fireteam 2, when they had caught him trying to stick a blaster pistol in his mouth and pull the trigger the night before.

Suicide in the Spacer Marines was still extremely rare, but in the course of a long and bloody campaign, it did occasionally occur in various ways.

Since the death of his best buddy, Chang-Han, Nick had gone slowly off the deep end with grief and survivor guilt. In the end, he just couldn’t shake it, and had to be subdued before he ate a bolt.

Kowalski had seen enough and done more than his share. Time for him to get some help and get out. Time for him to get himself healthy and do something else.

The High Crusade continued to drag on, heavy fighting from world to world. It might still go on for another month or three.

But sadly, it now felt to many of the Marines as if it might never end. And that was the real fear.

Everyone was already weary, frustrated, and sick of the constant cycle of system-hopping, intense fighting, and relentless killing. They were sick of the atrocities. Just plain sick of everything. Naero felt it as much as anyone.

To make matters worse, they had just left Gurian-4.

On that isolated Corps world, many of the locals had not been properly informed about the Spacers coming to help them. With invader jamming, it just wasn’t possible. Landers went in with the Marines to help educate and inform on the fly, but in the chaos of war, the landers couldn’t be everywhere.

At first, the already panic-stricken locals thought that the Spacers were trying to take the world for themselves. To their minds, Spacers only fought with the Ejjai because they were in the way and competing with them directly.

Before all of these wrong conclusions could be cleared up, many of the local forces had fired upon Bravo Command from the start, treating them like another enemy invader. They ignored all coms to the contrary. Hatred did not go away easily. Corps conditioning could be very hard to break.

For generations, the population of Gurian-4 had been brainwashed to fear and hate spacks. The Corps spoon-fed them about what would happen if the vicious spacks ever invaded their world.

In many remote areas, even after the Ejjai were put down and defeated, there were still many among the local populations who still didn’t believe that the Spacers would actually ever go away, without subjugating the system for themselves or, at the very least–looting it in some fashion before they did depart.

Rumors and lies quickly spread. Hatred caused atrocities that had clearly been committed by Ejjai to be blamed on the spack Marines.

The old hatreds did not die easily and tensions ran high. Even as Bravo Command marched and loaded up to depart, mobs of enraged locals had repeatedly insulted, hurled garbage, shit, and even spit on the very warriors who had just saved them and their world from the Ejjai. It was a grim tragedy.

All of the Marines had been pissed off and infuriated at being treated that way. Razor Wilde, younger cousin to Anaconda and Python, cursed and pounded the hull of their dropship. “The rotten bastards. We just saved them and all of their kids and old people from the meatships! And there they had to spit and shit on us, and say good riddance, bloody spacks. Get the hell off our stinking world!”

Tempers continued to ignite. Luca Abraham jumped in fuming. “Yeah, they had the guts to spit on us? To fling shit in our faces? They’d all be meatblocks if it wasn’t for what we did for them. They wouldn’t have any goddam world left if it wasn’t for us!”

Naero and the other officers let the Marines vent and hurl stuff around for a while. It was pretty tough to choke down.

Major Luna agreed that 36 needed a break, and they were long overdue for one. When she explained the situation to General Walker, he also agreed with her.

Their ships changed course, heading for Naraden-6.

By the time they jumped there, at least the sullen Marines weren’t ready to bite heads off and chew them up.

As they came down into the enormous starport, Naero ordered the blast panels on the transport opened up.

Brilliant sunlight poured through the large, plasteel viewports.

As they came down, 36 looked out, seeing peaceful meadows and grassland fields surrounding countless luxury hotels.

Naraden-6 had been a playworld, a vacation retreat world. But because of its proximity to many of the worlds that had been invaded by the Ejjai, it was quickly appropriated and transformed into a hospital world, a place for recovery, for refugees, and for shore leave for burned out troops.

Naero asked her Marines a question. “Do you goons know what Naraden-6 is famous for?”

Everyone just stared at her.

She answered her own question for them. “Many of the orphan and refugee children, rescued from many war zones, have been brought here to be kept safe until they can be sorted out and sent home once the war ends. Many of them will need new homes, but that can be sorted out later.

“For now, the weather here is stable and mild, and the local population is nurturing and supportive. Many healers, doctors, and caregivers have flocked here from many worlds to assist with that great task. If you are an orphan child from this war–after all of the hell that you’ve been through and survived–Naraden-6 might just be the closest thing to heaven that you could ever find. I think it’s going to prove to be a pretty good place for troops to relax, also.”

Josh Elkins threw his pack down hard. “So, what? What’s your point, N?”

Platoons 1-4 stared at her.

She looked back at all of them. “My point is this. Do all of you trust me?”

They blinked and didn’t know what to say to that.

“Do all of you trust me?” she asked once more.

Most of them finally nodded. A few of them looked pretty sad. Some of them muttered, “Uh-huh.”

Naero called out to them louder. “Company 36. I am asking each and every one of you again. Do you trust me?”

First Leftenant Josie Stone spoke up. “N, we trust you with our lives, Naero. You know that.”

Naero smiled sadly. “Then trust me now, and please, let me do something for all of my Marines. For my brothers and sisters. Please, follow my lead.”

She shook off all of her armor and weapons, and let them fall to the floor.

Company 36 did the same.

Naero stripped right down to her Nytex flight togs, feeling suddenly free and relieved of all of her burdens for the first time in a very long while.

Her Bravo Marines went down to their togs.

“Form a gauntlet, on either side of me,” she said.

In short order, two hundred Marines stood at ease, a hundred to either side of her.

Naero went among them on her right and left. To their surprise, she took their faces in her hands and she kissed each one of them, on the cheek, on the brow, sometimes on the nose. All of them remained quiet, silent, smiling back and forth at one another as Naero progressed among them, showing her deep affection for them all. No one was in a hurry for her to reach the end.

When she did so, Naero laughed.

Many of them were so damn tall, that she had to use her gravwing to reach their faces. “Haisha,” she exclaimed suddenly. “Like I goof, I forgot something. Everyone put your gravwings on. Don’t ask why. Just do it.”

Others started to crack up and chuckle, but they were all still under her spell, and did exactly as she said.

Now, Om!

Om triggered the fixers behind each of the Marines.

Naero’s presets transformed their nanotogs into soft, white, loose clothing, sized to each of them. Even their gravwings turned white. Hers were no exception.

“Bravo 36, you have been my angels of death in the darkness. Yet even more than that, you have also been angels of life. You have fought the High Crusade to save all of humanity–Spacer and lander–by your valor and your mighty sacrifice. On my own accord, I have sent word ahead of our arrival to the leaders of Naraden-6.

“All the people of this world, and the many refugees who have been brought here, have been informed about who we are and all that we have accomplished. You will forever shine as my heroes, Bravo 36. And you shall always be theirs as well. Now, follow me, 36. Follow me out of the darkness, and back into the light!”

Naero lifted off and the jump bays opened, washing out the darkness in rushing waves of light. When Naero flew free of the dropship, so did they, two hundred in all. They swept out into the blazing sunlight, beneath a flawless azure sky.

Naero closed her eyes for a rapturous moment and just felt the sunlight on her face and the wind in her long dark hair. She loved flying of any kind.

She led them down, and over the emerald expanses of grasslands and meadows like a flock of birds.

All upon a radiant day.

For as far as the eye could see below and to any horizon…tens of thousands of people, and hundreds of thousands of children, of all types, races, and ages, played, and supped, and rested at ease, happily watched, and cared for, and tended to by armies of guardians, teachers, medteks, and caregivers, many of them shipped in to assist with such a major task.

While they all floated a few score meters off the ground, Naero spoke to her Marines once again. This time, she used
the voice
, in order that they and all around them for many kilometers nearby could hear her words to them.

Bravo Command. My angels of life. Gaze upon your handiwork below and beyond all that you can survey. By your courage, over one in ten worlds invaded by the enemy owe their lives, and the lives of their children, to you and the matchless arms of your many Marine sisters and brothers. You have defeated countless ruthless hordes, in every environment and climate imaginable. You have saved trillions–literally countless sentients–from a vile and certain death.

Naero paused, took a deep breath, and smiled at them before continuing.
On this one recovery world alone, just a fraction of those lives that you have saved: one billion children still live, and breathe, and smile, play, and laugh–because of your bravery. One billion. And I say again, that is only a small percentage of the lives that you have saved.

Marines of Bravo Command, you are my heroes. And you are their heroes as well. You go forth as warriors, without Cosmic powers or Mystic abilities. You are our champions, and you shall never be forgotten.

A great cheer went up from the people below, and Naero let it continue on for a long while.

Then Naero touched her presets and transformed into Shetanna mode, briefly flaring her psyonic wings and her scarlet, glowing katanas. Then she made her swords vanish.

Weapons had no place here.

Everyone below recognized her in an instant and shot to their feet. They raced toward her and called out her name.

Soon they were chanting it.

Shetanna! Shetanna! Shetanna!

Shetanna hovered before her Marines above a low hill.

Countless people flocked toward that place.

Shetanna called out to them, using
the voice
once more.

Hear my words, all. Please, stop and listen. No one person can fight a war on her own. Shetanna would be nothing without her sisters and brothers in the Spacer Marines backing her up at each point along the way. My Marine family has saved my life more times than I can recall. It is not Shetanna who is winning the war of the High Crusade. That would be impossible. Each day, it is the Spacer Marines and their dauntless allies who take the fight to the invader, and push them back toward defeat, and our final victory!

Yet I am sad to tell you that we just came from a world that, unfortunately, has been taught to hate and despise all Spacers. Even though our brave Marines fought and died liberating that world from the invaders, the people there mistakenly abused their own saviors and cursed the marines as they packed up and left. They spit on our Marines and flung shit into their faces, and told them to away somewhere and die. And that was very wrong.

And it has come close to breaking their spirits and their hearts to be treated So.

I want to make this very clear, my friends. I would be nothing within them. Marines such as these are the real champions and heroes of The High Crusade, and you never hear their names. They are my heroes. And they are yours. Please, if ever you were grateful for your freedom and your lives, thank the Marines of Bravo Command and their many allies for saving you and your worlds from the enemy. Praise them with great praise, and give them your thanks. Help honor, and heal, and save them as they have saved you. Love them as I love them, for we all are one. We are all human. Farewell.