Naero's War: The Citation Series 3: Naero's Trial (18 page)

Naero sighed. “My skill in healing is only about average,” she said. “And I must return to my ships soon, to make sure these worlds are safe once more. I’m sorry.”

The nurse bowed, but placed a gentle hand on Naero’s arm. “I understand, but please, come with me. It will only take a little of your time. Please help us.”

Naero and her people followed out behind the makeshift hospital tent. Under emergency lights that had been set up, the grasslands were covered with dead, dying, and wounded on strips of cloth and emergency foil.

They were everywhere.

The nurse brought her to where most of the children were being kept.

There must have been hundreds, with more being carried in each second.

“Please,” the nurse said. “If you can even help a few of them, we would be eternally grateful.”

Naero sighed very deeply.

If only she had Shalaen with her.

Over the next three hours, Naero quickly moved from child to child. She startapped and conserved her energy as best she could, using it sparingly to tip the balance and sustain life.

Some of the children were already dead, released from the agony of terrible wounds and injuries. Some were too far gone and could not be brought back, no matter what. Others she could save, just enough so that they would survive and have a chance to recover.

With her biomancy she quickly learned all that she would ever need to know about Sa’shom physiology.

She healed wounds, reknit tissues and organs, and saved limbs. She gave lifeforce to the weak who most needed it.

When she could do no more and all but passed out, Khai took her up in his arms and carried her away, amid the cheering and the applause of the Sa’shom.

Naero wept because she only made it through a few hundred.

But the Sa’shom of Kudosha-5 would remember all that she and the Spacers had done for them, and those tales would spread to all of their other worlds to live in their hearts.

Naero recovered back on board her flagship. Repeated thanks came to them from both worlds of the Sa’shom, and soon from many others.

When they did depart, shortly thereafter, the Spacers left behind waves of defensive drones and seeker mines around both planets to aid in any further defense.

That became SOP for any Alliance world they visited. Naero personally commended Admiral Toshi and his brave fleets, for their outstanding service during the action. But the Spacers had to keep moving.

Naero’s continuing diplomatic mission actually took them first into the Lish systems thereafter. The Amavar were even further away from their current location and would have to come last.

Her small diplomatic group went down to the surface of Makryx-5, which was mostly temperate and desert zones. They met near a meganest in one of the more arid regions, yet underground the Lish nests were relatively regular at the same temperature as before.

Their buddy Tus was not there. Their other Lish acquaintance, Gox, introduced them to one who was a very high leader among the Lish–another of them called Sleth, an unmated female who was not only a leader, but supposedly one of their tek geniuses and visionaries.

“Admiral Maeris. I am Sleth, one of the Lish known as the Great Thinkers. Is it true that you understand and can speak our language, without the clumsy translators?”

“That is true,” Naero said. “I am doing so know.”

“Excellent. Myself and others among the thinkers were very impressed by the data reads, mods, and tech files that you so generously gave to us and the other races. That was a bold and very canny move. You Spacers must be an extremely formidable race, to pursue the enemy here and take them on where they are strongest. That also shows great courage. The Lish are known for their unwavering courage, and they honor and respect that in others.”

“Offered,” Naero said. “We have offered these secrets, in good faith. The final data only gets transferred once all of the agreements are confirmed. And I thank you for honoring my people. I return that honor to yours, as well.”

“I am here to inform you that my people are going to go forward with all of the agreements, and become your allies. We have heard how you helped the Mechans, and the Sa’shom. Everyone we speak to speaks highly of your honor, and your great courage and ferocity as warriors. It is well that we should all join together. We shall fight these invaders of our galaxy to the last, or we shall die.”

“My people feel the same way: Liberty or Death.”

“Yes. We agree on many things. I am still curious. Is it true that you are a telepath? And that you have Cosmic powers?”

Naero nodded. “I am one of our Mystics.”

“As is the green one, your mate, also a Mystic?”

Naero could not help smiling. “Yes, he is. One of the greatest warriors among us.”

“More wonders. Then you two are well matched. The sword he carries. We have studied all that we can about it with great curiosity. It is beyond us, and it is a terrifying weapon. Where did it come from? How can your kind wield such powers? We thought that only the enemy wielded such might. We have so many questions. Who are you beings? Who are these enemies? Where do they come from? Why are they here attacking us? We fear that all of this goes beyond mere conquest and violence. The Great Thinkers wish to know and understand. Ignorance shall destroy us all.”

“Will you allow me to link with your mind, Sleth?”

“I must warn you. If you try to take over my mind, my guards will attack you, powers or no.”

Naero shook her head. “I am an honorable person from an honorable people, Sleth. And you are my ally. I will not betray you. Only the enemy does these foul things of which you speak. Your mind, and your thoughts, and your ways are your own. I do not pretend to know all of the answers, but there are some things which I do know and understand. If I link my thoughts with yours, it is only to impart and share knowledge and understanding–the things I do know–with you and your people. You will know them as I know them, and you will know that I speak true.”

“I will allow it. Hear me, my guards. I am going to link minds with this alien ally. You will not harm either of us, on my orders.”

Naero came forward and placed her hands on Sleth’s enormous head, searching for the right positioning to connect with her mind. Finally she made the link.

Sleth’s mind was advanced, alien, and incredibly complex. For one, Sleth was indeed a mathematical genius.

Then Naero noticed something else. All of the components and structures were present.

The Lish simply had not made the evolutionary leap as yet.

Thus far, there had been no need among them for psyonics or Cosmic abilities.

Naero gave their genetics and physical structure in Sleth a nudge.

Sleth’s “additional” eye opened above all her others–her psyonic or Mystic eye–the first of the Lish to acquire one. Naero immediately shared with her all the knowledge she possessed concerning their foes.

Then they exchanged other forms of knowledge very rapidly, not with speech, but telepathically.

Then Naero heard Khai shouting at her and abruptly broke the link.

“Naero,” Khai shouted. “We just received word from XO Darius and Naero-5, the enemy is springing an attack on Makryx-5 and our fleets. They’re moving to intercept, and sending Marine forces down to help protect us.”

“Is there any time for us to escape? The enemy is coming after us. If we depart, perhaps they will pursue us and not attack the Lish.”

Khai drew Yii and shook his head. “Too late for any of that. An enemy ground assault is already approaching, and will engage us within a minute or two.”

Naero turned back to Sleth. “My forces and I will take on the enemy as best we can. More help is coming. We will buy you time to get you people to safety and prepare your defenses.”

“We are allies,” Sleth said. “Allies fight side by side. The Lish are not defenseless. We shall meet these foes with you. Our forces are already in place. You should join them.”

Naero was about to head out when a warning came from the spy fixers. “Khai, enemy phaze troops have penetrated the nest. They’re close by, setting incineration charges to take out the nest. They’re focusing on the hatcheries and the egg chambers.”

“What can we do?” Sleth said. “We sense no foes there.”

Naero reminded her, “Recall the information I shared with you about the armor that allows the enemy to become immaterial. They are difficult to detect without very advanced equipment. I have fixers down there trying to disarm the incineration bombs. My people and I will deal with the troops directly. Khai, come with me. Tarim, go with Ra and the Marines and help hold off the enemy ground forces. Help will arrive shortly.”

“I will,” Tarim said, “but I don’t like it.”

“Khai and I are the only ones who can phaze,” Naero said. “We will protect each other. Now hurry!”

First, Naero and Khai cloaked so that the enemy infiltrators wouldn’t see them coming. Then they had the spyfixers paint the infiltrators with markers so that the air molecules around them would show up as flickering, visible light.

She and Khai descended into the nest to the hatcheries and egg chambers, phazed past the startled Lish guards, and went on the attack.

The fixers had managed to neutralize eighty-nine percent of the incineration bombs without detection. But Naero was sensing something else even more powerful.

She and Khai cut down the Dakkur and Ejjai infiltrators with their swords as they hunted them throughout the nest.

Finally they came across an Ejjai mutant, carrying a small atomic within his body cavity, set to go off.

A few lesser bombs went off in the nest, doing some light damage and causing confusion.

“Khai, help me. We need to shield that bomb. I don’t know if we can.”

Both of them placed their heaviest spheres of shielding around the device, encasing the mutant inside.

“That’s not going to be enough,” Khai said flatly. Naero–phaze the bomb. It won’t hurt anything then.”

Both of them unphazed. Naero sat down and focused, opening her third eye. “I’ve never phazed something else that large. The energy signatures are weird.”

“Just do it or we’re all dead!” Khai shouted.

Naero just manage to phaze it all an instant before it detonated, killing off the rest of the phazed enemy troops in the area.

But the blast did little else.

Naero and Khai joined their forces up top.

Swarms of racing Lish, some in armor, some not, poured over the arid plane around the nest. They leaped on the enemy troops and tanks and tore them up. Two or three Lish could tear apart a gravtank. They ripped the Dakkur and the Ejjai open like tin cans and swarmed on them.

Naero spotted Ra bulldozing his way through the enemy and focusing on the Dakkur, who he seemed to have a special dislike for. Tarim was guarding his back, just like he did for Naero.

Anything Ra didn’t like did not last very long.

Naero’s Marines seemed to fight well alongside the Lish and treated them more or less like meks.

By the time Naero’s strike forces reached them, she and her allies already had the enemy on the run.

After the battle, the very first thing the Lish did was honor and mourn their dead. This included not only warriors who died in battle, but some eggs and hatchlings who had perished from the blasts in the nest, or were caught out in the open by the enemy.

The dead were laid out, and their names were spoken and honored if they had names. If their mates and children were alive, they keened and shrieked at their deep loss. And then they sang funeral songs. The dead were taken away and buried together beneath battle markers bearing all of their names. And the Lish sang more songs over them.

Even dead Lish made Naero sad, especially now that they were her allies and friends. But the senseless destruction the enemy meted out to all lifeforms indiscriminately only served to enrage her on a regular basis.

The enemy corpses of any edible variety were dragged into the nests in great nets and sent off to be cured and made into foodpods. Dakkur dissolved into nothing but foul smelling goo, and the Lish pissed and defecated on the spots where they died as an insult to such a vile foe.

Naero did not care. Let the Lish do their thing. But no matter what, she still wasn’t ever eating an Ejjai turned into a ham. No way. No how. She’d starve first. She didn’t care what spices or tasty glazes the Lish used to flavor them with.

To hell with that.

21

When Naero and her group left Makryx-5, the Lish were solidly on board as yet another one of their new allies, against all of the grave threats that their peoples faced.

The final meeting with the Amavar was scheduled to take place at the Rotevvi-9 Naval Base and Shipyards.

The initial fixer nebula had just arrived a few hours before Naero and her fleets did. Sheer Pandemonium erupted.

At first the Amavar, even though they were briefed on what to expect, had even opened fire on the nebula, destroying a quantity of fixers.

They mistook the fixer cloud for some kind of new enemy drone attack.

The fixers absorbed several towed-in hulks that were available, in order to replace their lost numbers.

The first order of business was to upgrade both the shipyards and all of the available Amavar fleets of warships in that region. They would be swapped in and out in shifts for their refits.

Other nebulae would travel from system to system with fleets on patrol. Those fixers would refit still other fleets, revamp planetary defense systems, and sow clouds of new mines, probes, and system defense drones.

Certain primary homeworlds would also get planetary defense shields to help protect them even further.

Naero’s counterpart, whom she was eventually brought to, was Admiral Beremel Ziathrah.

The Amavar were similar to each other in form and function, but each was unique and different. There was also some size variations between castes. The only specimen she had known before was Baeven’s crewmate, S’krin, the warrior. And like her, all of their faces were more human than insectoid. They had six insectoid limbs with extremely dexterous manipulators–not just claws.

With their manipulators they could do fine detail work, create and operate complex tek equipment, pilot starships, and even fight with six weapons all at the same time. Their tek was very advanced, their energy weapons on par with anything the Spacers had, and they possessed jump-8 stardrives, which they had just recently perfected.

Their shields were adequate, but could use an upgrade. They were experts on gravitics. The Sa’shom and the Lish understood gravitics but barely used them, in daily life or battle. This was an oversight the Allies would need to fix.

The heavier forms of Amavars in certain atmospheres and certain gravities had to be compensated for, to allow them to maintain flight with their dragonfly-like bodies and wings.

Actually, their glistening, shining, iridescent forms were not exactly like a dragonfly, but somewhere between a dragonfly and a damselfly, but definitely insectoid. They were any number of colors, and they were tough and strong, and warrior born.

All Amavar warriors were female, as were their military leaders. Queens gave birth to all of the different kinds. Males were the political leaders, techs, and the basic worker drones. They were also most of the entertainers, singers, musicians, crafters, and artists–who could come from any of the caste types, except for queens. Queens were required to birth up to ten billion offspring in their lifetime, and that kept them a little busy.

From studying them with biomancy, most Amavars lived for about fifty to sixty standard years. Relatively short for most advanced, sentient races.

Admiral Beremel Ziathrah was purple, blue, and silver. Technically, she was a princess. Most leaders were from the royal caste lines. A queen, with effort, could mate with a royal male or prince/courtier whom she chose as her consort. Such pairings became partners and good friends for life. Once her eggs were fertilized, the queen could focus on creating any type of egg, and any type of offspring that was needed–even another queen.

The Amavar were tireless workers, and required only five standard hours of rest.

Their energy, intellect, and drive were nearly boundless. Beremel never stopped moving. She never stopped zipping and leaping about and gave constant orders and instructions to her aides and assistants, who lined up to come to her for new directions and orders.

There was a great deal to do, but the Amavar, for all of their industry were somewhat myopic and could not see the flaws in their organization. Naero spotted it immediately, as an outsider.

For example, Naero observed. Instead of all of these thousands flitting in on their wings to get direct orders from their leaders, a simple series of comlinks, or even basic headsets would simplify matters and greatly speed them up.

Being communal insectoids, they naturally went to and enjoyed the personal interactions. But Naero still had to otherwise commend and respect them for their incredible energy and industry.

Naero had never seen anything like it. The Kexxian fixers were performing their tasks in a flurry, at near-hyper speed–and the Amavar were nearly keeping up with them. An astonishing feat. The only thing faster would have been teknomancing, but doing so would quickly exhaust Naero, and she knew that. She had better things to do than simply conduct upgrades and perform basic construction.

That’s exactly what the fixer nebulae were for, an advanced form of engineering and rapid construction, repair, and maintenance.

Admiral Beremel Ziathrah did not slow down, even to eat. Amavar kept food and lix paks on them and inhaled them as they kept going.

If Naero wanted to continue speaking to the admiral, she and her people had to use their gravwings and hustle to keep up.

When Naero asked questions about Amavar culture, society, or politics, Beremel would finish what she was doing, move on, answer Naero’s questions succinctly, and continued on to the next task and at a fairly blistering pace.

“So,” Naero asked. “I’m trying to understand. Only the royal levels and the leadership levels have sexual relations with each other, but only the queen produces offspring for the entire hive? Doesn’t that make the soldiers, teks, and drones more or less sexless?”

Beremel smiled. “I know if must seem bizarre and confusing to an alien mind, especially for mammals. But just remember that the Amavar have lived in this fashion very successfully for millions of years. Soldiers are always female. Teks and drones can be either male or female, and while they will all pair off for temperature regulation and companionship, they do not have sex, even for pleasure.

“The leadership levels have sex for pleasure, within exclusively mated pairs and or with concubines and consorts on the side, but they do not produce offspring. Yes, the queen produces all of the offspring as are needed for the hive. If her consort dies, she can pick a new one, or even choose to retire, turning her reign over to a new queen. If and when a queen dies, several princesses, or potential queens are always held in reserve, in case they are needed.”

“Do you have a mate, Admiral?”

“I do. He is a general of our ground forces, and we are very happy with each other. Our duties keep us extremely busy, especially with the war now, but we mate several times each year, and each joining is wonderful.”

“Very well. Let me ask about something completely different. How do you see our enemies?” Naero asked.

“I see them for what they are–the greatest threat to our existence that we have ever faced. They see us mostly as food, or to be captured and turned into mindless slaves and shock troops for them.

Beremel shuddered. “I have seen these slaves that they make of our unhatched. They are mindless killers, who cannot be reasoned with, even though they look like our own. We exterminate them with great disgust. That our foe turns our own offspring against us is a crime for which we shall never forgive them. There can be no quarter with such a foe. Either we destroy them, or they will destroy us and all that we could ever be.”

Naero took a chance. “I have heard of others of my kind who have met an Amavar female named S’krin. Do you know–”

Admiral Beremel stopped in her tracks and shuddered. She whirled about, her face a mask of emotions, one of them rage.

“You have seen and met with Dellessa Shehanniel Kevatthia S’krin?”

“I have only heard of other Spacers who have, back in the Alpha Quadrant. Who is she?”

“The Alpha Quadrant,” Beremel said. “It figures that she would go there to avoid her responsibilities.”

Naero didn’t follow. “Admiral, you have me at a loss here.”

“This S’krin, as you call her, as she now calls herself was the only high daughter of the former Amavar Empress. S’krin was genetically engineered and specially groomed to produce the next leap forward in Amavar evolution. Yet when the old empress was dying, and S’krin was hatched and being trained to assume the mantle of the new empress, she rebelled and fled, betraying her people–insisting on being free to go off on her own to have her own selfish life, without thought to her people and their greater needs.”

“And another empress could not be produced?” Naero guessed.

“No, not at all. Not one such as her,” Beremel said. “The old empress died, and it had taken almost and entire lifetime to prepare another, even with her assistance. Do you happen to know where this S’krin is?”

“Not currently. They are but rumors I had heard.”

“She is considered worse than a renegade. Worse than an enemy. To my people, she is traitor of the highest rank. All of our people have orders to kill her on sight. If you learn of her whereabouts, please inform us, and we will send a fleet after her to bring us her head.”

“That all sounds terrible,” Naero noted.

“It is. In all our long history, no empress or queen has betrayed our people so utterly. It is one of our greatest shames as a species.”

Baeven sure could pick ‘em. Apparently, she and Baeven were more or less in the same boat with their species.

No wonder S’krin said not to mention her name.

On their way back, Beremel insisted that they stop off at a nearby moon, to observe a research and mining colony that the enemy had recently attacked and destroyed.

Everything was destroyed, and most of what remained were scorched Amavar exoskeletons of nearly all castes and ages. The enemy had focused on using flame guns, flame cannons on their gravtanks, and incendiary bombs against the colony. The Amavar feared burning to death, and even buried their dead at sea or otherwise under water. They did this because of a spiritual belief that all life originally came from water, and that the dead must be returned to water. Just as Spacers believed that the dead should be returned to the stars.

All that Naero saw on the lost colony were the skeletons and remains of the lost, the slaughtered, and the murdered. Amavar men, women, and children of all castes and ages. Perhaps in a way, the immolated dead had been more fortunate. The other dead and the living who could be eaten had been long since tossed into the enemy meatships.

Naero always looked with horror upon dead children of any sentient species. A murdered child on any world was still a murdered child. And the murderers needed to be stopped and then destroyed.