Naero's Valor

by Mason Elliott

  NAERO’S

  VALOR

  Titles by Mason Elliott

  The Spacer Clans Adventures, First Cycle

  Naero’s Run

  Naero’s Gambit

  Naero’s Fury

  The Spacer Clans Adventures, Second Cycle

  Naero’s Mastery

  Naero’s Valor

  Naero’s Champion*

  The Citation Series, First Cycle

  Naero’s War, Book One: THE ANNEXATION WAR

  Naero’s War, Book Two: THE HIGH CRUSADE

  Naero’s War, Book Three: NAERO’S TRIAL

  The Citation Series, Second Cycle

  The Gamma Quadrant

  The Lost Oden*

  Naero’s Triumph*

  The History of the Spacer Age

  The Starward Surge*

  The Limitless Reach*

  Short Fiction & Novelettes in eBook Format

  The Permit

  Naero and the Quick War

  Naero in Gigacorps Skies*

  Naero and the Gun Girls

  Fantasy with Author Garan R. R. Faraday

  Mergeworld, Book 1

  Mergeworld, Book 2

  Mergeworld, Book 3

  Mergeworld, Book 4*

  Fantasy

  Ghost Sword, Book 1*

  Ghost Sword, Book 2*

  (*Forthcoming)

  NAERO’S

  VALOR

  Mason Elliott

  High Mark Publishing

  www.highmarkpublishing.com

  Seattle & Portland, Los Angeles, Chicago, London

  NAERO’S

  VALOR

  by

  Mason Elliott

  Kindle eBook Edition

  © 2017 by Mason Elliott. All rights reserved.

  Published by High Mark Publishing

  ISBN 978-1-370441-09-9

  Watch for other titles by this author in the future.

  Cover Art by

  Cover Art by Michael McAfee

  mcafee.mic@gmail.com

  License Notes:

  This book or eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This work in any format may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Edition Notes

  If you do not see this edition note here in this spot on the copyright page and on the very last page of your eBook or print version of this title, then you are not getting the final, polished version of this novel that the publisher, editors, and author intended for you to receive. Please contact either the publisher or the author via their emails or websites if you do not see the following update code:

  High Mark Publishing Update Code D3034A

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  Thanks, from Mason Elliott

  1

  The age-old struggle continued, now in the Gamma Quadrant and far beyond. Interstellar war on an unprecedented scale swept forward like the plague and disease of death and misery that only it could be.

  Admiral Naero Amashin Maeris rested alone in her private quarters in the cool darkness, breathing in the cloying scents of the flowering Pelladoovian lapis lilac plants on her walls. Her big oval nanobed conformed to her nude body, however she shifted. She had eaten a fine meal with friends and crew earlier that evening.

  As usual, she wished that her beloved mate Khai was there beside her so that she could love him for a few hours the way they both enjoyed when they eked out some actual alone time.

  Sadly, they seemed to manage less and less of such precious time, with all of the troubles at hand. War remained what it was, and duty was duty.

  She considered how she and her allies had arrived at this point; even with all of the knowledge she and they had gained access to within the vast Kexxian Data Matrix.

  She continually discussed and debated such matters freely with her inner mind companion, Om, a Kexxian AI who remained merged with her.

  Millions of years before, the Great War between the malignant G’lothc and the allied Kexx and Drian hyper races blazed across not one, but several nearby galaxies, causing untold loss of life and devastation.

  That version of the same war was finally brought to what all had thought then to be a conclusive end.

  The Kexx and Drians systematically hunted down the Great Adversary, and utterly defeated and destroyed that hyper species to the last, Om. Or so it was thought at that time. Every G’lothc. Each one of their phenomenal, shapeshifting physical battle forms was painstakingly tracked down and killed.

  But the great evil had become too great and too malign within itself to truly die, in the conventional sense, Naero. At least in this universe. Destroying their physical forms proved to be insufficient.

  The Drians and the Kexx could not have known that their great foe would find a way for their evil spirits to cling to existence, long enough to take on new vessels, and then attack the Prime Material Plane and others once again.

  The G’lothc spirits did not go on to the next journey. Instead they clung tenaciously to their last shreds of existence, on the brink of destruction itself. By stubborn force of will they managed to remain, biding their time until they could acquire new hosts, new vessels for their fell essences, and new slaves to crew their endless hi-tek fleets and armies.

  They waited, plotted, and planned. We know very well that they are incredibly long term thinkers and planners.

  Om, all that stands between the Great Adversary and eventual oblivion for all sentients in the universe is the growing might of the new Galactic Sentient Alliance, our very own GSA.

  You must continue to lead, to help direct that fight, Naero. I will always be at your side. I will counsel and aid you in this cause, until we are either victorious–or we are no more.

  Right now I need to sleep a bit, Om. The battle’s coming. Let me rest.

  No worries. I’ll wake you when we arrive on scene.

  If you don’t, they will. I’m sure of that.

  Sweet dreamies, N.

  Naero led her own Task Force 6 against the latest enemy flare up in the Gamma Quadrant a few hours later, on the bridge of her flagship. She commanded a thousand Alliance fleets, the elite selected from all of the Free Alliance races.

  Fifty thousand advanced Ultrium warships raced toward the front lines of the expanding conflict, with their hyper cannons bristling, hot, and ready to unleash their fury in battle across four hundred parsecs deep in the Unknown Regions.

  They were the Alliance vanguard, a rapid response force racing in to engage an enemy host estimated at nine times their size in raw numbers. These ‘Pocket Waves’ of enemy fleets continued to flare up without warning and greater regularity, causing great destruction until they were put down.

  Could these merely be probing attacks for a wider campaign?

  That was a terrible thought, but the G’lothc were the very masters of what was most terrible.

  Naero commanded her task force directly from a wide circular platform raised up on the bridge of her flagship, The Holy Ghost. A six meter holographic display sphere, filled with various fields and screens, blazing and popping up all around her in three active, evolving dimensions.

  Yet the greater power of her matchless, dynamic system was her direct psyonic links to all one thousand of her reps—replicants of herself and her tactical mind—stationed on each of the command decks of the flagships of each battle fleet, assisting each of the veteran fleet captains to organize and coordinate their p
lans of attack, formations, and attack vectors.

  Naero knew what they knew and saw what they saw, through psyonics and teknomancy, all at once in real time just as they did, and more.

  Within her complex Mystic mind expanded through her third eye, Naero was constantly aided and supported by Om and all of the replicant minds that they were networked with.

  Together they evolved into the absolute masters of the immense battlefront, unlike any command and control system that had ever existed–except in the time if the godlike ancients.

  Naero, flex shift these one-hundred-and-twenty-nine fleets in these pre-assigned battle arrays and hyper vectors.

  Copy that, Om. I see. You’re responding to the enemy’s complex shifts in these key areas. It’s almost like they’re testing strategies and tactics on us. They’re trying to encircle large groups of our forces.”

  Clever of them, but we are not about to allow that to happen, are we? Instead, why don’t we lure them in and then collapse their spheres from within and without. Overlapping destroying fire and energy drain waves from the fixer nebulae at these key points should bring about confusion and disorder where we need them most. We can see where the enemy is coming from, and intercepted tactical communications will confirm where they plan to attack next.

  Great work, Om. As they pile up and cram together, their mobility will be greatly reduced. Then our attack waves will punch through where they are weakest and gain the upper hand.

  And observe–the process is repeatable, N. That’s the great thing about this strategy. We can recycle and re-spring this same trap in a hundred different ways, for days if need be.

  Excellent attrition strategy, Om. We’ll set up the machines and let them run. We’re already anticipating and pro-actively responding and moving with an efficiency level of eighty-four percent effectiveness against everything the enemy tries to pull off. They’re a bunch of slugs compared to our timing, vector management, and advanced fire control. Here we go. Put it on them!

  Yet Naero knew full well that the invincible Kexx and the Drians had once controlled battles that spanned across entire galaxies, and emerged victorious.

  The Alliance was still light years away from battle control on any kind of magnitude that rivaled that.

  But Naero’s system had to be the next best thing.

  Battles evolved on the go; that had to be expected. Om filtered, coordinated, and tabulated all of the sophisticated tactical data and made initial sense of it, sorting it into useful patterns and meaningful strings of teknomancy thought and tactical lines. He worked in tandem with her, helping her to continually evolve her overall strategies and tactics for the entire task force.

  Together they were a dynamic and unstoppable team, synchronizing the effectiveness and feedback of a thousand elite strike fleets in ways that were impossible for the most advanced AIs or even the High Command itself.

  For Naero, being linked directly into all of her reps was like being everywhere at once throughout the entire battle, all at the same instant, each moment that passed.

  She and Om used advanced Spacer Mystic teknomancy and psyonics to transmit orders and commands as fast as synaptic thought could zip them out, like lightning, shared almost instantly from mind to mind.

  No current AI system from any species could compete with that level of complexity and hyper responsiveness.

  Not even the mind slaves of the G’lothc.

  Naero and her younger sisters took it straight at the enemy hard and hot and rammed it through them like lightning via the force of hundreds of thousands of blazing, accurate hyper cannons.

  They swarmed on the enemy in the worst possible places, as fast as the enemy tried to adapt.

  Then they flashed away to strike again at other key points, before the enemy could respond or regroup.

  All right, my girls, we have them off balance. Now let’s start to roll them up.

  These thirty-five fleet captains attack from these vectors, in these shifting formation patterns. Go!

  Two hundred fleets jump in guns blazing on these marks from these vectors. Pulverize the enemy forces as soon as you clear and keep driving on to your next objectives.

  Seven pockets of seventy-five fleets each attack from these individual vectors in these coordinated time frames. Hit their formations all along the front lines, jumping across these systems in rapid succession. Ride these shifts and adjust your firing patterns on the fly for maximum effect.

  Even though the Alliance forces were still outnumbered, they out-maneuvered the enemy at every turn, catching them in interlocking patterns of intense fire from many well-timed screens and directions.

  Each of her reps and their strike fleet captains managed their on-site operations and reported their progress, feeding Naero Prime and Om constant data flows.

  Naero shifted and adjusted operations in order to counter any enemy surprises or counterattacks. Fixer nebulae shifted to hold off swarms of phage and mind control wraiths until they could be effectively exterminated.

  When it was clear that they had the enemy on the run across the screens, Naero turned the remainder of the battle over to her second, Kali.

  “Finish them off, battle sister. I’m going out to assess things in my own way.”

  Kali laughed. “We’ve degraded them by forty-eight percent in a matter of hours. Naero Prime, I am sufficient, but only you can lead us the way that you do.”

  Naero shook hands up to the elbow with her counterpart. “You are more than sufficient, Kali. You would have done much the same, and your execution time would have only been slightly behind mine. I have every confidence in you.”

  Kali bowed her head. “All of us know that you are the original, Naero Prime. You upgrade us at every turn, but you are still far beyond us. This is why you and you alone are the Prime; we accept that. I thank you for the life that you have given me. After this war ends, I will select a mate and raise a family of my own. I will continue to have my own life and make my own way. Yet I will never forget who I am and what you have done for myself and all of our sisters. I thank you.”

  Her sister even formally bowed to her.

  “No need to thank me, Kali. You are truly one of my most accomplished sisters, and you serve the Alliance well. I could not ask for more. It is I who should be thanking you and all of the rest.”

  “Go forth and take your blood guard with you, Naero Prime.”

  “I shall. Good hunting, Kali. I look forward to your continuing updates and reports. Fight well.”

  Kali nodded with a well-known half-smile. “You know that we will.”

  2

  Naero transformed into her Kexxian counterpart Orean and entered the vastness of the Kexxian Data Matrix, a limitless Interdimensional realm within her own DNA. In this spiritmind form, she was a functioning, lizard-like Kexx from the ancient days, in almost every way possible.

  By now she handled the shift fluidly, almost without hesitation or effort.

  Her real form rested under heavy guard on her flagship in a specially shielded chamber. With all of her Cosmic abilities, she was quite capable of moving within and exploring various Intradimensional, Interdimensional, and Extradimensional realms of possibility.

  She understood now that the KDM was just another of them, albeit a perfected and very spectacular one.

  The patterns and structures of realities revealed themselves to her more and more over time and began to make sense–a complex combination of Chaos, Order, and Change–a process of the Three Wisdoms.

  These were the forces that directed all existence itself.

  Each possibility or universe, however one looked at or experienced it, existed within its own infinite spheres, with its own laws and realities. And there were countless levels, circles, and other connected spheres of existence, with their own energies that bound them and made them real.

  The infinite really was infinite. That was one of the great truths.

  These cycles that she had learned about were most li
kely infinite as well, as far as she could tell. Yet there were also plateaus and levels of understanding within them. Some of these structures and concepts were larger and more meaningful than each other. But that was deceptive also.

  There were many paradoxes that had to be correctly understood.

  At times size and scope were vital factors.

  At other times they were not.

  And there were often many important gradations in between.

  Many times Orean would simply float within the rarified aether of the intense KDM and let the waves of the data oceans and their collective enlightenment wash over her.

  That experience itself was akin to floating in pure knowledge that had the properties of a Cosmic hyper-liquid, infused with light and energy, but without mass, as insane as all of that sounded.

  Awash in enlightenment that was so dense in its composition as to be beyond comprehension.

  With all things Kexxian, even more so than with their allies, the Drians, the key to all things was hyper intricate music. To the godlike Kexx, music was all things, and permeated everything they did, great or small.

  The Kexx were mighty Cosmic singers without peer, and they were in tune with the music–and the very powers of Creation and matter and energy manipulation at levels beyond normal understanding.

  They had tapped into and partially merged with the enigmatic Great Mystery itself, the true power behind every universe that had been, all that existed, or were possible, and all things that would ever be possible.

  The Great Mystery was not only sentient, but sentient and hyper aware in ways that exceeded far beyond SpaceTime itself.