“We do not answer to the GSA in any way,” Elkins insisted.
“You will answer to us, if you choose to act as invaders and tyrants toward other sentient species,” Naero noted. “And no, let me just answer that question right now. If you do not have the tek and the fleets to defeat the Great Adversary, then you certainly don’t have the moxie to take on the GSA. We will kick your asses as well if you force us to. Nobody wants that. Don’t force us to reign you in. I repeat, no one will enjoy that. But we will do so, if you and your leaders leave us no other way.”
“Now we come down to the truth,” Shaul said. “When all else fails, the mighty GSA knows what is best for everyone. You will use force. You will send your mind freaks, alien half breeds, and Darkforce monsters against us to bully us and take us out. That’s what we can expect from the GSA. But Humanity will never be intimidated or defeated by such alien betrayal and treachery.”
Khai openly laughed. “Haisha! You people are deluded idiots, and you will most likely die from your own ignorance and stupidity about what is waiting for you fanatics out there in the black. Take it from this alien half-breed monster. When our enemies are shredding you and your third-rate, surplus fleets, you will be screaming and pleading for us to come save you. Mark my words. You arrogant twits have no concept of the terrors out there waiting for you. We don’t have to do anything to any of you. You morons are going to step in it up to your necks soon enough, and that is going to be it. The Delta Quadrant will deal with you on your terms.”
“Go your way then,” David added. “For now we will not stop you. Good luck with your little colonization fantasies, nephew. You have been sufficiently warned on all counts. But we strongly advise you not to break the current open exploration rules, Admiral. And now that we’ve made ourselves quite clear, I think that we are quite done here.”
Naero and her contingent packed up quietly and departed without another word exchanged.
15
Saemar gave birth to her baby at last.
Zhen, Shalaen, and Trudi took care of everything, and all went very smoothly. How could it not, with three of the most incredible healers in the galaxy attending?
Little Hikaru Kimura, his lost father’s namesake, came into the universe kicking, screaming, and fighting almost from the first. He had short black hair and gleaming black eyes.
Naero and Khai gave him the gift of tiny, elaborate swords, and hired a Spacer swordmaster from his own family sept to help train him from birth in the warrior arts, from that moment on.
Saemar was up from her medbed in minutes, already healing, and insisted on taking her son out among the stars in a starfighter, in honor of him, and his father and mother. Both parents were, after all, elite starfighter pilots.
Fighter jocks would always be a special breed.
Fighter wings and entire flights of starfighters from Saemar’s, Chaela’s, and Naero’s commands shot fireworks out into the black to celebrate that little boy’s birth.
Special permission and security had to be implemented, because so many GSA and Spacer carriers were brought together in the same place and made vulnerable. Security remained high.
All of Naero’s kids got to hold their new little Clan Maeris cousin. Shetharra adored him and became especially attached to the little fellow. She readily offered to help take care of him, if Aunt Saemar would let her.
“Sweetie, I would be honored if you would,” Saemar said, crying once more. There were countless happy tears that day.
Newborn Hikaru was a pleasant little guy, as far as babies went. He slept easily from the get go, and didn’t mind being handed around so much. Spacer babies could still be a lot of work in their needy moments, but they were easier to care for than normal human infants. Naero had learned that much.
Naero, Chae, Zhen, and Tyber could not be happier for Saemar, and they had never seen her that content and complete before, not since those brief, enchanted days that she had shared with her beloved Hikaru, her son’s lost father.
Saemar deserved this joy, and they all told her so.
“Haisha,” Saemar exclaimed quietly to her friends, her family. “I never thought that I could ever love someone so much again.”
“No one can prepare parents for how much they’re going to fall in love with their babies,” Naero told her.
Everyone was in agreement with that.
“I know I have my other duties,” Saemar said. “But I want to be with him for a while. I just can’t give him up. I wish I could find a safe place to hide, and just let the universe forget about us for a while.”
Those words struck a resounding chord in Naero, and triggered a number of racing ideas.
Zhen laughed. “Take as long as you want, Saemar. What, did you think that you could not be replaced? The GSA has this. You take all the time that you need with your little boy. Right N? Chae?”
Both of them nodded. They knew what it took to sustain a good family life. And the best thing to do was to make a good beginning together.
Saemar was not alone, and her abani would make sure that things would go well.
At last, everything with Saemar and her life seemed to be in place, sustainable, and going well.
When she retired with little Hikaru to sleep, her friends stayed up long into the watches and bells of the night and late morning.
They celebrated her good fortune and watched over her and her child.
No one knew what the next day would bring, but for now, there was peace, gladness, and great joy.
*
“I’m determined to make this plan work,” Naero insisted. She, Khai, Om, and Ommo had just confirmed their latest top secret project with Klyne and the GSA High Command. Only a few persons could be allowed to know all that would be going on thereafter behind the scenes.
At several points Naero herself cringed at all of the intense, complex work that lay ahead of them.
“You will have to shoulder most of this scheme,” Khai told her. “You are the only one who can accomplish many of these things, and much of it will be grim work at that.”
Naero sighed very deeply. “I accept that. If there were any other way, I would take it. But our grim situation forces us to make hard choices. We must think about what is best on the whole.”
“Many others are going to be hurt by this,” Khai said, “no matter what we do. Including many who are close to us and who care deeply about us.”
“Hurt is better than dead, and that’s what counts,” Ommo noted. “Lives must be saved where they can be.” Clearly he was on Naero’s side. So was his counterpart Om, who was still linked to all three of them.
Of course the two of them were of the same mind.
We have chosen to pursue this course of action, and for many good reasons. Yes, it will require a great deal of effort, and no small degree of secrecy and subterfuge on all of our parts to pull it off. But if we are successful, the overall results will be beneficial on the whole to everyone who is directly affected.
“The others will understand, eventually,” Naero said. “We know exactly why we must do all of this. But now is the time to continue our preparations and go forward with the actual execution. We must. The enemy’s recent actions make all of this more imperative than ever. Khai is right; there is a great deal to accomplish. But not all of it has to be accomplished by myself alone. All of you and a few others can assist me greatly in many ways. Let’s go over the stages and details of the plan once more.”
16
The intense revised campaign to bring the unallied lander worlds into the GSA fold needed to begin anew somewhere. Naero’s Shetanna reps were the logical place to start, or in many cases, continue in their footsteps.
They were already on the ground and operating to better life on those planets. They already had the trust of the landers.
These thousands of worlds could not be allowed to remain stagnant, apathetic, or join the folly of groups like the HFM.
Naero, Khai, and Ommo had already laid
some of the stepped-up groundwork when they had passed through those many of those worlds just recently. All of their agents were in the process of coordinating all of the new strategies.
But it had been clear from the outset that this was going to be a difficult, complex, and monumental task. Nothing was certain, and there was always the potential for these issues to become very awkward and unpleasant. Things were far too volatile.
They still had to take time and effort to attempt to change hearts and minds in many different environments, and make things happen in both the short and long term.
In the end, it might even take years, possibly decades in some cases to show any real progress.
Much of the effort also needed to continue to pursue many of these goals in secret.
If word ever got out that a “spack mindfreak” such as herself was trying to directly influence and shape the opinions, politics, and vital decisions of thousands of semi-hostile lander worlds, and zillions of landers, then that might just lead to yet another wasteful Spacer War.
Her good intentions would never matter to many landers.
How ironic that plain human folly, prejudice, and apathy turned out to threaten and harm landers, Spacers, and the GSA movement far more in certain ways than the Great Adversary’s direct attacks and warfare ever could.
At times, people turned out to be their own worst enemies.
As an outsider and keen observer, Ommo had already taken multiple human covert forms in Remo mode all at the same time. He conducted ambitious secret onworld surveys and observations on numerous unallied worlds in question. The Shetannas on those worlds helped guide and protect his expanding efforts.
Those studies spread at a rapid pace, and were processed, tabulated, and analyzed on the go.
Much of his results and conclusions appeared to be mirrored on lander world after lander world.
He made the initial reports on his findings to Naero & Om, Khai, and Klyne, who attended their small session via a secure, synthezoid construct link. Klyne’s holo was deceptively lifelike. Naero even forgot for a moment and tried to rest her hand on Klyne’s arm. Of course she merely stuck both hand and arm through the hololink projection.
She grimaced and pulled back.
They all listened to Ommo’s findings.
“What I see on almost every level of lander society, among these societies,” Ommo noted, “are vast levels of intellectual laziness, apathy, and outright sweeping ignorance and prejudice. The main problem on the unallied worlds is not irrational fear of the unknown among the populations, as we once suspected. Not at all. The real issue is that zillions of undereducated and even somewhat educated regular humans don’t really give much of a damn about anything or anyone. They barely care about themselves. Why would they care about something happening in the depths of the Gamma Quadrant, or somewhere else?
“All of these concerns lead to a host of problems and issues in trying to shape public opinion on these worlds in any way.”
“Take a look at it from their perspective,” Khai said. “For centuries the Corps exploited, lied to, and manipulated humanity into the ground. From that experience and conditioning alone, most landers are functionally incapable of trusting anyone or anything they don’t know. Even when someone tries to present them with verifiable facts and evidence, they mistakenly assume that they are being lied to and scammed. They can’t seem to believe in anything or anyone any longer.”
Ommo took up his part of the conversation once more. “Since being freed of the Corps, many landers still seem to exist in some kind of cultural bubble of shock or stagnation. Not everyone wants to be a colonist and charge off into the black. So many of these people just want to be left alone wherever they happen to exist. They work just enough in their now open economies to get by, and enjoy a few luxuries when they can. But they don’t seem to be that interested in bettering themselves, as long as they have what they need. For them, this is the value of peace.”
“It’s a limited, small world view versus an expansive, big picture views that is overwhelming to many. Just not being oppressed or exploited is a luxury to them,” Naero pointed out. “I get that. But against the Great Adversary, that reluctance will still destroy them, and possibly the rest of us as well.”
“Many landers on thousands of standard human worlds do seem to have that attitude,” Ommo stated. “They merely wish to exist and ignore the greater universe. They delude themselves in the belief that none of that will ever reach or affect them where they are.”
Om bypassed using a mindlink, and spoke to them through Ommo’s form as he enjoyed doing sometimes. The two of them even agreed that he would use a different voice when he did so. “Naero and I have only encountered real energy, ambition, and drive among large chunks of lander colonial populations on the borders and fringes with the Unknown Regions. Even among largely apathetic cultures, there always seem to be those who want to explore, get out there, and find something new for themselves, despite all of the dangers lurking for them in the unknown. And all of us know exactly how real those threats are. Despite all of that, the explorers still don’t care. They are ready to go.”
For those not used to it, Om speaking through Ommo could be a trifle weird.
“That’s just it,” Naero told them all. “We need to make them care–all of the landers, not just some of them. We can’t just let zillions of bumbling largely defenseless civilians wander off into the black. Many of them and their rickety vessels are completely unarmed. We’re literally talking picks and shovels for self-defense. If they have any hand weapons at all, they’re ancient style firearms and slug throwers. What if they come up against the enemy’s finest shock troops that bristle with modern military shielding and hardware?”
Khai looked down. “None of them would last very long. They won’t have a chance. At least they need to comprehend that much.”
Naero crossed her arms in front of herself. “That’s exactly why we need to shape some opinions, commit some education while we can, and make it stick. That’s exactly why we’re going through all of this secrecy and trouble, for their sake.”
“Whether the landers want it or not?” Ommo asked. “We tossed out the Corps for manipulating them without their knowledge. How is this not the same thing, in practice, if not intent?”
“Because we are trying to help them, with little in it for us. We aren’t trying to gain from this; in fact, it’s costing us big time. Look, ignorant people don’t know they’re ignorant. Left to themselves, it might take the landers five hundred years or more to get off their lazy collective asses and make a credible decision on these very real problems that are facing them right now.
“We don’t have that long. And neither do they. The Great Adversary could sweep over us tomorrow, and we are going to need lander numbers to help us all survive. I’m sure our enemies know that; that’s why they want to wipe out humanity. They’ve always wanted that. The landers don’t have time to be lazy. Because if we go down, they’re next, and they aren’t ready!”
“Naero’s right,” Khai said. “Now is the time to move hearts and minds. All of this is coming at them, sooner or later. Most likely sooner; they just don’t know it yet. All of those thousands of lander worlds will suffer the most if the Great Adversary falls upon them, with the way that things stand now.”
Naero smacked her fist into her open palm. “There is no choice, and no going back. We keep going forward with all of our covert plans at every level. Om and Ommo will continue to help Intel seed the ground with credible information leaks and plants on the Webnet and data released to ISN from valid and seemingly independent sources. Opinion will build and begin to shift where it needs to go. No lies, just truth. A vast enemy is coming to destroy us all—all sentients—in the entire fucking galaxy. But if the landers perceive and understand the looming death sentence hanging over them, they will choose to act in their best interests, and do so decisively. Like I’ve said all along, this is education, not deception. We’re
not telling them anything that is not true. We cannot prevent all loss when the time comes, but trillions, if not zillions of lander lives can still be saved, if we act in the best interests of all.”
Ommo laughed openly. “Good luck with that, my friends.”
“You don’t think the landers will listen to reason in the end?”
“No. I don’t. Have they ever showed signs of doing so before? My point exactly, N.”
“We have to find a way for them to accept all of this data and do the right thing. If only we could beat it into their thick skulls!”
Khai laughed, “I love this woman, not only when she’s so forceful, but right. Yet here’s the trick. We need to make the landers think that this is their idea. Make them come to us for help.”
*
The massive enemy attack on Naero’s personal fleet erupted at the worst possible time for everyone present.
Naero and Khai’s family, friends, and staff we’re all on a heavily guarded shuttle heading from Naero’s flagship back to The Angel Wing when it all went down.
They were protected by squadrons of elite starfighters manned by Naero’s own special replicants.
Yet the enemy picked the most opportune moment to appear in force, uncloak, and strike hard and fast.
Dozens of the enemy’s most advanced fleets appeared out of nowhere and opened fire at extremely close range.
The initial effects were devastating, before anyone could react.
More Alliance fleets responded in seconds, taking the fight straight to the foe. There would be no escape for the enemy forces.
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