Naero couldn’t stand it any longer.
She punched in orders on her com unit.
Enough of this. Get back to the ship. Everyone load up on squad weapons, grenades, and shield units. When these ships go up, we’re taking these bastards down.
No objections.
Her people knew what was going to happen, and they were ready to fight.
Already the Ejjai fought with each other over the kids, and especially any pregnant women or babies. While the rest of the troops began separating the adult males and females and the old.
Agonizing seconds later, both the enemy meatship and the enemy domeships exploded, just as victims were being driven up the ramps.
Multiple grenade strikes rocked the packed Ejjai forces, adding to the dismay and utter confusion.
Naero and her fire team uncloaked, putting as many of the colonists behind them and their squad weapons as they could. Each of them unleashed a storm of point-blank automatic fire right into the teeth and face of the Ejjai, mowing them down.
Civilians of any age who could pick up a fallen Ejjai weapon did so and joined the desperate fight, rallying around the Spacers.
From a high, clear vantage point, Tarim remained cloaked, under Naero’s orders.
He and his advanced, silent sniper rifle picked off enemy stragglers, officers, or any foes among the colonists who tried to pop up and attack.
For the moment they had saved most of the remaining colonists and swept the field.
But the remaining bulk of the enemy would quickly regroup.
“Get the children and anyone who can’t fight back into those tunnels!” Naero shouted. “Everyone who can fight, grab a weapon and hold the line. Help is on the way. We need to hold this position for as long as we can!”
“Incoming armor on the scanners, converging on this position!” Pasaendra yelled. “Gravtanks and gunships. Get those shield generators online or we’re dead.”
The shields went up just before the first barrage hit them.
Anything out in the open or outside of the shield perished in exploding fire.
The enemy starships tried to launch.
The Flying Dagger finally uncloaked, swinging and swerving in a wide, evasive circle, strafing the enemy ships still trapped on the ground.
Pausing to concentrate fire on any ship trying to lift off until it fell burning back, to the surface.
Two enemy vessels filled with ordnance and gear began to cook off.
Then Enel and the crew came straight at the foe, strafing the packed lines of gravtanks and gunships converging on the tunnels.
With its shields up, The Dagger even rammed into an entire wing of enemy gunships, and dipped down to gouge a bloody smear through the advancing enemy infantry hordes.
Then it cloaked again.
The enraged Ejjai went mad.
They poured every type of fire at the area around the tunnel entrances.
One by one, the defender’s shield generators disrupted and flared out.
And layer after layer of their defenses withered and dissolved.
The Dagger made two more attack runs, driving the enemy forces back.
Then enemy fighters swarmed down out of the sky from the carriers in orbit and chased it off in hot pursuit.
Naero looked at their last two generators.
“Retreat back into the tunnels. We’ll bring them down behind us!”
Even as they fell back, one generator failed and burst into smoke and fire.
The insane Ejjai swept toward them to try to cut them off, scores of them running into the teeth of their own fire.
Naero turned at bay.
They could not be overrun. Not now.
“Stand and fight! "she commanded. “Hold this line!”
Everyone who could still lift a weapon rallied around her and the last shield generator.
Naero hurled every last grenade she carried.
Her blaster rifle clicked empty.
She flung it down and drew both blaster pistols. Emptying them rapid-fire into the swarming mass of Ejjai faces.
When they were out, she drew her energy cutlass and battle blade.
She took one step forward, screaming.
“Come on, you Ejjai bitches!”
For a second, the enemy horde hesitated.
Then they looked up in wide-eyed fear and fell back.
Waves of Spacer Ghost Dragons and other fighter squadrons from Naero’s trade fleet filled the sky, sweeping in low to gun down any enemy ship or vehicle that dared show itself.
Spacer starships modified for ground-attack mode surrounded the trapped enemy and walked in on them, crushing and pulverizing them out in the open.
The Ejjai invasion force withered and died.
The invaders knew they were dead, but a last knot of heavily armored enemy troops made one last drive on Naero’s position in an attempt to overrun it.
Just as a Spacer assault force of hundreds of gravwing troops in combat armor descended from the sky.
A sheet of interlocking weapon-fire tore into the foe.
Naero caught a glimpse of several other captains coming to her rescue, led my Max Lii. Who mowed down Ejjai with sonic blasts from his roaring kitar, unleashed in full battle mode.
The Ejjai general charged straight at Naero, snorting at the air and wielding two energized broadswords.
“Die, spack bitch!”
“Not today!”
Naero flip-kicked into her, sweeping wave kicks battering her, driving the enemy general back. Flashing into her from all sides. Knocking one broadsword spinning away.
Naero cut the general’s belly wide open, and then split her foe’s head down the center, lodging her cutlass deep into the gushing torso and heart.
Seconds later, the remaining invaders were completely swept away in a torrent of fire.
Naero sagged to the ground, a jolt of sudden agony in her skull crippling her without warning.
She couldn’t get up off her hands and knees, and nearly fell over.
Finally in the confusion, a pregnant colonist and her young daughter rushed to her side and helped her back up to her feet.
“Are you hurt?” the mother asked, looking her over.
“I…don’t think so.”
“Thank you,” the mother told her. “I don’t know who you people are, but may heaven reward you for saving us from these creatures. Without all of you, they would have murdered us for certain. We will never forget what you did for us, champion.”
The young daughter went back and pulled Naero’s cutlass free and returned it to her hands.
“You are a great warrior. I watched you fight,” the young girl said with great admiration. “You never gave up. You’re just like Shettana; you even look like her!”
Who? What was the girl talking about?
“We can never thank you enough.”
First the daughter, then the mother knelt and kissed her hands.
Naero felt enough strength and control return to her that at least she could remain standing and walk.
The rescued colonists poured out of the tunnel and rejoiced, cheering and thanking their rescuers profusely. Many others looked to be injured or in shock still.
Naero took in all the devastation and carnage the enemy invaders had wrought around them.
Fleets of uplifted Ejjai invading the fringes? Meatships. What in the hell was going to happen next?
10
In the aftermath of the ‘skirmish’ with the Ejjai invaders, Naero’s trade fleet licked its wounds, tended the wounded, and held their wakes for the few Spacer dead on the third day.
Naero sighed as the names were read one last time, before the fleet launched thirty-seven caskets into Haiku-4’s category green sun. Returning their dead to the stars.
Klyne was of course correct. It was an extremely small number of KIA, considering the size of the engagement and the number of forces involved. Naero was proud of her people.
They stepped
up and never hesitated. They arrived in good order, with good intel, adapted to the situation, and put down a vicious foe hard and fast, and with minimal losses.
But watching those thirty-seven caskets buried one by one into the star was something she never got used to.
Knowing full well what effect each loss had on the people who loved and knew those individuals.
The effect her own personal losses had on her and her life.
Well, she was simply glad in the end that the number wasn’t higher, even by one more.
They still had one hundred and three wounded to tend to.
Naero made a point of visiting them all. Listening to their accounts. Seeing to anything they might need.
The ones who could not respond yet she kissed on the forehead and thanked them.
The Ejjai had been completely eradicated. They proved worthless as prisoners and interrogation was both dangerous and useless. Some even had booby-traps of explosives or poison gas canisters implanted inside of them at random.
The naval battle with the Ejjai had also been quick and decisive. Yet when defeat came, failsafe devices on their warships blew them all to bits. Not a single ship was captured intact.
But Intel poured over every detail. And kept large teams sifting through the debris.
The surviving colonists, about a third of their original number, were shipped back to the border worlds as refugees, most of them traumatized and shattered by the horrendous losses they suffered.
The Haiku-4 colony ceased to be viable and was scheduled to be abandoned, once Intel went over it and studied the enemy in every way possible.
Naero recovered quickly and set out with her fleet once more, about a standard day from her long-delayed rendezvous with Klyne and her Mystic testing.
She could not put a finger on why she grew so increasingly nervous about that.
With her powers and abilities still absent, what could go wrong? Other than she guessed she’d be taking a pounding, without any psyonic abilities to defend herself with.
Naero received Klyne’s latest secure message in private at the com station in her quarters.
Klyne looked grimmer than usual.
“We obviously have some new problems afoot.”
Naero raised one eyebrow. “Obviously. What now?”
“The attack on the colony at Haiku-4 wasn’t the first.”
“I’ve heard rumors to that effect.”
“I’m sending you these Intel security reports on a need-to-know basis. We’re not entirely sure who’s behind uplifting the Ejjai.”
“I’m guessing hardline remnants from Triax.”
“Perhaps. Be prepared. Some of these vids are very stark. The attack on Haiku-4 and all of these other scattered stories are about to hit the INS feeds within the next few hours.”
Naero watched the vids and factual reports pan by.
“Klyne, whoever organized all of this needs to be hunted and put down hard.”
“Agreed. These seemingly random attacks have taken place without warning, in extremely remote locations. Always where no help can usually arrive in time to make any difference.”
“It was just a fluke that my fleet and I were out there chasing Alala.”
“Two tiny far-flung colonies, a restricted world, a research facility, and two groups of merchant ships, one from the Corps, another from the miners. Same random pattern. Everything and everyone wiped out and picked clean. Even the flesh off the bodies.”
“Harsh. No one can ever expect any mercy from Ejjai. It simply isn’t in their nature. Just the opposite. Look at the terror frozen on those dead faces. Who in their right mind would ignore all of the risks of uplifting a hyper-violent, invasive species like this?”
Klyne swallowed hard.
Naero blinked. She had never seen him afraid before.
“That’s where it starts to get scary. They’re not simply Ejjai. They’re Ejjai clones.”
“Clones?”
“Indeed. Someone’s cloning these monsters. We think in great numbers, most likely to be used as shock troops. This Ejjai fleet was designated as Unit 369. How many more units are there and where are they being kept? We don’t know yet.”
Naero covered her mouth for a moment in shock and horror. “There could be thousands of them.”
Klyne nodded. “Our fear exactly. And even worse, our analysis reveals that Unit 369 was cloned over three decades ago–”
“This has gone on for thirty years? I wasn’t even born yet!”
“Nano-level trace degeneration markers reveal that they have been in cold storage much of that time. They were only revived and had their uplift training updated only recently. The clones only last for about ten standard years at best before they simply die off. But they’ve been designed to survive in cold storage for two centuries or more with a minimal percentage of loss.”
“Freeze troops. This is scary, Klyne. How long has it been going on?”
Klyne hesitated. “We don’t know how far the program goes back yet. But we think something is escalating. These attacks have been training exercises it appears. Perhaps they are but tests to see if the freeze troops are compatible with their new ships and equipment. All of their gear is very current and mass produced as well. Quite serviceable for a mass invasion in great numbers.”
“Quantity instead of quality. But who’s behind all of this? I’m not even sure if the remnants of Triax could keep something this big going behind the scenes for the last three decades.”
“They couldn’t Naero. Not even when they were on top. They’ve never even had this level of cloning tek. We’ve never had it. Like the ion cannons, we think Triax had gotten some very advanced help from somewhere else. Someone new who has thus far managed to keep a very low profile, but still manages to pweak and effect things behind the scenes.”
“Alien allies?”
“We’re guessing a small number of them, acting primarily as advisors. We keep encountering tek we haven’t come up against before, beyond anything we or the Corps have ever had. It only makes logical sense. The assassins that crashed Sleak’s wedding? They had advanced personal cloaking tek that allowed them to get in close.”
“The Corps have had personal cloakers for years. And Intel longer than that.”
Klyne shook his head. “But not like these. The tek doesn’t match ours or the Corps, and it is far more advanced and efficient. By generations our experts tell us. The only thing they can compare them to are glimpses of stuff they’ve been studying in the KDM.”
Naero took out a deep breath and exhaled. “So. Someone’s planning a major invasion.”
“We think so too.”
Naero stared out across the stars of the fringe. “Where is all of this cloning and building of these invasion fleets taking place without detection?”
“Easy. In the vast Unknown Regions all around our systems. All of the attacks have been on the borders. Each Ejjai Battle Unit is also both self-sufficient, and self-replicating. The meatships process food for the shock troops and the cloning ships.”
“Cloning ships?”
“The dome vessels. They are programmed to automatically clone more Ejjai troops and manufacture more fleets, according to the available resources.”
Naero shook her head. “Everyone should be very afraid, Klyne. We must find these cloning bases and these freeze troops and wipe them all out. If they ever manage to get a foothold on any of the inhabited worlds and begin reproducing themselves, they could become unstoppable.”
Klyne nodded. “Agreed. A new hyper-violent, invasive species has been given access to the stars. By their very nature they will seek out competition and domination over all other species. If we can’t contain them, they will spread everywhere they can, and cause untold misery, havoc, and devastation.”
“I’ll contact The Dark Star and put them on high alert. All of my people, the Clans, our allies–even the other Gigacorps need to understand the gravity of this new threat. If this new enemy decid
es to make a major move, we need to be ready to respond.”
“That process has already begun.”
Klyne smiled slightly. “On a more personal note, I look forward to greeting you on board The Kathmandu for your testing tomorrow. Get good rest, Naero. You’ll need it. Klyne out.”
Naero rubbed her temples and tried to lie down again.
Another night of broken, confused nightmares.
The terrible scenes from the brutal Ejjai attacks only added to the horror of the usual mixed up mess Naero called her mind.
If only the Mystics could help her find some kind of mental relief.
If they could manage that feat, she’d let them beat on her all they wanted. At least for a while.
11
Klyne set the huge Mystic testing room on board The Kathmandu to muted gray. Smartwalls, floor, and ceiling. No equipment. No padding.
Lights down low.
From experience, Naero knew that in a training room, just about anything could pop up out of anywhere.
She wore nothing but her black Nytex flight togs.
To her surprise, Klyne and his two adepts wore dark gray Nytex togs also, with hoods and masks pulled up over their heads and faces. Only their keen eyes showing. All three looked to be in top physical condition.
One of the adepts was female with huge green eyes and light freckles. The other was male, with the black slanted eyes of the Lii-Kim Clans.
If black was the color for Spacers, the Mystics traditionally wore gray.
They sat with their legs crossed in lotus fashion, focusing their abilities through meditation, and mental discipline. They formed a triangle, each side about three meters apart with them at the points.
“Follow our instructions,” Klyne said. “Take your place among us. Sit in the center; sit as we do, face the instructor.”
A circle of white light appeared at the center of the triangle. Naero walked over and sat down in it, facing Klyne. Her skin barely began to tingle.
A ring of similar light appeared, including the instructor and his two adepts.
Every hair on Naero’s body went stiff with electric force.
“You have chosen to come before the circle of Spacer Mystics to be tested for Mystic training. Speak your name.”
Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit Page 7