She was evil therefore. This proved it. It was an undeniable fact.
She suddenly had another dark insight in her instantaneous preoccupation.
Was this what had happened to the G’lothc?
Had they steeped themselves in such dark powers until they in fact became one with them? And thereafter sought only to destroy all else?
Naero barely heard Om screaming and pleading with her in their own mind.
Do something, Naero. We are about to be destroyed!
Naero shook herself and reached out with her power-drunk awareness.
Almost two hundred enemy warships–the equivalent of four entire fleets, converged on their position. Hundreds of thousands of enemy troops.
Let alone all of the living things trapped within the impending blast radius.
She grinned eagerly, still wrestling with her Dark Beast.
Yes…
KILL THEM ALL!
Naero wasn’t sure if it was the raving of her own Dark Beast or the massive detonation of her sudden Cosmic blast triggered into Darkforce energy.
To her, in near madness, they all shrieked one and the same.
Naero still laughed like a maniac when Om wrested control back from her.
He barely transported them away from the effects of the blast range.
The intense energized hurricane from the detonation wave still flung and tumbled them through the sky.
Naero gathered her wits enough to shield and transport them again, to a spot even further away.
The Cosmic explosion wiped out everything inside it.
Leaving behind a glowing, multi-tiered crater of fused glass and disrupting crystal, ten kilometers deep and almost three hundred kilometers in diameter.
An enormous sucking wound, ripped right out of the planet.
No mushroom cloud or fallout as with ancient, messy fusion bombs. Just pure annihilation. Everything within the hot zone completely vaporized, as if it had never been.
Then as the after shocks rocked Janosha, strange energies ripped through Naero and Om.
Some kind of unexpected, devastating feedback.
This was the first time they set off such a blast. They didn’t expect the Cosmic backlash.
Naero sobbed and fell to the ground as if all her tendons had been severed at once.
Was she burned out again?
The power centers in her mind, her brain.
Somehow they felt stunned and crippled, as if she were dissolving.
Was the damage temporary, or permanent?
Om, I’m helpless. I can’t move. It’s all I can do to keep breathing. Can you aid us?
Trying. We have damaged ourself most severely.
Om attempted to take control of their motor functions and bolster them.
But all he could do was get them twitching, flopping, and flailing around.
Unacceptable. Damnation! Let’s coordinate our efforts. This is going to take time.
Most of the other fixers did not escape the blast. Twinky and a few others fled the explosion well-beforehand. Most couldn’t even float anymore. They rolled over toward Naero like drunken, self-aware toy balls, attempting weakly to regenerate and refit themselves.
Much the same as Naero and Om did.
Twinky could only whine and moan. Shaking uncontrollably in fear.
We’re sitting ducks in this state, Om. You try to re-coordinate our motor functions. I’ll tap into the flows and see if I can biomance, with only my mind.
Biomancing obviously worked best when it was channeled through the living flesh and blood of a healthy living organism.
Naero’s wristcom suddenly chimed wildly. She struggled to check it.
Looks like the enemy jamming’s down.
No shit, Om–after we wiped out their fleets. I hope we got them all.
She finally flipped the link open.
Twinky recovered enough to boost the emergency messages pouring in on their secure channel. Naero focused enough to try to sort them out.
She breathed a partial sigh of relief.
We’ll have help in a matter of hours, Om. First Baeven and his crew. Then Alala and my trade fleet after that. Then Intel and the other Spacers. Klyne has several entire battle groups racing toward Janosha and the other Mystic Homeworlds. We just have to hang on a little longer.
Naero, I’m sorry to report that our remaining fixers are still reading several enemy contingents deployed in system. We broke the back of the invasion as a whole, but these remaining forces have not fled. In fact, they seem to be re-doubling their efforts to search and locate some kind of target or objective.
Master Vane. Has to be. He must be one of their primary objectives, Om. But the enemy must also have reinforcements on the way, if they’re hanging around after all that. Perhaps they think we died in the blast as well.
We very nearly did.
Thanks, Om. It was you that saved us. Not me.
Another message cut in over her com from an enemy channel.
An open holo alert.
Straight from the Dakkur hordeship.
59
“Display incoming enemy message,” Naero said.
Om hesitated.
Are you sure? If we open the link, they can trace it back to us. Track us here.
Naero looked around them and shrugged, on the distant edge of the blast crater.
Let them come. It will take them a while to get here, and there’s nothing left to defend here anyway.
“Let’s hear what the enemy has to say,” she said aloud.
Twinky and the few surviving fixers functioned enough to bring up a large holo-screen right before her.
The thick, heavy green snout of the Dakkur leader filled the display.
Oth glared at her, and then pulled back slightly, revealing that it wore some kind of armored, hi-tek battle suit, and an ammo belt of multiple equipment pouches strung around its thick neck, giving his front clawed-hands easy access to the contents of the pouches.
“I am General Oth, if you recall. Dakkur Warlord and Champion Assassin. I commend you on your prowess, spack assassin. In fact, I wish to formally challenge you to a contest. Single combat between you and myself. Combat to the death.”
While Oth spoke, he reached deftly into the pouches around his throat, rising up off all fours. Swift and very flexible, Oth stood up and moved with ease.
She recalled how much larger the Champion caste were, compared to the soldier drones. Oth was twenty meters long, not even counting his vicious tail blade, which was half again as long.
Then Oth pulled out a bloody Spacer head from a pouch, the skull still in a combat armor helmet.
From among the dead at the polar bases most likely.
Through the blood-spattered face shield, the mouth of the pale face hung open, frozen in agony and terror. A woman’s face Naero guessed, but it was hard to tell exactly.
The creature calling itself Oth popped the head–helmet and all–into his vicious grinding maw like it was a piece of candy. And proceeded to chew and gnash it up.
Then Oth swallowed, with great apparent pleasure, sucking his little delicacy down his massive gullet. A horrible, rasping sound.
“I have feasted on the flesh of your kind and find them most toothsome. Especially your soft skulls with the chewy meat inside. My people prize them as a great delicacy now.” Oth pulled out another helmeted head and absently crunched on it in the same horrible fashion.
Naero laughed, using the voice. “As much as I would enjoy destroying you, monster. Why are you trying to delay me and waste my time? And why should I bother to agree to such a match–against one of my enemy’s lackeys and slaves?”
Oth grunted.
“Who is trying to delay who?”
Oth’s end of the link panned back to take in a host of heavily armored Ejjai strike force, tanks, and gunships.
Oth then turned to show several shock troops, surrounding a small Tua female, clutching her terrified kits.
&nb
sp; It was Lenna.
She looked up around at the towering, leering Ejjai killers with pitiful, pleading eyes.
She would find no shred or mercy among their vile kind.
Lenna muttered softly. Naero could make out the words upon her trembling lips.
“The world falls into the sun this day…”
Naero knew them all.
She knew their names.
Naero tried to speak.
Oth cut her off, yawning his great, toothy maw.
“My troops are still famished. Luckily we have found a ready supply of meat in these furry weaklings. I honestly don’t know if I can contain my forces. Their ravenous lust to feed rivals my own at times.”
The Ejjai instantly fell upon Lenna and her kits off to one side.
The helpless Tua shrieked. Laughing Ejjai troops slashed and ripped Lenna and her kits to death. Gorging themselves on red dripping meat as the bodies still twitched and the eyes of the Tua glazed over milky-white.
The Ejjai killed so fast.
In her weakened state, with them so far away. There was nothing Naero could do.
She covered her mouth with both hands. A small cry escaped her lips, but she steeled herself and did not look away.
Something white-hot began to ignite in her mind.
Oth rambled on, munching yet another head.
That’s it. Go ahead and gloat, Oth. Play your hand out.
Buy her the time she needed to regenerate.
“Amazing what these furry ones told us, once we skinned a few dozen of their kind alive and ate them while they were still screaming. The others became very helpful after watching that.”
The holo panned back even more, showing not only the ruined, smoking caves on the cliff face, but three Ejjai warships, concentrating their direct fire on Master Vane’s shielded cave.
“Whatever shall we find locked within that shielded chamber? Why would anyone go to such lengths to hide something here? We’ll just have to blast our way in and see for ourselves. I don’t have anything else to occupy my time. Unless you would stoop to accept my challenge and face me in single combat?”
Om called to her.
Almost there. Getting more efficient at this. Full regeneration nearly complete. Motor functions and all combat abilities should be fully-restored shortly.
Good. Good work Om. Pump us back up to full strength. We’ll need it, I’m sure.
Oth crashed to the ground, crushing a few stray Ejjai who got in his way.
He growled at her through the vid link. A ferocious, eager light glistened in his eyes. He roared a challenge and snarled at her again.
“I am no slave, spack bitch. Face me on the field of battle, with any weapons you choose. And after I crunch your head in my jaws, it can join the rest of your kind in my intestines. Then I will shit all of your dust together–out from my ass!”
He pulled another head out and quickly showed it to her.
“I think you might know this one. I’ve been saving it for this moment for quite a while. “
For an instant, Naero spotted Gallan’s dried, rotting face.
Oth crunched it down too.
Naero forced herself to rise. Shooting to her feet.
Such an insult to her people and the memory of her lost friends could not–would not be endured.
Her third eye opened wide.
All of her eyes burst into white and blue flame as she immersed herself directly in the white-hot Cosmic flows of Janosha.
Her Dark Beast howled, straining to break free again, but this time she held it in check.
Naero’s flesh filled with light, igniting from deep within her.
She set her stance and raised her right fist in Oth’s direction.
She shouted her reply with the voice, amplified a thousand fold.
And the great trees of the forest splintered and fell back, swept away before the sonic might of her rage.
I ACCEPT YOUR CHALLENGE.
Om strove to reason with her again as they set forth.
We know this is a trap, right? You must calm yourself and think clearly, Naero.
I don’t care, Om. I know they are waiting for me. But they are the ones who are trapped. None of them will escape.
Yes, let us indeed destroy them. But go in with a plan.
I HAVE ONE. I’M GOING TO KILL THEM ALL.
As soon as she transported into the forest near the caves, the Ejjai forces opened up on her with everything they had.
Blasters, grenades, and missiles. Gravtanks, gunships, and cannons. They pulverized the terrain all around her.
She shielded herself, and came straight at them. But the sheer volume of intense fire and ordnance tore up the ground beneath her feet and drove her back at first.
So much for the honor of Oth facing her in single combat.
She fought against an enemy completely devoid of any shred of honor.
Good.
No need to hold back from annihilating them.
Her gravwing damaged, Naero unfurled her psyonic wings, rising up into the air as she unleashed her attacks.
Waves and ribbons of destructive force ripped through all before her, immolating and mangling them, slicing them to pieces. Flesh. Armor. Energy cores and ordnance disrupted, rocking the foe with multiple secondary explosions.
In seconds she cut down Oth’s entrenched ground forces.
No sign of their skulking leader yet.
She opened all of her senses and scanned the area for any sign, recalling how the Dakkur could also both cloak and shield themselves.
Naero sensed the enemy right before they fell on her.
Energy signatures that powerful could not remain cloaked up close.
It wasn’t Dakkur attacking her this time.
Multiple Darkforce generators. Closing in. Coming straight for her.
For the first time. Naero fell back, trembling with fear.
60
The first Darkforce generator crashed right into her.
With the full impact of a run-away transport.
Swatting and lashing at her like an insane, mutant black squid. Dozens of tentacles that chewed through the trees and rocks all around her.
Sticky, slimy tentacles whipping and buffeting Naero. Stinging her exposed skin, burning and scorching her with intense pain wherever they touched her.
Naero cried out, swinging her twin Chaos katanas in whirring flashes.
She sliced through the shielded tentacles and the machine’s main body. Sparks and blasts of intense fire and Cosmic electrical discharges rocked back and forth between them.
Someone was trapped inside each one of the infernal generators. The parasitic machines could not long survive and keep functioning without a living host imprisoned within them.
That was one weakness. She needed to keep that in mind.
Then a terrible, wonderful thought struck her again.
What if one of these things had Jan trapped inside of it?
Two more machines just barely missed her, and rammed into the third, knocking it end over end.
The first had only been a decoy to keep her busy while the other two closed in.
She soared above the expanding battle, forming a large armored Chaos energy construct around herself for protection.
No good. Instantly the two new machines began draining her construct’s energies.
She tried to blast them with her cannons, but the devices sucked up that attack also.
While the original machine regenerated enough to hurl itself at her once more.
Naero negated her Chaos Mek, unwilling to feed her foes any further.
She returned to attacking them directly.
If she could keep all three of them off balance. On the defensive.
Who are you kidding, Naero?
She was in deep trouble and knew it.
They grappled with her. Lashing and battering her with mighty tentacles again and again.
In the space of a few short minutes,
they reached a frightening stalemate.
Naero sliced and hacked them apart, beating them back.
They kept coming.
Naero sensed something different about the fourth machine, racing in fast and uncloaking.
It’s energy signatures were a fraction of the other three.
She spun.
It still manage to strike her a glancing blow, knocking her to one side.
Dazing her for the barest instant.
The other three pounced.
It was enough.
They had her.
Naero deflected their shock charges, even as they ensnared and scorched her.
Om attempted to absorb some of their Darkforce energy.
Nearly negating himself.
Om…Om!
Naero had never felt him scream like that before.
Yet he did his best to protect her, shielding them from the machines.
Giving her a chance to keep fighting and break free.
Naero thrashed, kicked, gouged, and punched.
She unleashed a massive sonic scream and flung one off her, driving it back end-over-end.
A mind-wave blast from her third eye drove the others away from swarming on her.
That gave her some room and damaged all of them at once.
Naero launched her counter-attack.
Flashing wheel kicks.
Fight combinations lined the devices up, bunching them together.
Rocking, smashing, and shattering the machines with both speed and raw power.
Chaos katanas sliced through the frenzy of fearsome tentacles with splattering sprays of machine slime and acidic lubricants.
Naero encased the first one to charge at her in immolating blue flame. This was the fourth, the lesser device with the lower energy levels.
It hissed and shrieked, its tentacles sizzling and dissolving, flailing their metal insides like snakes and serpents.
It struggled, trying to put out the fire.
Three heavy blows cracked the device wide open in a spray of disrupting black lightning and red sparks.
It’s hatch flung wide open.
Empty. No one inside.
That was why it was weaker.
It had no host. Yet.
The other three re-doubled their attacks, bent on driving her into the yawning, waiting trap of the fourth.
Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit Page 40