Yes, Om?
She will never be what you are; you know that. She will always be a replicant, a copy. Naero-3 will not progress much farther beyond what you have made her this day. She will never become whatever it is that you were destined to become. That great potential shall be lost, and I fear that our universe shall suffer greatly for that loss.
I cannot do anymore than what I have done, Om. I am bound by my word of honor.
Your word and your honor be damned, if that means you must let them kill you. Think of Khai. He may even learn to love her after you are gone, as if she were you. Yet even such a love will only be a pale imitation of what it is he truly feels for the real you. That could be a problem. Both of them will always be burdened and held back by the knowledge of that.
I have done all that I can, I say. I can only give them a chance, Om. That is all that any of us have. I created her to think of him as I do, to love him with everything that she will ever be.
That still won’t be enough, Naero. She isn’t you. You are leaving him a ghost to love–a pale imitation.
Better a ghost than nothing. They will have our children, Om. That will have to be enough. She is as much of me as I can make. I can’t do any more.
Naero, I know very well that this is tearing you apart inside. You don’t have to be strong all the time. Why are you staying so calm about all of this?
Because I must, Om. I have less that an hour to live. Now let me do this. Do what I have to do. Stay with her and help her. Guide and protect my daughter.
N. I’m…going to miss you something fierce.
I feel the exact same way, Om. Goodbye, my friend. You who have been more than abani to me. You have been a part of me.
I love you, Naero. Like a part of myself.
We are a part of each other, Om. And part of me–the real me–shall always live on as a part of you. To my mind, we will always be that way.
Goodbye, N.
Love you, Om.
Do not worry. There is no power in this universe that will harm your children, if I can protect them.
Thanks, Om. You’re going to find, or create, or have your own physical form one day when you are good and ready for it. Keep working on dealing with your feelings and emotions.
It is rather difficult right now, N.
Oh, Om. I know. It is for me as well.
I shall do my best. Love you.
With that, Om was gone from within her.
Naero was suddenly stricken at how hollow she felt inside without her protector and confidant still there with her. Her amazing companion. And even moreso now that her spectacular new child was gone as well. All that remained to keep her company was Zhen’s sleeping soul and her own slumbering Dark Beast.
If she could not bring Zhen back, at least they could accompany each other on to the next journey.
With her replicant finished and all of the transfers complete, Naero turned to an astonished Master Jo.
The way that he looked at her, she could tell that he misunderstood her intent once more.
“Naero. I can’t let them execute your replicant in your place, in order that you can survive. It won’t work. Master Tree will suspect something like this. You can’t save yourself this way.”
Naero shook her head and held her temper, even though she adored Master Jo. He was the only High Master that she truly felt was ever on her side or tried to fully understand her.
“High Master Jo, that wasn’t my intent. I’m not trying to save myself. I am trying to save my child.”
Master Jo started a bit and raised his brows. “Your child!” His eyes widened.
“Yes, my child and the KDM. They are all in my replicant, Naero-3, along with a secret that I will reveal only to you. Part of the KDM is a defensive protocol named Om, whom I befriended and became one with. A few of my friends, like Tyber and Tarim, know about him as well. You can speak to him through my replicant. He will continue to help our people unlock the secrets of the KDM.”
“Naero, that is all so amazing.”
Naero looked down. Naero-3 rested peacefully, on her back, face up on the ground with her large eyes closed.
“It does not stop there,” Naero told him. She motioned for Master Jo to place his hand on Naero-3’s abdomen and use biomancy to briefly examine the child.
Master Jo gasped. “Haisha! My word!”
“My child will be a very special child,” Naero said.
Jo could only nod at first. Then he started again. “Haisha! She’s already like a tiny star, Naero. Haisha again. Her father was–”
“Khai, champion of the Oden, and now the Mystic Enforcer.”
“Naero, we much say something to the court. This situation just isn’t fair, to either of you. Khai cannot be expected to perform his duty in this manner. Haisha! As the Mystic Enforcer, he will be the one who must–”
Naero nodded. “Yes. He must be the one to take my life. We’ve already talked about all of that. I’ve already told him that it’s all right. I wouldn’t want it to be a stranger. I want it to be him. I will not suffer at his hands. My beloved will make sure of that. It will be clean and swift.”
Jo shook his golden head. “That’s still awfully hard,” he told her.
For once, Naero nearly broke down, but she caught herself.
She went down on one knee and stroked the black, silken hair of her replicant. Perhaps this is what it might have been like, if she had had a sister. “Master Jo, care for our child. She will be a wonder, and she will need wisdom and guidance all the more. Just as I am tainted by the Darkforce of my own Dark Beast, she is pure. My girl shall be of the Lifespark itself–of the Flame Eternal.”
She paused for a moment and looked down briefly in shame.
“Out of my own selfishness, I have wronged Khai. I have not told him about our child as yet. He knows nothing of her existence. Please, will you take on the burden of telling him about our daughter and why I did what I did–for all of our sakes? Tell him to love our child with everything that he will ever be, for she will be the best of each of us. And if he can find a way, tell him that it was my wish that he love Naero-3 as if she were myself. I have made her as much like myself as is possible, and she will instinctively love and adore him, just as I do. I know she will never be me, but please tell him to try, for our sake and the sake of our children. Can you do all of that for me, Master Jo?”
High Master Jo knelt before her and took both of her hands. He sighed very deeply and shook his head in disbelief. “All this time and no thought to yourself. All for others. And they wish to take your life. What gross folly to throw away the life of a Spacer of such worth. I can and I will do all that you have asked of me and more, Naero. You are worth a thousand Master Vanes. If only we could make the fools see that.”
Naero smiled, just barely. “Thank you. You honor me and my Clan. Just bring Khai to Naero-3 after the execution, and explain everything to him.”
“I will. I will keep her safe within the shielded vault on board my personal ship.”
“I’ve put Naero-3 into a sleep until then. And our child is peacefully in stasis within her. Naero-3 will awaken shortly after I am gone. She and Khai will need to talk about bringing our daughter to term and about the KDM as well. My replicant and Om must continue to unlock its secrets one day, for the good of the Alliance.”
He looked at her. “Naero, is there anything else that I can do for you?”
“No, that will be more than enough. Now, in the time I have left, I have many messages to send out. And then I want to spend my final, last minutes with my beloved Khai.”
That was the way it went.
Khai came to her chambers looking like the saddest thing there ever was.
Naero smiled with joy and took his face into her hands and kissed him.
“Please,” he said to her, holding out both of his arms. “Take both of my hands. Cut them both off.”
“I’m sorry, Khai. We both must face this. This is the way things are.
Let them be. So, things did not turn the way that we wished. But the last thing I want before I go on to the next journey is to be in your arms and know your love. Then they can dump me into the nearest star whenever they are ready.”
Khai remained with her and they spoke no further words. They held each other until the last hour and their last minutes together were finally up.
5
Naero Amashin Maeris strode out into the bright daylight on Kalathar, feeling the warm breeze on her face. She undid her long, dark hair, removing the golden hair clasp that had been her mother’s.
She handed it to Master Jo and used telepathy to tell him, For my daughter, when she is old enough to wear it. Tell my girl where it came from. How beautiful and brave her grandmother was.
“Just like her mother,” Master Jo whispered.
“It’s time,” Naero said with a nod of her head. “Let’s get this done.”
She walked out alone to the appointed place that had been prepared. All the members of the court and trial were there as witnesses.
A block of solid gray duranadium had been prepared by the fixers. A head block for her to kneel down to.
At that she balked and looked down at that block with disdain. She nearly shattered it with her fists and kicks.
To all present, she announced, “You can take my life, but I refuse to kneel. I shall never kneel. Let me but stand. I am short enough. I shall face my fate with my head held high.”
She centered her stance and rested her her hands on her slender hips. The wind increased, drawing her long hair to trail back behind her in its speed. She closed her eyes and then opened them wide.
Her white neck was revealed for all to see.
“I’m ready. If this will best serve my people, have done with it.”
Naero kept her eyes wide open.
She looked straight ahead,
She sensed Khai behind her, drawing and lifting Yii.
Then came a bright, blinding flash.
Naero fully expected to experience her own head toppling down from her severed neck and striking the ground in the last conscious seconds remaining to her.
Time itself froze around her.
Naero turned.
She saw Khai first, swinging Yii in both hands, frozen in mid-stroke.
Everyone around them was suspended in time. The High Masters. Klyne. The Prime adepts. Even the jury of Spacer Elders.
Then Naero spotted the first figure, black like a singularity of Darkforce, but with a scarlet aura glow of intense Chaos energy that was layered over the Darkforce.
Naero gasped.
Only she could know who that figure was.
Baeven.
Yet this was his Cosmic Guardian form, merged with all of his possibilities from his own Ur-metal, the ancient artifact statue that he had encountered so long ago.
Somehow, her uncle had succeeded in merging with all of his other possibilities, just as she had once done. Or else, they had merged with him on their own volition.
Perhaps as Naero’s own possibilities had done with her out of great need and purpose.
The Cosmic Prophecies.
Naero gaped again, as she transformed where she stood into her own Cosmic Guardian mode for Change energy. She was merged with and nearly sub-summed into all of her different variations of herself throughout all Time and every potential universe and reality.
At least up until now.
Naero’s aura was golden, but fluctuated wildly, nearly out of control. Sometimes black, sometimes blue, or red, or blue-violet, then golden again.
If that was not frightening enough, a third hazy entity appeared, still mostly in its Ur-metal artifact statue form. Its shifting, morphic state was as yet undefined. Yet it glowed with a pulsing blue aura.
The aura of the Guardian of Order energy that had yet to be located and joined with.
That obelisk existed somewhere in the Unknown Sectors where her parents had died.
It waited for them to find it on a lost world of the Kexx called Xanathar.
Then what seemed and felt like a violet mix of Cosmic flame, but yet with a gold aura, suffused Naero herself once more as she linked with all of her possible selves at the same time.
Her mouth moved and the three Cosmic Guardians spoke as one. They used the voice in a manner that only they could, which proved both audible and psyonic in nature. Words that seemed to split the very stars with raw force and power.
All who are present can hear and understand our words. Your ignorance and folly has forced us to intercede. We are the guardians of the Cosmic Prophecies. What you are about to do is wrong, and shall have dire consequences.
Commit this act at this exact moment in your time, and this shall be the inevitable result:
The skies of Kalathar vanished around them.
Instead, all about them was emptiness, nothing, void, and desolation.
No stars. No matter, energy, or existence of an kind.
Absolute Nothing.
You cannot think that after billions of years of precise timing and evolution you can do such a thing as this. Destroy one of the carefully groomed and selected Cosmic Guardians before her time, while she is still developing her protoform? Do so now, and when the Great Destroyer does come, all three Guardians will not be present with the wielder of the twin swords of reality to face it. Even with all of the players present, the chance of defeating the Great Destroyer is slim, at best.
Yet if you eliminate even one of the Guardians, or if both of the Swords of Legend are not forged in time, then failure and total destruction are certain. And know this: the second Sword of Legend cannot be forged without the great sacrifice of the Guardian of Change.
Witness the future of your universe that you are now creating.
An entirely dead universe of Nothing swept, loomed, and echoed around them. Nothing, for as far as could be seen or sensed, forever and for all time.
The Great Destroyer shall lay waste to all that exists. There will be no coming back from this final destruction. Your universe and all that is shall be wiped clean, becoming a lifeless, dead slate in this reality. devoid forever of all life and potential for any kind of existence.
The Chaos Guardian lifted his hand against Master Tree and the jury. “Behold, you have all been deceived. This was not a fair trial at all. The Great Enemy decided the outcome of this trial beforehand, and took action to make sure that the outcome was certain in order to assure their final victory in this possibility. They know very well what is at stake here.”
The Baeven entity clenched his fists, and the Master Tree and Spacer Elder impostors were transfixed with revealing Cosmic energy. Their forms became transparent, and revealed the true nature of what was within them.
Naero had seen such before and now its insidious nature was revealed to all.
“These are not the real Master Tree and the real Elders,” Naero announced.
“No. They are not,” Baeven said. “They are replicants–puppets controlled and manipulated by the infecting parasitic G’lothc possession wyrms. Look upon them, all. Witness the vile and insidious nature of our great adversaries. See their power to shape outcomes.”
The enemy possession wyrm had spread throughout the bodies of the replicants, merging with and controlling all of their body systems and functions, especially the brain and mind. The sickening, pulsing, glowing wyrm radiated an eerie force and black and red glowing veins feathered throughout the body, controlling all.
Suddenly Naero grew alarmed. “What happen to the real ones?” she asked. “Tell me they are not–”
The Baeven entity shook his head. “The real Master Tree and the Spacer Elders still live. Gaviok and my crew and I rescued them from an advanced enemy stealth ship located only kilometers away. They were being held there in stasis but the enemy was also preparing them for insertion into the latest Darkforce generation machines.”
Naero breathed a sigh of relief. “Then they are safe?”
The Baeven
entity nodded. “Yes. Weak but safe. We sent them on a transport up to Admiral Klyne’s flagship, The Kathmandu. Now the real danger remains here on Kalathar.”
“What danger do we face now?” Naero asked.
The amorphous Order Guardian spoke next. “All of you must be made to understand. As the Cosmic Prophecies fully engage, certain matters and events shall be set in motion that few can perceive or foresee. These events cannot be prevented or avoided, but the outcomes always hang in the balance and the ramifications are usually not understood until after they have taken place.”
The Baeven entity spoke next. “Very shortly, we shall return all of you to the flow of Time of your reality–the possibility that you exist within. The enemy had hoped to eliminate Naero.”
“Then they planned to attack the rest of you almost instantly, in an effort to slay or capture you all,” the Order Guardian added. “A fierce battle will quickly erupt across the entire surface of Kalathar.”
The Baeven entity continued. “While waiting for the trial, the enemy has not been idle. They have systematically infected the majority of the planet’s sixteen million sentients with the G’lothc possession wyrm. They will trigger the vile transformation of the populace, turning them all into ravening, destroying near energy being monsters infused with the Darkforce. They will tear this entire world apart and everyone on it, unless they are stopped.”
“How can we stop that many of them?” Naero asked.
The other two entities said nothing at first.
“Only she who carries the Kexxian Data Matrix within her has the chance to discover that secret,” the Baeven entity told her.
“I don’t have the KDM within me anymore. I thought I was going to be executed, so I placed it inside a replicant of myself that I made, along with my and Khai’s child, our daughter.”
She glanced back at Khai as he still stood there, frozen in place. But if what the Guardian entities said was true, all of them present heard and perceived what was being said.
“I’m sorry, Khai. There just wasn’t a way to tell you with all that was going on. I’ll explain everything better once we do have time.”
She turned back to the other two Cosmic Guardians. “I’ll have to get the KDM back from Naero-3.”
Naero's War: The Citation Series 3: Naero's Trial Page 4