Naero rubbed both hands together eagerly. “Now, we just have to spread these effects over the inhabited areas of the planet Kalathar. We have the medical scanners adjusted now to detect the possession wyrms, correct?”
“Affirmative,” another medtek noted.
“Then I go down with Khai and some of the Prime adepts to guard me while I sweep the planet until all of the wyrms have been purged. The people should revert back to their original forms. They’ll be weak for a day or two, and then they’ll recover. And the good news is, that once they’ve been purged and cured, they cannot be re-infested again. Then Kalathar can begin to return to normal, minus the victims who perished in the attack, of course. We can’t bring back the dead.”
Klyne looked a bit worried. “This is a big job, Naero. You’ll need to sweep over forty percent of the planet’s surface from up in the air. Can you do this without exhausting or harming yourself?”
Naero grinned. “We’ll find out. Once again, I’ve never done this before. No one has, except for the Kexx, eons ago. Theoretically, it is possible, but like I said, we are entering uncharted territory here, and we’ll need to learn as we go along. Haisha, if anything we do ever comes easy, I think I’m going to faint, or wet myself, or something!”
Klyne, Gaviok, Master Jo, and several others laughed at that.
“By the way,” Naero asked Klyne, as she continued to prepare for the main event, “how’s it going refitting the naval vessels with the new tek?”
Klyne nodded. “The upgrades are going well, but it’s still going to take a long while. And many teks are going without sleep to explore all of the new ramifications for shields, and sensors, scanners, coms, and weapon systems. You’ve opened up countless cans of new worms for us to explore with this flurry of breakthroughs, Naero. It will take us months, perhaps years to fully grasp and implement all that we have just been exposed to. But those are awfully good cans of worms to have to study and explore.”
“Good,” Naero said. “Our foes have had the advantages for too long as it is. It will be good to fight more on their level for a change. Have our leaders and the military decided yet what should be done about the enemy in the Gamma Quadrant?”
Klyne’s face turned very grave. “Heated discussions are going on even now. While you are purging Kalathar, I will be attending many of those sessions via holo.”
“We can’t let the isolationists hold us back,” Naero said. “You know I’m right, Klyne. Now that we have this wyrm-hole tek, we need to put it to good use. Instead of just sitting back and waiting for our foes to hit us again and again, we have to take the fight to them, and make further alliances with the sentients in the Gamma quadrant, who are apparently getting their butts kicked. We need to go help them before those sentients are enslaved and sent to fight us as enemy shock troops.”
“I know your arguments, Naero. General Walker and many others agree with you, but there are many who still don’t. We also have more than enough problems in our own quadrant to deal with.”
“Which are only going to get worse if we keep suffering attack after attack, and invasion after invasion. I say, take the fight to these bastards.”
“But Naero, you also have to understand the valid points that the other sides are going to bring up, if you are going to find a way to persuade them to see things your way.”
Naero shook her head. “That’s why I’m a better warrior than a diplomat,” she said. “I trust you, Klyne. I know you always have the best interests and the greater good of our people in mind–even when I disagree with you.”
Klyne patted her on the shoulder. “Let me deal with the elders and the factions,” he said. “You go do what you alone can do. Save Kalathar and its people. Just be careful, Naero. Just as you said, everything you’re ever involved in always ends up far more difficult that anyone could imagine that it would be.”
Naero grinned again. “I’ve got the Mystic Enforcer to back me up. “What the hell can go wrong?”
10
Naero hovered over the first infested gigacity from a few kilometers up. She and Khai and the six Prime adepts guarding her from behind were all still cloaked.
She prepared herself, as best as she could.
The gigacity of Shandoora wasn’t that huge. Only a hundred kilometers in diameter, approximately.
Only.
She had never unleashed the Kexxian purge on an area this large before. Millions of infested hosts, the vast majority of them now dormant.
Naero didn’t quite know what was going to happen.
She startapped as much as she could and then opened the floodgates.
This was different.
Unleashing the Kexxian purge on Shandoora–on the planet of Kalathar–was like being impaled on a molten hot pillar of Cosmic agony, shoved all the way up through her and out of her shattered face.
There was no gasping or crying out. There was only being transfixed–crucified on raw pain and suffering itself. There was indeed a high price to be paid.
Purging the planet focused massive quantities of Cosmic energy through her physical form, which could not withstand such naked might.
She struggle to save herself from being consumed.
She tried to stop it. Tried to turn it off.
Yet once it was unleashed, the Kexxian purge had a will of its own, and hunted down the possessed in the largest numbers it could find, stepping up its efforts.
From several kilometers up in the sky, the ribbons and tendrils of light and darkness ripped through the gigacity and penetrated the population below, blasting and incinerating the G’lothc possession wyrms from out of their bodies, leaving them spent and unconscious, but alive.
“Something’s wrong,” Naero barely heard Khai tell the other Mystics. “She’s transforming into an energy being form. The process is going out of control. Naero’s in trouble!”
The Kexxian purge wiped out thousands of possession wyrms and sent their fell spirits shrieking back into the Void.
The purge did all this, in mere seconds.
But it was killing Naero. She could feel it.
Even in her energy being form she was slowly destroyed and consumed by the process, and Naero did not know how to fight it.
Khai and the Mystics tried to lay hands upon her and contain her.
The very air detonated around Naero, shooting them away in all directions.
The purge continued on its mission with a will of its own, gaining speed and only stepping up its power. It swept her off toward the next gigacity, destroying each of the possessed that it could find along the way.
The only problem was that Naero was slowly being used up and consumed. It was like burning up in slow motion and being reduced to ash.
And she couldn’t do anything to stop it.
The resonance of the KDM was all around her. It was like roaring voices. A raging thunder of voices, deafening, consuming–raging in Kexxian. No, somehow that wasn’t right.
The words the thundering voices spoke had raw power to them, and even the G’lothc could neither resist nor endure that power.
If Naero hadn’t been so busy trying not to die, she might have been able to focus and make out what the thundering voices were saying.
But she had too much to live for.
Naero was still out of tune with them, out of sync somehow.
The word came back to her.
Unbalanced.
She was out of balance, and that was just one of her flaws. Yet it was the one that was currently destroying her.
Her own imperfections.
Yes, and as usual, her own ignorance was working against her as well.
Khai caught up to her again, trying to siphon off some of the Cosmic energy that was consuming her, funneling it back to the stars, through Yii.
Nice idea. A good try.
A flare of power slapped the Enforcer away again.
The Kexxian purge had been unleashed upon Kalathar.
And it had work to do.
She continued to pick up speed, until the very air burst into flame about her. She was like a small, white-hot comet, streaking through the atmosphere, bathing the planet’s surface in its cleansing energies.
Naero cried out to the KDM.
Orean…help…help me…
Why must you make everything as difficult as possible, Naero?
Tell me…what…to do.
Didn’t you say that you’d be willing to give your life to save these others?
I don’t want to die.
Did I say that? Who said anything about actually dying? Didn’t I merely say that you had to be willing to die to save others? Can’t you see the difference?
Why do you only speak…in questions?
Why can’t you save yourself, Naero?
I don’t know.
Is it not too late already? Won’t others need to save you now?
I’m on fire. I’m burning up!
How then are fires extinguished?
Questions. Why all of these questions?
Don’t you already know the answers? Why can’t you remember them, Naero? Is that not what true ignorance is?
Burning. Burning. She was gaining speed, burning up as the purge grew only stronger.
Khai enveloped her in his green shield sphere and sought to contain her blazing form and snuff out the fire, siphoning off the cosmic energies consuming her.
She linked with his mind briefly. Khai, the Kexxian purge is channeling, startapping Cosmic energy straight through me. I can’t handle this much power. It’s burning me up.
Naero, the Mystics and I are trying stop it, bleed its power away from you, but each time we slow it down, it only gets stronger, and shakes us off.
Case in point. The purge blasted Khai off her again as she passed over another gigacity, and then another.
Then Naero heard a familiar voice, and felt strong arms around her.
You’re in trouble, sib. Good thing I just got here. Let me help.
Jan! Save me. I’m burning!
Then let us burn together.
Jan’s Cosmic fire was about her. He had almost always been a pyrokinetic. By their very nature they could shunt heat away so that they were not hurt by it. And now his fire and his energies only added to that of the Purge, speeding it up even faster.
No, Jan. We have to slow it down. Stop it.
We can’t. Yet if we speed it up, it will finish its task before you and I are destroyed. Just hang on, Naero!
Jan suffered the agony with her, sharing her pain and destruction.
Her younger brother did all of this, to save her and himself.
Janner had grown in power and wisdom. Naero could sense it.
He had managed to complete his Mystic training.
Jan was a full-fledged Mystic.
But at that moment, they were both burning to death, trapped within a Cosmic maelstrom.
They picked up speed, streaking across the surface of Kalathar, until the entire planet had been purged.
Just as suddenly, the flames snuffed out and were gone.
The Purge halted on its own accord.
Because there was nothing left to be consumed.
They crashed onto a sandy beach at the edge of one of the continents.
Jan did his best to shield them as they tumbled down.
Naero came to with her brother’s arms still locked around her protectively.
It was Jan who had save her, and himself.
Naero staggered to her feet, and reached out with her mind to contact Khai, the High Masters, anyone she could reach.
Kalathar and its people had been purged of the enemy plague. It was now free.
11
Naero spent nearly an entire day in her medical bay on her flagship, regenerating and healing herself from within.
Khai and Jan took turns sitting with her, speaking with her through mindlinks. But she had to get back up on her feet. That was a priority.
She heard updates about Kalathar. A huge relief effort was underway to try to help the stricken population. Clouds of medical fixers were being used. Dehydration was becoming a critical problem by the hour.
Spacer Intel, the Spacer Navy, and the Alliance were assembling an expeditionary task force to be sent out to make contact with the Gamma Quadrant and begin confronting the enemy there.
Khai, you must speak with Klyne. One or both of us must be part of that expedition. We have to track down our daughter before it’s too late. Baeven is already tracing the foes who have her. I can bring my own ships, my own fleet if need be.
Khai smiled down at her and brushed his hand over her face as she looked up at him. Get better, Naero. Keep healing yourself. We will find her. We shall bring her back to us. There is much that is going on. Much that will change. We shall both play major roles in the changes that are still to come, my heart.
As soon as she could walk and maintain herself, Naero got up off her medbed, checked herself out of medical with Trudi, and reported for duty on board The Kathmandu. Khai, Jan, Tarim, and Tyber were already there with the High Mystics and many others.
She ran into Jan first, who brought her to his personal quarters.
She couldn’t resist hugging him and holding him close to her for a bit.
It was so great to have him beside her once again; she couldn’t put it into words. It had been so long since they had stood together. It did her heart good to see Jan, now so strong and fully developed.
“So, you’ve chosen Order, Jan? I still can’t believe it. You? And you’ve completed your Mystic training in record time I hear. How long did it really take, with the Mystic Time dilation?”
Jan grinned, tall, lanky, and handsome. He seemed very sure of himself.
“It took me almost six more years of real time, N, compressed into over six months. The High Mystics have stolen a page from your book, Naero. Did you know that Master Tree and Master Jo have both used replicants of themselves to help train other Mystics?”
“I didn’t know that. But I have been rather busy of late, these past several months. Interesting, since I taught them the ability to replicate.”
Jan smiled. “In the light of the threats that we face, the Mystics are expanding. The number of masters and adepts will continue to grow rapidly. Now that it has been purged, I’ve heard that Kalathar will now indeed serve as the Chaos Homeworld of the newly appointed Mystic High Master.”
Naero stopped a moment. “Where could they possibly find a new Mystic High Master? None of the Chaos Prime Adepts are ready. Perhaps as masters, but not as a High Master.”
The Mystics were still suffering from the loss of both Hashiko, and Master Vane. There was no one else to fill that role.
Who had they found?
Jan stopped in front of his personal quarters. He grinned slyly. “Prepare for a bit of a shock on the personal front, N. Enter within. I haven’t even told Aunt Sleak yet.”
What was Jan babbling about?
The panel snapped open.
Naero saw the long, lithe body of a beautiful, nude young woman sprawled across Jan’s nanobed, still asleep and partially covered up with black zilken sheets and nanoblankets. Jan’s young lady had a mass of gleaming, platinum-white-gold hair, an entire sea of that radiant hair, all the way down her snowy back.
So Jan had a girl. Big deal. What did he think was so shocking about–
Out of the shadows a feline, humanoid form slipped up to Jan and pasted her strong supple body against him, complete with a lashing, striped tail. She wrapped her arms sensually around Jan’s head and neck, closing her mouth over his in a deep, wet kiss. This girl was clearly a Mahri, with short black fur with orange and gold stripes. Only a rare few Mahri were colored in this fashion. She was clearly of one of the royal houses.
Her face was halfway between human and feline. She had long, tufted feline ears and straight black hair to her broad, athletic shoulders. She wore only a black loin cloth, some kind of utility belt, a golden, jeweled battl
e harness, and several gilded, hi-tek weapons.
She even began to purr as she and Jan continued to swooch. Obviously, the two of them were intimate.
“Jan, I missed you,” she chided him. “You said only a few hours. It has been several since you left us. What has happened?”
Naero’s jaw bounced around the interior of the cabin. Us? Did she say, “us?”
“I’m sorry, my sweet daji. Much has happened. There was great deal to learn. I could not get away or send a message. And my sister was also in great need of my help. How is Vejjah feeling? Better, I hope?”
The Mahri princess looked at the sleeping woman fondly. “The sickness comes and goes. I sang her to sleep, which she needs badly. I think she is well enough for now.”
Jan took one of the Mahri girl’s hands and placed it in Naero’s. “Calyxo, royal princess of the First House of the Mahri, this is my beloved older sister, Naero Amashin Maeris.”
“Ah!” Calyxo said, nodding her head in great honor. “The legend who walks among us.”
They smiled and looked into each other’s eyes. At first Naero thought that Calyxo’s eyes were black, but they were not. They were deep, midnight blue.
Naero biomanced, studying Calyxo’s species. She gasped at another surprise. “You’re a Mystic.”
Calyxo bowed her head again. “The first of my species. I completed my training with Janner, where we exchanged our hearts. The Mystics are now training non-Spacers as well. Even non-humans. Master Vane had opposed opening the training to the other races and sentients.”
“Interesting,” Naero said. “I always thought that we should include the other sentient races.”
Calyxo smiled. “And now they have.”
The other Spacer female who was sleeping suddenly turned over and groaned slightly. Jan sat down on the bed and took her hand tenderly, brushing her radiant hair back from her equally radiant face, and placing his hand over her forehead, checking for a fever. Large green eyes, flecked with golden light fluttered open.
Jan bent down to kiss her cheek.
“Oh, Jan. I don’t feel well. I’m sorry.”
Naero's War: The Citation Series 3: Naero's Trial Page 9