Even if Naero died fighting the queens–and or king of the Dakkur, the Shetannas would save as many of the others as they could. They could even go back to hiding out and escape once the Time dilation went down.
There was only one way to learn for certain what they were truly up against. And to do that, she couldn’t send replicants. She couldn’t send any of her people in. They had risked and lost enough all along.
Naero’s Cosmic abilities remained the most advanced available, despite the fact that she had yet to fully develop them all completely.
Never mind that.
But she knew very well that it was her task, and hers alone, to sneak into the lairs of those fabled monsters and scope out the situation for herself.
Eye to eye.
Monster to monster.
29
Naero planned to do her monster recon work through the Astral Plane over several days, while the Allies positioned their forces for the next phaze in the strategy. Instead of exploring the KDM, she separated her Astral form from her body in her dream state. But once again, she found that she could not enter the Astral Plane. Therefore, instead of trying to do that, she sent her spirit form off through the Prime Material Plane like a ghost.
She did all of this while Ra and her people thought that she was getting a normal night’s sleep.
The first night she went to the continent of Shurog, and the battered gigacity capital of Nazol. Fortunately, an astral spirit form could not necessarily transport, but it could move from one place to another at fantastic speeds, bordering on the instantaneous.
Other Cosmic beings and entities, however, could still be sensitive to creatures moving around in Astral form, or on any plane. They could even detect their presence. Naero knew that much from her little-big, Kahn-dar dragon friend named Womi.
Naero was already out of phaze with the Prime Material Plane. An astral form already had that much going for it. Now, she was going to attempt something new–something never attempted before by any Mystic.
She was going to use psyonics in astral form to phaze while she was still in that form.
As soon as Naero did so, a horrible, ear-splitting buzzing sound filled her mind and made her head pound.
But as far as she knew, she was out of phaze, and completely undetectable to any entity on either plane of existence.
She passed into the depths of the central fortress of Nazol.
She saw entire armies sealed within a complex that was much larger than anything the Allies had imagined or discovered during their surface raids.
There were even armies in stasis and Ejjai freeze troops, complete with weapons and gear.
She saw hordes of Dakkur drones, with and without combat armor. Layers of physical defenses and blast shields.
Naero’s spirit form passed right through them, without triggering any defenses.
The only problem was that her head was killing her. It felt as if it were going to explode.
How long could she maintain this form and endure such pain?
That might have been good to determine beforehand.
Too late for that now.
More Dakkur. Bodyguards now, all of them from the champion caste, twice the size of the drones. And like the drones, over half of them were infested with the G’lothc possession wyrm, giving them the potential to transform into even worse monsters than what they already were.
Then the heavily guarded, heavily protected inner palace, the huge playground and quarters of a Dakkur Queen.
Naero explored the complex birthing chamber where the Dakkur Queen pushed out millions of eggs each day–much like the Shai, actually. Despite the differences in species, the Dakkur were hyper dense reptilioids that were part carbon based, and part silicon based lifeforms. Dakkur were amazing hybrid lifeforms.
The G’lothc could sure pick them. Dakkur were supreme warriors and servants. And like their former masters, the Dakkur shared the same mindset, and worshipped The Great Destroyer of the Cosmic Prophecies with a devotion that was beyond fanatical.
Finally in the deepest lair, fit for such a regal beast, Naero beheld one of the rare White Queens of the Dakkur species.
She was white everywhere, like an immense swirl of new fallen snow. When her eyes flicked open in her slumber, they were the deepest jet, lit from deep within, not only by the Darkforce–but of unlight itself–the deepest, most intense form of the Darkforce.
She was well-over 30 meters long and serpent-like, nearly a snake at first glance, except for her powerful forelegs ending in vicious claws, and her atrophied, vestigial hind legs. The hardened spines on her back were also as sharp as swords, and her lethal tail blade was one quarter of her full length.
Despite her serene slumber, this was a creature of great power who was born to kill and destroy and lead a nation of warriors that she gave birth to.
From the looks of things around her palace, the Dakkur Queen fed each day upon all of her living subjects, even her own spawn. Naero spotted husks and corpses, bones, exoskeletons, and shredded remains from nearly every sentient creature known, and some that Spacers had not yet encountered.
The queen feasted upon them all, sometimes just the heads. She ate them alive, and threw the remains away like garbage. Periodically, the trash probably needed to be swept away–by her other slaves.
This queen was an eater of souls.
A thousand slaves from numerous races waited in a shallow feeding pit nearby, all of them wearing flickering control collars around their necks or whatever. Like droning, mindless fools, they softly sang to the queen, soothing her in her deep sleep.
A fresh meal awaited her, whenever she chose to wake up and dine upon them.
They praised her name softly and spoke it with reverence as if she were some kind of twisted deity.
“Bazretul…Bazretul…Bazretul…”
Naero could only imagine the intellect and Cosmic and psyonic abilities this huge creature might wield.
Baeven was certainly correct. The Supreme Dakkur were indeed quite formidable.
And a Dakkur King was even larger than the Queens, and with greater Cosmic powers and abilities. She could not repress a slight shudder and even experienced a twinge of fear.
One of those things had nearly slain her uncle–it nearly killed Baeven. Baeven. He fought it to the death and barely won, and was nearly left for dead himself. Only his battle brother Gaviok had revived enough to help save him.
Eventually, Naero knew that she was going to face foes greater than herself. She would meet threats that surpassed her abilities in one way or several. That was only a matter of time.
Yet like her uncle, she also had powerful friends allies, and it was not required that she face each an every threat alone.
And, Naero’s own strange powers had yet to reach their full limit or potential.
The pain in her head grew unbearable, almost immobilizing.
Naero had seen what she had come to see.
She raced back to her own body at top speed, unphazing as soon as she was clear of the enemy gigacity of Nazol and its mighty queen, Bazretul.
The debilitating headaches nearly crippled Naero for the next day and night until she was able to fully regenerate and heal.
On the next night after that, she went exploring once more, in phazed astral form, moving faster this time to cover two more gigacity capitals, Grux and Dunt, of the continents Kolf and Gronet.
As Naero fully suspected, each capital and continent had its own queen and perhaps something more. But there was, as yet, no exact signs of a Dakkur King.
She did learned the names of the two new queens. At least they were new to Naero. The Queen of Grux upon Kolf was Memetok, and it was said that she was fatter than the others because she was a glutton, and feasted too much.
Akathri, the Queen of Dunt upon Gronet, was almost just the opposite. She was sleek and slender, and dined exclusively only upon the heads of her foodstocks, soaked in special sauces that she found tasty…n
ot unlike grim meatballs.
Naero recovered slightly faster from her second recon ordeal, but she still waited another full day before going to spy out the gigacity of Riyok upon Uldrun.
She did not know why she had such a sense of foreboding about that last enemy capital. If there was a Dakkur King, perhaps she would find him there.
She descended into another Dakkur royal palace. Yet this one seemed even larger and more elaborate. Naero took that as a bad sign.
Naero located the queen’s chambers and found her–Queen Golanta, another snow-white ruler, who from the signs of destruction and repeated reconstruction, had a particularly nasty temper.
But perhaps it was not all her doing. Golanta herself regenerated from multiple wounds and grim injuries. What could harm a Dakkur Queen? What could assault and ravage her in such a fashion as this?
Was it even possible to rape such an immense creature?
Yet there were even larger chambers beneath that of the queen, and what appeared to be a vast underground lake.
But it was not a lake of water.
This was of unlight and Darkforce itself.
Something huge, living, and malevolent slumbered beneath the surface of all of that raw, destructive power.
This was a lifeform unlike any other–a creature that did not feed upon mere flesh. Naero could sense it somehow. This thing dined upon raw Cosmic energy. That was its daily food.
And it was filled with lust and violent hunger.
Naero recalled what the Dakkur Queen Golanta had apparently endured.
Then part of a massive, reptilian Dakkur head surface and gazed up from that lake of death. And it thundered in Naero’s mind with terrible power.
I cannot locate you, insect. But I know somehow that you are here. I know that you can hear my words. Why has it taken you so long to spy us out? Have you seen all that you have come to see?
Naero had. She fled immediately. If this creature located her, it might be able to attack her. And if it slew her, her people would be at a severe disadvantage.
Armed with this new knowledge, Naero spoke with Jan, Ra, and all of their forces. They had over two standard months before the time dilation effects came to an end.
They would take another month to adjust and further their plans. Naero would take more time to get them ready for the all-out war they were preparing to unleash.
She wanted to be more certain that they could finish such a war, and defeat the threats that they were up against once it started.
Naero wasn’t about to die, and she did not have any wish to lead her people to their deaths, either.
30
All among the Allies appeared ready for their contest to begin.
But Naero still felt uncertain somehow. She wished they had something more, an edge that would give them some kind of advantage, even if it was only in tek.
She meditated and returned to the KDM in her Kexxian form as Orean.
Yet there was danger even in that. As she became more and more Kexxian in that form, it became harder and harder for her to return, to go back to being Naero.
In a sense, her old self as Naero became a guide out of the KDM, just Orean at first had been a guide into it. Now Orean needed Naero to lead her back to become a Spacer once more.
Yet as she became a Kexx–and not just any kind of Kexx–but a Dreamer, or a Kexxian Mystic, her awareness expanded. Everything about the Kexx grew increasingly more familiar and useful: their bodies, their minds, their neural net, their thought patterns, the way they interacted with Cosmic energy. She grew accustomed to their music, their songs, their philosophies and wisdoms, and their tek.
The Kexx could teknomance and biomance beyond anything that she could even yet fathom or comprehend.
The Dreamers could move planets, even entire stars. They could create things–vast things–with only matter and energy. They dreamed or wished them into existence. Just as she could create a handful of near perfect replicants of herself–the Kexx could create entire armies, entire fleets of miraculous machines and weapons to fight for them.
They wiped out all known disease, sickness, and illness.
They could not create immortality. The gift of death was still beyond them, yet the gift of limited life in all of its forms was nearly under their complete control. As long as an injured being possessed a single wink of the Lifespark, it could be brought back from the brink of death and saved from moving on to the next journey before their time.
Naero teknomanced, and biomanced, and studied, and sang every Kexxian song that she knew to keep herself and her mind centered in the Harmony. She came close to losing herself several times, and in the end, Naero had to wrestle with Orean to bring her back to being Naero.
And this time, when Naero Amashin Maeris opened her eyes, she smiled and burst into tears.
She had their edge.
Let the foe bring their darkest and mightiest monsters. Let them bring their numberless slaves.
Three standard days later the great war for the planet Naggoth exploded full force.
It would not let up from that moment forth, until one side or the other lay utterly vanquished and dead.
They struck the continent of Shurog first, and unleashed a lightning assault against the capital Nazol.
Naero and her assault team already appeared deep within the fortress, while Regiment Shetanna broke into three separate battalions and took the core of the gigacity.
Outside, the enemy armies swarmed up out of countless bunkers and holes. As they assembled to attack, the foremost elements of the Shetanna Battalions rained Cosmic blasts upon them.
Then the enemy possessed began to transform into their lethal energized forms–forms that were much harder to destroy.
The Alliance had developed several elements to counter all of that, based on Kexxian tek and weapon designs
With the new advanced phazeshields, Naero’s troops could pass through buildings and barriers, fighting all the while. They absorbed energy attacks or simply let them pass through them.
And with the newly modified phaze-pulse rifles, Naero’s troops could target and place a hyper fusion phaze-delay round in each tracked target well in advance. Then they could unleash the rounds at random, or time them all to detonate in pattern, sequence, or on command.
Her troops quickly targeted the foremost enemy waves and set them to go off once the enemy approach got too close to the capital. She overhead the chatter of her troops over the secured links. Naero monitored the combat net with teknomancy even as she and her teams descended to take on Bazretul, the resident Dakkur Queen.
“Captain Romanov. Advancing enemy gravtank formations mixed with Dakkur kill teams and drone hordes. We’re not getting a target feed confirmation on that wedge, from between the three o’clock and five o’clock positions to our rear. What’s happening?”
“Romanov here, Major. We’re targeting them as quick as able. We have them seven kilometers out with the phaze shells. That’s tens of thousands of confirmed targets covering those areas. But the transfer link is down somehow. The confirmation of the targeting locks are not showing up on the combat net. But we’re ready to go, sir. Over.”
“Blow them manually if you and your people have to, Captain. Just make sure they burn. And I want multiple phaze cannon rounds in each of those advance gravtank waves. Light them up. They must go down, if nothing else. Copy that?”
“Affirmative, sir. The lead tank waves already have seven or eight rounds in each tank. Don’t you think that’ll be sufficient?”
Major Donovan laughed slightly. “Don’t get cocky, Romanov. That should probably do it. Continue targeting out to the fortieth kilometer arc for your profiles. And get ready for the fireworks. Good hunting, Isaiah. Let’s take this goddam rock. Ooh-rah!”
“Copy that. You and the rest, sir. Ooh-rah!”
She smiled. Marines. Naero listened to and tracked the battle above them as it unfolded.
She and her team continued to fig
ht their way down to the queen’s chamber. She continued to startap and conserve energy for the fight ahead, using mostly her swords and lesser Cosmic attacks and tricks to help clear the way.
They had to reach the queen quickly and take her down fast.
The earth and rock all around the capital for many kilometers rocked, buckled, and shook.
Millions of phaze rounds activated and exploded up above in well-timed rings of destruction. Each foe or vehicle so-targeted vanished in a flash of pure ignited protonic reversal. Each enemy became a small fusion blast, incinerating them into atomic dust in less than an instant.
Within seconds, multiple enemy armies became scattered dust and chaff upon the rushing winds.
Still more enemy armies rose up to rush in.
But then it seemed as if the entire continent shook and shuddered.
From underground bunkers and sealed caves, digging through and exploding out of the ground, Shai mantid warriors erupted out of the ground from what seemed like everywhere by the untold millions.
Each of them had swelled in size to between three and four meters high, and their bodies shifted from red-violet to black. The ground trembled before their onset until some of the enemy could not even keep their footing.
The coming of the Shai to reclaim their lost homeworld of Allondatharru was in fact an earthquake. The enraged mantids tore through everything that stood in their way: gravtanks, shields, barriers, trenches–even mines. They hardly even slowed down if any of their own fell.
While in the depths of her own lair, Queen Bazretul of the Dakkur Empire came forth in fury to do battle for her realm.
“Look out!” Naero warned her people. Too late.
The enormous queen suddenly lunged at Naero herself with incredible speed and might, clearly hoping to slay the Alliance leader quickly and demoralize the rest.
Naero only saved herself by transporting away at the last instant.
But the Dakkur Queen lashed through many of Naero’s command, crushing them or slicing them in half with the energized blades set in her spines and powerful tail. She twisted and flexed, killing everyone that she could.
Naero's War: The Citation Series 3: Naero's Trial Page 25