“Death Eyes, huh?” she said.
The sergeant shook his head. “If we can see it…we can kill it. Ooh-rah.”
“I’ve heard that. I have to admit, you’re pretty good with pistols,” she told Hayden. “I didn’t think anyone could challenge Tarim the way you did. Or me. Let’s have a rematch in the future. I’ll beat you next time.”
Hayden grinned and winked at her.
“You’ll try.”
All of them laughed.
Naero shook hands and bade Tarim, Jeremiah, and the other shooters goodbye.
She went to catch up with two other childhood friends, Tyber the tek and Zhen the physician–before the games that evening.
A Marine on guard duty informed her that the inseparable couple had rented a pleasure boat, and were out on the placid lake, anchored offshore.
Naero thanked the guard and flew out with her gravwing.
As she drew near, she heard loud, unmistakable sounds of romance underway from within the pleasure boat’s curtained cabin.
Let them enjoy each other. She had no need to interrupt their fun. Naero smiled and took a relaxing flight around the lake to give her friends their time together.
An expert pilot herself, Naero loved flying of any kind. She felt like a large dragonfly or humming bird, flitting over the deep, crystal blue waters of the mountain lake. She zipped here and there as the spectacular colors in the sky caught fire and faded under the veil of night and stars.
Her poet-warrior father could have captured it all in a poem, but even his words would have still fallen short.
She returned to the happy little boat and found Z and Ty cuddling and drinking sweet, delicious, Spacer poteen on deck. Zhentisa, slender and pretty with her long brown hair and hazel eyes, and Ty, handsome with his dark mop and dark eyes. The couple talked and did some sky watching of their own, lying in each other’s arms.
They spotted Naero’s descent, and their glowing young faces lit up happily.
“Permission to come aboard?” Naero called down to them.
Her friends smiled, rose to their feet, and reached out to her.
“N, please join us,” Z said.
Tyber held up an ice-cold Spacer poteen bottle from a cooler.
“Have a drink with us.”
Naero landed and embraced her good friends, and they her. Then she took the bottle from Ty.
“Don’t mind if I do. Love poteen.” She took a big, delicious swallow.
They brought the boat in to shore a half hour later. Then they flew over with their gravwings to meet the others at the WebBall arena, constructed in a deep hollow vale.
Glittering and glowing above them in the night, the segmented contest globe and its zero-G field generated within, pitted two teams of thirty-six against one another. All of the actual players wore short gravwings, specifically designed for the sport.
A circular web at the central, vertical diameter separated the two teams. Six open scoring goals appeared and vanished, fluctuating at random locations on the web, that tracked any scoring through them on the encircling score bands. Goals glowed for ten seconds before they changed position.
The WebBall itself was dark, glowing blue nanorubber, about the size of a human head, but perfectly spherical and firm, textured with fine stubble.
The basic rules of WebBall were simple. Once the server served the ball, no one on either side could catch, hold, or throw it until a score was made or a serve was broken. Then it could be handled to put it back into play, or given to the next server. Servers and goal tenders had to remain three meters from the web and goals at all times or face various penalties, dependent on the infraction.
To score, the ball had to be struck with any part of the body, and sent through any of the six randomly appearing goals to score a random number of one to six points.
If a team shot the ball back through the same goal within three hits, they could negate the other team’s last goal and break their serve. There was a lot of strategy involved.
Naero, Z, and Ty watched one complete, twenty-minute match before Chaela joined them. Then Tarim. And finally, Saemar-the-love-goddess herself even took a break from her exertions, wearing some kind of floral sarong. But Saemar still seemed to be scanning the present crowd for future prospects, during the next two exciting matches between three Marine units.
Teams came and went, more crew from their ships joined them in the stands. Fans reclined on huge folding chairs, staring up at the intense action. Or got up in the air on their own gravwings, all around the outside of the playing globe to follow what was going on within more directly.
Minor betting and wagers were permitted, but controlled. Nobody was allowed to bankrupt themselves or lose their togs.
Chaela kept bugging them all to form an amateur WebBall team of their own.
Finally, Naero relented and gave her permission—as long as practicing didn’t take them away from any of their duties.
Chaela dove into the planning and coaching like she always did, hitting up others, and organizing everything.
Naero had to admit, everyone did need leaves like these–desperately. And truth be told, she had a grand time and forgot her own troubles for a few hours or days at a time, like at the games currently.
She and her friends made sorties to the concession booths for Jett, snacks, and junk food as needed.
She stumbled back into her nanocabin well after midnight, tired, sated, and bloated with Jett. She burped like a volcanic eruption and collapsed face down in her nanocot and mattress.
Haisha. Five more days of taking it easy, and she’d have to get back to work, just to get a break from resting and relaxing.
Having fun was hard work.
8
Orders summoned Strike Fleet Six back to the front eight days later, cutting their shore leave short.
Triax Gigacorps remained a dangerous monster–a hydra with countless heads remaining and more sprouting anew–cornered and spiteful. A monster with plenty of venom and costly tricks left to play.
The enemy did everything they could do to punish and bleed the Alliance forces.
Casualties on both sides soared.
In all the systems blocking the way to Helapine-3, Alliance forces had to wade through nebulae of smartmines and attack drones, many of them cloaked. Such devices activated all around fleets without warning, once they entered the kill zones.
Any planets and moons showered the attackers with a variety of ordnance, from robotic mass driver batteries.
Each engagement became a gauntlet of destruction that all the Alliance fleets had to grind and power their way through.
Triaxian strike fleets waited in the wings to swoop in and pounce on any units that got tangled up or ensnared in the defensive mire.
Alliance warships took a beating and routinely rotated through the fixer clouds.
Up against such dense defenses, the advance nearly ground to a halt. All reserves were called back, in an attempt to discover a breakthrough.
The Matayan Fleet currently took point on the line. Their objective: keep clearing the Ogano-5 system in order to link up with the Alliance forces doing the same thing in the next system coreward, at Vettari-2.
Nevano Kinmal’s Miner Consortium Fleet supported Prince Ellis in overwatch mode.
Then, as usual, everything went straight to hell–just as Naero and her strike fleet arrived on scene, and got into position.
The point fleets proceeded past enemy defenses they just spent hours eliminating, when another completely new, cloaked minefield popped up out of nowhere, cutting off the attackers and severely limiting their forward advance and maneuvering.
Triaxian ship-killer drones homed in and began pummeling the forward element deflector shields.
Mass-drivers on the nearby planet and moons cut loose against them, on cue.
Ten Triaxian fleets decided to seize the objective and lead an all-out counter-attack—completely ignored by their own defenses, of course.
Let the slugfest begin.
Admiral Nathan Joshua hailed her as the fireworks erupted.
“Strike Captain Maeris. Can you help extract our friends? They won’t last long in that hornet’s nest. Our fleets are vectoring in to throw back the enemy counter-attack. This is tight work. Lead us in.”
“On it. Keep the bastards off of us for as long as you can. We’ll bust our people out.”
“Good luck, captain. Give Triax hell.”
“Will do.”
Naero turned to her fleet.
“Delta-X-ray-3 attack formation. Heavy cruisers wing out, destroyers in. Battleships quad up behind Hippolyta and in front of the carriers. Gunships and frigates take the rear. All fighters out in front. Fixer clouds right behind them in low profiles. Don’t block our big guns.”
Tyber broke in from Tek Command.
“N, why are we sending the fixers into the mix? We’re going to lose a bunch.”
“I know, Ty. But we gotta get our people out. Use those new tek strategies we’re developing with the fixers. Take down those mines and shipkiller drones. Make it work for us.”
Instead of attacking Naero’s strike fleet, the enemy concentrated all of their intense firepower on trying to take out both the trapped miners and the Matayans while they could.
Even as Naero rushed in with her forces, shields buckled and collapsed on numerous Matayan and mining vessels.
In a matter of seconds, she watched as over a dozen Alliance ships were destroyed outright.
A large patch of enemy defenses and ships suddenly lost power and listed in space around the miners.
Shalaen made her move in a big way, even though that probably taxed her powers greatly.
Mining ships burst out of the trap, rammed past the stricken defenders, and squirted away.
Naero’s Strike Fleet Six sliced in like a butcher knife to cut the Matayans free.
“Good to see you, Naero!” Prince Ellis called out over his holo.
Naero smiled. The handsome, young Matayan bastard always looked good to her. It was still hard to believe that the Matayan Corsairs–long time bitter Spacer enemies on the leash of Triax–were now fighting beside them within the Alliance.
“Why am I always saving your butt, your highness?”
Ellis laughed. “Because it needs saving; I’ve missed you, N.”
Then a shipkiller drone smashed into the aft section of the Matayan flagship.
The resulting blast tore away two main engines and left the rear of the ship in wreckage and flames.
No more time for small talk. The Triaxians closed in for the kill.
Naero and her fleet interposed themselves between the enemy and the battered Matayans, who did their best to limp out, or get towed away.
Naero slugged it out against all comers.
Her people took a pounding, and gave one back as well.
The Hippolyta held the center, rapid-fire massive cannons blazing.
Let the sixteens roar!
Her four battleships, Python, Athena, Choturri, and Wombat backed her up, sweeping and raking the enemy line on either side with their own big, 12 meter guns.
The Hippolyta rocked and shuddered, standing up against multiple enemy hits. Her dense, iron-nickel hide was tough.
The enemy poured fire at her, every chance they got.
But the amazon could take a beating and come back swinging.
Choturri endured several direct hits and was forced to withdraw in flames.
The Wombat’s energy core suddenly detonated, swarmed on by mines uncloaking and slamming into it in devastating clusters.
Wombat vanished in fire.
Along with Captain Blue Ryan and her three hundred and seventy crew.
Just like that.
Seven of her ten heavy cruisers war badly damaged within three standard minutes. Two destroyed were destroyed outright: Shenda and The Michigan.
Four destroyers blown to atoms: The Wolverton, Iron Clown, Trevia, and The Yokahama. She lost the gunship The Ravager and the missile frigate, The Wizard. Hundreds more KIA, wounded, and helpless crew floated in life pods.
Naero and her people took a mauling.
Yon Cherokee called out from his Shielding station.
“Captain, shields are failing. I repeat, they’ve taken our shields down.”
Ensign Varcus Adams called out a warning from Scanning.
“Three enemy missile frigates just fired full salvos, directly at us, sir.”
The enemy tried to take them out yet again.
“Evasive action and rotation; angle the bridge away. Concentrate all secondary batteries on taking out those missiles. Starfighters. Don’t let those missiles hit us. We’re too vulnerable. Engineering, get even partial shielding back online!”
Naero watched the vast wave of missiles coming in at them.
Saemar led her fighters in a scattershot attack to cut across the missiles from above, taking out many.
Chaela led her fighter wing in to take out the stragglers one-on-one.
Still too many. Dozens of missiles penetrated the starfighter wave defensive screens.
Fixer clouds and other fighter waves from her carriers swept the enemy’s forward defenses away.
They destroyed two of the three missile frigates that fired upon the flagship.
That left the Triaxians gutted and wide open to attack from the rest of the Alliance.
But Naero and her ship struggled to cut down the remaining incoming missiles with their secondary batteries and counter measures.
“Shields back up, at fourteen percent.”
“Good work. Secure bridge. Activate all secondary personal shields around each bridge station. Backup bridge–get ready to take over–if we don’t survive.”
Globes of shielding energy shimmered around each bridge station, including her own. Her nanohelmet and clear visor pweaked up, as her EVsuit sealed. Naero sat down in her command chair, feeling the nano material suck her in and strap her down secure.
Five smartmissiles slammed into The Hippolyta, throcking her like punches thrown at her from ginormous, flaming fists.
Two hits struck the bridge directly.
Even one of those ship-killers could have taken out a normal battleship with its shields down.
Main shields collapsed once more, but deflected and absorbed at least some of the damage.
Massive blast panels buckled.
A fireball swept through the bridge.
Naero guessed a penetration missile, with incendiary warheads.
Most of their station shields held off the fiery blast, long enough to allow survival before winking out.
But everyone on the bridge still got burned. The heat was just too intense.
The AI-controlled blast screens that still functioned opened wide to suck out the flames, smoke, and helped put out the fires.
The screens snapped closed again. Emergency hull-sealing shields closed off the breaches.
Naero had vaguely heard the sudden screams of those who were immolated. Their personal shields collapsed too soon.
The sickening sweet smell grew acrid and intense.
She had first degree burns scorching her shins, and her face through her melted, nanohelmet screen. Second degree burns on her left arm and shoulder. Her smartsuit already struggled to counteract the damage.
Three stations held nothing but charred bones in their melted command chairs.
Mirra Luna, Gravitics.
Shim Steiner, Power Supply.
Brindil Lakota, Jump Drives.
At a quick glance, others on the bridge were even more badly burned that Naero. She got up out of her chair, and scrambled to pull out a medkit.
She coughed and tried to call out commands, but her voice croaked and her throat felt swollen and impossibly dry.
Seconds later, she could speak at last.
“Back-up bridge…assume command, Jaylen. Keep us safe. Fight if we can. Medteams to the bridge…three dead, several woun
ded. Many burn victims. Bring–”
The Hippolyta kept maneuvering. Her big guns re-awoke and fired.
Naero smiled in pain from the scorching burns on her face and body. She raised her fist and shouted defiantly.
“That’s our girl. Show these fucks how tough you really are. You’re one of the thirty valiant sisters, and you have never known defeat! Put in on them!
Similar shout-outs from her surviving crew.
Delen Taylor called out from her Medical Station, working calmly, quickly, and efficiently–despite her scorched hands, arms, and torso.
“Medteams arriving shortly, sir. I’m running triage and assessing all bridge personnel medical status to coordinate treatment. You’re hurt, sir. Sit back down and wait for the medteams.”
“To hell with that.”
Naero first sprayed herself with the burn meds from her medkit.
She gasped. Her legs nearly buckled.
She hadn’t suspected that anything could hurt worse than her burns and injuries.
But she was quickly proven wrong.
It felt as if white-hot insects ravaged her flesh.
Other crew who could still move around broke out medkits and began spraying the other wounded, who could not, with the same, fast-acting, regenerative burn agents.
More screaming erupted.
Zhen had told her once that the pain came from the regeneratives that attempted to stabilize and reverse nerve and tissue damage.
It meant the agents were working, yet they were incredibly painful.
Several more people screamed as the burn meds hit them.
All four Marines posted at the lifts survived, by ducking into them before the fiery blast. Marines wore full combat armor besides, with their own battle-level shields, designed to stand up under direct and indirect fire.
But the armored blast doors of the lifts had protected them the most, shielded inside and out.
The Marines stepped back onto the bridge and let the medteams pour up.
Two of the guards kept watching the lifts.
The other two took out medkits from the damaged nanowalls and helped spray the wounded with the burn healing agents.
Once the medteams arrived in force, everything went like clockwork from there. No one else died, but it came very close.
Citation Series 1: Naero's War: The Annexation War Page 5