Naero smiled sadly. “Then trust me now, and please, let me do something for all of my Marines. For my brothers and sisters. Please, follow my lead.”
She shook off all of her armor and weapons, and let them fall to the floor.
Company 36 did the same.
Naero stripped right down to her Nytex flight togs, feeling suddenly free and relieved of all of her burdens for the first time in a very long while.
Her Bravo Marines went down to their togs.
“Form a gauntlet, on either side of me,” she said.
In short order, two hundred Marines stood at ease, a hundred to either side of her.
Naero went among them on her right and left. To their surprise, she took their faces in her hands and she kissed each one of them, on the cheek, on the brow, sometimes on the nose. All of them remained quiet, silent, smiling back and forth at one another as Naero progressed among them, showing her deep affection for them all. No one was in a hurry for her to reach the end.
When she did so, Naero laughed.
Many of them were so damn tall, that she had to use her gravwing to reach their faces. “Haisha,” she exclaimed suddenly. “Like I goof, I forgot something. Everyone put your gravwings on. Don’t ask why. Just do it.”
Others started to crack up and chuckle, but they were all still under her spell, and did exactly as she said.
Now, Om!
Om triggered the fixers behind each of the Marines.
Naero’s presets transformed their nanotogs into soft, white, loose clothing, sized to each of them. Even their gravwings turned white. Hers were no exception.
“Bravo 36, you have been my angels of death in the darkness. Yet even more than that, you have also been angels of life. You have fought the High Crusade to save all of humanity–Spacer and lander–by your valor and your mighty sacrifice. On my own accord, I have sent word ahead of our arrival to the leaders of Naraden-6.
“All the people of this world, and the many refugees who have been brought here, have been informed about who we are and all that we have accomplished. You will forever shine as my heroes, Bravo 36. And you shall always be theirs as well. Now, follow me, 36. Follow me out of the darkness, and back into the light!”
Naero lifted off and the jump bays opened, washing out the darkness in rushing waves of light. When Naero flew free of the dropship, so did they, two hundred in all. They swept out into the blazing sunlight, beneath a flawless azure sky.
Naero closed her eyes for a rapturous moment and just felt the sunlight on her face and the wind in her long dark hair. She loved flying of any kind.
She led them down, and over the emerald expanses of grasslands and meadows like a flock of birds.
All upon a radiant day.
For as far as the eye could see below and to any horizon…tens of thousands of people, and hundreds of thousands of children, of all types, races, and ages, played, and supped, and rested at ease, happily watched, and cared for, and tended to by armies of guardians, teachers, medteks, and caregivers, many of them shipped in to assist with such a major task.
While they all floated a few score meters off the ground, Naero spoke to her Marines once again. This time, she used the voice, in order that they and all around them for many kilometers nearby could hear her words to them.
Bravo Command. My angels of life. Gaze upon your handiwork below and beyond all that you can survey. By your courage, over one in ten worlds invaded by the enemy owe their lives, and the lives of their children, to you and the matchless arms of your many Marine sisters and brothers. You have defeated countless ruthless hordes, in every environment and climate imaginable. You have saved trillions–literally countless sentients–from a vile and certain death.
Naero paused, took a deep breath, and smiled at them before continuing. On this one recovery world alone, just a fraction of those lives that you have saved: one billion children still live, and breathe, and smile, play, and laugh–because of your bravery. One billion. And I say again, that is only a small percentage of the lives that you have saved.
Marines of Bravo Command, you are my heroes. And you are their heroes as well. You go forth as warriors, without Cosmic powers or Mystic abilities. You are our champions, and you shall never be forgotten.
A great cheer went up from the people below, and Naero let it continue on for a long while.
Then Naero touched her presets and transformed into Shetanna mode, briefly flaring her psyonic wings and her scarlet, glowing katanas. Then she made her swords vanish.
Weapons had no place here.
Everyone below recognized her in an instant and shot to their feet. They raced toward her and called out her name.
Soon they were chanting it.
Shetanna! Shetanna! Shetanna!
Shetanna hovered before her Marines above a low hill.
Countless people flocked toward that place.
Shetanna called out to them, using the voice once more.
Hear my words, all. Please, stop and listen. No one person can fight a war on her own. Shetanna would be nothing without her sisters and brothers in the Spacer Marines backing her up at each point along the way. My Marine family has saved my life more times than I can recall. It is not Shetanna who is winning the war of the High Crusade. That would be impossible. Each day, it is the Spacer Marines and their dauntless allies who take the fight to the invader, and push them back toward defeat, and our final victory!
Yet I am sad to tell you that we just came from a world that, unfortunately, has been taught to hate and despise all Spacers. Even though our brave Marines fought and died liberating that world from the invaders, the people there mistakenly abused their own saviors and cursed the marines as they packed up and left. They spit on our Marines and flung shit into their faces, and told them to away somewhere and die. And that was very wrong.
And it has come close to breaking their spirits and their hearts to be treated So.
I want to make this very clear, my friends. I would be nothing within them. Marines such as these are the real champions and heroes of The High Crusade, and you never hear their names. They are my heroes. And they are yours. Please, if ever you were grateful for your freedom and your lives, thank the Marines of Bravo Command and their many allies for saving you and your worlds from the enemy. Praise them with great praise, and give them your thanks. Help honor, and heal, and save them as they have saved you. Love them as I love them, for we all are one. We are all human. Farewell.
With that, Shetanna vanished.
At first the crowd was disappointed, but then new cheers quickly rose up from below.
Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!
Spacer Marines! Spacer Marines! Spacer Marines!
Company 36 formed a ring, and came down upon that hilltop amid cheering and singing. Then as a festive atmosphere spread, they went down and walked among the many children and people rushing up to them.
Naero’s brothers and sisters moved among that gentle, smiling, laughing throng of thousands of voices on each side of them and encircling them, calling out their thanks and gratitude. Small children climbed up on them, into their arms, and onto their strong backs.
Marines went down laughing under waves of grinning, giggling kids.
Thereafter, as the celebration spread and continued, the Marines sat among them all and spoke freely, while people of all races and ages, came before them to offer gratitude and thanks.
Even the hurt and the lame struggled to come to them and speak their thanks. With tears in their eyes, some of the people they had saved attempted to kiss their hands and feet while sobbing and weeping, and the Marines stopped them, humbled and overwhelmed all the more.
Soon after that, the Marines were giving rides to the children up in the air with their gravwings. This was a huge hit. They zipped the laughing and shrieking kids around in the bright sky, going slow so as not to scare the little ones. Below, long lines of others anxiously awaited their turns, shivering and hopping with glee and delight.
Word spread quickly. Other Bravo Marines nearby from many other companies learned about the celebration, and configured themselves at first in white, and then thereafter in a rainbow array of colors, and came down all over the planet, spreading the growing celebration of life.
Then it was learned that there were many children still in many hotels converted by fixers into hospitals, all over the planet, who wept and cried in their recovery beds because they could not join in.
In response, the growing numbers of Marines checked with medical staffs, and arranged to swarm upon those hospitals like brightly colored birds. Any child fit enough to endure such fun, was visited and flown smiling out of their very windows. Even if four Marines had to fly them out upon their beds.
Across the world of Naraden-6, the skies and the heavens rang with the laughter of children. No child was neglected, not even in the regen rooms and burn wards.
And in special cases, some few little ones who at the last were deemed beyond all medical help, were allowed by choice to look upon or breathe their last up in the bright sky in the dazzling light, drifting off onto the next journey, smiling in the mighty arms of a Spacer Marine. Marines who had been among those who had saved them, and at least brought them away from war, to this peaceful and gentle place.
To do such a thing for a dying child was considered a great honor of the highest sort. At least these dying orphans of war did not pass on alone, unknown, forgotten, and unnoticed as mere casualties of the war.
When it came time to eat meals, clouds of fixers helped provide and distribute a merry feast for all. The Marines happily ate side by side with their many new friends, and even helped the caretakers feed the smallest, the injured, and the helpless.
There was great healing to be made and to be had on Naraden-6. Being with and helping with all of those many children healed the Marines in ways that could not be put into the words of any language. Yet there were now countless children on that world, planetwide, who would never forget them and their true power.
Word continued to spread fast.
Many more battle-weary Marines and naval personnel eagerly elected to come down and spend time among the orphans and refugees.
As was established now, the warriors left their armor and weapons behind, and usually just brought their gravwings. For the children, flying was always a big hit.
The authorities extended the Festival of Life over the next three or four days and beyond for other units in need of shore leave. Such a festival would also be scheduled on other hospital worlds.
For a brief time, many of the Marines returned to being like children themselves. All of them together, children who needed to heal.
Now it became a common sight at nap times to spot Marine volunteers and helpers snoozing serenely in the grass, in the shade, with rings of their little charges resting peacefully alongside with the other caretakers.
And if a Marine broke down for some reason and wept, his new little friends hugged her or him and even cried together, until they all finally stopped. And once they were cried out, they could all smile and play together once more.
An entire flock of tiny Pietto children came to Nicholas Kowalski in his recovery room to thank him. They laughed and sang for him until he wept and at last he could finally sleep.
Naero slipped away, and spent most of her time helping with the children who were still too injured or sick to go out.
Shetanna made many a special appearance in secret.
And if she also used biomancy to give some of those kids a little extra boost in healing, regeneration, or pain relief here and there–so be it. It was worth exhausting herself each day in order to achieve that much.
When it finally came time to depart, countless Marines from 36 and many other companies and units came to her explicitly, to personally thank her for what she had started.
Naero merely smiled and told them, “All I asked was for you to trust me.”
24
Chodan-3 was just another world that Naero and Bravo hopped into. But it didn’t matter. And despite Whip Konrad’s OCD foreboding that this time, his legs were going to blown off and he’d pass out and bleed to death, Naero and the Marines went ahead as planned and did their duty as they always did.
At least by then, Intel had a new Comsys and Combat Grid up and running. Om had contributed a few rapidly morphing, Kexxian-style super-algorithms to that cause through Naero and the spyfixers.
Yet at some point throughout the course of such fierce fighting, something was was bound to happen to almost everyone. Clearly, it was all just the law of averages and dumb luck–unless one was on Bodis-2.
During further close-in action in built-up areas in another megacity on Chodan-3, Shetanna took her turn at being wounded and nearly killed.
A series of enemy artillery blasts rocked Company 36 as they assailed an enemy position on the combat grid. The attack injured friend and foe alike.
That was never much of a concern for the invaders. They were happy to cut down their own kind in order to take out some Marines.
Naero’s shields vanished as the blasts kicked her about like giants using her for a kickball. She and Om attempted to hurl up Cosmic defenses against the destruction all around them, protecting them and the forward elements of 2nd Platoon Marines from Squads 2, 3, and 4.
Yet those fledgling defenses collapsed as well under the fury of that massive barrage.
The Ejjai invaders supplemented their normal artillery attacks with direct fire from the their orbital starship batteries, in an attempt to hold off the Spacer Marines from slicing through their positions.
Naero…Naero! Om called out to her.
She couldn’t move. Her hearing was impaired from the proximity to the blast, and even with the depths of her own mind, it was difficult to listen, to focus on Om’s words or anything else.
We have taken serious damage to our physical form. Instituting protocols to sustain life functions and place our physical form in healing stasis to avoid further injury and collapse of all bodily systems. Lots of concussive force damage. Routing all biomancy abilities and healing energies toward self-repair and regeneration. Staunching bleeding and maintaining life functions.
Naero couldn’t even tilt her head and look down. Parts of her combat armor had been blasted away or melted off of her. She was effectively a scorched and bloody mess. Thankfully, all of her pieces seemed to be there still, but nothing would respond. She thought that she should have been in great pain.
But after being placed in stasis, she only felt numb. She didn’t feel anything, and in a way that was even scarier–feeling disembodied. When her vision flickered and blurred, she had no way of knowing if she was merely losing consciousness–or dying.
We are not dead yet, N. I am doing all that I can to sustain us.
She thought she saw her good friend’s face: Jonny Fox.
“Haisha, N!” He placed on hand on her face and checked her wounds. “This is bad. Don’t worry, I’ll do what I can. Medic. Medic!”
He’s giving us healing…lifeforce energy. I was not aware that any of the Marines had a psyonic healing abilities.
Naero hadn’t been aware of that either.
For a short while, she faded back in more and felt slightly better.
Where’s Jonny? I don’t see him. Om? I’m losing it again.
He passed out from aiding us, but he is merely unconscious. We’re the one in serious trouble. I’ve called to the other Marines through the fixers. They’re coming.
Then as she started slipping even further away, Naero heard other voices, more people she knew, like Trevor Lakota. Her awareness grew fragmented and confused.
Strong hands grabbed her and moved over her, deactivating and removing the pieces of her armor and weapons, checking her condition.
“Haisha! It’s Naero and Fox, Sarge. Fox looks okay; he’s just passed out. But Naero’s down and she looks bad off. Like she took a direct hit!”
Naero knew that vo
ice also and clung to that knowledge. That voice belonged to Suki Lii from 2nd Platoon, Squad 1, Fireteam 3.
Sergeant Selby Vaughn’s voice came closer. “Damn it, she’s bad off. Is she dying?”
Suki shouted, “I’m not sure, Sarge.”
“She’ll make it. Those slasher bitches can’t take our Shetanna down that easy. Help me stabilize her, Suki.”
“I’m with you, Sarge. Haisha, N’s lost a lot of blood. Her suit’s floating in it.”
“Gravwings. Now. We have to get her to one of the aid stations or medical ships. I’m scanning the nearest one.”
Whip Konrad called out, “Sarge, we have eight other wounded, most of them just as bad off. And the enemy’s advancing on our positions.”
“Form up and keep fighting, 36. Ana, we’re moving the wounded to the rear. Back in a bit.”
“Good work, Vaughn. Get our people to safety. We’ve got this here. Put in on them, Bravo!”
Fire from small arms and grenades crackled and exploded in front of them as the enemy came on.
“Her gravwing is junk,” Suki complained.
“Get a gravlift on her from one of the fixers and keep her between us. Let’s get her back with the rest. Stay low. Once we clear those building behind the forward line, we should be clear to fly directly toward the nearest aid station.”
Sergeant Vaughn led them away from the battlefront as the conflict continued to rage behind them. She called out again, this time to Corporal Kooper Taylor. “Koop, log who’s hurt, how bad, and let’s start transmitting their vitals and their condition status to the aid station in advance. That way, the medteks can already have medbeds and medical fixers prepped for our people when we get there.”
Kooper relayed the cs data, sometimes through fixers. “Cs feeds on the way, and we are inbound, Sarge. ETA, ninety-seven seconds. Summary is nine total wounded, seven of them critical, including our MCL. Multiple blast injuries and trauma, burns, shrapnel, and concussive damage. We have them stabilized as best we can for the moment. The aid station will decide if they make it.”
Naero's War: The Citation Series 2: The High Crusade Page 24