Naero's War: The Citation Series 2: The High Crusade Read online

  “Affirmative, sir. You do the same. Squad 2, over and out.”

  Om, I need you and our fixers to cut and bypass any alarms and keep us sealed up in this little Ejjai playroom for the next hour or so. These bitches want to be alone with their meat? Let’s keep it that way. Oh, and jam all of the coms and links, while we’re at it. Two can play at that game.

  Fixers on it, N. Nothing will get in or out until you give the word.

  Thanks, Om. Watch our six.

  As always.

  The Ejjai leadership were pickier about their meat that the rest of their kind. They began washing the captives and carefully stripping them of their clothing, careful not to bruise or damage their prizes.

  But very soon…things would take a turn for the worse for the captives, and get extremely messy soon enough.

  Naero focused her abilities and prepared herself.

  She set up a company-level shield pod near the holding pen where the invaders were herding in all of the clean meat. The victims shivered, wet and cold and afraid.

  As soon as the last selected captives were tossed in, Naero had a fixer flip the switch on the shield pod.

  Now the captives were all as safe as she could make them for the next several minutes.

  Shetanna could go to work.

  At first she remained cloaked and shot many of the Ejjai on the perimeter with stun needles from her needle rifle. She could have chosen explosive needles, but she had time to kill…literally.

  The Ejjai flipped out, firing weapons in all directions, killing and wounding each other.

  Then her mines and microbombs went off.

  When she had whittled them down to about thirty or so, she made herself visible to them and their leadership, twin red katanas blazing and crackling in her hands.

  The invaders snarled and roared, going on the attack.

  A few tried to call for help. Naero cut them down first.

  Some others tried to attack and kill the shielded captives.

  Shetanna struck them down next.

  Next she flashed among the remaining Ejjai with Mystic-trained speed and strength. Pieces of Ejjai flew in several directions, their screams echoing in the air and filling the isolated chamber.

  The leaders held out among a final pocket of a handful of troops, weapons blazing.

  Shetanna set her personal shield full front and strode toward the band deliberately, ignoring their fire. She stalked them slowly, eyes set.

  She walked in among them and killed them all, one by one.

  She saved the leaders for last.

  By then they were reduced to cowardly gibbering and balling up in terror in their own wastes, as Shettanna slowly carved off their heads with her glowing blades.

  All the terror the Ejjai instilled in their poor, helpless victims. And yet, when put to it themselves, they were all nothing but gutless cowards at heart.

  Naero took the time to free and see to the Ramoran and Besh captives, allowing them to reclaim their clothes and gather up weapons, if they so wished.

  While they put themselves together and made ready to depart, Naero made sure of any foes who were only stunned.

  Some of the captives began shooting any Ejjai who twitched and still moved. Some just liked shooting up their captors.

  Other than being traumatized by their entire ordeal, most of the captives seemed all right. Two of them were actually experienced transport pilots.

  That would come in handy.

  As Naero guessed, the leadership had an escape transport at hand. That included room for at least a hundred persons. She put the captives in and sealed it up, giving them orders to fly out after the Marine attack started up.

  Naero made sure to paint the transport as a captured vehicle with friendlies on board, not to be shot down or destroyed. She sent a relay alert to her mates and HQ, to make certain that nobody fired upon the prisoners as they fled.

  After the attack began, and the transport left the ship, Shetanna turned back and went after the Ejjai troops still on board the cloneship, and the troops protecting it outside.

  Once again, with her unit shielding shimmering around her, Shetanna quietly walked out to face them.

  At first they just stared at her in shock and disbelief.

  Shetanna yawned and calmly, casually stretched, as they rose groggily to their feet.

  One of the alphas snarled at Naero and pointed, looking around. “See if it’s a holo. The spacks get us to shoot at holos, a lot. What is this, spack? Some kind of trick?”

  An Ejjai actually tried to come close and poke her.

  Shetanna shoved a blazing blade through the invader’s eyes. “No, tricks, filth. It’s the real me. Get your strength back. Stop shitting and pissing yourselves. Take your time. Lift your weapons. Let me know when you are ready.”

  Shetanna smiled and narrowed her eyes. “Let me know when you all are ready to die.”

  The enemy blinked at her as if she or they were all insane.

  Weapons came up.

  “You aren’t getting out of here alive, spack.”

  Naero flexed her neck casually. “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered, stray blasts deflecting off her shields.

  The Ejjai simply did not know what to make of this, apparently forgetting about the battle rapidly sweeping toward them all.

  But they still tried to encircle her.

  “Why aren’t you scared, spack? You should be trying to escape.”

  Shetanna laughed and grinned at them, pulling up her Mystic battle mask. “I could say the same thing to you, bitches.”

  “Are you crazy? Can’t you see how many of us there are? All of the firepower we have?”

  “Yeah,” Naero said calmly. “I guess I only wanted a light work out today. Thanks anyway for trying.” She sighed and lifted her swords. “I guess your dumb asses will just have to do!”

  Sonic attacks and telekinetic mind blasts drove the foremost attackers crunching into supports and the hull when they rushed in on her.

  Enemy weapons barked and cut loose.

  Naero unleashed an expanding wave of Chaos energy attacks and techniques that cut the attackers in half within seconds.

  A spray of Chaos energy spikes and rods shot out from several directions and drilled many others full of lethal, burning holes.

  Then they exploded, shredding the invaders where they stood.

  Shetanna ripped into the last foes like a flaming wheel of blazing swords and flashing, crushing kicks.

  When Naero rejoined her unit, everyone was in a somber mood.

  They had endured one casualty. A gigantic carnasaur slipped in during the battle and snapped its huge jaws on Sender Konrad of Squad 2, Fireteam 2. It chewed him and his armor up and swallowed him whole, before his mates could track the damn thing down and kill it. They had to blow the carcass open with charges to retrieve Sender’s remains, which they put into a standard casualty bag.

  Marines took care of their own dead whenever and wherever possible.

  With the mission complete, 36 returned to their dropship and went back into orbit that night, attached to the strike cruiser, The Black Bulldog.

  Staff Sergeant Owen Valmont led Squad 2 and the rest of 36 as they solemnly carried and escorted Sender Konrad to the ship’s mortuary, where the honored dead were prepared for burial on the third day, after their wake. At times, if there were many casualties, the wakes would be held, but the dead would be kept frozen, and launched into the nearest star when the mission was over.

  The Marines marched slow. Valmont’s voice rang out. “Let the call go out into the Beyond. For a Spacer Marine goes forth upon the next journey. Let him be welcomed and embraced, by all of his blood, and his mighty brothers and sisters who have gone before him. Let them welcome him in honor.”

  Sender’s mates had already said their goodbyes to him along the way and during the ride up.

  They handed the remains over to the funeral teks, and went back to their quarters. Marines were almost always quiet du
ring the first few hours of losing one of their own. Then slowly, they returned to their regular routines.

  Seventhday had what many called Sparring Night. Others also called it Dance Night, but Naero had never been much of a dancer. Although from what she heard, 36 had some of the best dancers in Bravo Command. Everything with the hyper-athletic Marine Companies was a hot and heavy competition.

  Naero spent much of the evening knife fighting with Trevor Lakota in a practice room.

  They had a fantastic time.

  Just as she expected, Lakota was superb with blades. Without her Mystic strength and speed, he would have beaten her half of their matches. The man was that good.

  Even with her prowess, he drew her blood seven times.

  “You should have been a Mystic,” Naero told him.

  He smiled. “That is not my way, as it is yours, Naero of the Brighteyes. I am but a simple warrior at heart. While you, you were borne of the blood of your mighty parents to become the great Spirit Warrior that you are now, and that you shall yet become in the future. Any who have eyes can see this in you.”

  Naero sighed. “I carry a Cosmic monster within me that I cannot control,” she confessed.

  Lakota nodded. “You may call it that, but it is you. You are the darkness and the light, both good and evil, and they constantly war within your soul. The Great Mystery itself has touched you, and invoked its powers of Life and Death within you. I fear, that your destiny shall be both great and terrible–a very frightening thing indeed. I would not wish such a life. Yet it makes me glad, that I am but a simple warrior.”

  Naero asked him about the Marine they had lost, and then about several other people in the company. Lakota always gave her his honest opinion.

  At one point Naero grinned and was curious. “You like the Foxes, the cousins Chime and Jonny. I can tell you do, but you seldom talk to them or hang around them as friends.”

  Lakota grinned. “Big sister and little brother Fox? Yes, I have great love for them, and they need it, because of the great sadness of their family. They often make me laugh, but I can only take so much of them. Yet they are good Marines and warriors in their own right, and have my respect. I am a quiet man by my nature; I usually keep to myself.”

  “You know they’re cousins, not sister and brother, right?”

  “That does not matter. They were raised together like brother and sister by the last of their elders, but the little brother always tries to look out for the older sister. He protects her like a brother should and has a good heart.”

  “I would agree with you, though, Lakota. Chime can be a little much at times.”

  Lakota sighed, “It’s because she’s crazy. If she survives this war, and finds the right person to love her well, Chime will be all right I think.”

  They talked for another hour, drinking lix paks. Lakota informed her about several others in the company that she would enjoy matching iron with, half of them from the other native Clans.

  Naero gave him one of her special Clan Maeris battle blades, and showed him all of its powered features.

  Lakota’s eyes twinkled and he smiled. He unfolded an ornate leather wrapping with intricate beading and gave her a warrior’s knife from his people. He said the hilt was buffalo horn and that the blade was sacred to his Clan.

  Naero gasped slightly, actually sensing a touch of Cosmic power within that blade.

  Naero made certain to thank and honor her new friend with great respect. Honor was something that was paramount to all Spacers; something that they all shared and could understand.

  4

  Metra-4’s lush, green, primordial forests and grassy plains covered most of the three main continents, sprinkled with a few mountains and foothills here and there. There were very few deserts, and extremely small polar ice caps.

  The Metrans had a system population of only 1.8 billion souls–almost all of them Besh, with their gray-green skin, green-black hair, and small ears. Mining and lumber were, of course, the two biggest exports.

  Here the Ejjai invaders had primarily split their forces and were locked in two separate, all-out struggles with the locals, naturally around the two largest gigacities, Bronten and Turam, each on a different continent.

  Ejjai military doctrine consisted of having their battle groups surround the two gigacities within rings of artillery, gunships, and gravtanks. They proceeded to shell the the defenders relentlessly and without mercy, while gunships and warships modified for ground assault raked the defenders and the civilian population indiscriminately.

  Once the defenders were sufficiently beaten down, the invaders began to collect the locals for the meatships, efficiently wiping out area after area.

  This strategy was very effective against mostly static, planetary defenses with weak militaries.

  The Marines of Bravo Command slipped onto the surface of Metra-4 without being detected, and organized two massive surprise assaults directly against the two main bodies of the invading forces.

  When night came, and darkness shrouded Bronten and Turam, the Marines unleashed their carefully orchestrated assault plans.

  Naero had been forward, scouting as usual with Company 36, and Squad 3 of her assigned recon platoon. Squad and Fireteam 1 leader Python Wilde, younger brother of the Anaconda, led the rest of her fireteam into harm’s way, consisting of Rebecca Cooper, Neesha Flynn, and Felix Blooding–no near relation, apparently, to an assistant cook Naero had known during the Annexation War, famous for a certain gravy he made.

  Fireteam 2 was led by Corporal Chang Han, Vincent Fay, Nicholas Kowalski, and Ted Kim. Squad 3 was rounded out by Corporal Lance Allen, Bryan Mitsubishi, Gabriel Patton, and Luke Barrett in Fireteam 3.

  Shetanna and her dozen Marines watched and painted Ejjai gravtanks and vehicles, belching forth out of a big enemy transport, assembling into their attack formations.

  They put all of those vehicles into play on the main combat grid, where they would be tabulated and assigned targeting profiles and priorities. Yet as they watched, another similar transport came down and began to disgorge its forces, making for a very tempting profile for an advance attack.

  Every enemy target couldn’t always be engaged at once, especially as enemy forces increased in size and became very numerous. Thus they had to be prioritized and attacked in the best order possible for maximum success.

  Naturally, higher value targets had a higher priority in the flow of attack and were engaged and eliminated first. This was done according to the integrated firing profiles of the Spacer Marine Battle Command System, its series of linked, powerful AIs, and the leadership, right on up to General Walker himself.

  “Sergeant Wilde, that’s a lot of enemy armor coming online,” Naero noted over their secured helmet link. “That’s going to be a major problem for everyone when they start to maneuver and fire.”

  “Yes, sir. I agree, sir.”

  “Wilde, let’s drop the sir stuff when we’re on our own. There’s no brass here.”

  “Copy that.”

  “How can we possibly resist such rich targets of opportunity? What say we seize the initiative here, swoop in and use up all of our explosives and ordnance. I mean drop it all where it counts–grenades, charges, microbombs, and float-seeker smartmines–everything we’ve got–in order to take out those two transports and perhaps some of those other ships, while they’re still unloading those tanks.”

  Python nodded. “I like that idea a lot, N. But after we do all that, we’re still in the middle of a combat zone, completely depleted, with nothing but our primary weapons. And then the fighting really kicks in.”

  “I’ve thought of that. Let’s see what our fixers can do about resupplying us along the way from whatever they can recycle. Let’s keep them busy working for us.”

  Python studied the gravtanks and grimaced. “You know, it’s too bad we couldn’t get a unit of our own meks or gravtanks over here. They’d have a field day. That’s what we could really use.”

  N
aero thought about it. “Everyone here knows how to operate a tank, don’t they?” she asked.

  All of Squad 3 clicked in. “Affirmative.”

  Naero looked back the way that they had come in.

  The battlefield was awash with a litter of ruined, damaged, and abandoned enemy gravtanks from prior battles with the local forces.

  “I think we might just go for a little ride. Let me and the fixers do a bit of teknomancing and upgrading, while you and Squad 3 go set those transports to go up in flames.”

  “We’re on it, N. Pick us out some good ones. Four or five. We can put two or three people in each one.”

  Naero handed all of her remaining explosives over to the sergeant to put to good use.

  She and Om sent some fixers to scrounge and recycle the battlefield for more ordnance and explosives they could dole out and utilize.

  But the bulk of their small fixer cloud they sent to work on a handful of mostly abandoned and lightly damaged enemy gravtanks that could be teknomanced, modified, and somewhat improved upon. Perfect for a little jaunt in the country to see the sights.

  By the time Squad 3 joined back up with her, Naero had teknomanced four enemy gravtanks back to life, and even better than their counterparts–with a few upgrades and modifications of her own.

  “Here we go, Wilde. You wished for armor? Haisha! I give you armor. Our chariots await. When things go hot in just a few minutes, and those transports cook off, that’s when we make our move. I say we jump in these hopped-up babies and take them for a joy ride. Our fixers have painted them so that our people won’t fire upon us, and we can have all the fun we can manage.”

  Python turned to Squad 3. “Split up, three to a ride, just like the lady said. We slip in from behind if we can and knock out their rearward lines while they’re still forming up. We hit hard and fast, do as much damage as we can, and keep going. If your tank gets shot up or destroyed, cloak and fly out on your gravwings to support the assault.”

  “I’ve increased the firepower and the rate of fire on these guns,” Naero told them. “Keep all weapons blazing. In the middle of a couple of enemy tank battalions, we’re bound to hit something. Ram and slam. I’ve also boosted the armor and the shields, and the speed and power plants. These tin cans can take it, and we don’t have to give them back. Keep your fixers active around you to repair any minor damage on the fly. Fight well, and enjoy the ride!”