Citation Series 1: Naero's War: The Annexation War (36 page)

47

The
Hippolyta
burned on several levels and shot forward drunkenly. Naero had no choice. She ignored direct fire from several enemy ships still attempting to block their way.

She rammed two of the
enemy ships and spun them off to either side, all vessels taking even further damage.

The rest of
Strike Fleet Six would need to help finish off the remaining Triaxian warships.

Only
The
Hippolyta
had the toughness and moxie to bully its way through the mix and stop Admiral Dreth.

They either caught the flagship and stopped its
mad mission, or they all died.

It
became that brutally simple.

Onc
e clear of the battle, Admiral Dreth would struggle to regain enough power to launch his new stellar disruption missiles into Najindo-9’s sun. Doing so would cause a hyper-critical, quanta-chain reaction, effectively annihilating everyone in the entire system within the space of approximately one standard hour.

Naero and her cre
w squeezed every drop of speed from their battered amazon, trying to cut the burning enemy flagship off.

Naero prepared to ram and board the
enemy vessel–to put an end to the final Triaxian madness and the very war.

Her sense of warning suddenly spiked
again.

Instincts told her what was coming
.

“Everyone–
draw weapons. Repel boarders–another assassin attack!”

Not now, of all times
.

A final, full suicide
platoon of Hevangian killers phazed through the blast shields and hull, swarming right onto the bridge within seconds. They emerged out of cloaked phaze, heedless of the lethal effects of their tek.

An
insane foe, already bent on certain death for any and all. So what if the phaze armor process killed all of the users horribly in a matter of hours after utilizing it? Phazing sickness–a horrible way to die.

If only
it were quicker. Naero fully intended to take the assassins down much faster.

Hevangian General Garrok Shul
Dreth himself led this assault himself, his body already suffering from phaze-rot, slowly devouring his face and other flesh.

Thanks to Naero’s warning, the Spacers o
n the bridge were ready for the attackers this time.

Fire erupted from both sides almost instantaneously
.

But the Spacers fired first
.

Tarim waited for them to
completely phaze in, and then fired his pistols rapidly.

His explosive plasma rounds
splattered bursting heads and torsos off a dozen enemies in a matter of seconds.

Captain Hayden and a squad of
Marines emerged from the lift and cut loose with heavy squad support cannons.

Two
Marines fell.

Naero saw two of her crew drop
.

Tarim
himself took a shot in the chest and went down.

But her people
stood up to the intense Hevangian assault and chewed them to bits.

Garrok Shul drew two black glowing energy blades and launch
ed himself straight at Naero.

He was
obviously doped up on speed enhancers, moving in a blur with his gravwing.

Bent
solely on killing her, if nothing else.

Naero hit him with several exploding knives to take down his shields
.

Then she
drew her energized battle blades off her shoulders and set them to delayed detonate.

She sprang
into the air and met his attack with her own gravwing.

They dueled rapidly for several crucial seconds
.

Blades flashing and sparking
.

Naero took
several painful cuts, a deep gash to her right thigh.

H
er suit and her smartblood already sealed the wounds up.

A painful jab to one hand where Garrok tried to disarm her
.

The bastard was good with blades.
He didn’t use a
shokkog
, because he knew her energized blades would cut right through them.

But n
o one bested her in a straight up knife fight.

No
one
.

She butchered him in mid air
.

Slicing tendons. Cutting muscle groups
.

She severed his right arm at the elbow, letting it
drop.

Naero
slammed Garrok into the upper hull hard with both knees smashing into his chest.

H
is ribs crunched, crushed, and snapped.

She rammed
both blades up deep into Garrok’s guts, triggered the detonation sequence, and spun him around. She smashed him into the hull again and pinned him there, between her secondary personal shield and the ship.

H
e took the blasts full on.

Her blades exploded
, eviscerating the Hevangian assassin leader.

His
legs dangled only by shreds of scorched flesh and bloody cartilage.

But Garrok Shul still managed to laugh
.

Naero leaned in and whispered to him
, her voice hissing.

“That’s for Clan Maeris and what
your kind have done to my family, you vile, murdering fucks. You find something funny about that?”

Garrok laughed as he hissed his last breath
.

“I knew just how to take you
down…you stupid…spack cunt.”

Naer
o dropped him and whirled.

Too late
.

She already knew
.

Two elite Hevangian killers
had held back, just waiting for this exact moment.

They
uncloaked and phazed in, right on top of her.

Ritual, poisoned
shokkog blades in each hand, descending.

Naero could almost feel them piercing her
flesh already.

Captain Hayden
swept in next to her on his gravwing at top speed.

He
knocked her painfully aside, yet shielding her with his own body.

He shot the two killers
right between the eyes at point-blank range.

Right b
efore they could stab him through his shields.

The
short delay rounds from his microgrenade pistols blasted the Hevangians’ heads and torsos off, right down to their bloody hip bones.

Naero caught her breath
, recovered, and flipped back off the blast screens. She placed her hand on Hayden’s right arm as he sheathed his pistols. Both of them quickly noted–this fight was over.

“Thank
s. I definitely owe you more than one now, Jeremiah.”

Hayden nodded,
guiding them back down toward her bridge command chair.

Naero smirked and then sighed. “You sure you don’t have a younger brother somewhere
that I could meet?”
Haisha
, he was a great guy.

That
wife of his better be something else; she was a lucky gal.

They dropped down to check on Tarim
.

Their friend
turned pale from a lung shot–pretty bad.

Tarim
didn’t have smart blood to save him.

Naero and Jeremiah
quickly stabilized him the best they could. Medteks came by quickly to carry him away.

Tarim grabbed Hayden’s arm
.

“I can’t be with Naero. Whatever happens, promise me you’ll protect her
.”

Hayden nodded
, clasping arms with him up to the elbow. “With my life, brother.”

Tarim fell back pale onto his medbed and
blacked out.

Hayden ch
ecked his gear and returned to the nearest lift below, his eyes still flashing fire from the heat of battle.

“
Going to ready my boarding teams, N. Get us on that flagship to finish the job.”

“Copy that,” Naero called back to him
.

She
dropped down to her command station and pulled up her flickering holo displays, vectoring in on
The
Kronos
once more.

They delay had cost them
precious minutes.

Most of her own battered fleet lay crippled and floating
behind her, but the rest of the enemy ships were also out of the fight or destroyed completely.

S
everal smaller Alliance vessels and numerous fighters somehow raced ahead to cut off and delay the enemy flagship.

“All ships, m
y brave lions, indeed. Great job,” Naero declared. “In for the final assault. Let’s put a stop to this madness!”

43

The
Hippolyta
used up most of its remaining power attempting to cut off and ram into the badly damaged and listing Triaxian flagship
.

But the assassin attack did its work holding them off
.

Even as they closed in
,
Kronos
jerked free and regained enough power to launch a desperate barrage of stellar disruptor missiles toward the sun.

“No!
”

Naero
screamed and gave the panic order.

“Stop those missiles, people. None of them can get through!”

Fleet fighters and warships blocked the missiles’ paths, taking out the lethal devices with concentrated waves of fire from main guns and secondary batteries.

Three enemy missiles
nearly broke loose.

When all else failed, th
ree brave fighter pilots smashed into one missile in order to destroy it.

The destroyer
The
Kit
Carson
arced in at high speed, directly into harm’s way to intercept the last two.

The destroyer took
them broadside.

All three rocking blasts ann
ihilated any smaller ships in the nearest vicinity, mostly other fighters and one frigate, attempting the same suicide maneuvers.

Rings of cutting energy and destructive force sliced out into space before the
blinding, looming, gargantuan sun.

The
Kit
Carson
broke into three main sections, an instant before it was completely vaporized.

A large section of
The
Hippolyta
’
s
northeastern outer layer was sheered clean off, along with the entire nose section of
The
Kronos
.

The final
handful of Strike Fleet Six warships took major damage, and burned or listed, losing power and dropping back.

A swarm of avenging fighters plugged up
The
Kronos
’
launch tubes with bombs and missiles—fired straight in.

The enemy
wasn’t going to launch anything else.

Kronos
shuddered and took heavy damage again, several areas now completely engulfed in flames.

Strangely
enough, not a single Triaxian crew had hit the lifepods yet.

Did they all intend to go down with the
ir mad commander and his flagship?

Naero guessed they had a more sinister intent
.

Admiral Dreth surrounded himself with Triaxian zealots
.

A call came in from Captain Hayden and his
fierce Marines, all prepped and ready to command the boarding teams. Life support and power to most sections of
The
Hippolyta
flickered and went down.

Naero’s brave amazon had fought well and would only die slowly
, fighting and resisting to the last.

Hayden called out.
“My people and I are ready to go in and get the job done, Naero. Punch us in!”

“
You’re going to have company, Jeremiah. My crew and I are coming with you. Everyone fights! We’ll see this job through together.”

Hayden grinned.
“Join us for the fun. I’m sure those Triaxian fanatics will give us a warm welcome, N. My Marines and I don’t like to admit it, but we could use the help on this one, especially after taking down those bloody assassins.”

“Make no mistake, Jeremiah
. This is for all the creeds. Admiral Dreth is completely insane. I’m sure he fully intends to drive his ship straight into the sun and set off those stellar disruptor devices firsthand. We have to get on board and have our teks and fixers neutralize those bombs. Then Dreth can take his sun bath all he wants.”

“Affirmative
, sir. That’s the plan then. The rest of our fleets can’t stop them?”

“Not in time, or
they already would have. Even
The
Hippolyta
’
s
a battered wreck. Everybody else is pretty beaten up as well, from taking out the last enemy threats. We don’t have enough firepower to bust up
Kronos
before it reaches the star’s gravity well.

“
Jeremiah–if
Kronos
sets off those devices, in less than an hour, the Cosmic chain reaction will turn this star into the biggest quantabomb the galaxy has ever seen. Everyone racing this way to help and all of the inner systems and their entire populations will be slaughtered.”

Captain Hayden grinned. “Then
it looks like were it, and we can’t let that happen. We insert and cut down anything that moves. See you and your people in the boarding tubes.”

Hayden broke their link
.

Naero rose up out of her command chair and called to Surina and Enel
.

“
Take command, Surina. Enel, get us in close. Get us in there.”

Her pilot sounded worried, struggling and constantly trying to reset the impulse and navigation controls
.

“Captain, we’re losing power by the second. She’s barely responding.”

“I’m trusting both of you with our ship and with all our lives. I know you both. You’ll find a way. Link with Rendar in engineering and anyone else. I know we’re in a bad way, but he’ll give you everything he can.”

Surina took the
vacated command chair and immediately started working to help direct the crippled ship, her hands a blur among the displays.

“Good luck, sir.”

Naero turned in the lift, jammed with other crew.

They donned
their armor or pweaked their helmets up on their sealed flight togs, readying various weapons for the assault.

No one hesitated
.

Everyone moved with purpose and direction
.

Naero smiled,
extremely proud of her people.

“Fortune favors the bold!
” she shouted aloud.

On the way, they passed through one of the
ship’s armories.

Naero and everyone else loaded up.
They went in heavy.

She tracked the chase on her wristcom
.

They had one last shot
.

The
Hippolyta
would ram into
The
Kronos
again from below, several decks beneath the main bridge and behind the ruined missile launch tubes. On contact, Hayden and Naero would insert their boarding parties, and proceed to their objectives with all haste.

According to the assault plan Captain Hayden transmitted, the
Marines had analyzed the enemy flagship’s layout. Once inside, they would split their forces.

One team would race to neutralize the disruptor warheads
.

Another would attack the bridge to take control of the vessel and kill or capture Admiral Dreth and his
entire command.

Right now, Naero was leaning heavily toward kill
.

Some
how she felt that maniac would more than oblige them.

They had less
than an hour before
The
Kronos
would begin to be pulled in by the star itself.

And not much longer
after that before they passed the point of no return.

Naero and her people prepared to slide or jet down the boarding tubes using gravwings,
immediately after impact with the enemy flagship. Magnetic grapples and tow cables would take hold, and staggered series of charges would blast a way through the hull on contact, open the tubes, and inject their boarding forces into the enormous flagship like a virus into a host.

Captain Hayden gave the warning
.

“Prepare for impact and insertion.
Going green. Mark. Eight seconds!”

The boarding forces all tried to relax in
zero-G. Bracing oneself never worked any way.

At seven seconds, both ships collided
, groaned, and buckled together. The sounds of grinding and shearing metal screamed like warring demons.

The boarding charges went off, boring through the enemy hull. Robotic plasma cutters
darted in as needed.

The
insertion lights went green.

“Go, go, go!”

Naero dove into her tube head first, heavy blaster pistols extended right out in front of her. Sweeping forward with her gravwing.

Weapon fire
erupted back and forth dead ahead.

Like a dummy she had forgotten to activate her personal shields
.

Naero did so quic
kly, right as she spilled out into the fighting.

Two Triaxian
heavy Marines flew up right before her, lifting plasma rifles.

Naero shot them point blank through their face shields, tearing their heads apart and flinging them back. She kicked off their bodies and flipped around, twisting and
soaring the other way.

Enemy blasts just missed her feet and legs
.

They
were in a hangar, empty of starfighters. Duranadium beams and structure up top, about forty meters above the deck.

About a hundred Triaxians
were spread out below, behind a heavily fortified position at one end of the hangar, guarding the way to the upper decks and the main bridge.

They
in the process of bringing in autoguns and squad support cannons, hurrying to get them set up.

Naero re-directed off a beam
.

Again, heavy blaster
, particle beam, and plasma fire tore up the section of supports right where she had been.

Keep moving
.

Change position and direction every two seconds
.

Evasive flying
.

The enemy gu
nners kept missing her by centimeters.

She finally
zipped down and took cover behind a pile of heavy machine parts and equipment.

Hayden and his
Marines were down, already formed up and leaping forward in teams. They covered each other expertly, finding cover, returning accurate, sustained fire on the enemy position.

They closed in.

They attempted to punch through the warping and coruscating waves of the enemy squad shields.

Naero’s people busied themselves dueling with the foes up in the air and the superstructure, shooting down at them
all from above.

Dead and wounded dropped or floated everywhere within seconds
.

Marine
meks squirted in, rose up, and charged forward, guns and cannons blazing.

“Hayden,” Naero warned. “Be advised, the enemy’s setting up heavy
squad cannons and autoguns behind their position. It looked like they were preparing to fire.”

“We have to get those shields down. Then we can soften them up and get in before they can cut loose!
”

An intense barrage of micromissiles and negation pulse bombs swarmed at the enemy and detonated with a flash. Multiple loud, rocking bangs, pops, and explosions went off to
further stun and startle the enemy.

Right as the enemy
shields collapsed.

But two
enemy autoguns came online, just as it looked like the Marines would overrun the enemy position.

The
rapid-fire enemy guns disintegrated two Marine meks up close, and cut down a score of other attackers.

Naero sent in a wave of fixers
.

They swept in and penetrated the enemy defenses
.

The Triaxians could
n’t shoot them all down. The devices were simply too small and too many.

Once at the
big guns, the fixers quickly dismantled and reduced them to non-functioning components.

With the top sections clear, N
aero sent her forces down at the enemy from above.

Hayden and the
Marines regrouped and came at the foe from below.

Caught
in a terrible crossfire, three-score remaining foes went down under a hail of heavy penetration fire, rockets, and grenades.

Naero and Hayden called in the re
mainder of their assault forces, almost at the same time.