Naero's War: The Citation Series 3: Naero's Trial (23 page)

“That’s right, Jan. That’s why we can’t see the stars. They’ve hidden the entire planet of Naggoth in a projected Time suspension field, just like on the Mystic Homeworlds. First we need to figure out what the temporal dilation parameters are.”

“They’ve bottled us up like djinn and marids from those old stories,” Jan said.

Word spread rapidly. Everyone grew worried at the news of them being trapped on Naggoth in a planetary time suspension field.

Naero quickly performed a teknomancy analysis with their fixernet that was still based onworld.

“Hmm…about a standard month is going to pass us by on the outside, Jan. To our allies, the planet Naggoth has vanished, and it won’t reappear for…thirty of their days.”

She looked straight at Jan. “Meanwhile, there are less than fifteen hundred of us trapped here on this world. And the enemy has millions of troops to hunt us down with. And now we can’t go anywhere offworld, we can’t leave, and they have an entire year inside of this Time trap to track us down and kill us.”

And forget about rescuing her unborn daughter, who wasn’t even on the planet any longer.

For the next twelve standard months it was going to take everything that each one of them had just to stay alive. There was no longer any choice in that.

26

Naero brought her remaining people to another of their deep underground, temporary safe zones. She had dozens of them established within the planetary crust of Naggoth on all four main continents. These hideouts were usually a few kilometers down in natural pockets that the fixers located.

They had been doing little more than hiding and fighting to stay alive for two weeks. Above them the Dakkur nations and their millions of allies and slaves labored with gigantic plasma borers to reach the small Alliance force again and again and attack them.

Naero and her people could only retreat, fight to get away, and hide once again. Each time they fought, the enemy wore them down and they lost more people doing so.

Just in the past two weeks they lost all of their transports but one, and
The Black Spot
. They hid those ships in desperation and left them behind, concealed underground for a last ditch attempt to escape once Naggoth came back in sync with the galaxy’s main Time flow. They had also lost forty-one other troops, dragged down and slain by the millions of enemies who dogged their steps.

The enemy confounded the Allies by possessing some new, infernal way to track and ferret their exact location out. Naero tried to figure out just what it was. At first, when they still had their few ships, Naero worried that they were tracking them by the residual powercore signature echoes.

That was how the Alliance was able to still track enemy cloaked and phazed ships, vehicles, and troops. But that wasn’t it this time. The enemy was using something completely different to discover their locations, even without the ships. And it seemed to be taking about half a day for them to pinpoint Naero and company’s whereabouts.

Both Naero and Jan tried to briefly go into the Astral Plane to see if perhaps somehow the enemy had placed an astral marker on one or both of them. But they were still blocked from entering the Astral Plane. They could not learn anything.

Naero wished that she had placed such a marker in Naero-3, but there hadn’t been time during her trial and the aftermath. And for some reason, this time dilation field the enemy was using also messed up her use of the astral mind crystals from Khai’s father’s people, the Oden.

So, how did the enemy keep finding them?

Nothing else was suspect. They checked for and found no evidence of traitors in their midst. It was something the enemy was capable of that they were not. No one was possessed, even without their knowledge. Perhaps it was something new.

She feared that it had to be something with her and Jan, and possibly Ra. They were the only beings on the planet who could use Cosmic energy. Perhaps that was how the enemy tracked them.

Janner said that Danner wasn’t on world with them; he would know if their insane brother was anywhere near them. At least they caught a break there.

Yet Naero had a general sense of several other powerful sources of Cosmic energy on Naggoth. After a while, Jan could sense them too. But neither she nor Jan could pinpoint where or determine just what they were.

When there was time, Naero made certain that all of her troops knew what they were up against. She described what the Dakkur and their minions were like and how they fought.

But they had yet to encounter the Dakkur queens, who were said to me huge, much larger than the Dakkur Champions–that could be up to fifteen meters in length. And a king Dakkur was rumored to be even larger yet. Both the queen and king Dakkur were also said to be able to use both psyonics and Cosmic energy attacks.

Those creatures might have innate abilities allowing them to track down and pinpoint other beings like herself, Jan, and Ra who also used Cosmic powers. But to Naero’s knowledge, only her Uncle Baeven and Ra’s father, Prince Gaviok, had ever fought and vanquished Dakkur queens or a king.

And Baeven said that that had been the hardest, closest battle he had ever fought single-handed in his entire life.

But at least Naero knew that such could be done. The enemy were fierce, but not invincible. She tried to encourage her people with the valiant story of how Baeven and the new High Mystic Master Gaviok had once been stranded on just such a Dakkur Homeworld, and vanquished the enemy all by themselves.

“It may come to that,” Ra said.

“I hope it doesn’t,” Naero told him. “All we have to do is stay one step ahead of them. If we can survive a year, I’m sure we’ll be able to escape, either in our ships, or by capturing one from the enemy. And I’m guessing that the rest of the Alliance isn’t going to sit on their hands during that month. They’ll be ready to come help us when the time comes.”

“Naero,” Jan said. “I think Ra is right. I don’t think we can make it just by constantly hiding out and staying on the run. They’ll bottle us all up at some point. We’ll make a mistake and we won’t be able to get away.”

Ra smiled wide as only a mantid could. “If we are going to die any way, I think we should stop focus on running and hiding. We should take the fight to our foes. At least we can take down large numbers of them with us along the way.”

Naero chuckled. “Haisha…1,378 troops, against a planet of millions?”

Jan grinned. “Sounds like good odds to me. What do we have to lose, N? If we go on the offensive, we can disrupt and upset them, keep them guessing, and even deplete and wear them down. And just think, every day you can make more Shetannas. How many can you make a day now?”

“Nine, on a good day.”

Jan jumped to his feet, tossing his hands in the air. “Do the math. That’s over 3,000 deadly replicants with your Cosmic abilities within a year’s time. More than twice our forces now. We can be getting stronger each day, while the enemy will be getting weaker.”

Naero seriously began to consider that option. In a way, Jan and Ra were right. She had just been focusing on keeping them all alive for an entire year, by avoiding combat whenever they could.

And that did not seem to be working very well.

“All right,” Naero said. “But we still can’t decide this matter on our own, just the three of us. We should put it to the troops. And in either case, we need to find out how the enemy keeps finding us and if there is a way to prevent that.”

Jan put his hands on his hips. “Leave it to me and Ra. We’ll speak to the officers and the troops and see what they want to do. You need to get some rest, Naero. Every time you transport us away from another enemy attack, I know it takes a lot out of you. You can’t afford to get run down. We’ll speak with our forces and decide the matter together, after you have slept.”

Naero nodded in agreement. Everything Jan said was correct. If she had to be stranded on a deathtrap world, at least she had her brothers Jan and Ra with her.

She could die happily fighting side-by-side with them, if it came down to that.

But she still wished to save as many of her people as she could.

It wasn’t their fault that they were trapped here. They had followed her lead without question and they still had faith in her, even with all that had happened.

It was still up to her to find a way out of all of this mess, for as many of them as she could. But she could also see the logic to Jan and Ra’s plan. They were all warriors, and even though the odds were beyond counting, fighting was better than slinking, hiding, and constantly running.

Naero had learned that she could rest, regenerate, and even sleep while she also meditated, and in her dream state she walked the labyrinth of the KDM, with Orean, her Kexxian sister and constant guide.

When she was deeply immersed within the dream state she could push her way, with effort, into the nodes or storehouses of Kexxian knowledge and wisdom. Sometimes she would simply thrust her head in, up to her neck, into the confusing, swirling maelstrom of raw data. Ocean after ocean of intense, concentrated knowledge, concepts, and ideas.

She always started with the smallest, but most potent and dangerous Kexxian obelisk of knowledge–the one she had originally chosen and been drawn to from the very first–the node of music.

As she had once discovered from her time among the Tua, so many of the sentient races had been children nurtured by the Kexx in their formative beginnings.

The songs the gentle Tua had sung were derivative or even exact copies of Kexxian songs, passed on with little variation.

Naero recalled those tunes and their Mystical words from happier days upon lost Janosha, when her adoptive family had still lived and breathed, sustaining and passing on their simple ways.

When she was in the labyrinth now she found that it helped her to hum or even mouth those old tunes and songs. And when she did so, she felt and became more at one with the wisdom and power of the ancient Kexx. And her sister Orean would sing beside her as they went about.

Just as the Tua began each day, Naero started each session with the song of greeting–of welcoming and beginning.

Sha nii hah, ahluu-nii-ha-ah! Mah nah-hii, jah ah-loh, ah-dii!

And at their voices, all of the vast nodes of the KDM would glow with might and enlightenment, and thrum with the resonance of the Cosmic Harmony.

They came full circle, back to the node of music, and Orean held out her hand. “Come with me, into the source of music once again.”

Naero shook her head. “We can’t bother with that again, sister. Come, you must help me gain understanding. Show me where to look. I need to learn more about the Dakkur and how they keep locating and attacking us. That is the knowledge that I really need to find this day.”

Orean stopped and held out her hand. “Come with me, Naero. I will teach you a new song this day. It is simple enough, but yet it can be one of the most difficult of them all to perceive and use properly.”

A new song? The Tua had only taught her nine songs in all, the nine songs of the day, and for all life. A tenth song? What was this song and what would it impart?

“Tell me the name of this new song, sister,” Naero said, taking Orean’s hand.

“It is called
The Song of Knowing
. And as I told you, and you seldom listen hard enough–it is easy to learn, and yet extremely difficult to master.”

Naero shrugged. “Why should that be any different than the rest of all of this?”

Orean stopped, clapped her hands, and burst out laughing. “See, you are learning so much, even if you do not know it yet.”

As usual, when Orean said stuff like that it simply made Naero feel like a complete moron. “What did I say? What have I learned? You know you drive me crazy when you do that.”

Orean smiled and took her hand once more. “Come, I will teach you the song’s words within.”

They walked into the small node with much less effort this time, through the walls and into the expanse within. None of the nodes had windows or doors of any kind. One had to pass inside of them by force of will, but yet without effort.

Suddenly Naero gasped, noticing for the first time that outside the node had been the size of a closet. While within it was nearly limitless in its expanse.

Even her first experience with the Astral Plane had not struck her so.

Orean began to sing, and Naero tried to commit the words to her memory.

Ansha dii, karandu hali, ahlago shantadu vellah, janastu lanado shanatu!

Orean sang it thrice–three times while they were immersed in the ocean of the knowledge of songs and all music.

Naero felt as if she were in some kind of trance. She spoke, but with great effort.

“Why is it called the song of knowing?” she asked.

Orean did not answer her. Instead, she walked around and passed through Naero like a ghost and kept walking a few steps. She kept her her back turned to Naero and looked straight ahead, holding up both of her arms. “Now you sing the words. Sing them three times as did I, and this time–close your eyes and pass through me.”

Naero did not question any longer. She closed her eyes, and sang the words three times, taking a step forward each time as she did.

Ansha dii, karandu hali, ahlago shantadu vellah, janastu lanado shanatu!

As she sang the words the third time she stepped through Orean. It was as if she felt something close around her.

She waited, eyes still closed, holding out her arms, despite how very odd and strange she felt.

“What do I do now, sister?”

Then she clasped her hands over her mouth and felt her face.

Naero spoke with Orean’s voice.

And moved within the body of her Kexxian sister.

Naero became a Kexx, and only in that form was she able to begin to perceive who and what the Kexx were–and what their vast knowledge was.

It was a precious gift to all of the universe and beyond.

It was knowing. And the simple words of the song were indeed profoundly true.

In an instant, she saw the Dakkur in all their terrible power and fury. Like their dread, dark masters, they had chosen the path of destruction. They had indeed grown very great and terrible.

As Naero feared, there was no way to escape from the keen perceptions of her foes.