Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit (42 page)

And at the forefront of t
he assault, Naero unleashed her deadly Mystic skills.

To anyone looking on, a
small female warrior dressed all in black, fought with her face masked and her long dark hair flowing.

If they were close enough, they could see her wide v
iolet eyes blazing in fury. See her cut the reeling, terrified enemy down with two long fiery red swords. To anyone watching, it might appear that she fought with what seemed to be the strength and agility of a hundred men.

Survivors
among the locals did catch glimpses of her lethal prowess in action as the fight raged, and stared in dumbfounded wonder at her terrifying Chaos abilities.

To them she became
Shettana, a fleeting legend brought to life right before a desperate populace. A sign of hope. And the landers cheered and shouted her name throughout the city, until even the enemy took it up.

Ejjai screamed the name Shettana in fear, and tried to flee from her in panic, right before she hewed them in half and slew them.

Yet once that city was safe, the battle moved on to the next, wherever the enemy was strongest.

And after Nilar-2, hundreds of other worlds
on the border now hung in the balance, awaiting succor and deliverance from the relentless, iron fist of the invaders. And there would be more grim work for Shettana and the doughty marines of Bravo Command.

52

A
s the war with the Ejjai invasion raged in confusion and chaos, all of the forty-nine Spacer Clans called an emergency Grand Conclave at the severely damaged naval station near Serrek-12.

While the
nearby battles on the border still flared.

Once Nilar-2 and several more alliance worlds
stood secured, other frightening news of a very different variety reached Naero.

So dire that she immediately left
the fierce battles at the front to race back to join the Conclave. She feared greatly for her people. Afraid for them. Afraid what they might do in the midst of their great wrath.

Everyone
in the Clans remained angry at what they had endured thus far at the hands of the Corps, and with good reason.

But
then she heard that Admiral Klyne had been wounded again in a naval engagement with the foe.

And more importantly, that in Klyne
’s absence, hateful zealots on the High Council like General Tobias Ingersol were attempting to inflame the Clans to madness, demanding swift and decisive revenge on their Corps enemies, who now floated helpless at their mercy.

The mad zealots demanded not just genocide for
the crippled Corps navies, but Cosmicide for all landers in general.

Naero fully understood th
e desire for revenge, but it could not be allowed to guide Clan policy and doctrine.

For one thing, Naero and Baeven had
updated the math on the enemy invasion strategy.

If the Ejjai
invasion continued to advance and spread, even the Spacers would need an alliance with the rest of humanity, in order to have any chance at defeating the enemy. There was no other way around that reality. Destroying the Corps fleets now–as some demanded–might actually spell doom for all of humanity in the future.

Naero
staggered into the teeming Conclave Hall on Serrek-12, completely exhausted from three long days of heavy fighting against the Ejjai invaders. Her combat armor and her cloak-coat tattered, filthy, and blood-soaked. Mostly Ejjai blood.

Yet s
ome of the gore was her own, from several minor injuries. All of her reserves completely spent. She no longer had the strength to fully close or regenerate her wounds.

Blood ran down her arms and legs as she moved forward.

But she needed to reach the Conclave and have her say. As was the right of every Spacer by Spacer law. She needed to say things that needed to be said and heard. Things her parents would say if they were still around. Things her people had to hear, and know, and consider–before they made grave mistakes in both military and moral judgment.

In
the past seventy-two standard hours, Spacer forces at hand immediately counter-attacked along the length of the entire border of the war front, retaking and avenging forty-one of the initial one hundred and eighty-nine Alliance worlds under enemy siege or subjugation.

But thus far
, Clan forces had neither offered nor provided even tactical assistance or aid to the same approximate number of helpless Gigacorps worlds. Stricken worlds suffering the same grim fates against the invaders on the other side of the border.

With no
available forces to come to the rescue of their outmatched civilian populations.

Despite all of the atrocities
committed against the Clans by the Corps, in her heart-of-hearts, Naero knew refusing to help the suffering Corps worlds to be a tremendous mistake.

She had once
despised landers as well. Before she knew Tarim, and Arana, brave little Mally, and so many others.

Now w
hen she even suggested to others among her own crews that they should surge forward to help the suffering landers, many of her friends and crew responded with impulsive words of anger and hate.

‘
They wouldn’t help us! Why should we bother helping them?’

‘
They’re getting exactly what they deserve.’

‘
See how they like it!’

For months Spacers had suffered costly defeat after costly defeat, and
found little mercy from their superior foes.

Now that
those tables had turned, and the Corps were at the mercy of Spacers. Fewer and fewer were those who wanted to show them any compassion.

Yet
from being at the front firsthand, Naero saw the invaders’ handiwork up close and personal.

Sometimes the Spacers got to their objectives in time.

Other times, they came too late.

Naero had seen firsthand the devastation on Rinnier-3.

It would most likely haunt her for the rest of her days to come.

When she and Walker
’s Marines arrived in system, it was already all over for the landers.

There was no one to save. No one left to rescue or fight for.

A colony of eleven million explorers, merchants, and miners from numerous races. All gone. Cut down during the invasion, or already processed indiscriminately into Ejjai food rations. Via the horrific, robotic meatships.

Spacer forces focused on destroying meatships wherever they were located. With extreme prejudice.

The Ejjai thought it funny and amusing to feed their victims into the automated butchering machines naked, alive, and screaming. Man, woman, and child. Of every age. Nothing got wasted.

The invaders
gathered together in great numbers when and where possible to watch the entertainment spectacle.

To the Ejjai. Meat was meat.
Some of them even preferred their meat rancid, and threw in rotting corpses, even their own dead and wounded from the fighting.

And they broadcasted vids of their
many atrocities on every known channel, in order to strike fear in any who opposed them.

But for Spacers, it had
just an opposite effect.

The scanners showed nothing but Ejjai left alive
on Rinnier-3. Just clone factory ships and plants spawning more clone armies. Bot factories mass-producing weapons, arms, gear, and more invasion fleets.

With no
one left to save on Rinnier-3, there was no further need to hold back.

Naero and the Spacer Marines unleashed holy burning hell on the invaders.

Every strategic weapon, every bit of heavy ordnance fell upon the Ejjai in a firestorm of fury and destruction.

The clone factories, fleet and weapons factories, and the
meat ships and plants all got carpet bombed into oblivion with low-yield atomics and neutron bombs.

Then naval fleets sent in gunships
and Meks to exterminate anything of the enemy that still lived or twitched.

When the scanners showed no trace of enemy life
remaining, the defense fleets shot away to engage the enemy once more at the next objective. No quarter for the clone forces was even considered. There was no reasoning with the Ejjai or their masters.

N
o mercy. No prisoners. Total, absolute war against the invader.

But listening to
the chatter among the Clans and the fleets, Naero gauged the dark mood of her people around her in the conclave. Hearing the frenzy of growing waves of extreme opinions and overt hatred being expressed and broadcasted all around her, Naero knew she had to reach the central arena of the Grand Conclave ASAP.

T
o hear what was being said and decided therein, and have her own say.

She p
ushed her way wearily through the tight, swelling crowds to reach the fore. She made out the shrill, echoing broadcasts of what others like General Ingersol demanded.

Ingersol
currently held the floor at the center of the Grand Conclave, the Great Circle of Deliberation.

He led
the charge for wiping the Gigacorps out of existence. And not just their fleets and military.

His
raving voice carried over the speakers.

“H
ow long? How long have we suffered at the hands of our great enemies? How many wars? How many wasted generations and useless deaths of billions of our people? Century after century? I say no longer. The murder and the madness ends here, and it ends now. However ruthless it sounds, we now have a golden opportunity to take final vengeance against our foes, and eliminate them once and for all. We cannot be soft or compassionate. This is not the time for weakness. We must be bold and merciless, just as we know our foes meant to be with us. If we do not seize this one chance, we are doomed.”

To
Naero’s surprise and horror, hundreds in the assembly cheered Ingersol’s words.

Which of course only encouraged him to go further.

“Our recent dead and our dead through the ages call out to us to avenge them, once and for all!”

Swelling approval
from many in the crowd chilled Naero to her very heart and soul, and every bone in her body. To hear the Clans like this sickened her and made her deeply sad.

No
, my brave people. Not like this. We cannot win like this.

Yet many others
in the throng held back in uncertain silence and shock. In hesitation and fear at the fiery mood. Some looked alarmed and sickened by what they heard. What they continued to hear.

She finally reached the forefront.

Admiral Paithe Nelson of Clan Nelson rose up in the assembly and tried to speak. “General Ingersol. Yours cannot be the only voice in this Grand Conclave. That is not the law of our people. Others must be allowed to speak and have their say as well on these grave matters. Will you not yield or at least share the floor with other voices?”

At that t
he general grew defiant. “I will not. The floor is mine, and it shall remain mine until what needs to be said and done,
is
said and done!”

“Y
ou tell ‘em General!”

“T
hey couldn’t stop the Corps. They had their chance!”

“O
thers must be allowed to speak!”

“Y
ield. Yield!”

“Y
ield the floor. Yield the floor!”

“N
o, let him finish! Let him talk!”

“I
will not be silenced!” Ingersol raged. “We have this one fleeting chance. Here is what must be done to save our people and assure their freedom and security for all time. I know it sounds harsh, but it must be done. First, we have all of the Gigacorps navies and fleets helpless and at our mercy, but only for a very short time. What should we do with them all?”

“K
ill the murdering bastards!”

“Y
eah! Kill them all!”

“Destroy them. Just like they did to my brother and si
ster! They drove them into a star and murdered them!”

“
Yeah, that’s exactly right. Do what they did to us. Blow them all up or use robot towships to drive them into the nearest star. That’s exactly what they’ve been doing to our captured ships and crews for the past few months. They deserve the same fate. Let’s give it back to them, a hundredfold!”

“Y
eah, they’d do the same thing to us!”

“T
hat’s what they were doing to our people!”

“T
hat is not honorable!” Someone shouted. “We are Spacers. We don’t execute prisoners wholesale who have surrendered to us in good faith!”

“W
e are not murderers!”

Ingersol shouted them all down once more.

“Honor be hanged! We’re talking the survival of our race here. Our species. Just a few days ago, our enemies were well on their way to doing just that. They had us on the ropes, on a path to total extinction. What good did our so-called honor do us when they were kicking our butts every day? Wearing us down and slaughtering our brave people wholesale? Our enemies don’t show us any honor or mercy. What do we owe them?”

“N
othing!”

“No! We can
’t do this!”

“H
ere’s what we do: after we destroy all of their fleets. Next, we drive the Ejjai clone hordes systematically into all of the remaining Gigacorps worlds as well. We don’t even have to soil our hands. We let their own weapon that they unleashed against us go out of control, turn on them, and finish them off. Then we wipe out the Ejjai, and one quarter of the galaxy now belongs to us. Completely. In this way, it’s the Corps and the landers who will be wiped out. Not us. They brought all of this upon themselves!”

Elder Naeden Vaughn of Clan Vaughn rose up
from the small group of elders present and and spoke firmly but with calm reason. “Very well, general. You have more than had you say, now,” the elder told him. “You have not the authority to defy the Council and the Elders, and circumvent the rule of law. In your zeal and your passion to help our suffering people, you forget yourself, general. Your station and your duty. Yield this floor, or share it with others. That is a direct command!”