Naero's War: The Citation Series 2: The High Crusade (22 page)

Then the vids ended, and he stopped smiling. His war face snapped back up. They were, in truth, still at war.

Trevor Lakota left his friends without a word to be alone with his private thoughts and feelings. All of the Marines had their own ways of dealing with their personal and private issues.

Naero left and heard deep sobbing coming from another area. Chime Fox, Bessa Jackson, and a bunch of the 36 gungirls were all huddled around Neesha Flynn. Flynn’s Marine lover, Duncan Cherokee, had just been reported KIA. He died bravely during their latest action but his body had not been found and recovered until much later by the locals.

Duncan was dead an gone. Other Marines would give him a Spacer burial in the nearest star.

Neesha would never see him again, and she took the news very hard.

Each day during wartime brought so much joy and sorrow mixed together.

18

Delker-7 was the world where the shit finally hit the screws, in a temperate zone, during yet another joyous slugfest with superior invader numbers.

When the enemy attacked across multiple Marine positions, even threatening command and control, it was clear exactly what had occurred.

“All units. Our coms and command and control systems have all been hacked and compromised,” HQ reported. “We don’t know how they’ve done it, but the enemy has cracked our COMSYS and decoded all of our coms and can read our entire combat grid. For the near future we will be going blind and dark. So, all units be advised and act accordingly.”

“Switch and dump all randomized, rotation shifting encryption algorithms and code batch sets,” Naero suggested.

“That’s a no go,” HQ said. “We say again. They’ve somehow managed to crack our entire system, and all of its backups, ghosts, and shadows for the current SYSNET. They now own it, and we don’t. There’s no other way to put it. We must go dark. All units on their own for a bit until we adjust, recover, and respond. Don’t trust the coms and stay off them. All units will operate independently. Follow your commanders and your direct chains.”

The combat grid that they had all come to rely on suddenly winked out and went completely dark. HQ and Command were intentionally jamming everything and shutting it all down until they had a solution.

Naero spoke with Om. How could such a thing happen, Om?

I can’t say, N. I think we’re looking at more evidence of highly advanced alien assistance here. Once again, the Ejjai clones are just lackeys, shock troops, cannon fodder–they do not even have the aptitude for this level of sophistication. Nor do they have anything close to the tek that would be needed to crack our system open like this–like so many eggs. And the enemy has managed to do so in less than a month. Scary, as you would say.

Yeah, it sure stinks, Om. This has alien overlords written all over it.

Bravo kept fighting and went where the fighting was hottest–directed by observation and instinct. They took down gravtanks and gunships. They fought the invaders day and night in the city streets and airways of the domes of another Corps gigacity where sometimes, the isolated locals still fired upon them just as readily as they did the Ejjai.

To the terrified minds of the landers, Spacers might be just as bad and bloodthirsty as the other invaders.

Yet without the Alliance’s superior coms network and the all-knowing, all-seeing combat grid, the Ejjai were free to play a lot more tricks on them and jerk them around.

The Ejjai were masters at using humans as decoys, and had sadly even managed to brainwash and train thousands of Corps men, women, and children of all ages. These dupes, selected from several races, were broken and trained to do whatever the invaders told them to do, without question.

The fear of horrible death at the hands of the enemy or the blades of the meatships made many normal civilians pliable and willing to help the invaders–anything in order to stay alive, or keep their families or loved ones alive.

These dupes, brainwashed from the sentient races, helped lure the Marines and other Alliance and local defenders into many traps and ambushes.

Bravo called them puppets. Many of these puppets were terrific actors, and could be very convincing.

The situation grew so bad that whenever the locals pleaded for help, by default, Bravo had to start assuming that they were being played and drawn into another trap by more of such puppets.

Shetanna often played spoiler, and would sneak ahead, cloaked in her stealth armor, to check things out first.

She would spring, ruin, and otherwise expose such traps for her Marines to pounce on and wipe out.

The enemy puppets were trained to fear the Ejjai more than anything else, and do their bidding. They willingly lured other defenders into the enemy’s firetraps and ambushes.

Once, Shetanna was moving up after another firefight, attached to Squad 2 under Staff Sergeant Owen Valmont.

Several pockets of heavy fighting were erupting within range. They merely had to pick one to join up with.

Out of the black, a new Bravo Marine joined them from another unit, a young woman with Cherokee tribal war paint and battle markings on her combat armor.

Tribal Clan markings or paint were optional in the Marines. Some Spacers used them. Some didn’t. It was a personal choice.

Waylon Aztec in Fireteam 1 had his suit decked out like an ancient leopard warrior.

There were entire Bravo and other Marine units that were composed completely of all members from one tribal Clan. Or, such native Clan members could be scattered among the units as many were, all among of the other forces.

Generally, all Marines were free to customize the paint on their rigs, as long as the spolymers, decorations, and even holos did not affect function.

“I’m Corporal Meko Cherokee,” the newcomer said. “My brothers and sisters and I are filtering into all of the units among the frontlines. We’re here to assist taking our basic com and scanning system back from the slashers.”

Sergeant Valmont nodded. “Welcome, Corporal. But just how in the hell is that going to work? The invaders have our system completely broken down into pieces. Completely cracked and wide open. If we try to use it, they know where we are, and they know everything we are trying to do.”

Meko Cherokee smiled. She paused and spoke some kind of battle code language into her helmet link.

“That’s already changing as we speak, Sarge. We’re using something the enemy never expected, has any experience with, or knowledge of. We’re using coded Cherokee battle language, on all new flux algorithms filtered through the fixernet. It’s completely off the grid–never has been a part of Spacer Naval and Marine encryption systems.

“Trust us. The slashers are stumped. They have no frame of reference to even start with. They’re tearing out their fur trying to figure out what’s going on and what’s being said. It’s giving them fits.”

“Outstanding,” Naero said. “Thanks, Clan Cherokee. Your Clan has really came through for us on this one.”

Corporal Cherokee saluted Naero in the confines of the hidden bunker, noting suddenly that she was an MCL. “Thank you, sir. What’s your current sitrep? Once we get everyone linked back up with Command, we can coordinate and keep forging ahead.”

“Valmont can tell you. He’s running Squad 2. I’m just along for the fun. Sergeant?”

“Our original plan was to link up with the two forward platoons ahead of us on her two o’clock, on the right flank. From there we would assist assaulting the enemy’s forward gun emplacements and clear a path for a mek unit penetration drive on to the troop ships still unloading more invader forces.”

“All right. Let me link up and coordinate that with HQ. They’ll advise us how to proceed.”

Meko spoke rapidly into her modified helmet away. She exchanged info back and forth, answering questions for a few minutes.

An enemy artillery barrage walked in to the left and front of them on the enemy’s own positions, less than one hundred meters away.

Meko smiled again. “The slashers think they’re pounding us with that slop.”

Cherokee listened a minute longer to the orders coming down. “Sergeant, proceed to these coordinates and prepare a six wave grenade and rocket attack on these enemy elements. All other Marine units not directly involved are pulling back to regroup, leaving decoy holos behind.”

In the resulting confusion, Alliance arty fell right on top of 36. Felix Blooding in Squad 3 took a direct hit and was vaporized.

Meko got on the links and called off the barrage before they all died.

Suddenly the enemy positions up front vanished in a massive wall of fire that was blinding even in daylight.

“What the hell was that?” Shetanna demanded.

Om jumped in.
The enemy had rings of cloaked space mines concealed among their forward positions, waiting for us to overwhelm them and trigger those traps.

Meko started explaining the same thing a few seconds later. “Luckily, we pulled most of our people back right before they detonated. Now push the attack forward. Those mines are all gone.”

The enemy was willing to blow up their own units in order to cause more Marine casualties.

Bravo maneuvered under the cover of the dust clouds raised by those mines and large explosions and used advanced optics and scanners to pinpoint the enemy and put them down.

Meko and the Cherokee code talkers helped put the defenders and the Alliance back on top, and secure Delker-7 with much decreased confusion and loss of life for everyone.

Everyone but the bewildered invaders.

36 brought in what little they could find and retrieve of Felix Blooding. Mostly just melted fragments of his combat armor. But at least it was something–some part of him to put into his casualty bag along with an empty parts suit of his armor. They always tried to included pieces of broken weapons from the vanquished foes that had been put down, as trophies to the dead Marine’s valor.

They marched Felix’s remains in and said the right and proper words for him, as it should be. His mates mourned his loss. Yet another of their fellow ghosts would no longer fight directly beside them in the black.

Two days later at Blooding’s wake, anyone who was from Clan Cherokee was also praised as a hero on what just happened to be Sixthday and Binge Night.

As a general rule, most of the native clans did not drink or get drunk out of personal choice and preference. But they feasted, and laughed, and danced and sang with the best of them, and celebrated another hard-won Bravo victory all the same. And their special role in that triumph.

Naero had great respect for the native, or tribal Clans, as they sometimes called themselves. And many of them respected her, her warrior parents, and her Clan. She loved sparring with them. She could never resist a sparring match with her native Clan friends, especially with their love of knife fighting, which matched her own to the point of both art and obsession.

She would sit among them at times, as they spoke about their ways and Clan customs which had evolved along with them as Spacers. Naero’s family and her Clan had no links to the native Clans, and so the tribal Clan ways were exotic and fascinating to her mind. She had always been interested in other cultures and peoples. Just like her explorer parents.

Those who were worthy of respect should be given it. The native Clans who had survived for more than six centuries were a big part of the traditions and social variety that was scattered among the Forty-nine Free Spacer Clans as a whole. They had proven themselves time and time again as warriors, brothers and sisters of wisdom, and superb friends and allies.

The honor which they possessed was beyond question, and stood as a noble example to all the Clans, and to the enduring spirit all free peoples everywhere.

19

Tolon-10 was a winter world of cold, snow, and ice–even at the equator. The poles on that world were so cold as to be uninhabitable. The planet’s population of only three hundred million miners and research developers were scattered across the equator and the tropics in shielded domes that were just ripe for invader picking, not unlike eggs in an open nest or low-hanging fruit.

By the time Bravo arrived onworld, late to the scene, half of the mostly Pietto population was already dead and processed–just frozen blocks of meat in storage on the enemy meatships.

The other half of the population remained under siege, holed up in a handful of mountain fortresses of stone, ice, and snow at the edges of the tropics.

Those mountains were littered with hundreds of thousands of frozen, dead civilians: Piettos, humans, and Ejjai.

Many of them were locked in eternal combat now. Others had simply been overcome by the harsh elements and their failed, emergency environment suits. A simple, crack, rent, or hole in such flimsy Corps suits could spell frozen death to the wearer in a matter of minutes under wartime flight and combat conditions.

Such emergency or rescue suits were never designed for long term use or combat.

With the fighting remaining fierce and constant, the invaders had not had time to collect all of those frozen bodies.

Bravo Command jumped down to punch through the enemy deathring blockade and relieve the defenders at last.

Down below, the bulk of the Marines were already slugging it out and degrading the enemy massed battle units.

Up above, the Ejjai kept up their assaults on the defenders, fighting and killing as quickly and as efficiently as could be done, no matter how the battle turned out below and on those mountains.

Shetanna and Company 36 were the lead elements of five hundred Spacer Marines–just one of several relief units being sent in to crack the siege and break through to the defenders.

They started by smashing into the attackers along a stretch of key supply lines leading up from base camp to base camp, all the way up to the front battle lines of the mountain siege.

Once they hit the enemy hard and caused confusion, they began their campaign to trounce the enemy combat lines, systematically destroying invader ships and vehicles.

Shetanna ripped into any sticking points that 36 got hung up on with the enemy, from the top down.

She had her work cut out for her. Scarlet blazing katanas hissed and crackled in the near-blinding snow. She took out officers, troops, gunship pilots, and tank commanders.

Several thousand Ejjai reinforcements swept up the mountainside, weapons flaring.

Bravo was already barely holding the mountain.

Shetanna called the next op. “Everyone up and out on my mark. Get ready to move. Mark! Tell the defenders to button up.”

Tentacles of Chaos energy lashed out, crisscrossing the mountain and the advancing enemies in an energy net.

Then Naero hit the mountain rock and snow shelves with more than half of her ordnance.

And a tremendous blast of explosive Cosmic lightning.

The Ejjai shrieked as the massive resulting avalanche swept them off the face of the mountain and the planet.

The remainder of the enemy attempted to make a run for it.

Bravo and Shetanna were already waiting for them by then.

A little mop-up near the top. Then, it took hours to convince the locals that the fighting was actually over, and that they could come down.

After so much loss, their world was finally secure once more.

The next Fourthday and the accompanying Book Night had Naero feeling a bit edgy and uncomfortable. She had picked out a steamy romance, with Chime’s help of course. But the steamy parts proved a little too suggestive and invigorating to Naero’s mind.

There was always a deep part of her that was incredibly lonely, and felt the intense need for love and everything that came with that.

But she sighed. Would she ever find a man–a lover who was her equal? Who was all that she could wish for?

And like her parents, they could stand beside each other and face and fight whatever came at them. Together.

Would she ever know such a love?

Naero sighed very deeply. He certainly wasn’t going to be found between the pages of some soft-core, nearporn bodice ripper, however cleverly penned by the author.

She couldn’t read anymore without having to face down the strong urge to go take an embarrassingly long mist shower, as many of the Marines did. And she wasn’t about to take a tumble with goons like Acer or Decker, who just lived to bang the lonely and the troubled into meaningless, empty release.

Goddam it. She wanted to be loved. Like what her parents had for each other. Naero wanted that at times more than she wanted to keep breathing. Nothing else was even going to come close for her. And she wasn’t ready to settle for anything less.

Naero loved her Marines, but just not in that sensual way. She liked a lot of them very much and had great respect for them. But even men like Lakota and Jonny were more like her brothers–not potential lovers. There was no attraction there. No spark.

Naero wondered deep within herself when she would ever meet a man that she would feel that fire for.

She found Chime later with two bottles of cold Spacer Poteen sweating next to her, as the booknut just finished what she called a rousing medieval style fantasy novel, part of one of her favorite series. It had been written nearly six centuries before, by an ancient Earth author.

Naero returned her book to the plascrate and nodded at the Spacer poteen bottles. Another of their friends, Peter Cooper, came along, eager to get that exact book in the same series. Chime went on for a time about how much he was going to enjoy it, without giving any spoilers.

“What’s the booze for, Chime?” Naero asked, when Pete was gone.

Chime grinned and licked her lips. “For you and me, babycakes. I decided on no sex for me tonight. So I was waiting for you to come around. Sit and get plastered with me. I’ll guzzle mine. You guzzle yours. Deal?”

Suddenly, Naero felt an intense kinship with her looney friend.

They proceeded to do just what Chime had suggested.

“N, what’s wrong with me?”

“You’re mental, Chime.”

“I know, I know. Batshit loopy. But I’m fun. I’m funny…fricking hysterical. Not a bad looker. I clean up well. And I’m pretty good in the sack…I think. Although I don’t get much practice at that, with these dumb apes. Why can’t I find some guy to worship me as the goddess I am? That’s all I ask for. Is that too much?”

Naero giggled and finished her bottle first.

Chime bent her pretty brown eyes and glared at her. “You’re not supposed to laugh, actually. This’s the part where you’re supposed to be supportive, dammit. Say something like: ‘Sure thing, Chime. You deserve some good looking stud to worship you and love you until you both pass out. Sure thing.’”

“You’ll find him, Chime. You’ll find all of that and more.”

“Great. I knew I would. So what the hell’s taking that jerk so long?”

Chime polished her bottle off and then promptly fell asleep, looking radiant as usual and snoring in Naero’s lap.

A while later, when she recovered enough to be able to walk herself, Naero put her friend to bed, and turned in herself.

Yet Naero could tell, as she looked around at 36. All of their world hopping was starting to get to them all, and break them all down.