Naero's War: The Citation Series 2: The High Crusade (30 page)

There in that firestorm, Spacer and lander fought side by side against the common foe. And no matter who went down, others stepped in to face that wall of fire, and strike back.

All of humanity stood their ground and marched into battle, shoulder to shoulder, to save their fallen comrades who could not fight back. Shields flared and disrupted on both sides. Humans took the fight straight down the enemy’s gullet with valor and grit, punched the slasher’s tickets, and shot the invaders full of glowing holes.

That night, everyone celebrated Food Night on Thirdday, gorging themselves on an array of delicacies. Naero made fried Guroni cheese and sweet barbecue sandwiches for 36, with help from some of her mates.

She later came upon a somber Jonny Fox, talking with some of their friends while the later still picked at their plates.

Chime and Pete weren’t present. Completely besotted with each other now, the couple had taken a well-earned leave together to one of the playworlds in the rear areas.

By all reports they were having a marvelous time. Naero and the the rest of the gungirls could get all of the juicy details after the lovers returned.

Naero studied her friend. “Why so glum, Jonny?”

He shook his head. “I’m still worried about my cousin, N.”

Naero rested an arm around her friend’s shoulder. “She’s fine. Chime’s never been happier. She and Pete have it good. Be happy for them.”

Jonny made a face and nodded. “You don’t get it, Naero. Sure she’s happy. Both of them are giddy and delirious. That’s the problem. There’s still a war going on. Don’t you know how this works during wartime? It’s like they’re tempting the fates or something. This is exactly when something bad always happens.”

Naero rested her other arm on the table and nodded. “Oh, I get it. Just when things seem at their best, that’s when something really stupid or tragic happens to mess everything up. Yeah, I’ve seen that happen. Too many times. But you can’t think that way. It doesn’t always go wrong. I’ve seen that as well.”

Jonny threw up both of his hands in frustration. “You gotta help me, N. We gotta get everyone else in on this. We need to protect Chime and Pete during these last few weeks, to help make sure that nothing happens to them.”

Naero shook her head sadly. “Jonny, we always look out for each other. That’s all we can do. We can try to do more, but you know as well as I do that there aren’t any guarantees for any of us. What, you’re gonna start acting crazy like Whip?”

“No. I just have this bad feeling about things that I can’t shake.”

“We all take our chances in combat, Jonny. That’s just the way it is.”

“Don’t you think I know all of that by now? Look. Just promise me you’ll help me in this, N.”

“You have my word. I will.”

29

Naero relived the same strange nightmare. She was trapped inside some kind of metal pod, cylinder, or missile-like craft. She wore strange, bulky clothes that were also hard and weird. Parts of the nightmare she could not remember exactly right.

Lights flashed; she recalled hearing strange voices in her head and all around. There was fire and an explosion right as she penetrated some kind of unusual energy barrier. The equally strange vessel began to plummet and then proceeded to crash, despite her best efforts to avoid doing so. She struggled to control its descent and protect herself.

Another, even more violent blast tore her free of the stricken craft. She hurtled to the ground, slowed by some kind of odd wings on her back.

Was that it? Was she from the stars, from heaven itself? Was she some kind of angel? If so, what kind was she?

There were supposedly both good and bad angels as she recalled.

Again she wondered. What kind was she?

But her wings hadn’t worked right, or she and they had been damaged somehow. Despite her odd protective suit, her head hurt terribly and then, at the very last, her wings stopped working altogether. She still fell toward the rapidly rising ground and her doom.

At the last instant, she had heard a voice inside her head, and together, with the power of that voice, they had somehow slowed hers down enough so that she did not perish.

Then, somehow, she made herself go from one place to another, from several hundred meters up in the sky to just a handful of meters, without gaining speed. In fact, he had even slowed her rate of descent.

What were these strange powers and abilities that she possessed?

Still above the ground, she spotted farm fields as far as the eye could see, in every direction. The pain in her head remained terrible.

A spinning, simple machine like a big fan set up on top of a simple wooden stand broke her fall when she smashed into it. She broke off the thin metal fan blades and crashed through the flimsy, wooden structure.

The structure broke her fall, but Naero struck her head again in the process. Perhaps more than once.

After the farmer and his family dug her out of the wreckage and the ground, she couldn’t think straight for a very long while or remember anything about herself.

Who was she? What was her name, even? Where had she come from and why? Why did she come here? Why had she hurtled down from the sky? Why had her wings stopped working?

So many bewildering questions. Even when she recalled that her name was Naero, that still did not tell her very much at all.

Mama Kincaid on the farm plainly said that Naero was clearly a star girl from the star people. And that some of the star people were good, and some of them were very wicked.

Naero smiled. It was just like the angels.

The farm people hoped very much that she was one of the good ones. Naero did not think of herself as evil.

If she was of the good sort, that would make everything much easier, for all concerned.

After Naero healed up, she was more than welcome to stay with the Kincaids and the farm people in that region. But some day soon, the council of elders among the farm people said that Naero would be taken to the great trade station on the capital of the farm world. From there, she would need to return to the other star people, and hopefully go back to her star family.

Naero healed up enough in that one day–at least physically–that the farm people were very amazed. Mama Kincaid said that that was the way of some of the star people, and that they had special blood, it was said, which made them fast healers. Yet Naero’s head still hurt, and she could not remember much yet. Mama Kincaid told her that the head took its own time to heal, just like the heart, and that it wasn’t good to try to rush either of them.

That second day, Naero was up and out of her sick bed and started walking around the big farmhouse and outside, filled with curiosity and questions about everything around her. It all seemed so strange.

And deep inside herself, she felt that there was something very important that she was either forgetting or had forgotten, like misplacing an object or an article of clothing, and not being able to find it. She had something terribly important to tell the farm people who were helping her and being so nice to her.

Something…if only she could remember what.

Some kind of danger or threat that was coming soon, but Naero could not recall what it was.

Knowing practically nothing made Naero even more full of questions. Where was she? On a special farm world, of course. But why had she come here or been sent here? Sent here by whom? What was a farm world? Why was this one special? Who were these people and why did they live here as they did? Why didn’t they seem to know anything that might help her?

Mama Kincaid finally sat Naero down with some of the girls and the womenfolk from the neighboring farms who had gathered together to talk about the star girl who fell from the sky, and what should be done with her in the time they would have together. They all brought things with them to give her. Things that she might need, like clothing, hats, shoes, soap, and brushes. They were very generous. She couldn’t go around in a nightgown all the time she was among them.

They tried to answer her many questions, calmly and patiently, but they didn’t seem to know very much beyond their world.

Like most of the adult women, Mama Kincaid wore her long brown hair, shot with lines of bright silver, in a long, plain braid down her broad back, with the front parted simply in the middle. She was in her mid to late forties, and held to be very wise and even shrewd, in her own ways, about farm life and people in general. Many of the other older women in the women’s circle politely deferred to her as a respected leader.

She was a small woman–still much taller than Naero–which bothered Naero for some reason she could not remember. But Mama Kincaid was both strong and gentle at the same time. She was neither slender like the young girls, nor fat. She had womanly curves without being plump. Her small hands and arms looked powerful and more that able thanks to a daily life of hard work.

The farm people rode horses–even the women, apparently, because most of them wore a long, divided dark skirt of some solid color: brown, green, blue, or gray. The split skirt was belted at the waist with a plain, unadorned leather belt with a plain buckle.

The farm people dressed plainly for work, and did not seem to adorn or decorate themselves very much. On top, their plain white blouses with full, cuffed sleeves and high collars were also without any decoration. Once they came indoors, the women took off the broad-brimmed straw hats that men and women both wore outside to keep off the hot sun. Even children wore them, but never inside.

Men wore their hair straight and clipped short around the back and ears. Men wore similar white shirts and dark pants, but some wore dark leather vests, either buttoned or left open. All of the farm people wore simple, comfortable leather shoes on their feet that laced above the ankle like low boots.

Some men and women carried a basic chronometer–pocket watches of ancient style and design, sometimes on plain leather cords or chains. Ancient mechanical clocks ticked on the farmhouse walls and kept time.

Many small children, younger than ten, went barefoot. Little boys wore a shirt and dark pants. Little girls wore a simple long dress or frock, and usually pantaloons or knickers underneath.

“You ask us where you are, star girl Naero,” Mama Kincaid told her. “Our world here is called Yoder-3, and we are called Yoderians by outsiders and offworlders. Some among the star people brought us to these rich farming lands on this world over five centuries ago and gave it to us to work the rich lands here as is our way. One of the great leaders of the star people was somehow descended from a race of farm people much like us and our traditions. They brought us here, and they still give us medicines to keep us healthy and strong.

“This great leader whom I mentioned saw the basic wisdom of preserving us and our ways of life somewhere among the stars, even though he himself no longer followed them. Legends say that he and the star people were wealthy and very powerful. They even changed our weather, in order to make our world here more stable, and suitable for farming and raising livestock, if such a thing can be imagined.

“And the only people who are allowed to live on Yoder-3 are we Yoderians, who uphold and adhere to our simple and sustainable ways. We work hard, and live out our lives in peace. For many generations, we have had extremely little crime. And no wars.”

Naero’s head suddenly gave her a sharp pain, as if something was trying to break out of it like cracking a hen’s brown egg open. The mention of wars had sparked something in her mind that gravely troubled her once again.

“Are you all right, star girl Naero?” Mama Kincaid asked her, resting a firm hand on her arm to steady her.

“I’m fine. It will pass. I’m still very curious. So, the star people leave you alone?”

“Yes. They allow us to live here according to our ways, and they stay apart from us. What’s more, they keep others apart from us. Others who would bring their crime and war among us.”

“When do you have contact with the star people?”

“Twice each year, at the capital of each hemisphere, the star people come in their great starships. The planetary barrier the star people placed around Yoder-3 has entry points that can be opened only by our grand elders. The ships come down to the established meeting places to barter allowed goods, products, equipment, and medicines for our doctors. We have no use for credits or other forms of money. We barely electrify our homes for lighting and food refrigeration, and heating in the winters. Most of us avoid contact with the star people and all kinds of potential conflict. We keep and have no weapons. We have no armies; not even constables.”

Naero thought a moment, her head hurting once more, but she hid it from the farm people. “There must be disagreements occasionally. Even among the farm people. How are such matters resolved?”

Mama Kincaid smiled. “The elders, both men and women of each area, negotiate and resolve all conflicts and disagreements at the local levels, through the circles of men, and the circles of women, and discussion and negotiation between the two. We are a non-violent, peaceful people.”

Naero suddenly gasped, as if a hot spike pierced her head.

Invasion.

The word just popped into Naero’s mind as if she couldn’t control it. Why was that one word suddenly so important?

“So, you and your ways survive here, because of a planetary shield that keeps others out?” Naero stated.

“In their wisdom,” Mama Kincaid said calmly, “the star people put up the powerful, protective barrier all around Yoder-3, and taught a small group of our people how to help operate and maintain it. This barrier keeps out the wars and crime and greed and other negative influences that would destroy our world and our way of life, if we allowed them to take root here. Our elders have powerful radios that can communicate with our friends among the star people, and organize the trading times.”

Naero considered her nightmare once again. If she was a star girl, perhaps her vessel hit the protective barrier of the planet somehow, a barrier she hadn’t known was even there. Perhaps that was why she had crashed on Yoder-3.

Because she had injured her head somewhat; her thoughts were still mixed up.

But strange images and flashes of memory continued to build and buffet her mind like an impending flood. Was she starting to remember more as she continued to heal?

“I think I need to get to one of those radios the elders have in order to speak with my people,” Naero said flatly. “I need to contact the star people and find the ones who know me.”

“And then what?” Mama Kincaid asked her. “Even if we could do such a thing, which we cannot from where we are. What would you say? You can’t remember anything yet. Who would you ask for?”

Naero stammered for a moment, her mind still a confused jumble. “I…I can’t remember.”

“Just as I thought, Naero. Even though you are a star girl, you will be just fine with us for a few months while we are awaiting the harvest and the next trade time. You can wait a little while also, and live among us during that short time. There is no hurry, and you seem kind, and well-behaved. The time will pass swiftly. Then, when the next barter time comes, you can arrange to go to the meeting place to contact and rejoin your people. That will require a long journey that must be approved by the elders. Perhaps by then your memory will have returned as well. For now, there is no reason to trouble the Elders about the use of their radios.”

Naero still struggled and strained.

No, this wasn’t right. There was still something important that she was missing. “There was,” she began, “a serious reason why I came her. I know there was, but I just can’t remember it right now.”

“Calm yourself, child. You’re getting yourself upset.”

“No, it is vital that I recall it. I was sent here for a reason, ahead of many others, I believe. I think…I think that I might have been sent here… to warn you–”

“Warn us?” Mama Kincaid exclaimed. “Warn us about what?”