Citation Series 1: Naero's War: The Annexation War (22 page)

29

The war with Triax
never let up for very long.

Next, the Alliance forces moved into the
dangerous Hevangian sectors, defending the Triaxian Capital Class World of Tarissa-1.

The Hevangians were well known for being beyond fanatical
.

Beyond mere zealots
.

To complicate matters for Naero and her ships,
Strike Fleet Six received new replacement ships and a large number of raw recruits as replacements for the many killed and wounded they had suffered over the past few weeks.

There
had been weeks of intense heavy fighting, with many losses on both sides.

Naero did her best to have her veterans welcome the replacements,
most of them either very young or much older. Efforts were made to make them feel at home with their new units and part of the team.

There was some cross-training between Spacers, miners, Matayans, and people from Joshua Tech. Everyone had something to contribute. But they didn’t have a lot of extra time to sort out cultural and ability gaps between Spacers and various lander groups
.

Not everyone was Tarim.
Therefore, it was decided that each group should train among itself.

Good ideas were shared with the others, just like Intel. There was no contest. Spacers were
clearly the best pilots–hands down. This caused them and their fleets to mostly lead and direct the war, with the other Allies usually backing them up in support rolls or in reserve. They still saw plenty of fighting, and casualties of their own. Everyone did.

Strike Fleet Six tried to
impress upon all of their recruits that they would require extensive further training at the front, in an effort to give them the greatest chances to survive their first few battles.

This became readily apparent early on. Both sides could easily spot the weak links during a battle
–especially among replacement ships and starfighter pilots. Newbs who froze up or panicked, could not function properly, and do what needed to be done.

The highest rates of casualties were almost always among replacements, green ships, and
inexperienced units.

As Naero said before, the learning curve in war was very steep and unforgiving. No
t a nice place for newbs and rookies.

That was why she trained the hell out of her replacements, pairing them one-on-one with veteran people in their positions when and where possible, for as long as possible
.

Other matters complicated the constant flux of replacements
.

Veterans had to constantly deal with the emotional and mental stress of arbitrarily losing family, friends, comrades, and acquaintances along the way
.

There was no avoiding it. War was fickle and unlucky for many
–without any rhyme or reason to who lived or died, or got injured and maimed.

War by its very nature was a
n inherently dangerous business.

T
wo percent of all deaths and injuries alone, came from accidents and mishaps–whatever safety regs and protocols were enforced. Sometimes things simply went wrong, whether from dumb luck, human failure, equipment failure, a cascade of errors, or the law of averages. Nothing was perfect, especially chaos and entropy during a war.

Survivor guilt
became a major issue for military people in any war.

Why my buddy, and not me?

Why am I still alive?

She deserved to live more than me
.

It should have been me
.

The suicide rate was less than one percent among Spacers, higher among the other Alliance forces. But such deaths were still devastating to the survivors who knew them
.

Then there were those who simply kept fighting, and did not pull back until the enemy killed them
off. This was more prevalent among fighter jocks and forward units.

Captain
Hayden said that he had seen that same thing happen among a few of his people, who simply got fed up with the madness, and decided to go out in predictable, blaze of glory. All they had to do was stand up and draw fire. Then charge into it until they got cut down.

Officers and comrades in all units were instructed to be on the lookout for signs of traumatic stress in each other
.

Some people were extremely good actors, and could hide their pain and
inner damage very well. Spacers were known for being brave. For facing death without fear.

That was the standard
expectation of course, but sometimes that was all just crap. In war, everyone was afraid of something at some point, or all the time. Sometimes they feared multiple things, and with very good reasons.

But true warriors could manage the energy of their fear and make it work for them
–not against them–or ignore it and do their duty anyway.

In the end, only the insane were
truly without fear. Because they no longer gave a damn about anything, but that also included themselves. Anyone with half a brain wanted to survive the war, and hopefully return to a life that would be better.

Naero and her officers walked a fine line of not wanting to coddle or baby their people
, and yet give them the help they needed. No one had time for the former.

The trick was to try to spot
emotional and mental problems early on, before they escalated, and get people the help they needed, in a timely fashion.

Spacers were still human and still people.
They were still imperfect, with failings and weaknesses unique to each person.

Death and loss, day-in and day-out could wear down and break the strongest mind, the stoutest heart
.

Naero wanted to help her people before it was too la
te. She couldn’t afford to lose any of them. But it was better to send someone to the rear areas for the rest of the war, than have them die uselessly.

As was her
new wont when her fleet pulled back from the front, Naero created another alias to use to walk amongst her crew.

This time
she chose to be a brunette, with curly waves of hair half-way down her back. Heavy make-up again, but in a different style.

Daphni Romanov, replacement medtek in training. Quiet, reserved, intelligent and professional
.

She patterned herself
after Zhen, in may ways.

Naero
normally took a few days to study her crews and how they were handling the war as individuals and small groups of mates. She liked hearing what they really thought, their unbridled opinions, good, bad, or in between.

She ate with them. She drank, gambled, and goofed around among them
.

She could learn a lot as a medtek, and had a
ready excuse to go around and talk to a lot of people about injuries, or how they were holding up under stress. Her primary function, after all, was to follow up on peoples’ recoveries from various injuries, and see how they were doing.

This gave her a chance to check records on how certain patients and their recoveries were proceeding in hospitals on pacified worlds
.

Kelment, Mariisha, and several others that she knew by name were doing just fine
.

A month or two longer, and they would be fully restored to their old selves
.

And hopefully, by then, The Annexation War would be over
.

Yet in her role as a medtek, m
ost crew were ordered in to meet with Daphni-Naero, and make a full report.

Others
, she had to track down among the fleet, if they were too busy to come see her on their own.

Many Spacers
did in fact grow privately angry and bitter about the war over time. Most kept their frustrations to themselves. The many losses they all endured upset everyone–friends and family killed or horribly maimed. Wounds and injuries they themselves had struggled to recover from, and still be able to function and serve the war effort.

People needed someone to blame, so
at times, naturally, they blamed the Alliance and fleet leadership. They cursed the command officers.

They
even cursed her directly.

Fleet Captain Maeris and the rest of
Alliance Command were cold-blooded death machines, merchants of death who simply played numbers games on battle computers with peoples’ lives.

In a many ways, Naero accepted that as true
.

But some people went overboard
.

Their F
leet Commanders were robotic killers, who drove their ships and crews into battle, knowing full-well that a certain percentage wouldn’t make it back. In every battle, someone was going to die. And all of their family and friends would suffer for it.

Some said that
Captain Maeris and the others didn’t give a damn about their dead and wounded.

Others
sneered, saying she made a phony show of coming around and trying to help comfort those hurt. But it was all just an act. Something she thought she had to do as a duty.

Something the higher-ups
had even ordered her to do, when she had been too busy to bother with it.

Other crew
would try to defend her and the leadership. They all fought together in a just cause. Each warrior’s fate was his or her own. They all took the same chances together.

Daphni-
Naero heard it all, whether fair or unfair. Rage, rant, and reason.

Still, she strove never to take offense. She needed to hear what people truly thought.
She chose to do this. Others should not be punished in any way for their personal opinions.

But whatever persona or job she chose
for her forays, things always seemed to get unintentionally complex in regards to interpersonal matters and relationships.

Espec
ially about sex.

Naero
could play down, but not completely hide her looks. And being clearly attractive, others were repeatedly drawn to her.

Someone was always becoming enamored of her
.

It even became tiresome
.

She found herself continually forced
to beg off several potential relationships, and continual, multiple offers of simple, ‘fun-in-the-sack.’

The latter too numerous to track
.

Spacers were as interested in
‘docking together’ and linking up as much as any other species.

Perhaps more so, from what she observed.
They were a pretty randy lot, it appeared. Spacers just kept their sex lives more or less private.

Yet with so much action going on, Naero
started to wonder what was wrong with herself?

Why
wasn’t she constantly on the make for some action?

Was the world more like Saemar than she had originally believed?

Yet even she found herself very tempted here and there.

But n
o. She always knew for certain that it wouldn’t be fair to use her aliases simply to fool around with some unsuspecting crew; her deceptions were borderline bad enough as they were.

The role she maintained as strike fleet captain was so different from her mundane personalities that she assumed, that no one ever suspected her, exposed her, or found her out
.

Not yet at least
.

Although there end
ed up being numerous heartsick Romeos, and even a few yearning Juliets who kept asking about and looking around for her aliases, well after they had pulled their vanishing transfer acts.

If pressed on such matters,
Naero merely instructed her officers to say that so-and-so was transferred to another duty, somewhere else, on a need-to-know basis.

30

Long range scans picked up a massive explosion that
suddenly took out an entire system in a remote area of space, far beyond the Hevangian systems, but still technically under Triaxian control.

An ominous, incredible mystery unfolded
.

Spa
cer teks and scientists found that phenomena very strange and worrisome. The star in that sector had been very average, and showed no signs whatsoever of going nova, or collapsing, or reaching critical mass in any way.

The
quanta-blast explosion was so devastating, that it did not seem to match even what the explosive output of such a star should have been. And it happened almost instantly, with no astronomical warning, whatsoever.

The fact that such a cataclysmic event escalated and occu
rred so rapidly had many stymied. It was completely unexplained and unnatural.

Yet
the weird event also took place in a far away, blank area of dead space, well beyond the Scutum-Crux Arm, in a lifeless, remote system of barren rocks and gas giants. No one could go there to check it out, even if they had wanted to.

Very
peculiar, but for the most part impossible to investigate, what with the prosecution of the war and all.

The Alliance
already had its hands very full.

Every system in the Hevangian region posed a unique and separate problem
and threat. The normal pacification strategies did not seem to apply at all.

Each world had its own planetary defense shield, and Triax had developed a way to keep Alliance
stealth fixers from penetrating those shields.

Therefore, until the planet defense shield of each separate planet was taken down, there would be no way to neutralize any genocide devices
seeded on those worlds.

Admiral Sandusky’s shadow fleets
and agents also had little influence on the majority of these fanatical worlds. And thus each Hevangian world turned into more or less, a ready-made trap for Alliance forces to become enmired in.

It
became very clear to Naero and many others that they would need to rethink their strategies, and come up with new solutions in a hurry.

Otherwise, they would quickly get bogged down for
many months–if not years–dealing with all of those worlds and their petty problems.

First, the
main war had to continue to be prosecuted to its fullest extent, without delay.

That reality continued on a daily basis
, as the Alliance fought from world to world, and system to system, putting down the staunch, Triaxian Naval forces.

Already, sadly, three
entire Hevangian systems had more or less committed cosmicide, via mass genocide devices which either they or their leaders set off themselves. Some–well in advance of the Alliance progress. The entire situation was insane.

It was Heaven-7 all over again
, on an even wider scale, and there was nothing the Alliance could do about it.

The Gigacorps propaganda machine had a field day, blaming the alliance for every tragedy
.

Hundreds of b
illions more dead–for no logical reason.

Naero spoke up one day at an officer
’s meeting with the Alliance admirals.

“I’m sorry to say this. It goes against everything I feel and believe. But I don’t
think we can sort out this Hevangian mess on every single world. There simply isn’t enough time. And as we have seen, there is also little that we can do to keep Triax from scorching the earth in its wake as it retreats, and de-populating entire systems through genocide. They have done so before we can even approach such worlds.”

Nevano Kinmal shook his head sadly and looked down at his hands
.

“There must be something we can do. These people do not need to perish. It is the
fault of their leaders perpetrating this madness. Can Spacer Intel or anyone get down on these worlds in advance, and try to eliminate the leadership before they can trigger these terrible devices?”

Aunt Sleak sighed and shook her head.
“Not with all of these worlds protected by planetary defense shields.”

Admiral Klyne
noted, “Our Intel presence on these worlds in the heart of Triax’s most fanatical systems is limited or non-existent.”

“We’re talking
dozens and dozens of worlds,” Admiral Joshua said. “Again, Naero is correct. We cannot reach them all in time, and even if we could, could we find a way to save them from themselves?”

Many others made protests
.

Many others proposed similar
strategies, that had already failed.

Admiral Sandusky
finally rose up.

“These are still my people. I find it strange that many of you care more about them and what happens to them
–than Triax does. It is as if Triax wants to destroy them needlessly–in order to punish everyone–friend or foe. A sad state of affairs. But you only have one clear choice.”

Even he hesitated to speak it, but Admiral Klyne and most of them knew that someone had to say the words. And it was better than Sandusky was the one to do so
.

“Tell us, Admiral,” Klyne said. “You and your shadow fleets have already saved trillions of lives. And I’ll bet that you will save trillions more
, before all is done. But we need to hear this from you.”

“Proceed with the war. Defeat Triax with all speed, and at all cost. Once Triax
has fallen–once it is truly gone. Then and only then will there be no further need for any of this destructive folly. Until then, we can only do what we can do. And no more. We will do what we can, but the war must proceed to its logical conclusion.”

Naero and her captains proposed a plan, punching it up on the displays and
everyone’s’ pads.

“Blockade the worlds in this region and
then push on, like the Admiral said, with all speed. That is the only way. Sandusky’s shadow fleets and rear-area forces will be spread thin, but they can handle the job, once me remove the main threats. Perhaps Spacer Intel can do a little more. But the cold hard truth of the matter is, that there is only so much that we can do. We can’t control everything on the ground on hundreds of new systems. We can’t let that slow us down. That is exactly what Triax is hoping for. To prolong the war as long as possible and outlast us. To somehow find a way to survive, and hold onto their power.”

Nevano Kinmal nodded. “
Admiral Sandusky is correct. Once the war sweeps past these worlds, there will be less impetus for them to have any reason or pretense for scorching themselves. Any strategic value will be gone. They will have no fleets to use against us. And we can move on, especially if they are merely blockaded and not invaded.”

“Under a blockade,” Admiral Klyne said, “perhaps th
is will buy us time we need to find a way to get our pacification elements on these worlds, in order to change things for the better–more quietly.”

Admiral Maeris pweaked the battle plan in several ways
as they looked on.

“
I agree, overall, the main objective has to be to continue prosecuting the war, and advance as fast as possible. The Capital Class Homeworld of Tarissa-1 must fall. The Hevangians must be contained and bottled up, taking them out of the war as a factor. We can always come back to them and deal with them later, with the full power of the entire Alliance. And if they still insist on offing themselves, fighting to the last, or being burned out for no reason at all—we can oblige them.”

“I think we are in general agreement, then, on Captain Maeris’ basic strategy,” Admiral
Joshua noted. “Adjustments will need to be made along the way, of course. But concluding the war remains the ultimate, primary objective. Bypass, blockade, and neutralize the various Hevangian threats as best we can. That is the only viable solution for now.”

Admiral Maeris rose up, hands flashing through the displays, shifting units and key supplies and resources.
“The logistics look good. I say we proceed immediately. We’ll need to bring up many more shadow fleet forces and secondary forces from the rear areas.”

Kinmal and Sandusky spoke at once. “That should not be an issue
.”

Sleak continued.
“Most of those systems are fully pacified already, any way.”

Naero did see a potential danger of attack
s in their thinly-protected rear systems. But even that was unlikely, with the Spacer Navy guarding their back door.

On their way back to their transports to rejoin their ships, Naero received an emergency call from an old friend of the famil
y on her wristcom, via their secured channel.

Her outcast uncle, Baeven.

“Any word on Jan or Dan yet?”

“Negative.
I promise you, Naero. I will inform you the instant that there is. But you and the Alliance have bigger worries at the moment.”

“Wha–”

“Just listen Naero. I don’t have much time where I am. Two things: First, the Hevangians are going to go after your Admirals and the Alliance leadership directly.”

“T
ake out our command and control?”

“Exactly. And that also includes you
, Naero. Strike Fleet Six has been a major thorn in their side since day one. Good for you. And don’t forget, you still carry the KDM.”

Naero shrugged. “
Yeah, for all the good it’s done me, and Spacer Intel. I’m completely cut off from it, and Intel hasn’t been able to make a dent in decoding or understanding any of it.”

“
Give them time. Triax doesn’t know any of that, and still wants both you and it, desperately. They’ve made you a priority target, right up there with the Admirals. And Shalaen too, for some reason.”

“Our security is the best, and Intel has agents guarding the admirals constantly. How do the Hevangians plan on pulling this off
?”

“
More new tek–a game changer called phaze armor. It’s a new type of experimental cloaking that allows them to actually enter the astral plane, and take an astral form for a short time. In that form they are virtually undetectable and invulnerable. Plus, they can phaze right through walls, shields, bulkheads. Anything. Then uncloak and go on the attack.”

Naero
thought about Kono’s ship and resisted the urge to cover her mouth with one hand. That would explain what happened to
The Silver Devil
.

“
Haisha
,” Naero said. “Normal cloaking makes the user invisible–but not immaterial. How are they getting their hands on such advanced tek like this?”

“Unknown. But they have it
now and intend to use it. Only problem is, it’s still experimental–even for them. Utilizing this tek is a one way ride. Anyone using it gets phaze-sickness. Within a week or two after exposure, the user begins to dissolve away. Their flesh melts off into the astral plane, leaving behind a very clean and very dead skeleton.”

“Gross. That sounds…extremely unpleasant
.”

“And dangerous
, N. Yet despite such high costs, the enemy can still use this tek to attack anyone, anywhere, without warning.”

“The Hevangian a
ssassins were once legendary for their suicide squads before,” Naero said. “I wonder why we haven’t seen more of these phaze attacks, yet?”

“
Plan on it. You can bet they’ll be coming straight for you and soon. Even in the midst of battles, possibly. So tell Sleak and the rest to be ready for them.”

“Will do
.”

Naero suddenly hear
d alarms going off over Baeven’s link.

Then weapons firing
.

“Baeven
?”

“
Haisha
–Gotta fly,” he said. Naero heard a large explosion.

The link broke off
.

Be safe, Baeven
.

Then
other alarms began sounding, right in the hanger deck of the flagship
The
Pear
Harbor
.

A voice
sounded over the ship’s com.

“All hands, all ships. Battle stations and report. Arm yourselves and repel boarders. Strange infiltrators have appeared on several ships without warning
, including
The Pearl Harbor
. We need to learn the extent of this attack. Protect the fleet leadership at all costs!”

Baeven said it would start soon. Naero
didn’t think it would be instantly. She paused a moment.

Most of the leadership
could be on their way to their separate transports after the planning session, to get back to their ships, just like her.