Free Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit by Mason Elliott Page B

of Spacer Ghost Dragons and other fighter squadrons from Naero’s trade fleet filled the sky, sweeping in low to gun down any enemy ship or vehicle that dared show itself.
    Spacer starships modified for ground-attack mode surrounded the trapped enemy and walked in on them, crushing and pulverizing them out in the open.
    The Ejjai invasion force withered and died.
    The invaders knew they were dead, but a last knot of heavily armored enemy troops made one last drive on Naero ’s position in an attempt to overrun it.
    Just as a Spacer assault force of hundreds of gravwing troops in combat armor descended from the sky.
    A sheet of interlocking weapon-fire tore into the foe.
    Naero caught a glimpse of several other captains coming to her rescue, led my Max Lii . Who mowed down Ejjai with sonic blasts from his roaring kitar, unleashed in full battle mode.
    The Ejjai general charged straight at Naero, snorting at the air and wielding two energized broadswords.
    “Die, spack bitch!”
    “Not today!”
    Naero flip-kicked into her, sweeping wave kicks battering her, driving the enemy general back. Flashing into her from all sides. Knocking one broadsword spinning away.
    Naero cut the general ’s belly wide open, and then split her foe’s head down the center, lodging her cutlass deep into the gushing torso and heart.
    Seconds later, the remaining invaders were completely swept away in a torrent of fire.
    Naero sagged to the ground, a jolt of sudden agony in her skull crippling her without warning.
    She couldn ’t get up off her hands and knees, and nearly fell over.
    Finally in the confusion, a pregnant colonist and her young daughter rushed to her side and helped her back up to her feet.
    “Are you hurt?” the mother asked, looking her over.
    “I…don ’t think so.”
    “Thank you,” the mother told her. “ I don’t know who you people are, but may heaven reward you for saving us from these creatures. Without all of you, they would have murdered us for certain. We will never forget what you did for us, champion.”
    The young daughter went back and pulled Naero ’s cutlass free and returned it to her hands.
    “You are a great warrior. I watched you fight ,” the young girl said with great admiration. “You never gave up. You’re just like Shettana; you even look like her!”
    Who? What was the girl talking about?
    “We can never thank you enough.”
    First the daughter, then the mother knelt and kissed her hands.
    Naero felt enough strength and control return to her that at least she could remain standing and walk.
    The rescued colonists poured out of the tunnel and rejoiced, cheering and thanking their rescuers profusely. Many others looked to be injured or in shock still.
    Naero took in all the devastation and carnage the enemy invaders had wrought around them.
    Fleets of uplifted Ejjai invading the fringes? Meatships. What in the hell was going to happen next?

 
     
     
     
    10
     
     
    In the aftermath of the ‘skirmish’ with the Ejjai invaders, Naero’s trade fleet licked its wounds, tended the wounded, and held their wakes for the few Spacer dead on the third day.
    Naero sighed as the names were read one last time, before the fleet launched thirty-seven caskets into Haiku-4’s category green sun. Returning their dead to the stars.
    Klyne was of course correct. It was an extremely small number of KIA, considering the size of the engagement and the number of forces involved. Naero was proud of her people.
    They stepped up and never hesitated. They arrived in good order, with good intel, adapted to the situation, and put down a vicious foe hard and fast, and with minimal losses.
    But watching those thirty-seven caskets buried one by one into the star was something she never got used to.
    Knowing full well what effect each loss had on the people who loved and knew those individuals.
    The effect her own personal losses had on her and her life.
    Well, she was simply glad in the end that the number wasn’t