Naero's War: The Citation Series 3: Naero's Trial by Mason Elliott Page B

golden crown cocked on it.
    The armored dropship was set up in ground attack mode, bristling with viper guns, close assault auto-guns, and hyperfire energy cannons. They had companies in the air on gravwings, but no troops deployed on the ground. Ground swarming with the possessed.
    Even as Naero led her people toward the drop zone, a tide of possessed flooded out of the dome city. With it being dark, they glowed like a sea of mad creatures, destroying everything in their path in an effort to reach the DZ and attack whatever was there.
    Naero and Khai led their people on board the drop ship and the Marines quickly got them all the hell out of there, returning to orbit.
    *
    After a long, gut-wrenching discussion with Khai, Naero and her beloved choked down their fears and transferred over to The Kathmandu . They went to speak directly with Admiral Klyne, General Walker, High Master Jo, and some of the rescued Spacer Elders who were feeling much better after escaping from the enemy.
    High Master Tree and some of Elders were still weak from their ordeal and recovered in medical.
    An emergency meeting was being held in an attempt to decide if anything could be done with the situation on Kalathar, other than carpet bombing the possessed until the continents of that world glowed on their own from orbit, throughout the next few millennia.
    The fleets had intercepted and destroyed scores of possessed-controlled vessels trying to escape from the system.
    Master Jo quickly announced, “Naero. You will be happy to hear that all charges against you in the matter of Master Vane’s death have been summarily dismissed. In light of the enemy’s subterfuge and the revelations made by the Cosmic Guardians themselves, all accusations and charges have been dropped, and cleared from your record. They cannot be taken up or brought against you ever again.”
    “Well, I’m glad for that, at least,” Naero said.
    “That’s fine, but we have even bigger problems now,” Khai noted.
    “I agree,” Naero said. “Our new foes only grow bolder and bolder. They strike at us again and again from positions of strength and we cannot hit back. They send attack after attack at us out of the Gamma Quadrant, where we know that they are now locked in several vicious interstellar wars against the other sentient races there. Many separate wars that they appear to be fighting and winning all at the same time.”
    “Naero speaks the truth,” Khai said. “I have been to the Gamma Quadrant with her and have seen these things for myself. I believe that once the enemy crushes and enslaves all of the sentient races there, they will be in an even stronger position to descend upon us here in the Alpha Quadrant. They will continually use such attacks as this to soften us up, and weaken us for their next conquest. All of this could occur not in centuries, but in a matter of decades, or even years!”
    Naero jumped back in. “And now they have my replicant, Naero-3, and inside of her body are both the KDM, and mine and Khai’s unborn daughter, who might just have powers greater than both of us put together. We must go after and retrieve them before the enemy figures out how to use them all against us!”
    “But just how can we do that?” Admiral Klyne said. “Our enemies still have ships that can travel much farther and faster than ours. They can travel back and forth to the Gamma Quadrant at will. Our understanding of their wyrmhole tek is still experimental and dangerous. Neither have we been able to perfect or even further develop the so-called leap drive. Even if we wanted to get back and forth from the Gamma Quadrant and take them on, how would we do so?”
    “I don’t know,” Naero erupted in frustration. “But we have to do something. All I know is that my daughter is getting further and further away from me each second. It’s like I can feel it. And the enemy has her!”
    She started to lash out and punch and kick at the furniture, the hull,