In Her Name: The Last War (109 page)

After backfilling over the top of the structure, about two meters below the surface, the dirt floor of the barn was packed down and again ready for use. Then they stocked the new shelter with enough food, water, and other supplies to last the family at least a month.

Once it was finished, the shelter had instantly become Allison’s favorite hangout. It had annoyed her mother for a while, but her father had said, “Let her be. If we ever need it, she’ll feel comfortable there.”

Reluctantly, her mother had relented, not happy with her daughter spending her free time with her friends, playing in the shelter like it was some sort of entertaining dungeon.

But now, while the rest of her family went into town to draw their weapons and equipment, the last thing Allison wanted to do was cower in the shelter.

“Daddy, can’t I go with you? Just to get your weapons and stuff?”

“I wish you could, baby. But you’ve got to stay here. We’ve talked about this.” 

Allison nodded, unhappily giving in. “We’ve talked about this” was her father’s way of saying that he wasn’t going to tolerate any further discussion or argument on the subject. He rarely said it, but when he did, nothing short of a supernova would move him. 

“Yes, Daddy.” She looked down, afraid he might see the tears that threatened to run down her face.

“Don’t worry, Ali,” he told her softly, drawing her into a tight embrace. “You’ll be fine. We’ll only be in town for a bit to get our gear and find out what’s going on, then we’ll make sure we let you know what’s happening.”

His warmth and strength comforted her, and her nose filled with the scent that was uniquely his, a mix of sweat, earth, and all the many other things that were part of the farm, part of him. She hated feeling like a little girl, but at that moment she was.

“Come on, now.” He let go of her and lifted her chin with a callused hand. “You get to where you need to be. We’ve got to get going.” He kissed her on the forehead before taking the steps to where Shaun waited in the truck. “Love you, big girl.”

“I love you, too, Daddy.”

“We’ll be back soon, honey,” her mother said, giving Allison a fierce hug, and Allison wrapped her arms tightly around her mother’s neck. “Just be careful and keep the door on the shelter locked until we get back, okay?”

“I will, Mom.” Allison was crying now, but no longer ashamed of it. Fear took hold of her heart, which felt heavy in her chest, as her father held the door open for her mother. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, baby.”

They squeezed into the cab next to Shaun, who leaned out the window and said, “Don’t forget the present I gave you if you need it.” He pointed at the table next to her that held the cake and her presents, including the hunting rifle he’d given her. “And you better not eat all the cake before we get back or I’ll paddle you!” 

He gave her a big smile and a wave before he pulled away.

* * *

Two hours had passed since her parents and Shaun left for town. A parade of trucks and cars had streamed down the road behind them, and Allison had felt more abandoned and alone with each one. 

She’d gone to the shelter as soon as her parents had left, but after sitting there alone for what could only have been ten minutes, she couldn’t stand it anymore.

“I’ll know when the Kreelans come. I’ll have time to run back.” Even knowing that her father and mother would be angry, it had been an easy rationalization. Stomping up the stairs, she opened the heavy metal door that was located in the front right corner of the barn. She checked on her horse, Race, who wasn’t at all concerned about an alien invasion, but was content to munch on the hay in his feed trough, before she went back to the porch.

After carving a huge piece of her birthday cake, even though she had no appetite to eat it, she had sat there and watched everyone else head to town. 

The last of them had gone by nearly half an hour ago, and most of her cake still sat on the table, uneaten. 

She knew some of the families had left a parent or older sibling behind to care for the younger children, and part of her was jealous. She wanted more than anything right now for her father or mother, or even Shaun, to be here with her. 

But her parents trusted her to take care of herself, and so she would. Her new rifle, the one that Shaun had given her, sat across her knees, the ten-round magazine loaded and a round in the chamber. She wasn’t as good a shot as her older brother, but she could hit what she was aiming at, and had brought down her share of the deer that lived in the woods, one of the many Terran species that had been released into the wild when the colony had first been founded here on Alger’s World.

She was about to force herself to eat a huge bite of cake that would have brought an indignant rebuke from her mother about poor table manners when she saw them. White trails in the sky, streaking across the horizon. 

The invasion alert siren continued its mournful wail, the changes in pitch eerily in step with the wide S-turns made by the white streaks.

Dropping the fork, she stood up and moved to the porch railing for a better look. Some of the streaks were moving north and south, quickly fading from view. Another group, maybe a dozen, spiraled in toward Breakwater.

The house was shaken by what sounded like explosions, but she realized were sonic booms as some of the streaks passed right overhead.

It dawned on her what those streaks were. Kreelan ships, coming in to land. The only other time she’d seen streaks in the sky like that was when her father had taken her to one of the space ports when her uncle had come to visit a few years ago.

A few moments later, the streaks that circled high over the town in graceful arcs resolved into tiny specks as the ships lost their contrails and dove for the ground.

Allison gasped as three small pillars of fire rose from where the town was, each followed by a crackling roar. The anti-air missiles flew unbelievably fast, aimed at three separate landing ships. Two of the missiles exploded well short of their targets, the noise loud enough to force Allison to put her hands over her ears.

The third missile found its target, tearing one of the stubby wings of one of the incoming ships. The craft tumbled out of control, and as she watched a group of smaller things fell away from it like seeds from a pod.

Parachutes fluttered from the tiny things, and they began gliding toward the town, following the other ships that had passed out of view beyond the low rise between the Murtaugh farm and Breakwater.

Over the roar of the ships’ engines, Allison heard a sudden eruption of pops from the direction of town. 

Rifle fire.

“Oh, no.” She stood there, gripping her new hunting rifle, uncertain about what she should do. If her parents were here right now, she knew they would be terribly upset that she wasn’t hunkered down in the shelter with the door bolted shut. But they weren’t here. They were over there. In trouble.

Before she even realized she was doing it, she was running for the barn. Not for the shelter, but for her horse. 

“Easy boy,” she soothed as she quickly slipped the bridle on old Race. He was a nine year-old Percheron with a midnight black coat who’d carried Allison since her father had first set her in a saddle when she was four. Race was descended from the genetically modified stock brought by the original colonists to help with clearing and working the land. While most farming tasks were now done with machines, horses still had abundant uses on Alger’s World, especially on small farms like this one.

Not to mention they were fun for young girls to ride. 

Allison didn’t bother with a saddle. There wasn’t time. Slipping the rifle’s sling over her shoulder, she grabbed a handful of Race’s thick mane and jumped up, folding herself over his broad back before sitting up, her legs on either side of his wide rib cage.

Race huffed and tossed his head up and down as the sound of a thunderous explosion rolled across the farm, making the timbers of the barn shake. 

“I know, boy,” she said as she signaled him forward. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve got to know what’s happening.”

With one last toss of his head, as if telling her this was a terrible idea, Race dutifully trotted out of the barn, then hit a full gallop as Allison squeezed him with both legs and leaned forward on his back.

She gasped as she looked toward town. Smoke billowed upward, black greasy snakes that curled and undulated into the sky. 

The roar of the ships’ engines died away as the aliens shut them down, and Allison’s ears were filled with the non-stop pops and cracks of even more rifle fire. 

Race flew across the fields, taking the shortest route to where Allison could get a glimpse of the town. 

To her left, a truck roared over the small hill on the road from town, so fast that the wheels momentarily lost touch with the ground as it sailed over the top.

It was burning. As Allison watched, a web of what looked like lightning arced across the vehicle’s body. There were three people in the cab and five in the back, desperately holding on. All of them wore Territorial Army uniforms. 

When the lightning touched them, they screamed. 

The scene played out like a slow-motion horror vid as the web of lightning grew more intense, wrapping around the entire vehicle. The body of the truck began to melt, and the people writhed in agony as they were electrocuted and charred black.

She was shaken from the horrific scene when the truck finally swung off the road into one of the fields, rolled over and exploded.

“Oh, God. Oh, God.” She murmured the words over and over as Race took her up over the rise, where she brought him to a sudden stop with a firm pull on the reins.

The alien ships were in a rough ring around the town, and dozens of black-armored figures were making their way along the streets and alleyways. She immediately saw that almost all the gunfire was coming from her people. None of the Kreelans even seemed to have rifles. Instead, as the news reports had said, they held swords and strange throwing weapons.

She witnessed just how deadly the throwing weapons were when she saw a man poke his head around a corner, rifle at his shoulder. He got off a shot at a warrior, who crumpled to the ground. But before the man could duck back behind the corner, another warrior threw one of the things at him. 

Allison saw it pass by him, but it didn’t seem to hit him. The man stood there for a moment, as if stunned. Then his face and the front half of his head simply fell away as the warrior who’d killed him ran by, snatching up the weapon she’d thrown before moving deeper into the town.

The horror was overwhelming, and for a moment Allison simply sat there, tears streaking down her face and her mouth open in numb disbelief.

Then she saw them. Two men and a woman lay near one of the missile launchers. Dead. She remembered Shaun bragging about how important his job was, loading one of the fancy missile systems the Confederation had brought in. The helmet of one of the men had come off, and while the body was covered in blood, she could see enough of her father’s red hair to know it was him. Her father, her mother, and her older brother. All dead.

“No.” The word caught in her throat as she saw a warrior near one of the ships happen to turn her way. 

Only then did she realize that she was completely exposed, silhouetted on the top of the rise. And sitting astride a horse, yet. Every warrior in town would be able to see her.

But at that moment, she didn’t care. A flare of rage, the likes of which she’d never known, flowed through her at the thought of her murdered family.

The warrior called to one of the others near the ship, and the two of them bolted toward where Race and Allison stood.

“Come on, then.” Allison raised the rifle Shaun had given her. It wasn’t fancy, but it was incredibly accurate out to three hundred meters. It was also powerful enough to stop a neo-bear.

She had never fired from horseback before, but knew that Shaun had fired his rifle while riding Race, and the big horse had barely flinched. 

Laying the sights on the chest of the first alien, who was running flat out toward her, Allison let out her breath and stroked the trigger. 

Sitting on Race without a saddle or stirrups, she had no way to absorb the rifle’s recoil, and it nearly knocked her backwards off the horse’s back. She grabbed his mane just in time and managed to pull herself upright.

“Good boy!” 

Race had stood rock-steady, but snorted at her compliment, clearly unhappy to be there. 

Her target was down, a crumpled heap of black armor and blue skin on the ground. But the second one was gaining fast, and other warriors had turned around at the sound of the shot. 

Allison aimed and fired. 

This warrior was smarter, pitching herself to the side at the last instant. 

Allison fired again and missed, then once more. Another miss.

The warrior grabbed one of the throwing weapons from her shoulder and cocked her arm back as Allison squeezed the trigger a fourth time, cringing as the warrior’s head exploded in a shower of blood and gore. 

More warriors were now heading her way. 

Time to go
, she thought. 

“Come on, boy!” She turned Race around and squeezed him hard with her legs. The big horse ran as fast as Allison could ever remember him moving. 

She wasn’t heading back toward the farm and the safety of the barn and the shelter. Not yet. As fast as the warriors ran, they’d be able to see where she was going if she went straight back home. Her only chance was to make it to the woods that lay a couple hundred meters to the north, then work her way back home. 

Glancing behind her, praying that the aliens wouldn’t top the rise before she made it into the trees, she urged Race on. 

She was almost to the woods when she heard one of the ships starting its engines. 

Looking back, a shiver of fear ran up her spine as she saw the black ship, its shimmering black sides covered with strange alien writing in the same color as the lightning that had killed the people in the truck, rise above the hill and turn toward her.