In Her Name: The Last War (132 page)

The shells fired by the battleships each contained fifteen submunitions, smaller shells inside the larger casing. Once they reached a certain range from the enemy ships, the larger shells split open, ejecting the submunitions. It was much like a titanic shotgun, and the effect was dramatic.

The Kreelan ships were blasting away at the inbound shells and managed to destroy over half of them, but that still left hundreds inbound.

A cascade of explosions erupted from the enemy ships. One of the two destroyers turned into the storm of shells in what Sato credited as the only reasonable maneuver, as there was some slim possibility it might avoid them altogether. Its point defense weapons were firing desperately until a submunition punched right into its bow. The munitions were set to detonate a fraction of a second after impact, allowing them time to penetrate into a ship’s vital areas. In this case, the shell found something vital indeed, as a massive explosion amidships tore the ship in two.

The second destroyer must have run into a closely-packed cluster of munitions. One minute it was there, the next it was gone. There was no spectacular explosion, only the flares of the submunitions as they detonated. The ship was simply torn apart. The debris twirled away, and some of the hull fragments were hit by even more submunitions.

The cruisers fared little better. A hail of explosions marched across their hulls, and while they could absorb more punishment, no cruiser could absorb that much. Both ships lost way and began to stray off course. One of them ran into a chunk of the second destroyer and disappeared in a massive explosion that left only her drive section visible beyond an expanding cloud of gas and debris.

The remaining cruiser simply drifted along, its shattered hull streaming air and debris, its drives torn apart. 

Looking at the projected trajectory for the hulk shown on the tactical display, Sato saw that it would eventually enter the atmosphere and burn up. Any members of her crew who might still be alive would come to a fiery end.

Good enough
, he thought with grim satisfaction.

The flag bridge crew broke into a cheer that was echoed throughout the battleships. It was the most one-sided engagement, favoring humans, that had yet been fought in the war.

“Incoming from the flag, sir.” The communications officer was smiling.

Sato answered the call on his vidcom. “Yes, admiral?”

“I simply wanted to pass on my compliments, commodore.” An unusual smile lit up his face. “Please pass on to your crews my thanks for a truly superb performance.”

“Thank you, sir.” Sato nodded, unable to resist a slight smile himself. “The crews will appreciate that. As do I.” He paused a moment. “Sir, what’s the situation on the ground?”

That wiped the smile from Voroshilov’s face. “It is grim, commodore. We were only able to contact one of the ground teams very briefly. From their report…it is unclear how many survivors there may be, but at least several thousand are in immediate peril. General Sparks is deploying the 10th Armored Division to the contact position indicated by the reconnaissance team, while we hold the other two divisions in reserve. Beyond that...we can only hope.”

“Yes, sir,” Sato agreed quietly. “Your orders, admiral?” 

“Maintain high orbit over the carrier group. I suspect that our blue-skinned friends will bring in reinforcements soon.”

“We’ll be ready, sir.” Sato looked at the bright disk of Alger’s World, wondering at the horrors that must have taken place there, and perhaps still were.

CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

“It should be time.” Valentina looked at her chronometer, then at where Mills was in the woods. She was wearing Steph’s vidcam, but the laser was silent. “Everyone will need to be ready. Whether the fleet comes or not, we’re going to break out of here.”

“God, I hope they come.” Jackson had suffered a few cuts and bruises in his fight before defeating the warrior he’d faced. In a way he’d felt guilty, because she looked like nothing more than a teenager. But his guilt was assuaged by his need to survive. Teenager or not, she’d been determined to kill him.

“They will.” Steph looked up, as if she could see the fleet’s ships in orbit.
Ichiro will come. I know he will
. “I’ll tell the others.”

“Is Mills going to get us out?” Allison trailed behind Steph, leaving Valentina to alternate between watching for a signal from Mills and waiting for the warriors to bring back any survivors.

“Yes, honey. You like him, don’t you?”

“Yes. He’s funny, especially the way he talks. And big. I just wish he were here now.”

“It won’t be long.” 

They came close enough to the crowd huddling at the back of the pen for Steph to be heard. “Listen to me!” Her shout got their attention. “The fleet should be here any time now. Some Marines-” She glossed over the fact that there was only one, Mills. “-are going to create a diversion so we can break out of here. When the time comes, go as fast as you can. And if any warriors are in your way, mob them! Even unarmed, there are a lot more of us than them.”

“But they’ll kill us!” The cry came from deep within the crowd, but was echoed on many faces.

“Yes, they’ll kill some of us. But would you rather take a chance dying on your way to freedom, or be killed in there?” She pointed in the direction of the arenas. “Those are you choices! When it’s time, head into the woods toward the fields east of town.” She and Valentina had decided to send everyone there, as that seemed the most likely place for the Marines to land. 

“What about all the warriors guarding us?” Someone asked.

“The diversion will take care of some of them. We just have to take our chances with the rest.”

“Steph!” Valentina called. “The warriors are coming back!”

With Allison right behind her, Steph ran back to where Valentina and Jackson stood. The warriors marched back through the gates, but this time there were only three survivors. One of them was so badly injured that the other two had to carry him.

Jackson took the weight of the injured man, with Allison wrapping her thin arm around the man’s waist to help, while Steph and Valentina helped the other two, a man and a woman.

“It was a slaughter.” The woman was gasping, and there was a deep cut in her side. “Most of the others were finished in a few minutes. God, that hurts.”

“I know it hurts,” Steph told her, “but you’d better be ready to run. The fleet should be here any minute, and Marines out in the woods are going to start a diversion to help get us out of here.”

“Don’t worry.” The woman managed a smile that quickly turned to a grimace. “You’ll have to run fast to catch up to me.”

Valentina helped the other survivor, a man whose leg had a long gash but was otherwise uninjured, to one of the shelters. She looked back at the warriors, and could tell that something was different. Their demeanor had changed, as if they were agitated. 

I wonder if they know something
. Several of them glanced up at the sky, and she looked up herself just in time to see four miniature suns ignite, low on the western horizon.

The crowd of people murmured behind her. They, too, had seen the flashes.

“They’re here, by God!” Jackson shouted. “Somebody in low orbit just bought it.”

“The warriors!” Allison cried as the aliens began to move farther into the camp, toward the crowd of people.

Valentina, with Jackson and Steph beside her, moved forward to try and intervene. The Kreelans didn’t threaten them with lethal weapons, but the leader and several others pulled out the stun batons they had used to take them captive.

“Damn.” Jackson pulled Valentina and Steph back. They couldn’t afford to be stunned and helpless. Not now.

The warriors were just moving past them to take the next group of victims when the forest along the rear fence of the camp was ripped apart by a series of explosions.

* * *

Mills watched in satisfaction as the grenades detonated, tearing through the line of warriors guarding the rear of the camp. He hadn’t actually expected many of the warriors to be killed or wounded, but at least half of them went down under a hail of shrapnel and wood splinters.

He cringed as some of the people lining the fence went down, too, screaming as they were cut and slashed.

There was nothing he could do for them now, and he shifted his attention to the warriors who had come for more victims, and who now were momentarily dazed by his little diversion.

Centering the crosshairs right between the breasts of the leading warrior, he stroked the big rifle’s trigger. It fired with a deafening crack, jolting him back with the massive recoil. When he adjusted his aim to where the warrior had been standing, what was left of her body below the midriff was just collapsing to the ground. The rest of her was gone.

He didn’t celebrate the shot, but took aim on a line of three warriors, swords drawn, who were running straight at the civilians. 

He fired. Two of them went down and the third spun off to the side, all victims of the same shot.

The people along the fence recovered from the shock of the explosions and, following the instructions that Steph and Valentina had given them, tore down the fence and began to run. 

“Damn.” His sight picture was blocked by the escapees, and he had to take careful aim at the blue-skinned faces working their way toward the mass of civilians.

He fired and fired again, and kept firing until he’d expended the twenty-eight rounds he had for the sniper rifle, dropping at least one enemy warrior with every shot. 

After he fired the last round, he looked through the scope, desperately hoping to see Valentina. 

He shook his head in wonder when he found her. Covered in the blood of the enemy, she was wielding a sword in each hand, battling the few warriors who remained standing. Even in that brief moment, he saw other people taking up the weapons of now-dead warriors and joining her, hacking and slashing at the warriors.

Tossing the now-useless sniper rifle to the side, Mills grabbed up his assault rifle and charged forward to help them.

* * *

“Now!” Valentina screamed at the top of her lungs to the other prisoners after the booms of the grenades had faded. “Take down the fence and run for it!”

The people along the fence who hadn’t been badly hurt by shrapnel from the grenades reacted instantly, tearing the fence apart and running headlong into the woods.

Valentina was just about to go after the leader of the warriors who had come for the next victims, and who was leading her cohorts after the defenseless civilians, when the Kreelan’s upper body simply exploded, covering Valentina with blood and gore. 

Ignoring the blood bath, she snatched the sword from the warrior’s hand as the severed arm fell. Then she pirouetted, driving the blade into the belly of another warrior who was charging past her. 

Taking that warrior’s sword, as well, she turned, ready to fight. For a moment she had no targets, for the warriors in the camp were systematically being cut down by the sniper fire coming from the woods. 

You’re almost as good as me, Mills
, she thought with a blood-stained smile as one of the few surviving warriors charged her, bellowing a challenge. 

Valentina blocked the warrior’s overhand cut with an upward block with her left sword before cutting deep into the warrior’s thigh with the sword held in her right hand. The warrior went down, and Valentina finished her with a quick stab to the throat.

Jackson was at her side, a sword in his hands, followed by Steph, who held her own captured weapon. 

More people armed themselves and joined them, trying to fend off the warriors who swarmed around from the sides of the enclosure to cut off the retreat of the civilians.

Steph watched in horror as the children Allison had saved, every one of them, burst from the stampede of people, heading right toward her and Valentina.

“No!” Steph cried as a group of Kreelans broke through and charged right toward the children. They screamed in terror as the swords flashed down in deadly arcs.

The blades never touched their intended victims. A burst of fire from an assault rifle hammered the warriors backward, revealing the grimy and exhausted form of Roland Mills.

“Good to see you again, girls.” He flashed a bright smile as his eyes continued sweeping the area for nearby threats.

“Mills!” A chorus of young voices sounded above the bedlam of the escaping prisoners as the children clustered around the big Marine, as if he were a rock in the middle of a raging river.

“When we get out of this,” Valentina said, pausing as Mills blasted a pair of warriors who were getting too close, “I’m going to take you and-”

“Where’s Allison?” Steph asked. “She was right next to me!”

All of them looked around, trying to spot the girl in the chaos swirling around them.

“There she is!” Jackson said, pointing. 

There was Allison, about twenty meters away, helping a young man who was bleeding badly from his side, the victim of one of the Kreelan flying weapons. 

“Allison!” Steph shouted, sprinting toward her. 

“Steph, wait!” Mills cried, catching sight of more warriors who had come through the woods and were now vaulting the fence into the camp. “Christ!” Taking careful aim, he fired past Steph, Allison, and the injured man, who were right in between him and the oncoming warriors. 

Jackson ran over and relieved Allison of her burden, putting the injured man’s arm across his shoulder and his own arm around the man’s waist.

Allison had just turned toward Steph, reaching out her hand, when the injured man and Jackson both cried out and pitched forward to the ground. The injured man was now dead, a Kreelan flying weapon embedded in his spinal column. Jackson had one of the weapons protruding from his lower back, but managed to get to his feet using the sword as a crutch, a grimace of agony on his face.

“Run!” Steph screamed, shoving Allison ahead of her, shielding the girl with her body as more of the flying weapons hissed toward them.