In Her Name: The Last War (15 page)

But she was clearly surprised, and growing increasingly frustrated, at Yao’s employment of a variety of moves based on the fundamental
t’ai chi
principle known as
pushing hands
. Her arts had certainly endowed her with great skill in a variety of attack and defense techniques, but she simply could not get through Yao’s fluid deflection and absorption of her attacks. In a civilization like that of the aliens where combat was the centerpiece of the society’s existence and aggression was the rule, Yao suspected that it would be very unlikely for martial art forms like
t’ai chi
to evolve, for it was fundamentally based on the ideals of self-defense and compassion toward one’s enemy. And thus his opponent had no effective counter but frustration. And frustration inevitably leads to mistakes.

She suddenly lashed out with a high roundhouse kick aimed at his head, and Yao decided he had learned enough. He sank back on his legs, easily avoiding the kick, and suddenly surged forward while her leg was still following through, leaving her lower body dangerously exposed and her balance fixed on only one leg. While
t’ai chi
had its foundations in quiet strength, certain offensive variations that Yao had been taught long ago were quite lethal: he landed a crippling strike with his right closed fist against her lower abdomen, then followed it up with a brutal attack with his right shoulder, concentrating all of his internal energy into a thrust against her lower ribs. He grimaced inwardly at the
crunch
several ribs made as they shattered, the splintered ends spearing several of her internal organs as his attack lifted her from the ground and sent her flying backward. Her part in this battle was finished.

Without further thought of his vanquished foe, Yao quickly moved to help the others.

* * *

Sato knew he should have been dead a dozen times over. The alien imp who faced him was toying with him, humiliating him. He hadn’t managed to make a single blow against her: all he had for his efforts was a dozen flesh wounds and at least as many gouges along the razor sharp blade of his grandfather’s
katana
where it had slammed ineffectively against the alien’s sword. He was shaking with exhaustion and pain, gasping for breath, and wished that the young fiend would finish him off and be done with it.

He had tried to keep track of Yao Ming and Anna, but if he let his attention wander at all, he was brought back to reality by yet another bloodletting from his tormentor. 

She darted forward again in what he knew must be a feint, but he didn’t know enough to counter it effectively. She jabbed her sword at his left leg, goading him into defending it with his own sword, then she twirled and slashed at his shoulder.

Ichiro braced himself for the pain, but it never came. As on the
Aurora
when the aliens first boarded, Yao was suddenly
there
. In a brief flurry of powerful blows from his hands, the alien girl fell to the sand, unconscious or dead.

Collapsing to the ground himself, Ichiro gasped, “Thanks, Ming...I don’t think I could’ve lasted-”

His words were cut off by a scream from only a few feet away. He looked up in horror to see Anna Zalenski clutching an expanding red spot on her stomach where her opponent had stabbed her. Her face growing pale as blood flooded out of the severed abdominal aorta, the major artery that carried blood to her lower body, she slowly sank to her knees. 

Her opponent raised her sword to take off Anna’s head, but never got the chance. Yao snatched up the weapon Ichiro’s tormentor had been using and hurled it like a spear, the blade stabbing clean through the neck of Anna’s killer.

“
Anna!
” Ichiro screamed as he ran to her side, catching her in his arms as she collapsed.

“Ichiro...” was all she said as she reached up to caress his face. He held it tightly, bringing it to his lips to kiss her fingers. 

But she was already dead.

* * *

McClaren staggered backward, putting some distance between himself and his opponent. He had evened up the odds slightly with a few lucky blows to her head and what he hoped had been an extremely painful punch to the kidneys (assuming she had kidneys), but he was exhausted. He had gone a full twelve rounds a couple of times in unofficial fights, and knew just how grueling it could be. But that was when he had been a young man in prime shape. Even with whatever the alien healers had done to fix him up, he still wasn’t young anymore. Even their miraculous powers couldn’t turn back time.

Looking around through his one good eye - his right, since his left had swollen shut after the warrior had gotten through his defenses and clobbered him good - he saw that the battle was almost over. He had no idea how long they’d been fighting; it was probably only a matter of minutes, but it felt like hours. Everyone who had been off to his left, except Harkness, was down, and she was barely able to move, limping badly on her left leg as she slowly made her way toward him. On his right, Yao and Sato were still up and moving, and he noted with an amused grin from his bloodied lips that Amundsen was still alive, too. He wondered how the brilliant pessimist was dealing with that turn of events. But the others, including Midshipman Zalenski and Lieutenant Marisova, were gone. 

They hadn’t gone down without a fight, though. At least half of the aliens were either dead or crippled, and the only ones still actively fighting were his own sparring partner and the alien Amundsen was fending off. The other warriors, after finishing off their victims, had backed away from the action and taken up position in front of the dais where the huge warrior still stood watching. McClaren didn’t think they were going to get out of this alive, but it was nice to see that they were at least playing fair. Sort of.

He glanced at Yao as he fended off another flurry of punches from his personal alien training assistant, and shook his head slightly. While he hadn’t won every match he’d fought, he’d never been carried out of the ring, and he didn’t intend to start now. He knew Yao could make short work of his opponent, but that wasn’t how McClaren wanted it.

With one last surge of adrenaline, buoyed up by the fact the others were still alive, he moved in on his lighter opponent. He was done trading blows with her: they were going to finish it now, one way or another. 

The warrior had come to the same conclusion. They crashed together, and McClaren used his weight advantage to push against her, keeping her slightly off balance as he sent a series of right uppercuts into her abdomen. She slammed the heels of her hands into the side of his head, sending him to the verge of unconsciousness before he put everything he had left into a punch to the side of her ribcage that actually lifted her from the sand. With a grunt of agony, the fight suddenly went out of her, and she collapsed to her knees, clutching her left side.

McClaren staggered for a moment, ready to collapse himself, but he wasn’t going to let the job go undone. He took a shaky step toward her, grabbed her hair with his right hand, and smashed the bloody knuckles of his left fist into her temple as hard as he could. Once. Twice. Three times, until he could tell that he was just holding her up by the hair. He let go, and her body flopped limply to the ground.

He managed to turn toward where Amundsen was still fighting and took two wavering steps before falling unconscious into Yao’s arms.

* * *

No one was more surprised than Amundsen that he was still alive. He could only assume that the aliens had made a mistake in choosing his challenger, because from what little he’d been able to see of the other fights around the arena, the others were fairly evenly matched. He had no other explanation for how he had lasted this long. He had even managed to deal some damage to his opponent, landing a completely accidental hit that broke some of her fingers early on, denying her the use of that hand. He hated to admit it to himself, but he was even holding out some hope that he might actually beat her.

The alien made another jab at him with her quarterstaff. Only able to use one hand now, her movements were very awkward, and Amundsen easily fended off her attack, sweeping her quarterstaff to the side. He hated to get fancy, but he decided to take a risk and spun around, dropping low as he swung the quarterstaff like a baseball bat, hoping to hit the warrior’s legs.

To his amazement, he did. She wasn’t able to get her weapon around in time to stop his attack, and his staff was too high to jump over and too low to drop under. Amundsen had put all the power he could into the blow, and it hit her right in mid-thigh, sending her tumbling into the sand with a yelp of pain. 

He lunged after her, raining down a series of frenzied blows on her exposed back and head before she could get back up. He kept hitting her, over and over, his quarterstaff hammering her body.

Suddenly, Harkness was next to him, her hand on his shoulder. “Lieutenant,” she said shakily, “you can stop now. You won.”

Amundsen felt like he’d just snapped out of a trance. He blinked at her, then got a look at the quarterstaff he held. The end of it was covered in blood. He looked down at the warrior he’d been fighting. He must have hit her dozens of times. Her head looked like a smashed melon, and her torso was misshapen from the bones he’d broken. 

“Lord of All,” he whispered as he tossed the quarterstaff aside. Falling to his knees, he vomited into the sand. 

Harkness knelt beside him, rubbing his back gently as she might to soothe a child. “It’s okay,” she murmured. “It’s okay, lieutenant.”

* * *

The culling is complete
, Tesh-Dar thought as she surveyed the carnage of the arena. Of the twenty-three aliens who had begun, only five remained. Of the warriors who had fought them, eight had died, and another seven had been badly wounded. The aliens had displayed great spirit in their fighting, and she knew they would be worthy opponents in the coming war. 

But the end of this first battle had come. Tesh-Dar left the dais and strode toward the remaining humans.

* * *

Yao watched as the huge warrior approached the battered human survivors. Amundsen, recovered now, and Sato stood on either side, with Harkness on the ground behind them, the captain’s head propped up on her knees. He had not yet regained consciousness, and Yao feared he never would. 

The alien stopped a few paces away and looked them over for a moment. Then she held out her left hand. In her palm lay the cyan disc. The ticket home.

“Take it.”

Yao turned to see the captain staring at him with one eye that looked like a bloody cue ball from the burst capillaries. 

“Take it, Yao,” McClaren rasped. He had regained consciousness, but was clearly fighting to remain awake. “We’ve made our stand. One of us...one of us has to get back. To tell what happened here.”

“I cannot take it, captain,” Yao told him. “I-”

“Give it to Ichiro,” Harkness suggested, and McClaren nodded weakly. 

“Captain, no!” Ichiro begged him. “I’m not going to be the one to leave. I couldn’t fight, I couldn’t do anything to help anyone. Please don’t send me home in shame-”

“It is not dishonorable or shameful to live, Ichiro,” Yao told him softly.

McClaren nodded. “Listen, son,” he said, struggling to get out the words, “you’re young and deserve a chance to really live, if you can get out of here. You’ve also paid attention to everything you’ve seen: the people back home need to know what they’re up against.” He paused, drawing in a painful breath. “If they don’t, all of this, the deaths of your shipmates, will have been for nothing. And our worlds will burn.”

“Why not Lieutenant Amundsen?” Ichiro countered, turning to look hopefully at the lieutenant. Ichiro never would have thought that he would do everything he could to avoid having to go on living. “Why not send him?”

“Because those are the captain’s orders, Midshipman Sato,” Amundsen replied. Managing a tired grin that looked more like a grimace, he went on, “I wouldn’t mind living another day. But I joined the service late, Ichiro; I’m nearly as old as Yao. And you’re at least as observant as I am. I wish I had time to tell you my thoughts,” he glanced at the warrior, sensing her patience was coming to an end, “but you’ll come to your own conclusions.”

“I’m not going,” Ichiro said resolutely, standing up and coming to attention. “I refuse those orders, sir.”

“Yao...”

Ichiro didn’t even feel the blow that knocked him unconscious a moment after the captain had uttered the petty officer’s name. Yao carefully laid his young friend down on the sand beside the captain.

“Now get the goddamn disc,” McClaren ordered, “while we still have time.”

Yao saluted, did a smart about-face, and stepped up to the huge alien, who still held the cyan disc in her outstretched palm. He took it, then knelt next to Ichiro. Holding it up for the warrior to see, he placed it inside the young man’s alien-made shirt, carefully sealing it closed.

* * *

Tesh-Dar watched as one of the aliens slide the Sign of the Messenger inside the upper garment of the youngest among them. She did not understand their methods, but was in agreement with the one they had chosen. Had she been forced to choose among them, she would have made the same choice, although likely for different reasons. The young animal’s spirit burned brightly in her mind’s eye, his aura brighter than the others. He would do.

As for the others, it was time...

* * *

Ichiro’s eyes fluttered open. Laying on his back, staring straight up into the sky, he didn’t realize where he was until he noticed the color wasn’t quite the right tint of blue, but was tinged with magenta.

With an electric surge, he suddenly remembered where he was. He rolled over onto one side, his neck pounding with pain - had Yao hit him? - only to see the captain staring at him with one bloodshot eye. He was dead. Harkness lay on top of him, having tried to protect him with her own body. Her back had been opened up like she’d been hit with a giant meat cleaver. Her beautiful face hung slack and pale in death.

Next to them lay Amundsen. He was on his back, as Ichiro had been, his face turned up to the alien sky above. One might have thought him sleeping, except for the pillar of gleaming alien metal sprouting from his chest: the great warrior’s longsword.