In Her Name: The Last War (31 page)

It took her a couple of minutes of frenzied scrabbling in the awkward suit, made worse by the shotgun and sword protruding at odd angles, but she finally made it. She rolled over on the outside of the hull, panting at the effort and holding on with a magnetized glove to keep from drifting away. The artificial gravity field actually stopped mid-way through the hull’s thick skin, and it was a queasy sensation as she lifted herself through the hole to have part of her body still sensing gravity and the rest of it sensing weightlessness.

Looking out, the infinite blackness of space was lit with a cascade of fireworks as ships fired upon one other. While the engagement range for space combat was normally judged in thousands of kilometers, she could see at least two dozen ships - some of them very close aboard,
within hundreds of meters
- with her naked eye. Most were moving far slower than they normally would, either because of battle damage or just to hold formation with their wounded sisters. She saw a pair of ships, one clearly human, the other not, that had collided at some velocity slow enough that they had not been destroyed outright. She saw small shapes swarming over the human ship, and knew with bitter anguish exactly what they were. More boarders.

A shadow suddenly fell across her face, something breaking the glare of the system’s star. Glancing to her left, she saw another Kreelan warrior floating through space, drifting directly toward her. With a growl, Sabourin ripped the shotgun from its sticky patch. While the weapon was not exactly optimized for space combat, its designers had at least ensured that the chemical composition of the propellant in the cartridges did not need oxygen to fire. The Kreelan was already reaching for one of the flying weapons attached to the outside of her armored suit, but Sabourin had no intention of letting the alien use it. Bracing the shotgun against the hull, holding it as if she were firing from the hip, Sabourin pulled the trigger.

The heavy shot caught the Kreelan warrior square in the chest. While the heavy shot didn’t penetrate her armor, it gave proof to Newton’s third law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The hit sent the warrior flying backward into space, tumbling head over heels.

Shaking with yet another surge of adrenalin, Sabourin managed to get back on her feet, locking the magnetic pads on her boots to the hull. Trying to ignore the distractions of the silent space battle going on around her, she first tried to spot any more Kreelan warriors on the hull or floating nearby. There were none that she could see. For a moment, she stood there, lungs heaving. Her orders had been clear before, if rather broad: repel the enemy and defend the ship. If her team’s experience was any indication, the enemy must be gaining the upper hand, and she wasn’t sure which way to go or what to do. 

“Bridge,” she called as she caught her breath. 

There was a long pause, and she was about to call again when the same communications tech as before answered.

“Bridge,” the tech said, somewhat breathlessly.

“This is Sabourin. I am outside the hull, roughly forty-five minutes of air remaining.” She paused, not wanting to say what must be said. “I...I have lost the rest of my team. I need orders.”

“Stand by.” 

The silence that followed was interminable. At one point Sabourin was nearly knocked to her knees by an explosion near the stern of the ship. The stars and the fireflies that were fighting and dying ships wheeled crazily around her before the ship gradually came back under control. But
Victorieuse
was clearly badly damaged. The ship was still in the fight, but she suffered from a constant starboard yaw and downward pitch that the helmsman must be trying to control with thrusters. That meant the main engines had been very badly damaged, and no doubt the rest of the ship was faring no better. She gritted her teeth in frustration. There must be something more she could do.

“Sabourin,” the captain’s voice suddenly echoed in her earphones, “you must make for the main starboard airlock and do what you can to hold it against attack. We need to get off what is left of the crew, and the port side is controlled by the enemy.”

“We are abandoning ship, sir?” she asked, mortified.

A long pause. “
Oui
,” he answered heavily. “I was about to inform the
amiral
when you called. We have no choice.” 

He paused again, as if unsure what to say next. Her heart bled for him: while she did not know him very well personally, he had been a good and fair captain during her time aboard the ship. And to lose
Victorieuse
- the fleet flagship! - this way must have been horrible.

“Listen, Sabourin,” he went on quietly, as if he did not want anyone else near him to hear, “aside from the officers’ sidearms, which are useless, you have the only weapon left that can kill these beasts. All the other defense teams are gone. You
must
hold the starboard airlock. If you do not, the crew will be trapped in the ship and at the mercy of these creatures. We have no way of fighting our way past them.”

“
Oui, mon capitaine
,” she said grimly, already stalking across the hull to the starboard side. “I understand. And I will not fail you.”

* * *

“We’re losing the ship,
mon amiral
,”
Capitaine
Monet reported to Lefevre even as screams, very close now, echoed through the blast doors that separated the flag and ship’s bridges from the rest of the ship. The agony in his voice was no different than if his wife lay on an operating table in surgery, dying. “Engineering was under attack and no longer responds, and we have lost maneuvering control. While we still control the ship’s weapons, fewer and fewer of the gun crews answer, and our fire has fallen to almost nothing. The aliens now control the port airlock, and we have lost contact with all the defense teams.” He still had contact with Sabourin, but despite the young woman’s determined vow, he held little hope that she alone could do what he had asked. He knew she would die trying, however, and he could ask no more of any of his crew. He took in a shuddering breath. “I recommend that we abandon ship.”

As if to punctuate Monet’s litany of doom,
Victorieuse
shuddered from another hit. Lefevre realized now that the fire from the Kreelan vessels was generally not intended to kill his ships, but to wound them enough that the boarding parties would have a better chance to attack. They were like pack animals, one tearing at the prey’s legs to bring it down, while others pounced on its back or went for the throat. He found some solace in the knowledge that, once the threat of the boarders had been taken seriously, only three more ships had fallen victim to them by direct attack.

But for
Victorieuse
and a dozen or more other ships, it was too late.

His heart heavy, knowing the pain it was causing Monet to even suggest such a thing, he said, “Very well,
capitaine
.” Turning to his flag captain, he said, “Signal
Jean Bart
to come alongside to take on survivors from the starboard side airlock; I will transfer my flag to her.” He turned back to the ship’s captain, but Monet was not looking at him. 

Behind Lefevre, Monet had seen the port side blast door to the flag bridge suddenly slide open. At the threshold stood a small group of alien warriors. “
Get down!
” he screamed, tackling Lefevre to the deck as the keening of Kreelan flying weapons filled the flag bridge.

* * *

Li’ara-Zhurah once again found herself facing a determined group of humans, and her blood sang with the joy of battle. While they were pitifully armed with small handguns, the accuracy of the shots by one of the humans was making for a challenging fight. The human animal who had been facing the door that opened onto what must be part of the bridge had flung itself and another of its kind down behind a console, avoiding the volley of
shrekkas
that her warriors had hurled at the humans inside. But that same human had suddenly peeked above the console and fired his handgun twice, shooting two of her fellow warriors in the head and killing them instantly.

She looked at the three warriors who remained with her. All of them had sustained injuries of one sort or another, bearing witness to the ferocity of the humans, if not their skill. Truly, they were worthy opponents.

Gripping her last
shrekka
, she quickly peered around the hatch coaming, which was the only cover they had here in the corridor. Her other warriors crouched low to the deck, trying to stay out of sight of the sharpshooter. 

She had stuck her head out just far enough to get a glimpse of the console where the two humans had hidden when the human again rose up and squeezed off a round. Had she been just a fraction of a second slower he would have killed her. As it was, she would have a handsome scar across her left cheek where the bullet grazed her. Assuming she survived.

* * *

Monet ducked back down behind the command console. He had surprised the Kreelans with his marksmanship, but he had certainly never expected to use his skills with a pistol, honed during his years of competition while attending university, to defend his ship. He keyed his wrist comm to the ship-wide annunciator circuit. “All hands, this is the captain,” he said urgently. “Abandon ship. Repeat, abandon ship. Make way to the starboard side main airlock. Starboard side only. The port side airlock is controlled by the enemy.” He paused for a moment. “Good luck and godspeed.” Turning to
Amiral
Lefevre, who crouched next to him, his sidearm drawn and ready, Monet said, “It is time for you to leave,
mon amiral
. I will cover your withdrawal as best I can. Take the bridge crewmen through the starboard side path to the airlock.”

“Monet...” Lefevre began, then stopped. There was no choice. He hated to leave him here in what could only be a last stand. But Lefevre had an entire fleet to worry about, and every moment counted now if he was to extricate the rest of his ships from certain disaster. “
Bonne chance, capitaine
,” he said quietly, gripping Monet’s shoulder. 

Then, in a crouching run, he made his way forward to the main bridge, gathering the other crewman to him as he went. Only the senior officers had sidearms, and the guns were the only protection any of them had. 

With one last look toward where Monet lay waiting for the Kreelans, Lefevre rendered him a salute. The captain returned it with a brave smile and a small wave of his hand.

Once the last member of the bridge crew had crept past him, staying low to keep out of the Kreelans’ line of sight, Lefevre closed the blast door and locked it behind him as a volley of gunshots rang out on the other side.

* * *

While the
Victorieuse
was not a huge ship compared to some of the gigantic transports and starliners, the hull seemed to stretch for endless kilometers as Sabourin trudged step by exhausting step toward the starboard airlock. Walking in the suit required careful attention to first demagnetize one foot, set it, magnetize it, then demagnetize the other foot to repeat the process. It was dreadfully slow going, and while she was EVA qualified, almost all of her outside operations in a suit had been with a maneuvering pack. This was torture, and a river of sweat was running down her back and between her breasts, and from her forehead into her eyes where it burned like fire. That was perhaps the most frustrating thing, because she had to constantly look around and above for more Kreelan warriors trying to sneak up on her.

But no more had appeared by the time she reached the airlock. With her shotgun held at the ready, although she was not sure her magnetic boots would hold her to the hull against the weapon’s recoil, she opened the outer hatch. It was empty. Stepping inside, she hit the controls to pressurize the lock. She was about to hit the button to open the inner door, then paused. It wouldn’t do to have come all this way just to be shot by someone on the other side of the door, thinking she was a Kreelan. Of course, there could be Kreelans on the far side of the door, too.

Again holding her shotgun at the ready, she activated her suit’s external microphone and punched the button for the airlock intercom. “This is
Second-maître
Sabourin in the airlock,” she said. “Is anyone there?”

She nearly pulled the trigger of the shotgun as the door suddenly slid open, revealing what looked to be a couple dozen of her shipmates. 

“
Merde!
” she exclaimed to the first of the people who stepped forward to greet her. “I almost blew your head off!” Then she recognized who it was and lowered the shotgun. “Um. Sir,” she added sheepishly.

“You would have been quite right in doing so, petty officer,” Lefevre told her warmly. “My apologies. Sabourin, isn’t it?”

“
Oui, mon amiral
,” she said, noting how haggard the admiral looked. He had gashes along the side of his face, and his uniform was in tatters. 

The admiral glanced down at his uniform and nodded sadly. “We were ambushed by another group of boarders on the way here. We fought them off, but not before they killed another ten members of the crew.” He had two bullets left for his sidearm. It had been a very close thing that any of them had gotten away. That and Sabourin’s shotgun were all they had left. “
Jean Bart
is to dock any moment, petty officer,” he told her. “I must ask you, as you have the only real weapon left among us, to do what you can to give the crew time to get off.”

“This is all that is left of us?” she asked in a small voice.

The admiral nodded heavily. “I believe there are more down below, barricaded in some of the engineering spaces. But there are boarding parties between them and us, and we have no weapons to try and fight our way through.” While Lefevre knew that his first concern must be the fleet, if he had more weapons for his companions or a marine detachment on board he would have led them in an attempt to rescue the trapped members of the crew. But to do so unarmed was beyond hopeless. “We have closed the blast doors here in the main gangway, and I have used my override to lock them. But we know the enemy can open locked doors, do we not?”