In Her Name: The Last War (105 page)

As Braverman’s ships sailed away at top speed, Faraday and Grishin kept their eyes glued to the navigation console, looking for the promised cutter.

* * *

Ichiro Sato looked through the transparent pane of the cramped survival beach ball that imprisoned him, staring at the stars and the world of Saint Petersburg as he slowly tumbled through space, utterly and completely alone. More than once he had reached for the tab that would open the beach ball and vent the air it contained into space. The only thing that stayed his hand was the thought of Steph. Yet even that, as much as he loved her, was only barely enough.

His emotions, were a confused kaleidoscope of guilt, anguish, and helpless rage. Twice, now, he had been the sole survivor of a ship aboard which he served. The first time, when humans had first encountered the Kreelans, the aliens had slaughtered his fellow crewmen and sent him, alone, back to Earth to bring word of the coming war. This time, fellow humans had killed his ship and his crew, but the “enemy” — the Kreelans — had saved his life, sacrificing themselves, an entire ship and its crew, for him. 

He thought, too, of the warrior who had saved him as he was being swept from the
Yura’s
shattered bridge and into space, saw her hand against the beach ball, feeling his own pressed up against it as he looked into her eyes. He wept for her as he watched the wreckage containing her body spin away into the darkness, thanking and cursing her in the same breath. He had endured a crushing sense of survivor’s guilt after the Kreelans had sent him back to Earth after killing the rest of the crew of the
Aurora
, but that had been nothing compared to this. Then, he had only been a midshipman, the youngest member of the crew, on his first interstellar mission. This time,
Yura
had been
his
ship,
his
command. He had been responsible for her and every man and woman aboard, and he felt as if he had failed them all. As much as he wanted to see Steph again, he would have gladly traded his life and the miracle of Kreelan healing for any one of his crew, Bogdanova most of all. Her loss, more than any other single person aboard, tore at his heart. The part of his mind that clung to logic knew that he had done the best he could, had done his duty, and that fate and the enemy — humans and Kreelans alike — had dictated the rest. Yet that was little consolation in light of a destroyed ship and a dead crew.

As he stared into the void, he caught glimpses of bright flashes, orange and crimson against the black of space near the limb of Saint Petersburg’s moon.
No doubt they’re Kreelan warships
, he thought gloomily,
hammering our own into scrap
. 

He let such dark thoughts take him as the fireworks continued, then intensified into a non-stop chain of brilliant, if distant, flashes. There was no way for him to know who might be winning, human (Confederation or Russian) or Kreelan, but he felt a sudden flush of pride. Even if the human fleet was losing, it was obviously fighting back hard. That thought penetrated to the heart of the warrior that lay inside of him. He couldn’t help them, but the least he could do, he realized, was to cheer them on, even if his only audience was himself.

“Come on,” he growled angrily, clenching his fists as he leaned forward, wishing the beach ball would stop spinning so he could see better. “
Fight, damn you!
” he shouted as a pair of explosions, larger than the others, lit the dark side of Saint Petersburg’s moon.

And that was how the crew of
Southampton’s
cutter found him, yelling at the top of his lungs as if he were watching the game-deciding play of an Army-Navy game, damning the enemy and cheering for his own kind.

* * *

Colonel Yuri Rusov, the commander of the bunker’s internal security detachment, stared in unabashed awe and disbelief as the alien warrior systematically killed every one of the troops defending the bunker’s entrance on the surface. He had never seen anyone or anything move as fast as she had, her sword nothing more than a brilliant disk as it cut down the men outside. Their weapons had no effect on her at all, as if they were nothing more than movie props that gave one the impression of being lethal, but that only produced a loud bang and a satisfying flash.

When she was finished with the men outside, she approached the blast door at the entrance, and Rusov breathed a sigh of relief.
She cannot get through that with her sword
, he thought. He watched the security monitor as she looked at the door. Then, with barely a pause, she stepped into it, her body disappearing into the two-meter thick metal.

“
Tvoyu mat’!
” one of the men on the security monitoring team choked, his eyes wide with disbelief. “That is impossible!”

“Get the reserve company to the main entrance!” the colonel snapped. “And sound the intrusion alarm!”

One of the other controllers flipped open a clear plastic cover over a large red button and slammed down on it with his fist. Throughout the massive underground complex, a klaxon began to bleat it’s warning. Another controller spoke urgently into his headset, ordering the commander of the reserve company of troops to double-time to the entrance.

“What is going on?”

Rusov turned to find Marshal Antonov standing at the threshold of the darkened security room, glaring at him.

“Comrade marshal,” Rusov reported quickly, “I believe an alien has somehow penetrated the facility.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, colonel,” Antonov told him, stepping toward the large bank of security monitors. “That door and the entrance tunnel can hold against a nuclear strike. What did the alien do, walk right through it?”

“Yes, sir,” Rusov answered, holding his ground, “she did.” He gestured for one of his men to play back the video of the alien stepping into the door, her body eerily disappearing into the thick steel, as if she had stepped through a wall of liquid.

Antonov said, “It is a trick, comrade colonel.
Maskirovka
. This...” he gestured at the video monitor, “this is a charade.”

The both turned suddenly as they heard a sound like a string of firecrackers going off, but heavily muffled by distance and many tons of reinforced concrete. Gunfire.

“Sir!” one of the controllers cried, as he quickly changed to a different video feed. “The guard detachment at the main door reports they are under attack!”

The camera view switched just in time to see the alien warrior finishing off the last of the eight men assigned to guard the inside of the blast door. She then turned and moved on down the massive entrance tunnel, her sword at the ready.

“The reserve company is moving to block her,” Rusov informed Antonov, “although I doubt they will fare no better than the troops outside.”

“I will not tolerate defeatism, colonel,” Antonov warned sharply.

“It is not defeatism, comrade marshal,” Rusov told him, looking him squarely in the eyes. “It is the simple truth.” He played back part of the battle on the surface, again watching as the alien butchered his men.

Antonov visibly paled. “You must stop that creature, colonel,” he ordered. “Use every man you have, including yourself.”

“Yes, sir,” Rusov said quietly, trying to keep the resignation out of his voice. He had faced his share of danger during his service in the military, and had even been in situations where he had faced the possibility of dying. But this was the first time that he knew with complete and utter certainty that he would not survive. “Men, get your weapons and come with me,” he told the controllers as he headed for the door, drawing his sidearm from its holster.

They quickly followed him out, each of them taking a last fearful glance at the alien apparition on the security monitors as it tracked her movements.

* * *

Tesh-Dar was breathing heavily now, her heart racing to keep enough blood pumping through her system. She was still bleeding heavily from the wounds the human warrior had given her at the spaceport, but her own blood would have been indistinguishable from that of the humans she had killed, covering her from head to toe in wet crimson. Her muscles burned, weakened to the point where her entire body was vibrating like a taut string that was being repeatedly plucked.

Inside the human hive, she continued to slaughter the soulless creatures, but the passionate fire to kill that had burned so brightly only a brief time before was guttering, dying. As was she. Yet this last thing — killing the humans here in this underground warren — would she accomplish before her life ended. The rest she had killed in murderous rage; these she killed to honor the Empress and, in a small way, pay for her lack of obedience. A sliver of her mind, the rational part that was slowly reasserting its dominance as she grew weaker, was cloaked in the fearful certainty that her soul would rot in the Darkness for all eternity: she had stepped from the Way, essentially defying Her will and falling from grace.

More of the human warriors charged at her, a large group this time, and she began to kill them, but not as before, when the fire in her was at its peak. Then she had been a raging
genoth
, a great dragon and the most-feared creature that dwelled on the Homeworld. Now, her powers drained, she was only an extraordinarily powerful warrior. Even her ability to pass through objects, and let objects pass through her, was waning. Their bullets stung as they passed through her, and soon they would pierce flesh and shatter bone.

Baring her fangs in rage, at herself as much as the humans, she swept her sword through their ranks. They closed with her, throwing themselves upon her, until her sword was useless. Dropping the weapon, she resorted to the weapons she had been born with, and reached for them with her talons.

* * *

Voroshilov stared, disbelieving, at the vidcom and its projection of Chairman Korolev’s panicked image. “Comrade chairman,” he said, “what you ask is impossible. Our ships — all of them — are engaged in battle near lunar orbit. Even if I could detach a destroyer and with a microjump closer to you, it could not possibly reach you—”

“Stop making excuses, comrade admiral,” Korolev hissed at him. “
You
will come here, right now, or you will face the most severe repercussions! We have been monitoring your communications, even as you ignored our calls, and know that you have been in collusion with the Confederation enemy that even now comes to kill us!” He paused in his tirade, before suddenly shouting, “
I will have your family shot!
”

Voroshilov turned away to look at the tactical display, an uncharacteristically stony expression on his face. There were very few red icons left now, the combined human fleet and the minefield having done their work. He was deeply surprised that the enemy ships chose to stay and fight to the death, rather than jump to safety, where they could live to fight another day. It was as if they simply did not care, or perhaps is was a point of honor that they fight to the bitter end. 

A point of honor
, he thought coldly,
was something that the likes of Korolev would never understand
. 

Turning back to his so-called superior, he said quietly under his flagship’s still-thundering guns, “Your threat is an empty one, comrade chairman. As I am sure you and that
chekist
in charge of the secret police know, my wife and children are on Riga, visiting her brother’s family. I doubt that President Roze will let any harm come to her.” Glaring at Korolev, he told him, “The Confederation commander has some ships that are not yet engaged with the enemy. I will ask that she send one to your aid, with the understanding that if you fire on them, they should fire back with everything they have and leave you to rot. If you survive, you can have me shot, should you wish. Yet even you should see now that your time is over.” He paused, a scowl deeply etched on his face. “I do this not because you threaten me, comrade, but because saving some of our planetary leadership may allow us to better repel the many aliens that now roam free on our world. Remember that.”

Korolev, his face contorted in cold rage, was just opening his mouth to speak when someone off-camera screamed, followed by a sudden eruption of gunfire close by. The chairman looked up at what was happening, then turned back to the vidcom, his face a mask of terror. “The alien is here!” he screamed.

Voroshilov watched silently as the last few seconds of Korolev’s life played out before him.

* * *

Korolev turned away from his argument with Voroshilov as someone screamed. He turned to see the giant alien drop what was left of one of the communications technicians, blood pouring from his throat where she had ripped it out with her huge claws. She had not come through the door, which was locked and guarded: she had come right through one of the reinforced concrete walls!

Standing behind Korolev, who was now frozen with fear in front of the vidcom terminal, Marshal Antonov calmly drew his sidearm and fired at the alien, which focused her attention on him. Every round hit her, but she simply shrugged them off and kept coming.

Terrified, Korolev turned back to the vidcom and Voroshilov, screaming, “The alien is here!”

* * *

Tesh-Dar was running now on nothing more than force of will. She had finally dug her way out of the mass of humans who had tried to overwhelm her, stabbing and slashing them to death with her talons, biting them with her fangs, ignoring the revolting taste of their blood.

This room, the last in this warren that she was able to find with her rapidly failing mind’s eye that contained living humans, was her last challenge. She knew the door was guarded, so she chose to penetrate the wall. She almost did not make it: the power within her that made such things possible was now little more than a flickering spark. She was halfway through the thick wall when she nearly lost control. Had that happened, she would have been entombed there, dead, the molecules of her body interspersed with that of the concrete. 

Yet with one last agonizing push, she emerged into a large room, brightly lit with many screens and consoles, with a small number of humans. The closest to her was the first to die as she snatched the surprised human from his chair and slashed his throat before tossing him aside.