In Her Name: The Last War (91 page)

“We will be finished long before that happens,” Grishin assured him.

Faraday glanced at the colonel, turning over in his mind the very different possible meanings of what Grishin had said. He grimaced as he turned his attention back to flying.

In the rear, the Marines were strapped in but anxious to get off of the wildly maneuvering ship. Near the front, next to Grishin, sat Valentina, with Sikorsky and Ludmilla across from her. Both of them were wide-eyed with fear. Valentina had asked them to stay with the larger force of Marines that was now rushing into the city from the base where they had been ambushed, using trucks and armored vehicles they had liberated from the Russian garrison. The two had refused, however, both declaring in no uncertain terms that they felt their best chance of survival was with Valentina. 

Looking at the two of them, Valentina felt a deep pang of regret. Despite the tragedies that had rocked their lives, Sikorsky and Ludmilla were still deeply in love. They held on tightly to one another, most of the time with their eyes closed. But when they were open, they were looking at Valentina. And every time they did, a little more of their fear seemed to fall away. She felt unworthy of their trust and confidence, and prayed that she wouldn’t fail them. 

As if reading her mind, Sikorsky reached across the aisle and took her hands in one of his. Squeezing them tightly, he gave her a brave smile.

Valentina did her best to smile back, but her expression faltered. She was surprised: lying and deceit were second nature to her as part of her profession, but for some reason she was unable to put on one of her many masks for Sikorsky. What he saw now was the unvarnished truth of her, a face that she had shown to precious few people, a face that now betrayed uncertainty.

Standing in the aisle ahead of them, Grishin stared out the cutter’s massive windscreen, watching as the ship finally broke free of the last ring of buildings and the city center appeared. Here was the government complex, a poor copy of the old Kremlin in Moscow back on Earth, only uglier, Grishin thought. The original Kremlin and the city in which it had stood had been destroyed in the wars before the Diaspora, but its oppressive architectural ideals, particularly from the time of Josef Stalin, had somehow been preserved. Growing up here, Grishin had loved the monolithic majesty of the massive skyscrapers surrounding the center of government. As a young man, he had happily, almost deliriously, embraced the tenets of the Party and joined the Red Army. His happy delirium had lasted for a brief five years before being transformed into barely suppressed horror at what he had been called upon to do during the war with Earth and the Alliance. Yet he had done his duty, and suffered the consequences in the war’s aftermath. One of many accused — with just reason, he thought guiltily — of war crimes, he had managed to escape off-planet, eventually starting a new life in the Alliance Foreign Legion.

Looking out at the monolithic structures that surrounded the faux Kremlin, he felt a wave of hatred wash over him for the men and the ideas that had turned his planet into a war zone twice in as many decades, and had forced him from his home.

As they approached the walled fortress, flying low over the massive square that had hosted gigantic military parades before the last war, and surely before this one, Grishin was surprised that Korolev had not erected a mausoleum in which to entomb himself upon his death and preserve his carcass for the benefit of future generations. Of course, Grishin thought darkly, perhaps Korolev thought himself immortal. If so, that was a delusion that Grishin would be quite happy to dispel.

“Stand by,” he told his Marines as the cutter soared over the impressive wall of red brick surrounding the government buildings themselves. The point defense lasers ripped again, sweeping a dozen surprised but heavily armed ceremonial guards from the top of the wall and the entrance to the Central Chamber where the Party Council met.

His plan was absurdly simple: the cutter would put down in the open square in front of the Central Chamber, then Grishin would lead his Marines in, hoping to catch Korolev and the senior members of the Party and bring them to their senses. He knew that the buildings were guarded by a battalion of ceremonial guards who were extremely well-trained and equipped. Normally that would have made odds that were nothing short of suicidal for a single platoon of Marines, but with the fire support from the cutter and the element of surprise on his side, he believed they had a fighting chance. They only had to hold out for thirty minutes: that was how long it would take for the survivors of his brigade to reach them.

Turning around, he looked at Sikorsky and his wife, then at Valentina. “Are you sure about this?” he asked. While he understood the sentiment all too well, he thought the idea of taking the two Sikorskys in with them was utter madness. “I cannot detail any Marines to protect them.”

“I’ll take care of them, colonel,” Valentina replied, meeting his gaze. She understood that he wasn’t making it a personal issue; it was simply a tactical reality. “And we’ll help watch your back.” She held a shortened heavy assault rifle that looked far too large for her hands, and at her feet lay a sniper rifle in a case that, when the weapon was assembled, was a full two meters long. 

Any doubts Grishin may have had about her ability to use either weapon had been dispelled by Mills’s quiet account of the devastation she had wrought on the secret police squad in the Sikorskys’ apartment. He thought her embellishment of his little attack plan was insane, but in a very Russian way. Despite himself, Grishin smiled. He liked this woman. “
Khorosho
,” he said before bellowing, “On your feet, Marines!”

As one, the platoon, led by Mills and Sabourin, got to their feet and readied their weapons.

“Stand by!” Faraday said tensely, and the Marines held on tightly to their grab bars as he swung the cutter — a small ship by Navy standards, but huge compared to most aerospace vehicles — in tightly next to the Central Chamber building. “Now!”

The doors hummed open, and the Marines quickly filed out, followed by Valentina and the Sikorskys, with Dmitri clutching a submachine pistol and carrying Valentina’s sniper rifle and extra ammunition.

The pilot waited until the last Marine had one foot on the ground before closing the hatches and lifting off into a protective orbit low around the government buildings.

In a break from their normal tactics, the Marines did not bother to form a protective perimeter around the cutter as they debarked, but simply raced inside the building, trying to keep up with Grishin.

Behind them, Valentina led the Sikorskys in the opposite direction, heading for the huge clock tower that rose above the wall’s main gate.

* * *

“Marshal Antonov!” one of the communications technicians called, his voice urgent.

“What is it?” Antonov said, grudgingly turning away from the display of the indecisive battle still raging in space.

“The Ceremonial Guards commander reports that the Central Chamber is under attack.”

“Put him on vidcom,” Antonov snapped.

Instantly the Red Army colonel in charge of the Ceremonial Guards came on. “Comrade Marshal,” he reported breathlessly, “the entire government complex is under attack by Confederation Marines.”

“What happened?” Antonov asked.

The colonel hesitated before answering. Antonov could hear a sudden burst of automatic weapons fire, followed by screaming. “We are under attack by Confederation Marines, comrade marshal. We thought at first it was just the Central Chamber,” he said. “Then my quick reaction force came under fire from Confederation troops somewhere on the wall. Many of my men are still pinned down, but I have called for reinforcements from the local garrisons.”

Korolev had been listening intently. “They think we are there,” he thought aloud. “The Confederation fools are trying to capture us!”

Antonov nodded.
They are courageous
, he thought,
if not terribly bright
.

“Kill them,” Korolev ordered. “Kill them all, colonel. Do not bother with prisoners. We do not need any.”

“Understood, Comrade Chairman,” the colonel said, his expression on the vidcom conveying both relief and satisfaction. “It will be my pleasure.”

“Carry on,” Antonov ordered before closing the connection.

“Sir,” a tactical controller called out a moment later, “there is a Confederation ship that is separate from their main group, heading on a bearing toward orbit.” He paused a moment, looking at fresh data that was being provided by the orbital sensor stations. “It appears to be one of the ships we had believed destroyed by Admiral Voroshilov’s nuclear torpedoes in the first engagement. It is being followed by one of the newcomer ships.”

Antonov frowned at the mention of the “newcomer” ships. Korolev was firmly convinced they were nothing more than additional Confederation vessels, but Antonov had been having second thoughts after watching the ongoing space battle and discussing the situation with Voroshilov over vidcom. These newcomers were totally different in design from the known Confederation ships, and their tactics were certainly nothing like what Saint Petersburg’s intelligence services had reported. He was not sure what they were, but he was sure what they were not, and they were
not
Confederation ships. He was not ready to challenge Korolev’s assessment, however. At least, not yet.

“Voroshilov’s forces are fully engaged,” Antonov mused. “Do we have anything else available to intercept?”

“There are five orbital defense vessels on patrol, comrade marshal,” the controller replied, highlighting the ships on his display. “They are not fast, but are well-armed. Together they may be able to engage both ships.” He looked up at Antonov. “The lead enemy vessel, the one that we believe was damaged by one of the nuclear torpedoes, must have taken severe radiation damage, comrade marshal. Unless its hull was specially shielded, the crew is almost certainly suffering from severe radiation poisoning, and many of the electronic components will have been destroyed or damaged. That ship should be an easy prize. The other vessel following it is roughly the same size, but its configuration is unknown.”

“Have the defense vessels depart their stations and engage both ships,” Antonov ordered without hesitation. “Order them to capture the lead vessel if they can, but they are not to take unnecessary risks.”

* * *

Neither the Russian nor French languages had sufficiently potent curses to express Grishin’s sentiments as he burst into the Committee Chamber, weapon drawn and a full squad of Marines behind him.

It was dark and empty.

“
Fuck!
” he hissed, settling on an ancient English expression out of helpless frustration. “Have you found anyone upstairs?” he asked urgently into his comm set.

“Negative, sir,” said the squad leader who had taken his Marines upstairs to the main cabinet offices. “This place is a ghost town. None of the leadership is here, no gofers, not even secretaries. We found a few cleaning crews, but that’s all.” He paused, then said, “Orders, sir?”

“Regroup by the main entrance,” Grishin told him, “and prepare for extraction.”
Korolev must have a wartime bunker somewhere
, he thought,
something they built since the last war
. Something Grishin knew nothing about.

“Sir?” Mills asked from behind him. 

“It is time for us to leave, Mills,” Grishin told him. “They are not here.” They had fought a brief but intense battle with the Ceremonial Guard troops in the building, losing three Marines in the process. All for nothing. “Let’s go.”

He followed Mills and Sabourin back toward the main entrance, the other Marines moving watchfully beside them.

“What is the situation outside?” Grishin asked the second squad leader, whose Marines were stationed near the main entrance.

“Scary as hell, sir,” the squad leader reported, “at least for the Russkies. Whoever that bitch is with the sniper rifle, she sure knows how to use it. We got tired of counting her kills, and none of my folks have had to fire a shot yet...”

* * *

Valentina knew their luck would soon run out, but she was determined to give Grishin what he needed more than anything else right now: time. She had nearly two companies of Russian troops pinned down around the open square leading to the Central Chamber building. The massive rifle she now held snugged up tight to her shoulder was a distant descendant of the famous Barrett Model 82A1 that had been widely used by United States military forces through most of the first half of the twenty-first century. Unlike the now-ancient Model 82A1, however, the rifle she now used fired not massive .50 caliber bullets, but tungsten sabot rounds, fired by a powerful liquid propellant. The projectiles were small enough that a single magazine held fifty, yet they were incredibly dense and packed a devastating punch. Combined with an advanced thermo-optic sight and targeting computer, she could kill targets at ranges of nearly five kilometers if she had clear line of sight. The men she had been killing today, however, were much closer: mere hundreds of meters, which was just far enough to put her out of their effective range. She could kill them at will, but they could only hope that one of their bullets would get lucky, if they wanted to risk shooting at her in the first place. Since she had plenty of ammunition — Sikorsky was carrying four additional magazines — she had been able to effectively neutralize the enemy troops who had not been inside the buildings. If one of the soldiers exposed so much as a hand or a foot, she fired, and the resulting damage to the target was generally lethal.

Her only real worry was that enemy troops might try to swarm the clock tower from along the wall, or that an air strike would get past the cutter that patrolled above. 

“To the left, behind the fountain,” Sikorsky told her. He was looking through the spotting scope that had been in the rifle’s case, helping her look for targets. 

Behind them, Ludmilla watched the entrance to the clock tower behind them, nervously holding the submachine pistol that Sikorsky had brought. Valentina had booby-trapped the stairwell leading up to their position, but it never hurt to have a set of human eyes watching.