* * *
Just like the warriors on the ground, the Kreelan ships refused to yield. Outnumbered, outgunned, and facing an opponent who held all the cards, Tiernan thought, they still came on.
Half a dozen ships in the human fleet had been destroyed thus far, and another two dozen damaged. It was a heavy price to pay, but Tiernan believed they had gotten a good deal on the butcher’s bill: fully half of the Kreelan ships had been destroyed, and all the rest had been damaged.
But the human fleet wasn’t out of the woods yet: the Kreelan ships were sailing straight into the human fleet’s formation, with ranges so close now that his cruisers could no longer fire their primary kinetic weapons without fear of damage to themselves when the rounds hit the enemy ships. And some of his ships had to maneuver out of the way of Kreelans that were clearly trying to ram.
The Kreelan ships didn’t seem to care: they continued to fire their kinetics with total abandon, and both sides slashed at each other with heavy lasers. The beams of coherent light vaporized armor and hull plating, venting the crew spaces beyond to vacuum, or seared off sensor arrays or engine mounts, sometimes sending a ship into an uncontrolled tumble.
“Sir!” the flag tactical officer called. “Multiple new contacts, hundreds, across the sector. Designating as probable boarding parties.”
“All ships,” Tiernan ordered, “prepare to repel boarders!”
On the vidcom display, Admiral Lefevre aboard the Jean Bart pressed his lips into a thin line. Outside of the view of the camera, his hands clenched so tightly the knuckles bled white.
Tiernan had hoped that his own ships would bear the brunt of any boarding attacks, but the reality of the battle had determined otherwise. The cloud of targets, which had by now grown to several thousand tiny icons on the tactical display, blowing through his formation like dandelion seeds, was dispersed along the port side of the fleet. Many of the Alliance ships would again be on the receiving end of boarding attacks, although they had new weapons on board that would help even the odds: Terran Marines.
“Have the First Destroyer Flotilla redeploy here,” he told the flag tactical officer, drawing a line on the tactical display along the flank of the Alliance warships that were in the heaviest part of the cloud of targets, “to give the Alliance ships some close-in protection.”
Nodding, the tactical officer relayed the order to the communications officer, who ensured that the orders got to the commander of the destroyer flotilla.
Less than thirty seconds later, six Terran Fleet destroyers wove quickly through the formation to take up station between the Alliance cruisers and the rapidly approaching cloud of attackers.
“Engage,” Tiernan ordered quietly.
Every Terran ship had been fitted with a set of weapons that were not dissimilar from the close-in defense weapons fitted to the Wolfhound tanks. They were large-bore mortars with a short barrel that could be aimed like most other shipboard weapons, and fired an explosive shell filled with thousands of needle-like flechettes. The mortars had a short range, but they were simple, reliable, and devastating against space suits, armored or not.
“Firing mortars,” the tactical officer reported.
Seconds later, the crews of the Terran fleet began to hear a very distinct crump echo through the hulls of their ships as the mortars began to fire at the incoming clouds of Kreelan warriors.
* * *
Amar-Marakh, the senior shipmistress of the Kreelan fleet, gasped at the sudden turmoil in the Bloodsong as hundreds of warriors were wiped away, almost in an instant. The anticipation in the thread of the melodies sung by the warriors trying to board the human ships changed to shock and then fierce rage.
A challenge, even a great one, the pursuit of which would almost certainly lead to death, was to be sought to bring glory to the Empress. But to have the warriors slaughtered in such a fashion as this was not a challenge; it was a waste of precious blood. That, she could not tolerate.
“Deploy the fleet,” she ordered tersely to her First. “We attack.”
* * *
“Admiral,” the tactical officer warned, “the Kreelan force in high orbit is moving.”
Tiernan glanced up at the display, seeing the red icons of the other Kreelan ships heading on a course that would no doubt lead them into the fray. “Dammit,” he cursed.
“It was inevitable, amiral,” Lefevre told him from the vidcom. “We will only have a few minutes until we must break contact with our current opponents to try and regroup.”
“If we can break contact, sir,” Tiernan said as Ticonderoga rocked from another hit. “I think we’re going to have to kill every last ship in this formation. They’re not going to break contact, and we can’t put our sterns to them and let them shoot us in the fantail.”
“Then let us destroy them with all haste,” Lefevre told him. “Engage with kinetics, danger close, amiral.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” Tiernan replied. Then, turning to his flag officer, “Pass the word: all ships are to engage with everything they have, including primary kinetics. Danger close. We must finish off these enemy ships!”
Less than one minute after Lefevre had given the order, every gun in the human fleet opened up on the two dozen remaining Kreelan warships. Four human ships died when their targets, only a few hundred meters away, exploded, taking the human ships with them.
But ten minutes after the order had been given, ten minutes that seemed like an eternal orgy of heavy weapons fire to the crews, every Kreelan ship of the second assault wave had been reduced to a blasted hulk.
The human fleet swept onward, mortar rounds continuing to blast the warriors who still were desperately trying to board the fleeing ships. But the efforts of the Kreelans were in vain: not a single warrior made it through the devastating fire from the defense mortars.
The Marines aboard the ships, who had been anticipating their first chance to prove themselves, were terribly disappointed.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Pursuing the huge metal genoth, the human vehicle that was in her mind akin to one of the great dragons that prowled the wastelands of the Homeworld, Li’ara-Zhurah had never run as quickly in her life. She was on the ragged edge of exhaustion, as were the four warriors who had accompanied her on this great hunt. But she ignored the leaden pain in her legs and the burning in her lungs, the frantic beating of her heart. That beast was her prize, and she would not be denied it.
After the earlier attack by a different group of warriors that she had watched, with dozens of them wading into the human warriors and their armored escorts, only the single vehicle, the one she wanted so badly, had escaped, its hull crowded with the human warriors who had managed to survive the devastating battle.
But then the machine had fled at great speed, the massive tracks bearing it over the mounds of rubble, small passenger vehicles, and bodies alike. It slowed down only when it was forced to make a turn, and the only time it turned was when a street ended or was choked with unarmed humans that were still streaming out of the devastated city.
Wishing that she had powers beyond imagining as did the great priestess, Tesh-Dar, or even a simple vehicle, Li’ara-Zhurah did the best she could with the natural powers of the body the Empress had given her by birth: she ran. She gave up trying to run a parallel course to the vehicle for fear of losing it should it make a turn along the way. Instead, she simply ran at what she considered a safe distance behind it, “safe” being a relative term. Several times the human warrior whose head poked out of the turret had fired at her with the devastating weapon mounted on top of the vehicle. Some of the humans riding along had also fired at her. But the vehicle was moving so quickly over so much debris that their aim was poor.
A few of the humans on top of the vehicle had fallen off in the course of the pursuit, but the vehicle did not slow down. Li’ara-Zhurah had not expected it to, for Her Children would not have done so in battle. She simply ignored the abandoned humans, leaving the other warriors to tend to th
em with their blades.
Li’ara-Zhurah shut out the complaints of her body by focusing on the vision of thrusting her blade through the heart of the human female who commanded the vehicle.
* * *
Coyle kept a wary eye on the small group of Kreelans who were hunting her tank. Her gut churned at their single-minded intensity, particularly that of the leader. She had tried to blast them to bits, of course, but after the first few shots had given up: even with her gatling gun’s gyro-stabilization giving her a rock-solid sight picture, the Kreelans seemed to almost anticipate Coyle’s shots, dodging out of the way. And with as little ammunition as she had left, she couldn’t afford to waste it.
The infantry had taken pot shots at their pursuers, but with no more effect. Coyle had ordered them to conserve their ammunition.
“How much longer?” the reporter, Steph something-or-other, asked.
“About five minutes to reach the LZ,” Coyle told her, checking her map display for the location of the landing zone, or LZ. “Then about five minutes more until the boats are supposed to land.”
“What about all the Kreelans who were there before we left?” Steph asked.
Coyle shrugged. “Hope they went somewhere else. If we can’t secure the drop zone, the boats aren’t gonna land.”
A few minutes later, Chiquita passed by the original hide positions used by Coyle’s platoon. Then they passed by the last buildings on the outskirts of the city, heading toward the positions originally occupied by the Alliance Legion’s 1st Cavalry Regiment, the 1er REC.
“Jesus,” Coyle whispered as Chiquita slowed to a halt.
Ahead of them were about a hundred men, legionnaires, who were the only living people as far as she could see. From her vantage point on top of the tank, she could see the positions that had been occupied by the wheeled tanks of the 1er REC, as well as those next to it that had been dug out for the paratroopers, the 2ème REP. It was a charnel house, with at least a couple thousand human and Kreelan bodies strewn about, along with the burned-out hulks of the armored regiment’s tanks and other vehicles. The smoke from the wrecks wafted away over the nearby forest to join the greater black cloud streaming from the devastated city.
The legionnaires were sitting or laying down, clearly exhausted. One of them, a big man who looked like he’d been on the losing end of a fight with a bulldozer, rose unsteadily to his feet and staggered toward Chiquita.
Coyle tried to get out of the turret to go meet him, but suddenly just...couldn’t. Her legs, her body, wouldn’t respond. “Oh, fuck,” she said as she leaned forward and vomited. Nothing came up, as she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink for hours. She had been running on adrenaline and fear alone.
She felt a comforting hand on her shoulder, then someone hugging her.
“It’s okay,” she heard the reporter, Steph, say softly.
After the heaves passed, Steph and one of the other soldiers helped Coyle from the cupola, and she made her way through Chiquita’s human passengers, finally reaching the ground on shaky legs. Despite the lack of any Kreelan warriors, even the ones who had been pursuing them out of the city, none of the infantry wanted to leave the perceived safety of the tank’s menacing bulk.
Coyle tried not to sway too much as she walked to meet the approaching legionnaire. “Bonjour,” she said, using the only word she knew in French that wouldn’t start a bar fight. “Staff Sergeant Patty Coyle, 7th Cavalry Regiment.”
The man offered her a smile through his battered face, and extended a paw that was equally mauled, with raw, broken knuckles and at least a couple of broken fingers. His grip, though, was still strong, and he didn’t even wince when she applied gentle pressure, not wanting to appear to be a wimpy female to him.
“Happy to see you, Sergeant Coyle,” he said in an accent she recognized as British, although he had a bit of a lisp from several missing teeth. He sounded far too perky for someone in his condition, particularly in contrast to the exhausted men around him. Then she realized that he was probably so high on painkillers and other drugs that she could have hit his foot with a sledge hammer and he’d only ask her for more.
“She’s a brevet captain,” Steph corrected him from where she stood behind Coyle.
The legionnaire raised his eyebrows, or would have if his face had not been so swollen. “Outstanding!” he said, saluting. “Soldat 1e Classe Roland Mills and the remainder of the Légion étrangère - well, two regiments of it, in any case - at your service. If you might like to meet our commanding officer?”
Coyle returned the salute, then turned around to give Steph her best evil eye. The reporter shrugged unapologetically before following Coyle, uninvited, after Mills.
When they reached the small circle of legionnaires clustered around one who was lying on the ground, Coyle bit back more bile. Both of the man’s legs were badly burned, as was his left arm.
“Mon colonel,” Mills said, “this is brevet Captain Coyle of...” Mills turned to her, leaving the rest of the sentence hanging.
“Of the 7th Cavalry Regiment,” Coyle said. “Our commander, Colonel Sparks, is still alive, but very badly injured.”
“A common theme among the officers, it would seem,” the man on the ground said, a humorless smile touching his lips. “I am Lieutenant-Colonel Grishin, commander of the 1er REC. I am glad your colonel survived. A most interesting man.” Peering up at Steph, he added, “And I see the lovely Miss Guillaume survived thus far, as well. I am happy this is so.”
“Thank you, sir,” Steph replied, not sure what else to say. So many others, trained to be soldiers, had died, and yet she had somehow survived. It didn’t make any sense. Then again, this entire war didn’t make any sense.
“Our colonel’s in very bad shape, sir,” Coyle said. “He was run through with a sword and has severe internal injuries. I just hope he can make it back to the fleet.” She looked to the sky. “There are boats coming in to pick all of us up, your people, as well. They should be here very soon if they stayed on schedule.”
Grishin frowned, almost as if he were disappointed. “We did not know. I had thought this would be our Camarón.”
Coyle had no idea who or what Camarón was, but from his tone of voice it sounded like it was the Legion’s equivalent of the Little Bighorn for the 7th Cav.
Before she could say anything else, Grishin asked her, “Coyle, I am placing you in command of my men. We have no officers remaining, and I am in no shape to command. Will you do that?”
She looked at the weary hard-faced men around her, then up at Mills, who nodded slightly. “Yes, sir. If they’re willing to follow my orders.”
“They will,” he said with a hint of a smile. “They have not followed the orders of a woman before, but with you commanding the only functional armored vehicle here, they can hardly argue, yes? And Mills will make sure they do not misbehave.”
The big legionnaire nodded gravely. Coyle noticed that the other men regarded him with obvious awe. He was an impressive-looking man who had clearly managed to take a savage beating and survived to tell about it, but the expressions on the faces of the others said that there was more to the story. She’d have to find out about it later, assuming any of them survived.
“Then we should get into defensive positions,” Coyle said. “All your men are clustered in one spot.”
“We have no need,” one of the other legionnaires said pointedly through a heavy German accent. “We are safe.”
“What do you mean?” Steph said hotly. “Nobody’s safe here.”
The legionnaire pointed to Mills. “He fought one of the aliens, a huge one. She let us go. The aliens went away, let us live.”
“It’s true,” Mills said. “I know it sounds absurd, but that’s what happened. They were slaughtering us, then this giant of a female warrior came and tagged me for a bit of fun.” He gestured at his face. “I guess I entertained her well enough. Then after beating me into the bloody ground, she and all her vixen friends trotted off som
ewhere else. They didn’t give us a second thought after that.”
“Well, you may be safe,” Coyle said, not sure she could buy a story like that, “but we sure as hell aren’t. We’ve been hounded from the start, and there was a group of warriors hunting us all the way out of the city. They disappeared, but I can’t believe they followed us all that way to just give up right at the end.” She glanced worriedly behind her, noting with some relief that Yuri, as tired as he was, had the foresight to turn the turret around and was constantly scanning the approaches to their position. The infantry on the rear deck had hopped, and in some cases simply tumbled, to the ground as the main gun swept back and forth. “I don’t think they’re just going to let us walk away when the boats get here.”
That’s when she heard a sound like thunder: sonic booms from the boats as they made their approach.
“It’s about fucking time,” she whispered, relief suddenly flooding through her. We can do this, she told herself. Just a few minutes.
“Coyle,” one of the infantrymen called to her. She turned and looked where he was pointing. More uniformed figures were coming down the road, running, shuffling, and staggering. There were hundreds of them. As they got closer, she could see that it was a mix of men and women from the rest of her parent 31st Armored Division and a sprinkling of Alliance troops. No vehicles. But maybe there would be a real officer who could take charge of this fuckup.
As it turned out, there was. One of the company commanders from a different brigade, someone she had never met before, was the ranking officer. After she briefly explained what she knew, he did exactly what she should have figured would happen: he officially put her in charge of securing the perimeter, using her tank and “her” infantry. In the meantime, he began to organize the rest of the survivors into groups to get onto the boats, and completely ignored the legionnaires.
In Her Name: The Last War Page 40