The pilot and copilot exchanged glances. “Fuck,” the pilot said. “Why the hell not. It wouldn’t be any more nuts than everything else that’s happened today.”
Ramming the boat’s throttles to the stops, he turned and accelerated toward the cascade of explosions that marked the silent battle in space that was rapidly drawing to its conclusion.
* * *
Ticonderoga was streaming air from half a dozen hits that had penetrated her armor, but she was still making full speed as she burst out the far side of the Kreelan formation. There were other ships behind her, but not many: Tiernan had ordered several of his heavy cruisers, including his flagship, to turn and help a number of the Alliance ships that had run out of ready ammunition and were being mercilessly hammered by the Kreelans. He had lost two of his own cruisers, but saved nearly a dozen Alliance vessels. In the massive butcher’s bill being rung up over Keran, he had to consider it a good trade.
The enemy was already turning to consolidate and regroup for another attack, but Tiernan had had enough. He knew it was time to fold. The war wasn’t over, not by a long shot, but this battle certainly was.
“Stand by to jump,” he said stonily as the Ticonderoga and two of her sister ships blasted a Kreelan destroyer that had pursued them out of the swirling engagement. Ahead of the flagship, most of the surviving ships had already jumped out. He had given them very explicit orders to jump as soon as they were clear. They would worry about regrouping at the rendezvous point.
“Sir,” the flag communications officer suddenly called, “there’s an assault boat calling in a mayday. They didn’t make the rendezvous with their carrier.”
“We can’t risk stopping for them,” Tiernan told him. The words tore at his heart, but he simply couldn’t risk it. The fleet had already bled far too much.
“It’s Lieutenant Sato on the line, sir,” the communications officer told him in the sudden silence of the flag bridge, the guns and alarms now quiet, the bridge crew focused on the jump sequence.
Tiernan sucked in a breath through his teeth. He knew it was wrong to even consider wavering in his decision simply because it was Sato: he knew that the life of every other person aboard the boat was as precious.
But Sato was also a strategic asset. His knowledge and understanding of the enemy had been critical leading up to the battle, and his insights into them now might be even more so. On that basis, he convinced himself, and on that alone, could he justify one more risk to the Ticonderoga and her crew.
“Captain,” he called over the vidcom to the ship’s commander, who was busily engaged in monitoring the jump sequence, “suspend the jump. We need to pick up that assault boat.”
The captain blinked at him, then said crisply, “Aye, aye, sir,” before issuing maneuvering orders to get to the boat before the Kreelans had a chance to catch them.
As Ticonderoga sped forward, the remaining Terran and Alliance ships jumped out.
* * *
“I don’t believe it,” the pilot said, shaking his head in wonder. “Ticonderoga’s on her way to pick us up.” He looked back at Sato, who still stared out the viewscreen. “You know, sir, you might be considered lucky if you didn’t seem to attract so much trouble.”
Sato couldn’t help but smile. He had forgotten the pilot’s insubordination. He had forgotten everything but the enemy, and those who had died fighting them. More ghosts, but ones that now he could live with, that he could help avenge.
Steph stood next to him, her shoulder pressing against his side. He looked down and saw her smile, her grimy, soot-covered face the most beautiful thing in the universe at that moment.
Ticonderoga was only a few minutes away when the second Kreelan fleet arrived.
* * *
“Good, God!” someone exclaimed on the flag bridge as the tactical display suddenly filled with new yellow icons that immediately began to turn an ugly red.
“Enemy close aboard!” Tiernan heard the ship’s tactical officer shout at her captain. In the flag bridge’s main display, he could see half a dozen Kreelan warships, all clearly heavy cruisers like Ticonderoga, that had materialized within tens of meters of the flagship. Even in the swirling fight they had just been through, no ships had come that close. Every detail of the sleek Kreelan warships was clear without any magnification as they slid through space next to Ticonderoga like the predators they were.
“Stand by to fire!” the captain called out.
“Belay that!” Tiernan ordered on an impulse. The cruisers surrounding Ticonderoga were among what must have been at least another hundred warships that had just jumped in-system. And his flagship was right in the middle of the formation. “If they were going to fire, they would have already,” he said, not quite believing his own words, but hoping they were true.
“The boat’s approaching the starboard main airlock, sir,” the tactical officer reported shakily, his eyes darting from ship to ship in the tactical display. There was utter and complete silence on the bridge and flag bridge. The only thing Tiernan could hear was the deep thrum of the ship’s drives.
“Get them aboard,” Tiernan ordered, “and then let’s get the hell out of here.”
* * *
“Come on, let’s go!” Sato told the others as he ushered them forward through the airlock into the wounded cruiser. As soon as they had opened the hatch to the ship’s main airlock, which opened directly to the passageway, since both ships were pressurized, smoke streamed into the boat, along with a dozen of the ship’s crewmen who had been sent to help.
“These men need to get to sickbay immediately,” Sato told the ship’s surgeon and her brace of nurses and Marine medics. They quickly but carefully gathered up Sparks, Grishin, Hadley, and the others, lifting them onto stretchers and moving them quickly to sickbay.
“Lieutenant Sato?” one of the crewmen, an ensign, called. “The admiral wants to see you right away, sir.”
Nodding, Sato told him, “As soon as my people are off this boat.” He stood near the hatch, giving a pat on the back or a helping hand, whichever was most needed, to the soldiers and sailors who streamed past.
Steph stood next to him, clutching her rifle to her chest. Not for fear of anything on the Ticonderoga, but for fear of what could happen any moment: she and the others had seen the Kreelan warships jump in all around them, and she knew they would be boarding at any second. Sato had assured her it wouldn’t happen, but she wasn’t about to hand her rifle to anyone. And even now, her battered and grimy video array was still recording.
“But sir,” the ensign protested, “the admiral said right away.”
“He can wait a couple minutes,” Sato said as he hustled his charges off.
In three minutes, everyone was off the boat. After a quick check of the little ship’s cavernous interior to make sure they hadn’t left anyone behind, Sato grabbed Steph by the hand and dashed through the airlock into Ticonderoga. A crewman slapped the emergency disconnect control, and the airlock doors slammed shut. Then the docking collar was released, and the assault boat fell behind as the big cruiser pulled away.
Together, Sato and Steph ran after the ensign toward the flag bridge as Ticonderoga jumped to safety.
* * *
On Keran, watching as the healers tended to Li’ara-Zhurah’s wounds, Tesh-Dar’s mind was simultaneously tens of thousands of kilometers away, her second sight watching as the ships of the second fleet arrived. Her mind’s eye saw the small vessel bearing the Messenger dock with one of the surviving human ships, sailing bravely under the many guns of her Imperial consorts, and he was borne to safety when the human ship jumped away.
She sighed in contentment, drawing her mind fully back to her body. She had decided she would take Li’ara-Zhurah back to the kazha, the school of the Way, where Tesh-Dar was headmistress. For there could the injury to her soul be mended.
Looking around her, she frowned at the devastation that the opening battle had wrought. The Children of the Empress would have much
preferred personal combat without the use of such weapons as had been used this day, but the humans did not understand. Tesh-Dar knew that they would try and develop greater weapons, but hoped that someday they would see that it made little sense outside the arena of space: there, yes, let the great ships fight on. But on the ground, they would not be allowed to use much of what they had long taken for granted. She shrugged inwardly. They would learn. They had no choice.
“She is ready, my priestess,” one of the healers told her, head bowed as she gestured toward Li’ara-Zhurah, who still lay unconscious.
Tesh-Dar bowed her head in thanks as she knelt and picked up Li’ara-Zhurah in her arms, an easy burden to her great body, but one that yet troubled her soul. With one last look at the human’s funeral pyre, its flames rising high in the smoke-filled sky, Tesh-Dar closed her eyes as the power of the Empress surged through her, bending the laws of space and time to return the two of them to the Homeworld.
* * *
Aboard the Ticonderoga, now safely away in hyperspace, Admiral Tiernan turned at the sudden commotion at the entrance to the flag bridge.
“Lieutenant Sato, reporting as ordered, sir.” Ichiro stood at rigid attention, holding a perfect salute for the admiral. Beside him stood Steph, still clutching her rifle.
“Lieutenant,” Tiernan said, returning the younger man’s salute. “Miss Guillaume.” He was quiet for a moment as he looked at the two of them. Their uniforms (as an embed, Steph wore one, but without any rank) were filthy and torn, and their faces and hands were no better. “I take it that it was you who took McClaren up against those Kreelan ships that went after the carriers,” he said to Sato.
“Yes, sir,” Sato told him. “Captain Morrison was killed soon after...soon after he destroyed the Alliance troopship and we were hit. I was the senior surviving officer. I...did the best I could, sir, but...I lost my ship.”
Tiernan saw the young officer’s eyes mist over with a kind of grief that the admiral understood all too well. He saw Steph take Sato’s hand and grip it tight.
“Son,” Tiernan said, stepping closer and putting a hand on Sato’s shoulder, “I lost a lot of ships today, and a lot of good men and women. You may have lost your ship, but you saved the carriers and their crews, and the soldiers from the planet. That’s not a bad day’s work for any ship’s captain.” He offered Sato a proud smile. “You and your crew did a damned fine job, Ichiro. A damned fine job.”
EPILOGUE
President McKenna sat in a room deep in the heart of the presidential complex. It was surprisingly small and unassuming, considering the importance of the conversations that took place around the oval table at its center.
With her sat Minister of Defense Joshua Sabine, Admiral Tiernan, General Singh, and Secretary of State Hamilton Barca. General Sharine Metz, commander of the Terran Aerospace Defense Force, was also present. Metz was still angry that her service had been unable to participate in the defense of Keran, but part of her couldn’t help but be relieved after hearing of the losses the other services had suffered.
This was the first unofficial debriefing that had been called by the president upon the fleet’s return. The summary of the battle that Tiernan delivered had been more than sobering.
“So, you lost a third of your ships, admiral,” McKenna said, looking at the room’s display screen and the brutal list of losses it showed in stark text.
“Yes, Madam President,” Tiernan said tightly. He was ready for the axe to fall. While the inevitability of being relieved had eaten at him like acid, he knew there was far more at stake than just his career or his pride. Had he been in McKenna’s shoes he would not have hesitated to cashier an officer who had lost a full third of his fleet. The president had given him very strict instructions that he was not to sacrifice his fleet as a fighting force, but that’s essentially what he had done when he and Lefevre had decided to go after the Kreelan force in high orbit. He had been appalled at how many ships were missing when Ticonderoga arrived at the rendezvous point. He had taken a high stakes gamble and lost.
She fixed him with her gaze, and the others in the room suddenly found other things to look at. They knew what was coming, too.
But, as she had on other occasions, McKenna surprised them. “Under the circumstances, Admiral, you and your crews did an amazing job,” she told him. “I would have expected you to have lost far more of the fleet. And had you been given the ships and resources we had originally planned on, I suspect the battle might have gone a bit more in our favor.”
Tiernan blinked, taken completely off-balance. “Ma’am, I’ve already prepared my resignation and retirement papers,” he said automatically, as if he hadn’t heard a word she had just said. He had practiced this conversation so many times on the trip home that his brain simply hadn’t caught up with the reality.
“I don’t think that will be necessary, admiral,” Sabine, his direct boss, told him with a smile. “The president and I are of one mind on this. The losses suffered by the expeditionary force were extremely heavy. No one can dispute that. But you, and General Ray’s troops in the ground battle, carried out the spirit of the president’s orders.”
“You might have been able to preserve more of your ships had you pulled out of the system before the final engagement with the Kreelan fleet,” McKenna told him, “but that would have left our relations with the Alliance in a shambles. I’ll say this only in this room, and it is never to be repeated: as great a tragedy as losing Keran might be, it is one we could diplomatically and politically afford in terms of Earth’s standing in the human sphere. But we could not afford to leave the Alliance fleet hanging. That would have been an unmitigated disaster in this situation. Admiral,” she told him, “I want you to know that the sacrifice of your ships and crews, and the sacrifice of General Singh’s troops, was not in vain.”
As if on cue, the door opened quietly and one of her aides poked his head in.
“He’s here, Madam President,” he said.
“Show him in, please.” McKenna watched her companions as they all looked toward the door, curiosity evident on their faces.
Ambassador Laurent Navarre of Avignon stepped into the room, and the others came to their feet in surprise. All but President McKenna, of course.
“Mr. Ambassador,” Barca said, taking Navarre’s hand, “what a pleasant surprise.” With a slight but unmistakeable emphasis on the last word, he glanced over his shoulder at the president, who remained silent.
“Please, Hamilton,” Navarre told him as he took the big man’s hand and shook it, “you may blame me for the cloak and dagger antics. I specifically requested that President McKenna keep my presence here a secret, even from you.”
“Especially from me, you mean,” Barca told him with a smile as Navarre shook the hands of the others.
“Madam President,” he said as he came to McKenna. She stood, and he took her hand and kissed it. “Always a great honor.”
“The honor is all mine,” she told him, smiling despite herself at the man’s charm. You can take the Frenchman out of France, she thought, but you can’t take France out of the Frenchman. “But I have to admit we’re all curious about the, as you put it, ‘cloak and dagger antics.’”
“Yes,” he said heavily as he waited until she had regained her seat, then sat down with the others around the table. He glanced at the information on the wall display, but only briefly. What it showed came as no surprise to him. “I come unofficially as a representative of the Alliance,” he told them. “I am here so soon because my government arranged for a series of couriers to relay news as quickly as possible. Very expensive, but in this case a bargain.” He licked his lips, clearly upset about what he had to tell them. “Madam President, my friends, the Alliance is in a state of near-panic. As you know, the fleet led by Amiral Lefevre was the greater part of our space combat power, and the ground divisions that were lost on Keran were our best troops. The opposition in the parliaments of every planet of the Alliance is calli
ng for a vote of confidence against the Alliance Prime Minister, saying that the current government has left the entire Alliance open to alien invasion.”
“But the opposition parties were the strongest proponents of sending the fleet in the first place!” Tiernan blurted, looking at Barca, who was shaking his head, not in disbelief, but in disgust. The opposition’s reaction came as no surprise to him.
“Too true, amiral,” Navarre said, “but they are equally free to blame the current government for any disasters. And what happened to Amiral Lefevre’s fleet and the ground forces can only be considered a disaster. The greatest defeat in a single battle, perhaps, since Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo.”
“How many ships did you lose?” McKenna asked.
“Lefevre sailed with just over one hundred and fifty warships, including half a dozen resupply ships,” he told her, the pain of Lefevre’s loss clearly written on his face. “Only fifty-seven returned, most of them damaged. And all ten ground divisions were virtually wiped out, although the Légion étrangère suffered the worst: of the twenty combat regiments deployed to Keran, only a few hundred legionnaires survived.”
“It wasn’t just about the numbers,” Tiernan interjected. “We did the right thing, making a stand there and not just letting the enemy walk in with their swords swinging. Even with the second fleet the Kreelans sent in at the end, if we had only had a few dozen more ships and a better idea of what to expect before we went in, I think we might have been able to hold them off. Our two fleets worked extremely well together, even without tightly linked command and control.”
“No one would agree with you more than me, amiral,” Navarre reassured him. “And that, truly, brings us to why I am here.” He looked at the faces around the room, his gaze finally settling on the president. “The Alliance Prime Minister would like to establish a new government, an interplanetary government that goes beyond the Francophone worlds, beyond the existing Alliance Française.”
In Her Name: The Last War Page 46