In Her Name: The Last War

by Michael R. Hicks

  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.

  Following Sikorsky’s cue, she shifted her aim slightly, the big weapon’s electronic sight immediately picking up the thermal signature of the three soldiers who were trying to low-crawl their way toward the Central Chamber building, using a small decorative wall for cover. They had not yet learned that her weapon was powerful enough to shoot through a foot of reinforced concrete and kill a man on the other side.

  “Firing,” she announced before holding her breath and stroking the trigger. The weapon fired with a deafening boom, the recoil against her shoulder shoving her back a few centimeters.

  Sikorsky watched as the three soldiers disappeared in an explosion of stone and flesh. Unlike a standard rifle, which usually simply punched holes through the human body, the rounds from this weapon literally blew them apart. Having been an infantryman during the war against Earth and the Alliance, he could imagine the terror of the men down there in the square, knowing that they would not merely be shot, but blown to bits, if they were not behind solid cover, and if they did not stay there. Valentina’s aim was supernatural, and her eyesight must also have been exquisite, for she had seen movement and picked out targets that he had barely seen with his more powerful spotting scope. In all, Valentina had killed fifty-six enemy soldiers in the brief time since they had taken up residence in the clock tower, including what he believed must have been virtually all of the enemy battalion’s officers and senior NCOs. Leading their men headlong across the square to the Central Chamber building as part of the quick reaction force called in against the Marines, Valentina had massacred them.

  The butchery, while gruesome, had reinforced his faith that she was the best chance of survival he and Ludmilla had.

  Valentina was scanning for more targets when she heard Grishin’s voice in her earphone.

  “Scarlet,” he said, “they are not here. This was all for nothing.”

  “Shit,” she said in response.

  “Da,” he said. “Exactly so. I am ordering the rest of the brigade to not bother coming here, but to head to the main spaceport to secure it if they can. They will need to find a ship we can use to get back to the fleet. We will pull out from here using the cutter, and then provide the brigade with fire support as they assault the spaceport.” He paused. “With the enemy troops now so close to the building here...”

  “Don’t worry, colonel,” she promised. “I’ll cover you as you load up the cutter. We’ll be ready to hop on board as you cross over the wall.”

  “Be careful, dorogaya,” he said. “And good hunting.”

  “Dmitri, Ludmilla!” Valentina called out. “We’re pulling out of here. We have to cover the Marines as they move from the Central Chamber building to the cutter, then they’ll pick us up on the way out.” She turned to look at each of them in turn. “The Ceremonial Guards will do everything they can to stop us. Be prepared.”

  “We are ready,” Sikorsky answered, and Ludmilla nodded before turning back to watching the door behind them.

  Above them, the drone of the cutter’s engines suddenly became louder, just before its point defense lasers ripped through the sky.

  * * *

  Grishin cringed as the sky around the government complex suddenly seemed to explode. The Russians had fired a volley of anti-aircraft missiles at the cutter, trying to saturate its defenses. The point-defense lasers were up to the task, but barely. He could see where the ship’s hull was pitted and scored by shrapnel from one of the missile warheads, and he hoped the hull hadn’t been penetrated. If it had, the cutter would no longer be spaceworthy until it could be patched.

  The ship dove over the wall surrounding the complex, the lasers firing at any enemy troops who were exposed. The pilot managed to maneuver the ship right up next to the Central Chamber building, the ramps already down.

  “Get aboard!” Grishin ordered. “Quickly!”

  The Marines needed no coaxing. In a fast but orderly manner, they ran up the ramp, diving into their seats inside.

  The Russian troops huddling around the fountains, concrete benches, and other bits of cover afforded in the square suddenly came to life. Even with most of their officers gone, they knew that this was their last and probably best chance to kill the Marines. As one, they knelt and stood up and began to pour fire into the cutter, with those who were in throwing distance preparing their grenades.

  The cutter’s point defense lasers sent a cascade of emerald beams across the square, vaporizing half a dozen men. But the geometry was bad: the weapons simply couldn’t be brought to bear against most of the now-berserk Russians, half of whom had gotten to their feet and were charging toward the vulnerable rear of the cutter, their enraged howling nearly as loud as the cutter’s hover engines.

  Amid the bedlam, two Russian soldiers calmly readied hypervelocity missiles that could obliterate a heavily armored tank.


  * * *

  “Firing!” Valentina hissed as she pulled the trigger, blasting a Russian soldier who had been cocking his arm to throw a grenade. The grenade fell to the ground and exploded, sending several other soldiers flying. She selected another target and fired, then again and again. “Blyad’,” she cursed, “they’re rushing the ship!”

  She whipped her head to the side as an assault rifle went off right next to her: it was Dmitri, using the rifle she had carried up here, doing what he could to help stop the attacking Russians. He could not fire accurately at this range, but he didn’t have to: if a bullet landed almost anywhere in the square down there, it would hit a Russian soldier.

  “Keep shooting!” he shouted at her as he fired short bursts into the mass of screaming Russian troops that were now surging toward the cutter.

  Putting her eyes to the electronic scope again, Valentina tried to sort out the most important targets in the swirling mass of bodies. She caught another soldier about to throw a grenade, blowing his torso to pieces, the tungsten needle continuing on to shred three other soldiers before it stopped. She had to be careful, because if one of those slugs hit the cutter, it would punch right through the hull. Boom. Another grenade thrower went down. Boom. Four soldiers who had lined up in a perfect row as they ran now lay together in death.