In Her Name: The Last War (51 page)

* * *

The explosion of Frederickson’s tank slammed Coyle’s head against the inside hatch coaming. Had she not been wearing a helmet, her skull would have been fractured. As it was, she got off with little more than temporary deafness from the blast and a massive headache. 

Chiquita’s
systems didn’t even flicker, but that was no consolation to the tank’s commander. Coyle bit back her tears and the surge of bile that rose to her throat as she saw the carnage in the street. Frederickson’s grenades would have been bad enough, detonating in the midst of the melee to kill Kreelans and humans alike. But the explosion of his tank was worse: the Kreelan who planted the grenade had the uncanny luck to have stuck it right over one of the fuel cells. The resulting explosion blew out the right rear of the vehicle in a spectacular fireball that killed most of those who managed to survive the grenades. 

Coyle was glad Frederickson was dead. Had the Kreelan grenade not cooked him inside his tank, she would have killed him herself. But the heart of Coyle’s cold, bitter rage was the knowledge that she would now have to leave so many behind: not just the dead, but the wounded and those simply too exhausted to keep up. She simply couldn’t protect them, and if they continued at a shuffling pace, they were all going to die. 

Her driver had kept the tank moving at a pace that would just barely get them to the extraction zone on time, assuming they didn’t hit any major obstacles. But the time for that was over.

As
Chiquita
turned the corner about fifty meters down the street, she said, “Stop the tank, Mannie.” She popped the hatch and wearily stood up to face the pitifully few soldiers who had managed to survive and stay with her. Ironically, the civilian van that was packed with wounded, including Colonel Sparks and Sergeant Hadley, was still with her. The Kreelans were completely ignoring it, as if it weren’t worthy of being attacked, and it had been just far enough away to avoid major damage from Frederickson’s tank when it blew. 

Coyle could still hear screaming from behind them, whether just the agony of the wounded, or from terror of more Kreelans, she didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.

“Get on,” she croaked through the loudspeakers to the exhausted infantry catching their breath in the tank’s shadow. 

For a moment, none of them moved. She was about to repeat herself when the female newshound awkwardly slung her rifle and clambered up the left side and onto the top deck of the hull. Turning around, she gestured to the other soldiers around her to climb on, and did her best to help them up. In a minute or two, the survivors of the 7th Cavalry Regiment had crammed themselves on top of Coyle’s tank, holding on to any handy protrusion on the hull and turret, hanging on to each other.

“Whatever you do,” Coyle shouted at them, “don’t let go. If you fall off, we’re not stopping for you.” She caught the eye of the reporter, leaning against the turret near Coyle’s cupola. The woman nodded, one hand holding onto the turret basket that contained all of the crew’s gear and spare parts. Her other hand clutched her rifle.

“Yuri,” she said through her helmet intercom to the gunner as she slewed her gatling gun to point behind the tank, just over the heads of the infantry crouching on the engine deck, “watch our front. I’ll keep an eye on the rear.” Then, to the driver, she said, “Go, Mannie. Go as fast as you can. And don’t stop for shit.”

“We’re just going to leave them?” he said, his voice colored as much with relief as with guilt.

“Do you want to go back there, Mannie?” she whispered into the microphone, hoping the infantry clustered around her wouldn’t hear. 

But of course, they did. Heads turned away, faces clouded with shame. More than a few cheeks were streaked with tears. They were leaving behind friends and comrades, in some cases lovers. But none of them, not one, wanted to go back. They heard what Coyle said, but pretended not to.

Without another word, Mannie started
Chiquita
moving, the quiet whine of the powerful motors lost in the squeaking and clanking of the battered tracks as the heavy vehicle picked up speed. 

The last thing Coyle heard, as plain as if he were standing right beside her, was the voice of Lieutenant Krumholtz, who had been hit in the leg and hadn’t been able to keep up. He was among those who were now being left behind.

“Goddamn, you, Coyle!” she heard him scream. “
God damn you!
”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Tiernan’s attention was fixed on the tactical display. For once, the combined human fleet had a clear tactical advantage, and he and Lefevre were determined to make the most of it. They outnumbered the Kreelan force by roughly two to one in ships and tonnage both, and the admirals planned to force a decisive engagement before the remaining Kreelan ships in high orbit could maneuver to interfere. So far those enemy ships had been content to stay where they were, but Tiernan knew that couldn’t last forever.

The disposition of the two fleets also clearly favored the humans: instead of the head-on stone throwing contest they had against the first Kreelan assault force, the human fleet would first pass across the head of the second Kreelan formation as it clawed its way up from low orbit, “crossing the T” in old wet navy terms. The human ships would be able to bring all of their main batteries to bear, while the Kreelans would only be able to target the humans with their forward-facing weapons. After that, the plan was to reverse course behind the Kreelans and take them the same way from behind, raking the vulnerable sterns of the enemy ships. Neither admiral expected the plan to go off as planned, as reality always intervened, but it was a good place to start.

“All ships reporting assigned target lock,” the flag communications officer reported. 

On the display, the range rings of the
Ticonderoga’s
guns converged on her assigned target as the wedges of human ships swept across the front of the Kreelan formation. 

“All ships,” Tiernan ordered, “fire as you bear!” Without the data-link and the networked targeting computers to optimize the fleet’s firing solutions, Tiernan had to count on each ship firing when it came in optimal range as the formations passed by one another.

At the head of the formation, the destroyers loosed a volley of torpedoes, the missiles streaking toward the Kreelan formation, twisting and jinking madly to avoid anti-missile fire. Not waiting to see if any of them hit, the destroyers hauled to the side to get out of the way of the larger cruisers as they began to open fire.

“Incoming,” the flag tactical officer announced, warning of rounds from Kreelan guns heading toward them. Then
Ticonderoga’s
primary kinetic weapons thundered, sending several dozen projectiles in a closely-spaced pattern at her assigned target, one of the leading Kreelan cruisers. “Ships maneuvering,” he added as the individual human ships adjusted their courses to try and avoid the Kreelan weapons fire. It was a difficult balance: the human ships needed to try and avoid the incoming enemy salvoes, but still had to stay in formation to maximize the volume of fire they could bring to bear on the Kreelan ships.

Tiernan gave a death’s head grin as the tactical display showed the imbalance of fire between the two fleets: for every Kreelan round fired, at least three rounds were going back at them from his and Lefevre’s ships. 

Kreelan ships suddenly began to dart and weave, but the weight of fire from the human fleet was too great: even if a Kreelan ship dodged the rounds targeted against it, it almost inevitably ran into another stream of projectiles fired at another target. The first echelon of cruisers in the enemy formation suddenly disintegrated, with half of the warships destroyed outright and the other half either damaged or maneuvering so wildly that they were unable to effectively return fire. A number of other enemy ships also suffered damage, which slowed them down and forced them to change course to avoid the withering fire pouring from the human fleet.

A cheer went up through the
Ticonderoga
from everyone who could see one of the tactical displays, and Tiernan felt a tingle run up his spine and gooseflesh pop up on his arms.
Eat that, damn you
, he thought savagely.

“Continue firing!” he ordered as
Ticonderoga
shuddered from a single hit. Alarms went off on the ship’s bridge, but they were quickly silenced. 

“Enemy is changing course,” the tactical officer warned. The enemy formation had swung to the left and accelerated slightly, trying to close the range with the human fleet and at the same time unmask their aft batteries so they could bring more of their weapons into play against the human ships.

This was the part that Tiernan had been dreading. Without networked tactical control of the ships and the inability to broadcast orders to the entire fleet at once (as opposed to direct laser-links to individual ships), any large-scale maneuvering was impossible without the formation falling apart. If they tried to maneuver and keep the Kreelans at a distance, he knew they could pound them to hell and back. But only if the fleet maintained its integrity. If it lost that, if the individual flotillas that formed the wedges of the formation fell out to be left on their own, they could be destroyed.

“Admiral Lefevre,” he said, “I recommend we hold course until the designated maneuver point. If we maintain integrity, we maintain our advantage in weight of fire, even if the enemy closes with us.”

“If they get close enough,” Lefevre warned, “they will try to attack with boarders.”

“Let them try,” Tiernan said.

* * *

Waiting in high orbit with the rest of the Kreelan fleet, Amar-Marakh watched as the second assault wave was savaged by the humans. She bowed her head in acknowledgement of the humans’ ferocity and basic skills in naval combat. Had this been a true fight for the Empire’s survival, she would never have committed ships, even as primitive ones as these, to battle this way. But this was not a life or death duel for the Empire. It was a great Challenge, a contest of wills and warrior spirit that Amar-Marakh knew would last for generations. Even being here, at this first great battle, was an honor that would be marked forever in the Books of Time.

The senior shipmistress of the second wave had been killed in the first volley fired by the human fleet, along with many of her sisters. Most of the ships would likely not survive, but enough would come within range to send forth their warriors to wreak havoc on the human ships in the preferred way. They had dropped most of their warriors on the planet’s surface near the surviving human warriors, but still had several thousand in reserve.

She turned her attention to a curiosity that she had noticed a short time before: six large human ships that were far from the main human fleet and sailing directly toward the planet. She could not be sure at this range, but she suspected they were transports sent to retrieve the remaining human warriors on the surface. 

Closing her eyes to help her concentrate, she listened more intently to the Bloodsong coursing through her, striving to hear the individual threads of some of those who fought on the surface, particularly that of Tesh-Dar. The great priestess’s song was no challenge to find, and Amar-Marakh focused on the melody of fire and blood, seeking to divine her will.

After a moment, she opened her eyes, withdrawing her attention from the raging torrent of emotions that welled up from the warriors on the surface of the planet, mingling with the tidal wave of pain and ecstasy of the second wave now being mauled by the human ships. 

The will of the Desh-Ka priestess was clear: the human warriors should not be allowed to leave.

With a few words to her equivalent of a flag tactical officer, Amar-Marakh sent four swift warships, about the size of human destroyers, in pursuit of the ungainly transports.

* * *

“Skipper,” Ensign Bogdanova said, motioning toward the tactical display on the
McClaren’s
bridge, “those ships...”

“I see them,” Sato said, noting her use of the term “skipper.” No one had ever used the term with Morrison, because he had never earned the crew’s respect, only their fear and loathing. It was a small thing on the surface, only a single word, but it warmed Sato and helped him find the confidence to get beyond his insecurities as the ship’s captain-by-default. There was so much he didn’t know, so much that could get them killed. But he didn’t have a choice. None of them did.

On the display, they watched as four Kreelan ships broke off and headed on what looked like an intercept course for six ships, presumably human, that had jumped in a short while before in two groups, and were now heading toward Keran. It was impossible to tell what they were from the passive sensors, but the emissions signatures from their engines indicated that the ships must be big. The devil of it was that
McClaren
was probably the only ship that could intervene: the raging battle now underway between the human fleet and the second Kreelan assault group had moved on toward the other side of, and farther away from, the planet. It would be a long stretch for any of Admiral Tiernan’s ships to reach the six ships - carriers, he guessed - in time to help them. 

As for the situation with his own vessel,
McClaren
had managed to sail past the Kreelan formation in high orbit unscathed. While the Kreelans hadn’t been maneuvering, their natural movement along the orbital plane had carried them farther away as
McClaren
crept behind them. He had no idea if they simply hadn’t noticed, or if they decided that a lone destroyer wasn’t worth worrying about. If the latter, he hoped to prove them wrong.

“Helm,” he said to Bogdanova, “plot an intercept course at your best speed to bring us up behind those four Kreelan ships. Communications,” he said to Petty Officer Third Class Stephen Jaworski, a repair technician who was manning the communications console, “see if you can get a laser-link to one of the newcomers. Let’s see who they are.”