In Her Name: The Last War (138 page)

But most got through. Seconds later Mills saw the sky fill with clouds of warriors falling from the Kreelan ships. 

Beyond them, he could just make out the glint of what must have been Confederation Navy boats, now caught in a brutal slugging match with the Kreelan ships.

“I guess we’re not getting out of here yet.” 

Mills and Valentina exchanged a glance at Allison’s words.

“Looks that way, hon.” Mills knelt down, and Valentina and Allison helped him put Steph, unconscious again, carefully on the ground. 

The big man was overcome by a wave of exhaustion, and nearly fell over before Valentina caught him.

“I’m fine,” he rasped, trying to push her away.

“No, you’re not, you idiot.” She undid his equipment harness and pulled his uniform tunic aside to look at the wound in his side from the battle earlier. “You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“Give me a pint or two of beer to make up for it.” He tried to laugh, but it ended up little more than a cough. He felt Allison’s arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. “I’ll be okay,” he told her. 

Valentina, frowning at his bravado, quickly did what she could for the wound, slapping a coating of the liquid bandage over it and hitting him with a painkiller and some stims while silently cursing Mills for not having done it himself earlier. “Idiot.”

Then she checked on Steph, noticing that her leg was bleeding again. She’d lost too much blood, and if they couldn’t get her to a corpsman or sickbay soon, she was going to die.

“What are we going to do, Mills?” Allison, her arms still around his neck, was watching the fireworks over the battlefield, her voice nearly lost in the booms and cracks that followed the explosions and gunfire.

“We're going to hope that General Sparks kicks their little blue arses. And soon.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

After the fleet had informed him he could expect more Kreelans, Sparks had quickly gathered his staff officers and regimental commanders to his tank to regroup after the battle and get ready for the one that was yet to come. 

“This is good ground, right here.” Sparks pointed to a spot on a laminated map he’d pulled out of a tube and unrolled on the back of his Wolverine’s turret. The location he was pointing to was a huge expanse of farmland that was only broken by a few scattered stands of trees. The farms around Breakwater were bordered fairly close-by with woods, but five kilometers from town, where Sparks was indicating on the map, the gently rolling farm land opened wide like a river delta. 

“The main thing is going to be who gets here first, our reinforcements or theirs.” The operations officer looked up. “It’s going to be bloody close.”

“And we have no idea where the Kreelans are going to come from. It’s not like they have anyone left here to reinforce. They could approach however they please, so we don’t have a known axis of attack.” The intel officer’s observation failed to add any cheer to the conversation.

Sparks nodded. “That’s true, but the Kreelans seem to do things very direct.” He took a pen from his pocket and set it down on the map, near the margin, in the upper left corner. The tip pointed in the direction of the area where Sparks wanted to deploy, the imaginary line passing right over Breakwater. “The fleet intel pukes said the enemy boats were coming from roughly this direction, did they not?”

The intel officer nodded. “Yes, sir. Their approach vector is a steady one-four-zero degrees toward us. But they could break off at any point and encircle our position.”

“They could, but I don’t think they will. I think they’re going to come straight down our throats and play their favorite little air drop game.” Sparks took another pen and set it down on the map in the rough center of the open expanse of farmland, turning the point to face the direction of the Kreelans’ approach. “This is our center point and axis, ladies and gentlemen. I want our forces here, facing the enemy’s approach vector. It’s a risk, but we don’t have enough firepower to cover the entire LZ, we’re going to need to get the rest of our folks on the ground.”

“It’s going to be a madhouse.” The logistics officer shook her head. “Has anyone ever landed three divisions simultaneously?”

“At Kirov they landed six,” the operations officer replied. “But they had weeks to plan the op and there weren’t any Kreelan reinforcements inbound to screw things up.” He glanced skyward. “We’ve just got a big gaggle of boats coming down in a race to see who gets here first.”

Sparks looked at the logistics officer. “I want a straight up answer. Are you going to be able to get those boats down without making a big charlie foxtrot?” 

The young woman returned his gaze evenly. Charlie foxtrot was the phonetic term in military-speak for a cluster-fuck, and she had served under Sparks long enough to know that he never tolerated bullshit. “Yes, sir. We can handle this. We’ll get them down.”

Satisfied, Sparks nodded. “Good. I want the center of the LZ to be right here.” He pointed to a small stand of trees on the map, and the logistics officer noted down the coordinates. “Any questions?” The young woman shook her head. “Then get in your track and get over there to set up the welcoming committee.”

“Yes, sir!” She climbed down the flank of the Wolverine, then ran to her own track, which was a field support vehicle based on the same tank chassis, but with a much larger superstructure and no turret. It was only armed with a gatling gun on the commander’s cupola. Shouting a warning to the nearby infantry, she climbed into the cupola and in a few seconds was off, the tank’s tracks throwing out big rooster tails of mud and dirt as it sped away.

“I want the rest of the brigade on this line here.” Sparks turned his attention back to the map, drawing a line along a slight rise that was perpendicular to the Kreelan’s approach vector. “Space out the two armored regiments evenly, and I want a company-size reserve...here.” He made an X near another stand of trees about two kilometers behind the main line. “I’ll be with the brigade on the center. XO, I want you with the reserve.”

His executive officer nodded as he jotted a note on his data pad.

Sparks turned to the man who was the commander of what was left of the Marine infantry. The brigade had started the day with two mechanized infantry regiments, but had lost over half their total strength in the first fight. The highest ranking officer who had survived was a captain, who stared at the map with bloodshot eyes.

“Captain, I want you to divide your Marines evenly along the line. Don’t worry about making it clean, just divide up your folks as best you can and get them moving, pronto. We don’t have much time.”

“If I may, sir?”

Sparks glanced at the intel officer, a young man who had graduated from college only six months before, but had already made two previous combat deployments. Sparks had given the youngster a hard time during training, but only because he had respected him and had great expectations for the him as an officer, assuming he lived long enough to make his next promotion. “Shoot, son.”

“If the Kreelans do try another one of their air drop runs, I’d suggest deploying some of the empty infantry combat vehicles forward of the main line…” 

He took a pen and drew a line on either end of the line where Sparks wanted the armored regiments, forming a squared U shape with the open end pointing toward the Kreelans’ expected approach vector. “They can provide some flanking anti-air fire with their gatling guns, then pull back through these depressions here and here.” 

Sparks looked up at his operations officer. “Thoughts?”

“I like it. Anything coming through that corridor would hit a solid wall of lead, and we’ve got plenty of empty ICVs.” He saw the Marine infantry officer wince. There were a lot of empty vehicles because so few of the infantry had survived the earlier attack. “Sorry, Hermann.”

The captain made a dismissive gesture with his hand, but said nothing.

“Agreed.” Sparks turned to the intel officer and nodded in approval. 

“Anything else from anyone?” 

There wasn’t. Sparks ran his eyes around the tight circle, meeting the gaze of each of his officers in turn. 

“Good. But let me remind you of something, ladies and gentlemen. We are not retreating. Either we beat the Kreelans here or we die. Make sure your people know that.”

“With our shields or on them, sir?” The operations officer, who had a love of ancient literature, paraphrased Plutarch.

Sparks did something he rarely did in the field. He smiled. “Damn right. Now saddle up.”

* * *

Selan-Kulir stood silently next to the high priestess of the Nyur-A’il as their attack ship streaked through the sky toward where the humans awaited them. As tradition demanded, Selan-Kulir had offered to become the First to Ku’ar-Marekh when the priestess materialized on their ship. The priestess had declined her offer with no more than a shake of her head.

To some, it would have been a great dishonor to have been denied the duties of First. 

To Selan-Kulir, it brought not shame, but relief. She had sensed the fate of Ri’al-Hagir, the echo of fear in the Bloodsong as her soul was cast into the pit of darkness. Esah-Kuran, who had followed in the ill-fated Ri’al-Hagir’s footsteps, had not long survived, but at least had met an honorable end in the great charge against the human warriors who had landed on this world, and against whom she herself would soon fight.

She glanced at Ku’ar-Marekh, who stood as still and cold as the stones of the
Kalai-Il
beside her. Her Bloodsong, as with all the priestesses, was strong, powerful. But instead of providing the warm fire that would ignite into flame during battle, it was a frigid wind that blew upon the souls of the peers. 

Shivering involuntarily, Selan-Kulir returned her attention to the ship’s forward view port, looking beyond the craft’s pilot. Their ship led the entire formation, which stretched out for half a league on either side, and as much again behind them. She knew that the transport ships that had brought them had already been destroyed by the humans in orbit, and that while the battle still raged in space above, the Imperial warships were doomed to die under the guns of the human fleet. 

This, too, brought no shame, for the warriors of the fleet had fought valiantly and well against a worthy foe, and had brought much glory this day to the Empress. Their deaths were merely the next step in the Way of Her Children. Death was a part of life, and for a warrior, to die for Her in battle was to have lived well, earning a place in the Afterlife, basking in Her love.

“That is what I, too, desire.”

Selan-Kulir snapped her head around to look at Ku’ar-Marekh, who was staring at her. Realizing the breach of protocol, Selan-Kulir lowered her eyes. “I beg your forgiveness, priestess.”

Ku’ar-Marekh went on as if she hadn’t heard, shifting her eyes to look well beyond the young warrior, to something only she could see. “To die with honor in Her glory, to awaken on the other side of death and join those who have gone before. To feel again, and be warm…” 

Selan-Kulir bowed her head and saluted, mystified by Ku’ar-Marekh’s words. She had never known a priestess to act so.

Turning to look out the view port, Ku’ar-Marekh watched as the ship flashed up over a sharp rise. Off to their right, she caught a glimpse of four tiny figures collapsing to the ground as the landing force passed overhead. She sent forth her second sight to confirm her suspicion, and a moment later a cold smile graced her lips, revealing her ivory fangs. 

It was her humans, the ones she wished to face in personal combat. They had survived.

“Good,” she murmured to herself. She would attend to them soon. 

Ahead, she could see the positions the force of human warriors had taken along a slight rise in the terrain. Beyond them was a cloud of human assault ships, racing in to land. 

With a last glance at Selan-Kulir, she turned to the warriors gathered in the hold of the ship. “Prepare yourselves!” 

Beyond the view screen, the fiery streaks of cannon fire rose to greet them.

* * *

With the rough battle plan made, Sparks’s officers dispersed to their own vehicles to rush off to their units.

The tanks didn’t wait, knowing that the infantry could quickly catch up in their fighting vehicles. After their orders were passed down, the big vehicles spun around in place and tore their way across the farms and fields toward their new positions, the air filled with the sounds of the racing turbine engines and the creaking of hundreds of tracks. 

A few minutes later, half the infantry vehicles followed, carrying the Marines who had survived the first battle. 

The infantry vehicles manned only by the drivers and vehicle commanders divided into two groups and headed toward their positions to form the mouth of the U, into which Sparks hoped the Kreelans would fly. Their orders were simple. Train their gatling guns toward the center of the formation, elevating them high enough that the shells would fall beyond the vehicles on the far side if they didn’t happen to hit a Kreelan ship, and open fire on order. 

“About time.” Sparks squinted into the sky as he heard the rumble behind him, heralding the arrival of the rest of his Marines. The assault boats were streaking down toward the landing zone the logistics officer had set up five kilometers behind the line of tanks facing the Kreelans, right where he’d wanted.

“Looks like we beat them.” The voice of his XO, who was now with the reserve tank company behind the main line, said in his headphones as the first boats, still smoking from the heat of their reentry, set down and quickly began disgorging their troops and vehicles.

“Incoming!” The operations officer broke in from his command vehicle. “One of the forward observation posts has sighted incoming enemy ships.” 

Sparks had sent out three infantry fighting vehicles well ahead of the main battle line to give warning of the Kreelans. The ships in orbit had been providing the intel officer with a rough plot of the Kreelan attack ships, but being voice only, it lacked the clarity of the datalink-fed displays. Besides, Sparks liked to have human eyeballs on the target, not just orbital sensors.