In Her Name

by Michael R. Hicks

  She felt his hands tenderly grip her shoulders, but for a long time she could say nothing, a scream of raw pain issuing from her throat like a wall of water exploding from a breached dam as he tried to turn her over. After a time, it subsided into a dull throb that pulsed with every beat of her heart, and her mind was finally able to command her tongue to form words that Reza might hear, might understand.

  “I… I think my back’s broken, Reza,” she whimpered. She hated the way she sounded, helpless, terrified, but she could not deny, even to herself, that it was true. “Thorella…” She cringed at the sound of the man’s name, even from her own lips, “Thorella beat me… he…” She could not say what else he had done to her.

  “Hush,” Reza said, biting back the wave of black rage that rose in his soul. “Be still. I will–”

  “Father,” Shera-Khan called from the next room, his voice conveying concern, apprehension, but no fear; there was no threat to him in there. “There is another like her in here.”

  “What…” Jodi rasped, “what did he say?”

  “Nothing,” Reza lied. “Be still.”

  Uncoiling like a snake about to strike, Reza covered the distance to where his son stood in three paces.

  “Eustus,” he whispered, his heart catching in his throat. His friend hung in the air, suspended from the heavy chandelier above. His tormentors had tied his elbows together behind his back with a thin metal cable, pulled so tight that it had cut into the flesh of his arms, and then hoisted him from the ground. Then they had beaten him with what could only be a Kreelan grakh’ta, the whip with seven barbed tails like the one that had once scourged Esah-Zhurah’s back.

  Handing his sword to his son, he said, “Cut him down.” Then he held onto Eustus’s motionless body while Shera-Khan sliced the cruel metal wire that bound his father’s friend. Ever so gently, Reza carried him into the other room, laying him next to Jodi so he could tend to them both. With a claw of his right hand, he severed the wire that bound Eustus’s elbows, letting his shoulders and back spring back into something like their normal position.

  Eustus let out a groan.

  “Reza,” Jodi asked, “what’s going on? What is it?” Lying as she was, she could not see any of the three other living people in the room, only two of the mangled bodies of the ISS men who had raped her. Somehow, it was not as comforting a sight as she had at first thought it would be.

  “It is Eustus,” he told her as he pointed out to Shera-Khan a medikit that hung on one of the bulkheads. The boy immediately scrambled to retrieve it.

  “How… how is he?”

  “Alive,” Reza said softly, fighting to keep his hands from trembling with the anger coursing through his veins. Thoughts of dark vengeance intermingled with compassion for his injured and beaten friends, friends who had become his family in this strange world that called itself humanity.

  Taking the medikit from Shera-Khan, he told the boy in the New Tongue, “Go to the flight deck and get help. Tell them that Jodi and Eustus are aboard, and are hurt badly.”

  Shera-Khan nodded in acknowledgment, then bolted for the flight deck at a dead run.

  In the meantime, Reza tore open the medikit and began to do what little he could until the others could help him get their friends into the ship’s sickbay.

  Fifty-Five

  Above the Kreelan Homeworld, ships danced and died. But the one-sided slaughter of Kreelan ships that had been the hope of the now-deceased President Borge had become far fiercer than anyone, except Reza, could have predicted. The Kreelans did not fight with their usual expert skill, but they fought with the tenacity of cornered tigresses, and the tide of slaughter was beginning to turn against the invaders.

  And yet, despite the carnage that was gutting both of the great fleets, the humans had managed to secure a tenuous perimeter around the solitary moon. Since the heavy ships and their big guns were still engaged with their Kreelan counterparts, and so could not be brought to bear for an orbital bombardment, the task force that had been assigned the moon had begun to disgorge hundreds of dropships. Thousands of Marines were deploying to attack the single built-up area on the moon’s surface, a mountainous city that dwarfed the greatest such construct ever conceived by Man.

  Leading them was recently promoted Major General Markus Thorella.

  “Sir,” reported one of the comms technicians, “the Third Fusiliers have landed at–” he read off coordinates that corresponded to a flashing blip on Thorella’s tactical display “–and report no enemy present, no resistance. Colonel Roentgen reports ‘proceeding toward primary objective.’”

  Thorella frowned. He should have been elated that his troops were making such swift progress, but the lack of all resistance – of even sighting any Kreelans at all – thus far on the moon fundamentally disturbed him, especially since this was the fifth regiment on the ground, and the previous four had made nearly identical reports. “Advise all assault elements,” he said, “to proceed with caution.”

  He turned to his deputy division commander for maneuver, the woman who was directly responsible for coordinating the activities of the units disembarking from the ships and moving on the ground. “This is too bloody strange,” Thorella told her. “That place should be crawling with Kreelans, confused ones or otherwise. Where could they all have gotten to?”

  “Withdrawn to ambush sites?” she suggested.

  Thorella shook his head. “No, that’s something we would do. The Kreelans prefer head-to-head fighting, whatever the terms.”

  “But this must be an extraordinary situation for them,” she pointed out, simultaneously directing another regiment toward its destination on the moon below, the stylus in her hand marking the destination, which was then sent over the data link. “If Reza Gard can be believed, they’ve never faced an invasion before.”

  Thorella considered the thought. “No,” he concluded, more to himself than for the other officer’s benefit. “Something else is going on, but what?” He had to know, he thought to himself.

  Turning to the command ship’s captain, he snapped, “Get us down there, now.”

  * * *

  “There is nothing more we can do for her now,” Reza said quietly as he finished programming the ship’s autodoc to do what it could for Jodi. “We can ease her pain, but that is all.” With the help of the automated ship’s surgeon, Reza had managed to numb Jodi’s spine above the point where it had been severed, confusing her brain into believing that the great nerve pathway merely slept, and was not utterly destroyed halfway down her back, just below her heart. A more general painkiller shielded her from the many other points of damage that would have brought overwhelming pain as the shock slowly wore off.

  “Will I be all right?” Jodi asked softly, unexpectedly regaining consciousness, if just for a moment.

  “Yes, my friend,” Reza replied as he watched the monitor, but he did not – could not – turn to face her. “You will be as good as new.” He looked at her then and tried to smile. Failed.

  Jodi smiled up at him. She knew he had just told the first lie of his adult life, and she felt honored somehow that he had done it for her, to make her feel better.

  “I tried to stop them,” Eustus said bitterly. His injuries, less severe than Reza had at first feared, had been dealt with quickly by the ship’s electronic surgeon. He still carried terrible bruises, but that affected his looks more than his health. His greatest injury was guilt at not having been able to help Jodi, at having to helplessly watch the things they did to her. His own pain was nothing. Even without his second sight, Reza could feel the guilt feeding on his friend’s soul. “But–”

  “Eustus,” Jodi said, opening the one eye that was not swollen shut. Sleep was not far away, a drug induced coma that would save her from the pain, but she would not let that stop her from comforting her friend. “Eustus,” she said again, reaching out with a hand which held only broken fingers, now dead to any further sensation, “it’s not your fault. It’s Thorella’s. I
f you want to blame someone, blame that bastard, not yourself.”

  Eustus took her hand in his as if it were an intricate, delicate sculpture of blown glass. “Jodi…” he closed his eyes, fighting the tears.

  “I will find him,” Reza told her quietly. “I swear in Her name that he shall not escape me again.”

  Slowly, she shook her head. “No, Reza,” she whispered. “We’ve come too far… given up too much, for you to throw it away in an act of revenge. You have to save your Empress, and give your own people – and ours – a chance to survive. Ships and people are dying out there, and you’re the only one who can stop it.” Her mangled lips managed a smile that tore at Reza’s heart. “Besides, you have a son to look out for now. What will happen to him if you throw your life away after Thorella?”

  That thought had not occurred to him; he had not yet really begun to think like a father, to realize that until Shera-Khan well understood the Way and how to follow it, he, Reza, must guide him. And it would take both of them to save the Empress.

  “The truth do you speak,” Reza admitted grudgingly.

  “Reza,” Nicole called through the ship’s intercom, “we are hitting the atmosphere. I need you to guide me.”

  “Coming,” he answered immediately. He felt most sorry for Nicole: the only one among them qualified and able to pilot the ship, with Braddock keeping her company, she had to remain at the helm as her best friend lay grievously injured, dying. But there was nothing to be done. The ship’s autopilot was not good enough to bring them unscathed through the maze of ships blasting at one another. Only Nicole’s skill had made that possible, and even so, the Pearl’s hull now sported a score of burn marks where salvoes from human and Kreelan ships alike had grazed her hull through the weakening shields.

  “Good… luck,” Jodi said, as the ship’s computerized surgeon boosted the level of painkillers in her system. She closed her eyes, and her mangled hand, still clutched carefully in Eustus’s own, released its tiny, childlike grip.

  Reza’s sandaled feet were silent as Death upon the deck as he made his way forward, Shera-Khan close behind him, leaving Eustus and Enya to tend to Jodi. He did not look back.

  The view from the Pearl’s flight deck brought tears to Reza’s eyes. The Imperial City, Her home for thousands of generations, lay burning. Dim, almost forgotten memories from his youth of another shattered world, of a young boy orphaned by strangers from the sky, clouded his mind’s eye. Streamers of flame reached as high as mountains, as hundreds of assault boats and fighters swarmed over the great buildings and spires. They fired their weapons randomly, and dropped bombs and cluster munitions into any portal or avenue that could have harbored any Kreelan defenders. Pillars of smoke blocked out many parts of the city, but Reza’s imagination easily filled in the blanks. Over one hundred thousand years, he thought bitterly, tomorrow shall be nothing more than smoldering ash.

  “Father,” Shera-Khan said from behind him, the boy’s hand gingerly touching Reza’s shoulder. His voice was brittle with fear. Never before, even during the Great Chaos before Keel-Tath’s ascension, had harm come to the Empress Moon. But now Shera-Khan and Reza were witness to its systematic destruction.

  Reza put a hand over his son’s, to reassure the boy as well as himself, although he said nothing; he did not trust his voice not to display the fear he himself felt.

  Can Esah-Zhurah still be alive? he wondered. And what if she is? What is even the Empress to do against… this?

  “How is Jodi?” Nicole asked from beside him, her voice carefully controlled. She had stopped worrying about either Kreelan defensive fire or being attacked by the scores of human ships prowling about. From the chatter she had been monitoring from the landing force, the Kreelans on the surface were offering no resistance at all, and the other human ships had not been alerted to the Pearl’s escape. But she had not stopped worrying about Jodi.

  “She…” Reza paused, not sure how to tell her. Death and suffering had been his constant companions since childhood, but this was different. Simply blurting the wounding truth was somehow impossibly difficult. “If we do not get her to a healer soon, she will surely die,” he finally said. “The ship can only ease her pain, no more.”

  “And if we take her in time to someone who can help her,” Nicole finished for him, “the Empress will die, and we will all be finished.”

  Reza only nodded.

  Nicole stared through the viewscreen at the glowing hell below that was rushing up to meet them. “We have no choices left, Reza,” she said grimly. “If there is a chance of you stopping this battle, this war, we must take it, no matter what the cost to ourselves.” She looked at him hard, and he thought he saw a glimmer of Esah-Zhurah’s strength in her eyes, and he wanted desperately simply to reach out and touch her, that he might touch a tiny part of the woman he loved. But he could not, dared not. “The tide of the battle is changing,” she told him. She had been keeping watch on the tactical display as a staggering increase in the number of human ships was added to the casualty list, while fewer and fewer Imperial ships were being destroyed. “More Kreelan warships are arriving all the time, just as you predicted. The main battle group, most of our ships, is scattered, cut off from its jump point. They are being torn apart. Our only hope now is through you. Just show me the way.”

  Just as they emerged from another pillar of smoke, Reza saw their destination. “There,” he said, pointing to a crystalline pyramid that rose over five kilometers in the sky. “The Throne Room is at the top of the Great Tower. That is our destination. We must find a landing bay as high up as possible.”

  “Reza, this is not a fighter, remember,” Nicole reminded him as the computer scanned and rejected most of the bays as being too small. “We cannot land in a shoe box.”

  “Could we not use the Empress’s portal?” Shera-Khan asked, pointing to a large bay complex that also happened to be the highest on the tower. “It will lead us directly to the Throne Room.”

  “It is closed, Shera-Khan,” Nicole said, looking at the information the computer was showing from the scanners.

  “No longer,” the boy announced, touching his collar in a peculiar fashion. “Behold.”

  Less than two kilometers away now, the iris door of the great portal suddenly began to open, exposing a warmly lit bay that could have held a dozen ships the size of the Pearl, but that now lay empty and barren.

  “All who are taught to fly as I have been are given a special device to open the portal,” he explained proudly, “that any may serve Her when She calls.”

  “Well do you serve Her this day, my son,” Reza said. He did not know until that moment that Shera-Khan had been trained as a pilot, no doubt under Tesh-Dar’s tutelage. He only mourned that he had never known him until these last few desperate hours. How much I have missed.

  With a precision that matched the grace of the big yacht, Nicole brought the Pearl inside the bay. She moved the ship in as far as she could to avoid damage from the raiding ships outside, and to put them closer to the many doorways that lay within. From her last glance at the tactical display of the fleet’s desperate plight, every second would count against them from now on.

  “Shall I close the portal?” Shera-Khan asked, his hand at his collar.

  “No,” Nicole advised, just as Reza was about to say the opposite. “We may need to leave quickly.”

  If we fail, Reza thought silently, we will have nowhere to go. “Let it be, then,” he said. “We must go.”

  The others were waiting for them at the main hatch.

  “Reza…” Nicole said, her gaze straying down the main hall toward the sickbay.

  Reza nodded. “We shall wait for you,” he told her as he slammed his fist down on the button to open the hatch and drop the ramp to the deck below. He did not offer to go with her; their farewells to one another would be a private matter.

  “I will not be long,” she told him.

  Nicole entered the sickbay knowing what she would find, but n
ot really prepared for it. To do that would have been to do the impossible. She bit back a small cry as she looked at what had become of Jodi’s beautiful face, now little more than a hideous mask of torn flesh, glued loosely to a bruised and battered skull.

  “Oh, Jodi,” she whispered. “What have they done to you…”

  Her friend opened her eyes in the way someone might when returning to the world from a vacant but pleasant dream. “Nikki,” she said, “you shouldn’t be here… you don’t have time…”

  “I have always had time for you,” Nicole told her, tears flowing freely down her cheeks. She gently touched what looked like an unbruised spot on Jodi’s cheek. “And I always will.”

  “I love you,” Jodi said simply. They were words she had said to Nicole a thousand and more times in her dreams and daydreams, but never once in the flesh. She loved her too much to drive her away.

  Nicole had no words to answer her. Instead, she leaned forward and kissed Jodi gently on her tattered lips. “I will be back for you, Jodi,” she whispered. “I promise. Then… then we will have time together, to talk about things.”

  Jodi tried hard to smile, but her beaten face made it look more like a grimace. “I’m not going anywhere, babe,” she said. “But you’d better. You’ve wasted enough time on me. Good luck, Nikki.”

  With bitter tears burning her eyes, Nicole quickly left to join the others at the ramp.

  Time was running out.

  Fifty-Six

  “Where is everyone?” Enya whispered. They had been moving through the halls of the Great Tower toward the Throne Room for what seemed like half an hour, and they had not seen a single Kreelan – alive or dead – anywhere. Rooms and alcoves that were obviously meant to be occupied stood open and empty, and the halls through which they crept were eerily silent, devoid of any sound at all except the occasional boom of a bomb exploding somewhere outside, or perhaps a stray energy bolt from an attacking fighter. The invading Marines had apparently assumed the tower would be the most heavily defended position, and so had not attacked it directly. But, if the rest of the city were like this, they would make their way here very quickly, indeed.