Grishin frowned, momentarily considering getting on the vidcom and reiterating to Justin the vital importance of the brigade getting here as quickly as possible. Then he set it aside. Justin, his senior surviving officer, was a competent leader and knew what he was supposed to do. “Give the major my compliments, Mills, and tell him we’ll have a ship ready and waiting by the time he gets here.”
“Yes, sir,” Mills said before passing the word along.
“There she is,” Faraday said as he hauled the cutter around into the next row and headed for the French-built ship. “Mauritania,” he read from the rust-streaked letters of the ship’s name painted on the hull. “What the hell kind of a name is that?”
“She’s in the ship registry database,” the copilot said after a moment. “She’s La Seyne-flagged, and according to this was impounded four months ago for alleged smuggling.”
“That’s not good,” Faraday said as he nosed the cutter toward the tarmac in front of the much larger ship. “If she’s been sitting here for four months without maintenance, we may be screwed.”
“What other options do we have?” Grishin asked.
“None, sir,” the copilot answered as he checked his threat display again. “This is the smallest ship here that can carry the whole brigade. The rest of them are too big for us to even have a chance of getting off the ground by ourselves.”
“Then let us hope the Saint Petersburg government was kind enough to keep it in running condition for us,” Grishin told them. “Mills!”
“Sir!” Mills barked.
“We’ll need a team to clear the ship,” Grishin told him, “with the rest of the platoon in a defensive perimeter.”
“Yes, sir!” Mills replied before turning around and barking orders to the platoon’s team leaders.
As Faraday was setting the cutter down, it yawed unexpectedly to port as the damaged stabilizer finally failed completely, sending the cutter’s stern swinging dangerously close to the bow of the Mauritania. “Shit!” he cried as he and the copilot struggled with the controls. “Hang on!” Terrified of damaging their only possible way off the planet, he cut the hover engines and dropped the cutter the last few meters to the tarmac. They missed smashing the Mauritania’s bow by centimeters before it slammed into the ground, collapsing the nose gear.
The cutter was filled with screams of fear and surprise as everyone not strapped down suddenly found themselves weightless, then were smashed to the deck when the cutter hit the unyielding reinforced concrete of the tarmac.
* * *
Tesh-Dar felt an electric jolt pass through her as the Bloodsong of the warriors Li’ara-Zhurah had sent forth to attack the human ship bedeviling the Messenger were snuffed out of existence when the vessel exploded. She knew Li’ara-Zhurah remained alive, but her ship had been close — very close — to the human vessel, again shielding the Messenger’s ship from harm. Both ships likely suffered even more severe damage.
“Can you reach Li’ara-Zhurah?” she asked her communications controller, fighting to keep the fear from her voice. She could tell much from the Bloodsong, but needed the reassurance of hearing Li’ara-Zhurah’s voice.
“Yes, my priestess,” the warrior answered instantly, and Tesh-Dar was rewarded with Li’ara-Zhurah’s image on the secondary view screen.
The bridge behind her was a shambles, looking much like that of Tesh-Dar’s ship before it crashed during the battle of Keran. Li’ara-Zhurah was wreathed in smoke, with fire flickering from half the consoles in Tesh-Dar’s view. Several of the bridge crew lay on the deck, quite still, and she knew that they, and many others aboard, were dead.
“My priestess,” Li’ara-Zhurah said, bowing her head. She had a deep gash in her left cheek and blood was seeping from beneath the armor of her right arm, but other than that she appeared to be uninjured. “We have grappled with the Messenger’s ship. Our vessels are now joined. I was just about to take a party across and give him the healing gel and whatever other aid that we may.”
Tesh-Dar had been about to tell her that she was to leave the Messenger, and that she was sending other ships to retrieve her, but Li’ara-Zhurah’s words gave her pause. She was so close now to her objective, and despite the terrible risks she was taking, Tesh-Dar could not force from her own lips the words she had intended to speak, words that would keep her young disciple from the glory she and the warriors aboard her ship had already sacrificed much to earn.
Running in the current of the Bloodsong, too, were the deep notes of the melody of the Empress, and Tesh-Dar could tell that she was watching her blood daughter closely, and approved of her actions.
Gritting her teeth as she clenched her fists so tightly that her talons drew blood from her palms, she told Li’ara-Zhurah, “Do what you must, child, but I am sending ships to watch over you and retrieve you when the Messenger is safe.” She looked deeply into the younger warrior’s eyes. “I will not lose you, child, you or your daughter-to-be.”
“In Her name,” Li’ara-Zhurah said, “it shall be so.” She looked a moment longer at Tesh-Dar before saying, “Thank you for believing in me, my priestess.”
Her words touched Tesh-Dar’s heart. Yet the rush of warmth the great priestess felt only partly offset the lingering chill of fear as she nodded one last time and closed the communications channel between them.
Aboard her crippled ship, Li’ara-Zhurah waited until Tesh-Dar’s image faded before she allowed herself to succumb to the coughing fit that had taken monumental control to suppress.
“Mistress,” the senior surviving bridge controller told her, “you are bleeding.”
Li’ara-Zhurah put her fingers to her lips; they came away bloody. She had been hit in the chest by a flying piece of debris from the bridge support structure when the human vessel had exploded. If she had not been wearing her armor, she — and her child — would have been killed. “It is a trifle,” she said, forcing her body back under control. At the look the other warrior gave her, she explained, “A rib has pierced my lung, nothing more. I have experienced worse.” She stood up, ignoring the lancing pain in her chest. “Come. We must take those who are left and cross over to the Messenger’s ship. We must render him what aid we might to satisfy Her honor, and await the ships the priestess is sending to take us back to the fleet.”
* * *
“Are you sure about this, admiral?” Hanson asked tensely as Constellation’s guns fired another salvo at the pursuing Kreelan fleet. She had agreed to use her task force to try and help Voroshilov’s ships break contact with the first group of Kreelans, so the Russians could try to attack the invasion force now in low orbit over Saint Petersburg.
The problem was that the Kreelans were having none of it. While they still seemed to be sparring, rather than seeking a decisive victory, the human ships needed to somehow escape and regroup. The Kreelans, however, stayed close on their heels, their ships at least as fast as the human vessels. As they had been doing with Voroshilov’s fleet, they played with Hanson’s forces, charging into range to fire a salvo or two before retreating beyond effective range. Hanson liked to think that her handling of her task force was far more polished than Voroshilov’s had been, but the end result had been the same: a stalemate, which was something Voroshilov and Hanson could not afford.
“Da, commodore,” Voroshilov answered. “We have practiced this many times during in-system exercises as a tactic to defeat Confederation ships attempting to defend Riga.” He gave her a mirthless smile. “It will work.”
“But the proximity to the system’s gravity wells...” Hanson cringed inwardly. Voroshilov had proposed that they use what was often referred to as a micro-jump, a very, very brief trip through hyperspace. While such jumps had been demonstrated in the past in deep space, no one had ever done so in a planetary system. If a ship came out into normal space within a certain threshold in the gravity well of a body like a star or planet, it would be torn apart.
“We have extremely refined calculations for many jum
p point pairs,” Voroshilov reassured her. “I know it is much that I ask of you to trust in me this way, commodore, but this is the only path that offers some hope of retrieving your people from the surface, and of trying to stop the alien invasion force.”
Her mouth pressed into a thin, worried line, Hanson nodded. “Very well, sir. We’ll jump on your mark.” Turning to her flag captain, she asked, “Have all of our ships verified their calculations and reported readiness to jump?”
“Aye, ma’am,” he said, equally worried. “The ship captains aren’t too thrilled with this, but everyone’s ready.”
“I’m not thrilled with it, either, believe me,” she told him. Turning back to Voroshilov, she said, “We’re ready, sir. Our jump systems have been advanced through the interlock stage, bypassing the normal jump cycle procedure. Once you give the order, we’ll be jumping out immediately.”
“Very well. Stand by, commodore,” he told her. “We approach one of our pre-plotted jump positions. Stand by...three...two...one...now!”
As one, the ships of the Saint Petersburg and Confederation fleets vanished.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Grishin came to at the sound of Emmanuelle Sabourin’s voice as she desperately sought to wake him.
“Mon colonel!” he heard her say. “Colonel Grishin! Can you hear me?”
“Da,” he managed. Remembering that Sabourin was French, he added, “Oui. I am fine.” He opened his eyes, but suddenly wished he hadn’t. He was staring up at the deck of the cutter, and was taken by a sudden bout of vertigo until he realized that the ship must have rolled onto its back when the pilot brought it down and the landing gear collapsed. The troop compartment was dark, lit only by the red emergency lights, and filled with smoke and the stench of burning electrical components. He heard moans of pain from both fore and aft, and saw that three Marines still hung from their combat chairs, unconscious or killed by heavy equipment and weapons as the craft tumbled over. Other Marines were trying to cut them down. “Bozhe moi,” he breathed as Sabourin helped him up. “Casualties?”
“Four dead, sir,” she reported wearily. “Three more seriously injured — broken bones — and several with minor injuries. Mills is trying to get one of the hatches open. Right now we are trapped in here.”
“Watch your eyes!” Mills called from the rear hatch. A moment later a dazzling light lit the compartment as Mills, wearing a protective mask, turned an electric arc cutter on the hatch’s hinges and lock. Sparks flew through the dark compartment, tiny fireworks in the smoky gloom. In the eerie light, Grishin caught a glimpse of the three civilians and the platoon’s medic, all of whom appeared to have survived.
He wondered why the compartment was so dark: it should still be daylight outside, and there should be light streaming in through the flight deck windscreen. When he turned around, he understood why: the flight deck had been crushed when the ship rolled over. With a sickening sensation in the pit of his stomach, he asked Sabourin, “Did either of the pilots make it?”
She glanced at the mangled wreckage of the flight deck, then looked at one of the figures nearby, lying back against the curve of the hull, moaning. “The pilot got out, sir,” she answered quietly. “He is shaken up, but will be all right. The copilot is dead. We could not even get to his body.” The copilot’s side of the flight deck was nothing more than gnarled wreckage. He hadn’t stood a chance.
“Merde,” he cursed.
“Bloody...” they looked up as Mills cursed, kicking at the jammed hatch with all his might. “...fucking...” Another kick, and a tiny sliver of light shone through. “...hell!” With one final kick and a rush by several other Marines throwing their weight against it, the big hatch groaned open, letting in both light and fresh air. “First and second squads,” Mills called, “form a perimeter around the freighter! Third squad, board and search her. Do not shoot anyone unless they shoot at you first. Maybe we’ll get a bit of luck and some old sod on board can help us get that bucket off the ground. Move!”
The Marines piled out of the overturned cutter and immediately ran to carry out Mills’s orders.
“Do we have contact with the rest of the brigade?” Grishin asked Sabourin.
She shook her head. “Non, mon colonel,” she said. “The cutter’s systems are out, and I have not been able to raise anyone outside of our own troops on our gear. The equipment seems to be working properly, but I cannot raise anyone. I suspect we are being jammed.”
“Better and better,” he grumbled. “Do we have any anti-air weapons aboard?”
“Yes, sir,” she told him, nodding toward several crates that still remained tightly strapped down to the deck above them, all the way aft. “Six Viper missiles.”
“Put together an anti-air team and have them set up on the top hull of the freighter,” he ordered. “Our Russian friends will not leave us be for long, and they will certainly not be happy when we try to take off.” He looked again at the pilot, Faraday, who seemed to be recovering his wits. “If we take off.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, immediately moving aft toward the missile crates as she called Mills to let him know.
“Pilot,” Grishin said, kneeling next to the man, “how do you feel?”
“Like I got flattened by a goddamn bus, colonel,” Faraday rasped, grimacing. He was holding his right arm protectively against his chest. “Think I broke a rib or two.”
“Can you still fly?”
Faraday grinned. “Are you giving me a choice, sir?”
“No,” Grishin said, offering a smile in return. “I wish I could, but it appears that you are not going to get out of work so easily.”
“In that case,” Faraday said quietly, looking at the crushed remains of the flight deck and the blood that was the only trace of the copilot, “I can fly, sir. I just hope that tub out there is spaceworthy.”
“As do I,” Grishin agreed, fervently wishing that the rest of the brigade arrived soon.
* * *
Tesh-Dar did not know what to make of the disappearance of the human fleet. From what she had learned of the humans since first contact, she suspected they would be back, and soon. Tactically, it was a good move, and the same that she would have made had she been in their position: jump away, regroup, and then reenter the fight. Depending on the timing, it would work out well, for the invasion force would only be in orbit just long enough to drop the warriors and their supplies. After that, the great ships would return to the Empire, while Tesh-Dar’s ships would remain here to do battle with the humans.
The temporary lull afforded her an opportunity to go planetside, and she took one of the ship’s shuttles — like the ships themselves, very primitive affairs compared to the Empire’s modern starships, but necessary to allow a fair fight with the humans — and docked with one of the many assault craft that had been disgorged by the gigantic transports. With another check on Li’ara-Zhurah through her spiritual second sight, Tesh-Dar noted that she was well, if injured, and was continuing on her quest to save the Messenger, Tesh-Dar boarded the assault craft that would take her to the planet.
Not content to join the many warriors dropping into the unpopulated areas to establish the roots of a wartime colony, she ordered her pilot to join in the assaults against the planet’s population centers, choosing to participate in the attack against the largest city.
Flexing her massive hands in anticipation, she looked forward to again facing human warriors in battle. Humans, even many at a time, were not a challenge in combat against a warrior priestess such as she. Her powers, greater than any other living warrior priestess, were not understood among her own people; to the humans they were nothing less than magic.
* * *
“We must sound the invasion alert, comrade chairman!” Marshal Antonov stated flatly to a stunned Chairman Korolev. The display screens in the underground command center were painted with red icons, showing the massive enemy fleet that was now sending forth a torrent of landing craft.
“I do
not believe these are aliens!” Korolev grated. “It is simply a ruse!”
“It does not matter, sir,” Antonov persisted, “if they are aliens or Confederation troops. We are being invaded by someone, and we must prepare!”
With that, Korolev could not argue. “Very well,” he said. “Initiate the invasion protocols. And find out where that bastard Voroshilov and his expensive fleet disappeared to!”
“Yes, sir,” Antonov said before moving over to the control center’s communications section. “Sound the invasion alert,” he told them. “All Red Army units are to report to their invasion defense positions, and recall all reserve personnel immediately.” Every able-bodied man, along with women who had no young children, were part of the reserve, from age fifteen on up. If they could stand and hold a weapon of any kind, they met the necessary qualifications. “Notify all commands that they have full authority to engage enemy forces at will: weapons free. The Air Force and surface-to-air elements are to engage the landing craft.”
“What about the Confederation Marines at the spaceport and the others trying to join them?”
With a sideways glance in Korolev’s direction, Antonov lowered his voice and said, “Let them be. Call off the pursuit. If the invaders are who and what I think they are, every human being who can hold a weapon may be of use. Let them spill their blood for our cause.”
“Sir, what should we do if they are successful in stealing a ship?”
“Do nothing. Conserve our weapons,” Antonov answered, gesturing toward the display and the mass of red icons for enemy ships. “Where could they go? Which brings us to the next question: have you had contact with Admiral Voroshilov?”
“No sir,” one of the other controllers answered. “We have had no contact since the fleet jumped. But we do know that they jumped from a pre-designated jump point that corresponds to one of the positions near Riga.”
In Her Name: The Last War Page 73
