In Her Name: The Last War Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  What Readers Are Saying

  Other Books

  FIRST CONTACT

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  LEGEND OF THE SWORD

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Epilogue

  DEAD SOUL

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  Chapter Seventy

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Epilogue

  In Her Name: Empire

  In Her Name: From Chaos Born

  Season Of The Harvest

  A Small Favor

  Other Books

  About The Author

  IN HER NAME:

  THE LAST WAR

  Michael R. Hicks

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  ISBN: 978-0984673018

  IN HER NAME: THE LAST WAR

  Copyright © 2011 by Imperial Guard Publishing, LLC

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Published by Imperial Guard Publishing, LLC

  AuthorMichaelHicks.com

  WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE LAST WAR TRILOGY

  Drawn straight from some of the reader reviews of the collected works in The Last War:

  On The Last War trilogy itself:

  “Normally I'm not a big fan of a "prequel" type series but this one kicked some major butt.”

  “The three books that make up The Last War are a masterpiece of setting the tale of how an alien civilization seeks its' survival by waging war on one more group of space-going people - that happen to be humans! The author is one of a very few that can make this alien race's mission of seemingly killing every last human one of a tale of their races survival - and have you rooting for them! It's great!”

  “This book is a great read. Will keep you going to the end. I would recommend reading this before reading the Empire trilogy, just for a time sense and mystery. The characters are well established and everything has enough believability and background info to keep the readers interested.”

  “I do not normally read sci-fi, especially military sci-fi but this was a fantastic read…The author has a way of making this series as much about the Kreelans and their survival as it is about the human race surviving. I even shed a tear or two when a favorite character, on either side of the conflict, died.”

  On First Contact:

  “I have read a lot of science fiction books over the years but have gotten away from them because they did not seem as good anymore. This book brought me back to the fold, was a very good read. I am now re-reading it a second time because I wanted to find out what happen and quickly read to the end the first time around. Highly recommend this to any lover of science fiction.”

  “Michael Hicks is one of the bright stars in the new generation of Sci-Fi writers today. This is book four of the "In Her Name" series of novels and it is an exciting and well written story about the interstellar war that will occur with the Kreelans.”

  “This one's a page turner. Couldn't put it down. Read it all night without sleep. Really a great read.”

  “I highly recommend this whole series, truly a remarkable story. The alien culture is rich and nuanced, as are the characters. Warning, this will suck you in!”

  “Probably the best series of science fiction I have read. I only regret there is no fourth volume.”

  “This is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it!! I found myself reading late into the night, past when I normally go to bed just to see what happened next.”

  On Legend Of The Sword:

  “I’ve now read six of his books and I am about to start my seventh. I took my time reading this one because I think subconsciously I want to make sure there is another book ready for me to buy. Whether it's this series, or his "Season of the Harvest", which a sequel is on it's way (can't wait), his writings just pull you into the story like few authors can.”

  “This is an outstanding series out of the mind of Michael R. Hicks who is a new star in the Sci-Fi community. I have purchased and read all of his books and enjoyed every one. If you like Sci-Fi you will love this book!”

  “I found this story to be engrossing and I couldn't put it down. I drove my wife to anger by reading it in bed late at night after she came home at midnight from work and wanted to sleep. I tend to talk to my books as I read a great story by saying things like, "Wow." I found this story to be one truly worthy of being placed on the best library shelves in all of America, and I mean America as in the Continent, not the USA!”

  “Loved these books and the female warriors and the story of their interaction with humans. Hick's ability to present the soul and motivations of each race was fantastic, although I must admit siding with the aliens more often than not such was his skill in creating understanding of an alien mindset. Well, I for one can not wait for the next book in the series and hope that Hick's is thinking about the one to follow that!”

  On Dead Soul:

  “The In Her Name series stands at the top with some of the best SF I have ever read. All six books will draw you in and leave you wanting more.”

  “Loved this as much as the other books in the series. I love the characters, the tie in to the o
ther books and the ability of the author to take us to an entirely new world!!”

  “I have been reading SF ever since my Dad brought home E.R. Burroughs books when I was ten, I'm 60 now. I've read really good SF {and some not so good). This group of books by this new author has just become one of my favorites! These books will be bought bound and will be read and re-read for a long time to come!”

  “I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in a Military/Science Fiction tale that is not only fast moving, but accurate in portrayal of the cast of characters. This book has been a complete joy to read and I look forward to more.”

  “I like this author's work so much that I have just brought his newest book to read, Season Of The Harvest. I hope it is just as good!”

  DISCOVER OTHER BOOKS BY MICHAEL R. HICKS

  The In Her Name Series

  First Contact

  Legend Of The Sword

  Dead Soul

  Empire

  Confederation

  Final Battle

  From Chaos Born

  “Boxed Set” Collections

  In Her Name (Omnibus)

  In Her Name: The Last War

  Thrillers

  Season Of The Harvest

  Visit AuthorMichaelHicks.com for the latest updates!

  FIRST CONTACT

  CHAPTER ONE

  Captain Owen McClaren was extremely tense, although a casual observer would never have thought so. Commanding the survey vessel TNS Aurora, he was one of the best officers in the fleet, and to his crew he had never appeared as anything but calm and in control. Even when one of the ship’s newly refitted reactors had suffered a breach during their last run into dry dock, McClaren’s deep voice had never wavered, his fatherly face had never betrayed a hint of fear or apprehension as he personally directed the engineering watch to contain the breach. A man of unusual physical and moral courage, he was the perfect captain for the exploratory missions the Aurora and her sister ships mounted into distant space, seeking new homes for humanity.

  McClaren had made thousands of jumps in his twenty-year career, but every one was like the very first: an adrenaline joyride. As the transpace sequence wound down to zero, his heart would begin to pound and his muscles tensed like spring steel. It wasn’t fear that made him react that way, although there were enough things that could go wrong with a jump to make fear a natural enough reaction.

  No, what made the forty-three-year-old former middleweight boxing champion of the Terran Naval Academy hold the arms of his command chair in a white-knuckle grip wasn’t fear. It was anticipation. To Aurora’s captain, every jump, particularly out here in uncharted space, was a potential winning lottery ticket, the discovery of a lifetime. No matter where the Aurora wound up, as long as she arrived safely, there was bound to be a wealth of astrogational information to help human starships travel ever farther from Man’s birthplace: Earth.

  On rare occasions, precious habitable planets were to be found. Finding such systems was the primary goal of the survey ships. McClaren was currently the fleet’s leading “ace,” with twelve habitable planets to his credit in return for nearly fifteen years of ship-time, sailing through uncharted space.

  “Stand by for transpace sequence,” the pilot announced, her words echoing through every passageway and compartment in the Aurora’s five hundred meter length.

  McClaren tensed even more, his strong arm and back muscles flexing instinctively as if he were back in the ring, preparing to land a solid upper cut to the chin of an imaginary opponent. But his calm expression never wavered. “Very well,” he answered, his dark brown eyes drinking in the growing torrent of information on the navigation display.

  “Computer auto-lock engaged,” interjected a faux female voice reassuringly. McClaren always had to suppress a grimace: the one thing he had never liked about Aurora was the computer’s voice. It reminded him too much of his first wife.

  For the next few seconds, the crew was little more than excess baggage as the ship’s computer guided the transition from hyperspace back into the Einsteinian universe with a precision measured in quadrillionths of a second. While the bridge, which was buried deep in the Aurora’s core habitation section, had no direct observation windows, the wraparound display depicted the eerie streams of light that swirled around the ship in complete detail. But what the human eye saw in the maelstrom of quantum physics beyond the ship’s hyperdrive field was an illusion. It was real in one sense, but in another it wasn’t. Space and time as humans commonly understood it did not exist in this realm. As the captain of a starship, McClaren had to understand both the theory and the practical application of hyperspace and the means to travel through it. But he was content in the knowledge that he never could have come up with the breakthroughs that allowed this miracle to happen: he stood on the shoulders of the scientific giants who had made the first test jump into hyperspace long before he was born.

  While in hyperspace, the display would normally show the computer’s assessment of the relative location of stars and other known celestial waypoints as the ship moved along its straight-line (relatively speaking) course. But McClaren always cleared the display to show what was really outside the ship just before they dropped back into normal space. It was a sight he never tired of.

  “Ten seconds...” the computer’s voice began counting down to the transition. “Five...four...three...two...one....sequence initiated. Hyperspace Engines disengaged.”

  The display suddenly shifted, the swirling light streams condensing into a bright yellow sun against a background of stars. McClaren knew that the system had several planets; gravitational perturbations observed from their last jump point had confirmed that much. The question was whether there were any orbiting at a distance from the star where water could exist as a liquid. For where there was liquid water, there was the possibility of carbon-based life. The trick now was to find them. Planets were huge close up, but in the vast expanse of a star system they seemed incredibly small.

  “Engineering confirms hyperspace engines are secure, sir,” the executive officer, Lieutenant Commander Rajesh Kumar, reported. “Engineering is ready to answer all bells, and the ship is secured for normal space.”

  Nodding his thanks to his exec, McClaren turned to the most important person currently on the bridge: the navigator. “Raisa, what’s the word?”

  The navigator looked like she would have given McClaren a run for his money in the boxing ring. Big-boned and heavily muscled, Lieutenant Raisa Marisova had in fact been a champion wrestler in her college years. But it was her genius at stellar astrogation that had won her a place on the Aurora’s all-volunteer crew.

  “Well...” she murmured as she rechecked her readings for what McClaren knew was probably the fifth time in the few moments the ship had dropped back into normal space. Raisa was always able to confirm the ship’s emergence point so quickly because her calculations for pointing the various telescopes and other sensors at known stars to make a positional fix were always so precise. “It seems we are...right where we are supposed to be,” she said as she turned and smiled at her captain, “give or take a few meters. We’re above the ecliptic plane based on our pre-jump survey information. Now it’s up to the survey team to find your next habitable planet, captain.”

  McClaren grinned, then opened a channel to the entire ship. “Well, crew, it looks like we’ve made another successful jump, and emerged right on target. The bad news is that we’re even farther out in the Middle of Nowhere. But that’s what they pay us for. Great job, everyone.” The last few words were more than just a token verbal pat on the back: he truly meant it. Unlike most transits that took regular ships into hyperspace for a few days or even a week or two, the Aurora routinely made jumps that lasted for weeks or months. While McClaren’s crew made it look easy, he knew quite well that an amazing amount of planning and preparation went into every jump, and his crew followed it up with painstaking diligence every moment they were in hyperspace. It wasn’t just that t
hey didn’t want to wind up somewhere other than where they had planned, or because their captain expected perfection. It was because they had no intention of settling for second best. Period. “Everybody gets an extra round on me when we get back to the barn. Carry on.”

  The bridge crew grinned at one another: the captain ran up a huge bar tab on every mission, but he never failed to deliver when the ship made port.

  They had no way of knowing that all but one of them would be dead in a few short hours.

  * * *

  The stranger’s arrival was no surprise to the Imperial warships that orbited the Settlements on the third and fourth planets from the star. While even the greatly advanced technology of the Empire could not track ships while in hyperspace, they could easily detect the gravity spikes of vessels about to emerge in normal space. The stranger had been detected many hours before, as measured in the time of humans.

  While this system was at the distant edge of the Empire, far from the Homeworld and the Empress, its defenses were not lacking: of the dozens of starships in orbit around the two settled worlds and the hundreds plying the asteroid belt, four were battlecruisers built within the last century. Humans might have considered them old, until they understood that the warriors of the Empire had sailed among the stars for over one hundred thousand of Earth’s years. Even the most ancient of Her warships still plying the void between the stars was tens of thousands of years more advanced than the arriving stranger. Humans would barely have recognized them as starships.

  But the warriors charged with protecting this far-flung system had no way of knowing the primitive nature of the incoming stranger. Nor would they have cared. The Empire had encountered other sentient races over the millennia, and the first contact protocol was no different now than it had been in ages past: the stranger would be greeted with overwhelming force.