In Her Name: The Last War by Michael R. Hicks

war.

 
     
     
     
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    “Lord of All,” McClaren breathed as the alien gently shoved his naked body through the perfectly circular hole, about three meters across, that they’d cut in the side of his ship. He had thought at first that they were going to push him into hard vacuum through some sort of invisible barrier, for there was nothing visible between the Aurora’s hull and that of the enemy vessel that now stood very close alongside. But he had seen that there were warriors at a few spots along the invisible gangway that somehow linked the ships, and that had held his fear in check. Barely.
    But my God, the view , he thought as he crossed over the threshold from the metal deck into the void. Suddenly leaving the ship’s artificial gravity behind, his stomach momentarily dropped away as he became weightless. He could see down the Aurora’s flank, noting the holes where the enemy warriors had burned through the hull to board his ship. 
    Then there was the enemy ship - huge! - that didn’t look a thing like any spacecraft ever made by humankind. The smooth metal (he assumed it was metal) of the hull gleamed a deep but brilliant green, with contoured dark gunmetal-colored ports and blisters where he assumed some sort of hatches or weapons were mounted. Unlike a human ship, which was a patchwork of plates, the surface of the alien ship’s hull was as smooth as a still pond: he couldn’t see any joints or welds, rivets, screws or other fastenings as he got closer. It was as if the hull was one gigantic sheet of...whatever it was made of. The craft was all graceful curves, as if it were designed to fly in an atmosphere, with none of the boxy fittings and other angular projections typical of human ships. Looking forward, he saw that giant runes were inscribed along its raked prow, perhaps proclaiming the ship’s name, whatever it might be.
    And all around him: the stars. As if his hand had a will of its own, he reached out to touch them. He knew they were billions of miles away, but they seemed so close. The alien sun burned brightly mere millions of miles away, and a point of light far brighter than the other stars proclaimed itself the planet from which the four warships had come. He had been on plenty of spacewalks, but this wasn’t the same. Maybe it was the emotional exhaustion of the last few hours since the alien ships had been spotted. So little time on the scale of his life, but an eternity for those who had lived through it. 
    The stars. Part of him knew that this would be the last time he would ever see them. He looked outward, and the unfeeling Universe returned his gaze.
    He felt one of the warriors take his arm, amazingly gently, he thought, to propel him onward to his destination. With one last heartbroken look at Aurora , he turned toward the open maw of the alien ship that awaited him. 
    Behind McClaren, the other survivors of the Aurora were ferried along, naked and still dazed from the emotional and physical trauma of the healing gel. Even though a number of them had performed spacewalks countless times, they gawked in awe at the great Void around them, and felt a deep tremor of fear at the huge alien warship that seemed in their eyes as big as a planet. 
    As McClaren approached the “hatch” of the alien ship, he looked closely at the smooth petals of the material (he was less and less convinced that anything on this ship was metal as he understood it) that had irised open. He had no doubt that when this aperture was closed, it would be totally invisible against the hull. Or maybe the aliens could open an aperture like this anywhere, if needed. 
    His professional curiosity warred with the fear of what would happen to humanity if these creatures were able to trace the path Aurora had taken here. His failure to ensure the navigation computer core had been destroyed ate at him like a bitter acid in his gut. And with his crew now removed from the ship, any opportunity - Not that