Lacuna

by David Adams

  *****

  Operations

  TFR Beijing

  THEY HAD DONE ALL THEY could. There was now nothing to do but wait as the Toralii slowly burned their way through the decompression door that sealed off operations from the rest of the ship. Liao and the rest of the operations crew were crouched behind their consoles, weapons trained on the door, ready to defend their posts.

  Normally internal defence would be left to the marines, but this time there would be no help from them. Every last one of the Beijing’s marines had already been dispatched to battles all over the ship. Many were wounded, like Cheung, or were not answering their radios; Liao had to assume they were dead.

  And now the Toralii were here, at the doorstep to the very heart of the Beijing.

  Liao checked, for the third time, that her weapon was ready. The operations crew had their weapons drawn, ready to fight off the invaders.

  Slipping the internal communications headset back over her head, Liao pressed the talk key. “Captain Liao to Warrant Officer Cheung.”

  Laboured breathing came through the earpiece, and when Cheung spoke, her voice didn’t have the same muffling it did before. Additionally, Liao could hear shouting and movement in the background; she surmised that, with her suit breached, Cheung had found a pressurized section and taken off her helmet.

  “Cheung here; what can I do for you, Captain?”

  Liao gave a slight grin, watching the corners of the metal decompression door heat up, glowing a dull red as the Toralii burned through it. “There’s a squad of Toralii Alliance marines about to break through the door to operations. I don’t suppose you have any men to spare?”

  Cheung thought it through. “Negative, Captain. Sorry, all units are engaged at this time.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Liao thought for a moment. “Anything you can tell me that’ll help, based on your engagements with the Toralii so far?”

  “Don’t let them shoot you.”

  Liao couldn’t help but chuckle at that.

  “Also,” offered Cheung, “normal rounds work, but the full-metal-jacket, armour-piercing rounds work better. Tao had a magazine of them and they worked wonders till he ran out. Their armour isn’t very thick, or possibly it’s optimized to resist energy weapons rather than projectile-based ones. Pure speculation on my part there, sir.”

  Liao nodded, even though the gesture was lost on Cheung, who couldn’t see her. “We only have regular tungsten slugs, unfortunately. Anything else?”

  “Not really. Sorry, Captain.”

  Liao nodded. “Thank you. Liao out.”

  She took off the headpiece, gently putting it down, then glanced across to Jiang. “Mister Jiang, how much of Cheung’s security report did you read?”

  Jiang looked back to her captain, shrugging her shoulders. “Most of it, why?”

  Liao’s grin spread slightly. “Okay, well, here’s the plan. Cheung came up with it. You see that section of the deck plate there, right in front of the door?”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “All right, well, the moment those motherfuckers step through that door, amp up the voltage to the gravity-plating. Just give it everything you can, and just on that one plate. It should disable them.”

  By now, the door was red-hot and sagging. Jiang nodded, tapping away at her console. “That’s a nice trick, Captain! Ready when you are!”

  Right on cue, the door sagged just a little more; the sound of the Toralii burning through the metal stopped and instead was replaced by a series of crack crack crack noises as the Toralii fired at it with their firearms.

  The door, severely weakened by the heat of their cutting devices, sagged and fell inwards. Three of the red-suited Toralii swarmed into the room…

  … and fell directly onto their faces, unable to move, pulled down by the suddenly increased weight of their own suits.

  There was a ripple of gunfire throughout the whole room as the operations crew opened up on the downed Toralii, a hail of bullets whizzing through the air as they smashed into the Toralii’s armoured suits, cracking and breaking them. From the leaks, white plumes of oxygen sprayed out from the bullet holes, soon followed by spurts of dark purple Toralii blood.

  The barrage ceased. There was a brief pause, punctuated by the click-click of reloading weapons and the occasional rattle of spent cartridges rolling loose on the floor. The remaining six Toralii hovered outside the door, cautiously examining the situation, their weapons raised.

  And then they returned fire. Their rifle-like weapons made a loud crack-crack as they launched a barrage of rounds into operations, the projectiles cutting through the air like swarms of angry locusts. Shouts and cries of alarm rang out, and Liao ducked behind her console for cover, clasping her hands over her ears to quiet the terrible din.

  The barrage abated and Liao broke cover, aiming her pistol at the doorway. Although the Toralii had not stepped through, aside from the ones who lay broken and pinned to the floor, she could see they had an excellent firing solution to almost all of the room. She fired off the last of the rounds in her magazine, unsure if she’d hit anything, and then ducked back behind cover.

  Liao thumbed the magazine release of her pistol, letting the depleted clip fall to the deck with a clatter. Reaching behind her, she yanked out the first of her spare clips and loaded it into the magazine slot, and then flicked the slide release and let the weapon push the first round into the breech with a click. Instinctively—an instinct created by years of training—she glanced to see that the safety was off.

  More gunfire from the human defenders reached her ears. Liao risked a peek over the top of the command console, only to be greeted by a withering barrage of Toralii fire, which tore gouges out of the console she was hiding behind. Ducking back, Liao glanced over at Rowe, whom she saw crouched in fear behind her chair. Judging by the absence of brass shells around her, Liao doubted she’d fired her weapon at all.

  “Summer! Summer, you have to return fire… Give me a little cover, so I can lay some heat down on the Toralii!”

  The redhead stared at her with wild, frightened eyes. Her hands were shaking so much that Liao doubted she could hit anything if she tried. “I—I can’t! I can’t! There’s too much, too many bullets or whatever, fuck! Fucking fuck!”

  Liao swore and then called out across operations. “Saara! Saara, can you hear me?”

  [“Yes, Captain!”] Saara’s words were partially cut off by the noise of another spray of fire from the Toralii soldiers. Once it died down, she continued, [“…What are your orders, Captain Liao?”]

  Before Liao could answer, there were shouts, angry and confused, from the Toralii outside. [“Who speaks our language? Identify yourself!”]

  Saara’s voice boomed in the cramped operations room. [“I am Airmaiden Saara of the Telvan, and these humans are in my care! Withdraw immediately!”]

  A low, vicious chuckle echoed throughout the corridor beyond operations, amplified by some kind of device. Liao recognized the voice as Warbringer Avaran, the commander of the ship they had attacked. The voice, judging by the strained, tinny quality it had, was clearly a transmission being relayed through some kind of speaker. Liao wondered if the Toralii commander was listening to the battle remotely.

  [“What a poor decision to side with the aliens, Airmaiden. The Telvan always were filthy cowards and bleeding hearts; there are reasons they only undertake surveillance and scouting. They lack the fire of true warriors. I should not be surprised to hear that one of their members has betrayed their own people.”]

  Liao called out from behind her console. “You’re still outnumbered, Avaran! We have two more ships in the surrounding space, and soon they’ll be close enough to target your vessel without hitting our own. Surrender now, and we’ll make sure that you are treated properly!”

  Saara repeated Liao’s terms in the Toralii dialect that Avaran spoke. The instant she finished, an amused, dismissive laugh filtered into operations, the Toralii command
er clearly not even considering the option.

  [“Amusing, but… predictably… we will decline. My vessel is more than a match for three of your primitive ships. The only reason we’re here is to capture you, Commander Liao, and force you to watch as we annihilate your species from orbit.”]

  There was another low chuckle, as though Warbringer Avaran was enjoying some kind of perverse joke at their expense. [“I must say, it is one of the true pleasures in life… watching the light die in the eyes of those who fancy themselves equal to the Toralii Alliance as their whole world crumbles into ashes. Everything they knew, everything they dreamed of, their hopes and desires and ambitions, all laid waste in a matter of hours. This, Commander Liao, will be your fate, much as it has been the fate of so many others before you. Your precious… Earth… will soon be nothing but the shattered remnants of your various civilizations, having no more life than the most barren of moons. Then, one by one, we will execute your crew, and then…”]

  Avaran gave a dramatic pause for effect, and Liao was reminded, once again, that she hated dramatic pauses.

  [“And then you, Commander Liao… captain of the ship you call the Beijing, will die. You will be the last human alive; you will witness the end of your people. And in those moments, those final few seconds when you alone stand as an example of your species, you will realize that it was you that brought humanity to destruction. That everything that happened to your people was your fault. This will be your dying thought as I drive my blade through your heart.”]

  Rowe, somehow managing a weak smile, called out to Liao. “He sure loves to talk, doesn’t he?”

  Despite the gravity of their situation, Liao couldn’t help but chuckle. “He certainly does prattle on a bit. Just imagine if he was here in person.”

  There was a pause as, presumably, the Toralii commander issued orders to his soldiers. Then came a low whine, similar to the cutting device used to melt in the door. Liao, again, risked a peek over the console.

  The Toralii were gone.

  Frowning, she stood up, glancing around the room. As she did so, the last of her magazines caught on the edge of the command console, snagged, and fell out of the back of her pants with a clatter. Giving an exasperated sigh, Liao continued her survey of the room. She could hear the whining but couldn’t see any sign of the Toralii except the dead intruders still firmly stuck to the floor just outside the doorway. Shaking her head in confusion—she refused to believe the Toralii had just turned around and left—Liao bent back down behind the console to retrieve her magazine, an action which saved her life as a massive explosion blew out one whole side of the room, showering white-hot sparks of metal all over the room like a swarm of angry fireflies.

  Even behind the console, she was blown over backwards by the concussive force. For a moment, Liao lay stunned as she saw the heavy metal boots of the six remaining members of the Toralii boarding party storm into the room. The suits of five of them were coloured completely red, the rust colour she had seen the others clad in, and one wore white.

  Crack-crack-crack went the Toralii rifles, white flashes of light signalling their shots as they cut a bloody path through the stunned operations crew, and Liao struggled back into a kneeling position. Still feeling dizzy, her mind clouded by the pain of her fall, she fired off another couple of rounds at the nearest Toralii. Most of the shots were deflected by the heavy suit of steel space armour he wore, but one bullet hit the invader square on the reflective visor and found its way through. The neat little hole it left, just to the left of the centre, seemed like such a tiny thing, but it was enough to bring the red-suited Toralii crashing limply to the deck of the operations room, collapsing like a puppet with its strings cut.

  Now there were five.

  Her actions seemed to have a rallying effect. Jiang and Dao broke cover together and opened fire on the closest Toralii, but despite several good hits, his red armour seemed to stop most of it. The Toralii raised his rifle and, with a single shot to each of them, blasted both crewmen back to the deck.

  His grim work complete, the Toralii soldier reached out for a console to steady himself, but Liao lined up her pistol to his leg and squeezed. The limb presented a difficult but tantalizing target; generally speaking, joints were hard to protect. Fortunately for her, although most of the shots went wide or bounced off the red-clad armour, one found purchase on his knee joint—with a howl of pain, the Toralii toppled over near where Saara was crouched. Thinking quickly, the Toralii woman gave him two shots in the visor, and as Liao went to reload, his body went limp. Just to make sure, Liao fired at the prone Toralii until her clip was out of ammunition.

  Then there were four.

  Liao jammed her last magazine into her pistol, watching as Saara picked up the fallen Toralii’s rifle and shouldered it. Her Toralii friend broke cover, firing rapidly but accurately. The weapon seemed to have a much more pronounced effect than their puny handguns, and Liao was relieved to see others having success; she watched as Saara’s rounds blew out the chest of one of the Toralii and then sent a second sprawling with a wound to the shoulder.

  And then, with only one red- and one white-armoured Toralii marine remaining, their luck changed. The red-suited Toralii fired twice, and Saara was flung back against her console in a spray of purple blood, groaning in pain as her legs collapsed beneath her. Then, with a faint hiss, the Toralii slumped to the deck.

  “SAARA!”

  Screaming in anger and rage, Liao opened up on the red-suited invader, emptying her last magazine directly into the Toralii, her very last round slipping between the armoured plates near his neck and knocking him back against Jiang’s blood-splattered console.

  With no more ammunition, Liao absently tossed her useless pistol away. She wasn’t sure why, but she reached out for the long-range communications headset, slipping it over her head. Immediately, Matthew’s voice echoed in her ear, his thick Australian accent calm and collected. “—eijing, this is Sydney actual, report status, over.”

  Hearing footsteps and looking up, Liao found herself staring down the barrel of the white-suited Toralii soldier’s rifle, the gun only inches away from her bloodied face.

  [“Go on,”] spoke the Toralii, reaching up with a hand and pressing a button to the side of his visor, causing the thick glass-like substance to liquefy and disappear. Now his face was visible… a face that held a mixture of rage, contempt, and the thrill of victory. [“Go… give your report. Tell your comrades on the Sydney that the great Commander Liao is down and bloodied, her crew dead and her ship in ruins. Tell them that you are beaten.”]

  “You understand English? You’re… listening to our transmissions?”

  [“Evidently. Now… tell them.”]

  Slowly reaching up to the talk key, Liao depressed it, feeling wet blood slowly trickling down her head.

  “Sydney, this is Beijing actual.” She gave a low, mirthless chuckle, shaking her head, hearing her own words repeated back to her from inside the white-armoured Toralii’s helmet. “Believe me… you don’t want to know.”

  The Toralii jabbed the rifle barrel towards her, splitting her lip and causing her to grunt. [“I said, tell them you’re beaten! Obey me, insect!”]

  “Fuck you.”

  Lowering his weapon slightly, the Toralii pressed the barrel to Liao’s shoulder and pulled the trigger.

  White-hot pain sprang from the wound, and Liao fell back against the deck, crying out in pain. She curled up in a ball as blood poured from the injury, clutching her shoulder so hard her fingernails dug into her skin and her eyes closed tight.

  [“Worm! Less than nothing! You will tell them how Varsian the Immortal cut down your crew like a scythe through grass! You will tell them how you begged for death, about how you pleaded for your pathetic life as—”]

  “HEY!” came a shout from behind the Toralii soldier. Liao’s eyes flew open, looking up in time to see a flurry of red hair. The white-suited Toralii man twisted around and raised his rifle, but then th
ere was a sickening splat, and he dropped it, his hands moving up to his face as he howled in pain. The Toralii staggered backwards, rifle clattering to the floor, clutching his face…

  …with Summer Rowe’s pen firmly lodged in his left eye.

  Leaping forward, Rowe snatched up the Toralii’s fallen weapon, raising it up and pressing it directly to the Toralii’s white-armoured chest.

  “Bangarang, motherfucker.”

  She pulled the trigger. With a white flash and a spray of blood and broken metal, the last of the Toralii collapsed against the Beijing’s deck. Blood pooled out from his wound. Varsian seemed to be staring directly at Liao, lips trembling slightly as the light in his remarkably feline eyes slowly faded.

  Rowe dropped the weapon, moving to Liao’s side.

  “Holy shit, Captain! You’re shot. You’re shot… can I help—”

  Coughing and wincing from pain, Liao shook her head. “No! No… I’m fine, I’m fine… help Jiang, Dao, Saara… help them… get Doctor Saeed up here!”

  Although Liao could sense her hesitation and she knew her wound was serious, she watched Rowe move away from her, rolling Jiang’s crumpled form onto her side and applying pressure to the woman’s wounds. Dao, groaning feebly, gave a wet, hacking cough, blood trickling from the side of his lips.

  She vaguely heard Rowe call Doctor Saeed, but she found it hard to pay attention.

  The headset crackled to life once again. She had forgotten she was wearing it. Knight’s voice once again spoke to her.

  “Sydney to Beijing, Tehran; the Toralii vessel is disengaging from the Beijing and moving into a firing solution! Beijing, you have got to move, you’re a sitting duck!”

  Liao blinked, the wooziness returning twice over, probably due to the blood loss and shock of her wounds. She stared directly up at the ceiling, her blood pouring out onto the deck as she reached up and pressed the talk key on the left earpiece.

  “Beijing to Sydney, Tehran… this is Beijing actual. Most sincere apologies, Captain, but we won’t be able to manoeuvre at this stage. The boarders have been repelled, but most of the operations crew are fucked. Our engines are fucked. Our electronics and optics are fucked.”

  “Tehran to Sydney, this is Captain James Grégoire… I got this one. Just get clear; I’m going to take care of it.”

  Liao, despite it all, could not fight the warm smile that spread over her face. Grégoire’s cockiness was inspiring, despite the hopelessness of their situation. It was just like him to make a stupid joke when everything was hopeless.

  “Oh, you’ve got this one, do you?” she asked into the microphone, by now completely disregarding radio protocol. The world itself seemed to be getting dimmer and more distant as her blood spread below her like a dark, rust-coloured stain. Rolling her head to the right, she saw Saara’s crumpled form lying sprawled on the deck, her lifeblood blooming like a sanguine flower from her various wounds and slowly spreading over the bare metal of the ship’s floor.

  “Mmm… see, I’ve got a plan. Do you remember that story I told you, back when we were in Sydney? Right before the attacks, the one about War of the Worlds?”

  “Uh… yeah. Something about a Thunder Child.” A small smile graced her lips, recalling the memory. “I still haven’t read it.”

  Suddenly, the memory came back to Liao as if illuminated by the light of a firework in the night sky; James and his crew had sunk an American aircraft carrier by breaking the rules of the contest, by…

  The sharp knife of panic began to cut through the dull fog of her barely functional mind, fear building within her. Surely she was wrong. “James? James, what’s happening? What are you doing?”

  Grégoire chuckled into her ear, his voice with a strange edge to it. “Well, I got the propulsion and guidance systems up and working, but the only weapon we have left is the ship itself.”

  There was a moment of dull shock as Liao processed what he was going to do.

  “James… James, listen to me, okay? Look… let the Sydney take care of it, just focus on saving your crew, on saving yourself—”

  James cut her off. “There’s no time. The Toralii are almost in a firing solution. Besides, manoeuvring is shot, by now I can’t change course even if I wanted to.”

  “James… no, James, no… you have to change your heading. You have to reverse or move out of the way. There must be some other way! Let me talk to Knight; the Sydney can help. They’re not far away. There’s enough time… there’s enough—”

  “I’m sorry, Melissa. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never got to give you everything you wanted or to tell you how I really felt… but this is the only way. The Toralii are too strong.”

  “James, don’t do this… please, I—”

  “I’m sorry Melissa; it’s the only—”

  The line went dead, and the rumble of an intense shock wave passed over the Beijing, rattling the debris and causing Liao to tumble onto her side, her wounds tearing from the violent motion. Fighting the simultaneous urges to scream in agony and to pass out, Liao fumbled for the talk key.

  “Knight! Captain Matthew Knight, report!”

  There was no answer. Growling in frustration, Liao pressed the talk key several times, an action which transmitted an annoying series of clicks to anyone who was listening on the line. It was a dick move, but she wanted to be heard.

  “This is Beijing actual; whoever is listening to this transmission, I want Captain Knight of the TFR Sydney to report status immediately!”

  For a moment, nothing came through, and then the soft crackle of an incoming signal. Knight’s voice, strained and soft, filtered through the earpiece of the long-range communications headset, his tone far more telling than his words.

  “There’s nothing to report. The Tehran went straight in, Commander… straight in. They rammed the Toralii warship right in its midsection.”

  Liao’s chest clenched, and she squeezed the talk key so hard the plastic creaked. Her words were slurred, and she had to fight to keep herself coherent, to keep her thoughts ordered enough to give orders. Even though Knight was a full captain and she only a Commander, the Beijing was the de facto flagship. She doubted anyone would question them at this point.

  “Understood. Instruct strike fighters to begin immediate search and rescue operations. Have the crews cut their way into the hull and start—”

  “Commander, I… I’m sorry, I wasn’t clear. There’s nothing left. Both ships are gone. There’s not even debris left. There’s just… nothing.”

  “B-But…”

  “I’m sorry, Commander… but he’s gone.”

  Liao would have argued the point, would have screamed and cried and yelled and refused to accept reality as she was occasionally inclined to do, would have thrown herself into finding James and dragging him back to her ship alive and well… but between Knight's words, her numerous wounds, and the sudden, searing pain in her heart… the human body could only stand so much.

  She had lost too much blood and the injury to her head was almost certainly a concussion. Liao tried to keep her mind focused, tried to summon up the mental and physical strength to continue, but it was futile. There was, she knew, a certain line that no human can ignore. Some limits could not be exceeded; the human body eventually demanded you stop, demanded you rest lest the healing process have no chance at all.

  It was a line she finally crossed. Liao felt the world go grey and then black… and then she felt nothing at all.

  Epilogue

  Light