Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi

by Adams, David

  Cheung smiled at her. “Captain, if I wanted certainty in my life I wouldn’t have become a Marine. We’re trained to deal with unexpected situations, fluid situations that can change at any moment. In fact, one could argue that everything we do has at least some significant element of the unknown in it.”

  Cheung reached down, gently stroking the length of the gun in a way Liao found slightly unsettling, as though she were touching the face of a beloved child. “I mean, if all variables in all our battles were known in advance, we’d know whether we would win or lose, so we would retreat or attack accordingly. Extrapolate that out to entire armies. If the outcome was known, then there’d be no wars. Everyone would get together, compare their respective strengths, then either declare victory or concede defeat. What we do is intrinsically random, to some extent.”

  It was an interesting point, and Liao had no immediate comment to refute it. “Well,” she began, “I hope to have as few surprises as possible on this mission.”

  Cheung chuckled. “I wouldn’t count on that, Captain. We know a bit about the Toralii, yes, but this is the first time we’ve gone toe-to-toe with them on the ‘ground,’ so to speak. The boarding party was an interesting taste of their abilities, but things are very different when you’re the one attacking. A defender’s position is a lot stronger because they have control over what points they’re willing to defend or what they’ll cede. They also have full knowledge of the terrain and in most cases are defending their homes, so their motivation is greater.”

  “You make it sound like we should be defending more often,” Liao said. “You don’t believe all that crap about garrisoning the Pillars, do you? That we should focus ourselves on defending Earth and our solar system and not leave it at all?”

  Cheung chuckled again, shaking her head. “No, Captain. While all I said is true, an attacker dictates the tempo of the battle. They choose where to strike and when, and they possess other advantages, usually more specific to the individual battle. The whole point of battle, of war, is to win; modern warfare, even in space, is the epitome of that philosophy. We don’t consider fighting fair, Captain. If we had some technology that allowed us to kill the Toralii defenders in their sleep from vast distances, you can be certain we would use it. We’re not here to engage in heroic battles with bayonets–we’re here to annihilate our enemies as efficiently as possible with as little risk to ourselves as we can manage.

  “Fortunately, while our chances aren’t that high, things look okay for us. The Toralii here have been there for some time. Centuries. They’ve only really fired on ships from afar and then watched the pretty fireworks. The combat they’ve seen so far has mostly been, well, shooting Kel-Voran in a barrel, if you catch my drift. That’s exactly how it should be done, mind, but it dulls the edge a little bit. Their people may be well trained and equipped, but their experience in real battle, in this terrain, is minimal.

  “So if I get my way, things are going to get ugly in there. We’re going to hit them fast and hard, and we’re going to carve a bloody path through that station. The Toralii won’t be expecting that, no matter how well trained they are or how important the station is. Everyone gets complacent. Everyone lets their guard down over time.”

  Cheung extended her hand to the weapon. “The last time they met us, we got our arses kicked in space and our guns could barely pierce their armour. This time we’re going to drop in right behind their defensive perimeter, and we’ve got weapons that can—hopefully—knock them down in a single hit.”

  Yanmei looked down at her weapon again then turned to Liao, a fierce grin spreading across her face. “This time, Captain, things are going to be different. This time it’s their turn to earn some scars.”

  Liao nodded, unable to resist a faint smile. “I surely hope so.”

  Cheung gave a low cough. “Is there anything else, Captain?”

  “No, that will be all.”

  “Great.” Yanmei picked up the weapon again, reaching for another magazine and loading it with a smooth click. “I have a lot more weapons to inspect, and I only have one set of earplugs.”

  Liao left to the sound of booming explosions and the snap-snap-snap of high-powered rounds being discharged downrange, noises that stopped with an eerie suddenness when she closed the soundproofed door. It was as if she had wandered into a little piece of the Marine’s mind that had to be quarantined and shut off from the rest of society, lest they take her and lock her in a mental ward.

  Liao couldn't resist the urge to yawn, and she suddenly realised it had been nearly a full day since she last slept. She would be of no use to her ship exhausted, so she took a left turn at the end of the junction, heading back towards her quarters.

  * * *

  Liao’s Quarters

  TFR Beijing

  Liao dreamed.

  She was sitting on Velsharn’s shores, sunlight pouring down from the planet’s bright sun and illuminating every corner and crevice—blasting away the darkness with waves of beautiful, warm radiance. She watched the sunlight wink off the water, reflecting and refracting in a dazzling display of light that was as beautiful as it was alien.

  Then the sun went below the horizon and, with twilight’s heavy cloak shrouding the sands around her, she turned and made her escape to the buildings of the research colony.

  Liao laughed and played, feeling like a child again. She ran across the dark earth, blue vines crushing under her feet as she darted along the main roads of the settlement, her head twisting this way and that as she waved to passersby. The path was lit by lights and, standing under each, a Toralii scientist laughed and waved back. She darted from building to building, as though tagging each of them with her hands, giggling impishly.

  Rain began to fall slowly through the dark cloak of night, then with an increasing tempo. Large drops of water beat down on the strange blue vines that covered most of the surface of Velsharn, slickening the ground, her boots turning the earth to mud as she ran.

  The water was good, she mused. The water was life.

  A flash of lightning lit up the sky and Liao, momentarily blinded, looked up. She knew it had been nighttime on the main island when the missiles came, and she could see them now—faint, twinkling falling stars leaving long trails behind them as they wandered gracefully towards the settlement, growing larger.

  Then another flash of lightning, but she knew it wasn’t lightning. The missiles soared through the atmosphere, one exploding nearby; that one was closer. Loud alarms rang out all over the settlement, the dull klaxon barely audible above the rain. The scientists ran to their stations; the civilians called for their children and spouses.

  She glanced down at the ground, feeling a sharp pain in her abdomen. Reaching down, her hand came away slick with blood, which poured out onto the rain-slick ground in a wave.

  She looked up just in time to see the last of the missiles, heading straight towards her, burst in the night sky. The huge shockwave of superheated atomic fire raced towards her, engulfing her and turning her body to ashes.

  * * *

  Liao’s Quarters

  TFR Beijing

  Liao awoke with a start, her sheets stained with sweat, her breathing heavy. She closed her eyes, calming herself. Just a dream…

  She shifted herself to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, shaking her head to clear away the last remnants of the dream. The shadows haunting her mind began to fade, though the pain in her abdomen remained. Slight but pointed, like a menstrual cramp.

  Without thinking about it, she reached down between her legs with one hand, the other reaching over for the light. Illumination flooded her quarters—the harsh white light of a fluorescent—and she squinted for a moment before glancing down at her hand.

  At fingers that were tipped in blood.

  * * *

  Infirmary

  TFR Beijing

  Liao knew she must have made quite the sight. The captain of the ship wearing nothing but a bathrobe as she power-walked
from her quarters to the infirmary. By a sheer stroke of luck, the ship was in the middle of the night shift, so most of the crew were either asleep or at their posts, and the corridors were mostly empty.

  Only a handful of eyes spotted her as she walked, and without her makeup, hat, or uniform, she doubted they would have recognised her anyway.

  “Doctor?”

  Doctor Saeed, clearly about to leave for the evening, took one look at Captain Liao and ushered her into a private ward.

  When they were alone he stared at her in alarm. “Captain, you look like hell. What’s going on?”

  Liao, unable to keep the tremor from her voice, shook her head. “I’m bleeding.”

  Saeed’s features withered, and Liao could tell that he was not pleased by the news. “I see. Well, some bleeding is normal during a pregnancy. It’s not good, but it’s not automatically a threatened miscarriage.”

  His voice was strong. Confident. Too confident. Liao knew it was partly an act; he was trying to be strong for her, and she could tell whatever was happening to her was serious.

  “What are the odds?” she asked, her voice quavering slightly.

  “Of it being a miscarriage?”

  Liao nodded, drawing the bathrobe tighter around herself.

  Saeed frowned. “I don’t know. I’d say seventy percent, depending on how much blood is present, what type of blood it is, and a whole host of other factors that are outside my area of expertise. We don’t have obstetricians on-board, but I could arrange a teleconference.”

  Although slightly higher than fifty-fifty, Liao wasn't happy with those odds. “What can we do until then?” she asked, stepping over to a sink and washing the blood from her fingertips.

  “There’s a small cocktail of drugs we can try, but we just have to wait and see. We can keep you here overnight for observation and we’ll know in the morning.”

  Liao nodded. “We can say that it’s a follow-up for my injuries earlier. We can say there’s some kind of complication, or…”

  Saeed took a step towards her. “Captain, if this is what you know it could be, you might be here for several days. The crew are going to start asking questions, and—”

  “Not now!” Liao snapped, turning to him and shaking her fingers dry. “Not now, okay? The crew will get told–assuming it’s still viable–but not now.”

  Saeed held out his hand. “I’ll make you a deal,” he offered. “I’ll cover for you, and by that I mean I won’t just ‘no comment’ whatever I’m asked, like I’m supposed to. I’ll actively lie for you while you’re here if you can promise me that if the fetus survives, you’ll immediately come clean with the crew about your condition. If it doesn’t make it, then I’ll maintain the cover until my dying day.”

  Liao gripped the sink, then slowly relaxed her hands. “If you can save her,” she promised him with a weary sigh, “I’ll tell the crew anything you want me to.”

  “Her?” Saeed asked.

  Liao knew the fetus was far too young to determine gender, but she had a feeling. An unexplainable piece of knowledge she couldn't verify in any way. It was irrational and illogical, but somehow Liao knew her baby was a girl.

  She thought Saeed was going to press her for more information, but he simply held up his hands, shaking his head. “No, no, I’m not going to ask. Good. I’ll hold you to that. Lie down. It’s best if you rest. If we’re going to do this, we don’t have a lot of time.”

  * * *

  Later

  Liao didn’t want to wake up.

  It was an odd feeling to slowly begin to awaken and then, realizing what it would mean, to try desperately to go back to sleep.

  But the feeling was tempered by a deep-seated desire to know. She forced her eyes awake, revealing the dark room of the surgical ward where Saeed had put her to bed. Privately. He was as good as his word in that regard.

  She had been drugged—she remembered that much—but she remembered as well that it was a necessity. She needed rest and she wouldn’t get any without help, so they both agreed the risks involved with putting her under would be outweighed by the potential benefits.

  Saeed said he would perform the ultrasound while she was asleep, though he had been on duty for nearly twelve hours when she had arrived, so he could stay up no longer than necessary. Anxious to ask him how the procedure went, she sat up, which caused a previously unnoticed brown envelope to fall from her chest and fly to the floor. She watched despairingly as the thin envelope flipped and slid under a heavy steel cabinet.

  “You have got to be shitting me,” she muttered, her mind still dull from the sedatives. She clambered to her feet, staggered over to the cabinet, and crouched beside the metal container. The slit where the envelope had fallen under was only a centimetre high— too thin to slip a finger under—and the cabinet looked too heavy to move on her own.

  It took her several minutes, but she eventually found a long, thin strip of metal–possibly some kind of surgical device–and bent the tip around in a hook. Returning to a prone position she clumsily began fishing for the envelope.

  She slid the metal towards the paper. The strip touched it, caught on an edge, and pushed it farther under the cabinet.

  Liao uttered a curse in Chinese, essentially calling the pre-marital virtue of the paper’s maternal ancestor into question, before calming herself and trying again. This time the hook caught on the envelope’s fold, and she gingerly extracted it.

  Eager hands tore the envelope open. Within was a single black and white picture from an ultrasound, dated yesterday. She took the printout in trembling hands, her eyes scanning over it.

  A circle, drawn in red pen, was made around a small white speck on the black field. It was similar to her last, except the dot was slightly larger.

  Her fetus was still there.

  Emitting a gasp of relief, she clutched the paper to her chest.

  The radio she’d left beside her bed crackled.

  “Lieutenant Jiang to Captain Liao.”

  Standing shakily, she walked over to the black device and pressed the talk key. “C-Captain Liao here.”

  “Sorry to disturb you, Captain, but we’re ready to go up here. I hope everything went well with the checkup. Saeed told me you were experiencing some more trouble with your shoulder, and you were scheduled for a possible surgery today.”

  She looked down at the ultrasound. Below the red circle, written in the same red pen, were two words in Saeed’s handwriting.

  Your move.

  She took a breath. “Actually, Lieutenant, my shoulder’s fine. I’ve discovered that I’m pregnant.”

  There was a moment of silence. She could tell Jiang had the talk key held down by the slight hiss over the line and the faint sound of her breathing, but no other sound came through. Then, in the background, she heard Summer’s voice.

  “Saeed got her pregnant? Hey, did anyone else know the Captain was nail’n Saeed last night? How’d she know she was knocked up so fast? I suppose he is a doctor.”

  Liao practically crushed the talk key into powder, her voice a furious hiss. “No, you idiot, I’ve been pregnant for three months!”

  “Really? Oh, well, that explains it. ’Grats, Captain!”

  A loud cheer rose from Operations, and Liao couldn’t fight a wide, joyous smile.

  * * *

  Operations

  TFR Beijing

  Two days later

  The next two days passed in a flurry of congratulations, presents, and gentle pats on the back. It seemed everyone had a gift for her: Yanmei gave her a ribbon she’d worn as a child, Summer her first video game–a dusty old PlayStation controller that probably didn’t work anymore, which Liao didn’t have any hardware for, rendering it a moot point–and a small pocketwatch from Kamal. The Iranian explained it was supposed to be a gift for when they retrieved James, but since they already had “a little bit of him,” it seemed appropriate.

  The rest of the crew gave her knickknacks, cards, and the occasional flowe
r. Given how rare and expensive they were, she appreciated the latter more than the crew could have imagined.

  It was completely the opposite reaction to what she’d been expecting, which made her earlier refusal to share the information seem silly in retrospect.

  To sweeten the moment, Jiang returned to duty as the ship’s Tactical officer, replacing Peng. Although Kamal had a soft spot for him, it was a welcome change for Liao, but she felt sorry for the young man. She wrote in her report, using the very pen that Peng had given her as a congratulatory gift, that he had not adjusted well to living so far away from home, and his particular skills would be better suited to one of the various defensive stations placed around the Sol system’s lone jump point. It would still be a prestigious posting and would, she hoped, give Peng ample time to improve his skills. And Kamal would be able to visit as often as time allowed.

  But those days, as all things do, passed quickly.

  Back in her uniform, she stood in Operations, the flowers and presents securely stowed in her quarters. They were ready to launch.

  It was the moment she had been waiting for ever since James's disappearance. They were going to Cenar. They had a plan, and it might even work.

  Liao reached into her breast pocket, withdrawing the simple steel key that would engage the jump drive, her eyes meeting Kamal’s as he did the same. Together, they strode over to the simple grey box that was the jump drive's activation console, glancing at Summer as she approached.

  “Is the jump drive prepared?” Liao asked.

  “Ready to jump, Captain,” the redheaded woman confirmed, giving her a reassuring nod.

  Liao slid her key forward, as though in slow motion, pressing it against the keyhole and pushing it in with a soft click.