by David Adams
Liao continued her story. Talking helped calm her nerves. “Lemme tell you this: on my maiden voyage, the bosun found a thief. That guy was off the boat and sent home at the next port of call, reduced in rank and out of the submarine force.”
“Sounds like he deserved it,” James said.
The wailing of alarms picked up, as though Rowe were yelling at them to get in.
Liao closed another pod hatch. “Yup,” she said, moving on to another. “Zero sympathy. We returned all the shit he stole to the rightful owners, and in the middle of the night a bunch of guys kicked the shit out of him and took everything he had. He left the boat with little more than one set of uniforms, his wallet without cash, and his discharge papers. He lost a lot of blood. Medics found most of it.”
“Don’t steal on a submarine,” James said. “Noted. You fish-people are crazy, you know that?”
She snorted, smiling at him. “The Type 94 was louder than two skeletons fucking in a metal trash can. It was enough to drive anyone crazy after a few months.”
“I bet,” James said. “We were too busy training to worry if our shit was getting stolen, because we knew everyone else was too busy to steal, too.”
Crewmen jostled around her, filing into the last three pods. She and James, as senior staff, stepped aside, letting everyone else fill them up. They would have to get out last.
“Wow. You got training.” Liao playfully nudged him in the ribs with her elbow, making sure it was her fleshy one. “Such Western luxury. My old CO was reluctant to train his crew. He would ask me: ‘what if we spend all this money training them, and they just leave?’ My answer was: ‘what if we don’t, and they stay?’”
James laughed at that, but she continued.
“It’s true. The risk to any organisation that trained, skilled staff will leave is far less than incompetent people becoming entrenched in the system, unable to be released because of their unique skills, unable to pass along those skills to others because they don’t know how, and unable to be promoted because they’re incompetent. Those kinds of people are poison to any group of people. I’d rather have a hundred promising people get free training and leave than one bad gear in this intricate mesh of people called a ship.”
James watched the crew file into the escape pods. “But we don’t have a hundred promising people, do we?”
“Not yet.” Liao put her hand on his shoulder. “But we can get through this. Rowe’s newfound talent will free up a lot of people for training, and a lot of skilled personnel came out of Cheyenne Mountain. Lots of communications and technical people. Survivors. Those will help us a lot, although I suspect the Americans will get the lion’s share of them.”
“Already been done,” James said. “That’s why there are so many American transplants.”
That was good. Liao considered. “There’s always the civilian population. We haven’t really addressed what kind of skills are there.”
His playful look of horror made her snort with laughter.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m not suggesting we just give Joe Six-pack control of our railguns. But there’s probably a few gems in there.”
James beckoned one of the crewmen into a pod. “Yeah. Honestly, I had the same thought. I was just afraid of raising it with the other captains. It’s not as simple as just canvassing the civilian survivors, finding people with skills and drafting them. They’re civilians. We all signed up for this. They didn’t. We can’t just force them to serve; even if we could, a ship full of conscripts is a bad idea.”
She nodded. “Even if they do want to, not every eager signup gets through boot, and we don’t exactly have a military academy here to train people.”
“Well, maybe we could build one.”
She shook her head incredulously. “You’re joking.”
“No way. The Melissa Liao Academy of Military Sciences. It’s got a pretty nice ring to it, doesn’t it?” James leaned forward slightly. “I’ll be a great professor.”
The idea actually made her uncomfortable. “I’m not sure it should be named after me. My tenure—on and off—as a part of Task Force Resolution has been… mixed.”
However, James seemed to approve. “Doubt’s good. Doubt keeps you honest. It’ll keep you improving.”
Alarms rang around them. Rowe patched herself into Liao’s headset. “Captain, the missiles are getting real fucking close. Hope you’re about ready to get the fuck out.”
“We are,” she said. “How long?”
“Like, maybe five minutes, tops.”
Five minutes. More than enough time.
“This one,” James said, gesturing towards a nearly-full pod. “Everyone else is aboard. Time for us to do our thing. Ladies first.”
Liao grinned and, with a cheeky smile, bowed formally. “Gentlemen first. The captain gets off last. Don’t forget to strap in.”
James, his eyes shining with mirth, stepped into the escape pod. He folded down a seat, slid into it, pulled down the six-point harness, and clipped it over his shoulders and waist. He gave the straps an experimental tug then, seemingly confident they were secure, patted the seat next to him invitingly.
Before she had time to change her mind, Liao reached over and put her metal fist through the glass, striking the launch button below.
“Melissa!” James shouted, struggling with his straps. “What? No! No!”
The steel door hissed as it closed, sealing the crew—and James—inside. Liao moved up to the porthole and looked out, a vague emptiness building up within her. The moment she had given the suggestion to abandon ship, she’d known this was how it would go down. The pod hissed faintly as it charged up, preparing to launch.
James leapt up, pounding on the metal door, his face filling the porthole. Whatever he was trying to say was smothered by the thick metal and void beyond.
She touched her headset, switching to the open channel. “I’m sorry, James.”
He fiddled with his own headset on the other side. “Melissa, come on. What are you doing? Get in a pod!”
“Anderson was right.” Liao spoke the truth with an even tone, devoid of emotion. Only facts. “The Toralii are going to keep coming, keep attacking. They aren’t going to give up until I’m dead.” The faintest beginnings of a smile played on her face. “The captain goes down with the ship.”
James hammered on the door again, but a loud hiss of hydraulics cut him off. The pod, propelled by electromagnets, shot away from the hull of the Beijing, flying into space, shrinking as it tore away from the ship, arching slightly as New Evarel’s gravity pulled it down, down, down, until it was out of view of the porthole.
Liao took off her headset and walked back to Operations. The corridors were devoid of crew, filled only with the wailing of alarms.
Her ship, just to herself. She pushed open the door, the metal swinging limply.
“Hey,” Rowe said, projecting her voice through the Operations Room’s speakers. “Wait… wait! What the fuck, Captain? What are you doing here?”
No regrets. Liao moved over to her console and inspected it. The evacuation was mostly complete… only two escape pods remained. As she watched, they shot away, clearing the Beijing.
It was just her.
“You okay, Summer?”
“Yeah, I’m on a Broadsword. But, Captain, you gotta—”
“No.”
Rowe’s tone picked up in urgency. “Those missiles are only a minute or so away, Captain, more and more of them every second. Point defence autocannons are not going to be able to handle this. We’re out of missiles, and our railguns are overheated. There is no way we can defend the ship against those missiles.” She practically shouted down the line. “What are you doing?”
“Atoning,” Liao said, leaning up against the commander’s console. “For everything I’ve done wrong.”
“Captain… I got James on the line. He really wants to talk to you. Won’t stop shouting.”
“Okay,” Liao said, against her better judg
ement. “Put him through. And make it an open, unencrypted frequency. I want the fleet to hear this. I want the Toralii to hear this.”
“You sure?” Rowe asked. “He’s real upset. I mean real upset…”
Liao traced the edges of her commander’s console with her metal fingers. How Toralii they looked… Liao the Kittenclawed, indeed. “Just do it.”
“Melissa?” James’s voice came through loud and clear, and in the background, she could hear the faint roaring of atmosphere outside the escape pod’s hull.
The crack in his voice almost broke her heart. Her lower lip trembled slightly, and she fought to keep her composure. She only had to be strong for a minute longer. “Y-Yeah?”
“You can still make it to a pod,” James said, his tone betraying his desperation. “If you run, you can find one, and you can—”
“I’m not going to run.” A glance at the radar screen told her what she needed to know. “The Knight is moving over to pick you up. The Toralii fleet is firing on us. They’re ignoring you, ignoring the Rubens. Everyone’s going to get out okay.”
“Everyone except you.” James swallowed audibly. “Melissa, you can’t go. We… we have so much to do. Our species is on the verge of extinction. The Kel-Voran have lost ships. They will want blood for this. The Telvan have crippled themselves to save us. They, too, are weak to our enemies. The Iilan have vanished, and we don’t know where they’ve gone, or if they’re ever coming back. There are Toralii agents on Velsharn. Their intelligence agents are there… there’s so much work to do. Our job isn’t done yet.”
“Mine is,” Liao said, and the last vestiges of her composure evaporated. “This is the end of the line for me, James.”
“No, no, no…” James’s breathing washed over the microphone, adding to the static. “This isn’t how you die. You’re strong. A little missile, some plasma shots, these things can’t kill you. You’ll be okay.”
She put her hand over the console, unable to watch the missiles draw steadily closer. “I’m not stronger than death, James.”
James said nothing, but she could hear his breathing on the other end.
“James, I… they want me.” Liao slid her hand over the glass. “Ever since we broke Kor’Vakkar, the Toralii have been gunning for revenge. It’s personal for me. Kest, Aravan, all of them… it doesn’t matter. I give them a name, a target, a goal to work towards, and a cause to unite around. The Telvan want to join us, help us, and we should let them. I…” She struggled for a moment to find the right words. “I’m making it right.”
“Melissa, please. Not like this. You don’t have to die here.”
She gave a sad smile to nobody. “If you have a better idea, James, I am all ears.”
His lack of answer told her he had none.
“We all pay the price for what we’ve done. I haven’t paid my dues yet. So often, I’ve succeeded through luck alone, and now… Now it’s my time. This is where I make up for the mistakes I’ve made, and for the lives I cost.”
“Sixty seconds,” Summer warned, but her voice was quiet and without alarm. She knew what was coming. They all did.”
“I’m sorry, James. I am. Please take care of Allison… tell her what happened today and everything I did here. Tell her… I did it for her.”
Finally, ever so faintly, James spoke into the silence. “I will. I love you, Melissa.”
“I love you, too, James.”
Liao closed the link and tapped on her command console, making sure Summer and all of her subroutines were safely flushed from the Beijing, so that her processes wouldn’t be damaged when the ship went up.
For the first time since it’s construction, the Beijing was home to just her. Liao put her hand under the shirt of her prison garb, fingers finding the scar on her hip. She had been buried during the attack on Sydney. A piece of metal had sliced her hip open. The injury that started it all… the first scar of many.
And she cried. She cried for Allison, knowing that she would grow up never having her mother beside her. She cried for James, because he still had to be the face of the fleet. The leader the survivors had to rally around, he had to continue to be strong and brave. She cried for Captain Knight, that football-loving Australian who had been blown to atoms by the Toralii.
She cried for her arm. Her hair. The mangling of her flesh.
She cried for Tess “Tiny” McKenna, the Broadsword CSO who had died trying to save her. For Yanmei Cheung, whose death had been so sudden and pointless, an unfitting end for a warrior-woman who had been nothing but loyal to her. For Lieutenant Kang Tai, her bodyguard who was shot for the contents of her wallet. For Captain Wolfe, defiant to the last.
She cried for her parents, who had begged her not to take the position on the Beijing. She cried for her empty ship, her home for years, her companion. She’d been married to it, almost.
They were happy tears. For memories, not regrets. She had chosen this life. She knew what happened to those who lived by the sword.
There was a moment of quiet. A second or two. Nothing more.
Then the ship screamed. The metal of its hulk buckled, warping and bowing from the shock as the first of the missiles hit. The whole ship shuddered from end to end. Bulkheads screamed as they ripped and shattered. The twisted metal and roaring air was songlike, beautiful but warped, drowning out the klaxons and alarms. Time slowed down. Debris flew in front of her face, and for a brief, beautiful second, there was peace. And she was happy.
Reluctantly, the Beijing sang a requiem of steel as it killed her, breaking into a million pieces and falling over New Evarel like a bright swarm of comets leaving their streaks of light in the alien sky.
EPILOGUE
The Melissa Liao Academy of Military Sciences
*****
Northern Campus Entrance
Melissa Liao Academy of Military Sciences
Velsharn
Sixteen years later
ALLISON LIAO SHOULDERED THE DUFFEL bag that contained every single thing she owned and, with a sinking feeling in her gut that almost hurt, stepped off the large, olive-grey transport that had bussed her to her new school. Her new home.
The Melissa Liao Academy of Military Sciences. Recently opened, it was brimming with recruits, most of them Human, and most of them a little younger than Allison. The campus grounds were well tended, full of native trees, with a few Earth ones mixed in. Large spider-like constructs moved between them, tending them with the precision and care that she had come to expect. Dozens of metal buildings poked out of the grounds, the entire thing encapsulated by a strong metal fence, each corner a watchtower with searchlights and armed guards.
Everyone—literally everyone—she had known her entire life, including her dad, had expected her to go here. She’d considered it a formality, some vague promise that someone else had made that had become her responsibility, a rite of passage she’d been pledged to before her birth. It was as natural as the rising sun.
But now that she was there, Allison couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. All the buildings were so tall—so much taller than the squat, prefabricated structures in Eden. They bristled with antennae, with borrowed Toralii and Kel-Voran technology, but it was a truly Human endeavour. Her people had designed and built it specifically for the next generation. For the people.
For her. Her mother’s dying wish, or something like that.
One by one, her fellow recruits disembarked, each staring in excitement and wonder. Most of them were seeing it for the first time seeing; it was so far away from Eden that few had actually seen it with their own eyes. A few were Toralii cubs, most of whom she recognised. There was even a Kel-Voran female who looked angry, like she really didn’t want to be there. But they were always angry, weren’t they? When did the academy start taking Kel-Voran recruits?
Urgh. So many kids, including a dozen of them with red hair. Humanity’s arrival on Velsharn had heralded a baby boom of sort. Allison was one of the oldest, being actually born on Earth,
but that wasn’t the reason everyone was looking at her.
She would always stand out. Only natural, given she was enrolling in a school named after her mother.
“This looks amazing,” said Saven, the huge, grey-furred Toralii who was technically her best friend. Technically. He carried the same style of duffel bag she did, but it looked comically undersized, slung over his broad shoulders. As he spoke, his translation box flashed, turning his stupid cat-speak into English. “You and me, Allison. We’re going to be the best damn soldiers the galaxy’s ever seen. You and me. The child of Saara and the child of the great Melissa Liao, living together, working together, studying together… fighting together. What a team.”
“Great,” she muttered, glaring at him. “You know I hate that, right? Just because one of our parents shared some space, like, a million years ago, before I could walk and before you even existed doesn’t mean we have to be friends.”
“I know,” Saven said, his big dumb face positively aglow. “C’mon. Admit it. We’re friends.”
“No.”
Saven sighed a happy sigh, his nostrils flaring. “Ahh, you’ll come around. We can’t choose our parents, you know.”
She knew. She knew that because he kept saying it, like, every single damn day. “No, we can’t, yet you choose to hang around me practically every moment you get.” She groaned, making sure he could hear. Her eyes wandered over the freshly painted buildings and the immaculate lawn. “It’s going to be a long four years.”
Saven clapped her on the shoulder. “Sooner you accept that and move out of your mother’s shadow, the better.”
“Yeah, yeah. Blow it out your snout, fuzzball.”
He laughed, genuinely but a little too loudly, attracting a few stares.
Allison put her hand up to the side of her face, flushing in embarrassment. As if things weren’t bad enough already…
A man in a dress uniform bristling with medals walked out from the campus’s northern entrance, flanked by a pair of marines. Even from that distance, Allison recognised the withered, sunken face of her father, his grey hair neatly tucked into a military cap, and his stooped posture. The sinking feeling got about ten times worse.
