Lacuna: Demons of the Void (22 page)

He just grinned at the stunned faces in front of him. “Completing your missions for you before you set out, huh? You slackers on the
Beijing
really
need to pick up your game...”

*****

Captain Liao’s Quarters

TFR
Beijing

Orbit of Earth

Four hours later

“‘Pick up your game?’
Really
? I can’t believe you!” Liao gave him a playful swat on his dark rump. “You’re on my ship,
Mister Grégoire
, so you better show me and my crew some respect.” Liao rested over his back, cuddling down on top of him, her sheets damp with sweat.

“Hey, technically I outrank you,” he murmured, squirming underneath her. “You should be showing
me
respect...”

Liao snickered. “Eeeh, technically smechnically. I can kick
your
arse any day.”

“You could
not
.”

Liao smirked, nipping his ear. “Stirring for a fight, mmm? What are you, sixteen again?”

“I feel young as a spring chicken again when I’m around you. Didn't I say that already?”

Liao rubbed his sides, giving a squeeze from atop him. “I forgot.” She gave a cheeky snicker right in his ear. “Sometimes I forget important things you tell me.”

“That’s a good quality for a Commanding Officer to have. Forgets important things... perhaps I should inform Fleet Command. I’ll put it right here in my report. Ahem, Commander Liao - for she’s not yet made Captain on account of being far too short and cute – frequently
forgets important things
. Further, she’d rather have a nice chat with the aliens than sneak away some of their tech... But hey, she’s great in the sack, so what’s not to like?”

“You’re never going to let me live that down are you,” Liao purred, squeezing him tight enough to dig her nails in, “and I’m much better than
great
.”

“Mmm, indeed. By the way, I have something for you.” James wriggled around underneath her, squirming away and falling out of bed. He reached for his discarded pants.

“I thought we already did that...”

“Something else. Something pretty, and something even more
definitely
against regulations.” He fumbled around with the pockets for a moment, producing a long, thin box. “Ah-hah!”

Liao’s eyes widened curiously. “So
that’s
what was in your pocket. I thought that was just
you
getting all excited when I took off my top...”

“Mmm, yes to both as a matter of fact.”

Standing up, naked, the man beckoned her to do the same. Confused, she did.

“Okay. Stand in front of the mirror, like this – yep, just like that – and close your eyes. …
tight
. No peeking.”

Liao stood there with her eyes closed. She felt something cool and smooth slide around her neck, and then she felt James’ hand giving her a playful slap on the backside. “Okay, open.”

She did so. A thin strand of pearls, all white except for the lowest and largest one which was black, rested comfortably around her neck.

“James, it’s... it’s beautiful! But we’re fifty thousand kilometres from the nearest oyster, where did you get this?”

She twisted the black pearl in-between her fingers, admiring it in the mirror.

“Let’s just say I put in a
special
order. A friend of mine slipped it into the CO2 scrubber refit. I specifically ordered a longer string than normal, and they’re fairly small pearls so you can wear it under your uniform and nobody will ever see it.

Liao laughed, glancing down and admiring them directly, beaming widely. “Heh. You’re not going to want to do something stupid like sketch me wearing this –
just
this – are you? Because there’s no model-T Fords on this boat...” She paused, putting a finger to her lips, her smile becoming a coy smirk. “...Although there IS Saara’s fighter...”

Before James could answer, the radio crackled and called Liao’s name. Giving a sigh, the woman walked over, picked up the device and pressed the talk key.

“This is the Captain, go ahead.”

“You are
not
going to fucking
BELIEVE
this
!”

Liao rolled her eyes. Summer’s voice had this amazing ability to drive her crazy when she was excited.

“... Go ahead, Summer.”

It sounded as though Summer had her mouth far too close to the microphone, causing a kind of static-y feedback. “I got a crack at the computer core of the Forerunner, right? Right? Well, this is like nothing-fucking-else I’ve ever
seen
, but at the same time, it’s
totally
understandable! It’s like... it’s like, only an operating system difference between our computers. All the basic stuff is here – electric current, low-high voltage as binary representations, simple message passing...”

Liao glanced down to James who merely shrugged. She took her finger off the talk key. “You understand any of that?”

James shrugged again. Liao keyed once more.

“Soooo, Summer, um- that’s great and all, but what can you get the computer to tell us?”

For a moment the only response that came down the line was a barking, nasally laugh. “Nothing! Sweet fuck-all, bupkis, jack shit, nothing... Nothing at all, but
hey
... it’s progress. It’s progress and it’s coming much, much fucking faster than I thought possible. We’ll have it talking eventually. Eventually. Like, real soon now.”

“Sooner
would
be better, Summer.”

“I know, I know, I know! But this is just
fascinating
! This is
alien
technology-”

“... just like the Toralii strike craft? Or did you get bored and forget?”

“Oh, no-no-no-no-no-no-no, no. Yeah. Yeah, but this is totally different –
totally
different! This is a
computer
! The one on Saara’s bird was fried – completely
fucked
– but this one works fine!”

“...Uhh, great. Let me know when you have anything useful. Liao out.”

“Killjoy.” Behind her, James playfully chuckled, doing his best to mimic her machine-gun-like speech pattern. “Oh oh oh, mummy, look what I made at school!”

She rolled her eyes. “If I had wanted children I would have never joined the military. Fate sure has a sense of humour if it’s giving me not
one
, but
two
overgrown kids to deal with on a regular basis... Maybe I’m being punished.”

The radio crackled again and Liao almost didn’t answer it, but Summer’s voice was insistent, suddenly. Frantic.
Fearful.

“-tain Liaoooo! Captain Liaoooo! You need to come see this
immediately
! CAPTAIN LIAOOOO!” There was a sharp, intense squeal of static and then silence.

*****

Engineering Bay Four

TFR
Beijing

She pulled on her uniform as fast as she could, tucking the string of pearls under her jacket, then she and James practically sprinted all the way down the ship’s long length to the forth Engineering bay on the ship’s starboard side. She tried several times to call Summer on the radio but the woman wouldn’t – or couldn’t – answer, so she did the next best thing and called for backup. About half way there Cheung and a handful of marines joined her in the corridors.

By the time they’d arrived Liao could tell immediately that something was wrong inside the Engineering bay. The tiny window on the hatchway was aglow with a strange blue light so bright that Liao couldn’t see inside the small porthole. There was an ominous humming noise, like the expression of some kind of vast energy source, coming from within.

That was where the Toralii computer core was being stored. Summer and most of the Engineering team were in there.

“Open that door!” she roared, “Use the explosives if you have to; Whatever's happening in there, I want it
stopped
!”

“Aye aye, Captain – breach and clear! Checking... there’s atmosphere,” confirmed Cheung, nodding to her team. “Do it!”

Three men attached long strands of plastic explosives to the hatchway seals and then, with a loud pop-bang, blew the door off its hinges.

Liao let the marines surge in, stepping in behind them. The Engineering bay was nearly fifty cubic metres and filling the whole of the previously empty space was a huge light display – so bright she almost couldn’t look at it – cast by a billion tiny glowing pinpricks of energy floating around a large, central, glowing vortex. It was unearthly and alien, and emanated directly from the large polyhedral object – possibly an icosahedron – sitting flat on the deck with hundreds of power and data cables running out of it.

Summer and the rest of the Engineering team stood right beside it, their necks craned up at the display. Liao pointed to the device.

“Warrant Officer, destroy that thing!”

“No!” Summer, appearing to break out of her trance, twisted around and waved for Cheung to stop. “No! Wait! Wait! Stop!”

Liao held up her hand for pause. “What the
fuck
is going on here, Summer? What did you
do
?”

“Don’t you see?!” The redheaded woman waved her hands wildly at the ceiling. “It’s a star chart! It’s a map, a three dimensional map!”

“Where’s Saara?” Liao squinted, trying to spot the woman’s outline in the glare. She needed someone more level-headed and the Toralii was meant to be here...

“Sleeping. We’ve had her up for hours now and she needed to rest, but that doesn’t matter –
look
! If you touch something-” Rowe reached out and jabbed her index finger at one of the points of light. Immediately, a thin red trail formed at her fingertip. She dragged it across the empty void, before poking another star. The red trail formed a much thicker crimson glowing line. Glyphs flowed across the screen far too fast for Liao to read them, and then all that remained were a series of numbers in the Toralii script.

“See? I’m betting my next month’s wages that those numbers are the jump coordinates to get from here to here. Saara did mention that the Toralii computer systems were designed to be
very
simple...”

Liao stared, then nodded in understanding. “...Right. So what you’re saying is... with this device, you could plot jumps between systems.”

“Yeah, I think so. I mean... sure, why not, right?”

Liao shook her head, glancing over to Grégoire. “What do you think, Captain?”

James gave a wide grin, admiring the blue glowing light show. “I think I regret turning this thing over to your crew. Having it here, with people who know how to operate it, effectively makes the
Beijing
the de facto flagship.”

Liao turned fully towards the dark-skinned Captain, putting her hands on her hips, her grin stretching from ear to ear.

“...Then I guess you slackers on the
Tehran
will have to pick up your game.”

*****

Operations

TFR
Beijing

Four days later

Saara pointed toward the map. She spoke and Liao translated. The others in the command staff were beginning to pick up a few words, and Lieutenant Yu had distributed a very basic Telvan dictionary in English and in Chinese, which was required reading for them all. Slowly but surely Liao had to translate less.

“Saara says that this system is a dead system. The star there has long since extinguished, leaving nothing but barren husks orbiting its meagre gravitational field. They call it Kor’Vakkar – The Gateway of Eternal Ash – and it’s an important stronghold for the Toralii Alliance. They use it as a rally point, as a resupply venue, and as a shipyard. We call it the Hades system.” Liao gave a slight grin. “...and it’s completely staffed by Toralii Alliance crew. They’re the
bad
Toralii, in case you haven’t been paying attention.”

There were a few chuckles around the room, including from Saara.

“A valuable target,” observed Lieutenant Yu. “I’m guessing we’re going there.”

Saara spoke again and Liao nodded to her. “Right.” Then, to the others, “She says it’s standard protocol that whenever the Toralii Alliance commit a strike in this sector they rally their assault from this system. It’s difficult to jump to and, accordingly, easier to defend. However, it’s a central point of failure. Saara believes that if we strike here first, we may strike a blow which will cripple their ability to project force, in an organized sense, for some time.”

Lieutenant Jiang nodded in agreement. “Time is what we need, but there’s the broader picture of what to do next. So we buy ourselves a few months, or a year – What then?”

“The plan is,” Liao began, “to hit the Toralii hard and hit them fast. We go in with a single ship and we immediately nuke the hell out of anything we see. We fire everything we’ve got, as fast as we can, and we burn down as much of the Toralii’s barn as possible. We then sow gravity mines to disable the system – leaving the last mine on a time-delay – and we jump out.”