Lacuna: The Ashes of Humanity (16 page)

The truth was none of these. It was losing Allison that broke her.

Every day people looked up at the blue-purple alien sky, trying to see if the Toralii had come to finish them. Every day Liao had looked to see if the
Rubens
had returned. She was hopeful, then desperate, then despondent as the truth of the matter became apparent.

She had lost her daughter.

So many other people had lost everything but all she could care about was her own child. The loss of billions of people was hard to truly feel empathy for. Large-scale devastation was like that. It became numbers. Just lines on a page, lists, bullet points.

All the survivors had lost someone, so logic told her that she was far from alone in what she was going through, but logic was always the little sister to emotion. They could make deals, compromise, and sometimes even work together, but when big sister spoke, the matter was decided. Little sister would have to be silent.

It was hard to emphasise with the deaths of people they'd never met. She was more upset about Jennifer and Kang than she was about whole countries full of corpses.

Evening turned into night, and the biting alien bugs, so similar to mosquitoes, came out in force. Liao eventually went back inside the
Beijing
.

The insects of Velsharn had wreaked havoc inside her ship. Dirt and grime covered the once-clean metal floor. The planet was slowly claiming the ship as its own, beginning the process of reclaiming the metals, breaking down the ship into its components and returning them to the ground. It was happening faster than she expected.

The smell of cigarette smoke distracted her for a moment and, wrinkling her nose, she followed the scent.

Rowe was sitting atop a plastic barrel of water, smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke into a cloud above her.

"Since when do you smoke, Summer?" Liao asked, unable to keep the frown off her face. "Aren't you asthmatic?"

"There's a limited amount of cigarettes," said Rowe, as though this explained everything.

"So?"

"Well, I have to get my reputation established. See, I'm the engineer, but my talents are wasted here, making toilets and water systems and the like. Nothing technical, nothing to push my brain."

"I'm sorry that the arrangements aren't to your liking, Rowe." Liao's frown turned into a scowl. "In case you haven't noticed, things are pretty bad around here."

"The brain's like a muscle, Captain. It has to be exercised, pushed, and worked in order to reach its potential." Rowe took a long drag of the cigarette, held in the smoke and then blew it up towards the ceiling. "Those robots that the Iilan gave us aren't stimulating enough. They just
work
. There's no challenge there, and we don't have enough for me to break one apart to see how they work and if we can replicate them. So there's nothing here to test my brain, and that's no good. I need something to keep myself engaged."

"None of this explains why you're smoking."

Rowe smirked. "Well, when they make a movie about the founding of this city, I want the person playing me to smoke, because smoking makes you look bad arse."

People hadn't thought like that for nearly fifty years. Liao couldn't understand what Rowe was yammering about. "A movie?"

"Yeah." Rowe smiled eagerly. "We're making history here, Captain. Someday there's going to be a movie made about all of this. I'm setting myself up to be a total bad arse."

Liao just shook her head. "Of all the people who died on Earth, how did
you
survive?"

Rowe tipped her cigarette Liao's way. "Clearly, I am bad arse."
 

"That's a better way to say it than smoking."

"Eh, maybe. Every little bit helps, though."

"Nothing says 'bad arse' like lung cancer." Liao put her hands on her hips. "We need all the skilled people we can get at the moment, and we need them at their best. Slowly killing yourself…" Liao didn't have the strength to finish that sentence.

"Fine, whatever." Rowe stuffed out the cigarette. "You happy now?"

"Better."

Rowe hopped off the barrel. "Yeah, well, we're going to be on Eden until we die, might as well try to get settled here as best as we can."

"Eden?"

"Yeah." Rowe looked at her curiously. "You didn't hear? That's what Sheppard started calling this place, this city. Eden. The name stuck."

"I imagined the garden of Eden to have fewer insects and more apples."

"There's plenty of fruit out there."

"Well, you know what happens to people who eat from the wrong trees."
 

Rowe snorted. "Stupid crazy religions. I'm kind of pissed we didn't leave that shit behind on Earth."

"People need something, Summer."

"Well they should put their faith in steel, then. In the ships that protect them. They're going to do a lot better than some stupid words to a God who clearly doesn't give two shits about us."

"Ships haven't worked too well so far."

"Better than prayers, because they did jack shit." Rowe tilted her head to one side. "What's wrong with you, Captain? You okay?"

"Yeah," she said. "I'm just… thinking about a lot, you know?"

Rowe laughed and clapped her on the shoulder. "Well, don't let it go to your head. We still got a lot of work ahead of us." Rowe ambled off, and Liao was left with the muddy, grimy deck and the night sky of Velsharn, a black carpet across the open mouth of the ship's hangar bay.

She went back to Operations. Discreet enquiries revealed what Summer had said was true. The island and associated Human/Telvan settlement had unofficially been named Eden. Aside from the insects and the heat, Liao thought it lived up to its name. Quiet. Peaceful. Trees grew thick and heavy, bearing all manner of fruit and birds. The soil was rich and full of edible roots and vegetables, the seas an endless source of fish and mammalian life. And best of all, no sign of the Toralii Alliance.

Two hours into her shift, the communications console lit up.

"Captain," said Hsin, "the Broadsword
Archangel
is hailing us. They want to know if the
Switchblade
made the jump."

Medola had returned. "Let me speak to her." Liao slipped the headset over her head. "
Archangel
, this is
Beijing
actual.
Switchblade
arrived earlier. Report."

"We made it." Medola's voice held no triumph, no victory. She sounded intensely weary. "One of the passengers from the
Farsight
died of her wounds en-route. The body was buried in space." An unspoken accusation lingered in Medola's voice. Liao did not know, exactly, what it was, but it was present.

"Understood,
Archangel
. The
Washington
will give you and the
Switchblade
landing telemetry."

"Confirmed." Medola left the line open.

Liao waited. "Is there something else, Captain Medola?"

"It's not
Captain
. It's
Lieutenant
."

Of course. Medola was still a Lieutenant First Class. The memory of her promise to Medola—save the crew of the
Farsight
, earn a promotion to Captain—was something she wasn't prepared for. Most of the
Farsight
crew, along with their passengers, hadn't escaped.

Medola's voice turned icy, constrained anger suddenly released. "You said I'd make Captain if I saved the
Farsight
. Well, it's resting at the bottom of the Atlantic right now, so fuck you, Commander. You murdered them. Good job."

Liao went to answer, but the transmission abruptly ended. Not that anything she said would have helped. It seemed heartless to deny her a promotion based on those criteria, but it also seemed… wrong, in some way, to grant it anyway. As though it were cheapening her efforts.
 

She awkwardly removed the headset. "Help the
Washington
guide them in," she said to Hsin, unable to look at anyone.

She still had time left on her shift, but suddenly she couldn't stay here. She needed something to take her away from Operations, and as she flicked through the messages on her console, one stood out to her that would serve nicely.

"Mr. Iraj, can you cover the rest of this shift? Jul'aran wants to see me on a matter of some urgency."

"Of course," said Iraj, far too easily for her liking. It should not be this easy to escape her duty.

But she was grateful.

She met Jul'aran outside her quarters. The tired-looking Toralii seemed pleased to see her and translated her words through one of their few tablets.

"Please come in," she said.

["Thank you for seeing me regarding this matter, Liao, and at such a late hour."]

Was it late? She had completely lost track of time. "It's not a concern." She sat in her chair, gesturing for him to sit as well. "What can I do for you?"

["I've communicated with the Forerunner probe in this system. I've ordered it to jump away and relay a message to the central Telvan government explaining the situation."] Jul'aran's tone became bitter. ["I have requested a formal refugee program be drawn up and enacted, so that the Human race would be given limited sovereignty over Velsharn, existing as a Telvan protectorate."]

"That sounds like good news," said Liao, "from my perspective."

["Agreed. Unfortunately, the Telvan survivors of Belthas IV have been given leave to stay or relocate as they wish. The transportation process will begin in the current months; Kel-Voran pirates are keeping many of our fleet assets engaged at the present time."]

She tilted her head. "I don't see this as a problem. I would expect those who wish to leave would not be compelled to remain."

Jul'aran shuffled in his chair, crossing his large paws, and Liao was uncomfortably reminded of the large claws that remained sheathed within. ["Liberty is an important virtue, Commander, but the Telvan treasure the community. Many will choose to go. I would have preferred us to remain as one rather than disperse across the galaxy."]

"Understood. I do not wish to impose our moral code on you."

["We are different,"] Jul'aran admitted. ["But I feel that the Belthas IV survivors could well make a home here."]

"I'm honoured you think that."

Jul'aran rolled his shoulders. ["It is... frustrating. We all sacrificed so much against the construct Ben and yet, our world was consumed. Perhaps we were better off letting him rule us."]

"I think you would have eventually regretted that." Liao leaned forward in her chair. "Humans learnt many, many years ago that, often, death was preferable to submitting to tyranny. Too bad that lesson was learnt far too late."

Jul'aran smiled, a wide smile full of teeth. ["Perhaps we have more to learn from each other still."]

"Perhaps. Are you sure your people would not consider staying? We would welcome your company as well as your technical expertise."

["When the transports come, we will decide. I will implore my people to remain, but Liao-tor's scar has wounded us more than I anticipated possible."]

She wasn't sure on the pronunciation, but the phonetics bore an eerie similarity to her own name. "Liao-tor?"

["Of course,"] said Jul'aran, the confusion clear on his face. ["That is what we call the singularity that consumed Belthas IV. The one you created during the battle."]

She stiffened, straightening her back. "You blame me?"

He held up his paws. ["No, Commander. The singularities are named after their creators. The singularity that devoured Evarel was named after the Leader of that vessel. It is tradition."]
 

The revelation was incredibly hurtful to her. "The singularities persist eternally. They never close. You wish that to be my legacy? Named for an anomaly of infinite destruction?"

["Captain... it is just a name."]

Names had power. Liao wanted to reject that assertion, force him to change the name, but she knew it would stick. Names tended to. This was not something that was going to happen; it had already happened.

All she could do was get used to it.

"Well," she said, "thank you for your time."

Jul'aran stood. ["Thank you for seeing me, Captain. I am sorry if I offended you."]

She forced a smile, shook his hand, and then escorted him out. Now her quarters were quiet and solitary, and her tablet was overflowing with messages. Work that needed doing. She started skimming through them.

One of her junior officers contacted her directly with a proposal to help ease some of their logistical strain. Fishing.

Apparently, Medola had gone straight from her landing to volunteering for a fishing detail. It had been Dao's idea: the Broadswords would fly out to the ocean and drop bait, followed by explosives, to harvest fish. They couldn't last forever on the ship's re-hydrated stocks. The proposal was interesting based on the projected yields. Between the Broadsword's fishing efforts, organised gathering expeditions into the nearby wild growth, and careful management of their remaining stocks, along with careful administration run by trained professionals, a logistical nightmare would probably be averted.
 

Another note, sent through by Summer, indicated that initial surveys by the Iilan constructs showed the nearby mountains were rich in minerals. Her message was full of speculation, especially the possibility that, sooner than they anticipated, a mining operation might be established. With a little luck, it could even be expanded to the surrounding asteroids that populated the system's thick asteroid belt. Her plan of making more Broadswords was closer than they had thought, although the design might have to be modified since they no longer had access to certain materials such as rubber.