Lacuna: Demons of the Void (21 page)

“Technically,” Summer began, “while you
are
the Captain of the
Beijing
, your naval rank is only Commander. So that rule doesn’t apply yet.”

“Oh little grasshopper, how much you have yet to learn.”

Rowe grinned. “Did Confucius say that, Captain?”

Liao returned the expression in kind. “No... I did.” She reached down and patted the woman on her head. “You can steal the quote, don’t worry.”

Rowe laughed. “I’m just sorry I didn’t have something snappier to come back at you.”

The Chinese woman smirked down at Summer. “Aww, now, don’t be bitter. Bitterness is like taking poison and expecting someone else to die. You should learn to let these things go!”

“Was
that
Confucius?”

Liao put her hands on her hips, smirking and raising an eyebrow. “Charlie Chaplin. Just because I’m Chinese doesn’t mean everything I say somehow relates back to Confucius...”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Snickering, Summer went back to her book and Liao walked over to the centre of the mostly-empty Operations room. In a few hours it would be full of the best crew the human species had to offer – and they would launch the first real strike against the aliens who had killed so many. They would capture or destroy the Forerunner... Then, armed with the knowledge taken from its remains, they would take the fight to the Toralii.

A red blinking light on the tactical console drew her attention. From the rear of the room came the shout of the swing-shift Communications officer whose name did not immediately leap into memory.

“C-Captain Liao! Radar contact!”

Liao whirled about, her eyes wide. “Where?”

“Directly in front of us! Right at the L1 jump point! Mass: twenty thousand tonnes, approximately. Configuration unknown. Multiple smaller contacts!”

Twenty thousand tonnes. The size of a capital ship. Liao practically ran to the man’s console, putting her hand on his shoulder and watching his readings. “Is it one of ours?”

“Negative, Captain. The
Sydney
and the
Tehran
are both accounted for and in position... optics confirms it’s Toralii.”

There was a slight pause as the Communications officer read information from the console. Shocked, he twisted in his seat, glancing over his shoulder to the Captain.

“Sir... they’re transmitting a signal. The Toralii are
hailing
us.”

Act IV

Chapter X

“A Pretty Little String of Pearls”

*****

Operations Room

TFR
Beijing

Orbit of Earth

“The signal’s coming in on 121.5 MHz. Recording...”

“121.5? The military distress and advisory frequency?” Liao blinked in confusion. “Put it on speaker.”

A voice – thin and robotic as though artificially generated – filtered through the whole of the Operations room. It spoke in unaccented and inflectionless English, intoned evenly and without emotion.

“...erran type six starship. This is Warbringer Avaran of the Toralii Alliance Vessel
Seth’arak
. Respond on frequency Four. Two. Eight. Point. Six. Attention Terran type six starship. This is...”

Seth’arak
. In Toralii the word meant “Herald of Woe”. Or perhaps it was the “Herald of Misfortune”... Liao did not remember. She made a mental note to ask Saara about it later.

Liao took her hand from her officer’s shoulder. “Put me on UHF 428.6.” As the man worked, Liao turned to the rest of the Operations room and picked up the ship’s intercom.

“Captain Liao to all hands. General quarters, general quarters, general quarters. Report to action stations... this is not a drill.”

She closed the link, turning to the swing-shift tactical officer. “All reactors to full power. Load all missile tubes, charge the hull plating, and prepare to engage on my order.”

The Communications officer nodded to her, indicating the channel was ready. Liao picked up the long-range communications handset – a curved handset device similar to wireless headphones – and put it up over her head, adjusting the mouthpiece so that it was comfortable. She took a breath, then keyed the talk button.

“Toralii Alliance Vessel
Seth’arak
, this is TFR
Beijing
, actual. While I can’t physically speak the Telvan Toralii dialect, I can understand you if you go slowly and use simple words. Hopefully your machine will not be necessary.”

There was a brief pause where Liao heard nothing. She almost motioned for the tactical officer to fire. In the background the rest of the Operations crew poured into the room, a few buttoning up uniforms as though they had been at ease. Liao noted how quickly they had come... Most, like her, had not been asleep. Sleeplessness before a large operation was not uncommon.

And then the voice came. A voice which was so like, and yet so unlike, Saara’s; it was deep and gravelly.

["You understand our language... an impressive trick, Captain Liao."]

Liao tried not to let the fact that the Toralii Captain knew her name upset her. She frowned, struggling with the language, trying to digest his words. When he had finished speaking, Liao focused her mind and tried to get her response accurate. She had to focus so hard on understanding him that preparing a reply was difficult.

“One of many, Warbringer, I assure you.” She cleared her throat. “...But to business. Toralii Alliance Vessel
Seth’arak
, you are in violation of the Sol system’s sovereignty and I demand you leave immediately or deadly force
will
be employed against you.”

The voice of Warbringer Avaran echoed through the Operations room like the ghosts of the dead speaking to the living. It was poetic and vague and Liao knew her mental translation was imperfect; fortunately, they were recording the transmission and Saara would help her translate after the fact.

["Brave words from a brave little creature. We know you are hunting the Forerunner. If you have honour, and a sense of self-preservation, you will cease development of the Voidwarp technology and surrender yourselves for judgement for the murder of the crew of the Toralii Vessel
Tir’aran
.”]

The
Tir’aran
was Saara’s vessel. Liao was slightly amused by the use of the term ‘murder’, which was one word she knew. It seemed as though all sides in a conflict regarded deaths to their own as murder, and enemy deaths as “losses”, “damage”, “victories”, or other such euphemisms.

“Firstly, our mission objectives are classified.” Liao saw no advantage to confirming their suspicions.

["Classify whatever you like. Your lies won’t shield us from the truth.”]

“Secondly, Warbringer, regretfully the
Tir’aran
violated Terran space, much as you are doing now, and was destroyed for that trespass. I suggest you learn from their example. Thirdly, the
Tir’aran
was a vessel registered to the Telvan, not the Toralii Alliance, so our quarrel is technically with them.”

["We come not to quarrel.”]

Liao considered, closing her eyes a moment. All eyes in the room were upon her; she focused, choosing her words carefully.

“Then state your purpose. Why are you here?”

["We bring your people a message... an ultimatum.”]

Liao considered, her finger twitching as it held down the talk key. “Which is?”

["Dismantle your Voidwarp technology, scuttle your warships, and surrender yourselves to judgement and sentencing for the murder of the crew of the Toralii Vessel
Tir’aran
. Failure to comply will result in your destruction and the destruction of billions on your world as we obliterate your species from orbit. Ask the prisoners you obviously have taken if my promise is empty. Transmit your answer on this frequency and the Forerunner will jump away and relay it to the rest of our fleet.”]

There was the shortest of pauses.

[“You have forty rotations of your planet, Earth, to decide. Choose... wisely.”]

With a wink the blip on the
Beijing
’s radar disc winked out and the radio made no noise aside from the faint hiss of static.

For a moment there was silence on the Operations room, until Summer’s voice broke the spell.

“...Wow. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he sounds like a
prick
.”

Liao couldn’t help but chuckle. A prick indeed...

The Communications officer pointed to his screen, waving over the Captain. “Captain Liao? I think you should see this...”

Liao stepped over, and when she saw what he was pointing to, a slow, eager grin crept over her face.

*****

Conference Room Two

TFR
Beijing

Orbit of Earth

Half an hour later

“I think our course is very clear.”

Liao folded her arms, clicking the ‘next’ button on her remote control. The floor to ceiling monitor assigned to the far wall changed, displaying a giant clock. “Forty days, so we have some breathing room at least... but not much. We’ve got a month and a bit before the Toralii Alliance want their answer. We have to go on the move if we want to beat the clock.”

Summer raised her hand. “Does that mean we’re abandoning the pursuit of the Forerunner?”

Commander Iraj spoke up. “No. In fact, capturing that is
more
imperative than ever. We need its on-board computer so we can figure out what jump coordinates it knows, so we can start planning a counter-offensive.” The Iranian man paused, regarding Rowe for a moment. “If we gave you their computer, mostly intact, you’d be able to understand it... right?”

Summer rolled her eyes. “Phht,
no
…Okay, first of all, even on Earth, even with very similar computer
types
– such as x86 vs, say, SPARC – the differences between them are so great they can’t inter-operate, generally, without a compatibility layer. Between systems with an even bigger gulf between them - like ARM and a stopwatch - there’s basically zero likeness. Between anything I’ve experienced before and a Toralii machine... inconceivable differences.”

Iraj just grinned. “Well, then, I’m going to rely on your cunning intellect and brilliant mind to make them work. The Captain and I have
full
confidence in you.”

The man paused a moment to let Alex, who was late, come into the room. When he was settled Liao spoke again, switching the topic back to business.

“Anyway, so, yes, we’re still going after the Forerunner. I suppose now is as good a time to tell you all as any... When the
Seth’arak
– that’s the Toralii ship I spoke to earlier – jumped into the system to issue their little ultimatum, they sent a signal to the Forerunner. More importantly, the Forerunner sent one
back
. Because the signal was conventional radio and therefore subject to the speed of light restriction, we were able to figure out exactly how far away the Forerunner was. No direction, of course, but if we know the distance all we had to do was just draw a big circle and see what jump points it intersects, which we did. So, essentially... we now know what jump point it’s been hiding at. It’s out by Mercury, probably hiding all this time using the Sun’s radiation.”

Summer nodded. “Well, capturing the Forerunner won’t be easy. As we said earlier, this plan of yours – sorry, I mean ours – is a long shot... if it will even work at all...”

“Doesn’t that mean it’s a sure thing?” Liao gave a playful grin to the red-headed woman. “If someone says it’s a long shot but it just might work?”

“Actually,” came a voice from the entranceway to the conference room which turned all heads its way, “sometimes these things are easier than they
seem..
.”

It was James Grégoire.

“Welcome aboard, Captain,” Liao offered, doing her best to keep her tone professional and suitably distant. Summer’s smirk almost unnerved her but she kept herself together for the moment. “Although I’m not sure what you mean...”

“Well, while you were having a chat with the
charming
Toralii gentleman earlier, I couldn’t help but notice that there was a second jump-in at that point, at the L2 point on the far side of the moon. I guess that signal he sent to the Forerunner was a message asking it to jump near him and give its report.”

Iraj tilted his head. “The L2 point – right where the
Tehran
was stationed?”

James chuckled and nodded. “Our strike craft scrambled and caught it before it finished. We hit and disabled its jump drive due to some fancy shooting by the head of our strike wing, a charming fellow who goes by the name of
Spectre
. Then we – casual as you like – simply cruised in and picked it up. It’s being shipped over to your science team as we speak, since ours still hasn’t been fully assembled yet.”