Lacuna: Demons of the Void (25 page)

A third missile wave flew away from their vessel, the hum of the railguns a constant beat as they fired barrage after barrage. Loading them with nukes again would take too long and be far too dangerous to do in combat, so the gun crews switched to ferrous rounds, firing their projectiles at unfathomable speed towards the station and larger ships.

“Captain Liao!” Hsin’s voice caught her attention from the Communications station. “The
Tehran
reports that their facility appears to be either a fuel or ammunition depot. Whatever it is, it went up like a
light
! They jumped in next to it and fired; it blew right up after their first barrage and took out most of the ships docked with it. They’re moving in to mop up what’s left.”

Despite herself, Liao couldn’t help but feel slightly bitter that James had one-upped her and the efforts of her crew. “No such luck for us, though, our facility is still standing. Congratulate them and continue to receive regular status updates.”

Jiang spoke up from the tactical station. “Captain Liao, the second missile barrage has impacted on the targets. Once again, multiple detonations, good effect on target.”

Dao jabbed a finger at his screen. “Captain, the station is launching strike craft! I’m reading... a hundred, at least, possibly two hundred distinct contacts.”

Liao nodded, they were expecting that. “Mister Jiang, disable master arm on point-defence cannons and inform gun crews to fire at will, weapons free. Signal Major Aharoni and tell him to launch our strike craft. Cross-reference firing solutions with point-defence. I don’t want us shooting down our own birds.”

“Aye aye, Captain. Point-defence set to weapons free, strike craft away.”

Liao stared at the various radar displays, watching as the large swarm of strike craft flew out from the Toralii station. Their own craft – heavily outnumbered – flew in to match them. The two clouds merged and Liao listened to the chatter through an available earpiece.

“Jazz, break right. Break right!”

“He’s right behind you. Got him!”

“Good tone, good tone... Fox two!”

Liao switched the channels on her headset; she could give no instructions directly to them that would be of any help, since the radar signal of the fighter swarms had merged and there was no way to tell who was who. Alex would have to handle it on his own. “Mister Dao,” she called again, “status on targets?”

The man’s response was heartening. “The smaller vessels appear to have been disabled or destroyed,” he replied, “but the facility is
still
active. I’m detecting energy discharges... They’re firing at us, and the larger ships are beginning to move away from their mooring stations. But based on the debris field they’ve all been heavily damaged!”

The ship shook as the Toralii brought their weapons to bear.   The station’s batteries opened up and the rate of fire was intense. Liao could see by the thermal camera image on Dao’s station that most of the shots went wide. The gunners on the station appeared to be less concerned with accuracy than she would have expected. This made avoiding the blasts practically impossible... which, she supposed, would be the whole point.

“Hull temperature rising!” Jiang called, “Breach on deck four, no casualties!”

Liao nodded understandingly. No casualties, as expected. The outer sections of all decks were evacuated and at general quarters barely pressurized, but it was a bad sign that they were able to punch holes in their ship so easily. The station had much stronger weapons than the scout ship they’d encountered earlier.

“Dispatch damage control teams to that section,” was Iraj’s command, and Jiang nodded and began speaking into her headset.

Liao watched on the radar screen as their most recent missiles smashed into their targets. Fortunately, it seemed to have an effect; most of the energy barrage withered and slowed almost to a crawl, and all she could see on the radar screen was a confusing spray of debris. Further, the large cloud of wreckage slowly spreading out from the station seemed to be playing havoc with whatever the Toralii Alliance used for guidance... their aim worsened considerably. Coupled with the reduced rate of fire, the barrages hitting the ship almost completely stopped.

Dao’s shout cut over the chatter. “Captain! Multiple radar contacts – ships are jumping in all over the system. I count... seven, no, eight warships appearing at nearby Lagrange points more could be beyond the range of our radar… Make that nine!”

Nine was too many.
Way
too many. They couldn’t jump into the point that the
Beijing
occupied, they hoped, but Liao didn’t want to take that chance.

“We’ve done enough. Recall the strike fighters,” she ordered, “and power up the jump drive. Prepare the ship to return to the Sol system. Mister Hsin, signal the
Tehran
... message as follows: ‘Mission complete. Withdrawing to rendezvous.’”

“Aye aye, Captain!” Hsin went to work.

Summer called over the din. “Jump drive charged, Captain. Ready to cut artificial gravity on your mark!”

Liao nodded. “Thank you, Rowe, but we’re still waiting on our strike fighters!” She pulled up the ship’s short-range communications handset and spun it to the strike craft’s communications frequency. She pressed the talk key.

“Attention all strike craft, this is
Beijing
actual; all birds return to the ship
immediately
. Mission complete... We are leaving.”

She heard Alex’s voice, charged with adrenaline and energy, call back at her. “Confirmed,
Beijing
, we are already RTB!”

Melissa grabbed the console, holding herself and preparing for the inevitable wave of nausea that would accompany the lack of gravity. “Mister Iraj?”

The Iranian man appeared beside her, key in hand. “Ready, Captain!”

There was a tense series of moments as the surviving Toralii ships opened up on them. The
Beijing
weathered wave after wave of enemy fire as they waited for their strike craft to return. Liao saw another wave of their missiles strike the giant station and, judging from what she saw on Dao’s radar screen, a sudden loss of mass. Their thermal cameras showed the bright stars of secondary explosions within the station and, based on the thin sliver of a crack, the station slowly breaking in half. The rest of that station’s ships floundered and broke apart as the blast waves from nuclear detonations struck them again and again.

Liao’s short-range communications handset crackled to life. “This is Jazz, all strike craft recovered!”

Melissa gave Dao a meaningful nod and, with the flick of a switch, the gravity disengaged again. Liao’s black hair floated around her face as both officers inserted their keys, giving them a twist.

The steady rain of fire hitting the
Beijing
immediately ceased. There was, once again, the strange silence as nobody knew what to expect.

“Jump complete, Captain,” came Ling’s report. Liao gave him a curt nod, although she couldn’t hold back a fierce grin, either.

“Excellent. Restore gravity, Mister Ling.” Only moments later, Liao’s feet slowly began drifting back to the metal deck as gravity was gradually restored. She used the jump console to steady herself, breathing an audible sigh of relief as her toes touched the deck.

“
Well done
, everyone. Mission complete. Mister Rowe, contact Engineering and get a damage report. I want to know how badly my ship got bruised...”

“A little, but not nearly as bad as they did,” Summer observed, to low chuckles all around the room. “We smashed them! It was like watching the yanks get pummelled by the Japanese at Pearl Harbour. They were completely unprepared and we kicked their asses!” … and then, with an afterthought, “... Captain.”

Liao raised an eyebrow at that comment, which she thought was a very strange but accurate assessment of the situation. “Agreed, somewhat, but remember that the Japanese ultimately
lost
that war.” She let herself mull over the sobering words for a moment before letting her fierce grin return. “...So next time, try to compare us to the
winners
, will you?”

Turning to face the rest of the crew she cleared her throat. “But yes, a successful raid.” She shook her head, half with disbelief, half with pride. “
Masterfully
done, all... You’ve earned your pay today. Drinks are on me. Mister Ling, please contact the
Tehran
and offer our congratulations to Captain James Grégoire.”

There was a pause before Ling answered. His voice was quiet... and worried. “Uhh - Captain Liao?”

“Yes, Mister Ling?”

“...There’s no sign of the
Tehran
on our radar, Captain. They haven’t jumped back yet.”

Commander Iraj frowned in confusion, glancing around the room for confirmation. “That’s...
odd
. The two ships were supposed to jump back together... did they mis-jump? Are you sure they haven’t ended up at a different Lagrange point? ”

“Very sure, Commander, at least none within our radar range. It’ll take us some time to check all of the points in the system, however... speed of light and all.”

Liao ordered the radar on a long range sweep, biting on her lower lip as the minutes ticked by. Lieutenant Dao, with her watching over his shoulder, began checking the nearby Lagrange points, especially the L2 point where the
Tehran
was scheduled to appear.

But it did not.

Fifteen minutes later, with no sign of James or his vessel, Liao decided that she had given them enough time. “Rowe? We’ve waited long enough... We’re going in after them. Prepare the ship for jump. All hands return to general quarters.”

There was a nervous shuffle from the red-headed woman. “Wait... We’re going to jump
back
there?”

Liao nodded, folding her arms in front of her. “That’s correct. The
Tehran
was supposed to jump back with us; the fact that they have not after quarter of an hour shows that they require assistance, assistance I plan to provide.”

Kamal Iraj appeared by her side, dropping his voice so only she could hear. “Captain… we don’t know the full situation in the Hades system at the moment, but one thing we
do
know is that we stirred up the hornet’s nest pretty good there before we jumped out. If we jump back there now, well… this time they’ll be ready for us. There’ll be another six minute delay before we can jump out again if we need to, and given how many ships were jumping in there as we were leaving, I’m not sure we could hold out that long...”

Kamal paused for effect. “Think this
through
, Captain... We can’t go back. All we can do is wait for the
Tehran
to make their way back on their own.”

Liao fixed her gaze upon the Arabic man, turning to squarely face her first officer, following Kamal’s lead and keeping her voice quiet. “I’m not sure I made myself clear,” she whispered. “The
Tehran
represents fully one third of the TFR’s naval assets. Although we were sustaining significant fire from the station before we disabled it, the jump point we attacked should be clear. At the very least, we can and should perform a reconnaissance-in-force to assess the situation.”

‘
One third of the TFR’s naval assets
...’ it was with a sudden wave of anger, shame and regret that she realized that Commander Sheng had said the exact same words, back during the battle of Jupiter, to try and convince her not to attack the Toralii scout - words she had dismissed him from her ship for. Now here she was saying the
exact same thing
... and all for the wrong reasons.

Kamal considered for a moment, his face screwing up in thought. Liao opened her mouth to take back what she had said, but the Arabic man spoke first.

“...Actually, I agree.”

That
took Liao by surprise. She had sensed his regret and was just about to change her mind, retract her previous statement and agree to settle down to wait, but... apparently Kamal had come around to her line of thinking.

Doubt gnawed at her for a moment, Liao’s hands gently folding in front of her. “Uhh... You’re not just saying that because I ended up throwing the last first officer who questioned my orders into the brig, then subsequently
shot
him… are you?”

Kamal gave a low chuckle, shaking his head. “Captain, I... I know James means a lot to you, but that fact alone couldn’t sway me to change my mind. I genuinely think we should assist the
Tehran
if we can, or at least find out what’s going on and why they can’t jump back.”

Still mildly taken aback by Kamal’s agreement, she nodded. Iraj turned away from her, to the rest of the Operations crew, clearing his throat.

“Rowe, prepare the ship for jump.”

Summer looked uneasy, but nodded. “Alright, then. Making jump preparations... Prepare for stage one.”

She and the rest of the Operations crew worked for a time, stepping through the now familiar routine. Although readying the ship for a jump once its jump drive was charged only took a few minutes, to Liao those minutes seemed to crawl by.