Lacuna: Demons of the Void (33 page)

Rowe slammed her boot into the underside of her console. “Fuck! Fuck! The damage to the heat sinks is causing too much temperature build up; we’ll have to take
half
our reactors offline just to stop ourselves from melting into slag!”

Liao knew what that meant. With half their reactors down their weapons would be half as effective and the charge through the hull plating – for all the good it was doing them anyway – would be significantly reduced. Other, less important systems all over the ship also couldn’t run at maximum power. It was a significant tactical disadvantage.

Then again, they didn’t want to end up cooked in their own shell like the
Tehran
.

“Turn them off!” she roared, gesturing wildly to Rowe, who immediately began complying. There was no sense, she thought, in melting their ship – or even just the ship’s reactor core – even if it meant reduced capability. “Reactors one through four, make safe!”

Some chance was better than none.

Hsin’s voice cut through the confusion. “Captain! The
Sydney
reports that they are getting effective weapon impacts on the Toralii vessel, but they will soon be too close to us to be hit without risking fratricide from misses!”

Fratricide. Literally, to kill one’s own brother, sometimes euphemistically referred to as “Friendly Fire”.

Liao did not want to die by her allies guns, but so far their combined efforts seemed to have barely put a dent in the Toralii warship... while the Toralii had cut down the
Tehran
with seemingly little effort at all.

They needed to start scoring points or this game would be a short one.

“Tell them to keep firing as long as they can, we’ll just have to dodge anything that comes our way from them, too…” Then, in a low mutter so only she could hear, Liao added, “…
somehow.
”

The order was acknowledged and Liao turned her attention back to the radar screen on her monitor. The Toralii ship was now so close that she had to look at the close-range collision avoidance radar. And, had anyone been near the outer hull, a glance out of a porthole with the naked eye would have revealed a tiny twinkling dot against the black sea of space.

A dot which was still racing towards them at alarming speed despite its rapid deceleration. The Toralii ship was now too close for the
Beijing
’s railguns to hit and within the area of effect of their own nukes. The close range point defence cannons opened up, spewing bursts of high explosive rounds at the Toralii vessel, rapid-fire shots coming in waves from the dozens of newly installed auto-turrets scattered along the ship’s hull.

The collision avoidance radar showed numerous debris clouds rising from the impact zones, but neither Liao nor anyone else could tell how effective the much smaller cannon rounds were, or if they were even doing anything at all. The
Beijing
’s strike fighters swarmed in and around the enemy capitol ship, alternating between strafing the short, stubby craft’s underside and engaging the Toralii Alliance strike fighters.

And that’s when the Toralii ship turned. It appeared to give up its pursuit of the
Tehran
, who had ceased firing back entirely and was now drifting helplessly in space, and turned towards the
Beijing
. Liao watched the radar screen as it suddenly surged towards them.

Saara’s earlier warning echoed in her ears. She knew what they were doing, now... They’d drawn the two ships in close so they could be boarded.

They had fallen into a trap.

[“The Toralii are moving into boarding range!”]

Liao glanced around the Operations room, a feeling of helpless rage rising inside her churning stomach. She did
not
want this ship –
her
ship – to be boarded by the Toralii Alliance. The aliens were displaying a significant advantage over the human forces up in space, but despite their strength and prowess in that battlefield, they were choosing to close to boarding range; this decision would, presumably, only give them further tactical advantage.

“Options.”

Dao, the navigator, spoke up. “Captain, we could roll the ship. Spin it like a log on the surface of water – they can’t dock with us if we are rotating too fast…”

Liao actually liked that plan. She gave the man a firm nod. “Do it.”

As Dao went to work Melissa glanced around the room, looking for some other alternative... her eyes met Rowe’s, the redhead shrugging her shoulders helplessly. “Uhh... we
could
get the point defence auto-cannons to attack whatever the Toralii are going to use to get over here inside. Especially if we let them attach it for, say, five seconds, so that if we destroy it we suck the poor fuckers inside out into space as they’re climbing through…”

Liao liked that plan too. Already she could feel the ship begin to turn as the navigator punched in the commands. “Let’s hope Dao’s plan works, but stand by to make that our plan B. Saara! What will they do?”

Saara shouted over the noise, her tail lashing in the air behind her. [“Captain, the Toralii will attach magnetic grapples to the side of the ship and hold it firm. Your manoeuvre will buy you some time, but their engines are powerful – and the auto-cannons will only last so long before the Toralii destroy them. I suggest you prepare an alternative solution.”]

But a quick glance around Operations revealed that nobody had any suggestions. They could fight and struggle as much as they liked, they could kick and scream like toddlers confined to their bedrooms, but the Toralii were coming.

Reaching out for the internal handset, Liao squeezed the talk key and put it to her lips.

“Captain Liao to all hands… Stand by to repel boarders.”

She lifted her finger and, just as she did, the ship was rocked by a third wave of fire – but this time, the blasts came from point blank range, only a few metres or so from the outermost hull of their vessel. Liao was thrown off her feet, landing heavily on the metal deck, grunting in pain as she twisted her arm. Ignoring the pain for now, Liao dragged herself back up to her feet. Her eyes met Lieutenant Jiang’s and the woman shouted over the sound of wailing alarms.

“Captain, we’ve sustained a series of direct hits… significant damage to the port side of the ship, including multiple breaches. We’ve lost the ability to charge the hull in that area, and… I’m not sure, but based on the collision avoidance radar readings I’m see, we’re probably grappled.”

There was the low, ominous sound of stressed metal and Liao felt the ship move to one side, as though it were being pulled in the opposite direction to its roll.

[“The Alliance will want to drag your ship in close for boarding,”] roared Saara, [“and then they will begin cutting through the hull… are you sure your marines can stop them?”]

The question was legitimate enough, but Liao had faith in Cheung’s ability to hold down their ship. Rather than directly answer the question, Liao turned her head towards Ling.

“Mister Ling! Call the
Sydney
– if they want to be big damn heroes now is the time! How far away are they?”

“Close, Captain, one thousand kilometres, but they’re moving too fast – they won’t be able to decelerate in time! They’ll overshoot!”

Liao balled her fists, growling angrily. That damn fool Knight… being too impatient, too eager to prove himself and his ship in battle. Yes, the
Beijing
was in trouble, but Knight had to slow down... or there would be no point to it all.

More of the helpless anger surged through her body and Liao found it harder and harder to fight the upswell of emotions. James was... injured, possibly, and may be in mortal peril; a swift glance to the thermal monitor showed her that the
Tehran
was burning on multiple decks and the reactor cores were leaking. She wondered, if the
Tehran
wasn’t so badly damaged in the Hades system battle, it might be more functional...

Even now, she could see the
Tehran
slowly turn and begin to move towards the
Beijing
, trailing atmosphere and smoke behind it. That made her heart jump and sink at the same time. She was coming to try and save him...

Liao crushed the guilt that thought generated. She knew James would certainly do the same thing... rush to help her, and that was okay. They were a couple... a
team
. They helped each other.

Not that this was helping them now. Liao idly mused over the revelation that, in light of the situation, their mutual desire to get laid might very well cost them both their lives.

Right at that moment there was a low, loud ‘
clunk’
that seemed to reverberate throughout the entire ship, shaking even in the Operations room centre, the armoured core of the
Beijing
. Liao and the other Operations crew exchanged looks... each knew what that sound meant.

The Toralii ship was right next to their own... and they were coming aboard.

Jiang put her finger to her earpiece, then turned around and shouted back to Liao. “Marines on deck eleven report that the Toralii are cutting into the hull on that deck, Captain!”

Melissa nodded her head. It was all going exactly as Saara said it would… and there was precious little she could do about it.

“See if you can dislodge them with the auto-cannons,” she ordered, leaving the command console and moving over to where Jiang’s tactical console was. Liao watched as the woman pulled up the targeting camera built into a pair of the guns, taking in the scene it projected, a picture of the outside of the ship.

Liao was shocked at just how badly damaged the outer hull of the
Beijing
appeared. The so-called indestructium hull plating was blackened and charred, with numerous craters and scorch marks, the thick heavy plates cracked and broken.

The hull more resembled the surface of the moon than the metallic skin of a warship.

More alarming to Liao, however, were the several places where the damage extended beyond the hull... where breaches had dug themselves deep into the softer tissue of the ship and thick trails of escaping gasses poured from those deep wounds. The presence of leaking atmosphere meant that the blasts had struck areas of the ship which had not been evacuated, and therefore would have been occupied by crew members.

She knew those people were almost certainly dead.

Jiang took control of the cannon, lining up the dark, thin tendril that was the docking umbilical and firing at its midpoint. Liao watched with some satisfaction as, after three shots, the cable broke... spinning and kicking about in space like an unattended fire hose, pouring gas and debris into the void.

Gas, debris and Toralii boarding parties. She could see they wore thick, armoured suits made of some kind of red metal, reflective visors covering their faces... Liao presumed them to be sealed space-suits, as one might expect space-based marines to wear. She knew that they would have had a small, limited, internal oxygen supply... and as Liao watched them float helplessly away, she knew their hopes of rescue from the dark void of space before it ran out seemed very slim.

A horrid way to die, waiting patiently for one’s oxygen to run out, but pity for the fate of those Toralii was a luxury Liao couldn’t afford. She watched as Jiang took up a firing solution on the next boarding tube, blasting it in half with similar results. She lined up on a third, but the screen suddenly glowed and then became nothing more than static as the turret she was controlling was the target of a Toralii weapon. Jiang tried several other turrets but they were either already destroyed, or soon to join their companions.

Four tendrils was the total that had attached to her vessel, and Liao presumed there were four holes being cut into the hull – the flesh and skin of her ship – as she spoke. They were at the wrong angle for railguns and far too close for nukes. There was nothing else they could do.

“Master-at-arms, distribute sidearms to the Operations crew. We can be sure that this section will be one of their targets.”

As though waiting for her order, the Master-at-arms swiftly opened the gun locker in the corner of the Operations and began distributing pistols. As he approached Liao, she gestured down to her sidearm.

“I’m quite okay, thank you. I’ll take some extra magazines though.”

The man handed her two extra magazines and she stuffed them into her back pocket. Satisfied with the result, she strode over to Jiang’s console, leaning over and inspecting the woman’s readings as Jiang pulled one of the black nylon belts around her hip, checking that the pistol was loaded before slipping it into the plastic holster.

“It looks like they’re approaching from the top,” Liao remarked, pointing out a swarm of heat signatures pouring into the upper decks of the ship. “Dispatch marines to the grappled sections with instructions to repel boarders with
extreme
prejudice.”

There was a tense moment as four clumps of thermal signals, the
Beijing
’s marines which appeared to her to be puffs of white cloud,   raced towards the Toralii invaders. Liao focused her eyes on the group containing her marine head, Warrant Officer  Yanmei Cheung. The marines responded quicker than she had anticipated; it was heartening to see that at least
something
was going right for the defenders.