Lacuna: The Ashes of Humanity (10 page)

"Thank you. She is as strong and powerful as she is beautiful."

Liao couldn't dispute this claim. "She certainly looks that way. How far away are the Iilan?"

"An hour. Less. Their ship appears to be able to decelerate quickly; that or they plan on overshooting us by a significant margin."

"The Iilan possess a lot of advanced technology, and their fluid-ships allow them to do things that we might consider impossible. I wouldn't panic about them just yet, but do be ready to move out of the way if it turns out they can't stop quick enough."

"The reactionless drives are warmed up and standing by. Did you bring the data?"

"Three copies, just to be sure. Your technicians should be able to get the drives from the Broadsword."

"Very good, Captain."

And so they waited. The Iilan ship drew closer, and soon it was visible not only on their radars, but on their external cameras. It was just as she remembered it; a sphere of interlocking gears, all working and clicking together, somehow holding together a ball of fluid.

As the ship came within docking range, Liao walked to the airlock. This time she took the marines with her. It was one thing to get lost on the way to meeting her peer and fellow CO; it was another to do it on the way to an important negotiation.

The box of hard drives was waiting for her there, along with detailed instructions on how to read the data on the disks. Her engineers had taken no chances, it seemed, which pleased her. The last thing she needed was a gaffe such as providing the Iilan information in a format they could not read.

A low thud on the hull signalled the Iilan's docking. The airlocks on the
Madrid
, unlike the
Beijing
, did not have windows. She waited until the light turned green before opening the door.

Paar the Speaker was ready for her, floating in the green fluid, a mask in his hand. His wings, stretched out wide, beat slowly in the fluid.

Liao reached into the goo, took the mask as offered, slipped it over her head and then stepped onboard the Iilan vessel. The marines pushed the trolley full of hard drives in after her.

"I am saddened by what you have told me," Paar said when they had floated across to the central body of the ship. "I have spoken to our ship's commanders. They have agreed to assist you beyond the terms of our agreement."

Liao nodded appreciatively. "At the moment, we could use whatever help you could provide. Almost all of our logistics and manufacturing capabilities have been lost, along with the knowledge and skills that our species has acquired over the course of our existence."

"This, precisely, is what we aim to replace." Paar clicked his beak eagerly. "Our analysis of the metalwork on your ships hulls indicated that they are constructed by manual forgework. We have, at our disposal, a type of autonomous construct that is of significant aid to our logistical support. We use them to mine asteroids, but they are equally suited to terrestrial operations."

"A mining robot?"

"Much more than that," said Paar. "It is a self-replicating, autonomous resource acquisition unit. Essentially, you tell it what minerals you wish to extract from the local environment, and it produces ingots of them ready for use."

Instinctively Liao did not trust the presence of a construct serving in her forces. The
Rubens
, if it still existed, had a nearly full complement of constructs, but that was an isolated case.

Such a thing would be useful, though. They needed all the help they could get.

"They can be considered a gift, but their refusal, given the circumstances, would be entirely reasonable. Alternatively, you can disassemble them for the technology within. We traded for them many years ago, and our extraction techniques have become more refined since that time. These are surplus. Useful surplus, but we will not miss them."

Beggars could not be choosers. "I think," said Liao, "given the circumstances, that these would be a welcome addition to our logistical network. I thank you for the kind gift on behalf of all of us."

"You are welcome," said Paar. From somewhere else in the ship, seven figures floated towards them. Humans.

"Morning, Commander Liao," said one, a major by his uniform. "It's good to see you." Despite the presence of masks partially obscuring their faces, their relief was obvious.

"It's evening planetside," she said. "But it's good to see you too."

Paar clicked his beak, and a trail of bubbles floated away from his mouth towards the centre of the ship. "Their craft is attached to the hull of our vessel, powered down. We will drain the fluid from it and restore its atmosphere, then return it to you. Aboard you should find the five constructs that we are gifting to you. The process will take several hours."

"Thank you."

Behind her, the faint whir and clicking of gears filtered through the liquid. The hull had opened again, joining with the
Madrid
's airlock.

"No thanks are necessary, Spear of Earth. Take care, and may fate be kind to your remaining people. Kinder than it was to us."

Liao and the Broadsword crew floated out towards the exit, stepping out of the green fluid and back into gravity, then removed their masks. She got a final look at Paar as their airlock door closed. Metal scraped on metal as the Iilan clockwork hull sealed itself back up, returning to a perfect sphere.
 

The self-replicating, autonomous resource acquisition unit.

A SARA.

She had not seen Saara, the Toralii whom she considered a close friend, since the battle. She had been aboard the
Ju'khaali
as it broke up and fell into Belthas IV's atmosphere, just before the
Giralan
had. Some had survived, including Saara, but Liao had not received any reports on the rest of the crew's fate.

Whatever Saara was doing, she was staying out of her way.

Liao shook the hands of the rescued crew, sent them to de Lugo to be debriefed and then walked back to the hangar bay.

She didn't get far, though, before red warning lights filled the corridors and the call to General Quarters came over the ship's intercom.

C
HAPTER
IV

Debellation

*****

CAP Fatbox 09

Velsharn L2 Lagrange Point

Far side of the moon

"T
HIS
FUCKING
SUCKS
."

M
AJOR
A
LEX
"Jazz" Aharoni slumped back in the cramped cockpit of his SSF-01 Wasp, trying to ease the cramp out of his legs.

A Combat Air Patrol, or CAP, was an exercise in monotony. They would fly a standard seven-point patrol around their origin point and then return. Stellar spaceflight was performed at tremendous speeds. However, with the vast distances involved, patrols still took hours.

"What does?" chattered Predator in his ear. Predator had obtained his nickname because his girlfriend Katy was seventeen at the time they started dating. He was known for being excitable, energetic, and for speaking too fast over comms. This was a bad thing. Pilots were supposed to have only two states: cool and cold.
 

But that was neither here nor there. Jazz squirmed around, almost bumping the control column with his knee. "Everything. Earth is gone, the fleet's scattered, the
Sydney
got blown up. Fucking sucks. I had friends on that ship."

"We all had friends on that ship," said Predator. "Not to mention Earth. Katy was there, man."

Around and around went his radar, sweeping the area near the Lagrange point, checking for bogeys. Nothing.

"Yeah, I know. It's possible she escaped. We still don't have a full headcount."

"You know as well as I do that no ship touched down in Israel."

"I know, I know. But still. At least some of the
Pegasus
crew survived. And the
Archangel
crew are still out there."

"Six people out of like… a thousand. Break." The faint hiss of static was all he could hear as Predator held the line open. "And we don't know if the
Archangel
got away. Wherever she is, Medola must be fucking pissed."

"Yeah." Jazz figured that. Everyone figured that. This made him feel particularly guilty, as the
Archangel
crew had saved his hide back on Karathi. "Getting ordered to abandon the
Farsight
must have driven her crazy. Her motto—"

"
Never leave a man behind
. I know. Well, they left a good thirty or forty of them behind in the
Farsight
. So I guess that's more a theoretical thing now."

"Yeah. Well, whatever. They're probably dead anyway." Jazz tapped one of the touchscreens on his cockpit, tuning his radar. The Velsharn system had fewer dust particles per square metre than flight control had anticipated and, with some minor adjustment, his radar could see much further. "If she shows up, I'll buy her some shots when she's off duty. Booze always calms the savage beast."

"You want to fuck her, don't you?"

"Are you kidding me?" Jazz snorted. "Everyone wants to fuck her. I'd give my left arm to get into that g-suit."

"Aren't you fucking Summer, though? That engineer chick?"

He wanted to tell the truth, but something pulled at him, imploring him not to answer. "It's a
really
long story, man."

"It's because she played too many fucking video games, isn't it? She's always on them."

Summer did love her games, but that wasn't it. "Nah."

"Well, we got four fucking hours left, and I'm shit out of things to talk about. Spill."

Jazz slumped back in his seat, trying to get his thoughts together. "Well, yeah. Anyway. I guess we
were
doing a thing, and then—"

Predator cut over the top of him. "Contact, single bogey, bearing niner one mark six two. Gunship class."

All thoughts of his discomfort, Summer, and the awkward conversation about to follow vanished out of his head. His radar screen lit up as Predator's ship relayed the contact. Soon his radar showed it as well.

"Confirmed, I see it."

They were on the far side of the moon. They had no direct radar contact, but they could call the other parts of the CAP. Jazz swung the dial on his console.

"Butcher, this is Jazz. We have a bogey in the L2 Lagrange point. Gunship class. Moving to investigate." It would take several seconds for the radio signal to reach their other wing, and longer still for the contact to be relayed and confirmed, but even then, Butcher's response was delayed.

They were slow. They were rattled.

"Jazz, Butcher. Confirmed. Interdicting."

Before he could even issue Predator any orders, another communication came through.

"This is the Broadsword
Switchblade
to anyone who can receive this report, please respond."

He smiled despite it all.
Switchblade
's pilot was Luke Hoffman. Good drinker, best darts player he'd ever seen. "
Switchblade
, this is Jazz. Good to hear your voice."
 

Hoffman spoke up almost immediately. "The Toralii are looking for us. They're looking for all of us—they want to finish the job."

Everyone knew that. "What happened, Hoffman?"

"I saw their ships," Hoffman said. "From the fleet in the Sol system. Hundreds of ships, scouts, heading to all the jump points. Scouts. They're looking for us, Alex."

"Come to us," said Jazz. "We'll fly you to the
Madrid
."

"Roger," said Hoffman. "En route."
 

He spun his craft in space, reactionless drive humming as he changed his course, sliding sideways along in space. "Predator, begin decelerating, form up with me, and move towards the Lagrange point. We're meeting up with
Switchblade
."

"Copy," said Predator.

Jazz compressed into his seat as the ship moved forward, the course change swinging him around to the jump point.

Silence reigned between them for almost a minute, enforced by the crushing pressure of inertia as they executed a six g burn. The stress to the airframe was significantly higher, but the gravity emitting reactionless devices that worked to keep the forces from crushing them did their job. Instead of liquefying them, the force was merely uncomfortable.

Then they were ballistic, and the pressure eased up. He checked his systems, ensuring that everything was working intact.

His radar showed another contact in the Lagrange point, right beside the
Switchblade
.

"
Switchblade
, you have a friend behind you."

"Dammit," said Hoffman, "it's got to be the Alliance."

"I need to try to get a visual on the bogey. It could be a Broadsword from the
Tehran
."

"Too large to be a Broadsword, and we would have seen an IFF squawk by now."

"Doesn't help to hope."

Their ships began to move closer to the L2 point. Velsharn's moon loomed closer and larger. When the acceleration eased off long enough for him to speak, Jazz touched his transmit key, broadcasting on all frequencies.

"CAP Fatbox 09 to unidentified target in L2 Lagrange point. Transmit identification code."

Nothing. No response from their target. The green dot on their radar grew closer and closer as they hurtled towards it at ludicrous speed.

"CAP Fatbox 09 to unidentified target in L2 Lagrange point. I say again, transmit identification code, or prepare to be destroyed."

Nothing. Jazz clicked the master arm on his weapons systems, using his medium range radar to paint the target, a process known as "doorknocking". The use of the intermediate range radar would almost certainly trigger radiological alarms on the target ship, indicating they were targeted for destruction. This might get their attention.

It certainly did. Two white bolts of energy flew within metres of his cockpit. The target had no desire to talk. Superheated plasma weapons belonged to the Toralii; that was no friendly.

They'd been discovered. Protocol was clear on this point. Ensure that the ship could not escape. Every jump drive had some delay between jumps where it cooled. Jazz had to stop the ship escaping, or it would return with the Alliance fleet.