Lacuna: The Ashes of Humanity (2 page)

"Not that it will matter if we lose Earth."

"There are other planets, other worlds. Too many for the Toralii Alliance to track. We can go there. If even a fraction of humanity's alive, we'll grow out of the ashes. We're strong like that." His hand tightened around hers. "And no matter what, we have each other."

The ship sailed toward the Lagrange point. Mike had explained the concept to her. Points of naturally occurring low gravity where the jump drive could do its work. It didn't work anywhere else.

She expected the Toralii to attack her at any moment, but they didn't. She did not know why. Perhaps God was protecting them, or perhaps the aliens were simply too busy. A thousand possibilities.

"Not long now. Are you ready?"

The baby squealed, and Penny bounced it on her knee. "Yes. Do you know where we're going?"

"If the
Rubens
escaped," said Mike, "I know where she'll be. If it's not there, I know places we can go. If we need to, we can go to the Kel-Voran. One of their warlords owes me a favour."

"Then what?"

"Then we make the bastards pay."

She was unwilling to comment further out loud. Mike had not been the same since Gutterball was killed. Since they had taken the
Rubens
. He had lost something. Some part of his fighter-pilot edge that he couldn't get back.

And he'd become more angry. Subtly, not overtly and never towards her, but she'd noticed it. Felt it. The anger. Simmering, bubbling beneath the surface, controlled but clearly present.

"You don't sound convinced," Penny said.

"If you could see what I see, you'd feel the same way. We've got to make them pay. Somehow."

The ship's jump drive powered up, and the ship trembled as it prepared to jump. She trusted Mike's judgement.

Penny held Mike's hand as the ship leapt across the stars, and she prayed again. Silently, just to herself, a private thought between her and God. The last request she would make in this solar system, floating high above the burning cradle of humanity.

Lord God, make the bastards pay.

A
CT
I

C
HAPTER
I

Ringside Seats to the Apocalypse

*****

Operations

TFR
Beijing

Space, Earth Orbit

T
HE
E
ARTH
WAS
BURNING
.

C
OMMANDER
Melissa Liao stared in mute horror at the scene unfolding before her. Her Operations crew stared with her, their gazes as one as colossal waves of flame that spread all over the tiny blue planet like creeping vines consumed their planet's atmosphere.

Allison was on Earth. This single thought possessed her, shielding out all the world until a Human voice broke the spell.

"Captain," said Lieutenant Hsin, their communications officer. "No signals from the Martian colony. Not even landing beacons. Thermals show a massive heat signature at the colony site." He scrolled through a stream of information on his console, voice strained with the effort of speaking. "Incoming transmission from the
Washington
."

Numb, Liao motioned for him to play it.

"This is
Washington
actual. Tell me I'm speaking to Commander Liao."

Captain Edward Anderson. The soft-spoken, Southern commanding officer of the
Washington
. Liao clicked the talk key, though she barely knew what to say.

"This is
Beijing
actual."

"Commander," said Anderson, "we are in the shit."

"You have an amazing talent for understatement." She could not take her eyes off the scorched, heaving planet before her. "What's your status, Captain?"

"We're lifting through the atmosphere as we speak, above Guangzhou. We're at evacuation capacity—the ship is full."

They landed their 200,000-tonne vessel on Earth's surface? She did not think it was even possible, much less to have picked up a ship full of people. Liao forced the words out. "How many did you save?"

"10,000, maybe more. We didn't stop to count. We took anyone who was there and only left when we could carry no more. The
Madrid
wasn't so lucky. They landed in Brazil but only managed to pick up 800 before the local atmospheric conditions got too severe."

800. So few.

"What's the status of the
Madrid
?"

"They're heading to the L1 jump point now. Several other smaller vessels have escaped. Be advised, Cerberus Station has been destroyed with all hands."

"I know." Liao squeezed her headset. "Also, be advised that the
Sydney
has also been lost with all hands, save a single Broadsword crew."

She could hear his pain through the line. "Acknowledged,
Beijing
."

How odd that the loss of the crew of the
Sydney
, such a small thing compared to the devastation engulfing Earth as they spoke, was more important to him at this moment. Liao knew, though, exactly what he was feeling.

"
Washington
, how can we help? What do you want us to do?" Her ship was badly damaged, the underside cut to ribbons from the fight with Ben and his patchwork ship. "We're combat ineffective over here."

Anderson's response was immediate and forceful. "Commander, I say this: do not engage under any circumstances. There's too many. Instead, save whomever you can. Land wherever you can. The Toralii are ignoring our ships, for now, but we don't know how long that will last. Save lives, then escape. Rendezvous with the
Tehran
in the Belthas system."

Where in the world could she possibly land? She was spoiled for choice. What place on Earth would be the moral, ethical, practical best choice? A planet's worth of Human beings was dying below them. Any number they could save would be horrifyingly insufficient.

"Acknowledged,
Washington
. Good hunting, and we'll see you on the other side.
Beijing
out."

She closed the communication and turned to her navigator, Lieutenant Dao. "Mr. Dao, where are we in relation to the surface?"

"By the time we close the distance to Earth at best speed, we'll be over the Atlantic Ocean."
 

The Atlantic. Could they make Europe, or would they have to go west?

"Best place to make landfall that's got people?"

"We could land in the southern United States with only minor course corrections. It'd be a hell of a landing though, especially with the battle damage."

"We're already in Hell, Mr. Dao." The U.S. would have to do. It would have plenty of people. "Commence atmospheric re-entry protocol, and prepare to land the ship in Houston."

Dao twisted in his seat and gave her a confused look. "Captain, there
is
no atmospheric re-entry protocol for a ship of this size."

"Then make it up as you go along. Just control re-entry with the reactionless drives; the main source of heat will be friction from the air, so control our speed and we can minimise that. Try not to get us all killed."

"Aye aye, Captain. Making it up as we go along… mark."

The
Beijing
tilted and pointed down towards the surface of the planet. The Atlantic Ocean and the east coast of the United States filled the monitors of her forward facing cameras.

"Miss Rowe, report status on the jump drive."

No answer. Summer's eyes were fixed on monitors relaying information from their external cameras. Liao knew what she was looking at.

"Rowe, jump drive status."
 

Still no response.
 

"Rowe!"

She looked at Liao with absent eyes. "Sorry. What?"

"The jump drive?"

Rowe tapped at the keyboard on her console. "Well, it's fucked."

"I need something a little more specific than that. Can we jump out of here, or should we get out and push?"

"The emergency jump to the Earth-Moon L1 Lagrange point has caused fractures along the surface of the drive enclosure. The emergency cooling system does that. I warned you that it does."

"You did, but that's in the past. I want to know what the ship can do for me in the future."

"Well, I can probably squeeze one more jump out of her, two at most. Then we're going to need six weeks in Lunar drydock."

"There is no Lunar drydock anymore." That settled it. With only one jump left, they couldn't go to Belthas. The Alliance knew they were going there. "We need to go somewhere safe; somewhere the Toralii Alliance won't look." Earth loomed larger in her monitors. She needed to decide, but where?

The beautiful blue ocean filling her monitor reminded her of one place she had visited, where the Alliance would not look for them or anyone else. A place where they would be safe.

"Can you jump us to Velsharn?"

The planet stuck in her mind for its lush vegetation and pristine beaches. She had walked on them, seen the Telvan colony, met the Toralii who lived there and shook their hands.

A beautiful place destroyed by the
Beijing
's missiles. Liao had been court-martialled over the incident and lost, a decision she largely agreed with. The deaths there had been her fault.

Dwelling on the past could not help them now. The planet was large and, despite being mostly water, was well within the Telvan borders. The Alliance would not dare to attack them there.

"Sure," said Summer, "Velsharn. I can make that happen, but it'll take time."

"Time. We don't have much of that." The
Beijing
began to shudder and shake as it caught the upper edges of Earth's roiling and darkened atmosphere. "We're going to be the last ship off Earth, so if the Toralii decide to attack someone, it'll be us. Make sure we're ready to go as soon as we can be. Inform the
Madrid
,
Washington
and the
Tehran
."

Rowe had always been overconfident, arrogant even, but the doubt on her face made her true feelings clear.

She was afraid.

"Make it happen," Liao said, then let her get to work. "Tactical, dispatch every Broadsword and Falcon we have, spread them out. Get them to major population centres. They'll be able to save fifty souls each, maybe sixty if they cram them in tight. Order the crew to fill them to standing room only. They won't be in there long."

"Aye aye," said Lieutenant Jiang at tactical, "dispatching Broadswords. We'll pick them up when we break atmo'."

The radar screen lit up as the ship disgorged its heavy bombers, each heading to different parts of the United States. Too few to make a difference, except to the lucky handful of souls that would be saved.

"Captain," said Dao, "we have to enter the atmosphere topside-down. There's too much battle damage on the underside. Too many hull breaches."

"Do it."

The ship rolled onto its back as it plummeted through the atmosphere. Liao's stomach turned as real gravity fought with the artificial. She had never been comfortable with that feeling of one's stomach leaping up into their chest, but she kept herself under control. To throw up on the deck of the Operations room at this particular moment would be ill advised.

"How will people know to come to us?" Liao asked the room. "How will they know we're here?"

Her XO, Commander Kamal Iraj, spoke from another console. "They'll know. The
Beijing
has been in the media constantly since it was first designed. Everyone knows it. When they see the ship landing, they'll come."

The atmosphere frothed below them as the fires closed in on the central United States, and the ship drew closer and closer. The continent teemed with life, and Iraj was right; the people would pour out to meet them, and they could take as many as they had room for.

The
Beijing
was vast. It could hold enough people to begin again. No matter what happened, as long as the Pillars of the Earth were mostly full, there would be enough of humanity to recover. They would save a fraction of their species.

But none of them would be Allison.

Houston, Texas

Christian Grant drove like a maniac through the dust covering Houston's Southern Freeway, watching through his windscreen as the huge spaceship, its topside glowing red, descended through the dust-shrouded atmosphere. He could barely see it through the smoke and ash that rained down all around the car, despite the best efforts of the windscreen wipers.

"Dad?" said Olivia, his ten-year-old daughter, "The dust is getting worse. How far to go?"

"I know, honey, I know. We're close. The ship can't be landing far away."

The roads were remarkably absent of other vehicles, but the sudden dust storm and wave of heat had probably driven people into their homes instead. But he'd seen the ship. He knew it was landing. The only place big enough for something so massive was the old Reliant Stadium, where he'd played football until a shoulder injury forced him into coaching.

Christian swerved to avoid a person running across the road, a towel over their face to keep the dust out. He didn't swerve for the dog.

Olivia shrieked. "Jesus, Dad!"

"It was just a cat," he lied. Olivia hated cats and always wanted a puppy, but they couldn't afford pets in this economy.