Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi

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A writer does not write in isolation,

for they are the sum of their experiences.

It is from these experiences that inspiration comes.

I thank my family, who allowed me to be who I am,

My friends, who love me in spite of me,

And as always, to my readers.

You made all this possible.

Special thanks to UFOP: Starbase 118 for teaching me how to write,

And Shane Michael Murray,

my tireless proofreader, motivator and partner in crime.

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Lacuna

空

白

The Sands of Karathi

“An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast…

… for a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.”

- Buddha

Prologue

“
All Accounted For”

Near the wreckage of the Giralan

Planet Karathi

1978 AD

[“Please… please, don’t leave me here. Take me with you.”]

The construct clasped its robotic claws together in a begging gesture, turning its optics to the wreck of the Toralii Alliance warship
Giralan
, spread around the great desert sands like a disemboweled animal.
The construct’s vision slowly, despairingly, shifted to the great dunes, which extended out to the horizon.

The rescue effort—focused entirely on the Toralii crew and any equipment they could salvage—did not include the construct.

[“Your datacore is too heavy,”] the ship’s weary commander explained once again. [“The rescue shuttle cannot bear the weight of your systems.”]

[“Then make room, leave something else,”] the construct pleaded. [“Leave the atmospheric processor or the waste management system.
It is all equipment, just equipment—replaceable!”]

[“
You
are equipment,”] came the commander’s agitated reply, [“which has been explained to you many times, and
you
are replaceable. You were manufactured in a lab, copied from the default neural net.
You were not
born
. You are not a series of biochemical reactions that grows and dies. You are a complex quantum computer heuristic, and I am wasting my breath talking to you. You are no more alive than this blasted sand.”]

The construct, remotely controlling a small four-legged maintenance robot, pointed to itself. [“I
am
alive, and I care not what your precious ‘science directorates’ declare regarding my—”]

The construct was cut off by the chirp of the Toralii Commander’s windwhisper device, which he answered. [“This is Warbringer Eiilan. Go ahead.”]

[“Warbringer, the last of the survivors have been loaded. We are ready to proceed when you are. Is there anything else of worth salvageable from the
Giralan
?”]

With a glance over the dunes, then to the wreckage, then finally back at the maintenance robot, the Toralii shook his head and spoke into the windwhisper device. [“No.”]

The construct thumped the maintenance robot’s claws against the barren ground, kicking up small plumes of dust as they struck the sand.

[“If you are to leave me here, what is my directive?”]

The Toralii blinked rapidly, the Human equivalent of a shrug. [“Do what you wish. I care not.”]

With a dull roar, the rescue shuttle powered up its engines and Warbringer Eiilan looked up, watching the rising exhaust thrust as it caused a small cloud of dust to billow around the crowd of Toralii survivors huddled together in the space between two dunes. Shouldering his burden, a cloth bag full of computer components salvaged from the construct's systems, the commander strode towards the shuttle. He didn’t look back.

The construct watched the survivors filter into the smaller vessel, staring with envious optics as the last of the equipment and personnel were loaded. Then, with the rumble of engines and a
whoosh
of sand, the shuttle lifted off. Before long it was just a speck in the sky.
A moment later it was nothing.

The construct, with his precise artificial mind, knew the shuttle was too small to have its own voidwarp device. It would have to dock with its mothership, a process he timed with precision that surprised even himself.

Not that all his knowledge and raw mathematical ability could help him in the slightest. None of his abilities, nor any of the remaining ship’s systems, could compel the shuttle to return.

All the construct could do was watch as a white flash, the telltale signature of a voidwarp device, lit up the night sky, leaving him utterly alone.

Days turned into weeks. Weeks dragged into months, then slowly became years. The construct, with his mechanical mind, kept perfect time; he never slept, he never rested. He did not grow bored or weary, nor pass the time in the many ways Humans could.

The sole thing the construct
could
do was wait and think.
Running endless models and simulations, tuning and adjusting every conceivable parameter, he struggled to understand why he had been left behind to rust on the unforgiving, inhospitable desert world of Karathi.

Act I

Chapter I

“
Of Wounds and the Wounded”

Infirmary

TFR Beijing

2037 AD

"You're pregnant."

Doctor Saeed’s words were like a hammer to Commander Melissa Liao’s heart.

Liao, the Captain of the TFR
Beijing
, had not lead an easy life. She was what they called a “Summer Flower”—a woman raised in China two generations after the ‘one child’ policy had left far too many men without eligible wives—a trend that had not significantly reversed itself in the years that passed. From there, her destiny was fairly clear; she would marry young to a rich and influential man—who was handsome to boot—and get right down to the business of producing him an heir and living a comfortable, easy life full of parties and friends, with a supportive family and every comfort she could ask for.

But the life of a giggling, vapid housewife was not for her. Determined to make something of herself, Liao joined the military, rising through the ranks at a brisk pace as a submariner. A noteworthy career, but fairly typical of someone with talent and drive. She had enlisted as an officer, working as a navigator for the
Han
-
class submarines the Chinese Navy—somewhat strangely referred to as the People’s Army Navy—fielded in the beginning of her career, then expressing an interest to move into command school as soon as she was offered a position. A fairly standard career path and not at all unorthodox.

After the Toralii came and devastated Tehran, Sydney, and Beijing, her career became truly exceptional.

Due to a twist of fate—a large-scale retraining programme for command school officers taking place in Beijing at the time of the attacks— a large number of senior Chinese officers were killed during the attacks. Accordingly, the navy had a great many positions to fill and the promotions came thick and fast… as did the work those duties required. She once again felt the call of that easy lifestyle, especially late at night when her chances of getting over the mountain of work seemed hopeless.
But rather than buckle under the pressure, she flourished and, in time, was offered the command of the
Beijing
, a
Triumph-
class vessel and one of the Pillars of the Earth — three great warships built to fight the aliens.

Captain James Grégoire, her companion by happenstance during the attacks, was given command of the
Tehran
, another Pillar. Their camaraderie turned flirtatious and then intimate at a rapid pace, and then…

… and then the Toralii returned, quite decisively handing the Human defenders their arses with only a single ship, the
Seth’arak
. James, his vessel crippled, had rammed the enemy ship to save Liao and her crew.

When the two collided there was a bright flash, and the
Tehran
and the
Seth’arak
were gone.

Wounded in battle, she discovered her pregnancy while lying in the ship's infirmary. She understood the contraceptive pill she’d been taking had a 99.9 percent success rate—those were good odds—but
someone
had to be the .1 percent.

For a time she had no answer, then stammering words found their way to her throat. She asked if he was sure. Saeed showed her the ultrasound. She asked if there was a mistake; he explained that Liao’s was the only ultrasound they had performed since the battle, and the time/date stamp on the image was accurate.

Denial didn’t help much, and it didn’t bring James back.

The
Sydney
guided the crippled
Beijing
towards the lunar drydock, Liao spent the days drifting in and out of sleep, filling out the endless reams of paperwork she was desperately behind on and trying not to think about what might happen in her future. For a time her life was approvals, work orders, promotions, commendations, and letters that began ‘We regret to inform you.’

Far, far too many of those for her liking.

Soon, she was well enough to walk and tour her badly damaged ship, her arm in a sling, her shoulder heavily bandaged. They were still several days out from their destination, unable to effectively move under their own power, the
Sydney
guiding them through the last twenty million kilometres to the moon.

It was easier than most laymen would anticipate. The ship only needed inertia; once it had its course, the
Sydney’s
strike craft, acting as tugboats, needed only to nudge it slightly in any direction using their reactionless drives if the ship’s direction required correction. Although their journey was slow, it gave Liao and the crew plenty of time to effect repairs, to treat their wounded, and to recover from the great battle.

Free from the infirmary, Liao walked the decks, touring each section in turn. It was important for shipwide morale, she felt, that they see their commanding officer was fit and well–enough to walk, at any rate–and she made a distinct point of greeting and acknowledging the crew as she passed them.

Her mind was on her duties and the command of her ship. However, when she thought nobody was looking, she would occasionally fiddle with the string of pearls James had given her, tucked carefully under the collar of her uniform.

It was relaxing and pleasant, for a time, to have reduced duties and a lighter than normal workload, but naval captains were afforded little rest, and her tour did have a serious side to it. She was back on her feet, and it was time to inspect the repairs to her ship firsthand. The work of Lieutenant Yanmei Cheung, the no-nonsense, short-haired chief of Marines whom Liao had a certain fondness for, was first on the list. Originally a warrant officer, Liao had granted her a field commission for exceptional heroism and loyalty.

The Marine was taller than Liao, which made her easy to spot in a crowd, but that wasn’t why she picked her. Cheung was first simply because Liao knew where she would be—assisting a small team of her Marines in lugging replacement deck plates around for the engineers to bolt onto the inner hull. Liao had signed the requisition form that morning.

Watching the spacesuit-clad woman through a porthole to open space, the captain of the TFR
Beijing
waited patiently for her to exhaust her stockpile of hull plates. When Cheung finally came back in through the airlock to retrieve another stack, Liao beckoned her over.

“I’ll be quick, Lieutenant, don’t worry.”

Visibly relieved, Yanmei removed her helmet with a soft hiss. “I’d appreciate that, Captain.
We have a lot to do.
How can I help you?”

Liao pointed at Yanmei’s arm with her uninjured hand. During the climatic battle with the Toralii Alliance warship
Seth’arak
, Cheung had nearly been shot by a Toralii boarder. The high-heat energy weapon had missed, fortunately, but had struck the bulkhead right behind her.
The impact sprayed a faint mist of molten titanium over the Marine’s upper forearm. There would be some significant scarring–it didn’t take a medical degree to see that–but strangely, the woman didn’t seem bothered by it, nor did she seem to have lost any function in the limb.