Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi (17 page)

That was not a reassuring assessment. Liao found it interesting how emotive
Ben’s description was, but before Liao could press him for further details, Saara stepped through the hatchway to Operations. Liao repeated the tactical situation for the Toralii woman.

Saara just stared at her. [“Captain, as the Humans say, we are fucked. There is no way we can defeat that enemy under these conditions.”]

Liao held up a hand. “We don’t need to beat
them, just survive long enough to grab Alex’s rescue gunship, then get the hell out of here.”

For a time Operations was quiet, then Ben scratched his chin
with a claw, a strange gesture Liao thought very out of place on a synthetic creature. “You know,” he began, “those ships are fast, powerful, tough, but the crew are usually hauntingly arrogant. They know
they can beat us and, after that stunt you pulled in Kor’Vakkar, I bet they’re out for blood. So, why don’t we use that to our advantage, eh?”

He skittered towards a console, studying it with his various optics. “If we kept accelerating and changed course slightly, we could swing around the far side of Karathi. Make it look like we’re making a break for the L2 jump point, but
instead
, we use the planet’s gravity to slingshot us around, right back towards your pilot. Those Toralii ships are agile, sure, but we’ve got a massive inertia lead on them because we’re moving in the right direction already. By the time they realize we’re overshooting them and turn around, we’ll have a significant lead. We snatch him on the way out, head to the L1 jump point, then jump.”

It made sense to Liao. “Do you think they’ll take the bait?”

Ben turned his ‘head’ towards her, optics glinting in the low light of the Operations room. “I don’t see why they won’t. They
don’t know what’s onboard that gunship, although they might suspect it’s salvage from the
Giralan
. In any event, I don’t think they’ll care. They’d much prefer stomping your collective Human buttocks flat to chasing after one tiny ship. The gunship, I suspect, will be an afterthought.”

Liao didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse. With no other options, she nodded to Kamal. “Mister Iraj, let’s do this. Work with Dao–try and find the course that gets us around the planet the fastest. Saara, Ben, give them whatever assistance you can.”

The four of them went to work immediately, and Liao returned her attention to her command console. She sensed someone moving up behind her, and a cock of her head revealed it was Summer.

“Captain, I… if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.”

Liao nodded. “We’re going to pass through its weapons range, at least for a time, so if we can find a way to increase our defensive posture, that would be excellent. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you exactly what we’re facing.”

She didn’t. Summer had been present during the battle against the
Seth’arak
. She knew of the incredible capabilities of Toralii warships, but she also knew that the Human forces had tricks of their own. One of the defensive capabilities of the
Triumph
-
class cruisers, such as the
Beijing
, was the complex alloy that lined the hull. Before the attacks on Earth, Summer had named it indestructium.

While tough under normal conditions, its most beneficial property was its induced rigidity. If an electric current was passed through the metal, it became unyielding; the ship’s armour would deflect nuclear blasts, kinetic impacts, and all manner of abuse. Its primary weakness, however, was temperature. Each time energy was absorbed by the armour, it would radiate that energy out as heat. When the metal reached one thousand two hundred kelvin, it would return to its liquid state. As the indestructium comprised most of the outer hull, this would be an undesirable outcome.

“See what you can do to bolster the integrity of the hull plating, and see if we can find a way to dump that excess heat. We’re going to need every advantage we can get when that cruiser opens up on us.”

Summer, her eyes filled with a sudden fire, nodded. She turned and raced back to her console, her red hair flying as her fingers danced over her console’s keypad. Liao could see the determination she had to save Alex, and the Chinese woman was inspired by
it.

One of the other lieutenants raised his voice in protest, alarmed by what Summer was trying to do.

“Don’t worry about it,” Summer muttered to him, then glanced at Liao. “They always put a safety margin on these things. Twenty percent or more. Sometimes much more."

That didn’t reassure Liao very much, but her attention was drawn back to the command console. Liao watched as the red circle that represented the Toralii ship’s effective weapons range drew closer and closer, then enveloped them. Using the long range thermal cameras, she observed white-hot dots of energy leaping towards them, the Operations room giving an almost imperceptive shudder as they impacted on the ship’s forward hull. The Toralii weapons travelled slower than the speed of light, so avoiding them was possible, but they still moved awfully fast.

“Hull temperature rising,” came the call from Peng. “Four hundred kelvin and climbing!”

Liao nodded. That was to be expected. “Any sign of their energy cannon?”

Aside from their more conventional armaments, the Toralii cruisers possessed a terrible weapon. Summer had wanted to call it the BFG, but the Toralii called it the worldshatter device. The mechanics of it were not well understood by Human scientists, but it was the same weapon that had destroyed Tehran, Sydney, and Beijing with a single flourish of its power. Saara had explained that it was a limited-use device, but it was one of the main reasons for the Toralii domination of space.

Peng shook his head. “Not yet, Captain, although we are in range.”

Saara spoke up, her voice cutting over the chatter of the room. [“Captain, the Toralii Alliance vessel will avoid using their worldshatter device if they want to take us alive.”]

A comforting thought. “Thank you, Saara.”

The bombardment intensified, and Liao could barely see the tiny Broadsword’s signal finally merge with the
Beijing
. A swift glance at the command console showed that the ship was safely secured inside their hull, and the rest of the strike craft were on board. The only one left out was
Archangel
; the search and rescue craft.

The temptation to jump away was strong, but they had committed to their course. They needed to reach a Lagrange point before they could leap across the stars.
All they had to do was hold out for a few more minutes.

“Forward hull temperature at six hundred kelvin! We’ve passed the cruiser, they’re swinging around to follow us.” Peng called.

Liao swore. The hull was taking a pounding.
Six hundred degrees was a surprisingly fast rise in a short period of time. Although they were still a fair distance from the limit, it was distressing.

Fortunately, because they’d passed the Toralii ship, the aliens would be shooting at their stern. That would alleviate the damage in the bow and give them a chance to radiate some of that heat away. Since the reactionless drive was mostly internal, with only alignment dishes for optimal projection on the external body of the vessel, the stern of the ship lacked the kind of structural weaknesses that plagued naval vessels. The ship was strong from all directions.
Rotating the vessel to keep the rising heat spread out as much as possible–giving their heat sinks a chance to work–made good tactical sense.

“Good. Keep maximum power to the engines and continue accelerating. Saara, Ben, how’s our slingshot around the planet coming?”

“Jolly good, Captain! We’ve nearly completed the calculations.”

That surprised Liao, but she nodded her gratitude. “Good work, both of you.”

Saara nodded in return. [“Thank you, Captain. I am using this construct’s computational abilities to determine an optimal course for the ship.”]

Ben, his optics flashing in what Liao swore was anger, wheeled about. “Excuse me, I am not a tool to be used. I’m
doing the heavy lifting here, so you can just go die in a hole if you think for one second that you can claim much of the credit for this!”

Saara rolled her eyes. [“Unliving things can’t claim credit, construct.”]

Liao opened her mouth to intervene, but Ben’s voice–amplified by what passed for Toralii speakers–boomed over the top of her.

“Unliving?”
Ben took a step closer to Saara, raising his claws menacingly. “What do you have against me, Toralii? What wrong have I committed against you that you would continue to treat me so callously? Why do you hate me?”

[“I cannot hate that which does not live. You—”]

“That’s
enough!” Liao slammed her fist on the metal of her console. “In case you two morons
have forgotten, a Toralii cruiser is out there blasting our asses into slag while you bicker senselessly over credit. Pull yourselves together. Focus on the planetary pass, or get the hell out of the way so we can do it ourselves!”

Staring daggers at each
other, the robot and the Toralii obediently went back to work. Liao watched them for a moment, then Kamal’s soft voice pulled her away.

“Captain? We are leaving the Toralii cruiser’s effective weapons range.”

She had felt the shudders from the incoming fire become lighter and more sporadic, but she hadn’t realized what it meant. Inwardly, she cursed Saara and Ben for distracting her at a critical junction.

Liao nodded. “Very well. How long until we can meet up with our SAR bird?”

“A full circuit around the planet will take us approximately thirty minutes. Saara and Ben can optimize it, but if we miscalculate, we could either fall into the atmosphere and burn up–the ship is not rated for reentry at these speeds–or skip off the atmosphere like a stone off a lake. But if we can pull this off, we’ll make a perfect pass and before the Toralii realize what we’ve done—they’ll be going too fast to slow down to do the same—we’ll be around the other side of the planet.”

Liao digested that information. “Good. Allow a small margin for safety, but cut it as close as you can.” She flicked her eyes to her console, then back to Kamal. “Damage assessment from the bombardment?”

Iraj smiled. “Minimal, Captain. We were moving too fast to be accurately targeted by their weapons, and Summer’s work enhancing the strength of our hull plating seems to have paid off. We’ve got reports of burnouts and light damage across the ship’s internals, but they’re in modular systems, which should be easy to replace. Assuming we don’t take too much more damage before we pick up our pilots, and assuming we can find somewhere safe to work, we should be one hundred percent combat effective within two hours.”

This was welcome news, and Liao’s smile conveyed her relief. “Good.”

The minutes ticked past as the ship hurled itself around the planet, the Toralii warship in hot pursuit. They bade the Broadsword
Archangel
farewell and good hunting as the
Beijing
slipped behind the planet’s gigantic mass, the Operations room falling into a tense silence as the vessel hurtled around Karathi, the planet’s sands flying past below the great warship.

As predicted, the Toralii overshot. For a moment, the
Beijing
was in range of their weapons and the ship, once again, shook with the force of their impacts; but the ship’s momentum quickly carried them beyond the curve of the planet and the incoming fire abruptly ceased.

As they cleared the surface, Hsin reestablished contact with the
Archangel
. The Toralii vessel’s strike fighters had followed their mothership, apparently ignoring the small rescue craft, and Liao was pleased to hear their relieved voices.

“
Beijing, Archangel
. Welcome back.”

“It’s good to be back,
Archangel.
The pass went successfully. Prepare for recovery.”

A strained chuckle. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear those words, Captain.”

Liao touched the talk key. “Status on Major Aharoni?”

“His suit suffered a pinhole breach from debris from the dogfight. He’s lost a lot of blood and nearly asphyxiated, but he’s stable. He’ll recover just fine.”

Liao’s gaze darted to Summer. She had anticipated more alarm, more worry, but the redheaded Australian looked relieved.

“Very fine work,
Archangel
. Wait for us at the Lagrange point. We’ll be there to extract you in forty minutes.”

The
Beijing
hurtled towards the lone craft parked in the jump point and, apparently more agile than Kamal had anticipated, the Toralii cruiser appeared from behind Karathi’s vast surface like a predator breaking from cover. Distant and out of weapons range, but still far too close for Liao’s liking.

“Ben, Saara, distance to the jump point.
Are we going to make it?”

[“The Toralii cruiser is gaining on us, Captain, but we will arrive at the jump point before we are within maximum effective weapons range.”]

A cheer broke out in the Operations room, and Liao smiled. “That’s what I wanted to hear.” She made a distinct point of nodding at Saara and Ben individually. “You have
both
done exceptional work. We owe you our thanks.”

To Saara’s credit, she said nothing, merely dipping her head.

Ben clicked his claws together excitedly.

“Bully for us, Captain!”

Liao smiled. “Indeed. Rowe, program in a jump sequence to take us back to Velsharn. We’ll install the parts there. It’s as safe a place as any.”

The attitude in the Operations room was tense as both the
Beijing
and the Toralii vessel raced towards the jump point. Both ships exchanged long-range fire to little effect; each was able to change their course to avoid the incoming railgun or energy weapon fire, while any missiles the
Beijing
fired behind it were simply shot down.

Within the hour, the
Beijing
snatched the
Archangel
and slid into the jump point just as the Toralii warship came within firing range.

Their hull shaking from the absorbed impacts, Liao nodded to Kamal and the two of them withdrew the jump drive keys from their breast pockets, inserting them into the dual locks that controlled the jump coordinates. The artificial gravity–a modified reactionless device planted in the deck–was turned off and Liao felt her stomach lurch as she slowly began floating off the deck.