Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi (23 page)

Yanmei stopped firing, and Liao gingerly eased her hands away from her ears.

“Loud, aren’t they?” Cheung called, unplugging her earplugs and grinning at her Captain.

Liao nodded.

“Too
loud,” she said. “I hope the assault teams will be wearing ear protection.”

“It’s mandatory, as you can imagine. According to R&D in Hong Kong, they’re working on reducing the audio profile of the weapon, but it’s hard when we’re dealing with this kind of firepower. Since we can just put in earplugs, this was triaged so we could have them on time.”

Liao gestured to the bulky weapon. “And what exactly is it?”

Cheung had a wide, eager grin stamped on her face that reminded Liao of Summer when she was given a new toy to play with. She mused that perhaps the redheaded engineer had more in common with the Marine than either woman would be comfortable admitting.

“They call it the 大胡子龙.”

“The Bearded Dragon,” Liao translated, almost subconsciously. The English-only rule of the Task Force was one that she took very seriously.

“That’s right. An automatic grenade launcher, firing ten-millimetre armour-piercing rounds by default, but it can be loaded with all manner of fun ammunition. Explosive, smoke, gas, non-lethal, signal flare, air-burst—you name it, we have it. Each magazine holds eight shots, each Marine carries five magazines. We’re not certain, but a single shot
should
be enough firepower to breach the Toralii suits and take one down—assuming it’s a good hit. Recoil’s a bitch, though, despite the hydraulic compensators, and it’s heavy as a rock. And, well, you already noticed how loud
it is.”

Liao nodded. “That’s some good news,” she remarked, nodding. “Excellent work. I want the Marines that go into Cenar to have these, but pack submachine guns just in case.”

“Of course, Captain.”

Liao hesitated. She wanted to ask Yanmei more questions, but she couldn’t find the right way to express them.

“Captain?”

“Do you think this will be enough?” Liao pointed at the bulky weapon in Cheung’s grip. “The guns, the advantage of surprise; do you think it will be enough to successfully attack Cenar?”

Cheung shrugged absently, lowering the weapon and placing it on the table in front of her. “Who knows?”

Liao couldn’t help but look at Yanmei’s pitted and scarred arm. She chuckled at her comment, raising an eyebrow. “You don’t know? Doesn’t that worry you, or make you question why you’re doing this?”

Cheung smiled at her. “Captain, if I wanted certainty in my life I wouldn’t have become a Marine. We’re trained to deal with unexpected situations, fluid situations that can change at any moment. In fact, one could argue that everything we do has at least
some
significant element of the unknown in it.”

Cheung reached down, gently stroking the length of the gun in a way Liao found slightly unsettling, as though she were touching the face of a beloved child. “I mean, if all variables in all our battles were known in advance, we’d know whether we would win or lose, so we would retreat or attack accordingly. Extrapolate that out to entire armies.
If the outcome was known, then there’d be no wars.
Everyone would get together, compare their respective strengths, then either declare victory or concede defeat. What we do is intrinsically random, to some extent.”

It was an interesting point, and Liao had no immediate comment to refute it. “Well,” she began, “I hope to have as few surprises as possible on this mission.”

Cheung chuckled. “I wouldn’t count on that, Captain. We know a bit about the Toralii, yes, but this is the first time we’ve gone toe-to-toe with them on the ‘ground,’ so to speak. The boarding party was an interesting taste of their abilities, but things are very different when you’re the one attacking. A defender’s position is a lot stronger because they have control over what points they’re willing to defend or what they’ll cede. They also have full knowledge of the terrain and in most cases are defending their homes, so their motivation is greater.”

“You make it sound like we should be defending more often,” Liao said. “You don’t believe all that crap about garrisoning the Pillars, do you? That we should focus ourselves on defending Earth and our solar system and not leave it at all?”

Cheung chuckled again, shaking her head. “No, Captain. While all I said is true, an attacker dictates the tempo of the battle. They choose where to strike and when, and they possess other advantages, usually more specific to the individual battle. The whole point of battle, of war, is to
win
; modern warfare, even in space, is the epitome of that philosophy. We don’t consider fighting
fair
, Captain. If we had some technology that allowed us to kill the Toralii defenders in their sleep from vast distances, you can be certain we would use it. We’re not here to engage in heroic battles with bayonets–we’re here to annihilate our enemies as efficiently as possible with as little risk to ourselves as we can manage.

“Fortunately, while our chances aren’t
that
high, things look okay for us. The Toralii here have been there for some time.
Centuries
. They’ve only really fired on ships from afar and then watched the pretty fireworks. The combat they’ve seen so far has mostly been, well, shooting Kel-Voran in a barrel, if you catch my drift. That’s exactly how it should be done, mind, but it dulls the edge a little bit. Their people may be well trained and equipped, but their experience in real battle, in this terrain, is minimal.

“So if I get my way, things are going to get ugly in there. We’re going to hit them fast and hard, and we’re going to carve a bloody path through that station. The Toralii won’t be expecting that, no matter how
well trained they are or how important the station is. Everyone gets complacent. Everyone lets their guard down over time.”

Cheung extended her hand to the weapon. “The last time they met us, we got our arses kicked in space and our guns could barely pierce their armour. This time we’re going to drop in right behind their defensive perimeter, and we’ve got weapons that can—hopefully—knock them down in a single hit.”

Yanmei looked down at her weapon again then turned to Liao, a fierce grin spreading across her face. “This time, Captain, things are going to be different. This time it’s
their
turn to earn some scars.”

Liao nodded, unable to resist a faint smile. “I surely hope so.”

Cheung gave a low cough. “Is there anything else, Captain?”

“No, that will be all.”

“Great.” Yanmei picked up the weapon again, reaching for another magazine and loading it with a smooth click. “I have a lot more weapons to
inspect
, and I only have one set of earplugs.”

Liao left to the sound of booming explosions and the
snap-snap-snap
of high-powered rounds being discharged downrange, noises that stopped with an eerie suddenness when she closed the soundproofed door. It was as if she had wandered into a little piece of the Marine’s mind that had to be quarantined and shut off from the rest of society, lest they take her and lock her in a mental ward.

Liao couldn't resist the urge to yawn, and she suddenly realised it had been nearly a full day since she last slept. She would be of no use to her ship exhausted, so she took a left turn at the end of the junction, heading back towards her quarters.

Liao’s Quarters

TFR Beijing

Liao dreamed.

She was sitting on Velsharn’s shores, sunlight pouring down from the planet’s bright sun and illuminating every corner and crevice—blasting away the darkness with waves of beautiful, warm radiance. She watched the sunlight wink off the water, reflecting and refracting in a dazzling display of light that was as beautiful as it was alien.

Then the sun went below the horizon and, with twilight’s heavy cloak shrouding the sands around her, she turned and made her escape to the buildings of the research colony.

Liao laughed and played, feeling like a child again. She ran across the dark earth, blue vines crushing under her feet as she darted along the main roads of the settlement, her head twisting this way and that as she waved to passersby. The path was lit by lights and, standing under each, a Toralii scientist laughed and waved back. She darted from building to building, as though tagging each of them with her hands, giggling impishly.

Rain began to fall slowly through the dark cloak of night, then with an increasing tempo.
Large drops of water beat down on the strange blue vines that covered most of the surface of Velsharn, slickening the ground, her boots turning the earth to mud as she ran.

The water was good, she mused. The water was life.

A flash of lightning lit up the sky and Liao, momentarily blinded, looked up. She knew it had been nighttime on the main island when the missiles came, and she could see them now—faint, twinkling falling stars leaving long trails behind them as they wandered gracefully towards the settlement, growing larger.

Then another flash of lightning, but she knew it wasn’t lightning. The missiles soared through the atmosphere, one exploding nearby; that one was closer. Loud alarms rang out all over the settlement, the dull klaxon barely audible above the rain. The scientists ran to their stations; the civilians called for their children and spouses.

She glanced down at the ground, feeling a sharp pain in her abdomen. Reaching down, her hand came away slick with blood, which poured out onto the rain-slick ground in a wave.

She looked up just in time to see the last of the missiles, heading straight towards her, burst in the night sky. The huge shockwave of superheated atomic fire raced towards her, engulfing her and
turning her body to ashes.

Liao’s Quarters

TFR Beijing

Liao awoke with a start, her sheets stained with sweat, her breathing heavy. She closed her eyes, calming herself. Just a dream…

She shifted herself to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, shaking her head to clear away the last remnants of the dream. The shadows haunting her mind began to fade, though the pain in her abdomen remained. Slight but pointed, like a menstrual cramp.

Without thinking about it, she reached down between her legs with one hand, the other reaching over for the light. Illumination flooded her quarters—the harsh white light of a fluorescent—and she squinted for a moment before glancing down at her hand.

At fingers that were tipped in blood.

Infirmary

TFR Beijing

Liao knew she must have made quite the sight.
The captain of the ship wearing nothing but a bathrobe as she power-walked from her quarters to the infirmary. By a sheer stroke of luck, the ship was in the middle of the night shift, so most of the crew were either asleep or at their posts, and the corridors were mostly empty.

Only a handful of eyes spotted her as she walked, and without her makeup, hat, or uniform, she doubted they would have recognised her anyway.

“Doctor?”

Doctor Saeed, clearly about to leave for the evening, took one look at Captain Liao and ushered her into a private ward.

When they were alone he stared at her in alarm. “Captain, you look like hell. What’s going on?”

Liao, unable to keep the tremor from her voice, shook her head. “I’m bleeding.”

Saeed’s features withered, and Liao could tell that he was not pleased by the news. “I see. Well, some
bleeding is normal during a pregnancy.
It’s not good, but it’s not automatically a threatened miscarriage.”

His voice was strong. Confident. Too
confident. Liao knew it was partly an act; he was trying to be strong for her, and she could tell whatever was happening to her was serious.

“What are the odds?” she asked, her voice quavering slightly.

“Of it being a miscarriage?”

Liao nodded, drawing the bathrobe tighter around herself.

Saeed frowned. “I don’t know. I’d say seventy percent, depending on how much blood is present, what type of blood it is, and a whole host of other factors that are outside my area of expertise. We don’t have obstetricians on-board, but I could arrange a teleconference.”

Although slightly higher than fifty-fifty, Liao wasn't happy with those odds. “What can we do until then?” she asked, stepping over to a sink and washing the blood from her fingertips.

“There’s a small cocktail of drugs we can try, but we just have to wait and see. We can keep you here overnight for observation and we’ll know in the morning.”

Liao nodded. “We can say that it’s a follow-up for my injuries earlier. We can say there’s some kind of complication, or…”

Saeed took a step towards her. “Captain, if this is what you know it could be, you might be here for several days. The crew are going to start asking questions, and—”

“Not now!” Liao snapped, turning to him and shaking her fingers dry. “Not now, okay? The crew will get told–assuming it’s still viable–but not
now
.”

Saeed held out his hand. “I’ll make you a deal,” he offered. “I’ll cover for you, and by that I mean I won’t just ‘no comment’ whatever I’m asked, like I’m supposed to. I’ll actively lie for you
while you’re here if you can promise
me that if the fetus survives, you’ll immediately come clean with the crew about your condition. If it doesn’t make it, then I’ll maintain the cover until my dying day.”

Liao gripped the sink, then slowly relaxed her hands. “If you can save her,” she promised him with a weary sigh, “I’ll tell the crew anything you want me to.”

“
Her?
”
Saeed asked.

Liao knew the fetus was far too young to determine gender, but she had a feeling. An unexplainable piece of knowledge she couldn't verify in any way. It was irrational and illogical, but somehow Liao knew her baby was a girl.

She thought Saeed was going to press her for more information, but he simply held up his hands, shaking his head. “No, no, I’m not going to ask. Good. I’ll hold you to that. Lie down.
It’s best if you rest. If we’re going to do this, we don’t have a lot of time.”