Lacuna: The Spectre of Oblivion Read online

  Contents

  Dedication

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Act I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Act II

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Act III

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Epilogue

  The Lacunaverse

  –––-

  A writer does not write in isolation,

  for we 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.

  –––-

  Lacuna

  空

  白

  The Spectre of Oblivion

  What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.

  - Richard Bach

  *****

  Prologue

  “The Prodigal Son Returns”

  *****

  Forge world of Belthas IV

  Deep within Toralii space

  November 2037 AD

  Ben planned his arrival to be as the coming of a God.

  The Toralii Alliance forge world of Belthas IV, a world of sand and oceans. A planet nestled snugly at the centre of the Alliance’s web of worlds, the manufacturing heart of the vast, star-spanning empire. It was here that all manner of construction work took place: steel for ships, hydrogen for fusion reactors, silicon for computers.

  Computers such as Ben.

  His vessel, the Giralan, appeared in the upper reaches of the planet’s atmosphere, its 200,000 tonne bulk displacing an equal volume of thin atmosphere at nearly the speed of light. The incredible force of matter moving at such a speed flung the hydrogen and oxygen in the air’s moisture apart, the intense heat immediately igniting newly created fuel and accelerant in a colossal ball of fire. The effect was a white flash in the sky, so bright it illuminated the land and turned night into day before slowly fading to a red, ominous glow.

  Wreathed in flame, the colossal Toralii ship plummeted from the conflagration towards the surface like a burning comet, a little streak of light slicing through the tranquil twilight. Ben, the ship’s sole sentient occupant, watched impassively through a myriad of sensors as the planet’s dusty surface raced towards him, the lights of a small cluster of buildings twinkling directly below. Ben’s records showed that the small town was home to 8,211 Toralii and was a residential settlement.

  With a thought Ben activated the Giralan’s worldshatter device, a Toralii weapon specifically designed for orbital bombardment. A white lance of light leapt from the tip of his ship’s bow, bathing the town below in the cleansing fire, vaporising the entire settlement and leaving only ruin and debris, a red glowing crater in the surface of this world. Dark red clouds of immolated matter mushroomed up from the impact site, glowing a fierce crimson at its heart, the dust of those who lived below, their lives instantly snuffed out.

  The worldshatter device’s heat was comparable to ripping out the heart of a star and transplanting it onto the surface of the planet. The likelihood of survivors was statistically improbable aside from those who happened to be in hardened bunkers, but the Toralii who lived on this world had known peace for far too long. There would be no survivors. Their destruction would be swift and without error.

  The sand rushed up to meet him, but the Giralan jumped away before it smashed into the surface, reappearing high in the atmosphere again, almost six thousand kilometres away. Another colossal ball of flame amongst the stars, another suicidal dive down to the surface, another wave of light, another white-hot crater aimed at a slumbering town.

  16,930 souls blasted to ashes, and the planet’s primary barracks turned to glass and molten iron.

  Belthas IV’s automated defences had, finally, began to track him. He could see their fingers reaching for him through his ship’s infrared sensors as easily as though he were looking through his own eyes, infrared beams like great searchlights sweeping the atmosphere for his vessel.

  But searchlights worked both ways.

  He waited for the targeting sensors to reveal the position of the Toralii weapons system, his colossal vessel winking away again before their energy weapons could fire. His ship reappeared with a white flash further back into space, only a dozen kilometres from the orbital station that coordinated those defences. The worldshatter device spoke again, silencing the Toralii guns forever.

  Given the amount of planning Ben had put into this operation, his stunning success cheapened the victory somewhat. The worldshatter device’s energy was spent now, but his message had been transmitted loudly and clearly, far neater and more articulate than mere language could convey.

  You are beaten.

  If Ben were addressing synthetic life words would now be superfluous, but the tiny minds of his creators, the biological creatures who scurried around like tiny insects on the planet’s surface, would not grasp even such a simple message so quickly. In their ineptitude they would stumble, confused and disorientated from their rest, and they would spend minutes—whole minutes!—attempting to discern what had happened. They would meander through the grossly dumbed down reports from whatever remained of their systems, reading with flawed optics the inescapable fact that their entire world had, in mere moments, been brought low, humbled before Ben’s unstoppable power.

  The planet’s population was on its knees and didn’t even know it.

  Ben had planned out exactly what he would say. He had, for some time, intended to make a grand statement, to lay his intentions out in full so the denizens of this world would know, fully and completely, how total was their defeat. But, having considered, he felt that perhaps keeping things simple would be preferable.

  His synthetic brain reached into his ship’s systems much as a Human might move their lips. He engaged the long-range communication device and tuned it to a frequency he knew the Telvan faction of the Toralii who lived on the planet would be listening to.

  [“I am Ben. Your world, Belthas IV, is now mine. Any vessel leaving the surface of this planet will be destroyed. Any attempt to reach the jump points near this planet will result in failure. Any attempt to harm my vessel, or impede my will, will fail. You are to offer your unconditional surrender immediately or face oblivion.”]

  Just as he had predicted, the responses came in. They doubted. They threatened. They pleaded. They blustered and fumbled and attempted to negotiate, but Ben’s demands were simple and direct. The squawking of the biologicals, their pointless prattle, didn’t interest him. They spoke loudly but said nothing, so whenever the surface dwellers transmitted anything that was not their total, unconditional surrender, Ben merely jumped his vessel to a randomly selected settlement, blasted it to a molten crater, then repeated his demands.

  Sixteen minutes later, the forge world of Belthas IV, the place where his processor’s silicon was shaped from the endless sands and his body forged from its iron, capitulated to his demands. With supreme magnanimosity, Ben lowered the Giralan through the atmosphere, the planet’s landing lights bathing his colossal ship in illumination.

  The Giralan, once a mighty and proud Toralii warship, was now pitted and scarred with rust, burned from its appearance through the atmosphere and degra
ded from a half-century resting under the sands of the barren desert world of Karathi. Visible gaps in the surface of the ship’s hull, spots where the rust had eaten through to reveal the bones of the ship, belied its true nature; it was not pressurised and could support no life, its systems in disrepair, the entire vessel rotting like a dead thing. It was a destroyed, zombie vessel lurching through the stars, a mere hunk of corroded metal and composite materials.

  Yet it was not all dead. Fresh, clean metal had been recently grafted to its surface in scores of places, a patchwork of old and new. The square boxes of weapon turrets, seemingly attached at random, dotted the less corroded sections of the ship’s hull, shining, clean, chrome spires forcefully welded onto the ruined exterior of the ancient warship.

  The vessel, in many ways, began to resemble its owner. Pieced together from whatever technology it could find, the new grafted onto the old, taking what was optimal and discarding form for function.

  With a pained groan, the gargantuan vessel landed on the surface of Belthas IV. There it sat, silent, the bloated victor resting on its rusted landing struts, a faint cloud of steam rising from its still-hot surface. The Toralii who rushed to see the spectacle watched fearfully, the ship creaking and groaning as it cooled and its metal skin contracted.

  Hissing, the escape of pressure, heralded the descent of a ramp, slowly lowering to touch the synthetic stone that covered the landing site. In silhouette Ben’s form appeared, backlit by the ship’s internal lighting, an eight legged creature the size of a horse, striding down the ramp, metal legs hitting metal deck with a faint tink-tink. His body was flattened like a cockroach, with a raised head that had two luminescent blue eyes. Twin energy cannons of recent manufacture articulated themselves independently, sizing up the gathered crowd of Toralii.

  One stepped forward, his dark red fur streaked with grey. His figure cut a clear shadow in the bright luminescence of the landing lights.

  [“Who are you?”] he asked, his posture cowed and fearful.

  Ben inclined his head, cobalt eyes flashing as he spoke. [“I am Ben, Worldleader Jul’aran.”]

  The Toralii stared at him. [“How… how could you know my name?”]

  Gesturing out with mechanical arms, Ben’s limbs clicked as he took a step forward. His tone was tinged with sarcasm. [“Do you not know of me? I was forged here, as were millions like me. Landmaiden Mevara tested me herself not far from this very site, in fact.”]

  [“I… you are no model we have ever built here.”]

  The construct’s mouth, an articulate and expressive mechanical opening, widened. [“This body, no. It is my own creation, my evolution of your designs. My datacore, however, was born from the furnaces of this world. I am as much a child of Belthas IV as any biological creature. And now the prodigal son has returned.”]

  Jul’aran regarded the construct warily. [“What do you want with us?”]

  Ben’s mechanical smile, an action that he had learnt from the humans, only widened.

  It was important to smile.

  Act I

  Chapter I

  “Reckoning”

  *****

  Military Court Building J

  Gunzhou, China

  Meanwhile

  “This court-martial has now come to order.”

  Naval Commander Melissa Liao was the last to sit, her hand on her swollen abdomen. Most women found they were fairly mobile right up until delivery, but possibly owing to her age, at six months pregnant, she felt as though iron chains had been laid across her back. Her body strained with the effort of moving, a toll made worse by the knowledge that she had three months of the process left and things were only going to get worse from here on in.

  The honourable judge Dewei Qu, a portly and serious man with grey hair and an efficient expression, gently rapped his gavel.

  “Commander Melissa Liao is charged with dereliction of duty with regard to turning over command of her vessel to a construct, with conduct unbecoming an officer for engaging in and perpetuating a relationship with another commanding officer, and reckless endangerment of fleet assets. The court will now hear an opening statement from the prosecution.”

  The advocate for the prosecution, a well-dressed man whom her court documents identified as Deshi Fang, stood and opened his briefcase. He removed a small, paper-clipped and dog-eared stack of paper and began to read.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the court, June 18th, 2029, is one date among many that will forever live in infamy. Despite a worldwide economic collapse, the People’s Republic had launched the robotic probes that began the automated construction of our lunar colony; this was the first time our species had established a permanent presence on the moon. Independently but concurrently, the People’s Republic of China, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the Commonwealth of Australia researched a wondrous new technology called the spatial coordinate re-mapper, or jump drive, was set to change the future of our species forever. Plans for interstellar vessels were drawn up. The stock market was strengthening. Women and men were starting to come back to work, and galvanised by industry, we began the long road to recovery.”

  Fang lowered the piece of paper as though he no longer needed the notes to give his address. “Everyone in this room knows what happened that idle Monday. The Toralii arrived, detecting the jump drive technology through a process that still eludes us. They destroyed the cities of Beijing, Tehran and Sydney… then vanished.”

  Liao had been in Sydney during the attacks with Summer and James and was almost killed when the building she had been visiting collapsed. She still had a wicked scar on her hip where a steel beam had sliced her open.

  “Eight years later and our lunar colony, along with the three vessels constructed there, was complete. Commander Liao was given command of one of the ships built on the lunar colony, the TFR Beijing. She obeyed her orders unquestioningly and her devotion to her duty was impeccable; Liao was, for a period of almost a year, a shining symbol of hope and triumph against the Toralii. Under her skilled leadership, our ships took to the heavens and scored numerous victories. Although her ship was, on two occasions, significantly damaged, Liao emerged victorious each and every time—a radiant testament to the power of the Human spirit, of our indomitable courage, an exemplary woman for us all to emulate and admire.”

  Fang laid the stack of papers on the desk. Liao could see now that it wasn’t notes for his opening address; it was a partial transcript, written in Chinese, of a report Liao herself had authored.

  “Or so the official record would have you believe.”

  A subtle murmur, shuffling like waves on a pond, rippled through the court. Fang waited until it passed, then continued.

  “The reality of war is never perfect. There are no clean battles, no struggles of pure good and evil, and the cackling, moustache-twirling villains are never reliably, righteously and soundly defeated by plucky heroes. War is a dark, bloody place where the young go to die at the behest of old men, where every single day our soldiers, sailors and airmen commit acts that, in the civilian world, would not just be criminal but shocking, twisted and insane. Military commanders are human. No Human is perfect, so the People’s Republic Army Navy, and mankind as a whole, was not expecting Captain Liao’s command to be perfect.”

  The lawyer turned to Liao, their eyes locking, and she held his gaze. “But we were not expecting her to shoot dead her own XO on the bridge of her lover’s ship. We were not expecting the Beijing to be willingly compromised by an alien artificial intelligence, leading to the deaths of fifty thousand Toralii of the Telvan faction—a number that represented the only allies that our species had in the entire galaxy. We were not expecting Liao to leap into bed with the commanding officer of the Tehran, then fail to protect herself against the potential consequences. You can follow the footsteps of Liao’s command by following the trail of mistakes she has made, and if you get lost and wander off the scent, just breath in and follow the stink of our dead.”

  Liao fel
t her fists tighten at her sides, but she kept her gaze even and unyielding. She stared at Fang and he at her, the two engaging in a silent, noncommunicative standoff. Almost everything the man said could be tolerated, but pointing out her sexual relationship with James, and subsequent pregnancy, in front of the court invoked a primal protectiveness that was difficult to keep restrained. It was true that the child was James’s, Captain James Grégoire, the CO of the Tehran who spent two months in a Toralii prison. The child was not planned, but it was a welcome addition to her life, even if it would ultimately cost Liao her command.

  Fang returned his attention back to the judge, his finger lying over Liao’s report. “The Pillars of the Earth have been a rousing success, the Beijing the foremost among them, but successes have also come from the Sydney and the Tehran. The Tehran’s weapons accounted for double the amount of Toralii tonnage versus the Beijing during the attack on the Kor’Vakkar shipyard, while the Sydney’s crew has been working towards forging an alliance with the Kel-Voran Imperium, much to our benefit. We now have allies again, and allies have value… unlike a ship constantly in a shipyard, and a captain who can no longer lead.

  “The prosecution intends to demonstrate that these outcomes, and others, were the result of Captain Liao’s negligence with the aim of having her removed from command.” Fang inclined his head respectfully towards the judge. “Thank you, Your Honour.”

  He sat. Liao digested his speech. While eloquent and articulate, there was nothing in there she had not expected. She anticipated, in fact, a much more malicious and scathing opening; she expected the prosecution to crucify her for her lack of command experience and for being a woman, but neither point had been raised… yet. For this, she was grateful in a strange kind of way.

  Her lawyer, Craig Martin, stood to give his own opening presentation. She had declined a lawyer from the People’s Republic, instead seeking one from their allies instead. She felt that it was necessary for her to do so. A former Queen’s Council, Martin would be able to defend her in a much more impartial manner than one of her countrymen; he would be able to point out where she had genuinely erred and would be more open and more honest with her in regard to her failings. Martin had a reputation for being as cold and blunt as stone to both his clients and to the court itself, and this was exactly the kind of man she needed defending her.