Lacuna: Demons of the Void Page 23

  Liao noted with some trepidation that the Beijing was stationary.

  “Evasive manoeuvres, then! Get us close, but make sure they can’t hit us!”

  Saara turned to another of the Operations officers. [“Mister Dao, I recommend you don’t get too close or they will attempt to board us! No more than five hundred kilometres should be safe!”] Liao almost instinctively went to translate but the man gave her a nod, signaling that he understood.

  Liao did not like the way that this battle was going. They had enabled the gravity mines, which was a good start since it cut off the possibility of reinforcements, but the lone Toralii ship was displaying remarkable confidence. Further, the Sydney didn’t have operational railguns and the Tehran was disabled. Risking another glance at her radar display, Liao could see that the Toralii vessel was moving towards the stricken Tehran with remarkable speed. Although the frictionless void of space meant that “top speed” was – for all objects, not just spaceships – the speed of light, the acceleration of ships was directly related to their weight and thrust. It appeared that the Toralii ship had a much better thrust to weight ratio than the Pillars, given they were the same tonnage. And Liao wondered how they had conjured such a liberal amount of power from their engines. The Toralii technology really was more advanced.

  Perhaps she and her crew had bitten off more than they could chew this time. This was no scout ship... it was a battlecruiser built for war.

  “The Toralii are firing, Captain! They’re targeting the Tehran and trying to close with her!”

  “Are they using the energy wave again?”

  “Negative, Captain, conventional weapons only. I’m reading a lot of excess heat on thermals... they must be starting to cook over there!”

  “Good.” Liao was about to issue another order but Hsin’s voice reached her ears.

  “It’s the Tehran again, Captain... They report that their weapons suites are offline, not that it matters since the hostile ship is accelerating too quickly to be accurately targeted and their strike craft can’t catch it. They have navigation, and Captain Grégoire is attempting to restart the ship’s propulsion and guidance systems... but that’s all they can do at this time!”

  Liao nodded her acknowledgement, an intense wave of relief washing over her as Hsin confirmed for her that James was okay. Putting her mind back to task – and angrily berating herself for allowing herself to become distracted – she glanced back to the radar screen. “Mister Jiang! The moment the missile tubes have finished reloading, fire them immediately. What’s the status of our railguns?”

  “The railguns appear to have minimal effect; I don’t understand what’s going on! The rounds are impacting on the ship, but there’s very little debris at all! It doesn’t make any sense!”

  Rowe shouted over the din of alarms and clacking keyboards. “It’s because we’re hitting them from behind as they move towards the Tehran! The difference in velocities is reducing the relative speed of the railgun slugs by about a quarter, so they’re not getting through the hull plating! Based on what we saw earlier... we’d probably need at least three thousand metres a second to get through!”

  Liao nodded, clenching her fists. That was... annoying. “Can we increase speed so we hit them faster?”

  “Well yeah, we can do that, but then we’ll overshoot when they stop!”

  Liao shook her head. “Just keep trying to punch through then. Status on those missile tubes, Jiang?”

  A pause as Jiang finished checking her console. “Reloading complete... Missiles away, Captain! Be advised, the Toralii are firing again... at us this time!”

  The ship began to shake and rock as the incoming wave of Toralii fire struck them. Small objects clattered to the floor as, even here in the central heart of the ship, the vessel shook with the impact. The crew of the Operations room all exchanged nervous glances and Liao felt a sinking feeling in her stomach that, she hoped, was not a return of the nausea; a shudder in the Operations room would have been a profound shake only a few decks above them, a strong earthquake near the hull, and beyond that… If the forces had cracked the hull plating it couldn’t hold a charge, so their defences would be significantly weakened.

  She silently prayed that there were no Engineering crews doing emergency work in the outer, evacuated regions of the ship, then returned her mind to the present. “Increase evasive manoeuvres, reduce velocity towards the Tehran if you have to. Just make sure they can’t hit us! All weapons, maximum sustainable rate of fire; throw everything you have at them Mister Jiang!”

  “Aye aye, Captain!”

  “The Toralii ship is closing!” Ling’s voice called out again. “Distance: two thousand klicks! Captain, we have to start decelerating or we’ll overshoot!”

  Liao wanted to get as close to the Toralii as she could – to stop right on top of them, if possible – but Liao knew that Ling had a point. “Do it, slow us down!”

  The ship began to rotate, slowly flipping one hundred eighty degrees and placing his powerful gravimetric engines in the direction of his travel. The effect of the reverse-thrust was palpable from where she was standing and she watched the instruments as the ship begin to slow down.

  She glanced to the radar screen. The Tehran continued to get closer and closer as they moved directly towards it, but they were still almost two thousand kilometres away. Far too far away… and, possibly, still within range of the huge blast-wave generator that the Toralii possessed.

  She glanced to her Communications officer. “Mister Hsin, where’s the Sydney?”

  “They’re moving to assist the Tehran,” he called back to her, “coming in from the Tehran’s port side. Their missiles are hitting the hostile ship remarkably well, ma’am... Whoever they’ve got running their targeting systems is good at their job.”

  Thank heavens for small mercies. Liao was about to issue another command but Hsin’s console emitted a series of beeping noises, interrupting her chain of thought as she watched him take the transmission.

  Then Hsin turned in his chair, glancing towards Liao, his face ashen.

  “Captain… the Tehran reports that they have containment breach in their reactors. They are attempting an emergency shutdown procedure, but they’re having trouble with their coolant pumps. They lost almost all their effective heat sinks in the blast and their ship can’t radiate away its heat fast enough… Internal temperature is almost thirty five degrees Celsius in there and climbing.”

  Thirty five degrees… hot enough to be extremely uncomfortable for those who were not used to it, and getting worse by the second. Liao bit her lower lip, trying to force the mental image of James and his entire crew roasting alive out of her head, but it was... persistent.

  Another barrage of fire struck the Beijing, and this time the shaking was more violent and pronounced; multiple officers nearly lost their seats and Liao almost fell over.

  Gripping her console, she turned to Jiang. “Damage report!”

  The report took a second or two to come in. “Major damage to the outer hull, Captain! A number of the heat sinks have been completely destroyed, while most others are showing at least some degree of structural damage! Breaches on decks four, five, six, eight, nine!”

  Rowe slammed her boot into the underside of her console. “Fuck! Fuck! The damage to the heat sinks is causing too much temperature build up; we’ll have to take half our reactors offline just to stop ourselves from melting into slag!”

  Liao knew what that meant. With half their reactors down their weapons would be half as effective and the charge through the hull plating – for all the good it was doing them anyway – would be significantly reduced. Other, less important systems all over the ship also couldn’t run at maximum power. It was a significant tactical disadvantage.

  Then again, they didn’t want to end up cooked in their own shell like the Tehran.

  “Turn them off!” she roared, gesturing wildly to Rowe, who immediately began complying. There was no sense, she thought, i
n melting their ship – or even just the ship’s reactor core – even if it meant reduced capability. “Reactors one through four, make safe!”

  Some chance was better than none.

  Hsin’s voice cut through the confusion. “Captain! The Sydney reports that they are getting effective weapon impacts on the Toralii vessel, but they will soon be too close to us to be hit without risking fratricide from misses!”

  Fratricide. Literally, to kill one’s own brother, sometimes euphemistically referred to as “Friendly Fire”.

  Liao did not want to die by her allies guns, but so far their combined efforts seemed to have barely put a dent in the Toralii warship... while the Toralii had cut down the Tehran with seemingly little effort at all.

  They needed to start scoring points or this game would be a short one.

  “Tell them to keep firing as long as they can, we’ll just have to dodge anything that comes our way from them, too…” Then, in a low mutter so only she could hear, Liao added, “…somehow.”

  The order was acknowledged and Liao turned her attention back to the radar screen on her monitor. The Toralii ship was now so close that she had to look at the close-range collision avoidance radar. And, had anyone been near the outer hull, a glance out of a porthole with the naked eye would have revealed a tiny twinkling dot against the black sea of space.

  A dot which was still racing towards them at alarming speed despite its rapid deceleration. The Toralii ship was now too close for the Beijing’s railguns to hit and within the area of effect of their own nukes. The close range point defence cannons opened up, spewing bursts of high explosive rounds at the Toralii vessel, rapid-fire shots coming in waves from the dozens of newly installed auto-turrets scattered along the ship’s hull.

  The collision avoidance radar showed numerous debris clouds rising from the impact zones, but neither Liao nor anyone else could tell how effective the much smaller cannon rounds were, or if they were even doing anything at all. The Beijing’s strike fighters swarmed in and around the enemy capitol ship, alternating between strafing the short, stubby craft’s underside and engaging the Toralii Alliance strike fighters.

  And that’s when the Toralii ship turned. It appeared to give up its pursuit of the Tehran, who had ceased firing back entirely and was now drifting helplessly in space, and turned towards the Beijing. Liao watched the radar screen as it suddenly surged towards them.

  Saara’s earlier warning echoed in her ears. She knew what they were doing, now... They’d drawn the two ships in close so they could be boarded.

  They had fallen into a trap.

  [“The Toralii are moving into boarding range!”]

  Liao glanced around the Operations room, a feeling of helpless rage rising inside her churning stomach. She did not want this ship – her ship – to be boarded by the Toralii Alliance. The aliens were displaying a significant advantage over the human forces up in space, but despite their strength and prowess in that battlefield, they were choosing to close to boarding range; this decision would, presumably, only give them further tactical advantage.

  “Options.”

  Dao, the navigator, spoke up. “Captain, we could roll the ship. Spin it like a log on the surface of water – they can’t dock with us if we are rotating too fast…”

  Liao actually liked that plan. She gave the man a firm nod. “Do it.”

  As Dao went to work Melissa glanced around the room, looking for some other alternative... her eyes met Rowe’s, the redhead shrugging her shoulders helplessly. “Uhh... we could get the point defence auto-cannons to attack whatever the Toralii are going to use to get over here inside. Especially if we let them attach it for, say, five seconds, so that if we destroy it we suck the poor fuckers inside out into space as they’re climbing through…”

  Liao liked that plan too. Already she could feel the ship begin to turn as the navigator punched in the commands. “Let’s hope Dao’s plan works, but stand by to make that our plan B. Saara! What will they do?”

  Saara shouted over the noise, her tail lashing in the air behind her. [“Captain, the Toralii will attach magnetic grapples to the side of the ship and hold it firm. Your manoeuvre will buy you some time, but their engines are powerful – and the auto-cannons will only last so long before the Toralii destroy them. I suggest you prepare an alternative solution.”]

  But a quick glance around Operations revealed that nobody had any suggestions. They could fight and struggle as much as they liked, they could kick and scream like toddlers confined to their bedrooms, but the Toralii were coming.

  Reaching out for the internal handset, Liao squeezed the talk key and put it to her lips.

  “Captain Liao to all hands… Stand by to repel boarders.”

  She lifted her finger and, just as she did, the ship was rocked by a third wave of fire – but this time, the blasts came from point blank range, only a few metres or so from the outermost hull of their vessel. Liao was thrown off her feet, landing heavily on the metal deck, grunting in pain as she twisted her arm. Ignoring the pain for now, Liao dragged herself back up to her feet. Her eyes met Lieutenant Jiang’s and the woman shouted over the sound of wailing alarms.

  “Captain, we’ve sustained a series of direct hits… significant damage to the port side of the ship, including multiple breaches. We’ve lost the ability to charge the hull in that area, and… I’m not sure, but based on the collision avoidance radar readings I’m see, we’re probably grappled.”

  There was the low, ominous sound of stressed metal and Liao felt the ship move to one side, as though it were being pulled in the opposite direction to its roll.

  [“The Alliance will want to drag your ship in close for boarding,”] roared Saara, [“and then they will begin cutting through the hull… are you sure your marines can stop them?”]

  The question was legitimate enough, but Liao had faith in Cheung’s ability to hold down their ship. Rather than directly answer the question, Liao turned her head towards Ling.

  “Mister Ling! Call the Sydney – if they want to be big damn heroes now is the time! How far away are they?”

  “Close, Captain, one thousand kilometres, but they’re moving too fast – they won’t be able to decelerate in time! They’ll overshoot!”

  Liao balled her fists, growling angrily. That damn fool Knight… being too impatient, too eager to prove himself and his ship in battle. Yes, the Beijing was in trouble, but Knight had to slow down... or there would be no point to it all.

  More of the helpless anger surged through her body and Liao found it harder and harder to fight the upswell of emotions. James was... injured, possibly, and may be in mortal peril; a swift glance to the thermal monitor showed her that the Tehran was burning on multiple decks and the reactor cores were leaking. She wondered, if the Tehran wasn’t so badly damaged in the Hades system battle, it might be more functional...

  Even now, she could see the Tehran slowly turn and begin to move towards the Beijing, trailing atmosphere and smoke behind it. That made her heart jump and sink at the same time. She was coming to try and save him...

  Liao crushed the guilt that thought generated. She knew James would certainly do the same thing... rush to help her, and that was okay. They were a couple... a team. They helped each other.

  Not that this was helping them now. Liao idly mused over the revelation that, in light of the situation, their mutual desire to get laid might very well cost them both their lives.

  Right at that moment there was a low, loud ‘clunk’ that seemed to reverberate throughout the entire ship, shaking even in the Operations room centre, the armoured core of the Beijing. Liao and the other Operations crew exchanged looks... each knew what that sound meant.

  The Toralii ship was right next to their own... and they were coming aboard.

  Jiang put her finger to her earpiece, then turned around and shouted back to Liao. “Marines on deck eleven report that the Toralii are cutting into the hull on that deck, Captain!”

  Melissa
nodded her head. It was all going exactly as Saara said it would… and there was precious little she could do about it.

  “See if you can dislodge them with the auto-cannons,” she ordered, leaving the command console and moving over to where Jiang’s tactical console was. Liao watched as the woman pulled up the targeting camera built into a pair of the guns, taking in the scene it projected, a picture of the outside of the ship.

  Liao was shocked at just how badly damaged the outer hull of the Beijing appeared. The so-called indestructium hull plating was blackened and charred, with numerous craters and scorch marks, the thick heavy plates cracked and broken.

  The hull more resembled the surface of the moon than the metallic skin of a warship.

  More alarming to Liao, however, were the several places where the damage extended beyond the hull... where breaches had dug themselves deep into the softer tissue of the ship and thick trails of escaping gasses poured from those deep wounds. The presence of leaking atmosphere meant that the blasts had struck areas of the ship which had not been evacuated, and therefore would have been occupied by crew members.

  She knew those people were almost certainly dead.

  Jiang took control of the cannon, lining up the dark, thin tendril that was the docking umbilical and firing at its midpoint. Liao watched with some satisfaction as, after three shots, the cable broke... spinning and kicking about in space like an unattended fire hose, pouring gas and debris into the void.

  Gas, debris and Toralii boarding parties. She could see they wore thick, armoured suits made of some kind of red metal, reflective visors covering their faces... Liao presumed them to be sealed space-suits, as one might expect space-based marines to wear. She knew that they would have had a small, limited, internal oxygen supply... and as Liao watched them float helplessly away, she knew their hopes of rescue from the dark void of space before it ran out seemed very slim.

  A horrid way to die, waiting patiently for one’s oxygen to run out, but pity for the fate of those Toralii was a luxury Liao couldn’t afford. She watched as Jiang took up a firing solution on the next boarding tube, blasting it in half with similar results. She lined up on a third, but the screen suddenly glowed and then became nothing more than static as the turret she was controlling was the target of a Toralii weapon. Jiang tried several other turrets but they were either already destroyed, or soon to join their companions.