Lacuna: Demons of the Void Page 7

  There was a prolonged silence followed by Sheng speaking again. “No, they're definitely destroyed. It doesn't matter – the move was reckless and I feel she should be relieved of command for this, but... I could find no examples of her directly contravening any Task Force Resolution directives. I plan, however, to address them with her at the post-action debriefing and I'll be petitioning the senior staff to support me relieving her. I already know several members in her senior staff who'll support me, and-”

  Jiang pushed on the door which groaned slightly as it swung open. Stepping inside, she handed the clipboard to Sheng. “The after action report, sir.”

  Sheng, appearing surprised as though not expecting to be overheard, recovered quickly and took it, glanced at the paper then back up at her. “... Thank you, Lieutenant. That will be all.”

  Jiang turned to leave, then stopped, her hand resting on the door's handle. “... Who were you speaking to, sir?”

  Sheng regarded her with a stare, his hands folding in front of him on the table, saying nothing.

  *****

  Brig

  TFR Beijing

  Deep Space

  Fifteen minutes later

  Liao could not believe what Jiang had told her. The message came through just as she was entering Engineering... that she had spotted her XO surreptitiously conversing, without explicit authority, with the press. A quick call to the ship's marines had Sheng detained while she took care of business in Engineering, then with her anger barely kept in check she stormed to the ship's brig.

  When she got there, Melissa opened the door to Sheng's cell and, without saying a word, punched him square in the face, knocking the man down. Blood splattered onto the bare metal of the deck. Coughing, Commander Gaulung Sheng wiped his face with his sleeve, his voice incredulous.

  “什么他妈的?!”

  “Don’t. Don’t you fucking dare speak to me you piece of shit.” She leaned forward, fists balled in rage, as though she might strike him again. “I make a decision you don't like, on my ship, and you run squealing to the press...? I should have you shot for this!”

  “So that’s how you run your command, is it?” Sheng’s voice dripped with venom. “Just line up the objectors and shoot ‘em? Is that how it goes?”

  Liao pulled back her fist. Then, changing her mind, lowered it. “I’ll tell you how it goes. You’re gone from this mission. We’re returning to the lunar drydock. The very second we arrive – assuming I don’t change my mind between here and there and simply toss you out an airlock – I’m turning you over to the military police. Your career is over.”

  Sheng shrugged, slowly pulling himself to his feet. He stared down the shorter woman, his face a determined mask. “It doesn’t matter. Getting rid of me won’t change what happened. You made the wrong choice today, and worse, you blamed me and wouldn’t let me do my job. My job is to advise you, to keep you on track, to follow the damn mission-”

  “Your job is to follow my fucking orders!”

  “That’s not how it works, and you know it!” Sheng jabbed an accusatory finger straight at her. “Or you would, if you hadn’t gotten this command by sheer luck. You haven’t served your time as an XO. You were given this command, this precious, important command, because you’re a filthy whore who’ll spread herself for the tall, handsome French Negro to advance her career!”

  The allegation struck her like a kick to the teeth. “You think James- Captain Grégoire- and I-…?”

  “Isn’t it true?”

  “No!” Liao leaned forward, snarling. “Where the hell did you hear that?! If I find out who’s got a big mouth they’ll be joining you in this cell for attempting to undermine the authority of the Capta-”

  “Captain?! HAH. This was meant to be my command!” Sheng snarled now, his visage distorted with rage. “I was supposed to be the Beijing’s Captain, but at the last minute, the committee decided on you. You! A woman – someone who had never been trusted with command, who had no experience, a... a navigator! They gave the keys to the most powerful warship mankind can build to a fucking glorified bus driver!”

  Melissa’s fists balled. “My relationship with James is none of your fucking …”

  Liao paused, took a deep breath and forced herself to remain calm. After a brief moment to compose herself, she straightened her uniform, not looking at Sheng.

  “Two things,” she offered, finally meeting his gaze.

  Sheng shrugged indifferently.

  Liao continued. “He is tall. He is handsome. And he is a Negro. Now, between you and me, I do have a soft spot for dark-skinned men... but Captain James Grégoire is Belgian, not French. Secondly, he and I are great friends, but we’ve never slept together.”

  “Liar. I’ve seen how he looks at you.”

  It was the woman’s turn to shrug. “Believe what you want, your words are shit to me.”

  With a swift swing of her fist, she cracked the man in the nose again. Rubbing her fist with her other hand, she regarded the man lying, once again, prone on the metal deck.

  “My mistake; that was three things.”

  Almost as though on cue, the radio on her belt crackled. She heard Jiang’s voice through the line. “Operations to Captain Liao.”

  Liao pulled the device off her belt with a sharp ‘click’, casually pressing down on the ‘talk’ key. She locked gazes with the dazed, bloody man lying before her.

  “This is Liao. I’m a little busy, Lieutenant...”

  Jiang’s voice stressed the urgency of her statement. “Ma’am, our Engineering team has begun recovery of the wreckage. It’s spreading out faster than we had anticipated, so we focused our efforts on the largest pieces. We’ve found something you need to see.”

  Liao pressed down on the ‘talk’ key so hard the plastic creaked. “Their jump drive?” Recovering that was one of their primary goals. They obviously possessed the technology. If the forces of humanity could salvage it, it might allow them to vastly improve their capabilities. It would provide an incredible insight into the Demons’ technology.

  She could almost hear Jiang shake her head on the other end of the line. “Negative, sir. We haven’t found it and it looks to have been destroyed.”

  There was a pause, as though Jiang was receiving information from another source. In the gap, Sheng spoke up.

  “So, we're absolutely sure we got them?”

  Liao regarded him for a moment, then slowly nodded. “Blew them to scrap. There's no survivors.”

  “Thank God.”

  Liao didn’t know what to say to that, but before she got her chance, the radio crackled again. “Sir? Are you alone?”

  Melissa shrugged to Sheng, thumbing the radio again with her bloody fingers. “More or less.”

  Jiang’s voice filtered through the radio. “We recovered one of the aliens, sir. Our Engineering teams cut it from one of the strike craft that docked with the mother ship. Their hangar bays are very well armoured, and that protected it from being vaporized when we nuked them. The others were either outside the shielded area or further inside, and they appear to have been annihilated by secondary explosions.”

  Liao nodded. “Good work, Mister Jiang. Have the body bought to the morgue and freeze it. I want a full autopsy done when we get back to the lunar colony.”

  “Captain, you misunderstand...” another pause here, as though Jiang were relaying information of great importance.

  “...it’s still alive.”

  Chapter V

  “The Demon’s Stories”

  *****

  Emergency Surgery Ward

  TFR Beijing

  Space near Jupiter

  One hour later

  “Will it live?”

  Liao stood with her arms crossed, watching through the glass that shielded the surgical ward from the rest of the medical bay.

  The creature that lay on the other side was, for lack of a better word, completely alien. It was bipedal as far as they could tell, with two arms, two
legs and a head, but that’s where the similarities to humans ended.

  Its entire body was covered in sleek black fur. It had short, distinctly feline, rounded ears that stood on top of its head, large flared nostrils and a long, thin tail which hung limply off the side of the surgical table.

  It had six breasts and vaguely female genitals. Although it was unconscious, their examination had found it had brilliant golden eyes with slit pupils.

  The doctor Liao was talking to, a bald Iranian man on loan from the TFR Tehran, Amir Saeed, shrugged his shoulders. “Who can say? Its biology is completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen, obviously, so all we can do is very basic things. Treat her wounds, try to stabilize her... To be fair, though, she doesn’t appear to be that badly injured. Some burns, some radiation poisoning, probably a concussion... nothing we can’t handle.”

  Liao worried to herself, placing her finger on her lower lip. “Do your very best, doctor. This creature represents a huge, huge wealth of intelligence information. Just think what it could tell us...”

  Saeed nodded. “We will, Captain. As I said, its prognosis is good so far... but I’ll keep you posted.”

  Liao paused, staring through the glass. Despite its wounds she could see the creature was nearly seven feet tall and very muscular – its physical power was undeniable. She did not want to take any chances.

  “Have it shackled,” she ordered to a nearby marine, “hands and feet. A muzzle, too. I don’t like the look of those teeth... Have one of the engineers fabricate one if you have to. I want round-the-clock supervision. Allocate your best men to the task. Pull manpower from other divisions; I don’t care. Just make sure it doesn’t hurt anyone, or itself. As I said...”

  Turning back to the unconscious alien, Liao watched it breathe.

  “...it’s valuable to us.”

  The hours passed while the creature remained unconscious. Liao wanted to stay there until it finally woke up, but the duties of a ship’s Captain were too much for her to ignore, especially without an XO to take care of the details.

  When she returned, after several hours of meaningless paperwork, Rowe had joined them in the surgical ward. The redheaded woman had her face pressed up against the glass watching the alien curiously.

  “What do you think they eat?”

  Liao blinked. “Who knows? I’m certain that whatever we have will be fine...”

  Rowe shook her head. “No, really. I mean, you want to keep it alive, right? I mean – humans have to drink every few hours or so. She’s been in there for, like, four hours now, and she’s hurt. She’ll probably want a drink, you know, but we don’t even know if they drink at all, or what they drink...”

  It was a good point. Liao crossed her arms.

  “I’m sure that doctor Saeed is doing what he can to find out.”

  Liao knew that it was true, but the statement was just as much a prayer as it was anything else. Rowe, seemingly unconvinced, continued to stare at the creature.

  “I suppose we’ll have to learn its language... Do you think they can even speak English? Or any of our languages? I mean, are they even physically capable of doing so?”

  Liao shrugged. “We’ll find out eventually. As it stands, I’ve already tapped Lieutenant Yu to be our translator, and... I don’t know how they communicate. Maybe it’s not even the same way we do. I had hoped for Jiang to do it, but we need her in Operations. She did a damn fine job during the engagement and I’d like to keep her there as much as possible.”

  A far better job than some others... Liao mused to herself, thinking of Sheng.

  Rowe chuckled. “Yu’s smart, I’ll give him that... Let’s hope he’s up to the task.”

  A moment’s silence as the two women observed the doctors changing the bloodstained bandages on the creature’s left arm. The alien's blood, it seemed, was dark purple.

  “Do you think we’ll always be at war?” Rowe turned to Liao, raising a red-haired eyebrow. “I mean, we don’t have any clue why they attacked us. Their message indicated that it might have been the jump drive we were about to test, but what if it was for some other reason? What if they just wanted to fight, wanted to kill us for the sheer fun of watching us burn from orbit?”

  “I don’t know,” answered Liao, her voice quiet, “I wish peace were possible, but I don’t hold out much hope for that, even if they do have peaceful intentions. The Demons are powerful... but, well, it’s one of those things. It’s been a constant of human history that, no matter how well intentioned, when a more advanced civilization meets a less advanced civilization it never ends well for the less advanced civilization.”

  Rowe nodded. “Can’t say I disagree. Look what happened to the Australian Aborigines… Native American Indians... indigenous Japanese...”

  Liao grinned, a tad sardonically. “Unfortunately, this time the less advanced civilization is us. I intend to buck the trend in regard to unfavourable outcomes.”

  The red-headed woman glanced at her. “Isn’t it a bit late for tha-”

  A smash and a roar came from behind the glass. Both women jumped back from the scene, startled. The eyes of the alien creature were open and the thick, strong digits of a black furred hand were wrapped tightly around the neck of the nurse attending it, crushing the life from him. The broken shackles were still around its wrists; Liao was stunned by its strength.

  The marines raised their rifles and Liao shouted as loudly as she could.

  “HOLD YOUR FIRE!”

  Fortunately they didn’t immediately shoot. Liao unbuckled and drew her sidearm, giving a glance to Rowe.

  “Stay here, and lock the door behind me.”

  “But-”

  “Stay.”

  With that, she pushed open the door and rushed into the surgical ward. The alien held the nurse up by his throat, emitting a deep growling noise. It seemed weak from its injuries, its other hand propping itself up against the metal operating table, but despite its disorientation it regarded the three marines and Liao with golden, angry eyes. It saw their weapons, their uniforms, and it observed the way the marines obeyed the newcomer’s orders. Liao could instantly tell that its seemingly bestial nature belied a deep, calculating intelligence.

  And then it spoke. The language sounded like nothing Liao had ever heard – it was a growling tone, articulated with speed and significant tonal differences, as though someone had mashed together various phonetic sounds from languages nobody had ever spoken before. It was distinctly non-human, as though it was the product of a computer program.

  “I don’t understand,” Liao answered, her tone charged, “but you’re in no danger as long as you do not harm anyone.”

  The creature jabbered again in its strange tongue, angry and fearful. It seemed to tighten its grip around the nurse’s windpipe, causing him to flail feebly at the much stronger alien’s arm. In response Liao raised her pistol, pointing it at the creature’s chest.

  “Down! Put him down!”

  With comprehension that seemed to exceed the obvious language barrier between the two species, the alien seemed to consider what it was doing, then roughly pushed the nurse away. The man slumped against a wall, gasping raggedly for breath.

  Calm silence pervaded and there was a stand-off. Liao stared into the alien’s yellow eyes. Slowly, but surely, the creature pointed at its chest with its now free hand.

  “...Saara.”

  At least, that’s what Liao heard her name to be. It was hard to tell through the bizarre creature’s growling tone. Liao slowly lowered her sidearm, motioning for the marines to do the same.

  She pointed at her chest, much like it did. “Liao.”

  Melissa slowly pointed to the marines, each in turn. “Human. Human. Human.” Then to herself. “Human.”

  Seeming to understand, Saara blinked her yellow eyes, pointing again at herself. “Toralii.”

  So the Demons had a name now. The Toralii. It wasn’t a perfect translation, but it would do for now. Liao reached for her radio –
Saara’s eyes widened and she made a low, threatening growl. Carefully, Liao holstered her sidearm. Then slowly, slowly, she reached down for the radio, clicking the talk key.

  “This is Captain Liao to Operations.”

  “Operations, this is Jiang.”

  “Please inform Lieutenant Yu that his services are required in the medical bay. The alien has awoken. Liao out.”

  She ended the conversation, looking to the strange alien, who stared back at her with eyes Liao found so clear, intelligent, and fearful.

  *****

  Engineering Bay Six

  TFR Beijing

  Deep Space

  The next day

  Liao folded her arms and listened as Rowe droned on. The woman was practically in a frenzy, as though she were two people crammed into one body. She spoke in one huge unbroken sentence which, while scarcely pausing for breath, leapt from topic to topic such that Liao couldn’t get a word in edge-ways. Her red hair billowed around her head as she described every single thing she and her team had discovered about the alien wreckage – most notably the almost intact strike craft that they had recovered.

  Rowe brandished a short, stubby, thick, black device that had bright pink cables pouring out of it like the head of some mutant squid. She gave it a rough shake, continuing to babble on.

  “...and this part, well, fuck me – we don’t even know what it does or what subsystem it’s part of. All we know is that if we run an electric current through it, it grows and expands based on the voltage. For all we know it’s a giant space dildo! I mean, whaaaaah! … Who knows why they would keep this thing in the cockpit...”

  She tossed it away, picking up a rectangular box which seemed to be missing a side, revealing all manner of strange glowing circuits inside. When Rowe tipped it over, a navy-blue goo slopped out which she utterly ignored.

  “Now there’s this thing. We think it’s part of the weapon system, since we found it right next to the energy projector there – I mean... maybe... but it’s cool no matter what it is. See that blue shit? See how it’s just running everywhere? That stuff’s wonder-goo. It absorbs electricity – if you touch a battery to it, it drains it completely flat as fast as the device can discharge it. Where does that power go? How much can it take? No idea! And if you stomp on it-”