Read Lacuna: Demons of the Void Online
Authors: David Adams
Lacuna: Demons of the Void
–––-
A writer does not write in isolation,
for they 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
Demons of the Void
“The history of advanced races meeting more primitive people on this planet is not very happy, and they were the same species.
I think we should keep our heads low.”
- Professor Steven Hawking
Prologue
“In Medias Res”
*****
Sydney, Australia
2029 A.D.
Moments after the attack on Earth
Senior Lieutenant Melissa Liao of the People’s Liberation Army awoke face down in the dark, pinned under the debris of the destroyed building, concrete dust swirling all around her.
She was dimly aware of a dull pain in her feet which became sharper as her consciousness returned to her. Overcome by a spasm of coughing, the dust made it impossible to open her eyes, causing a spike of instinctive panic to rise deep in her belly. Was she blind? She remembered a flash of light, then the rumble of the collapsing building...
When she finally forced them open, it was with watery, blurred vision she saw in the inky, dusty black the shattered blue jug of the office water cooler... its frigid contents spilled out onto the carpet, creating a cold wet fuzziness that was strangely more uncomfortable than the crushing weight of the debris pinning her to the ground.
The survival instinct kicked in and she began to cry out.
“
救命啊! 救命啊
...!”
“Found one in here!”
A voice from above her in English, accented... and through the concussed shroud that was her mind, familiar. There was the sound of rubble being shifted. Liao recognised the language and she shouted back in kind.
“My legs! My legs are stuck!”
The familiar voice that called back sounded surprised.
“Melissa? Is that you?”
Her memory clicked – the voice was Captain James Grégoire, a native of Belgium. He had met Liao in Sydney as an observer and guide. He had been nearby when the huge explosion had happened.
“Yes- it’s me!
Hurry
!”
“We’re working as fast as we can!”
More debris being shifted. Liao, despite herself, felt very reassured. Very relaxed. Perhaps it was just a combination of an obvious concussion and blood loss, or perhaps it was Grégoire’s voice that steadied her nerves.
Though they had met only earlier today, the woman thought Grégoire was a strikingly attractive man, with a deep voice, dark skin and a bald head... he struck quite the imposing visage, especially being so tall.
Of course, he was a naval Captain in the European Union and she a naval Lieutenant in the Chinese People’s Navy, so it could never work out. Nevertheless, they had struck up a fast friendship despite their vast ideological differences.
Liao coughed again, sending out clouds of concrete dust from the ruined carpet below her.
“What happened, James? A bomb...?”
There was no answer from above. Liao began to panic again.
“James...?!”
“Don’t know,” was James’s reply from above, his tone grave. “Something really bad. You’ll see when we get you out of there. Okay, you two – lift up that beam right there...”
There was a shift in the pile of rubble above her, followed by the rumble-clatter of debris as it resettled. The Chinese woman shrieked as a sharp piece of metal sliced open her hip.
Grégoire’s voice boomed above her. “Stop, stop,
stop
! You’re hurting her!”
“
他妈的，好痛... 哟...
”
Liao passed out again.
Her next memory was of being stretchered away from the ruined building, fading in and out of awareness. Grégoire was by her side, holding her hand, his coal-black skin covered in chalk-white dust. A thick flow of blood trickled down the side of his head. Liao could hear rotor blades thumping nearby.
“
Hang in there
, okay? We’ve got a helicopter ready to take you to Canberra...”
Liao blinked groggily, glancing down to the IV line attached to her arm. From her training she knew the effects of morphine but had never experienced it herself. It was like she had just woken up from a particularly deep and relaxing sleep and there was no pain at all. Everything seemed distant and foggy.
“Why Canberra...? Why not a local hospital?”
The Australian medics began loading her into the helicopter. Rolling her head weakly from one side to the other, she was able to see that it was a civilian craft, bearing the logo of an Australian news outlet. Off to one side, Liao could see other medics tending to a dust-covered, hyperventilating redheaded woman who was frantically sucking down an asthma inhaler. Their contact, Summer Rowe, had survived too... apparently against all odds.
Grégoire’s tone was grim, pointing out the side of the aircraft, whose blades began to chop faster signalling imminent lift-off.
“See for yourself.”
As their impromptu ambulance lifted from the ground and took to the air, she saw the extent of the devastation first hand.
Barely a building stood. Nary a landmark survived. She saw the Harbour Bridge – an icon of the beautiful city they had driven across only hours ago – lying splayed out on the harbour, its wires hanging limply in the water like the tendrils of some horrid beast. The Opera House was broken open, its sail-like sweeps shattered like blackened, roasted eggshells.
The city centre and suburbs were naught but blackened, burned fields devoid of form. In the heart of Sydney, the skeletons of her tall skyscrapers, cut down like freshly mowed grass, were the only structures taller than waist-high rubble. From her superior vantage point in the helicopter Melissa could see hundreds of tiny dots moving around as people flooded into the debris-covered streets.
In terms of construction, however, aside from the occasional skeleton of a building... there was almost nothing left of the whole city.
A radio laying by her head crackled to life. A voice, unearthly and strange, came filtering through.
“
永远不要再次尝试开发这项技 术
.”
The message repeated itself three times, then abruptly went silent.
Above them, seen through the thumping rotor blades, a bright white flash burst in the sky and quickly faded like a firework exploding in the distance.
Grégoire’s hand found hers again. “That sounded like Chinese,” he asked, his tone questioning rather than accusatory.
It
was
Chinese, heavily accented and barely clear. Liao hesitated a moment, trying to find the best translation through the fog of her sedated mind.
“
Never again attempt to develop this kind of technology.”
The remainder of the helicopter trip was conducted in silence. It was only when they arrived and were debriefed that they learned the Demons – that’s what the media called them, for lack of a better term – had not stopped with the Australian city... Tehran and Beijing, both research centres and both host to roughly the same technology as Sydney, had suffered the same fate.
In all, fifty million men, women and children died in an instant... and the world changed forever.
Act I
Chapter I
“
Chekhov’s Armoury
”
*****
Sydney
Australia
Two hours earlier
The tyres of the giant jet squealed as they touched down at Sydney airport. The giant Boeing 747 slowly rolled to a stop. As the aircraft taxied to the terminal, Liao mused angrily over the circumstances that had brought her here.
She was a career naval officer and she had enlisted from a young age, something she had done against the objections of her parents who wanted her to be a homemaker... but Liao had ambitions. This was probably the result of her father’s encouragement.
“If you aim for the mud and dirt,” he was fond of saying, “...but manage to poke your head out a bit, you think you’re doing pretty well, even if you’re really just a fool covered in slop.”
A dramatic pause here. Her father loved dramatic pauses, much to Liao’s chagrin.
“But if you aim for the stars and only make it to the Moon, then you’ve accomplished great things even if you don’t recognise them.”
Liao
wanted
to accomplish great things. Yet, here she was, visiting one of the PRC’s minor trading allies to inspect their so-called advanced technology. Most of it was cribbed from the Americans anyway, or reverse engineered from Chinese designs... or so she had been told in the scintillatingly boring mission brief.
The plane disembarked and Liao collected her bag. She stepped out of the airport into the cool autumn air, breathing a sigh of relief. Fresh air...
“Senior Lieutenant Melissa Liao, right?”
Liao glanced over her shoulder. A man in his mid forties with a bald head and black skin stood nearby, his hands clasped behind him.
She turned to face him, nodding. “That’s right.”
“My name is Captain James Grégoire. I’m with the EU, here as the envoy to inspect the new technology.”
Liao felt vaguely offended. “As am I, but I was under the impression it was a
private
invitation... I didn’t know it extended to other Australian allies.”
Grégoire chuckled and shook his head. “Well, yes and no. The Iranian Republic and the PRC have full inspection rights, as per the agreement, but the Australia Prime Minster feels that, in order to maintain diplomatic relations with the rest of the world, she should offer to permit the EU and the United States to send envoys.”
Ugh,
Americans
. Liao rolled her eyes. “Well, where is he then?”
Grégoire laughed. “I’m guessing the U.S. didn’t send anyone. With their economy the way it is, you
honestly
think they could afford to send someone to check out the latest toys? They’re still trying to fix things after the latest collapse...”
Liao chuckled along with him. America’s financial troubles were well known in the international community – since September 11th, an event still influential decades after the fact, they had taken on war after war, borrowing from the international community to finance their various struggles against imaginary enemies. They had subsequently tried to inflate their way out of their debt but had gone too fast, ruining countless lives. And their debtors indexed the debt in Euros anyway making the deliberate inflation pointless. Now their economy lay in ruins.