Lacuna: The Prelude to Eternity (30 page)

Before Liao could completely process that, a roaring blast wave blew her off her feet. She landed hard, dazed, squinting up at the sky.

The brilliant blue was pierced with streaking stars. The spinning wreckage of the
Archangel
passed overheard, smoke pouring from a gaping wound in its side. It speared nosefirst into the ground no more than fifty metres to her left, the Broadsword bursting into flames and disintegrating. Secondary explosions shook the ground as the fuel and ammunition stores ignited.

[“Place your weapons on the ground,”] boomed a voice from above. Two Toralii assault ships, glowing red hot from reentry, opened up like unfurling wings. Two dozen or more armoured Toralii Marines descended from the gull-wing protrusions on thin ropes. Dangling from the rear of the ship like an arachnid’s stinger, an unusual glowing blue weapon levelled at the humans below.

The Marines scrambled for cover in the open sand. Liao just watched, half deafened from the explosions, as they were cut down: a thin, sizzling crackle of electrical discharge arced from the Toralii assault ships, jumping from marine to marine.

O’Hill was hit in the shoulder. He was flung to the ground, twitching and jerking involuntarily, as though pushed by the hand of a giant.

And then the wave of energy found her, and the scorching heat of the desert sands were just a memory.

Operations

“We are
not
leaving Captain Liao,” said Iraj, gripping the command console tightly. “Hail
Archangel
once more, Lieutenant Jiang. We need more time.”

“The Toralii are firing on us,” she cautioned. “No response from
Archangel
. Nothing since they entered atmosphere.”

The
Beijing
rattled as a spray of weapons fire—too inaccurate at that range to penetrate the charged hull plating—splattered off their hull. The ship lurched as it tried to evade, a clumsy beast struggling as the hunters plinked at it.

“Try to call the surface again,” Iraj ordered. “Whatever’s stopping our communications, get through it. Broadcast on a different frequency. Give extra power to the radios.
Something
.”

“Sir,” said Ling, “there’s no way we can reach the planet. I can barely get targeting telemetry from the
Madrid
,
and the
Washington
can’t be reached at all.”

“Try
Warsong
,” he said. “See if they can relay a signal.”

Ling tapped at his console. Kamal half closed his eyes.

Allah, most merciful, most benevolent, now would be a good time.

“
Beijing
, this is
Warsong
.” The scream of alarms in the background made the commander difficult to hear. “We’re hit again—the Bevra drones are firing on us from the surface. The closer we get to the planet, the worse our signal gets, not that it matters. Our ventral gunner’s dead, and we’re leaking atmosphere. Sorry, Commander. This isn’t a fight we can win.”

Even if they could hold out, then what? How much time could they buy? An hour? A day?

Warsong
was carrying the precious cargo, the key to the Iilan’s gratitude.

“
Warsong
,” he said, bitterness overwhelming his normally calm exterior, “withdraw on my authority. Break and head for any open Lagrange point. Jump as soon as you are able. Rendezvous at Velsharn.”

“Roger.” The defeat in his tone was palpable. “What about
Archangel
?”

The
Archangel
crew were known for taking absurd risks and somehow managing to save the day, but apparently even they knew their limits. “They knew the risks. If you see them, form up and escape together.
Allahu akbar
.”

“Sir,” said Ling. “Incoming transmission from the
Madrid
.”

De Lugo’s voice came to him, panting softly. “Captain, we need to get out of here.”

“Withdraw,” Iraj ordered. “Jump as soon as you can. Full retreat, defensive spread.”

“You’re not coming with us?’

“Captain Liao remains on the surface.”

“¡Dios Mío!”
My God
. God, it seemed, had taken the day off.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“We cannot remain here,” said de Lugo. “Commander, you are in command now. We face impossible odds. Withdraw with us and save your crew.”

The faces of the Operations room told the same story. Everyone knew that to stay was to die. Nobody contested. Nobody complained. They remained at their posts.

“All hands,” he said, his chest tightening as though he had stones in his heart, “ready to withdraw to the L1 Lagrange point and jump.”

The ship turned, and the world of Qadeem retreated in his monitor. He would have hours to think about what had happened. He’d been awake for long enough that his eyes hurt and his body ached, but weariness was a distinct, secondary feeling to the guilt.

They were leaving Commander Liao and almost fifty Marines behind.

“We’ll get her back,” he promised de Lugo. “We’ll save her.”

“I know we will,” de Lugo said, but Iraj knew both of them were full of bluster. “We will.”

Escaping took hours—ducking and weaving and trying to avoid incoming weapons fire—but Kamal Iraj was fixed on the command console. He could only watch as Qadeem shrank and shrank, as the Toralii cruisers broke off their pursuit and surrounded the planet, and then, with a bright flash of light, the system disappeared entirely.

E
PILOGUE

Phase Four

*****

Location Unknown

P
AIN
.

L
IAO
’
S
EYES
FLUTTERED
OPEN
. Her body ached, her skin raw and red, face puffy and bruised. She was lying on a metal floor in a room with metal walls and a metal roof—far from the sandy vault she had last stood in—a five-metre cube.

She remembered the sand. She remembered the electricity arcing over her whole body. She remembered Anderson.

[“Welcome,”] said a voice, feminine and stern, seeming to reverberate around the whole room, coming from no source she could determine. [“State your name.”]

“Melissa Liao.”

[“So it
is
The Butcher of Kor’Vakkar.”] The voice seemed pleased. [“Welcome, Commander.”]

She grimaced against the light. “It’s Captain Liao now.”

[“I shall update your profile.”] The voice practically curled its words in the air, the normally smooth Telvan dialect rough and bitter. [“We had always thought that you would eventually find your way to us, Captain. Your name has travelled far for a member of such a frail species. Yours is a legacy of destruction that I had not expected to see in my lifetime. I am Commandant Yarri. You and I are going to become good friends, I feel.”]

The faint sound of screaming echoed in the distance. Liao tried to sit up and almost toppled over. Her weight was wrong. A glance at her right side revealed her prosthetic had been removed, now just a metal-capped stump where her flesh ended. The itching was gone.
 

“Where I am?” she asked, unsure of what else to say.
 

[“You are our guest,”] said Yarri. [“Cenar wasn’t the only station we have. Your efforts were impressive, and its destruction has inconvenienced us significantly, but we have others, as you will discover in time.”]

“Go to hell,” Liao spat. “I’m not afraid of the Toralii version of the Hanoi Hilton.”

[“Meaningless babble,”] said the Toralii. [“Your work is war, Butcher, but mine is pain. Let’s see how much your tongue wags after you’ve spent even a night in
Zar’krun
.”]

Zar’krun
. Liao didn’t know the word exactly, but like many Toralii compound words it had a rough translation.

The Hold of Eternity.

Iraj’s lesson drifted back into her mind.
Through difficulty comes ease.
With a soft click, the metal of the floor rearranged itself, forming itself into grid like a waffle iron. She scrambled to try to find purchase, but the gravity intensified, a mighty hand pulling her down flat against the ridges and against the fiery heat that burned within them.
 

Then there was only an eternity of screaming.

The Lacuna series continues with Lacuna: The Requiem of Steel, coming in 2015.

T
HE
L
ACUNAVERSE

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