Lacuna: Demons of the Void (2 page)

It was sad, but Liao’s country had gone through similar trials. The Americans would recover... eventually. She shrugged.

“I guess it’s just you and me then. Do you have a ride, Captain?”

Grégoire nodded. “Yes, a hire car. Follow me.” A pause. “And please, call me James.”

The two made their way to a vehicle which was parked in a large, multilayer concrete area. Crowds of homeless people hassled them for money but the two ignored the throng.

“No driver?” Liao observed dryly, taking in the view of the modestly priced vehicle.

“Times are tough,” he replied with a shrug.

Liao glanced back at the airport building. Sydney terminal had been completely renovated during the 2000 Olympic Games. Since then, economic pressures had prevented any significant work on the structure... and now it looked faded and worn.

They embarked, programmed their north-shore destination into the car’s GPS, and James drove them out of the car park.

“Not as pretty as it used to be, is it?” Liao remarked, watching the city from the passenger window. Buildings looked run down and dilapidated, and many badly needed a coat of paint.

“Not quite.”

“Reminds me of home,” she remarked, rolling her shoulders. “The Western World used to be an enigma for the Chinese. Something to be admired, to be feared, to look down your nose at... all at once.”

Grégoire turned a corner, the electric car’s engine humming as it picked up speed. “What happened?”

Liao shrugged again, clicking her tongue. “I guess we just realised that the West wasn’t so different from us. And that while they had their successes, we hadn’t had as much luck. Now it’s our turn to succeed.” She paused. A barely legible sign stood, crookedly but proudly proclaiming the suburb as Redfern.

The Chinese woman tossed her shoulder length black hair. “Don’t worry,” she continued, “I’m sure the Western powers will have another turn at greatness soon enough.”

Grégoire grinned. “Agreed.”

They chatted idly for the rest of the journey and the mood picked up substantially. Given their backgrounds, politics wasn’t something they agreed on, obviously, but they did both have naval careers and that was something they could share. By the time they were approaching the harbour, the two were chatting away like old friends and Liao was recalling some of the war games she’d participated in.

“...but my first big piece of the action came during
Operation New Dawn
. I was the navigator for the number 404,
Han
class... they’re cramped alright, but they get the job done. Fun times.”

Grégoire laughed. “Little miss Melissa? A
submariner
?”

“Yep. I originally wanted a surface vessel, but I guess I got allocated to the
Han
class. Fell in love with them honestly.” She smirked, leaning over and giving the man a playful shove.

“Hey, careful! I’m driving!”

James laughed, then reached down and flicked on the auto-drive. Instantly the car took over the work, its electric engine humming along as it gracefully took the curve. Up ahead the front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge loomed.

Grégoire cocked an eyebrow, examining the structure. “Pretty impressive, no?”

Liao shrugged, smirking. “We have bigger bridges back home.”

The car changed lanes, bringing them closer to the outermost lane of the bridge, closest to the rail lines. The thick suspension wires of the bridge flew past.

“The Opera House is pretty, though,” Liao conceded.

There was a pause as the car carried them over the bridge.

“So, how’d you go from being the chief navigator on the 404, to...”

“...to being the PRC’s envoy to a minor trading ally who can’t even afford a driver to pick her up?” Liao’s tone was dry and pissy. “Well, my XO told me that I was picked because I spoke English, and because I was pretty.”

The car’s tyres gave a gentle thump as it completed the trip across the bridge, changing lanes again. The Belgian man twisted in his seat, looking surprised. “He flat out
told you that
?”

“Even
today
there are still powerful people in Chinese society who believe that women are better off being homemakers.”

James frowned. “A very outdated idea, even in China.”

Liao nodded. “You’d
think
so, but it’s a product of the One-Child Policy and I guess those kinds of ideas take a long while to stamp out. Women are allowed to serve in any branch of the Chinese armed forces, but we’re expected to resign when we get married. You know, settle down, start the family... pump out their sole male heir. Spoil it rotten.”

Her tone carried a kind of bitterness about it James found entirely justifiable. The car flew through the suburbs making its way to the research facility on the north shore.

Grégoire turned to face Liao again. “So, how’d
you
go on
New Dawn
?”

Liao grinned. “Sunk some pretty impressive tonnage before they got us. 19,000 tonnes – six ships. Not bad for a bunch of women and men from China, hey?”

With a grin, Grégoire waggled an eyebrow. “We got one ship.” A pause, letting the gravity sink in. “100,000 tonnes.”

Liao sat up in her seat, eyes wide. “
What..?!
”

“My crew and I
nailed
a
Nimitz
class aircraft carrier. Cost us the ship, but we did it.”

Liao stared at her companion as the car drove itself between traffic, pulling up at one of the many sets of traffic lights that stood between them and their destination.

“
废话
.”

“
No bullshit
. Hand to my
heart
, we sunk the
USS George H. W. Bush
. Her Captain was...
bushed
, you could say.”

“Surely not. I would have heard about that... the Americans would be furious!”

“They were, but I think they kept it quiet internationally. Wouldn’t you?”

Liao’s face screwed up in doubt. The light changed and the car took off again. “How...?”

Grégoire smirked, holding up his flat hand as though to mimic the aircraft carrier.

“Pretty simple, we pulled a
Thunder Child
on them. You know? From H.G. Wells’
War of the Worlds
...?”

Liao shook her head. “Actually, I never read it.”

James nodded anyway. “Well, I was in command of the F1004
Leopold III
. We reported that we’d struck a mine and were disabled, then waited until the aircraft carrier was in range... and
rammed
it when they arrived to take the crew prisoner.”

James’s hand motored along to his pinkie and crashed into the side. The hand overturned, pitched upwards, and dramatically sank. “At least we shouted over the megaphone that we’d rammed them.
Actually
ramming them would be a bit tasteless.”

Liao blinked. “Wouldn’t that violate…”

“…
all kinds
of rules?” James finished, nodding. “Pretty much every ‘good conduct’ rule in the book. The administrators of the war games disallowed our kill and ‘refloated’ the
Bush
, but in the minds of the crew and I, we sank a 100,000 tonne aircraft carrier for the cost of a 1,500 tonne patrol boat. That’s a huge net gain for our forces.”

“But you all
died
,” Liao pointed out, “And it’s not a move you’d use in real life...”

The car arrived at their destination, a single story building near Sydney’s centre. It was a nondescript sandstone building. It had no distinguishing features apart from its generic, completely normal appearance which, Liao guessed, was probably deliberate.

“Correct,” James answered, giving an impish grin. “But isn’t real life just another game, with a different set of rules?”

The two disembarked, continuing their conversation as they made their way up to the building’s glass doors.

“Ramming your ship into the enemy’s ship doesn’t sound like a sound interpretation of the rules to me.”

Grégoire waved a key fob in front of a sensor and the two panes of glass opened. A cool, air-conditioned breeze washed over Liao’s face.

“Not if you look at it like
that
,” he answered, shrugging. “As far as I was concerned, the rules of the game we were playing said, ‘Ramming always works.’ I took an inexpensive ship and rammed a
much
more expensive ship, sinking the pair of them. That’s a net gain for us. That’s a
victory
.”

The two walked inside the structure. Immediately, the atmosphere changed. The inside of the building was a stark contrast to its exterior. This seemed like the inside of a dormitory for a tech college. Technical graphs, diagrams and posters adorned almost every inch of every wall, proudly displaying the technical aspects of devices Liao didn’t even recognise. The floor was covered in a thick, plush, blue carpet.

“Hey, so you’re the visitors, huh?” came a feminine, nasally voice, thick with an Australian accent. A short, freckled, weedy, twenty-something Caucasian woman with bushy red hair and large, awkward looking glasses leaned casually against a wall in a stance that Liao could only describe as a desperate attempt to look like one of the cool kids in a high school.

“That’s right. I’m Lieutenant Melissa Liao from the People’s Republic,” Liao offered, extending her hand. “And this is Captain James Grégoire, Belgian Naval Component, EU.”

The redhead’s bravado almost instantly evaporated and she seemed to hesitate a moment before taking Liao’s white-gloved hand, giving it an awkward shake. She didn’t look her in the eye. She then shook James’ hand and gestured to a room further inside the building.

“I’m Summer Rowe. I’m lead engineer here. You’re here to see Chekhov’s Armoury, right?”

James threw Melissa a confused look. “Sorry, what?”

Rowe gave a nasally snort, pushing up her glasses with her ring finger. “That’s just what we call the toy box – uhh, I mean, all this stuff. It's a literary term... it's, uh- it's kinda the idea that when you introduce something early on, it’s irrelevant at the time, but later becomes really important... and this stuff is going to be
really
important in a few years.”

“...oh,” was all Liao could say to that.

Summer turned and began to walk further into the twisting maze of tunnels which resembled, for all intents and purposes, a rabbit warren or the maze in some medieval wizard’s dungeon. Behind her back, the two military personnel exchanged a subtle, questioning, ‘What the hell?’ glance.

“
他妈的书呆子
...”

“Be nice,” Grégoire implored in a mutter.

Summer glanced over her shoulder. “Huh?”

“Nothing,” Liao chirped, giving her best smile. Her heels tapped on the polished linoleum with every step as she squinted slightly in the dimly lit corridor.

Rowe shrugged it away, fidgeting with something in front of her.
Click. Click. Click.
Liao saw that it was a ball point pen and the woman was clicking the top button on and off. Every repetition seemed to increase Liao’s blood pressure.

“We don’t get many other girls in here,” Rowe admitted sheepishly as the group passed a giant trash can overflowing with soft drink cans, pizza boxes, plastic takeaway containers, and computer printouts smeared with grease.

“That’s probably because you work in a lightless, filthy hovel,” Liao snipped sarcastically, her tone a little more acidic than she really intended.

Summer winced, looking away from the Chinese woman.

Melissa gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry, it was a long flight.”

As they walked, Liao could feel eyes on her as they passed endless laboratories, some filled with modern looking computers. About half of them were in use by neck-bearded scientists (and, despite Rowe’s comment, the occasional woman) typically typing at a blistering pace in black and white terminals.

Click. Click. Click.

Rowe absently waved her hand as she passed several doors, her other hand abusing the pen’s clicker.

“What do we have here? Uhh... okay. This is an advanced, high radiation resilient tungsten-aluminium-
whatever
alloy... that’s the pet project of the materials guys. I don’t know what it’s called, something Greek or Latin, but we nicknamed it ‘indestructium’. Radiation resistant, really really strong, lightweight... apparently they think it’s the bees knees, but
eh
. So you can build a cool tank with it. Who
cares
. I hate those arrogant assholes.”

Click. Click. Click.

Summer paused before an unmarked door, mercifully slipping the pen into her hip pocket. The woman seemed a lot more relaxed now that they were further inside, away from the last vestiges of the sun’s presumably harmful rays. “Let’s start at the
least
impressive item and work our way up, shall we?”