Lacuna: Demons of the Void (32 page)

Frowning again, Liao glanced across to Jiang. “Got any
good
news for me, Lieutenant? What about the surface batteries?”

“The surface missile batteries have commenced firing, Captain; impact in six minutes! Also, for what it’s worth, Major Aharoni reports that he and the rest of the strike craft are engaging the Toralii fighters!”

At the mention of Alex Liao caught sight of Rowe’s expression, a mix of excitement and worry, but there was no time to deal with that now.

Ling spoke up. “Captain! The
Tehran
’s missiles have impacted on the hostile ship… Can’t tell the effect from here, there’s too much interference on our radar! Thermals show detonations, however... dammit-!”

There was a pause of about two seconds, then, “Minimal effect!”

Liao swore again, smacking her flat palm on the metal of her console. “Engage the gravity mines and lock down the jump point; even this one ship is proving to be a handful and we don’t want another.”

“Gravity mines enabled, Captain. The point’s locked down.”

…Which also cut off their escape route, should they need it. Liao mused over this; judging by the way things were going, they almost certainly would regret that decision.

Lieutenant Dao, who had remained mostly silent for the battle with little to do, finally spoke up. “Captain Liao… the hostile ship is moving!”

Liao furrowed her brow, looking his way. “Moving? To where?”

“Directly towards the
Tehran
,” he called. “Distance: ten thousand kilometres”

Liao picked up her long-range radio, clicking the talk key. “
Sydney
,
Tehran
– this is
Beijing
actual. Report status, over.”

Liao heard the accented voice of the Communications officer from the TFR
Sydney
. “
Beijing
,
Sydney
; we are throwing everything we have at maximum sustainable rate of fire. Our railguns are out of action due to a malfunction so it’s missiles only for us.”

Another malfunction from the
Sydney
. Liao didn’t have time to think about the implications of one of their ships missing a major weapons system.

James’ voice filtered over the communications line. “
Beijing
actual, this is
Tehran
actual. Our missiles and railguns are hot on the target, preparing a third barrage now.”

Melissa couldn’t help but let a tiny smile creep over her features. Despite what was happening, despite the dire situation they’d found themselves in with only one ship on their hands, it was good to hear James’ voice.

“Very good. Give them hell,
Tehran
;
Beijing out
.”

Placing down the headset Liao looked at the long range radar screen, observing the battle with her arms folded. The ship shuddered almost imperceptibly as nukes flew from his firing tubes and railguns threw their ordnance towards the target.

Jiang shouted over the noise of the Operations room. “Captain! Captain, I’m detecting another energy surge... the Toralii are going to fire their energy weapon again!”

Liao cursed darkly. “Their target? Is it our strike fighters?”

Jiang shook her head. “Negative, Captain... it looks like they’re going to hit the
Tehran
itself!”

James
! Liao snatched up the long-range communications headset again, frantically hitting the talk key. “
Tehran
, this is
Beijing
actual; evasive manoeuvres! The hostile ship has you targeted!”

Once again James’ voice called back to her. “We’re well aware of that,
Beijing
, we are moving to-”

There was an intense burst of loud static which caused her to rip off the headset in pain. She looked at the long range radar again, seeing another intense wave of energy fly from the Toralii ship, so bright and so powerful that their sensors could barely cope.

The strange Toralii weapon hit the
Tehran
square on her broadside, causing another burst of static, almost blinding the
Beijing
’s sensors. Through the interference, Liao could see the wave didn’t even slow down as it passed right through the warship, the energy pulse flying off the edge of her radar screen in seconds.

There was a moment of stunned silence across the whole Operations room. Liao stared at the computer screen, trying to determine the damage that they had taken. There was debris. There was a lot of heat...

She felt the same clench in her heart she had felt when the
Tehran
didn’t jump back from the Hades system. Was James okay?

Hsin spoke up and ended the brief, shocked silence. “Captain, I’m reading a distress signal from the
Tehran
... They’re hit pretty bad! They report that there are fires on all decks, massive breaches, almost all of their systems are offline except navigation...”

Liao came back to reality. She was still in a situation and she still had a battle to fight.

“Close with that Toralii ship! Get us within one thousand kilometres! We can’t let them hit us with that energy blast!”

She turned to Saara. “That weapon’s much bigger and more dangerous than you told us it would be!”

Saara shouted across the noise. [“That’s because it’s more powerful than I anticipated, and much more accurate! Normally the device can only be used to hit large, stationary targets, but... I suppose the Toralii Alliance must have a more powerful variant than my people do!”]

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!”