Lacuna: The Sands of Karathi Read online

  The popular conception of reentry was a fiery descent into the planet’s atmosphere, but that was only accurate for craft that orbited a planet. Orbiting required substantial velocity, which created friction as the craft began to encounter the resistance of the uppermost gasses. Although their craft would burn up if pushed through at orbital velocity, at a slower pace they could descend just fine, and the reactionless drives would slowly ease them down onto the planet’s surface without endangering the craft.

  That tiny piece of technology allowed them to do so much.

  Peng gave a hesitant nod. "I'll make sure they're careful."

  “That’s good. Prepare to—”

  “Wait. I’m detecting a signal. It’s faint.”

  Liao inclined her head. “What kind of signal? Is it an audio transmission?”

  Dao twisted around in his seat to look at her. “Negative, Captain. It’s just a beacon. An automated beeper set on repeat.”

  Fortunately, they had a Toralii expert present in Operations. Liao turned, glancing across the room. “Saara?”

  The Toralii woman stepped towards her, hands clasped in front of her, a gesture Liao took to be one of quiet respect. [“Yes, Captain?”]

  Liao moved out of the way, indicating the navigation console. “What do you think? Is it some kind of navigation beacon, or…?”

  Her response was immediate. [“It is a distress call.”] Her eyes widened slightly, and she glanced at the Human woman. [“On the standard Telvan distress frequency.”]

  The Telvan—Saara’s people. Moderates who opposed the Toralii Alliance philosophically and occasionally militarily. The idea that Sheng was speaking to a Telvan agent – someone who was more inclined, it seemed, towards diplomacy – gave her great consolation. Perhaps the contact would prove to be helpful after all.

  “Well, now,” Liao folded her arms over her chest, wincing as her injured arm gave a slight twinge of pain. “That does change things, doesn’t it?”

  Saara looked at her expectantly. [“We are still going to make contact, aren’t we?”]

  “Of course. It’s a good thing.” Liao smiled, then reached down to her radio, pressing the talk key. “Captain Liao to Summer Rowe.”

  There was a slight delay, and then Summer’s thick Australian accent came crackling through the tiny speaker. “Rowe here.”

  “We’ve completed the jump. We’ll be preparing an expedition to the surface. Let Lieutenant Jiang know if you need anything.”

  Another pause. “Yes, Captain.”

  Liao changed frequencies and called up the strike craft. “Major Aharoni, it’s time to let our newest birds stretch their wings. Organize with Lieutenant Jiang to have a detachment of our new Broadsword gunships transport a landing party to the planet, but we’re going to have the Wasps scout it first. I want to make sure that planet’s hospitable no matter what the spectrometer says.” She paused, then added, “Take Summer with you. She could use the fresh air.”

  “Aye aye, Captain. I’ll get you eyes and feet on the ground, in that order. What are our destination coordinates?”

  “Unknown at this stage, Major, but we’ll have someone fill you in as soon as we can.”

  Liao let go of the radio, glancing over to Dao. “Lieutenant, find out where that signal’s coming from. That planet’s a big place.”

  “Already have it, Captain. Northern hemisphere, sixteen point five five nine one degrees on the latitude. There’s not many landmarks for longitude, so let’s call the ship longitude zero, and elevation… six hundred metres above sea level. What little sea there is, anyway.”

  Impressed, Liao nodded. “Very good, Lieutenant. Forward those coordinates to Jiang, and bring up that planet on external optics.”

  She watched as the image of the planet filled her command monitor. Huge and red—like the surface of Mars—with patches of ice at the poles, its rust-coloured surface streaked by colossal white stretches of sand. The atmosphere was thin but breathable, and although they had no indication of the planet’s temperature, judging by the thick atmosphere and proximity to the sun it would be very hot. Bearable, but only just.

  “It’s a far cry from Earth,” she remarked, grimacing slightly at the inhospitable ball of iron-tinged sand that floated in space on her monitor. Turning, she beckoned Saara over.

  The Toralii woman stepped close, her yellow eyes widening.

  [“I recognise this planet!”]

  Liao raised an eyebrow. “You do?”

  Saara ran a finger along the monitor, tracing the planet’s circumference. [“It is Karathi, a backwards, out of the way planet with minimal resources or strategic value. I only know of it because a Telvan ship, the Giralan, crashed here many, many years ago. I researched the incident in the Telvan military academy, as did many others. It was,”] she hesitated, giving Liao a half-cocked smile, [“considered an easy credit to graduate.”]

  Liao reached out and put her hand on Saara’s shoulder. “Well, I guess that makes you our official Karathi expert.”

  The two of them returned their gaze to the sandy, barren planet, watching as the ship drew closer and closer.

  Chapter IV

  “Castaway”

  * * *

  Near the wreckage of the Giralan

  Surface of Karathi

  “It’s too fucking hot,” Summer Rowe whined, kicking a clump of sand into the air, sweat pouring down her freckled face. “What the fuck am I doing here? I’m an engineer, not some fucking… fucking… sand walking-type person who… walks in sand! Fuck!”

  Although Summer’s complaining was grating Liao’s nerves, it was good to see her acting more like her old self. Liao grit her teeth. “The signal’s probably right next to us. Within a square kilometer, at least. Have a drink of water and see if you can find anything.”

  The Broadsword gunship had deposited the landing party on the surface of the planet. Initially, it was Cheung and her Marines, Saara, Summer, and Kamal, but at the last minute Liao had insisted on taking Kamal’s spot, even though that was gravely against protocol. Liao justified it by reasoning that she was, aside from Saara, the best Toralii speaker they had. Being the captain, she was also in the best position to bargain with whomever they found at the signal’s origin point. It was both a display of force and respect.

  Heavy iron deposits in the area prevented a completely accurate scan, and a flyover of the area had revealed nothing but the endless red-brown stretches of sand that covered almost the entire planet. With no other recourse available, they set down as near as they could to the signal’s origin point.

  She and the Marines fanned out across the desert sands, leaving Rowe to sulk in the baking heat.

  “Well, fine, then!” Summer shouted after Liao, who ignored her. “I guess I’ll just fuck around in the sand, wasting my talent and my life on some fucking stupid quest to find some transmitter that might or might not even fucking exist!”

  Rowe began clomping around the desert, kicking up a flurry of red sand as she wandered over the nearby dune. Ignoring her, Liao turned her attention back to Saara and the Marines.

  “Twenty meter dispersion, eyes low. If there’s an antenna or some other transmitting device, we might not have been able to see it from the sky.”

  They broke off and Saara walked near Liao, the two of them combing their section of the sand. Liao called over to her, her voice echoing amongst the dunes. “What do you think, Saara? Do the Telvan usually hide their transmitters?”

  [“I’ve never heard of it done so. If I can be honest, I am not sure if coming here like this was a wise idea, Captain. If this was a meeting site, then we probably should have gotten in contact with whomever Sheng was speaking to before coming here. They might have left, or hid, when they saw us coming unannounced. I know I would have.”]

  “I thought of that,” Liao answered, “but that doesn’t make much sense, either. I don’t think whoever it was would wait here for months while we…”

  Her voice trailed off. Right in
front of her, a thin metallic cone protruded about twenty centimetres from a small hump of sand at a forty-five degree angle, plain and nondescript like the pointed leg of a chair.

  Liao called over her shoulder. “Found something over here!”

  She crouched, reaching down to touch the sun-heated metal, wincing as it burned her fingers. Liao reached into her pocket, pulling out a napkin and using it to take a firmer hold of the device. Tugging on it, she was surprised when the sand fell away from the hump, revealing a dog-sized metallic spider that lay motionless, half buried in the sand.

  Saara approached, then immediately grabbed Liao’s shoulder. Liao twisted her head, watching Saara stare at the device as though it were filled with molten lava. [“A Bevra defense drone!”]

  Liao blinked in surprise and pulled herself to her feet, regarding the Toralii woman with a curious glance. “Bevra? What’s that?”

  [“Bevra means, uhh, it is an animal. Hard to describe. It lives in the jungle and is a fast moving predator, but in this case it is also the name of an automated defense system. The Toralii sometimes leave them to defend unmanned installations. They are programmed to attack and destroy any biological life signs that are detected unless certain friend-or-foe criteria are met, such as a passphrase, or a biological marker.”]

  Liao looked down at the immobile hunk of metal. Upon its back was a small twin-barrelled turret, partially covered in sand.

  “Is it active?”

  Saara shook her head. [“No, Captain. It would have attacked us the moment we entered its airspace. Their energy cannons have a range of seven kilometres. They do not differentiate between terrestrial and airborne targets, and their sensors are very precise. When activated, they usually spend a portion of their first few hours hunting down and destroying any wildlife in the area.”]

  “Mmm. Greenpeace would have a field day with that.”

  [“I do not understand.”]

  Liao managed a smile, reaching out and clapping the much taller Toralii woman on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s pick it up and put it in the Broadsword. We can study it later.”

  [“Of course, Captain.”]

  Saara began digging out the last of the metal creature, and Liao left the Toralii to her task. Moving back with the rest of the Marines, the Chinese woman reached up and wiped her sweat-stained forehead with her sleeve. Reaching down for her radio, she pressed the talk key.

  “Liao to Summer.”

  Summer’s voice came through the radio, slightly distorted as though she had her mouth too close to the microphone, which Liao had noticed happened when she was annoyed or frightened. “Summer here! Well, golly gee and fuck, Captain. I found a bunch of sand. You want some of it? I can take a sample! One for you and one for me. Stack them in my cupboard and make a little fucking collection! How about that, huh?”

  Liao opened her mouth to let her know about the drone, but a faint hissing indicated that Summer still had her talk key down.

  For a moment there was just hissing, then Rowe’s voice came through. “What the fuck is that? Hey, Captain, I actually think I found someth—”

  The radio was cut off by a rumble-crash nearby, followed by a shriek and a large cloud of dust billowing from the other side of the dune Summer had wandered over.

  “Summer!”

  Liao, Saara, and the Marines ran towards the cloud. As Liao crested the ridge, she drew in her breath in an audible gasp. The whole other side of the dune had collapsed, exposing a large cavern braced by the thick, black metal struts of a ship’s hull.

  Summer lay at the bottom of the collapsed area, crumpled in a heap and immobile.

  * * *

  In the wreckage of the Giralan

  Surface of Karathi

  One of the Marines threw down a rope, and Cheung disappeared over the edge, rappelling down to the same level Summer lay on. She appeared to have fallen onto a clump of sand, which had fallen with her through a rusted area of the ancient structure's hull. On all sides of the redheaded woman, alien computers—silent and grey—were half-buried in silt. The walls were black metal pitted with rust. Judging by the sand leaking in from all sides it was terribly unsound.

  Liao watched anxiously as the Marine approached Rowe’s unmoving form, reaching out for her neck. Pausing for a moment, he gave a reassuring nod upwards. “Got a pulse!”

  That was something, at least. Liao called down to Cheung, leaning over the collapsed area as far as she dared. “How’s her head?”

  “Bleeding, Captain, but not too badly. I think she’s just stunned.”

  Liao shook her head. “A head wound is a serious matter. If it’s enough to knock her out, she could have a skull fracture, concussion, or intracranial bleeding.”

  A low groan from below, and Summer’s head rolled to one side. “Mmm. I’m a’right.”

  Rowe tried to stand up, but Cheung gently pushed on her chest to keep her laying down.

  “I said I’m a’right!”

  “No, stay right there. You could have a concussion or any number of things. Just hang on, and I’ll check your pupil response.”

  Liao watched as Cheung pulled out a small flashlight, holding it up to Rowe’s eyes. Leaving her to tend to the engineer, Liao motioned to the other Marines.

  “Let’s get down there. I want this structure searched.”

  Saara peered down at the exposed metal, shaking her head. [“It is not a structure, Captain. It is a ship. A buried Telvan ship.”]

  Liao wrinkled her nose, glancing back at the exposed area. “A ship? How do you know?”

  [“I recognize the configuration. See how that corridor there is hexagonal? A terrestrial corridor would be square. The Telvan build their ships according to a different philosophy to their buildings and philosophy matters a great deal. One of the constellations in our homeworld’s sky was named The Great Six. It was an important part of our initial space program and ancient religions, and so we shape the corridors on our starships to pay homage to the space they sail through.”] A slight grin. [“And to take advantage of different decompression characteristics.”]

  “Why would anyone bury a ship here? Could it be the Giralan?”

  Saara shrugged, glancing down at Summer in concern. [“That I do not know, Captain. It’s possible the ship is the Giralan – it is certainly the correct configuration – or it could be another that was abandoned here.”]

  Liao nodded. “All good theories. Let’s find out.”

  She reached for the rope and, with some awkwardness, slowly rappelled down the side. Liao unclipped her harness, nodding up to Saara. “Okay, Saara, I’m sending up the harness.”

  [“Captain, there is no need. One moment.”]

  With a playful growl, Saara leaped off the edge, causing Liao to shout out in alarm. However, the Toralii woman’s claws dug into the opposite wall, and with surprising grace and speed she climbed down the metal bulkhead, dropping to the deck with a loud thunk.

  Summer propped herself on her elbows, blowing a loud raspberry. “Showoff.”

  The Toralii grinned. [“That is why I waited until your cute little Human bodies were all down there, so you could all watch.”]

  Liao put her hands on her hips, shaking her head. “This ‘cute little Human’ doesn’t want you to break your leg proving the superiority of your species, so next time use the rope.”

  The Toralii sighed. [“Yes, Captain.”]

  Liao crouched next to Summer, hands on her knees. “How’re you holding up? Can you walk?”

  Summer gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “I can run a fucking marathon. Now, lemme up.”

  Cheung shrugged. “She doesn’t appear too injured, Captain. She must have just gotten the wind knocked out of her. Her head looks fine. Should I have the Broadsword medivac her out, or can she remain with us?”

  With a relieved sigh, Liao motioned for Cheung to let her up. Liao got to her feet then held out her hand, helping Summer stand.

  “If you start to feel dizzy, or
faint, or fall down…”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

  Summer, her foul mood gone, stared wide-eyed at her surroundings. To Liao, she looked like a child in a chocolate store.

  Liao reached out and touched her shoulder. “Easy now. You’ll get a chance to investigate every damn nook and cranny of this place later, but for now we need to make sure it’s safe and see if we can find where that signal’s coming from. This entire place looks shut down, but obviously something’s switched on somewhere. I want to find that it.”

  Liao motioned to the Marines. “Split up into groups of three. Li, Cheung, you’re with me. Let’s take Summer too. If she passes out, I’m going to claim her phone as my own.”

  Rowe gave a loud snort. “Take it. Not like there’s any fucking bars here, we’re one hundred and twenty million light years away from the nearest cell tower.”

  They arranged the other groups, one for every exit of the room, with the group of four taking the largest one. Cheung and Li took the lead, with Liao and Summer in the rear.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Liao asked, leaning in towards Rowe and frowning slightly.

  She waved her off. “Yes, yes, I’m fine. I’m just trying to find a computer terminal that’s got power and isn’t a solid hunk of rust.”

  The group walked through the gloom, the light filtering through the collapse retreating behind them. Soon, the only illumination left was their torches; Cheung and Li kept theirs pointed down at the debris-strewn floor so the group didn’t trip over anything, and Liao and Summer searched the corridors and took in the sight of the alien vessel.

  Alien vessel.

  It occurred to Liao that they were the first Humans to walk on a Toralii vessel, albeit a wrecked one. It was a historic moment, even though it was Telvan in origin. It would have been more satisfying to walk on a Toralii Alliance craft. To finally take the fight to their enemy, as they had done in the Hades system.

  There was a low rumble as the tonnes of sand above them shifted, the metal of the ship’s hull giving a low, ominous creak. Liao froze. The noise summoned memories of the attacks; she had been buried underground in the ruins of the Australian research facility, escaping only because James dug her out before she ran out of air. The memory, still vivid and fresh after all these years, caused an intense wave of fear to wash over her. She kept her eyes fixed on the roof, her imagination running wild as she pictured the ceiling cracking and collapsing, spilling out an endless torrent of sand that would bury them alive. There could be no rescue so far down. With all the metal above them, the best they could hope for would be to be crushed instantly by the falling debris and spared from suffocating on the sand, which would follow immediately after. At least then, their deaths would be mercifully swift.