Lacuna: The Ashes of Humanity (32 page)

She was finished.

The thought was too much for her. She had lost her parents, her command, her species, and her daughter. It was as though the universe was slowly stripping away everything she loved and held dear, one at a time, with as much thoroughness as patience.

The only thing left for her was James. Her rock. The single piece of solid ground she had stood upon throughout her career. His capture by the Toralii Alliance had left a hole in her life, and she had taken extraordinary risks to recover him. Despite everything that had happened, he had been resilient. He had been there for her.

Now he was missing again. Nobody had seen him since the strike in Operations, after he had left to help organise the evacuation. Kamal, too, was gone; she searched her memory, the haze that was her mind, trying to find where he had gone. The
Beijing
was his ship now. Where was he?

A faint sonic boom above her passed almost unnoticed. Moments later, the stretcher rocked, levelling out. They were no longer walking down a mountainside. She and her stretcher-bearers had reached the valley, threading their way through the trees to the clearing where ships could land. Above her, the bright orbs of landing lights, the same configuration as her Broadswords, descended towards the clearing.

They were taking her to be treated. No treatment could ever undo her injuries, though. Patch her up. Graft her skin. Give her a plastic arm that was more decorative than functional.

She was unfixable. A broken thing, never as good as she once was.

The ship touched down, landing struts extended, and the loading ramp descended to the ground. It had to be the
Archangel
, the
Beijing
's SAR craft, with Medola her ambulance driver to the stars.

But the ship had no turrets. No guns. The truth took a while to sink in; it was a Falcon. An unarmed transport.

None of those ships had escaped with any of their fleet. Was it a refugee from the
Sydney
? Another craft that had escaped its destruction? Perhaps it was a part of their supply and logistics network, as some of the Falcons were, away from Earth at the time of the attacks.

She had many theories, but her surprise was complete when she glimpsed the side of the hull, emblazoned with two words that, for a moment, she attributed to her drug-addled state of mind. To the shock. To hope.

Piggyback II
.

Liao read the stencilled nameplate again and again.
Piggyback
was the SAR bird for the
Sydney
, destroyed almost a year ago and the crew transferred to another ship. A ship named after the fallen commander of the
Piggyback.

The
Rubens
.

Many figures ran down the Falcon's loading ramp, medical staff and crewmembers alike, and they took the stretcher from her exhausted carriers. They took her aboard, feet first up the inclined slope, but she was not interested in her rescuers. She focused on the figure that remained further inside the ship, backlit from the glow of the interior, leaving only her silhouette visible. She raised her head, making sure she wasn't seeing things.

A woman, one hand holding a tapping cane, one arm cradling a wrapped bundle.

Barely clothed in charred rags, sopping wet and burned to the bone, Liao passed her by, carried into the Falcon, eyes desperately seeking to confirm what she dared to hope was true.

"Ginger," said a voice, "we need to induce a coma to keep her alive. Push 600 mg of ketamine, and tell Shaba to step on the gas. We need to transport this patient to the
Rubens
immediately. The Toralii medical facilities aboard might be able to save her."

"You got it," another man answered, his tone suggesting he was speaking into a radio. "Ginger to Shaba. CASEVAC is a go. The critical's aboard and strapped in. Smoke says to lift off at emergency power. Steady if you can, but we'll take fast over comfortable."

The ship began to rise before the landing ramp even closed. Below her, hundreds of tiny dull red balls of light burned on the hills. Smouldering fires, tiny balls of plasma burning themselves out all over the valley, slowly being extinguished by the rain.

None of that she cared about, though. Despite the pain, her burned cheeks, Liao forced words past her swollen and dry lips.

"Penny? Penny Williams?"

"Commander Liao?" the woman answered, recognition in her tone. "Is that you?"

Footsteps. A face blocked out the light from the fluorescent above, and long hair fell near her. Penny went to touch her face, but the doctor grabbed her hand before she could.

"No," said the doctor who was called Ginger, "don't. Penny, I'll explain in a moment."

"Oh God, it
is
you. What is that smell…?"

"It doesn't matter," Liao wheezed. "Where is—"

"Here," the face above her said, "I've got someone who's really been missing you."

Penny pressed the bundle into Liao's remaining arm. It was
her
. James's dark skin and Liao's eyes, looking at her with a mixture of confusion and joy.

Allison had been spared against all odds. The agents of Firaun, the
zalim
of all
zalims
, had burned Liao's body in the cauldron, but her child had survived unscathed. She squeezed Allison tightly with her remaining arm, and Penny fit in there somehow, too. Everyone laughed and cried, and as the ketamine started to take effect, Liao held Allison close to her.

They had gained, lost, and then gained again. Life was full of pain and triumphs in equal measure, but as the ship roared up into the night sky, shuddering and shaking as its reactionless drive was pushed to the limit, Naval Commander Melissa Liao drifted off to sleep knowing something more deeply and more certain than anything she'd ever known before.

Everything was going to be okay.

The Lacuna series continues with
Lacuna: The Prelude to Eternity
, coming in 2014.

T
HE
L
ACUNAVERSE

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