“Why don’t they know about us?” he asked.
She glanced at Al-Nasir. He was biting his lower lip so hard that it was starting to bleed. Something was going on here, something Coop didn’t understand.
“We’re a group of scientists, explorers, and academics,” the woman said. “We’re here to study the phenomenon. You were a surprise.”
“Clearly,” Coop said.
“Politically, this is all complicated,” she said.
He shrugged. “Why should that matter to me?”
“It shouldn’t, I guess,” she said. “You can come and go as you please. But I would request that you don’t leave until we figure out how to solve the death hole problem.”
Coop nodded. “We will,” he said. “It won’t take much to fix it.”
“Good.” She sighed. “Otherwise, the minute you leave, more people will die up there.”
“That seems to make it more imperative that they learn about us,” he said. “They’ll know that their long-standing problem will be solved.”
“But it will create a new one,” she said, “one that might cost infinitely more life.”
He sat back down and waited for her to explain.
~ * ~
FIFTY-NINE
How do you explain five thousand years of history succinctly? How do you describe the sector as it is, without sounding overly dramatic? I glance at Al-Nasir, who looks terrified. My heart is pounding hard, my mouth dry. I somehow did not expect this to be an issue.
I didn’t expect any of it, really. For some reason, I thought the Dignity Vessel was a modern ship, with modern experiences, part of the Fleet that continued on and had somehow got called back here.
I didn’t expect the captain’s shock at five thousand years. I expected him to be surprised by distance, yes, but not by time.
The captain sits across from me, his emotions now so deeply under control that his features are smooth. He watches me with those intense blue eyes. The lieutenant keeps glancing at him, as if she can’t tell his mood either.
All my study of history has taught me that there’s a right side to history and a wrong side. No matter where these people are from—somewhere far away, but part of our timeline, or somewhere from the dark and distant past, brought here through that malfunctioning stealth tech somehow, in a reverse of what happened to my mother and my teammates—these people are not part of our history. They don’t understand the details, the agreements, the deaths, the dangers.
Those things don’t really matter to them.
And I want this to matter.
“Can you translate what I have to say in parts?” I ask the lieutenant. “I don’t want you to miss anything.”
She nods.
I look at Al-Nasir. “I need you to help her as best you can,” I say. “And help me.”
He nods.
The captain looks at the lieutenant, and she translates what I’ve said. Then I take a deep breath and begin.
“Much of this sector is part of the Enterran Empire,” I say. “Vaycehn is part of that Empire. My people are not.”
I feel my stomach twist as I say this. We haven’t told anyone on Wyr who we really are.
“We’re part of the Nine Planets Alliance,” I say. “The Nine Planets have an unstated truce with the Empire at the moment. Eventually, it will try to swallow us up.”
I pause so she can translate. He doesn’t move, and he keeps his gaze on me.
“The Empire is what the Empire is,” I say. “I don’t like it, but I don’t aim to bring it down. I grew up in it. And, at the time, I didn’t really notice parts of it. It’s just big and wants to get bigger.”
I glance at Al-Nasir. He shakes his head. It’s impossible to say all of this without sounding ridiculous.
“It shouldn’t get bigger,” I say. “The bigger it gets, the more unwieldy it is, the less it knows what its governors and leaders in the various communities are doing. People become less important—”
I stop. I’m about to go into a rant about a subject the captain knows nothing about. He probably doesn’t even care. He only wants to know how it would affect him.
That’s what I would want to know.
That’s what I used to want to know about the Empire, before I learned about stealth tech. I just operated small, stayed out of their way, and didn’t let them notice me. I figured as long as they didn’t notice me, I wouldn’t matter.
I didn’t realize that I had already lost my mother to their desire for stealth tech. I didn’t realize that when I was as young as four, the Empire’s reach completely altered my life.
I glance at the lieutenant, who is waiting for me to continue. I sigh, then shake my head slightly, mostly at myself.
“I can give you history lessons all that you want,” I say in a less strident tone, “and you can figure out how you feel about the Empire and the Alliance, and all the politics in the middle of it, which probably will not matter to you at all. What matters to me is this.”
I pause here so that she can translate. Also, I get to choose my words as I get deeper into the discussion.
“The Empire wants your stealth technology. They’ve been trying to recreate it in the lab for more than one hundred years. The Empire’s scientists kept doing it wrong. They’ve lost, I don’t know, dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of researchers and scientists to these experiments. People die in rather hideous ways.”
I don’t tell him about Vallevu, settled by survivors who keep waiting for the scientists to return, or Squishy, who sees her work with us as a penance for all the people she inadvertently killed working for the Empire. I can’t make it understandable.
“Years ago,” I say, “I found a Dignity Vessel. It had malfunctioning stealth tech, and it killed some of my people.”
I stop, unable to explain all the complicated emotions—my initial unwillingness to destroy history; the way that ship started everything, my entire current life, with all of its ups and downs.
“It’s a long story, too,” I say, “but eventually that ship got into the hands of the Empire, and they started using it in their stealth-tech experiments. They even re-created some parts of stealth tech through the ship, and through the Room of Lost Souls.”
The lieutenant repeats the phrase, “Room of Lost Souls,” asking me what that means.
I shrug. “I’m sorry. I think it’s an old base. It has stealth tech too.”
She nods, then translates for me.
The captain frowns at her, then shakes his head. They’re not sure what I’m talking about.
“Okay,” I say. “Here’s the thing important to us. If the Empire gets stealth tech, they’re unstoppable. They’ll take over the rest of the sector and then move on to other areas. Right now, they’re limited in their resources and through their own abilities. They can’t fight every single enemy they encounter. Their ships are too vulnerable. Stealth tech will allow them to encircle a planet and launch an attack without anyone even knowing they’ve arrived.”
The captain frowns as if he doesn’t understand any of this. The lieutenant has been speaking slowly. So have I. I touch Al-Nasir’s arm, then nod toward the lieutenant.
“Is the translation going right?” I ask softly.
“I think so,” he says. “She seems to be doing okay. The Room of Lost Souls threw her.”
“A lot of this is throwing me,” the lieutenant says to me. “I’m doing what I can. We are still new at the language.”
“Yes, we are,” I say, then look at the captain again.
His gaze meets mine. I’m startled at the power in that gaze. I feel a slight flush build in my cheeks.
“Look,” I say to him as clearly as I can. “If we discover how stealth tech works first, ‘we’ meaning my people, we’ll be distributing it throughout the sector. That way the balance of power remains the same. The Empire doesn’t have the ability to suddenly take over a planet or an area of the sector. We remain on equal terms.”
“No,” he
says, even before the lieutenant finishes. He speaks quickly to her.
She shrugs, then looks at me.
My flush has grown deeper. “They’ll try to take your ship,” I say. “If they find this room, it’s one more gigantic piece in the puzzle. They have good people working on this, and eventually they’ll figure it out. The entire—”
He holds up a hand and stops me. “Let me speak to my people,” he says, and walks out of the conference room.
~ * ~
SIXTY
They didn’t understand the anacapa drive. At all.
Coop walked down the corridor, unable to stay in the room for another minute. The woman, clearly intelligent, was speaking to him as if the anacapa drive was a simple cloak, and it wasn’t.
The Fleet used it to avoid fighting. From the perspective of the foe fighting the Fleet, the anacapa could be the best cloak ever. The ship would disappear, and never show up on scans.
But it was so much more than that, and so much more difficult. Traveling through foldspace was perilous, as he well knew.
And these people—if that woman was to be believed—were playing with the technology as if it were a simple cloak.
No wonder so many were dying.
The corridors were empty per his orders, except for the guards he had stationed near the doors. He walked all the way to the bridge, where Lynda was leading his team. Dix glared at him over the console. Anita straightened her shoulders, trying to look taller, which she often did when she was nervous.
Yash’s level gaze met his.
“I need you to send your best people into the sector base,” he said. “The anacapa is malfunctioning. It’s occasionally sending out streams of energy that are so strong they’re blowing through rock and opening holes on the surface. At least that’s what the woman is telling me.”
“It would explain the strange map we got of the facility once the sensors came back online,” Yash said.
“That’s what I thought,” Coop said. “I want you to check on this, of course, but it would explain a lot. It would also explain how we got here, whenever here is.”
Yash nodded. “A buildup of energy in the systems. I’ll put someone right on it.”
Coop nodded. “Dix, I’m going to need a team. At least a dozen soldiers, you, me, and Rossetti. I need them ready in half an hour.”
“Are we in some kind of trouble, sir?” Dix asked, suddenly formal.
“I’m not sure,” he said.
“The woman and her translator, are we holding them?” Dix asked.
Coop shook his head. “They’re going to take us to the surface. They just don’t know that yet.”
“You want a landcar ready, sir?” Dix asked. “We’re a long way underground, and the emergency lift doesn’t work.”
“I know,” Coop said. “But if the anacapa is malfunctioning badly, I’m not sure what added energy from our landcar would do. I’d rather not risk that at the moment. We’ll either use the woman’s transportation or we’ll walk.”
“Getting out—”
“Will be hard, I know,” Coop said. “We might have to come back for the car. But there are too many questions here, and I need them answered before we go any further.”
“What’s going on, sir?” Anita was having trouble remaining still. She wanted to be part of this as well.
“I’m not sure,” Coop said. “I’m hoping this woman is lying to me. Because if she’s not…”
He let his words trail off. He shook his head.
“If she’s not?” Lynda asked. They all needed to know.
“We’re in trouble,” Coop said. “And the situation we landed in is a real mess. Maybe the worse we’ve ever encountered.”
“Is it our business, sir?” Dix asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” Coop said. “But I’m terrified that it might be.”
“Terrified?” Anita asked, her voice trembling.
He looked at her. He realized he had never used that word, not once, in his entire command.
“Terrified,” he confirmed. Then he nodded once and left the bridge.
~ * ~
SIXTY-ONE
I sit there, my mouth open. The captain has just left. I’m not even sure what he’s understood, what he’s really been told.
Al-Nasir is sitting stiffly beside me. The lieutenant gets up. She sweeps a hand toward the food. We haven’t touched any of it.
I get up as well. I haven’t left the table since we started this discussion.
“What was the last thing you told him?” I ask as I reach for a pastry. It looks fresh and home baked, and I even recognize the form. Some things do move from culture to culture. “Did you tell him that the Empire would try to take his ship?”
She smiles at me distractedly. She takes a pastry, too, then waves a plate at Al-Nasir. He shakes his head once.
She sets her plate in front of her place, as if we’re at a formal dinner.
“No one can take this ship,” she says.
I frown. “We’ve found a lot of damaged Dignity Vessels.”
“You do not know if they were damaged by time or by someone else.”
“You have weapons scoring on the side of your ship.”
She blinks at me. For a moment, I think she’s going to pretend she doesn’t understand. Then I realize she’s listening to a link in her ear. Someone has confirmed the translation for her.
She nods. “They did not take our ship, did they?”
I set my plate down, then walk back to my seat. But I don’t sit. Instead, I take a sip of the wine. It’s strong, too strong for a business meeting. I set the glass aside, then go back to the sideboard for some water.
I am moving because it keeps me calm. I want to try the door, to see if Al-Nasir and I are prisoners here, but I do not. I said some alarming things to their captain. Perhaps he is checking on them. Perhaps he is consulting with their people. Perhaps he is checking the translations. I don’t know, but I’m going to give him a little time. Not a lot, but enough to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I hold up a pitcher, silently offering Al-Nasir some water. He nods. I pour him a glass as well, then give it to him. His hands are shaking.
“So what is going on here?” I ask the lieutenant.
“I’m not exactly sure,” she says.
“And if you were sure,” I say, “you wouldn’t tell me, right?”
“I do not know,” she says. “It would depend on my orders.”
She’s honest, at least.
I take a sip of my water, which has a filtered taste. I don’t try the pastry, not yet. I did sound melodramatic, telling him about the Empire. He has no way to confirm what I’ve said, either. It would sound as strange to me as the stories I heard about the Colonnade Wars when I was searching for information about one of their generals, years ago. Something that didn’t concern me, except in the way that it had just intersected with my life.
The door opens, and the captain comes back. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes radiant. He looks like a man who has come to some kind of decision.
I set the water glass down so that my hands don’t shake. I want to be prepared for anything.
His gaze meets mine, and he speaks with more animation than I’ve seen from him. The lieutenant translates.
“I’m sending a team to fix what you call the death holes. It shouldn’t take long. It’s a relatively common malfunction that we usually have safeguards for. Clearly all of the safeguards have failed.”
“Clearly,” I mutter. A common malfunction that kills a lot of people.
“What I need from you,” he says, “is guidance. I’m taking a team to the surface. I want you, Al-Nasir, the lieutenant, and I to accompany them. I need to see this Vaycehn myself.”
My breath catches. In my shock, I note that he actually said “Vaycehn” and pronounced it correctly.
Al-Nasir speaks before I do. He’s shaking his head as he does so, speaking in their language. I know what he’s saying. I walk ov
er to him and place my hand on his arm. The protest should come from me.
“Captain, if you go to the surface, you jeopardize my team, my work, and this room, as well as your ship.”
“You have told me that they do not know we’re down here,” he says.
“And suddenly a military force climbs out of the hole?” My voice rises. “They’ll know then.”
I make myself take a deep breath as the lieutenant translates my words. Before she finishes, I add, much more calmly, “Al-Nasir and I will take you and the lieutenant to the surface. We’ll leave two of our people here, and hope the guides don’t notice the difference. We’ll show you around, and you can see for yourself—”
The captain is shaking his head before the lieutenant even tries to translate. Either he understands what I’m saying or he knew I was going to protest and is prepared for it.
The lieutenant gamely tries to translate, but he talks over her.
“I am sorry,” he says, and this time, it’s Al-Nasir translating for me. “But I cannot rely just upon your word. I have problems of my own that the Fleet needs to know about. I need to know where and when I am. My ship is in no danger, and we will be fine.”
I start to protest when the lieutenant’s translation gets to “my ship is in no danger.”
I say, “You have no idea what the Empire can do.”
“If what you tell me is true,” he says, “then we have nothing to worry about from your Empire. My ship can take care of itself.”
I flush. What I’m telling him is true, and something I said made him leave. Not, then, that the Empire would try to take his ship. Something about stealth technology.
“What did I say earlier that caused this decision?” I ask.
He tilts his head slightly. I can see him thinking about how to answer me. He’s weighing a few options. Then his mouth tightens and he nods, as if he’s picked an option.
He says in Standard, his words so clear the translator is redundant. “Five thousand years.”
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