“Stay back,” I say.
I stop just inside the door. It’s easy to see through that hole open to space. The hole where our probe is. I resist the urge to go to it and peer out.
Now I’m hearing the same soft harmonies I heard when I came here with Karl. They’re soothing instead of distracting.
“Someone’s been working in here, haven’t they?” Odette says.
“Yeah,” I say.
“Where’s the field?” she asks, even though I told her before we came. She and Hurst both studied the maps with me.
“Over there.” I point. “You stay as far from that part of the cockpit as you can.”
“I’m not going any deeper,” she says.
But she’s looking. So am I.
After a moment, she says, “I think the best place to put the explosive is on the floor.”
I glance at her.
“In the exact center of the room,” she says. “Then we can be sure to get the maximum effect inside the ship.”
I had envisioned putting it on the walls I had investigated with Karl. But I think that Odette has made a good point.
“All right,” I say.
She has gotten me moving. I would have hovered longer, thinking about the past.
Getting lost in it, like Karl was afraid I would do in the Room.
You’ll be looking for your mother. You know you will, he said, and you won’t be focused on the small but necessary details. I will.
He had been right. I had just looked for Junior.
Part of me can feel Karl here.
Because the cockpit, without its furniture and debris, reminds me of the Room.
That thought makes me move faster. I pick a spot in the exact center of the floor, away from the broken areas. I remove the bomb from the packet and attach it, just like Odette showed me how to do.
It seems ridiculously easy. Just like the bomb seems ridiculously small to cause such extreme damage. It’s not much bigger than my laser pistol.
I set it down. “Okay,” I say. “Remind me again how to activate this thing.”
She does. She’s the one who programmed it. She gave us forty-five minutes to clear the area—which is the very minimum we could come up with.
I move slowly, repeating everything she says, touching each part of the device as I activate it.
Which I do.
It snaps into place and seems to sink into the floor.
“Is that normal?” I ask.
“That’s what it’s supposed to do,” she says.
One small blue light appears on the top edge. That’s the only indication that the explosive is armed.
“All right,” I say. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
~ * ~
THIRTY-NINE
We do. We get the hell out of there.
We move faster than we probably should. I don’t monitor my heart rate or my breathing. Both are elevated.
I probably have the gids.
I don’t care.
We reach the hatch and we climb. Odette stays with me. Halfway up, she removes one of her breathers and adds it to her suit. So clearly she’s been breathing too hard too.
We’re both nervous, which isn’t a good thing.
But we’re almost done.
I reach the top first. I ease myself out and down to the tether. I’m about to contact Hurst when something stops me. I turn and look at the skip.
It’s dwarfed by a ship I’ve never seen before. The ship is the size of the Business, but it isn’t the Business. It has Enterran Empire logos and the military’s red, square symbol along the side.
Apparently, this is the command ship that Mikk had seen. It has returned.
And it’s grappled onto the skip.
It could have taken the skip inside one of its cargo bays, but hasn’t, probably because of the tether.
Odette pulls herself out. I hear a crackle in my helmet. She’s about to say something.
I extend my hand in front of her in an attempt to silence her. She looks at me questioningly, and again the weird material of her helmet reflects the lights of the ships. I can’t see her face.
I hold my gloved index finger up. She looks up, but she doesn’t say anything. So I point at the skip.
She lets out a breath of air, which I can hear through our comm system.
If someone is paying attention, they can hear it too.
What I’m hoping is that they’ve lost track of us, that Hurst is trying to talk with them or deal with them or fight with them.
If he is, and they’re not paying attention to us, then we have an advantage.
If they’ve already captured him and are watching the Dignity Vessel, then they’ve seen us and are prepared for us.
Either way, we have no choice. We have to get back to the skip and get out of here.
The fact that they’re waiting for us is a good sign. I told Hurst to leave if it looked like trouble was coming—unless we were just about to come out of the Dignity Vessel.
If he followed orders—always a big “if’ with divers who aren’t actually diving—then the command vessel has only been there for a few minutes.
I test the tether. It’s holding just fine.
I nod at Odette, and together we pull our way to the skip. We move quicker than we moved going to the Dignity Vessel.
As we travel, I stare at the new ship. It doesn’t look like the older models of command ships. I’ve dived the wrecks of several, and they all seem to be based on the same design.
Up front are weapons, in the back, extra thrusters. Some have life pods scattered throughout. Newer models have replaced many of the life pods with more weapons bays. Along the bottom of the ship are bay doors for smaller ships—about the size of the skip—to exit and also battle.
This command vessel seems small. I don’t see all the weapons bays and there are only two bay doors for ships. There’s a strange line in the middle of the command vessel and a marking that I’ve never seen before.
As we get to the skip’s airlock, I wait for Odette. She arrives a half second behind me. I hope she follows my lead.
I’m going to release the tether and climb into the airlock in the same movement. She has to get out of the way or the tether will hit her as it comes back to the skip.
I’m doing this so that the skip only shakes once. They might think we’re still outside. You should always put the tether back before getting into the airlock. No one will expect me to do both at the same time.
I shove Odette behind me and point to the airlock. She nods. I wish I can see her face more clearly; I get the sense that I’ve surprised her.
I don’t care. We need to move quickly. I reach for the airlock opener. She points to the tether.
It’s my turn to nod. I point at the airlock, give her a slight shove, and then turn to the tether. I hit the airlock release and the tether’s release at the same time.
Theoretically, two divers can get inside an airlock in the time it takes a tether to release itself and wind back into its holder. I’ve done it before, but it takes coordination and luck.
Odette makes a slight squeak—one I hope no one heard in the command vessel or the skip’s cockpit—and scrambles to get inside the airlock.
I follow.
The airlock’s outer door is closing just as the tether bangs into the skip.
Then I turn toward the interior door. I pull my laser pistol. It feels heavy in my hand. The gravity has come on inside the airlock, which means that the environment is almost on full.
Odette has her laser pistol drawn as well.
My heart is pounding all over again, and my breath is coming hard. A warning light goes on in the corner of my helmet: I am consuming oxygen at twice the normal rate.
The interior door opens.
I step in—and am greeted by three people I do not know, holding laser pistols on me. A large woman with dark hair has her arm around Hurst’s stomach and another laser pistol pointed at his head.
>
“Put down your weapons,” she says.
I don’t even have to think about it. I do. Odette does as well.
“Good,” the woman says. “Now step all the way inside.”
I do that as well. “Can I get out of my helmet?” I ask. I don’t want to tell her that my oxygen is running low.
She shrugs. “It’s your skip.”
I take off my helmet. My face cools. I realize my hair is wet. I’m covered in sweat.
The woman is not wearing a uniform. Neither are her companions. They’re both men. One is thin and wiry, but looks flabby somehow. Had I seen him closely before I got out of the airlock, I might have tried to take him. But all I saw were the weapons.
The other man is beefy and his face is ruddy. Had I met him on Longbow Station, I would have thought him a drinker, someone I didn’t have to take too seriously.
Whatever I expected, it was not this.
“What do you want?” I ask, playing dumb.
“What were you doing on the Dignity Vessel?” she asks.
Hurst’s eyes are wide. He’s trying to signal to me. I’m not sure what he wants me to say, but I know what I’m going to say.
“Let my friend go,” I say.
“Answer me first,” the woman says.
I shake my head. I have nothing to lose. I’m going to gamble all of their lives, but they don’t know that.
“Let him go,” I say, “and I’ll tell you everything.”
“She’s stubborn,” says a voice from the galley. “Let him go.”
The woman pushes Hurst at me. He trips, catches me, and grabs my hand. Something solid hits my glove. It’s all I can do not to look at him in surprise.
He has given me something, and I think I know what it is.
“You’ve hurt him,” I say, to cover up my surprise.
“We just held him until you came back,” the woman says. “We didn’t want to give you warning.”
“Warning of what?”
A man steps out of the galley, bending at the waist so that he doesn’t hit his head. He doesn’t need to stand up for me to know who he is.
It’s my father.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I snap.
“I missed you too,” he says. “You do realize you were diving my wreck?”
He looks healthier than he did when I saw him at his home. A little thinner, and in better shape. It takes me a minute to realize he’s the one who put up all the signs, who left the cockpit door open and cleaned out the debris.
He’s the one who has been working inside the Dignity Vessel.
“I haven’t been diving your wreck,” I say. “I came here to destroy it.”
“Well, now you see that you can’t. It’s military property—”
“We have to get out of here,” I say, “because I’ve already done my damage.”
He stops, recognizing something in my tone. “You don’t destroy things,” he says.
“I do if they’re dangerous,” I say.
“The wreck isn’t dangerous. We keep it guarded, although I was a bit worried when we got back and found our ships were gone.”
“You need to be gone, too. We have—” I glance at my watch. We got out in record time. “—fifteen minutes to get clear.”
“Clear of what?” he asks, just like I want him to.
“Clear of the explosion,” I say.
“You would need something massive to destroy that Dignity Vessel,” says one of the men. “Two little things like you can’t carry something like that.”
“Anyone want to explain gravity to this man?” I ask, still staring at my father.
He knows I’m serious.
“Get your device out of there,” he says.
“I would if I could,” I say. “But it took us ten minutes to get to the cockpit, and that was after we were fully suited. Neither Odette nor I have enough oxygen to go back. Even if we did, we wouldn’t get there in time. And …”
I let the word trail before I smile sweetly at him.
“… I don’t know how to disable the bomb.”
He curses and turns away from me. Then he looks at the woman. “We have to get out of here.”
“She’s bluffing,” the woman says.
“My daughter doesn’t bluff,” he says.
“There’s no reason to get out of here,” she says. “We’ve got shields. An explosion won’t hurt us.”
My father glares at her. I had forgotten that look. It is filled with contempt. “We’re pretty sure that ancient stealth tech creates a dimensional rift. I have no idea if exploding the ship will close the rift or open it wider. Do you want to be here to find out?”
The woman’s cheeks turn bright red. “We can’t get out of here with the skip grappled on.”
“Then put it in the bay,” he says. “But get us out of here.”
“It takes two pilots to put a skip in the bay,” the woman says. “I’ve never flown anything this small—”
“I’ll do it,” Hurst says with a little more panic in his voice than I like. Apparently, he doesn’t want to die for this mission.
“We can’t trust you,” the woman says.
“Then let go of the skip,” I say. “Get your people out of here. We’ll be just fine.”
“We’re not doing that,” my father says. “Get this skip into the bay. Warn the other ships to stay away from here. If she is bluffing, we’ll know within the hour.”
The woman doesn’t have to be told twice. She goes back through the galley. Apparently the grapple attached to our emergency doors. It also must have an oxygen-filled corridor which allowed them to travel over here.
I’ve heard of grapplers that sophisticated, but I’ve never seen one. Apparently, I will see one now.
“Get out of the suit,” my father says to me. “We have some business to attend to.”
I don’t move. Everyone is looking at me. Odette takes off her helmet. her face is covered in sweat, but she seems fine otherwise.
“I said, gel out of the suit,” my father says.
“I don’t wear anything under my suit,” I say. “Either it stays on or you will have to give me some privacy so that I can change clothes.”
His eyes narrow. He glances at the others. One of the men is trying not to smile.
My father’s look of exasperation grows. “All right then,” he says. “Come with me. Your friends can stay here.”
“Sorry,” I say to Odette and Hurst. Then I follow my father through the galley and to the emergency doors.
They’re open. I can see the grappler just beyond—a black corridor, devoid of any decoration at all. It’s just a functional space that expands so people can go back and forth between two ships docked together.
My father steps inside. I follow.
“Don’t try anything,” he says.
I’m tempted. So far, he hasn’t noticed the knife. It wouldn’t take much to stab him, run ahead, use the emergency controls on the grappler, and set the skip free.
But I can’t quite bring myself to kill him. Not here, not like this.
“We have to close the doors,” I say, waving my left hand at the open emergency doors between the skip and the grappler. “We can’t separate these things otherwise.”
I keep my right hand at my side. I’m still holding Squishy’s device. My father hasn’t noticed that either.
“Well, do it,” he says.
I turn slightly. “You don’t know how, do you?”
“I usually have people for that.” His comment reminds me of my first meeting with Riya Trekov and her tone about her people. That should have warned me away then—I’d even made note of it—and it hadn’t.
If I had walked away then, things would be quite different now.
“I can’t do it alone,” I say. “I need your help.”
He gives me an odd look, as if he had expected more of me, then follows me back to the door. I grab one edge with my left hand, bracing my right against the doorfram
e. I don’t lean my right on the frame; I just make it look like I’m using my hand.
He grabs the doors too, and together we tug. The doors slide closed, and I step back.
We’re alone in the grappler.
He gives me that measuring look again—I’m not sure why—and heads to the door of his ship.
I follow. We’re moving faster now. When we get inside, he hits some kind of release, and those doors close as well.
Then he taps a communicator on his sleeve and says, “We’re in.”
I hear a squeal as the machinery starts. This ship isn’t as high tech as I thought. The grappler begins its procedure to disengage.
I resist the urge the glance at my watch. We don’t have much time left.
“Follow me,” my father says.
That I do follow him without question says less about his hold over me than it does about my curiosity. I want to know what he’s doing here. His presence bothers me a lot. He’s not a scientist—or he wasn’t when I was a child, but he’s lived a lifetime since then. Who knows what he’s picked up? Who knows who he has with him, and what they’ve done?
The grappler slides into place, shaking this ship just a little. I hope the skip is inside the bay now.
I follow my father down a corridor so wide it seems like a room, particularly after that small tunnel through the grappler.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I told you,” he says. “I’m diving the wreck.”
“You aren’t a diver,” I say, even though I know I’m wrong. He’s not a diver like I am, but he knows how to dive. I have a hunch he’s dived the Room. I know he can work in an environmental suit. He rescued me from outside the Room while wearing one.
He doesn’t respond to that. Instead he turns and stops in front of large double doors. A green light went on above his head. He taps the edge of one of the doors, and the door becomes clear. Inside sits the skip.
My people have arrived.
“I want to talk to them,” I say.
“Later,” he says. “Don’t you want to see your ship blow up?”
For a moment, I think he means the Business. Then I realize he’s referring to the Dignity Vessel. I’m not sure if the contempt in his tone comes from the fact that I found the vessel or from the fact that he still might not believe me about the bomb.
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