Which explained the backward technology and the clear lack of knowledge the outsiders had about the sector base.
They had seemed terrified by the ship, which no descendants of the Fleet would have been. Of course, any descendants of the Fleet would have understood that the base was designed to keep the ships running, and would have expected an occasional ship to drop in, seemingly out of nowhere.
Anita was sitting on the raised seat in front of her console. She rested her chin on one closed fist as she went through the navigational data, making sure they had arrived at the same place they had left from.
Her eyes looked sunken into her face.
Coop had already sent one member of the bridge crew away because of exhaustion. He needed to send this group away as well. They’d been working for twenty-four hours straight.
They were his best team, but that meant they were the best of the best. The other teams were equally good, just not as experienced.
He needed clear thinking—not just from them, but from himself as well.
He sank into his own chair and contacted his second officer, Lynda Rooney. “Bring your team to the bridge for a briefing,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” She sounded crisp and formal through the communications system.
Of course she did. He never gave orders like that. Usually he told her what time her crew needed to relieve his. This time, he had put her off, telling her to keep her crew rested.
Secretly, he had hoped they would come on once he solved everything, and have their usual day.
But, he suspected, usual days were a thing of the past.
“We haven’t finished digesting all of this information,” Dix said as soon as Lynda signed off.
“I know,” Coop said. “But staying here won’t help.”
“I’d like to stay until we know what’s going on,” Yash said.
Even Anita was sitting up. “I’m glad they’re coming,” she said. “We’re going to need fresh eyes on this. It’ll help us figure out what’s going on.”
“We’re going to stand down for a few hours,” Coop said.
“Forgive me, sir,” Dix said, “but I’d like to stay. We have a mystery here—”
“And we’re not going to solve it immediately,” Coop said.
“What happens when the outsiders return?” Yash asked.
“We’ll observe them,” Coop said.
“Or the second team will,” Anita said, and she didn’t sound worried about that, not the way Yash and Dix did.
“Or the second team will,” Coop agreed. “We are going to treat this place as if we don’t know it and it’s potentially hostile. We’re going to follow first-contact procedures.”
“But we do know this place,” Yash said.
“Do we?” Coop asked. “It doesn’t look familiar.”
“Our people built it,” Dix said.
“They did,” Coop said. “But where are they? What’s happened to them? We don’t know any of that, and we can’t make assumptions, no matter how tempting it is.”
Assumptions had gotten the entire Fleet in trouble on Ukhanda. He suppressed a sigh. The Fleet’s diplomats had completely misunderstood the situation between the Xenth and the Quurzod. He had only just figured it out, but he figured it out in foldspace.
He couldn’t go back to Ukhanda and let the Fleet know about their mistake.
At least not yet.
Not that he could do anything about it here. The best thing he could do here was proceed with caution, finish the repairs of the Ivoire, and head back to the Fleet, letting them know exactly what had gone wrong when his linguistic and diplomatic team embedded with the Quurzod.
“You think this is a long-term mission, don’t you?” Anita asked him.
He looked at her. She sat up straight, one hand on her console as if she were bracing herself for his news.
“I think we have to operate as if it is,” he said. “Unless you people think there’s a reason for haste . . . ?”
Dix glanced at his console as if the information were written there. Yash sighed.
“We’re stuck here until repairs are done,” she said. “So whether we handle this like a first-contact situation or not, it won’t make any difference as to timing. I don’t think we’ll have repairs done in less than two weeks with help. And since the base seems devoid of crew, I don’t think we’re going to get that help. So double the time.”
“In other words,” Coop said. “We can go on regular rotations, and get the proper amount of sleep.”
None of the crew looked relieved by this. But Dix nodded, as if he understood.
Coop wished he did. But he had a hunch understanding would be a long time coming.
And he had to accept that.
* * * *
TWENTY-THREE
O
kay,” I say. “We’re going to get out of here very carefully.”
We’re standing behind the stealth field, where everything is normal. If you can call being many meters underground in corridors lined with a strange black substance normal. Ahead of us lay the corridor we had come through to get to the room, only now that corridor is littered with debris.
Debris that Quinte and Al-Nasir tell me has come from the walls, but the walls themselves now look the same as the walls inside the stealth field. If I hadn’t seen it without the debris a few hours before, I never would have believed that the debris had fallen off the walls.
I cross the invisible line, and then I stop and crouch, examining the rocks. They’re jagged, the breaks obvious and, to my untrained eye, fresh.
I carefully pick one up. It’s heavy. It also has no black material on any parts of its exterior. Some of that might be because it had broken away from an area behind the black material.
But I look at the other rocks littering the floor, and I see no black material on them either.
I want to know why. I’m back in diving mode. In diving mode I learn everything I can about everything I see. I absorb information. I question everything.
But I also know I can’t get immediate answers. I collect information like some people collect toys.
I can’t slow us down too much, however. I don’t know what caused this debris field, even though I have a hunch, and because I don’t know, I need to get my team out of here. We have no food and not enough supplies. We can’t get trapped down here. For once, I didn’t prepare for an emergency, and it is all my fault.
I’m inexperienced underground, and even though the archeologists had talked about how dangerous their work could be, I hadn’t really taken them seriously.
Just like Mikk.
My heart twists at the thought of him. Have I killed another of my valued team members?
I make myself take a deep breath, then I turn to the team.
“Anyone have experience with this kind of thing?” I ask.
None of them move. It’s as if movement would commit them to something difficult, something they’re not prepared for.
“We figured you’d know how to get us out,” Al-Nasir says, and this time his voice is the one that quavers.
“I have ideas,” I say. “I’m just used to disastrous wrecks and debris in space, not debris on the ground.”
And then, because they still haven’t moved, and because they expect me to be upbeat and to get them out and to let them know they’ll survive, I add, “This is a lot safer than it is in zero gravity. There we’d have to watch for floating debris. Here we just have to be careful about what’s below us.”
“Unless whatever caused this happens again,” Quinte says.
“I think it was the ship,” Rea says, his voice soft.
“We don’t know that,” Kersting says.
“We don’t know anything except how to get out of here,” I say. “And we’re going to do that very carefully.”
I wait until they’re all looking at me—or until it seems like they’re all looking at me. I can’t see behind all of the faceplates, but their heads are turn
ed toward me.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” I say. “I’m going to go first. Orlando, you’re going to be last. The rest of you, I don’t care what order you’re in, but I do want you all to record our trip. We’ll get different information because we’ll be focusing on different things, and that’ll be useful once we get out.”
“If we get out,” Seager mutters.
I turn to her. I wish I can see her face through the helmet, but I can’t. I want to make eye contact.
Actually, I want to shake her, but I know that’s not productive at all.
“We are going to get out,” I say. “I’ve been in much worse situations by myself with no backup at all. We’ll be fine if you listen to me and do exactly what I tell you.”
“Okay,” she says, but doesn’t sound like she agrees.
“All right,” I say, as if she is enthusiastic. “You will step where I step. You will touch what I touch. We’re going to assume those rock piles are unstable. We’re not going to disturb them. We’re not going to step on them unless we can’t get by any other way. We’re not going to touch the debris on the floor. Is that clear?”
“You think the stuff on the floor could harm us?” Kersting asks.
“If we step on it wrong, yes, I do,” I say. “I don’t want broken legs or twisted ankles. I don’t want any of us to bring rock piles down on us. We’re going to proceed slowly. No crowding, no pushing, no panicking. If you feel yourself panicking, you will take a deep breath, silently count to ten, and release it. You will do that five times before you speak again. Is that clear?”
“And what if one of us sees something wrong?” Rea asks.
At least he’s not asking out of fear. He’s asking because he knows that despite our best intentions, someone might dislodge something and we’d lose half the group to a rock fall.
“Speak up immediately and calmly,” I say. “Calmly is as important as quickly. Got that?”
They nod.
“Okay. If you see a problem beginning or if you’re having trouble, say ‘Boss, stop please.’ I will stop immediately.”
I pause until they nod again.
“All right then,” I say, realizing I’m repeating that phrase “all right” as if I’m trying to reassure myself.
Maybe I am. I want to shut off the gravity. I want to float around the debris. I want to travel closer to the ceiling of the corridor because the debris piles are bigger at ground level. If we were able to travel along the ceiling, we’d be able to get out a lot quicker—and with almost no trouble at all, at least as far as I can see down this corridor.
“Orlando,” I say to Rea, “you and I will have our suit lights on. The rest of you will not. Orlando, you’ll train yours upward. Mine will focus downward for obvious reasons. If any of you lose sight of me or need to slow down, ask me to stop. We stay in communication at all times.”
On a beginner’s dive that has gone wrong, this is where I’d extend a tether. We’d clip to it and travel slowly, one hand over the other, until we reach our destination.
But a tether won’t work here. In fact, a tether would be counterproductive.
So much of my training is counterproductive.
I take a deep breath.
“Ready?” I say, more to myself than to them. “Here we go.”
* * * *
TWENTY-FOUR
C
oop sat in the conference room with Lynda Rooney. Lynda was a big-^^ boned woman, raised planetside like Yash, but with more experience on a bridge than Coop had. A screw-up early in Lynda’s career had derailed her climb upward for nearly ten years, but she was back on track, and now, more than ever, he was glad she was on the Ivoire, glad she was going to take command.
Much as he respected Dix, much as Dix deserved first officer status, when it came to running the bridge in his absence, Coop secretly preferred Lynda.
She sat across from him. The huge table, designed to handle twenty or more, seemed even larger than usual. He opened the wall screens here, too, so that he could monitor the exterior.
So far, the outsiders had not returned. That relieved him somewhat. He knew now that they didn’t have extra teams, at least not extra teams on the ready. He suspected—he hoped—he would have time to work whenever the outsiders were not around.
He had briefed Lynda on everything that had happened since the Ivoire landed. Dix was briefing her bridge crew. Normally Coop would have briefed everyone together, but he needed to talk to someone who was fresh, someone rested, someone who was thinking clearly.
“I’m sending my team to get eight hours of sleep,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll be effective if we stay on the bridge much longer, at least in this situation.”
In a fight, in something harrowing, with the adrenaline flowing, he had no trouble keeping the bridge crew on for thirty-six hours straight as he staggered the sleep schedules. But he felt that inappropriate here.
Lynda did not say anything, but he hadn’t asked her to. Not yet. She watched him, her face impassive, as she waited to find out what he really needed.
“I’m hesitant to do anything that might alert the outsiders to our presence,” he said. He’d already explained to her that he believed the outsiders did not know whether or not the ship was manned. “I want to study them more. I also want to know what those particles are. We have a lot of data to sift through.”
“Not to mention the ongoing repairs,” she said softly.
He rubbed a hand over his face. He was tired. He was not as sharp as usual. “We definitely need the repairs,” he said. “We might need to get out of here quickly.”
“So I’m to keep my crew sifting through the information, facilitating repairs, and monitoring the sector base.”
“Yes,” he said, glad that his implied instructions were clear. “I also want you to continue trying to hail someone on the surface. See if you can contact the Fleet as well. Maybe someone is closer than we think.”
Her expression wavered just a little. She didn’t believe anyone was nearby. But she was a good officer. She said simply, “Yes, sir.”
“Finally,” he said, “the minute the outsiders return, you summon me.”
“Even if it’s only twenty minutes from now?” she asked. “Because we can monitor them just fine.”
“I know that,” he said. “That’s why I don’t want you to alert my team. But I want to know what these outsiders are up to, and until I have them figured out, I want to be on the bridge when they’re in the room.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
He was silent for a minute, gathering his own thoughts. He had called her in here to discuss possible scenarios, but now that she sat across from him, her hand resting lightly on the table, he worried that he would sound overly dramatic.
He sighed.
“I’m not sure what’s going on here,” he said. “But between us, I think something terrible happened to Venice City.”
“I’m inclined to agree, sir.” She sounded almost relieved that he had said that.
“We might have to leave immediately,” he said. “So repairs are the top priority, especially to the anacapa drive.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Secondarily, I need you to get a team making sure our weapons system is fully functional.”
“Sir?” She looked surprised at that. “We can’t use most of our weapons down here.”
“I know that,” he said a little more sharply than he needed to. “But we might not want to be cautious, if you understand my meaning.”
“You think we might have to blast our way out?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I want to be prepared for all contingencies. We need to figure out which weapons would be best to carve a hole to the surface if that’s what we need.”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“I don’t want the bridge crew to overhear that instruction,” he said. “Just like I don’t want them focusing on the anacapa drive. We have engineers. Let them work.”
“Yes,” he said. “Plus we need the best assessment your team can put together as to what has happened here. We need to do whatever we can from inside the ship. I don’t want anyone leaving the ship unless I order it. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
City of Ruins - [Diving Universe 02] Page 14