The Renegat hadn’t disappeared.
It had left them.
All of them.
His mouth opened, and he had to work to close it. Had the anacapa drive caused this on its own? He’d never heard of that, but that golden color wasn’t quite normal—not for modern anacapa drives.
“We’re going to have to get them back,” Crowe said. “If we can figure out where they went. We’re going to have to—”
Tosidis put a hand on Crowe’s arm, and shook his head. “No.”
Tosidis didn’t understand. There were 199 people on that ship, people Crowe was responsible for. He wasn’t going to add 199 deaths on his shoulders. Not on top of the fifty.
Not on top of Preemas, and the others.
“We have to figure this out,” Crowe said. “They’re not equipped to handle this kind of emergency. They—”
“It’s not an emergency,” Tosidis said. “At least for them.”
Crowe frowned.
Tosidis looked up and nodded at someone behind Crowe. Crowe half-turned and saw Colvin standing near a communications console, rubbing her hands over her biceps as if she were trying to stay warm.
“Play it,” Tosidis said.
She nodded, then reached forward.
Yusef Kabac appeared, larger than life-size, a grin making his stupid beard look like it had grown outward several inches.
“We’re heading back,” Kabac said. “We don’t want to stay here, and you’re going to make us. No one on this ship now will be court-martialed. We’ll be fine.”
And then Kabac vanished.
Crowe shook his head slightly. Kabac, the only person Crowe had left on that ship who knew how to work the anacapa controls.
Kabac, delusional as always.
Kabac, who had no idea what he had just gotten them all into.
If Crowe had known that Kabac wanted to try something like this, Crowe would have…
He had no idea. He couldn’t have brought Kabac here. Crowe hadn’t wanted Kabac to screw up this test.
And yet, Kabac had done that.
“That’s it?” Crowe asked. “That’s the entire message?”
“Yeah,” Colvin said, her voice shaking. “Now what do we do?”
Crowe frowned. Then he looked at the emptiness where the Renegat had been.
They could do a search and rescue on the Renegat, try to recreate the trip that the Renegat had chosen to take—if Kabac followed predictable coordinates.
If the Renegat didn’t get lost in foldspace.
If, if, if.
Crowe ran a hand over his face.
They had more pressing problems than finding the Renegat. There was enough food on board to last maybe a month, not counting whatever the normal supplies were in Orbiter One. If they rationed the supplies.
But this ship worked. It was, in many ways, better than the Renegat could ever be.
And the dead weight of the badly chosen crew had just disappeared, leaving Crowe with all of the competent people remaining on the Renegat.
That joy he had felt a moment earlier had returned.
He was free. Free of the Fleet. Free of the strictures that had prevented him from being the kind of man he had wanted to be. The kind of leader he wanted to be.
“What are we going to do?” Crowe repeated.
Colvin nodded. Tosidis shifted slightly, nerves evident.
“We’re going to make this an opportunity,” Crowe said.
“What?” Colvin asked.
“We’ve got ships,” Crowe said. “We have tech. We need to figure out how to find food, but we can do that.”
“And then what?” This time, it was Tosidis.
“And then we build.” Crowe was thinking on the fly, but as he did, he realized he’d been contemplating this ever since he found the Ready Vessels.
“Build what?” Colvin asked.
Crowe grinned. He couldn’t help it. Kabac and company had just given him the gift of a lifetime, and they hadn’t even realized it.
“Our own Fleet,” Crowe said. “We build our own Fleet.”
Just the way they wanted it. Without the baggage and the rules. With a mission all sixty of them could agree on.
He felt giddy, and ready to work, all at the same time.
He was finally going to captain his own ship.
And he would do it right.
Colvin and Tosidis were looking at him like he was crazy. And maybe he was.
They needed more than a future vision. They needed what to do next.
“First things first,” Crowe said. “We let the others know. Then we assess our supplies. And then, we look at those maps that we have, and find a culture that’ll provide us with some food.”
“You already have this figured out,” Tosidis said in surprise.
“No,” Crowe said. “It’s just logic.”
But it was more than that. Captains didn’t panic. Captains dealt with the situations they found themselves in.
Captains saved their crews.
Captains built.
And that was exactly what Crowe was going to do.
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Also by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Diving Series (Reading Order)
Diving into the Wreck: A Diving Novel
The Application of Hope: A Diving Universe Novella
Becalmed: A Diving Universe Novella
City of Ruins: A Diving Novel
Boneyards: A Diving Novel
Skirmishes: A Diving Novel
The Falls: A Diving Universe Novel
The Runabout: A Diving Novel
Searching for the Fleet: A Diving Novel
The Renegat: A Diving Universe Novel
* * *
The Spires of Denon: A Diving Universe Novella
The Retrieval Artist Universe
The Disappeared
Extremes
Consequences
Buried Deep
Paloma
Recovery Man
The Recovery Man’s Bargain
Duplicate Effort
The Possession of Paavo Deshin
Anniversary Day
Blowback
A Murder of Clones
Search & Recovery
The Peyti Crisis
Vigilantes
Starbase Human
Masterminds
The Impossibles
The Retrieval Artist
About the Author
New York Times bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo, Le Prix Imaginales, the Asimov’s Readers Choice award, and the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine Readers Choice Award.
Publications from The Chicago Tribune to Booklist have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novel
s in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award.
She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson.
She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series Fiction River, published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own.
To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com and sign up for her newsletter. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com, pulphouse.com).
kriswrites.com
The Renegat
Copyright © 2019 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
All rights reserved
Published 2019 by WMG Publishing
Parts of this novel appeared in different form as the novellas The Rescue of the Renegat (Asimov’s, January/February 2018) and Joyride, (Asimov’s, November/December 2018)
Cover and layout copyright © 2019 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Philcold
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This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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