Kristine Rusch - City of Ruins

I put my hand on the door. “Same order as yesterday,” I say. Which means me first.

I pull the door open, and freeze.

The lights are on. We figured out how to shut them down just before we left yesterday. They were off. I’m as sure of that as I am of my own name.

“Okay,” I say softly, the mask moving gently against my lips and nose as I speak. “We could have a problem. Rea, DeVries, I need you with me. The rest of you can wait here if you want.”

I don’t wait for an answer. I pull my laser pistol and go in, heart pounding.

Someone has been here. The lights are on, the equipment is on all the way around the room, the various screens showing parts of space both familiar and unfamiliar.

One screen shows my science station back home. The station is empty, but through the glass viewing area on the far side of that room, I can see one of my scientists, taking readings.

I step all the way inside. Rea and DeVries follow me, laser pistols out. The two men are flanking me, as I taught them when they first came into the group, back at their very first tourist dive.

The other four come in as well, proper position, half a step behind each other, as if we’re a trained military unit. Without my telling them to, Quinte and Al-Nasir remain by the door, and they keep it open, making it easier for us to escape if we have to.

I glance at Rea and DeVries, then nod. We pointedly do not look at the screens, and we carefully examine the room from our stopped position.

I see no one, not out here, not with us.

But I have a hunch I’m not supposed to see anyone.

This is a message.

Someone is on board that Dignity Vessel—and they want me to know it.

Coop stood as the door to the repair room opened. Everyone on the bridge turned toward the screens. Even Dix looked up, and Dix hadn’t looked at much of anything in days.

The outsider woman stopped when she saw the lights. They glistened off her hair, a chestnut brown that surprised Coop. She wasn’t wearing a helmet, but she was wearing a mask of some kind over her mouth and nose. The particles worried her.

For some reason, that reassured him. These people weren’t that different after all.

As she looked at the lights, she drew her weapon—not that silly knife, which he couldn’t even see. From this distance, the weapon looked like some kind of laser pistol, but bulkier than he expected.

“Zoom in on that weapon,” Coop said to Anita. “See if we can figure out exactly what it is and does.”

“I don’t blame her for drawing it,” Perkins said. “She doesn’t know—”

“I don’t blame her either, Lieutenant,” Coop said. “Let’s just watch and figure out what they’re going to do.”

“Can’t I suit up?” Perkins asked.

He glanced at her. She had turned toward him, her back straight, her eyes glistening. She wanted to go into the repair room.

And she was right; she was the one who should go out there. He had said first-contact situation, which meant the linguists were in the main team, and Mae, his best linguist, wasn’t on rotation.

“Yes,” he said to Perkins. “I want you in your dress uniform.”

“Sir?” She sounded surprised.

“And no weapons,” he said.

“But they have them,” she said.

“And I would too in this circumstance, if I were them. But we have the upper hand here. So let’s use it.” He turned his attention back to the screen.

All seven had come into the repair room, and they were using a flanking maneuver he hadn’t seen since military training. Half of the woman’s team wore the same kind of mask she did. The rest still had on their helmets, which had to limit visibility.

They all carried those laser pistols, and the hands of at least three of the seven shook as they clutched the grip.

Great. Amateurs. Frightened amateurs.

This could get dangerous.

He almost rescinded the order to Perkins, thinking he didn’t want his people in the middle of a group of scared amateurs. Then he changed his mind. The amateurs would be scared no matter what, and then, if his people didn’t appear, they’d get emboldened.

He needed to retain this upper hand.

“Dix,” Coop said, “I need Rossetti up here now.”

“Yes, sir,” Dix said.

“You’re sending them out immediately?” Yash asked.

Perkins shot her an almost angry glance, then hurried off the bridge, as her absence would prevent him from changing his mind.

“No,” Coop said. “I’m going to give the outsiders an hour. They need to regroup, think a bit, calm down. We surprised them. The last thing we should do is surprise them again.”

“I think you should observe more,” Yash said.

“Duly noted,” Coop said, closing debate. “What are those weapons, Anita?”

“Laser pistols,” she said. “They have the right power signature, but they’re pretty unwieldy. I wouldn’t want to fire one.”

“I assume they’ll do a lot of damage if they hit someone?” he asked.

“Can’t tell without actually test-firing one. But that’s a safe assumption.”

He watched the outsiders, slowly exploring the room, clearly responding to commands. The woman kept glancing at one of the screens; it seemed to make her nervous.

They all made Coop nervous. The screens were all tied to ships within the sector, and showed what the ships saw. But, logically, there shouldn’t be any ships in the sector. They should have left decades ago with the Fleet.

The visual that disturbed him the most was the one the woman kept glancing at—three screens down, it looked as if he were looking at some kind of station, one he didn’t recognize.

Questions, questions, and more questions.

He hoped that once his people talked to the outsiders, he would finally start getting answers.

I know we’re being watched. I can feel it, even if I can’t see it. I’ve had the feeling from the beginning that we weren’t alone, and now I have confirmation of it.

Yet there’s no one visible in this gigantic room.

“Did we interrupt them?” Seager asks, her voice shaking. “Are they hiding from us?”

“Have you looked at that ship?” Quinte says. “Do you know how many people can be in that thing?”

The best guess of our own tech people is that the average Dignity Vessel held at least one hundred people, and possibly as many as a thousand. It depended on how many were needed to run the various ship’s systems, and how many people got crammed into the various rooms.

I have always doubted the thousand number. The rooms on the partially intact Dignity Vessels we found looked more like suites or apartments than single bunks. But who knew how these ships were used.

And really, we don’t know what they were used for.

What they are used for.

I look up at the side, exactly where the cockpit is on every single Dignity Vessel I’ve encountered. I stand in front of it for a long time, just to make sure that they’re all watching me.

And then I slowly, carefully, ostentatiously, holster my laser pistol.

“Boss! Don’t!” Rea says. “We have no idea if they’re hostile!”

“If they’re hostile, they would have lain in wait for us,” I say. “They observed us the last two times we were here. This time, they would have sent out a small crew, and blasted us away.”

At least that is what I would have done. If I felt threatened by people coming near my ship, and I thought those people were dangerous, I’d attack first and ask questions later.

I extend my hands, showing that they’re empty.

Come and see me, I’m trying to say. We’re harmless. Let’s talk.