Kristine Rusch - City of Ruins

“The captain’s got a powerful ship, and he assures me they’ve fixed it. So I’m going to trust him. Think of it this way: I get to ride in a working Dignity Vessel.”

They all smile at that.

“Now get the hell out of here,” I say.

I actually give DeVries a little shove. Rea doesn’t have to be told twice. He pulls open the door and hurries through it. Quinte and Seager take off at a run. Kersting gives me a haunted look, then jogs out.

“Go,” I say to Al-Nasir.

“No,” he says.

We stand at the door and watch them run until we can’t see them anymore. I wish the captain had given us five hours. I wish he wasn’t going to the surface at all.

I hope to hell the Vaycehnese government doesn’t notice that we’re leaving like scared rabbits.

I hope to hell no one says a word to the Empire.

But I have a hunch my hopes are just that: hopes, and nothing more.

Coop’s land team was gathering near the doors, but Coop was still on the bridge, making final plans. He wished he hadn’t given the woman two hours. He should have stuck with one hour, but he hadn’t.

Still, she’d been incredibly panicked when she heard they only had two hours. She’d fairly flown off the ship, and her people had vanished instantly. She’d stayed, however. She didn’t come back inside the ship, choosing to wait and watch one of the teams fix the anacapa inside the base itself.

Al-Nasir had stayed with her. Coop was a bit surprised at that. He had worried that all of her people would leave. The fact that they didn’t led credence to her story—credence he wasn’t sure he wanted.

Dix was already below, preparing. Lynda was in the captain’s chair.

Coop signaled Yash. She had been monitoring the anacapa repairs from her station. She left it reluctantly.

“If this woman is right,” he said without preamble, “we might have to leave here quickly. We’re not going to be able to use the regular drive.”

The regular drive worked like any other ship’s drive. The Ivoire had left the sector base using the regular drive a little over a month before. The technicians inside the base had opened the base’s roof, and the Ivoire had floated out.

Even if the roof opening was working—and there was no guarantee that it was—Coop didn’t have a good map of Vaycehn. For all he knew, opening the roof would destroy entire neighborhoods and kill countless people.

“Given the problems with the base’s anacapa ,” he said to Yash, “can we safely use ours?”

Yash frowned. “How soon?”

“Maybe later this afternoon,” he said.

“If we manage to finish the repairs to the base’s anacapa,” she said. “If the problem is as simple as we both think—and so far, my team has no reason to doubt that—then we should be able to activate our anacapa without any risk to anyone.”

“Not even us?” Coop asked softly. “We’re not going to be sent through the wrong fold in space again?”

“I’m not sure we went through the wrong fold in space this time,” Yash said. “But whatever malfunction brought us here shouldn’t repeat. We fixed our anacapa. I think it was both anacapa drives, malfunctioning in tandem, that caused the bulk of the problem.”

“You think or you hope?” Coop asked.

“I think,” she said, but she sounded doubtful. “I can go out there and help with the repairs.”

“Will it speed them along?” Coop asked.

She grinned like a kid who had gotten caught. Like everyone else, she wanted off the ship, even for a short time. “Probably not.”

He smiled. “Then you know what I’m going to say. We need you here.”

“We need you here, too,” she said. “It’s foolish for you to go to the surface. Dix and Rossetti can do just fine.”

“I know,” he said softly. “But I have to see this. I can’t work off supposition any longer.”

“You don’t trust your team?”

“Of course I do,” he said. “But if this woman is right…”

He let his voice trail off. He didn’t want to give voice to his thoughts. If the woman was right, then his life would never be the same. None of their lives would. And he would have to lead his people through this without too many breakdowns, without too much despair.

He needed to know first, not last. He needed to be prepared.

“Just make sure everything is functioning,” he said to Yash.

“It won’t be,” she said. “We still have a lot of work to do.”

“But not on the anacapa ,” he said.

“Not on our anacapa, no,” she said. “I hope we don’t have a lot to do on the base’s either. But some of the secondary systems on the Ivoire still need work.”

“We can do that in space if we have to,” Coop said. “We do need the weapons systems online, however.”

She looked at him sharply. “You think we’ll need weapons?”

“We might,” he said. “I’m not sure what we’re facing.”

“Good God,” she said.

“I want all of the weapons working,” he said. “Even the minor ones. Especially the minor ones.”

Her face had paled. “You think we might do some shooting down here.”

“I doubt it,” he said, “but I want to be prepared for all possibilities.”

She put her hand on his arm. “Let the others go up there, Coop. It sounds more and more like this trip is completely inadvisable.”

He studied her for a moment. She cared about him, yes, but also she cared about the ship. She knew that in a moment of crisis, the last thing the ship would need would be a new commander.

“The trip has been inadvisable,” he said, “from the moment we listened to the Xenth about the Quurzod. We can’t change that. We’re here now, and I’m going to figure out what to do.”

“Even if it makes things worse?” she asked.

“It can’t make things worse,” he said. “No matter what way this goes, we’re only facing different degrees of the same problem.”

She was silent for a moment. Then she nodded.

“I hope you’re right,” she said, and returned to her post.

I fidget in the center of the room. The engineers from the ship are working on something I’ve never seen before. I’ve seen the shell, though. It looks like part of the stealth tech we’ve seen on the various Dignity Vessels.

The shell is contained inside a part of the floor that rose up when the engineers started their work. They’re delving deep inside it, and of course, they’re speaking in a language I don’t understand.

Al-Nasir isn’t listening. He’s pacing. He keeps looking at the exterior door, his expression tight. I wonder if he’s regretting his decision to come with me. He could be on one of our ships, heading to the Nobody’s Business right now, and he knows it.

Safe, without any complications.

And God knows there are going to be complications.

At exactly two hours, the door to the ship opens. People step out, one at a time. They’re all wearing the black uniforms that I’d seen, and they all have a weapons belt around their hips. Their laser pistols—if indeed that’s what they have—-are smaller than ours, but they look just as lethal.

Everyone is expressionless. Soldiers, heading into battle.

Three, six, nine, twelve. More than I ever expected. My heart twists. What have I done?

What have I agreed to?

I always try to stay away from the military, and now I’m marching with them into a city that has done nothing to me except make me follow a few rules.