Kristine Rusch - Diving into the Wreck

But they do have weapons.

We all do.

And I’ve insisted that we learn how to use them.

Hurst pilots the Business. When he and Odette escort me onto the Dignity Vessel, Roderick will pilot the ship. Tamaz and Squishy will remain on board with him. Tamaz’s only job is to guard Squishy—something Squishy does not know.

Nor does she know that I will not be using the bomb she’s developed. I’ve decided to use the more powerful explosive Odette acquired at great expense.

I’ve done some research myself, and while I don’t understand the fledgling science of ancient stealth tech (not that the Empire has let much information out about it), I do know a bit about explosives.

The Dignity Vessel is old and large. The metal hull, with its rivets and its dents, is fragile compared with modern ships. But its very size makes it difficult to destroy completely.

That, more than anything, made me decide to go with Odette’s explosive. Hers is designed to obliterate. Squishy’s is targeted to the cockpit, designed to destroy the stealth tech and little else.

We spoke of it briefly when she finished. Apparently I had an odd expression on my face when she talked about the device’s subtleties.

I thought you’d be pleased, Boss, she said. You don’t like destroying historic things.

I don’t. If I could think of a way to keep the Dignity Vessel intact, I would. But sometimes, you have to make sacrifices for the greater good.

Or, at least, this is what I tell myself.

As we approach, I can’t tell if what I’m feeling are understandable nerves, regrets, or a desire to abort the entire mission. I pilot, thinking that being hands-on will calm me.

It does give me a chance to reflect: I actually think about how I would feel if we turned around right now and headed back to Longbow.

I think I would be relieved in the short term.

The long term would depend on a few things. If the military and my father’s people solve the mysteries of stealth tech and change the balance of power in the sector, then I will regret not taking advantage of this moment.

If they never solve it, then I might be all right with the decision to turn around.

Although once again, my father would continue to make a profit off death—my mother’s and Karl’s.

Karl. He would stand beside me urging caution. But he would go into the Dignity Vessel at my side, like he did when we searched for Junior. Karl had no qualms about taking care of threats.

And if he had had all the proper information, he would have seen my father as a threat.

We pass a small area of space that I have secretly designated as the point of no return. My fingers don’t even hover over the navigation system. I pilot us forward as if I have no qualms at all.

We are not turning back.

The mission is about to begin.

We have set up the mission in three parts. We designed the first part to separate the military ships from the Dignity Vessel. The second part sends me and my team into the Dignity Vessel, and the third part gets us out of the area before the explosion.

Oddly enough, it’s the first part that makes me the most nervous.

Perhaps because I have no control over it at all.

When we reach the designated coordinates just past the point of no return, the Space King breaks away from our convoy. The Space King speeds away on a perpendicular course from us, its modern stealth mode still on.

When it reaches another designated set of coordinates, it will modulate its speed and shut off its stealth mode. It will also create an echo in its sensors. The echo will show a different route for the Space King, a leisurely one that comes from a resort-heavy area some distance from here.

As we were researching vehicles to rent, I learned that the Space King is a high-end luxury rental. In addition to all its amenities—cabins the size of apartments on Hector Prime and a galley stocked with the most expensive (and best) food from areas around Longbow—the Space King has one of the fastest engines ever designed as well as an array of defensive weapons.

Apparently, a ship like that attracts space pirates, and the owners of the Space King —a high-end luxury rental firm which caters to the wealthiest among us—want to make sure they don’t get sued by renters who get ambushed and can’t defend themselves.

We rented the Space King for its speed. The weapons are a luxury that we hope we won’t have to use.

The Space King zooms away from us, and I silently hope they’ll be all right. We’re basing our actions on Hurst’s memory of military tactics and Squishy’s occasional sarcastic opinion about things the military will and will not tolerate.

We travel for another hour before The Seeker breaks away. It will find the path it used a few weeks before, when it first investigated the Dignity Vessel. Mikk and Jennifer have loaded The Seeker with alcohol and sex aids. They’ve also added some broken rental diving equipment (which the dive shop gave us at no extra cost), and have scattered it through the cargo space so that it looks like there was a fight.

They are going to come back, pretending to be drunken adventurers. If asked, they will claim they got into a fight with Hurst—ostensibly about coming back to the Dignity Vessel, but really over relationships. Then just to prove him wrong, they’re going to ask the military to let them dive the old ship or at least inspect its exterior.

We actually made a security recording of part of the so-called fight that they had. Hurst, the ex-military member of their team, argues that the military won’t let them close. Mikk claims they will. He says they want the ship nearby because they need something to do, and he will provide that something.

We’re hoping that one military ship will approach The Seeker and the other will investigate the Space King. The Space King’s speed and ability to maneuver should draw the command vessel as well, when it becomes clear that it can outrun the smaller military ship.

We figure we need to keep all three ships busy for a few hours. We’re going to monitor the Dignity Vessel. When the first two ships leave, Odette, Hurst, and I will get into the skip. We’re going to fly in close and wait, in stealth mode, until the third ship leaves.

Then we’re going in.

We stay just outside of sensor range for two hours after the other ships have left us. Hurst worries that the military’s scans have improved since he left the service. Squishy says no one thinks about improving scans, but I rely on Hurst’s caution.

When our planned two-hour window is up, we move to the very edge of sensor range. We stay in stealth mode, and we scan the area around the Dignity Vessel.

And get a surprise.

There are only two military vessels, both small. We find no evidence of the command ship.

“They’re doing that to fool us,” Hurst says. “Like they’re doing with the false Dignity Vessel radiation information.”

I concur, but I have no way to prove it without going closer. I don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, not while our friends are drawing the smaller ships away.

We’re going to have to wait until we think it’s safe to go in, and then we’re going to have to do another scan.

An hour after we arrive, one of the military vessels flies off in the direction of the Space King. We’re huddled in the cockpit, staring at our sensor information as if it is a lifeline—which, for all we know, it is.