Kristine Rusch - Diving into the Wreck

The fact that two have shown up on the same afternoon doesn’t bother them, because they know that the chances of yet a third ship showing up are extremely remote.

The soldiers aren’t being vigilant, because the time they’ve spent out here has taught them that they don’t need to be.

So far, this is working in our favor.

“The command ship should have come after us by now,” Hurst says.

“I know,” I say.

I have placed the cockpit windows on clear. The Dignity Vessel looms ahead.

It looks bigger than I remember, and for a moment, I worry that it’s growing, like the station around the Room. So I run yet another scan, checking its size against the specs I logged years before.

I get the result I’m hoping for: The Dignity Vessel hasn’t changed.

Only my perception has.

My heart is pounding. If Squishy were here, she would warn me about the gids. I can hear Karl’s voice, telling me this dive will be too emotional for me.

For a moment, I consider sending Odette and Hurst in without me. Then I realize this dive will be emotional for them too—and they’ve never been inside a Dignity Vessel before. Even with a map, they won’t know exactly where they’re going.

Once inside, they might move wrong, and then what would happen? They might get stuck in the stealth field, just like Junior did.

No. If we’re going to do this, I need to dive the wreck.

I need to lead my team.

I need to be the boss.

My two team members are staring at the Dignity Vessel. Hurst isn’t even looking at the controls, getting the latest readouts from the sensors. His mouth is open slightly. Odette is chewing on her lower lip, something I haven’t seen her do since our earliest days diving together.

“It’s so big,” Hurst says.

I don’t like his tone. There’s too much awe in it.

“You saw the specs,” I say.

“I know,” he says. “They just didn’t translate into this kind of size in my mind. I’ve never dived a wreck this big.”

I make myself take a deep breath. Clearly, I’m not the only one who’s nervous.

“Odette?” I say. “Is your device powerful enough for this ship?”

She nods. Then she turns. Of the three of us, she seems the most calm— even with the lip biting. “I have dived something this big before,” she says.

“A Dignity Vessel?” I ask.

“Old freighters,” she says. “They’re larger than this. They’re like miniature planets.”

I’ve seen them, and they are large, although not as large as she says. Certainly as large as the Dignity Vessel, though.

I grab my environmental suit. I strip, then slip it on. It clings to my skin. I haven’t worn it since I pulled Karl out of the Room, but it feels like an old friend.

“Hurst,” I say, “you’re staying here. I need you to monitor the area.”

“I thought we were all three going in,” he says.

Both Odette and I look at him. “Then who will keep an eye on the skip?” she asks.

I’m glad she asks him, because my tone certainly wouldn’t have been as polite.

“We’re going to be tethered,” she continues. “If one of those ships comes back and severs the tether, we die. They won’t even be responsible. They’ll plead ignorance, thinking someone was in the skip and had tied to it to rob it.”

She sounds so positive about this that I wonder if this scenario played out when she was working with the scavengers. And then I remember: What she describes is an old pirating trick. It’s a way to steal a diving vessel when all the members of the team go into a wreck.

I tilt my head slightly. Odette might be more of an asset on this trip than I realized.

“You have your device?” I ask.

She nods.

“Finish suiting up.” I pick up the laser pistol I brought for personal use. I have never dived with any laser weapons, even though I know how to shoot one. But I’m not the best shot, and for that, Hurst might be a better choice. His military experience gave him a lot of weapons training.

But there aren’t any ships around. We’ve bought some time. With luck, we’ll go in and out without using the laser pistols at all.

I also strap a knife to my belt. It’s the same model knife as the one Karl always carried, although it isn’t his. His is still attached to his body, floating somewhere near the Room.

My knife is in a thick sheath, since I have dived with a knife before, and I know that the greatest danger is cutting into my own suit. I stopped carrying knives early in my career when I watched one of my dive partners slice open the seam on her thigh. We managed to seal it up, but the entire dive was compromised.

Still, I’m carrying the knife for two reasons: It’s the weapon I’m most familiar with, and I want to honor Karl on this dive.

Since I have nothing of his own to carry with me, I need to carry something that reminds me of him. Divers are superstitious, after all.

Although on the outside, my knife looks nothing like his. The sheath makes it look like another breather. I’m already carrying one weapon that someone can take away from me and use against me.

I don’t need two.

I pick up my helmet. Then I nod to Odette. She’s finishing with her suit. She has four breathers on her hips, as well as her own laser pistol, and something extra on her front.

That extra thing is the bomb itself.

My heart pounds so hard I think that the others can probably hear it.

“I’ve left Squishy’s bomb on the skip,” I say to Hurst. “If something happens to us, you bring it back to her and tell her to find a way to use it.”

His eyes are big. He nods.

“I’ve watched those vids from your previous dives here,” he says. “I won’t be able to communicate with you.”

“Not when we’re inside the wreck,” I say.

“But what if the ships come back?”

I shrug. There isn’t much he can do. But if I don’t give him something, he’ll panic now. He was expecting to go in, and now that I’ve deprived him of the adventure, his imagination has kicked into overdrive.

“There’s not much you can do,” Odette says before I have a chance to speak. “The skip has no weapons.”

“We’re going to be on a strict timetable,” I say. “Twenty to get to the cockpit, thirty in the cockpit, and twenty to get out. If we’re close to those numbers, stay here. We might make it back before they get here.”

“If not?” he asks.

I look at Odette. She looks at me.

“After an hour ten,” I say, “you have to get out.”

“I’ll wait for you,” he says.

Odette shakes her head. “You can’t. You might die. You have to get clear of the Dignity Vessel.”

His mouth opens again, and then closes tightly in disgust. While he’s been thinking of the dive, he’s clearly forgotten the point of the mission.

“If you can,” I say, “you warn those military ships away. I don’t want collateral damage.”

“They’ll go in,” he says. “They’ll try to remove that bomb.”

“They won’t be able to,” I say. “Not in the time they have.”

And suddenly my mouth is dry. The potential for collateral damage is great. I don’t want to cost lives—any more than I already have.

“If they show up, hold them off as long as possible,” I say, trying to make myself feel better.

“By doing what?” he asks. “Leaning out the airlock and shooting at them with my laser pistol?”

I grin in spite of myself. “If you actually think that’ll work.”

Then I look at Odette. She has her gear on, her helmet under her arm.

“You ready?” I ask.

“As I’ll ever be,” she says.

“You can back out now,” I say. “I can do this alone.”

“No, you can’t,” she says, and puts on her helmet. It makes her head look twice as large as it is, which makes the package attached to her front look small.