Kristine Rusch - Diving into the Wreck

My father glares at her. I had forgotten that look. It is filled with contempt. “We’re pretty sure that ancient stealth tech creates a dimensional rift. I have no idea if exploding the ship will close the rift or open it wider. Do you want to be here to find out?”

The woman’s cheeks turn bright red. “We can’t get out of here with the skip grappled on.”

“Then put it in the bay,” he says. “But get us out of here.”

“It takes two pilots to put a skip in the bay,” the woman says. “I’ve never flown anything this small—”

“I’ll do it,” Hurst says with a little more panic in his voice than I like. Apparently, he doesn’t want to die for this mission.

“We can’t trust you,” the woman says.

“Then let go of the skip,” I say. “Get your people out of here. We’ll be just fine.”

“We’re not doing that,” my father says. “Get this skip into the bay. Warn the other ships to stay away from here. If she is bluffing, we’ll know within the hour.”

The woman doesn’t have to be told twice. She goes back through the galley. Apparently the grapple attached to our emergency doors. It also must have an oxygen-filled corridor which allowed them to travel over here.

I’ve heard of grapplers that sophisticated, but I’ve never seen one. Apparently, I will see one now.

“Get out of the suit,” my father says to me. “We have some business to attend to.”

I don’t move. Everyone is looking at me. Odette takes off her helmet. her face is covered in sweat, but she seems fine otherwise.

“I said, gel out of the suit,” my father says.

“I don’t wear anything under my suit,” I say. “Either it stays on or you will have to give me some privacy so that I can change clothes.”

His eyes narrow. He glances at the others. One of the men is trying not to smile.

My father’s look of exasperation grows. “All right then,” he says. “Come with me. Your friends can stay here.”

“Sorry,” I say to Odette and Hurst. Then I follow my father through the galley and to the emergency doors.

They’re open. I can see the grappler just beyond—a black corridor, devoid of any decoration at all. It’s just a functional space that expands so people can go back and forth between two ships docked together.

My father steps inside. I follow.

“Don’t try anything,” he says.

I’m tempted. So far, he hasn’t noticed the knife. It wouldn’t take much to stab him, run ahead, use the emergency controls on the grappler, and set the skip free.

But I can’t quite bring myself to kill him. Not here, not like this.

“We have to close the doors,” I say, waving my left hand at the open emergency doors between the skip and the grappler. “We can’t separate these things otherwise.”

I keep my right hand at my side. I’m still holding Squishy’s device. My father hasn’t noticed that either.

“Well, do it,” he says.

I turn slightly. “You don’t know how, do you?”

“I usually have people for that.” His comment reminds me of my first meeting with Riya Trekov and her tone about her people. That should have warned me away then—I’d even made note of it—and it hadn’t.

If I had walked away then, things would be quite different now.

“I can’t do it alone,” I say. “I need your help.”

He gives me an odd look, as if he had expected more of me, then follows me back to the door. I grab one edge with my left hand, bracing my right against the doorframe. I don’t lean my right on the frame; I just make it look like I’m using my hand.

He grabs the doors too, and together we tug. The doors slide closed, and I step back.

We’re alone in the grappler.

He gives me that measuring look again—I’m not sure why—and heads to the door of his ship.

I follow. We’re moving faster now. When we get inside, he hits some kind of release, and those doors close as well.

Then he taps a communicator on his sleeve and says, “We’re in.”

I hear a squeal as the machinery starts. This ship isn’t as high tech as I thought. The grappler begins its procedure to disengage.

I resist the urge the glance at my watch. We don’t have much time left.

“Follow me,” my father says.

That I do follow him without question says less about his hold over me than it does about my curiosity. I want to know what he’s doing here. His presence bothers me a lot. He’s not a scientist—or he wasn’t when I was a child, but he’s lived a lifetime since then. Who knows what he’s picked up? Who knows who he has with him, and what they’ve done?

The grappler slides into place, shaking this ship just a little. I hope the skip is inside the bay now.

I follow my father down a corridor so wide it seems like a room, particularly after that small tunnel through the grappler.

“What are you doing here?” I ask.

“I told you,” he says. “I’m diving the wreck.”

“You aren’t a diver,” I say, even though I know I’m wrong. He’s not a diver like I am, but he knows how to dive. I have a hunch he’s dived the Room. I know he can work in an environmental suit. He rescued me from outside the Room while wearing one.

He doesn’t respond to that. Instead he turns and stops in front of large double doors. A green light went on above his head. He taps the edge of one of the doors, and the door becomes clear. Inside sits the skip.

My people have arrived.

“I want to talk to them,” I say.

“Later,” he says. “Don’t you want to see your ship blow up?”

For a moment, I think he means the Business. Then I realize he’s referring to the Dignity Vessel. I’m not sure if the contempt in his tone comes from the fact that I found the vessel or from the fact that he still might not believe me about the bomb.

I don’t answer him. Instead, I follow him to a room across the corridor. He presses the side of the door and it slides open. We step into a platform that seems to jut into space. The walls, floor, and ceiling are clear.

In the distance, I can barely make out the Dignity Vessel. We’re moving away from it rapidly.

“By my watch,” he says, “it should explode any minute now.”

I glance at mine. One minute and forty-nine seconds, to be exact.

“Magnify,” he says, and he’s clearly not speaking to me. The image in front of us becomes larger. The Dignity Vessel is now the size of my hand.

“Again,” he says,

The Dignity Vessel now fills the main window. It looks like it’s only a few meters away from us, even though I know it’s much farther.

I have turned my arm so I can glance at the time without moving my head. I look down.

One minute exactly.

My father clasps his hands behind his back in a military pose.

“What kind of ship is this?” I ask.

“It’s an imperial vehicle,” he says.

“Clearly,” I say. “But what type?”

“Military science vessel,” he says.

Science vessel. Fascinating. It probably doesn’t have elaborate weapons systems. If it has weapons at all.

My mouth is dry. I’m still staring at the Dignity Vessel, and I realize I have no idea if that explosive will work.

Then the Dignity Vessel turns white. It freezes for a moment, as if it’s suspended in time, and then the whiteness gets so bright that both my father and I have to shield our eyes.

Still I can see the shape of the vessel against my eyelids, this time done in golds. I finally open my eyes again, and it’s gone.

There’s only a pinpoint of light, tiny and white, where the vessel was.

“You took it off magnify,” I say, because I can’t think of any other way to respond. I’m lightheaded and nauseous. I wanted to destroy the stealth tech, which meant destroying the vessel, but ruining the damn thing still shocks me.