I don’t see Orlando or Yash. It almost feels like I’m alone out here, spinning in the Boneyard, but I know I’m not.
And I have to stop this spinning or I will hit something.
In the middle of my spin, I reach for the tether. Not on my belt, because I don’t want to accidentally dislodge it, but as far away from the belt as my arm can reach.
I pull on the tether as if I’m trying to clear up some slack rope, and for a few minutes, I worry that I might be tangled in the tether in a very dangerous way.
Then the tether gains some tension. I leave parts of it behind, and use it to “climb” hand over hand toward the Sove.
I’ve stopped spinning, but my head continues to feel like it is. My eyes haven’t really focused. My entire system’s equilibrium is screwed up, one of the many dangers of spinning free-fall.
I make myself focus on the side of the Sove, the open bay door, the floating unattached line. That’s what my eye can hold the best—that unattached line. I watch it work its way toward the Sove as I do as well.
I don’t see Orlando or Yash. Just that line, wrapping up, and that black opening where the bay door is.
Then I hear a gasp in my comm.
“Boss!” a voice says, and I don’t know whose it is. It’s female, but not Yash, and it sounds terrified.
I ignore the fear I’m hearing, and I keep pulling myself toward the bay door. I’m moving faster than I was, and I finally realize that someone—something—is pulling me inside.
I reach the lip of the bay door, and hands reach down, dragging me inside. They fling me in, and I spin again in the empty bay, moving so fast I nearly hit the wall on the far side.
Lights come up, and gravity returns, and rather than rebounding off that wall, I land on the bay floor so hard that it knocks the wind out of me.
My suit goes all kinds of crazy because I’m not breathing.
I’m dizzy, my eyes are watering from the pain of having all the breath slammed out of my body, and gravity feels like a heavy blanket forcing me downward.
Hands grab at my hood, detaching it, pulling it off.
I’m looking at Orlando, his face red, his hair glistening with sweat.
“Yash?” I manage, afraid of the answer.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily,” she says.
I sit up—or try to. I’m so dizzy I might throw up. I lay back down. The bay is spinning, and I can’t seem to make it stop.
“It’s gone.” Mikk’s voice is big and booming inside the bay. He’s not using the comms. He’s speaking through the ship’s intercom system, for everyone to hear.
“What is?” Orlando asks, but he really doesn’t have to. I know what Mikk meant.
The runabout is gone.
If we had been any slower, we would have disappeared with it—God knows where.
I run a hand over my face and focus on breathing. If I think about a breath in and a breath out, a breath in and a breath out, then I will force my body to stop spinning. Concentration can sometimes overcome those sensitive inner ear issues.
My stomach calms. The bay has stopped moving, for the most part. And another person looms over me.
Yash, her hair plastered to the side of her head by sweat.
“I’d say I’m never diving with you again, but that was amazing,” she says.
I close my eyes. Hers is precisely the wrong reaction to a nearly disastrous dive.
“We’re lucky,” I say.
“No kidding,” Yash says. “Do you realize what just happened?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Orlando saved our lives.”
Yash turns to him, grins, and says, “That’s right. I almost forgot to say thank you.”
He nods a little formally. “I’m sure you would have done the same.”
I frown. If she’s not talking about how close we came to death, and the joyful fact of our survival, then I have no idea what she’s talking about.
“Boss,” she says, putting her hands on my shoulders. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“I know we’re alive,” I say. “That’s about all I know at the moment.”
“The runabout disappeared,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say, and then I realize she’s not upset about that. The idea thrills her. “I assume you activated the anacapa drive.”
“That’s the thing,” she says. “I didn’t.”
“How do you know?” Orlando asks.
She gives him a withering look, which is answer enough, I guess.
“If you didn’t do it,” I say, “who did?”
“The Fleet!” she says. “The Fleet retrieved it! They activated another anacapa and hooked into it. I’ll wager it was targeted. They wanted that runabout and they pulled it out of the Boneyard.”
I rub a hand over my face. I’m covered in sweat too, not because my suit’s environmental system had failed, but because of the stress to my system out there, as I tried—yet again—to survive that damn runabout.
“I don’t know how you know that,” I say, and I’m rather surprised at how grumpy I sound.
“That’s the only explanation,” she says. “I’m sure the data will back it up.”
I’m not. A million things could have pulled that runabout out of here. It might have had a distress signal going, and we activated that signal when we touched the navigation panel, which then got an ancient sector base to pull the runabout away. That scenario mirrored what happened to the Ivoire, and was probably more likely, given the part of space we were in.
But Yash is exhilarated, and I don’t want to ruin that. Not right now. Still, I have to say one thing.
“We have no way to check the data,” I say. “I’m sorry, but—”
“But we do,” she says. “I brought the data back from the navigation panel.”
That’s right. Her device. I wonder if she checked to see if there was data on it, or if she’s just indulging in wishful thinking.
“Plus, we have that control panel,” she says.
“No,” I say. “I had to let it go, remember.”
“I do,” she says. “Because I caught it and shoved it into my belt with everything else.”
I don’t recall her doing that, but I was more concerned with getting both of us out of that cockpit—out of that runabout—before we got blasted into some kind of existential purgatory.
“You got it?” I ask, managing to rise up on one elbow.
“Yeah,” she says. “I have everything. And the runabout activated. The anacapa worked. Boss, this is the first indication we have, the first real indication that the Fleet still exists.”
Orlando is watching me, as if he expects me to convince her otherwise.
Instead, I sit up all the way. I’m wiped out. Some of that is the loss of adrenaline as the adventure ends, but some of it comes from the fact that I really am not in the best physical shape. I probably shouldn’t have gone on that dive after all.
Although, I’m not sure how good a rescue diver I would have been. I doubt I would have made it to the door of the runabout in record time, like Orlando had.
I’m not sure I could have rescued us. Or, rather, them. I might have been halfway along the line when that runabout vanished into foldspace or wherever the hell it went.
Then I let out a small breath.
“Mikk,” I say. He doesn’t respond. Of course, he doesn’t respond. I’m not on comm.
“What is it?” Orlando asks.
“The probes,” I say. “They’re still inside the runabout.”
“Oh, my God,” Yash says. “We might be able to track them.”
I can hear the hope in her voice. I inadvertently made her think that we can find the Fleet.
I’m not sure what we’ll find at the end of this. I’m not sure if we’ll find anything.
But I know we have a chance of tracking that runabout.
And it excites me, almost as much as it excites her.
Twenty-Seven
I struggle to ge
t to the bridge. My body’s shaking, and I can barely walk. I’ve had new divers, tourist divers, react like this, but no one on this run has seen this reaction before.
“I need clear liquids, and something with sugar, salt,” I say. “Get Jaylene to bring me something on the bridge. But water now.”
Orlando leaves my side, moving faster than I expected. I don’t know if Yash is with us. It takes too much effort to turn around.
But I continue to creak my way to the bridge. I need to get up there. I need to see what’s happened.
Orlando comes back in what seems like an instant with water and some kind of juice. I drink the water, spilling some of it on my chin and down my already sweat-covered shirt. I’m a mess, and I don’t care.
I can feel the euphoria of a good dive starting through me. Or maybe it’s the euphoria of a near miss.
Orlando hands me a cool bottle of something clear, and I drink it as we get on the elevator. Yash joins us. Orlando hands her a bottle as well. She doesn’t look like she needs it, though.
I expect my reaction is because of my already depleted reserves.
The elevator opens on bridge level, but not directly in the bridge. I like that about the Sove. Some of the older model Dignity Vessels make bridge access much too easy.
Or rather, I usually like it. I feel like I’m covering fifty kilometers instead of a few meters. Orlando has taken my elbow, which is quite a concession for both of us. I smile at him, though, letting him know it’s all right.
The bridge doors slide open and we step inside.
Jaylene is already there, alongside Elaine. I had forgotten that I wanted Elaine on this mission. I’m glad she was there. She was probably the one who insisted Orlando leave when he did. Mikk sometimes errs on the side of continuing the dive.
Elaine wouldn’t have done that in this circumstance.
I also realize it was her voice I heard on my comm, shouting “Boss” as I covered those last few meters to the bay door.
“Brief us,” Yash says as she follows us inside.
I’m glad that she’s taking over now. Mikk stands beside one of the panels, then sweeps a hand toward two holographic images. One of them has gone completely dark. All I can see is the shape.
He’s going to make a presentation.
I ease myself into the nearest chair, limbs still shaking. Jaylene approaches me, puts a hand on my forehead, and takes the bottle from me. She sniffs it, then looks at Orlando.
“Water?” she asks.
He nods.
“I’ve got more in the other conference area, along with some broth and other liquids. Please get them.”
I feel badly that he has to miss the beginning of this presentation. I swivel the seat toward it.
Jaylene pours the water on my head, and I sputter. It cools me down instantly.
I hadn’t even realized I was hot.
“What the hell?” I said.
“You were overheating,” she said, “and I knew I wasn’t going to get you off the bridge or back in your full environmental suit. This will help. Now drink more.”
Orlando hands me a glass. The man must have sprinted back and forth to the conference room.
“We done getting water all over my bridge?” Mikk asks, keeping his tone light to hide his concern. It’s not working.
“Yes,” I say, wiping my hand over my face. “Go ahead.”
He taps one of the holographic models. It’s one of the planning models we worked off of, with the Sove, the other Dignity Vessel, and the runabout highlighted.
“This is what this section of the Boneyard looked like before your dive,” he says.
Then he touches the model that’s dark. It comes to life, with only the Sove and the other Dignity Vessel highlighted. There’s an actual gap where the runabout was.
“This is what this section of the Boneyard looks like now,” he says.
“And in between?” Yash asks.
“Standard activation of an anacapa drive,” he says. “The readings, everything, exactly what you would expect.”
She frowns. Except for the layer of sweat, which is making her hair dry in spikes, she looks like the dive hasn’t bothered her at all.
I used to be just like that.
I make myself drink some more. Jaylene is monitoring me, not paying any attention to the presentation.
“What about the ships around the runabout?” Yash asks.
“No impact that we can tell,” Mikk says. “I have a lot of material, though, and we can study it.”
“And no reaction from the Boneyard?” she asks.
“None,” he says.
“What about before the runabout leaves?” she asks.
He frowns at her. “What do you mean?”
“That anacapa was activated remotely,” she says. “How did that signal get inside the Boneyard.”
My hair drips onto my shoulders. A rivulet of water runs down my back, making me shiver. Or at least, I think the water was what made me shiver.
It might have been Yash’s point.
We can’t get many signals in and out of the Boneyard. We’ve tried communicating through their force field, and it rarely works.
No wonder she’s thrilled.
“We’ll have to check,” Mikk says. “I didn’t see anything, but that doesn’t mean anything. I was focused on you two.”
I nod. “And the probes?”
His expression grows even more serious. “We don’t have much. We have the lights coming on, some images of you, a bit of telemetry from the navigation panel as it starts up, and then…”
He looks at Yash.
She raises her chin, clearly bracing herself.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “The images winked out. I can’t re-establish contact.”
“I expected that,” she says. “I just figured we might be able to trace them.”
“I can’t,” he says, “but you might be able to.”
She nods. She runs a hand through her hair, leaving it even more spiky than it was. Then she rubs her hands on the back of her suit, forgetting that we haven’t even taken time to change.
“Do me a favor,” I say to Mikk. “Let me see exterior footage of the runabout from the moment we get inside until it vanishes.”
“And I’ll watch the energy signatures,” Yash says, moving to one of the backup engineering panels. I would rather have her watch the visual footage with me, but I’m not going to argue right now.
I’m sure we’ll be reviewing everything that happened today for weeks.
“All right,” Mikk says. “Flat?”
“Yes,” I say as Yash says, “No.”
We glance at each other. Then she says, “Flat for now.”
The screen in front of him springs to life, showing the section of the Boneyard that contains the Sove, the Dignity Vessel, the runabout, and a handful of other ships.
We watch. From this angle, there’s no way to see the line we’ve run from the Sove to the runabout. There is no indication at all that anything is different about that runabout.
For several minutes, nothing happens. Then lights appear around the entire runabout. The lights flare on, and then they shut off. They do that three times before remaining on.
I don’t remember seeing them, but I was rather focused on getting back to the Sove.
That bright light illuminates Orlando, who is a small speck on a barely visible black line. He reaches the main door. The images are too far away to show what he’s doing there, but he’s there for at least two minutes before Yash and I tumble out.
We look like small balls of dirt, rolling and falling and tumbling into the darkness. Orlando dives after us, pulling on our tethers. I can no longer see the line from the Sove to the runabout.
I force myself to watch the runabout rather than the miniaturized version of the drama I just lived through.
The lights around the runabout grow even brighter. Then the entire runabout appears in sharp relief to something very dark—a h
ole, a blackness, something.
And then the runabout vanishes.
I don’t see us any more either. Everything looks the same, except for the nanobits which, from this distance, look like they are moving in some kind of current.
It takes me a moment to understand what I’m seeing. There is a current of nanobits, pulling toward that blackness, before they veer away, as if they were barred from getting through it.
“Those nanobits,” I say. “Are my eyes deceiving me or are there more of them?”
“More,” Mikk says. “I saw that too, and already verified.”
“So something in that interaction caused some kind of nanobit unbonding?” I turn toward Yash. “Is that something we have to worry about with the Sove?”
“We should check it out when we get back to Lost Souls,” she says. “I’m wondering if that’s a reaction unique to the Boneyard.”
“I doubt it,” I say, thinking of that very first Dignity Vessel we found, all those years ago, not to mention all the nanobits floating around Sector Base V when we arrived. “I’ve seen it before, and so have you.”
She shrugs. Clearly, her focus isn’t there, and I’m not going to push her, at least at the moment. Later, we can investigate all of this.
I have only one more question before I go clean up and rest.
“That anacapa drive,” I say. “It clearly functioned. So our theory about the malfunctioning, dying anacapa drive was wrong.”
“Elaine and I have already discussed that,” Mikk says. “We’re going to rerun some tests, now that the runabout is gone. We’ll see what really is causing that energy burst that hurt the two of you.”
I’m glad he didn’t say nearly killed the two of you. I somehow don’t want that thought in Elaine’s head.
“There’s no need to run those tests,” Yash says. “We were right the first time.”
Elaine makes a soft sound of disagreement. Mikk’s lips thin.
“How is that possible?” I say. “We just saw the anacapa work.”
“We saw remote activation of that anacapa drive,” Yash says. “We didn’t see it ‘work.’”
“That’s a distinction without much of a difference,” I say.
The Runabout Page 14
