Skirmishes (24 page)

“See anything?” I ask her.

“Not yet,” she says.

“All right,” I say. “Then we’re good to go.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

ORLANDO AND I suit up. We’re going first. If everything checks out, then Elaine and Denby will go next.

It sounds so simple, but there are a lot of ifs between my trip and Elaine’s trip. I’m still not sure what we’re getting into.

The suits we use now are so different from the suits I originally used diving that it almost feels like I’m not suited at all. These suits, designed with the help of the Fleet’s teams, are made of a nanofiber so thin that it almost feels like they don’t exist.

I have clothes thicker than these suits.

But not stronger. These suits can go through anything—fire, water, complete vacuum—and not get a tear or a split. If anything even thinks of rupturing, the suit repairs immediately.

There is a second layer beneath the suit’s top layer, but I can’t feel it. I’ve only seen that second layer in the lab. Beneath that layer or near it or around it, are all of the environmental functions, including the oxygen. I used to strap oxygen containers onto my hip, so I find this part of the suit both fascinating and frightening.

I know, just from looking at the containers, how much oxygen I have left. The suit tells me its levels, and sometimes I worry that the damn thing lies.

It also itches, at least on my face. Everyone tells me that the reaction is purely mine. I don’t like the helmet, not that it’s a helmet, not really. It’s more of a hood that attaches to the skin, covers everything, and provides protection.

The engineers gave me a choice on the diving suits; I could have a helmet, whatever you wanted to call it, that hid my face from anyone looking at me—which is what Coop prefers for any environmental suit—or I could have a clear helmet. I opted for clear.

I need to see my companion’s expression at all times, and he needs to see mine.

I tug on the gloves last, and they adhere to the rest of the suit. It seals up, and then informs me with a little running commentary along the bottom of my vision that the suit is safe for vacuum now.

I still double-check. I’ve always double-checked safety protocols and I’m not going to stop now, just because I’m wearing something that’s more sophisticated than what I wore before.

Everything on the suit checks out.

I glance at Orlando.

He looks even smaller in this suit. He’s become more athletic over the years, but he still strikes me as the bookish man I first met. He has a talent for exploration, though, and a fearlessness that I appreciate.

Mikk argued for Elaine on this first dive, but I need Elaine’s caution on her dive with Denby. I need Orlando’s willingness to try anything, reach for anything, in this first part of the dive.

Orlando grins at me.

“You guys are already using too much oxygen,” Nyssa says. “Boss, you’ll have the gids if you’re not careful.”

I smile just a little. That’s how a dive should begin, with someone warning me that I’m too excited about it.

“Thirty minutes.” I’m speaking more to Yash than anyone else. “I need someone to mark the fifteen minutes even though it shows up in our suits. I want to make sure our clocks remain synchronized.”

Malfunctioning
anacapas
often distort time, so this is a simple precaution, one that we can deal with immediately if we have to. Neither Orlando nor I want to get stuck like I’ve seen others do.

Yash, of course, assures me that this won’t happen, but I don’t believe assurances, particularly in a place like this.

“The thirty minutes starts the moment we leave the airlock,” I say. “And it’s hard and fast, no matter how much we plead for an extra minute. Got that?”

That last is more for Denby, since he might have to be part of the team who pulls us in if we don’t want to return. Or can’t return.

Still, it’s Elaine who nods. Yash frowns and looks away.

I step into the airlock. Orlando’s right behind me. The doors close behind us. The airlock vents its environment, and then the doors open ahead of us, leading into the Boneyard itself.

My breath catches, and before I can even acknowledge it, Nyssa is in my comm.

“Watch the gids, Boss,” she says again.

“Yeah,” I say, probably too curtly. I respond so that she knows the comm is working, but that’s the only reason.

My heart is pounding, and I’m thrilled beyond words. Of course, I’m breathing irregularly. She would be, too.

The Boneyard stretches before us. Most places that I’ve dived have a single wreck against the backdrop of space. I’m very conscious of the starlight and the shape of distant galaxies.

But here, all I see are ships. Ship after ship after ship. They’re not in formation, so it doesn’t look like they’re about to attack us.

They almost look fake. They’re at odd angles, as if some unseen hand holds them there.

Orlando looks at me, as if he expects me to say something.

Then I grin at him like a maniac, reach out, grab the line, and step into the Boneyard.

The line feels solid beneath my gloved hand. I attach to the line—procedure—and slide forward, almost expecting to be buffeted by all those different energy patterns.

But the line holds solidly. It does bounce a little as Orlando grabs on, but that’s it.

Then it’s just the two of us, in the silence. I’m braced, hoping that no one from the skip speaks to us. I love the majesty of this, the sense that I’m stepping into a graveyard of ships.

It almost feels like a dream to me, something I have only imagined and never seen.

In the corner of my eye, the timer runs down, and it looks normal to me. It’s been five minutes, the timer tells me, and I hope that it’s accurate.

I don’t want to check with the skip. This moment is private. This moment is
mine
.

I glance over my shoulder to see if Orlando is following me.

He is. He looks as stunned as I feel. He’s gazing upward, looking at the bottoms of the ships we’re moving between.

Then I look down, see even more ships. They seem to go on forever, even though I know they don’t.

I decide in this moment that I love this place.

Then I worry that my love for the Boneyard is just another form of the gids. Or something even more treacherous. Something like the strange reaction my mother had inside the Room of Lost Souls.

Beautiful
, she muttered.
Oh, so beautiful
.

I glance at Orlando. His gaze meets mine and he winks.

Eight minutes. If we’re not careful, we won’t get a chance to look at the ship at all.

I move faster, thinking maybe I should contact the skip. But I don’t want to talk to anyone, and no one has talked to me.

They’re not supposed to. Not yet. If they don’t synchronize with me at fifteen minutes, I’ll start to worry.

Ship One looms ahead of us, its sides gleaming in the strange light of the Boneyard. The ship shouldn’t be clean—should it? It shouldn’t gleam—should it?

I hope I remember to ask Yash when we get back.

I have to remind myself to take regular breaths. I count them, trying to keep them even.

But Nyssa hasn’t said anything about the gids again, so I assume I’m doing fine.

Or maybe she can’t hear me, speak to me.

I refuse to let that thought lodge in my mind.

I reach the ship at eleven minutes. That gives us eight to play with, and we’ll need all of it.

Orlando comes up beside me. Together we each put one gloved hand against the outside of the ship. Our gloves have all sorts of sensors in them, and just this simple touch will give us readings.

It’ll give Yash more information than she can probably sift through on this trip.

The sides of the ship look smooth and unharmed. From this angle, there’s no way to tell why the ship’s here.

I look over at the door. I can see its outline. There is a small square shape near it, like Yash hoped. She believes that’s an override, which someone with the proper codes can use to get into the ship.

The key is the proper codes. Will ancient codes work? Are Yash’s codes new enough to get us inside that ship? Or will we trigger something?

There’s no way to know without trying.

“Fifteen minutes.” Yash’s voice makes me jump.

Orlando looks over his shoulder as if he expects to see her directly behind him.

I glance at the display from my suit’s internal clock. Yep, she’s right. Fifteen minutes.

“Acknowledged,” I say and, on the same channel, Orlando echoes me.

Then we move sideways, gripping the side of the ship with our boots. There are built-in handholds, things I never found on the exterior of the Dignity Vessels I dived. They existed, but I never saw them. You have to know about them, know how to reach them, know what they are.

Orlando reaches the door first, and I feel disappointment. I wanted to be the first one there.

He places a gloved hand against it, then looks at me.

“We have to go back,” he says.

For a moment, I fear that he’s seen something. Then I glance at the clock display.

Eighteen minutes. It took us eleven to arrive. We can only be gone thirty.

My rules.

I need to follow my own damn rules.

I nod, and reach for the line. He follows. We’re going to have to go back faster than we arrived.

I want to linger.

I want to see the ship itself, open that door, head inside.

I want to continue diving—and I will. I know I will. Each trip will grow longer and longer. That’s what I do, how I plan things. But this first one has to be short.

Just like the first one with Denby and Elaine will be short.

Already I’m thinking about my next dive, and I wrench my attention back to this moment.

To the skip, bobbing in the Boneyard as if it were part of the ship graveyard. To the ships beyond it, the edges of the Boneyard itself, flickering just a little.

I don’t know what that flicker is, so I focus on it, wishing I can reach out and touch it. Still, I make sure that my suit records it. We need all the information we can get.

We get back to the skip with thirty seconds to spare. We stumble into the airlock, lean against each other.

I’m tired. I don’t look at how much oxygen I have left. I suspect I used more than I should have.

It was spectacular out there.

It
is
spectacular out there.

I love it here.

And at moments like this, I could stay forever.

THIRTY-NINE

WE ARRIVE at the
Two
hours after we left, but it feels like days. I dock the skip inside, and the team staggers out, exhausted, elated, not thinking clearly. We’ve done something fascinating, something wonderful, and we survived it.

We’re a mess, even Yash.

Maybe especially Yash. I can sense just how much she wants to go inside the Boneyard, how much she wants to touch that ship herself. She’s barely holding herself in check because she knows the plan. She doesn’t get to go in unless we need her. Unless we find what we’re looking for.

A working ship, an active
anacapa
drive,
something
that’ll make this ship useful for the Lost Souls.

I head to my cabin, after giving orders for everyone to eat something solid and get a few hours rest. We’re in no hurry here, and I want to prove that with my behavior.

I’m also unwilling to wait too long for the next dive. I try to space them out by twelve hours minimum, even though I usually prefer twenty-four. If there’s some problem in the telemetry, however, I want to know tonight so that we can plan the future dives even better.

My cabin always looks dishearteningly normal after a dive. All that excitement makes the everyday seem flat and uncomfortable. I still have a lot of adrenalin, even though I know it will fade as soon as I step into my post-dive routine.

Which always starts in the shower.

I crawl inside mine—an expensive water-based shower, one of the few luxuries I’ve permitted myself on the
Two
—and let the hot, recycled stream flow over me, reminding me that I am both alive and not in the vacuum of space.

I try to pretend that I don’t already miss it.

With just a bit of envy, I watched Elaine and Denby repeat the dive that Orlando and I did. They moved slower—which I expected due to Elaine’s caution and Denby’s newness. I gave them permission to use an extra three minutes so that they could get to the door; I wanted Denby to look at it and get a reading from it.

He’s had more experience with the exterior of all Dignity Vessels than I have.

They came back, later than I would have liked, but in one piece, which also reassured me.

But when we retracted the line, it wobbled like it had done before. I thought that odd, and would have said something to Yash if she hadn’t looked so puzzled. We’ll discuss it at our meeting.

After I get out of the shower, I manage to eat something, but I suspect sleep is beyond me. Still, I rest—what good is a leader if she doesn’t follow the instructions she gives her team for their health?—and to my surprise, I do doze off.

The sleep isn’t deep, and it’s filled with a review of the dive. I wake up, wondering not what my gloves downloaded or what my suit recorded inside the Boneyard, but what it recorded about me.

Nyssa didn’t remind me about the gids once we were outside the skip, and she should have. I felt like I had them, and I also felt like I used a lot of oxygen.

I go to my computer and check my own bio readings. Then I compare them to the readings from my previous first dives on exciting missions, years ago. Aside from some age-related differences (my body mass is slightly higher, for example), the readings should be the same because I react the same way no matter what project I’m diving—at least on the first dive.

And they’re not.

My heart rate actually slowed down as I stepped out of the skip and into the Boneyard. My oxygen consumption returned to something approximating normal.