Skirmishes (32 page)

THE AFTERMATH

NOW

FIFTY-FIVE

THE
EWING TREKOV
arrived well inside the new border that Captain Cooper had mandated for the Empire and the Nine Planets. Elissa couldn’t help herself. She let out a sigh of relief, and hoped it wasn’t audible.

Several of the bridge crew—on one of the best ships in the Empire, a post that took a lot of discipline—bowed their heads for just a moment. She didn’t know if they were reacting to the retreat, or to the loss.

She had a hunch it was both. These people were trained to fight.

“Four other ships have joined us,” Sherwin said softly.

Four.

She had gone in twenty-four strong and had emerged with five ships. Against a space station, two Dignity Vessels, and a bunch of things that didn’t even deserve the name “ship.”

Her right fist was still clenched. She unclenched it, finger by finger.

“What’s happened to the rest of the armada?” she asked, as if she didn’t know.

“We don’t have information from them directly, ma’am. But they’re clearly without power. They’re drifting.”

If these five ships got back soon—if others joined them—the loss of life might not be total.

“Contact Flag Commander Janik and ask for rescue ships. We need people on site as fast as we can.” She stood. She knew how to do this. “Most of the crews on those ships are alive at the moment. They have a maximum of two hours. We have to mount the largest rescue operation we possibly can.”

Sherwin nodded. “Do you want to triage, ma’am?”

In other words, did she want to decide who to save and who to let die? Of course not. But she had no choice. She was still in charge of this goddamn mission.

“Yes, I’ll triage,” she said. She knew what had happened to her fleet four years ago. The ships farther away from the explosion would have more survivors. “Let me see where the charge hit.”

“There were two, Ma’am,” one of the officers said.

Two. She’d been hit with one. Now she was less certain that anyone would survive. But she had to act like everyone would.

“All right,” she said. “As we head back, I want to see how that energy signature waved outward. We start with the ships that got hit with the smallest amount of energy and move inward.”

That command was met with silence. She looked up. The crew watched her, expressions grim. Then Sherwin nodded.

“I wish Flag Commander Janik had listened to you, ma’am,” he said, then turned and began issuing orders.

He wasn’t the only one. Elissa was certain that an entire armada of ships wished Janik had listened to her.

But he hadn’t.

And now she had to clean up the mess.

FIFTY-SIX

COOP CRADLED BOSS in his arms on the large couch inside his quarters on the
Ivoire
. He wasn’t quite willing to call an end to his mission yet. He and the
Shadow
would take turns patrolling the area around Lost Souls for the next week or more, as the Lost Souls defensive system powered up.

Five imperial ships had escaped his attack at the border. One of those ships was the flag ship, commanded by Group Commander Elissa Trekov. He suspected she would find herself in power after this—after all, she had been right and her boss hadn’t. Even if she didn’t rise any farther in the ranks, she would be the person everyone went to for information on this Captain Jonathon Cooper, even though she knew little about him.

That was just the way such structured military societies worked.

Not that Coop cared at the moment. At the moment, he enjoyed the feel of Boss against him. She was as tired as he was, but she wanted to find out what had happened on the border, just like he wanted to find out what had happened at the Boneyard.

The ship she had brought back was in fantastic condition. It just needed help getting its systems up. He suspected—from the short look he’d taken when he’d come on board—that it would take very little work to make that ship as functional as the
Ivoire
.

He was going to have to train new crews. He had already spoken with Lynda Rooney about setting up some kind of academy, like the one the Fleet used to run on the
Brazza
. It would take years to build up the right kind of crew, but he knew they would need every second of those years.

Just like they would need another group—an older group—who could man the ships in the interim.

He and Boss had just finished dinner. He had told her what happened on the border, and here at Lost Souls. She was stunned, not at the attack, but at his belief about the outcome: He suspected the Empire would leave them alone for a while.

“Large governments like that,” he said, “generally go after easier prey if they want to expand their borders. We just made the Nine Planets tough to conquer. The Empire will look at its other borders before it looks at us.”

“While it develops weapons to defeat us,” Boss said.

“It’ll be hard for them to do so,” Coop said, “particularly as we get more ships from the Boneyard.”

The look on her face at that moment discouraged him. She believed it hard to get ships out of the Boneyard. She was probably right.

But he didn’t care. What pleased him the most was the fact that the Boneyard had an active defense system. Such systems didn’t last throughout five millennia. Bits and pieces lasted, but not an organized system that kicked out unfamiliar
anacapa
drives and tried to destroy ships stolen from inside the Boneyard itself.

In fact, that news filled him with great joy. Someone—something—ran the Boneyard. And, he suspected, that someone, that some
thing
, was the Fleet.

He didn’t tell Boss this right now. Right now, she needed rest. He did too. And she hadn’t taken too kindly to his joke as he boarded the new ship.

This is your idea of a rescue flotilla?
he asked.

He’d thought it was witty. She thought it insensitive.

Maybe it was. He still wished she had brought back a dozen ships and those ships could patrol the new border. But that wouldn’t happen, not for a while.

“You’re not going to dive the Boneyard with me,” Boss said, as if she could hear his mind turning.

He smiled, his chin resting on top of her head. She had anticipated the next phase of this conversation.

“I don’t want to explore ships,” he said. “I want to find out what the station in the center is, and what it can tell us.”

“We’re not going back until we know what all the energy patterns are, Coop,” Boss said.

“I think—”

“I know what you think,” she said. “You can argue with me, you can try to manipulate me to your opinion. But I run the dives, remember? And right now, the Boneyard is too much of an unknown.”

“I agree,” he said.

She sat up and looked at him. She had deep circles under her eyes. “You do?”

“I do,” he said. “We need to figure some things out, and make careful plans. We’re not in a hurry right now.”

“We’re not?” she asked.

He shrugged. “You watch. We won’t need to worry about the Empire for a long time.”

She smiled, but he could sense her disbelief. “I hope you’re right.”

“I know I’m right,” he said. “You’ll see.”

She laid her head back down and snuggled up against him. “If you had asked me how this was going to go two weeks ago, I wouldn’t have come up with where we are now.”

That had been his entire life for the past five years. But he didn’t remind her of that. He didn’t want to talk about the strange and almost unfamiliar feeling of hope her experience at the Boneyard had given him.

Even if the Fleet didn’t run the Boneyard, somewhere in those ships was the answer of what had happened to the Fleet. Maybe enough of an answer that he could find them.

He pulled her close, and marveled at himself. He was making plans for two different futures: one in which he rejoined the Fleet and one in which he recreated it.

He wasn’t sure which future was his. At the moment, they both were.

And he liked that.

He rested his cheek against her hair and closed his eyes, realizing that for the first time in five years, he felt he had a future. One of his own making. One he could believe in.

One in which he belonged.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

International bestselling writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch has won two Hugo awards, a World Fantasy Award, and six
Asimov’s
Readers Choice Awards. For more information about her work, please go to kristinekathrynrusch.com. For more information about the Diving universe, to which this story belongs, go to divingintothewreck.com.

If you liked
Skirmishes
, you might like these works by Kristine Kathryn Rusch:

Diving Into The Wreck

Becalmed

City of Ruins

Boneyards

The Spires of Denon

The Disappeared

Recovering Apollo 8 And Other Stories

Copyright Information

Skirmishes

Copyright © 2013 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Parts of this novel appeared in different form as the novellas
Strangers in the Room of Lost Souls
(WMG Publishing, 2013) and
Encounter On Starbase Kappa
, (
Asimov’s SF Magazine
, October/November
2013)

Published by WMG Publishing

Cover and Layout copyright © 2013 by WMG Publishing

Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing

Cover art copyright © Philcold/Dreamstime

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.