The Diamond Deep (8 page)

Penny's eyes widened, and Haric stood straighter. Onor fought back the lump of fear trying to creep up his throat. “It could be okay. One theory is they want to talk to us.”

“Do you believe that?” Penny's voice shook. “Really?”

“I don't,” Haric said unhelpfully.

“I hope so,” Onor leaned down close to Penny. “Remember the first day I met you. The day you led me to get my beating?”

“Hazing,” she said, a short smile playing around the edges of her lips, and then gone back to worry.

“You didn't tell me what was going to happen then, but you did tell me this time. I'm grateful for that.”

“You're my friend,” she said.

“And you're mine.” He pointed at the now-silent speaker. “Are you getting the same news we are?”

“Yes.”

“All right.”

Colin and some of his fighters were coming their way from the cargo bar. They looked determined, and they were moving fast. Onor only recognized one, Colin's second in command, Par. Two were women. “Look Penny, go back under. See if you can figure out how to turn the robots into weapons. We might need everything we've got.”

She reached in and gave him a little swat on the arm. “I'll do my best.”

“And stay safe.”

“Probably not.”

“Do it,” Onor told her.

Colin's hand fell on his shoulder. “Come on. Both of you. There's nothing landing here.”

They snaked past Penny, leaving her and her bot pressed against the wall to make room. She'd be okay. She was tough.

They started into a slow, sustainable jog. The sound of maybe twenty pairs of feet reminded Onor of training below the park, running and running for hours just to get in shape to run when it mattered. Like now.

Onor spoke to Colin. “Where are they landing?”

“Outside of C.”

Onor laughed. “Something breaks our way?”

“Is that good?” Colin asked. “I'm not sure. There's no one to greet them there.”

“But at least no one lives there,” Onor said.

“So are we going to greet them?” Haric asked.

“We're heading that way. We might just suit up.” Colin looked at Haric. “You need to go back.”

“Back where?”

“To the cargo bar. You can help watch over it. I need Onor—he helped with the salvage operation on C-pod.”

“I want to stay with you.” Haric's breathing was more labored than Onor's or Colin's, almost ragged.

“It's dangerous.”

“I'll be safer with you.”

Colin snapped at the boy this time. “It's not safe anywhere. Go.”

“Can I stay,” pause, “until there's some kind of information,” Haric breathed hard, “to take back?”

The desperation in Haric's voice tugged at Onor, but there was another job to do. He matched his pace to Haric's, the run clipping his sentences, too. “Colin's right. Go back now. Stop in the cargo bar. Tell Ix what Penny told us. That there's going to be fighting inside. Then go home. To Ruby and Colin.”

Haric looked betrayed, but he turned and ran back the way they'd come. His footsteps echoed, loud and angry.

Colin didn't slow down, but he said, “Thanks. What did Penny tell you?”

“That there's people mad at Ruby and Joel.”

“That's news?”

“Are we taking a train?” Onor asked.

“They've all been shut off until the fight's over.”

It was a long way to C-pod. Onor settled in for the run.

They stopped about halfway, ducking out of the maintenance corridors into a row of habs. The first one they found was miraculously unlocked. Or maybe a gift from Ix. They liberated some water and relieved themselves.

“Ix?” Colin spoke. “Any news?”

“The ships are closer now. They haven't contacted anyone. Joel wants Onor and Colin to suit up outside of C pod and wait to see if anything develops. More will join them. I received Haric's warning, and it is a threat.”

“What warning?” Colin asked.

“Reds, moving in on command,” Onor said.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I did. Sort of. We can't do anything about it anyway.”

Colin frowned at him.

“Besides, it's hard to talk when you're running.”

“Later. Ready to run again now?”

“You bet.”

Then they were off again. Onor started thinking details through. “How are we going to get into C without the train?”

“We'll take a maintenance cart.”

He'd done that. A long time ago, He'd even learned to drive one. “Should work.”

“Tell me about C,” Colin commanded.

“It's mostly intact. Life support is off. Water's all been moved, everything else worth keeping. I grew up there, but it's like a ghost town now.”

“Ship fell apart there? Was it really that simple? That's what I heard.”

“It was scary. Not sure it was that simple. Rumors said sabotage.”

“I don't think so.”

Onor agreed. “Me either. I think the
Fire
's wearing out. Marcelle thinks it knows it's going home.”

“Is Marcelle your girlfriend?”

“No.” It came out more forceful than Onor intended.

“Someday you'll outgrow your crush on Ruby.”

“I don't have one.”

Colin laughed as he led them to the carts.

Colin and Onor climbed onto a cart with two of the other fighters Colin had brought. It barely lurched forward. One of the people climbed off, and the cart moved much better. There was only one more cart. Colin appointed two more people to come with them, and sent the rest to do random patrols.

There were suits near the garage the carts were kept in. “Should we put these on now?” Onor asked.

Colin hesitated, holding up the suit he'd chosen. “I could leave the helmet off.”

“Ix can talk through the speakers in the suits.”

Colin nodded. “We'll do it your way.” He still held the suit awkwardly. “I haven't done this since I was twenty.”

“So why are you going in? You usually send people.”

Colin grinned. “Call it a little challenge between me and Ruby.”

Onor helped him, and then put his own suit on. It was kind of endearing that there was anything Colin needed help with. It wasn't like him at all.

Ruby paced around the map table, nervous energy keeping her from stopping at all. She should be writing a song about this, a composition driven by the awfulness of waiting. Except she was sure they were almost out of time. For everything.

Ix had locked up command, but Ellis and Sylva and their small avenging army was almost there. Even if they couldn't get in, she didn't like her worst enemies this close.

The approaching ships were a far bigger worry, but Ruby couldn't shake the feeling that Ellis and Sylva might burst through the door any time.

As she came around to Joel, he reached an arm out and snagged her. “Stop. You're driving me crazy.”

SueAnne wrung her hands and kept her eyes on the table, where the image of the small ships that had detached from the larger one grew inexorably closer to the skin of the
Fire
.

Ix's voice. “They're turning.”

They were. They changed orientation, a series of tiny shifts that looked a little jerky. Something even smaller left the small ships. Ruby tried to adjust her thinking. The
Fire
was huge, the ugly ship almost as big. “Ix? How many people can those smaller ships hold?”

“Probably a hundred each.”

Joel asked, “Do we have a closer view?”

The table switched from what was essentially an illustration of all of the ships—
Fire
, ugly ship, three smaller ships and three even smaller ships—to a camera view of the smallest ships coming in to land on the surface of the
Fire
. They were rounded vessels with small eyes all over them—portholes perhaps. Kind of like the small, strong windows in the train cars.

SueAnne gasped. “I didn't know you had cameras on the outside.”

Ix replied, “They are not as clear as my star cameras, and some are broken. They were meant for use while orbiting a planet.”

Something that looked like metal claws began to descend from the round ships. “Where exactly are they—what part of the hull?” Laird demanded.

“On the outside of the cargo pod in C.”

“Why there?” Ruby asked.

Other questions piled on hers. KJ asking, “Can they get in?” and Laird wanting to know, “Do you see anything that looks like weapons?”

Ix didn't answer any of them. “Ellis and Sylva are outside the door to command. They are discussing how to get in, in spite of the fact that I've locked them out.”

Laird glanced at Joel. “Can we just take them? I have some force on hold.”

Joel frowned. “Keep them ready.” He glanced at the table, and the approaching ships. “They're neutralized right now. I trust Ix's locks. Ix—tell me if they seem to develop any plans that might work.”

“I will.”

Ruby looked back down at the table. From this angle it looked like one of the clawed feet was going to step right into the center of the table.

Then the view went dark.

The suit stank of both Onor's own fear and the stale sweat of generations. He grumbled at having to push the legs to move; if it didn't smell so bad he would have sworn the suit had hung stiffening in the closet for generations. He panted. “Sorry Colin, I'm trying to keep up. This thing's not responding the way it's supposed to.”

“Want to change it out?”

He didn't. It would cost time. “It'll be okay. It's not like it's leaking. Maybe it will loosen up.”

Two others had suited up, Par and one of the women. Most people in Colin's employ had experience in the shifting gravity of the cargo bays. The four in suits would go in; the others would stay near the airlock and guard.

Colin spoke to Ix. “Open the outer door.”

Onor's gloved hand was on the latch, so he felt the release even though he couldn't hear the metallic click or the warning bell through his helmet. He pushed the door open and waved Colin in. Two was a tight fit. Ten minutes of cycling later, they were on the far side, waiting for the other two to join them.

The C bays were completely null-g, and had been null-g since C-pod was closed down.

Onor had been in them, of course. He'd practiced null-g maneuvers using the myriad traverse lines that criss-crossed the wide open spaces in the center of the bay. It had been a long time though, and for now he clung to the handholds on the ledge and tucked one foot under another handhold, trying to control his slight nausea with slow breaths of awful-smelling suit air.

Lights had been turned on. A few of them didn't work, so there were spears of light that went all the way through the cavernous space, and dark places that the light barely touched. The bay held many of the biggest cargo containers: Five times the height of a typical man and longer than they were high. They lined the outer wall, the one closest to space. “What's in those?” Onor whispered.

Ix answered. “Ballast and shielding in some, minerals and dried samples of biology in others, trash in one.”

“Trash?”

“Medical waste. Had to go somewhere.”

Ix had sent them in after one of the strange ships landed on the outside of the cargo bay and began giving instructions to the outer locks. Onor couldn't tell from Ix's calm voice, but he felt certain that this was not supposed to happen. Random ships should not be able to breach the
Fire
, and shouldn't do it even if they could. This was no welcoming delegation of visitors, it was an attack force.

It pissed him off. No one had invited them to touch the
Fire
.

The lock behind them opened and the other two climbed out.

Can you hear anything from the ships?” Onor asked Ix. His own ability to hear was muffled to near-zero by the helmet and the whirring processors and servos in the suit itself.