“I thought there had to be more ships,” Squishy mutters.
“It’s not the ships,” Mikk says. “There were only three. But the readings we were getting of the Dignity Vessel were odd.”
“Odd?” I ask.
“I think they were feeding us scans off their own ship’s systems,” Hurst says. “They added some stuff.”
I hold up a hand. “What did they add?”
“Radiation,” he says. “The ship was giving off the strongest radiation signature I’ve ever seen.”
“Every ship gives off radiation,” Squishy says, “especially if it’s spent some time in space.”
“We know,” Mikk says gently.
I give him a sharp look. He gets softer and more gentle when he’s irritated. He doesn’t meet my gaze. He knows I’m sensing his mood.
“The readings we were getting off the Dignity Vessel were off the charts,” Hurst says. “The kind of readings you’d get if the ship had been in some kind of firefight. You know, with ancient radioactive weapons or something.”
“The implication,” Jennifer says, “is that the ship is so contaminated no one dare go on board, even in an environmental suit.”
“We didn’t get readings like that ever,” Turtle says in surprise.
I fold my hands together. “But it’s a great way to keep passersby away from the ship, and it also explains why the military is there. They’re trying to clean up some kind of toxic mess, which they generally only do when they’re the ones who cause the mess.”
“Well,” Mikk says to me, “you never said anything about radiation, but we knew about stealth tech, and we thought maybe it went haywire or something and caused the readings.”
“We reviewed your information again,” Hurst says. “From what we can tell, you got no radiation readings from the stealth tech at all.”
“We weren’t in the cockpit very long,” I say. We weren’t thinking of taking radiation readings. When Karl and I were in the cockpit, we were trying (hoping) to save Junior.
“Not just the cockpit, Boss,” Turtle says. “Karl and I never noticed anything on our first dive, and believe me, I would have monitored for it. I’m terrified of radiation.”
“She is,” Squishy says, and they look at each other from across the table. For a moment, the old attraction between them becomes obvious to everyone.
Then Squishy looks away.
Turtle makes herself look at the others. Her cheeks are flushed.
“The readings had to be false,” Mikk says. “We argued about that a little. Hurst wanted to get closer, and I have to say, I was the one arguing for caution.”
“But Boss wanted to know what we were facing,” Hurst repeats. I’m beginning to sense that was his mantra on this trip with Mikk and Jennifer. It must have annoyed them after a while, but I’m relieved that Hurst listened.
I did—I do—want to know what we are facing.
Mikk nods. “We got really close and took our own scans. That’s when it got dicey.”
One of the smaller military ships broke away from the Dignity Vessel and headed straight for The Seeker. As the military ship came, it demanded that everyone on The Seeker identify themselves and why they were in the vicinity.
“We thought about lying,” Mikk says.
“Be honest,” Hurst says. “I thought about lying. I didn’t want them to know I was a vet.”
Squishy looks at him in surprise. She has underestimated him, and she finally realizes it. She gives me a glance, as if I should have protected her from herself.
I say nothing. I let them continue with the story.
“But I decided it was better that I tell the truth,” Hurst says.
“Or as much of the truth as we could,” Jennifer says. “We agreed to answer questions directly, but not to embellish.”
“I wanted to do most of the talking,” Mikk says.
“And so he did,” Hurst says with a small smile.
The military ship took their identification and then demanded to board them. The entire crew had expected that. So they agreed to the boarding and crowded near the airlock to wait.
It didn’t take long. The military ship grappled onto theirs, holding it in place. Then four soldiers boarded, coming through the airlock with weapons drawn.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Jennifer says. “It scared me worse than any dive.”
“Except the Room,” Hurst says softly.
She gives him a sad look. Then she nods. “Except the Room.”
The four soldiers crowded into The Seeker’s cockpit. Their weapons—laser rifles—were long and looked more powerful than anything Mikk had ever seen. Hurst believed they were newer models than the ones he’d trained with, powerful guns that could kill from a great distance—and if the settings were right, wouldn’t do any damage to a ship’s hull.
“Scary,” Turtle mutters.
Half the people around the table nod.
Squishy just crosses her arms, as if she already knew about this sort of thing.
“They asked us to identify ourselves all over again,” Jennifer says. “So I introduced us.”
“It was a nice effect,” Mikk says, “because her voice was shaking.”
“It wasn’t an effect,” she says. “I was scared.”
The soldiers muscled their way in. They searched the ship, found the rented diving equipment, and asked a lot of questions about where the team planned to go and what they planned to do.
Jennifer told them that the team had been looking for a specific wreck, but couldn’t find it. They’d gotten turned around several times.
“All four soldiers were men,” Mikk says, “and Jen’s doing this little lost girl thing with them. They believed it.”
“I believed it,” Hurst says, “and I knew she was lying.”
“They checked our logs and our trips report, and they offered to help with plotting the correct course,” Jennifer says. “Then Hurst got all defensive with them, and I got worried. I thought he was going to ruin it.”
“But it turns out that was the thing that turned the tide,” Mikk says. “They might have thought it was a setup if it weren’t for Hurst saying he knew better. They pushed him aside and proved to him he was wrong.”
“I pretended like that hurt my feelings.” Hurst laughs. “Instead, I used the time they were searching through my equipment to do a quiet scan on them.”
“Did you learn anything?” I ask.
“Nothing I didn’t expect. These were real soldiers, fighters, career military. Their work was classified, but they were strong and battle-ready.” Hurst looks at me. We both know that’s significant.
When we go to the Dignity Vessel, we have to be ready to fight.
Squishy squirms beside me. She has realized that we must fight as well, and she clearly doesn’t like the idea.
I turn my chair slightly so that I don’t have to see her. She’s distracting me.
“It took a while,” Mikk says, “but they accepted our story. Then they told us to leave immediately.”
“I did ask them about the ship,” Jennifer says.
“But she was smart about it,” Hurst says. “She did that lost little girl thing again, talking to the big bad soldiers.”
“It wasn’t as bad as all that,” Jennifer says.
“No, she wasn’t acting like a little girl,” Mikk says. “She was flirting.”
Jennifer gives him a fond smile. “I asked them if they were worried about being that close to so much radiation.”
“And one of them says to her, ‘It’s not as bad as it seems.’” Mikk laughs. “The guy next to him whacks him on the arm, as if he’d done something wrong. Which, essentially, he had. He told us that the radiation wasn’t really a problem.”