This command vessel seems small. I don’t see all the weapons bays and there are only two bay doors for ships. There’s a strange line in the middle of the command vessel and a marking that I’ve never seen before.
As we get to the skip’s airlock, I wait for Odette. She arrives a half second behind me. I hope she follows my lead.
I’m going to release the tether and climb into the airlock in the same movement. She has to get out of the way or the tether will hit her as it comes back to the skip.
I’m doing this so that the skip only shakes once. They might think we’re still outside. You should always put the tether back before getting into the airlock. No one will expect me to do both at the same time.
I shove Odette behind me and point to the airlock. She nods. I wish I can see her face more clearly; I get the sense that I’ve surprised her.
I don’t care. We need to move quickly. I reach for the airlock opener. She points to the tether.
It’s my turn to nod. I point at the airlock, give her a slight shove, and then turn to the tether. I hit the airlock release and the tether’s release at the same time.
Theoretically, two divers can get inside an airlock in the time it takes a tether to release itself and wind back into its holder. I’ve done it before, but it takes coordination and luck.
Odette makes a slight squeak—one I hope no one heard in the command vessel or the skip’s cockpit—and scrambles to get inside the airlock.
I follow.
The airlock’s outer door is closing just as the tether bangs into the skip.
Then I turn toward the interior door. I pull my laser pistol. It feels heavy in my hand. The gravity has come on inside the airlock, which means that the environment is almost on full.
Odette has her laser pistol drawn as well.
My heart is pounding all over again, and my breath is coming hard. A warning light goes on in the corner of my helmet: I am consuming oxygen at twice the normal rate.
The interior door opens.
I step in—and am greeted by three people I do not know, holding laser pistols on me. A large woman with dark hair has her arm around Hurst’s stomach and another laser pistol pointed at his head.
“Put down your weapons,” she says.
I don’t even have to think about it. I do. Odette does as well.
“Good,” the woman says. “Now step all the way inside.”
I do that as well. “Can I get out of my helmet?” I ask. I don’t want to tell her that my oxygen is running low.
She shrugs. “It’s your skip.”
I take off my helmet. My face cools. I realize my hair is wet. I’m covered in sweat.
The woman is not wearing a uniform. Neither are her companions. They’re both men. One is thin and wiry, but looks flabby somehow. Had I seen him closely before I got out of the airlock, I might have tried to take him. But all I saw were the weapons.
The other man is beefy and his face is ruddy. Had I met him on Longbow Station, I would have thought him a drinker, someone I didn’t have to take too seriously.
Whatever I expected, it was not this.
“What do you want?” I ask, playing dumb.
“What were you doing on the Dignity Vessel?” she asks.
Hurst’s eyes are wide. He’s trying to signal to me. I’m not sure what he wants me to say, but I know what I’m going to say.
“Let my friend go,” I say.
“Answer me first,” the woman says.
I shake my head. I have nothing to lose. I’m going to gamble all of their lives, but they don’t know that.
“Let him go,” I say, “and I’ll tell you everything.”
“She’s stubborn,” says a voice from the galley. “Let him go.”
The woman pushes Hurst at me. He trips, catches me, and grabs my hand. Something solid hits my glove. It’s all I can do not to look at him in surprise.
He has given me something, and I think I know what it is.
“You’ve hurt him,” I say, to cover up my surprise.
“We just held him until you came back,” the woman says. “We didn’t want to give you warning.”
“Warning of what?”
A man steps out of the galley, bending at the waist so that he doesn’t hit his head. He doesn’t need to stand up for me to know who he is.
It’s my father.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I snap.
“I missed you too,” he says. “You do realize you were diving my wreck?”
He looks healthier than he did when I saw him at his home. A little thinner, and in better shape. It takes me a minute to realize he’s the one who put up all the signs, who left the cockpit door open and cleaned out the debris.
He’s the one who has been working inside the Dignity Vessel.
“I haven’t been diving your wreck,” I say. “I came here to destroy it.”
“Well, now you see that you can’t. It’s military property—”
“We have to get out of here,” I say, “because I’ve already done my damage.”
He stops, recognizing something in my tone. “You don’t destroy things,” he says.
“I do if they’re dangerous,” I say.
“The wreck isn’t dangerous. We keep it guarded, although I was a bit worried when we got back and found our ships were gone.”
“You need to be gone, too. We have—” I glance at my watch. We got out in record time. “—fifteen minutes to get clear.”
“Clear of what?” he asks, just like I want him to.
“Clear of the explosion,” I say.
“You would need something massive to destroy that Dignity Vessel,” says one of the men. “Two little things like you can’t carry something like that.”
“Anyone want to explain gravity to this man?” I ask, still staring at my father.
He knows I’m serious.
“Get your device out of there,” he says.
“I would if I could,” I say. “But it took us ten minutes to get to the cockpit, and that was after we were fully suited. Neither Odette nor I have enough oxygen to go back. Even if we did, we wouldn’t get there in time. And …”
I let the word trail before I smile sweetly at him.
“… I don’t know how to disable the bomb.”
He curses and turns away from me. Then he looks at the woman. “We have to get out of here.”
“She’s bluffing,” the woman says.
“My daughter doesn’t bluff,” he says.
“There’s no reason to get out of here,” she says. “We’ve got shields. An explosion won’t hurt us.”
My father glares at her. I had forgotten that look. It is filled with contempt. “We’re pretty sure that ancient stealth tech creates a dimensional rift. I have no idea if exploding the ship will close the rift or open it wider. Do you want to be here to find out?”
The woman’s cheeks turn bright red. “We can’t get out of here with the skip grappled on.”
“Then put it in the bay,” he says. “But get us out of here.”
“It takes two pilots to put a skip in the bay,” the woman says. “I’ve never flown anything this small—”
“I’ll do it,” Hurst says with a little more panic in his voice than I like. Apparently, he doesn’t want to die for this mission.
“We can’t trust you,” the woman says.
“Then let go of the skip,” I say. “Get your people out of here. We’ll be just fine.”
“We’re not doing that,” my father says. “Get this skip into the bay. Warn the other ships to stay away from here. If she is bluffing, we’ll know within the hour.”
The woman doesn’t have to be told twice. She goes back through the galley. Apparently the grapple attached to our emergency doors. It also must have an oxygen-filled corridor which allowed them to travel over here.
I’ve heard of grapplers that sophisticated, but I’ve never seen one. Apparently, I will see one now.