Boneyards (14 page)

A
fter I finished talking to Coop, I contacted the
Two
so that our team could start searching databases for anomalies near the suggested location of Starbase Lambda. We don't know what we're searching for, and we might not have all the information that we need.

I've just finished docking the skip when the fight starts.

The skip's external door is open and the team is leaving. I'm running the shutdown procedures, double-checking to make sure everything is off before I start the skip's cleaning routine. I already had it shed as much material as it could while we were in flight—I don't want to bring anything weird back from Treffet. But there's a secondary round of cleaning procedures that take place in the bay, and then a massive decontamination run.

The crew has to go through a new decontamination chamber, one our scientists designed with the help of the
Ivoire's
engineers. We've learned so much from the
Ivoire
, and Squishy, for one, believes we should market all of it so that we make enough money to run Lost Souls.

I have already consented to marketing a few small items, but I prefer to keep some of this technology proprietary, particularly since I don't know how all of it works yet and what other properties it possesses.

So I'm deeply wrapped in thoughts of cleanup as well as the way that I'm going to handle the upcoming meeting, when Coop takes my arm.

“I'd like access to your personal database,” he says.

Normally I don't mind it when he touches me, but this time I do. I shake my arm out of his grasp. My personal database is mine. It's leftover from my diving days, and no one has access to it.

“You heard me contact the team,” I say calmly. I'm still running the shutdown procedures with my left hand while I keep my right between me and Coop. “We'll talk about what they've found when we get to the conference room.”

“I don't want to have another meeting,” he says. “They don't know what they're looking for.”

I can't stop the work, although I want to. I want to look him in the eye as I talk to him. Instead, I have to let my voice show my displeasure.

“And you do?”

“Yes,” he says.

I shake my head. “You would never have found the Room of Lost Souls.”

“It was near its proper location,” he says. “Its stabilizers worked well enough.”

“If you were looking for a starbase, which it has never been listed as. It's always been an anomaly, a cautionary tale, not a place that people were supposed to stop. Most maps of that sector deliberately left it off, and set routes around it.”

He's standing too close. I don't like being near anyone when I'm irritated with them. And I'm irritated with him. I can't believe he asked for access to my database.

“I'll find it,” he says.

“
If
it still exists,” I say. “
If
it's still in starbase form.
If
it has caused some kind of anomaly.
If
it's in any records at all.”

I finally finish the shutdown, but I don't look up yet. Coop knows that I do most things manually, and he deliberately asked me while I was working. He was hoping for a distracted yes. Even if he had gotten it, he still wouldn't have been able to access the database. I've set up new protections on it, tied to my DNA. Once a person gets through those protections, then they have to go past my old protections, which are probably too low-tech for anyone from the
Ivoire
to even consider.

“I can figure it out, Boss,” he says, emphasis on my name. At moments like this, the fact that he has to use the word “Boss” grates on him. “I'm not stupid.”

“I never said you were.” I hit the automated internal shutdown procedure. Then I tilt one palm toward the door. “Let's get out of here.”

As he steps out of the skip, he says, “You're not going to let me near the database.”

“No, I'm not,” I say.

“I can search it faster than you can,” he says. “There are things I can look for.”

“
No
.” I push past him. Five other skips sit in the bay, all waiting for their own adventures. The
Two
is so much bigger than the
Business
that it startles me sometimes.

He grabs my arm again, and I shake him away. Then I hold up a hand so that he doesn't touch me again.

“Believe it or not,” I say, “as primitive as I am, I know more about searching these sectors than you ever will. That's my job, that's my expertise, and that's who I am. You're an amateur compared to me.”

He opens his mouth, then closes it as if he's rethought his comment.

“You cannot convince me by arguing with me or by grabbing my arm or by forcing me to do what you want. I know you're desperate to find out what happened. I get that.” I'm so angry that I don't care about the promise I made about timelines and censored language. I want him to back off, and I'm going to use every verbal tool I can to get him to do so. “So,
Captain Cooper
, you need to remember that whatever happened here happened five thousand years ago.”

He snaps, “I know that—”

“And,” I say, not letting him go into his own rant about how familiar he is with passing time, “while it all seems urgent to you, it's not. The people you know died a long time ago. The Fleet is gone, and might only be a legend in the dust of history.”

“I know that,” he says, shaking now.

“My people are alive right now,” I say over him, “and so is the crew of the
Ivoire.
Living
now.
And we just happen to be in a sector because of your lovely
anacapa
drive that I don't know a lot about. I have no idea if we're even in hostile territory or if someone would think we are.”

“That doesn't matter—,” he starts.

“It matters a great deal,” I say. “First of all, we're in the
Two
, not the
Ivoire
, and we don't have much in the way of defense capability. Second, you're asking my people to risk their lives
on a historical quest.
You got that?”

He straightens as I speak, as if he's putting on his captain's mask. I made him do that; I'm provoking him back into his shields. I know that. But he needs to know what he's asking of us. I've tried to tell him before, and he hasn't heard.

He needs to hear me now.

“The information is important to you,” I say. “I know that. We all know that or we wouldn't be here. Your team needs to know what happened to the Fleet as well. It's part of your survival. But you have to realize that what you discover will probably have no impact on your future.”

“You don't believe I'll be able to find the Fleet,” he says, his tone so flat I know he's deliberately leached the emotion from it.

“I believe you can find a version of the Fleet if you want to,” I say, “particularly if we find the information you need.”

“But?” he says.

“But it'll be nothing like your Fleet. The ships will be different; the people will be different. You won't fit in.”

My face is warm, and it gets even hotter as I draw a breath. I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have said any of it.

Coop's cheeks are ever so slightly red. I have no idea how he controls his anger responses so well, but I wish he wouldn't. I wish he would yell back at me.

It probably has to do with his training. I suppose a captain who constantly yells at his staff is no good to them.

“Thank you for your help so far,” he says. “I suppose it's time to return to Lost Souls. Then I'll take the
Ivoire
, and we won't trouble you further.”

He walks away. I resist the urge to grab at him. That's what he has just done with me and it infuriated me.

Instead, I use my voice. “Jonathon.”

He stops.

“You need me.”

He shakes his head once. “We can find what we need.”

“I'm sure you can,” I say to his back. “But it'll take you months. It'll take me weeks, maybe less. You want to find out what happened? Then you need me to do the research, and you need my team to help yours.”

He doesn't move. He doesn't turn around. He doesn't do anything.

“I know this is a matter of life and death for your crew,” I say in a much softer tone. “I know how important it is that they find out what happened to their families, even if nothing can be done about it. I know how long you've put this off. So let me help, and let me do it the right way.”

“What is the right way?” he asks.

“We've been to two different planets on this trip,” I say, “and now we're headed deeper into the sector—a sector none of us knows much about—to find out if there's still a starbase nearby. We're skimming over the surface of what might be very valuable information.”

“I don't have the time to wait for Stone's archeologists to figure out what happened at the sector bases.”

“I know that,” I say. “But we can at least learn the history of the region. It might tell us a lot.”

He tilts his head ever so slightly backward. I can feel his frustration. “So let's go look up your database.”

“My database is the most complete database I know of on Empire history,” I say. “I know a lot about the Nine Planets as well. But I've never had cause to come out here. I haven't collected information on this part of the universe.”

“So you have nothing,” he says, and this time I hear the defeat in his voice.

“I have what all the other databases have,” I say. “Nothing more.”

His shoulders slump. I have always been aware that this quest has kept him going. I simply hadn't realized how much until right now.

“Each year that goes by,” he says, “I feel less and less like a part of something, and more and more like a man out of time.”

I wonder if he realizes that his words have more than one meaning. Knowing Coop, he probably does. And he probably means that he is both a man who no longer fits in one particular era and a man who is running out of options.

“If you let me help,” I say gently, “we can get you some answers. But you have to let me run this mission, just like we initially said.”

“You want to go back to Lost Souls,” he says.

I do, but not because we need to work there. I'm just ready to leave this part of space.

“I think we should,” I say.

He lowers his head.

“But first, I think we should stop at the closest starbase. I think we should get some information that's not in the public records.”

He finally turns around to face me. He has gone pale, lines carved into his skin that weren't there a moment ago. “How do you propose we do that?”

I give him my gentlest smile. “See why you need me?”

He extends his hand.

“I need you for more than just that,” he says.

I have to walk a few steps forward to reach him. I thread my fingers through his. “It's a strange situation we're in, isn't it?”

“Yeah,” he says softly. “And it gets stranger each and every day.”

I
don't know what to call the relationship I have with Coop. It's sexual and distant, passionate and cold. We never ever call each other partners. We rarely acknowledge that we're lovers. We don't live together, we don't always sleep together, and we sometimes don't see each other for weeks.

I think most of the crew knows that Coop and I are something more than colleagues, but I'm not sure how much they know. I'm not sure how much I know.

I do know that I'm his best friend outside of the
Ivoire
, and maybe his best friend period. Around me, he doesn't have to be “the captain” all the time. He can let go, at least a little.

I think, sometimes, that's one of the main things he lost when the Fleet vanished—he lost the ability to be anyone besides the man in charge. He lost a large portion of himself.

As for me, I'm in a relationship of equals. He doesn't want anything from me. He doesn't want me to give up my work or change who I am. He doesn't care about my past, and he doesn't even want me to promise him a future.

Neither of us is sure what the future is. And neither of us wants a commitment from the other. We take comfort in each other's presence—except when we're fighting with each other.

And we have had some spectacular fights. Today's, while blunt, isn't the worst fight we've ever had. It's not even close.

We walk through the corridor hand in hand. As we round the corner near the conference room, our hands slip apart. I'm not even sure who disengages first. I'm not sure it matters.

I push open the door to find the crew that we took to the surface, Stone and some of her team, as well as the remainder of the Six.

Stone looks frustrated, but I can't tell if that's because she didn't go to the surface or if it's because she's frustrated by the work.

“It's not simple,” Yash says to Coop. She's standing near the head of the table. As I note her position, that's when I realize that no one is sitting down. They're either milling or standing back awkwardly, arms crossed.

There's tension in this room as well.

Coop moves away from me, and I'm glad of it. I always feel better when we approach our teams separately.

“What do you mean?” he asks Yash.

“There is no starbase where Lambda should be,” she says. “There's no record of one either.”

“There's no record of anything there that we can find,” Stone says.

“I think that's unusual.” Mikk is across the room from Stone. He looks angry, and his tone is belligerent.

I feel a few steps behind. “You think it's unusual that there's no starbase in that location?”

“No,” he says. “I think it's unusual that there's nothing there.”

“Yes,” Stone snaps. “And now the city Isstahn on Treffet is a meadow. That's what happens over time. You can't have a meadow in space.”

That's when I understand what's going on. They're having a similar argument to the one that Coop and I just had. They're arguing over the passage of time.

“She doesn't get it,” Mikk says to me as if Stone isn't there. “She doesn't know anything about space.”

“I know something about space,” Yash says, “and I don't get it either.”

I can't help myself. I shoot a glance at Coop, and part of my expression is a petty I-told-you-so. I also know he won't understand why I have that expression until later in this conversation.

“Nothing's routed through there?” I ask Mikk.

“That's right,” he says.

“Recommendations in the travel charts to avoid the area?” I ask.

Coop moves his head ever so slightly. He's beginning to understand now.

“You got it,” Mikk says.

“So what's there?” Coop asks.

“As far as the star charts go, a big fat nothing,” Yash says. “Which is normal, if you think about the damn time passing.”

“It's not normal,” Coop says. “Boss has been informing me of that for a while.”

He nods his head in my direction, a small movement that is both an acknowledgment and an apology.

“We can't find any reference to that part of space in the material we've scanned,” Stone says to me. “Now, granted, we're scanning. I barely understand what this sector is about, let alone what we're discussing when we discuss that part of space.”

“What is this sector about?” I ask.

Coop gives me an exasperated look. Yash actually rolls her eyes. But I don't care. The politics of a region are as important as what's in the region. If you don't know what you're up against, then you have no idea if you've done something wrong—or if there's a place to avoid.

“So far as I can tell,” Stone says, “everything is nonaligned. Hell, even the cultures inside the various planets are nonaligned.”

“So we can go anywhere,” Yash says.

“It's not that simple,” I say. “Who polices the sector? Anyone?”

“I don't know,” Stone says. “I'm not even sure if the various planets trade with each other. A few cultures don't seem to have space flight, or if they do, they don't use it.”

“That's the thing that worries me,” Mikk says.

Stone gives him a look of complete exasperation. “It worries you for no reason,” she snaps.

“That's okay, Lucretia,” I say. “I've worked with Mikk a long time. He often has a good sense of things.”

Stone sighs heavily and turns her back to him, as if she's going to disown what he has to say before he gets a chance to say it. Yash shakes her head as well, but Rossetti remains quietly observant, as if she's not quite sure who to believe.

Coop raises his eyebrows slightly and looks at me. Our teams haven't disagreed like this in a long time. Not since we had the Dignity Vessel arguments a few years ago.

This time, however, their discomfort isn't an echo of our discomfort. This time, the frustrations seem to come from this unsatisfying trip and from our groups' varying work method.

And, it seems, the people in this conference room haven't divided themselves by
Ivoire
crew and my crew. They've divided themselves by opinion, and the opinions seem based on varying experiences and expertise. That's new as well.

“So what is it, Mikk?” I ask. “What's bothering you?”

“There're hints in the public materials,” he says, speaking directly to me, “that there's a group of ships that form a culture all their own.”

“A Fleet?” Coop asks, and there's a bit too much hope in his voice.

“There's no evidence of that,” Yash says. “Believe me, that's the first thing I looked for.”

“It might be a group of cargo vessels that travel together for protection,” Roderick says. I knew he was in the room from the moment I entered, but his presence didn't register until now. He's standing behind Mikk, half-hidden in the shadow caused by the overhead light.

“You don't believe that it's cargo ships, do you?” I say to him.

“It's hard to find information about them,” Mikk says. “That worries me.”

“Why?” Coop asks. “You say there's no information on our Fleet.”

“That's something out of the past,” Roderick says. “We're talking about right now.”

Cargo vessels banding together are common in the Empire. But the cargo vessels travel together for protection—at least in the parts of space I'm familiar with.

“Are you finding some draconian laws?” I ask. “Or do you think there's a pirate problem?”

Coop lets out a grunt of understanding. Yash frowns at me, as if I shouldn't be giving these men any credence at all. Stone shakes her head slightly.

“We're not finding evidence of anything,” Mikk says. “I don't like it.”

Both the Empire and the Nine Planets have laws about who patrols which area of space. Those laws enable both sectors to deal with pirates rather ruthlessly. The pirate problem still exists, particularly in the Nine Planets, but it's not as severe as it was when I was a girl.

“Crap,” I say. “We'll have to be cautious going in.”

“Going in where?” Stone asks.

“To that dark area of space?” Mikk asks.

“We're not going home?” Rossetti says, and her use of the word “home” surprises me. I'm not sure if she's referring to the Lost Souls or if she's referring to the
Ivoire.

“Not yet,” I say. “We have one more stop.”

Everyone looks at me.

“There's got to be a starbase somewhere near here,” I say. “We're going to go there like a bunch of weary travelers and see what we can learn.”

“We'd have to download their entire database,” Stone says.

“There's no way to know if they're going to be friendly,” Roderick says.

“Or if they will take our money,” Mikk says.

I grin at everyone, pretending a calm I don't really feel. “Well,” I say. “There's only one way to find out.”