Boneyards (28 page)

“A
bsolutely not,” Coop says.

He's in the captain's suite of the
Ivoire.
He has been in the ship ever since we got back from the Boneyard. He's preparing the
Ivoire
for a flight back, and maybe for a prolonged stay.

He could have waited for a week or so, taken his time to put things together, but he's clearly not going to. On the
Two
, I thought he was being surprisingly patient.

Now I realize he's not patient at all. He just has a better strategy than I thought he had.

The captain's suite is bigger than any land-based apartment I had when I was diving. It's certainly bigger than any captain's cabin I've seen on any of the ships I've owned.

This suite has five rooms, a private galley, and a full kitchen off the dining area that can be closed off if the captain so desires. That's so he can hold formal meals here if he needs to.

Most of the crew quarters on the
Ivoire
are spectacular because this ship isn't just transportation; it's home. So even the lower-level crew quarters have at least two rooms and are called apartments.

However, none of the quarters are as elaborate as this one.

It always takes my breath away whenever I enter it.

Coop is standing in the middle of the main room. He has full screens on all the walls, playing some of the footage we recorded near the Boneyard. He's studying it—or he was until I asked if I could come on board.

Now he's turned to face me. He has converted the table into a workspace—the surface now has a control panel, and maps blaze up at me. One chair is pulled back, the other pushed forward. The couch faces the wall screens, and so do two of the chairs.

He's thinking of making some kind of presentation, although not to me.

So I've jumped right in. I've told him that Squishy has been captured, that Turtle believes she's in that science lab, and that I've done what I can to verify the news.

In fact, I've spent the last two hours retracing Turtle's research without her purported connections, and certainly not following her steps. She's nowhere near me.

Squishy's surviving team members have come back, and they're a mess. They're apologetic and frightened and worried that they've abandoned friends to a fate that they shouldn't have done.

But they've also confirmed that Squishy was trying to destroy the stealth tech in the Empire. One two-man partnership also confirmed that they'd seen evidence of that second science research station. It's not a lab. It's a base, and it's huge.

They were going to tell Squishy, but of course, she never showed.

I tell Coop about all of this. I tell him that I've verified it. And then I tell him my plan—or at least, my
ideal
plan.

I want to use the
anacapa
drive and all of the
Ivoire's
resources. We'll arrive at the base in an instant, send in a team to pull out Squishy, then destroy the base, and leave. I tell him I think this will add two days to the timing of his return to the Boneyard, maybe less.

But Coop doesn't think that's a good idea.

“You told her that she couldn't go on this mission, right?” he asks. He looks like a full-fledged captain now, in this space with the images of the destroyed Dignity Vessels behind him. “You told her you didn't sanction this. You told her that she risked being caught.”

“I did,” I say calmly. I knew he would make this argument.

“And she went ahead and did it on her time,” he says. “Disobeying you.”

“I don't own her,” I say.

“But she's smart enough to know you were right,” he says.

I sigh. “She does now.”

“It's not humorous, Boss.”

“I know that,” I say. “But we need to get her out of there. She will eventually tell them whatever they want to know.”

“What does that matter to us?” he asks.

I glance at the ships behind him. He's already gone back to the man he was.

“I don't think it means anything to you,” I say. “But if the Empire gets its hands on an
anacapa
drive, it'll change the balance of power in this area. It will defeat the Nine Planets.”

“Unless we give the Nine Planets the
anacapa
drive and our weapons systems,” Coop says. “There is no downside.”

“Except full-scale war,” I say quietly.

He glares at me. Then he shakes his head and glances over his shoulder at the images.

“You want me to jeopardize my entire crew for a woman who doesn't follow orders,” he says.

“No,” I say softly. “I want you to use your expertise to save my friend.”

“Dammit, Boss, don't manipulate me. I know how much trouble you have with that woman.”

“I also have known her for more than twenty years,” I say. “I owe her.”

“If your friend Turtle is to be believed, you don't. Squishy doesn't want you to come.”

“Yeah,” I say. “She hasn't thought it through.”

“Isn't that a surprise,” he says. Then he comes closer, and puts his hands on my shoulders. I've seen him do this with his crew before delivering bad news.

I slip out of his grasp. Not just because I'm not a member of his crew, but I hate being touched like that. It's patronizing, whether he knows it or not.

He lets his hands drop.

“Boss, look, this war you fear between the Nine Planets and the Empire is going to come no matter what you do. In my study of your history, it's become pretty clear to me that this war isn't a new war, but a continuation of the Colonnade Wars. Sometimes groups fight until one wins—no matter how long it takes.”

“I'm not going to be responsible for this,” I say.

“You're not. You did what you could.
Squishy
will be responsible for it.”

Now—suddenly—I'm mad. I didn't expect to get mad, but that hand-on-the-shoulder thing started it, along with lecturing me about my own history.

“When I first met you,” I say, “you got really upset when you realized that we believed stealth tech was just a cloak.”

“So?” he says.

“So the Empire thinks maybe it's just a cloak, or maybe it's a weapon. They're not going to change their thinking because Squishy also tells them it's a drive. She can't build the drive. She can't show them the safeguards. Those death holes we saw in Vaycehn, the deaths that happened in the Room of Lost Souls, there will be things like that all over the sector because the Empire will try to advance its technology. And you say that has nothing to do with us? Yet you were willing to risk everything to shut down the
anacapa
in Sector Base V when you realized what was going on. You even shot at Empire people to save my people.”

He's waiting patiently. I
hate
that. It's as if I'm having a tantrum and he's a grown-up.

It's part of his command self, and I hate that too.

“It's different, Boss. The Empire would make mistakes anyway. I can't control them. They have nothing to do with me or my people.”

“Because you're heading to the Boneyard,” I say.

“Yes,” he says quietly.

I expected it, but I'm disappointed. No, that's not fair. I'm furious. We gave him a home for five years. We helped his people learn how to survive in this culture. We helped them mourn the loss of their friends, the ones who couldn't cope with the change. We gave them jobs and income and a place to come back to.

He had called this place home not twelve hours ago.

But I don't say any of that. Because I expected him to turn me down.

I had hoped he wouldn't.

But I had expected that he would.

“Okay,” I say quietly, hoping my disappointment and anger doesn't show in my voice. “Then I need you to take those two days to help me learn the systems in my ship.”

“You know the
Two
,” he says.

I shake my head. “I have working Dignity Vessels.” I deliberately use the phrase he hates. “I'm going to take one to rescue Squishy. I need help understanding the full weapons system, and I need someone to show me the ins and outs of the
anacapa
drive.”

“You can't do that,” he says.

“Why not?” I say. “It's my ship. I can do whatever I want.”

He stares at me. Finally he says, “You don't have enough qualified people to run it.”

“I'm sure a few of your people will help me,” I say. “We don't need a full crew. Just enough to man the bridge, work communications, handle weapons, and monitor the engine room.”

“Good Lord,” he says, almost to himself. “You're serious.”

“I'm going to get her,” I say. “I'm taking a ship in that the Empire is not prepared to deal with. I figure surprise will get us a lot farther than anything.”

“Surprise will get you into that base,” he says, “and then you're done. You're proposing a commando raid on a military base to rescue your stupid friend.”

Now he's angry. He wouldn't normally have called Squishy stupid no matter how much he thought she was.

“You don't know how to run the ship and you don't know how to use the
weapons and you sure as hell don't have anyone qualified to take on trained soldiers in their home territory.”

I shrug. “Then maybe I'll go in and blow the base myself.”

“With Squishy on it?” he asks.

I ponder it for a moment. “Probably not. I probably won't blow the base. One of my team will when I haven't come back from my ‘commando raid.’”

“You'll die too,” he says.

I nod.

He stares at me. I can see a series of warring emotions on his face. Anger, disbelief, fear. Then he gets his expression under control.

“You'd die for Squishy?” he asks.

“I've always been prepared to die for my team,” I say, and he knows I mean it. I might have died the day we met, if things had gone a little differently. “But in this case, I wouldn't be dying for Squishy. I'd be dying to make sure she achieved her mission, which, no matter what I said to her, is a good one. I don't care what you say about the Colonnade Wars or the inevitability of the fight between the Empire and the Nine Planets. Right now, we're in a stalemate, and I want it to stay that way.”

“You realize if we bring the
Ivoire
in and destroy their research base, this will no longer be a stalemate,” he says. “It'll be an act of war.”

I shrug. “We'll have superior firepower.”

“We have three ships with weapons systems,” Coop says, “two of which you refuse to name let alone staff.”

“We also have your weapons systems and a variety of fighter jets. Believe me, the Empire won't be able to keep up. They'll claim it's an act of war, but they've never seen anything like the
Ivoire
before, and the Nine Planets will easily be able to claim ignorance. They have no idea about the
Ivoire
either.”

He stares at me. He's assessing me. “You realize you'll be doing this at the risk of your own life. You'll probably die on this mission.”

“I know,” I say.

“Is your life that worthless?” he says with more force than either of us anticipated.

“I didn't know dying for a cause was worthless,” I snap. “Isn't that the antithesis of what they taught you in Fleet school?”

He looks away from me, then turns toward those destroyed ships. Ships on which—I can guarantee it—people died. For some cause or another. One we have no idea about.

“Damn you, Boss,” he says quietly.

I don't smile, even though I want to. “So you'll teach me?”

He shakes his head. “I'll lead your little suicide mission and we'll get your friend back. And then I'm heading to the Boneyard.”

I nod. He didn't have to add that last bit. I know it, but I don't want to think about it.

“Thanks, Coop,” I say.

“Don't thank me until we're done,” he says, and shuts off the screens behind him.

T
hey brought her on board one of the larger military vessels and marched to a side wing. Now they had her in some kind of brig. Squishy had never been in a brig before. She had never even seen one. This was bigger than she expected and more elaborate.

The walls were smooth and could easily turn into screens if need be. She suspected people were watching her, but she wasn't certain. There was a long bed on the far wall. The bed extended from the wall, and its supports were hidden inside that wall.

She couldn't take the bed apart if she wanted to.

She didn't want to.

There was also a place to sit—just another platform extended from the wall—but she appreciated it. Someone had even placed a light above it for reading. She got a reading pad when they put her in the brig, which surprised her. Most people didn't read, and she didn't expect the kindness.

But they didn't want her to go onto any network or view any vids. And when she finally picked up the reading device, it warned her that any attempt to take it apart would set off an alarm and cause her to go to a different cell entirely, one—apparently—less comfortable.

This one wasn't that comfortable. There was a toilet on the far side of the room and a little pump that released cleansing fluid nearby. She had no privacy, although she could pretend she did. No guard stood outside the door.

But people watched,
cameras
watched just the same.

This was her future. No matter what she did, no matter how much she talked, she would spend the rest of her life in cells of some kind, either alone or with unsavory types, people who had somehow angered the Empire.

As if she hadn't done unsavory things. At least two hundred deaths could be laid on her. Not counting Cloris. Plus the destruction of the research station
had probably destroyed a bunch of lives. Not because the people died, but because she had completely ruined their life's work.

She wanted to say she didn't mind being in here, but she did. She hated being confined. And she hated having nothing to do.

That's why they had given her the reading device. They figured that no one could sleep all the time, and they certainly couldn't ruminate forever. So they gave her “entertainment,” even though it wasn't.

Before she could open anything on the device, she had to read the list of crimes she was charged with, along with the statutory punishments. She wasn't surprised by any of it. In fact, some of the punishments seemed too lenient to her.

But she dutifully read them, and then she looked at the reading options. Mostly nonfiction, mostly propaganda on how wonderful the Empire was.

If she got desperate enough, she would read that too.

She had half expected Quint to come here and try to convince her to cooperate with the imperial authorities. He had tried a little in the
Dane
. She had expected him to try even harder here.

But maybe he was giving her time to reflect.

Not that she needed it.

All she needed was time to figure out what had happened to her courage and her bravado. She should have destroyed the
Dane
, while she was in it. She should have done a lot of things.

And she always seemed to let the opportunities go right by her.