Boneyards (26 page)

S
quishy should have found all of those military uniforms, all of those laser rifles, intimidating, but she didn't. She actually felt relieved.

But she didn't let the emotion show, not even when she realized that in addition to the uniformed imperial military inside her small cockpit, even more stood in the corridor.

Quint remained in front of the door. He was wearing a uniform too, but no battle armor. He wasn't holding a gun either.

“I have to arrest you now,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

“This isn't some simple charge,” he said. “You committed treason against the Empire.”

She waited.

The people around Quint didn't move. She could hear some of the armor creak, though, as if just staying still was too much for it.

“The punishment for treason is execution,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

Then she braced herself. Did he mean he would kill her here and now? Could he be that cold?

Her gaze met his. They stared at each other for a long moment, and then he looked away.

“If you cooperate,” he said, “you might live longer.”

“Cooperate how?” she asked, not because she planned to cooperate but because she was curious.

“Tell us the names of the people you work with,” he said. “Tell us what you've discovered in the Nine Planets.”

She smiled. “That's easy,” she said. “There's a lot of salvage in the Nine Planets.”

He sighed. “And don't lie, Rose. It won't help.”

“I'm not lying about that,” she said. “There
is
a lot of salvage in the Nine Planets.”

He took out his cuffs. They had a design she hadn't seen before. “If you tell us everything you can about the rebel operations in the Nine Planets, you will not only live, you'll probably go to some cushy place that's more of a resort than a prison.”

“Probably?” she asked.

He walked over to her. The weapons tracked him. Or to be more accurate, they moved in a wordless instruction to her:
Try anything and you will die.

She thought about it for just a moment—dying as he tried to take her into custody—and then she heard Boss's voice:
Don't be so melodramatic.

Or was that Quint's voice? They had both said the same thing to her in a different context.

She had never thought of herself as melodramatic, but maybe she was.

Or maybe that was just how she presented herself to the world. Maybe that was why Boss hadn't listened to her on the
Business
all those years ago.

Quint took her hands. His fingers were callused. He held her hands for just a moment, and then he raised his head and looked at her.

Her breath caught. They had stood like this years and years ago and promised to love each other forever. They had been in front of friends and family, and she had meant every single word.

At the time, she thought he had too.

He gently put the cuffs around her wrists. They adjusted to her skin, molding her wrists into one wrist. They didn't hurt, but they did seem warm, a constant reminder—besides the position of her arms—that something held her wrists in place.

“You know the other reason to talk with us, don't you?” he asked.

She didn't answer. He would tell her if she waited long enough.

“We have your ship. We'll know everyone you contacted.”

“You know that already,” she said.

He looked surprised. Then he cleared his throat and added, “And anything you've tried to get rid of, we'll just reconstruct.”

“The only thing I tried to get rid of was those tracers you put all over this ship.”

He was still holding her hands. “You found them.”

“I'm sure I didn't find all of them,” she said. “If I had, you wouldn't be here.”

She wanted him to think she believed the lie.

“You know, Rosealma,” he said after a long moment, “I really have no idea who you are.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “You never did.”

T
he trip home takes only a few minutes. When the ship skitters out of foldspace, I hold my breath.

Then, before me, the Lost Souls complex spreads like a beacon in the darkness. It startles me that I have developed a gigantic corporation, and that this corporation lives in a complex. Two research stations, several floating labs, and a base that has most of the Dignity Vessels we've found, unless they're under repair.

The
Ivoire
is docked against what I call our home base, mostly because it's a small station that my people built with comfort in mind. It has apartments that extend around the inner rings and cafeterias, entertainment plazas, and shopping areas that extend around the outer rings. The people who run the businesses on the outer rings are generally family members of the folks who work for Lost Souls—and a lot of those businesses are actually owned by the corporation.

Like the cafeterias. Designed to cater to a variety of tastes, the cafeterias were Mikk's brainchild. He doesn't like cooking, and he hates spending money for food, so he opts to have part of his paycheck taken as a food allowance. Everyone has that option, and a surprising 75 percent take advantage of it.

Of course, it's all too big for me to run, but back when I did control each aspect of it, I found myself saying yes a lot more than I should have just to get people off my back. Financially we were all right because of patents and the scientific developments that sold, and sold big, throughout the Nine Planets, but finally some accountant types convinced me that even with what seemed to me to be unlimited funds, Lost Souls would eventually spend all of its profits.

That was when I decided to get a chief financial officer. Even though I still monitor the books, I don't make all of the day-to-day decisions. I don't even
make half of them, which is how I can stay away for so long.

Still, being back makes me relax in a way I don't like. I tell myself I'm just relieved we didn't get stuck in foldspace.

We dock near the
Ivoire.
I expect Coop to run out of the
Two
, gather his crew, and head back to that Boneyard. In fact, I'm braced to argue with him when he catches my arm.

“We need to plan this trip right,” he says.

I look at him, startled that he even suggests this. “Yeah, we do.”

“I think we take a few days and make an actual plan. I have some ideas, but I want to sketch them out before we implement them.”

I'm openmouthed. I was just getting used to the impatient Coop; that the patient Coop has returned surprises me.

I can't keep silent about this. “I would have thought you'd want to leave immediately.”

He shakes his head. “There's too much data to sift through.”

His mood has lightened, and I don't think it's because he has returned “home,” to use the word he used. I think it's because he believes he finally will get some answers.

Or maybe it's because he sees a possible path into the future now.

“I want to call a meeting in two days,” he says to me. “I'll have information by then.”

“Maybe you and I should talk first,” I say.

“Oh, we will,” he says. He stands, stretches, and his back cracks from the stress of sitting in the same position.

The rest of the cockpit crew is watching him, some with the same surprised expression that I must have had a moment ago.

“The adventure isn't over,” he says to them when he realizes they're all staring at him. “But this part of it is.”

Then he leaves the cockpit ahead of the rest of us.

“What's that?” I ask Yash.

She shakes her head, still staring after him. “A changed man,” she says. “That's all I can tell you. He's a changed man.”

A
s usual, I'm the last to leave the ship. I want to make sure everything from this trip has been removed, and the ship's ready to be cleaned for the next trip. In addition, I need to double-check our information files, and make certain I have all the materials I need to make a proper record of what happened on this particular journey.

I close up and step into the docking bay, which is much more elaborate than anything I had ever envisioned for a company I'm connected with. This section of the bay is built for smaller ships like the
Two
. We have other sections built large enough for Dignity Vessels, which are the largest ships I've come across outside of the imperial military fleet.

When I arrived here a few hours ago, I was relieved to be home, but when I step off the
Two
, I feel completely overwhelmed.

And it doesn't help to see Ilona Blake standing at the edge of the walkway, her signature electronic pad clutched to her chest.

Ilona runs this place, and does a much better job than I ever would. She also keeps me in the loop, which I rarely appreciate but do understand is necessary. She's slight and pretty enough that the men notice her as she walks past, before she stops and orders them about for the first time. She wears her long black hair the way she has worn it since I met her, tied behind her head and cascading down her back.

“I'm glad you're here,” she says, and I sigh inwardly.

When she uses that tone, it means there's a problem she can't deal with. Problems she can't deal with are usually vast.

“I don't suppose I can get dinner, take a shower, and maybe have a nap,” I say.

She doesn't even smile. That's what's changed about Ilona since she's taken over most of the duties connected with running Lost Souls. She hardly ever smiles anymore.

“Well,” she says, as if she's actually considering my request. “It's better if you answer at least one question first. Do you know someone named ‘Turtle’?”

She says the name as if it's somehow dirty. But she has my attention. I haven't heard that name in nearly ten years.

“Yes,” I say, sounding as startled as I feel.

“Then there's no time to shower,” she says. “Come with me.”

We take the back route to her office—not because it's shorter (it isn't) but because we want to avoid seeing other folks who work here, most of whom will want to know how the “adventure” went. I can only imagine what Coop and the rest of the team have gone through as they integrate themselves back into the life here at Lost Souls.

The back route is a series of corridors that I designed for my office in the beginning, so that I didn't ever have to talk to anyone. Ilona's office, which was once mine, is in an older part of this station, and the office itself is hard to get to, again because of me.

Initially, when I gave it to Ilona, she talked about moving the main offices elsewhere. Now she understands the value of privacy.

“This woman,” she says as we walk, “this Turtle, she says she has a message for you.”

“You sound skeptical of her,” I say. I'm intrigued by that. No one who met Turtle ever thought of her as anything but honest. I can understand people worrying about me or worrying about Squishy, but no one ever questioned Turtle.

“I looked her up as much as I could,” Ilona says. “She's invisible.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I can track her journey here from one space station away. Otherwise, she doesn't exist.”

I frown a little. “She didn't give you her real name.”

“She says I don't need it. She says you'll know her. The only reason I even let her into my part of the station is because she says she has news about Squishy.”

Now I'm confused. “Squishy? She's on vacation, I thought. Did she go see Turtle?”

“Why would she do that?” Ilona asks.

“Because she and Squishy were in a committed relationship for about seven years,” I say.

“I don't remember that,” Ilona says.

“Back when Squishy and I were dive partners,” I say with a smile.

Ilona grunts. And I realize that she keeps forgetting that Squishy and I have a long history that predates her.

“I would have stashed her somewhere until you got back,” Ilona says, “maybe even sent her to some hotel somewhere, except for one thing.”

Something in her tone catches me. “What?”

She stops walking. We're only a few meters from her office now, so she clearly doesn't want anyone to overhear this.

“Squishy apparently put a team together,” Ilona says quietly.

“A team for what?” I ask.

“To destroy the Empire's stealth-tech research.”

The breath leaves my body as if Ilona has punched me in the stomach. I put my hand against the wall behind me, but its smoothness doesn't hold me up. I lean on it and close my eyes.

Dammit, Squishy. Damn.

I open my eyes. Ilona is watching me, a slight frown creasing her forehead.

I take a deep, painful breath, and say, “I told her not to do that. A year ago, I told her it was silly.”

I also told her I wouldn't help. So not just damn Squishy. But damn me. I should have known that she wouldn't take no for an answer. She's always been that way.

“She's not capable of leading something like this,” I say.

“Ah, yeah,” Ilona says. “Half of her team made it back. The other half didn't.”

Now I'm cold. I suspect I know who her team was. A group of people had asked for more than six months off. Most of them were folks who had joined us early on, and I understood their need for a sabbatical. We do a lot of tough work here, and we expect a lot of our people. Sometimes a person just needs a break from all of that.

“What did the people who made it back say?” I ask.

“That they had a rendezvous site, and instructions on how to behave once they got there. They were supposed to leave within a few hours of arrival if no one else showed, but they waited a full day. Half the team didn't show—and Squishy didn't show.”

I take a deep breath.

“And now we have a message from Squishy, sent via Turtle,” I say. I'm confused by this. Why Turtle? I didn't even know they had been in contact all of these years.

“Yes,” Ilona says.

“And what's the message?” I ask.

“That's the point,” Ilona says. “She won't tell me. She says she'll only talk to you.”