Boneyards (34 page)

S
quishy's in the infirmary because I made them take her here, even though we all knew there was no reason for it.

I sit across from her bed, just staring at her. We'll take care of her when we get home, which won't take long. I don't want to face Turtle. But I will. That's part of my job.

The infirmary is unlike any place I've ever seen. It changes with mood, or it did until I made someone shut the damn changing thing off. Now I'm just in a white space, sitting on a white chair, staring at the body of a difficult but much loved friend stretched out on a white bed.

I accomplished her mission, at exactly the cost I once predicted.

I told her it would cost her her life.

We didn't lose any of our people on this mission. It went like clockwork. Coop praised Lynda Rooney right after they blew the station together.

We have no idea what the total death count is and we might never know, but we know that most of the people on that station survived. Their ships were headed away as the station exploded.

I wish Squishy could have seen it.

I wanted her to see it.

I want her to know what has happened.

We've stopped imperial stealth tech, even though Coop worries that we started a war.

Although I still maintain that the Empire will have no idea who attacked them. Our ships are unrecognizable, except as part of the historical record, and so are our uniforms. No one in the government of the Nine Planets Alliance has any idea that we completed this mission.

And, best of all, we leave no trail. We immediately activated the
anacapa
drives, so there's no way to know how we escaped the Empire, let alone how we arrived.

There will be theories, of course, but there won't be proof.

The Empire is crippled, just like Squishy wanted. This kind of stealth tech will take years to recover, if it ever does. I imagine—and I might be wrong—that scientists will now try to figure out how these two massive ships operated, and what caused them to disappear in the blink of an eye.

The door opens and Coop steps in. He gives me a compassionate look.

I suspect he thought I would be crying, but my eyes have remained stubbornly dry. Maybe I'm too numb to mourn.

Or maybe I'm too angry.

Squishy did force us into this position, after all.

“You have the right to tell me I told you so,” I say.

He sits down next to me and takes my hand. “I won't do that.”

I glance over at him. He's looking at me with compassion.

“You told me that missions don't go as planned. You warned me.”

He nodded. “Everyone has to learn that for themselves.”

“I should have known.”

“What would you have done differently?” he asks. “Would you have left her there? Would you have left the job undone?”

He knows better.
I
know better. With the information I had at the time, I would always make the same choice.

“I've decided that when we get back, we're not heading to the Boneyard right away,” he says.

I look at him in surprise. “Why not?”

“Because the Nine Planets needs protecting. We put it in jeopardy. Boss, we have planning to do.”

I can't deny that. “So you're going to protect the Nine Planets with two ships?”

“Three,” he says, “if you'll let the third be part of my mini-Fleet.”

I want to yell at him. I want to tell him he's wrong. But I know my emotions are all over the place.

And besides, I have another idea.

“You think you can get into that Boneyard with the
Ivoire
, right?” I ask.

“Yeah,” he says. “But—”

“It's your turn to hear me out,” I say. “I saw that place just like you did. How many derelict Fleet ships do you think are there? A hundred? More?”

He looks at me, and frowns. He's beginning to understand where I'm going with this.

“I'm sure they're not all fixable,” I say, “but some will be and the rest can act as parts.”

“Do you know how long that will take?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say, “but not as long as you think. You need me, Coop. You'll need me to dive those ships, to figure out which work and which don't. My people and I will do this fast and we'll be accurate. And if there's a station inside, maintaining that field, we're going to have to go into that too.”

“Even if we get a dozen ships out of that Boneyard,” he says, “we won't have enough crew to run them.”

“Of your people, that's right,” I say. “But if you're right, we just brought all of the Nine Planets in on this. That's a lot of people. That's a lot of recruits.”

He lets out a small breath. “You're crazy, you know that, right?”

I nod. “I've always done things my own way,” I say.

“If you can't help me find the Fleet, you'll help me build a new one,” he says.

I shrug a single shoulder. “That's the idea.” And then I look at Squishy, immobile. Lost forever. “Besides, you might get answers in that Boneyard.”

“Yeah,” he says softly. He's looking at Squishy too. “But I'm beginning to think there's merit in letting go of your past.”

I almost touch her arm. But I can't quite bring myself to feel the cooling flesh.

“The past makes you who you are,” I say.

“No,” he says. “The past gives you a start toward your future. You choose where you go from that starting point.”

I look at him. He doesn't need to say the rest. Squishy chose to go backward.

We're heading forward. To Lost Souls, and then to the Boneyard. And maybe on from there.

Into the unknown.

Which is always where I've felt most at home.

K
ristine Kathryn Rusch is an award-winning mystery, romance, science fiction, and fantasy writer. She has written many novels under various names, including Kristine Grayson for romance and Kris Nelscott for mystery. Her novels have made the bestseller lists and have been published in fourteen countries and thirteen different languages. Her awards range from the
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Readers Choice Award to the John W. Campbell Award. She is the only person in the history of the science fiction field to have won a Hugo Award for editing and a Hugo Award for fiction. Her short work has been reprinted in sixteen Year's Best collections. She is the former editor of the prestigious
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.
Before that, she and Dean Wesley Smith started and ran Pulphouse Publishing, a science fiction and mystery press in Eugene. She lives and works on the Oregon Coast. Visit her online at
kriswrites.com
.