The Diving Bundle: Six Diving Universe Novellas (52 page)

The scientists with the Empire’s program were following faulty assumptions with old information, and that wasn’t just dangerous to them. It was dangerous to the entire sector.

Something had to be done. But what?

NOW

QUINT RAN HIS HAND through his hair. He stood and walked toward her. It took all of Squishy’s strength not to back away.

She had forgotten how big he was, how muscular. She had always found that both appealing and intimidating. Only now, the appealing part was gone. She felt smaller than she ever had beside him.

“When
The Dane
entered imperial space,” he said, “I was actually hopeful. I thought you had come back to help us.”

“I did,” she said softly.

“No, you didn’t,” he said. “You came back here to destroy us.”

ONE YEAR EARLIER

SHE FOUND BOSS next to her latest project, a reconstructed Dignity Vessel that Boss had deliberately kept nameless. Boss was thin and ropy, preoccupied, her hair cut short, new lines near her eyes. But she didn’t seem tired, even though she was working impossible hours. Lately, Boss seemed energized, as if the Dignity Vessel projects had revitalized a part of her.

The Dignity Vessel itself dwarfed everything else in the bay. The ship was huge. Squishy always forgot how big the Vessels were, even though she had now been inside several of them. The first Dignity Vessel, all those years ago, had been a derelict, floating in space, and even though it had taken a long time to dive it, the ship hadn’t seemed as big as these. Space itself made everything seem small.

Since Squishy had come to work at Lost Souls, she had worked on five derelict ships. Then the
Ivoire
had arrived and some members of the crew had helped repair one of the five derelicts. This ship was another found ship, and it needed a lot of interior work, which Boss was supervising.

“We did it once before,” Squishy said as she walked beside Boss, staring up at the Dignity Vessel. The ship jutted above them, shading them from the lights at the top of the bay.

Boss stopped walking. Squishy had made her entire presentation while they examined the exterior of the Dignity Vessel. She had felt a bit uncomfortable, arguing that they should take a team into imperial space, with the mission of destroying stealth tech. She was half-hoping that Boss would take in a Dignity Vessel on a trial run, maybe even go in with the
anacapa
engaged, use the high-powered weaponry, and destroy the base that Squishy had discovered.

But Boss was frowning, and that wasn’t a good sign. “Why do you care? The Empire kills people in a variety of ways. We can’t stop that. We’re working to keep the balance of power in the sector, to keep the Empire from moving out here. That’s more than enough.”

Squishy swallowed. She had thought Boss would understand. But Squishy had forgotten how Boss could overlook disturbing things. She had done that on their first dives in a Dignity Vessel, ignoring Squishy’s warning, and leading to the breach that had hurt their relationship for years.

“People are dying because of me,” Squishy said.

“Nonsense,” Boss said. “You haven’t been part of stealth tech research for decades, at least not in the Empire.”

“But I’m the one who took them down this path. I’m the one who started all of these experiments. Everyone who died since then died because of me.”

Boss shook her head.

“Don’t be dismissive,” Squishy snapped. “In the past, you’ve dismissed me and that was a mistake.”

“One mistake,” Boss said. “A big one, I grant you. But just one. And I’ve apologized repeatedly. This is different.”

“How is this different?” Squishy asked.

“It’s not personal, Squishy,” Boss said. “I know you think it is, but it’s not. A lot of people can hold the blame for all those deaths, including the people who continue the experiments in light of the disasters they’re causing. It’s not about you.”

Squishy straightened. “You don’t understand—”

“I do,” Boss said. “I’ve lost people because of mistakes I’ve made. I understand. But the worst thing we can do is go into the Empire.”

“You did it,” Squishy said. “You went to Vaycehn, and found the
Ivoire
.”

Boss nodded. “And it could have been a disaster. They didn’t catch us that time, but they might this time. We’re fugitives.”

“Not all of us,” Squishy said. “I still get my military pension. It goes to my home in Vallevu.”

Boss didn’t say a word, but she was clearly struggling to remain silent.

“I can go back in with a team,” Squishy said before Boss could say anything. “We can use the same explosives that I developed a few years ago. I did the research, Boss. The Empire has confined stealth tech to one gigantic base. We get rid of the base, we get rid of the tech.”

“They’re not stupid enough to keep all of the research on that one base,” Boss said. “It’s backed up somewhere.”

“And once we find where the backups are kept, we launch the mission. I could go back, revamp my credentials and work in the lab until we’re ready to launch the attack. They wouldn’t suspect anything.”

Boss snorted. “You haven’t worked in stealth tech in decades and then you return? How is that not suspicious?”

“I would blame the leaked studies.” Squishy straightened. “I’m on the record—several legal records—protesting the way the experiments were conducted. That was decades ago. I would have complete credibility if I went back and stated that I wanted to return to correct the mistakes and make sure no one died.”

“And they’d hire you?” Boss asked.

“They asked me to rejoin when I brought them the first Dignity Vessel,” Squishy said. Squishy had claimed the vessel she had taken from Boss on that fateful trip for the imperial government to get it out of Boss’s hands. It had been a reaction to Boss’s high-handed decision-making on that particular trip. The decision-making that led to the “one mistake” that Boss had just mentioned.

“And you said no,” Boss said. “That was years ago. Things change.”

Squishy shook her head. “I’m still considered the godmother of stealth tech research. I’m mentioned in a ton of studies. I’d like to fix that.”

“And what?” Boss asked. “Give them the
anacapa
drive?”

“Make sure they can never catch us,” Squishy said. “Make sure that their research goes a different direction.”

“You can’t control research,” Boss said. “You know that.”

“But you can alter it,” Squishy said.

“And if you get caught?” Boss asked. “What then? They’ll get you to tell them about the
anacapa
drive.”

Squishy shook her head. “I’d die first.”

“Don’t be melodramatic,” Boss said.

Squishy sighed. “I still don’t have a great working knowledge of the
anacapa
drive. It’s vast and complex and I certainly couldn’t build one from scratch. If the Empire catches me, the only thing they’d get from me is that the drive exists. They’d also learn how powerful it is. They’d learn that they’re making a terrible mistake when they try to treat it as a cloak.”

“And then they come after us,” Boss said.

“They’ll come after us eventually,” Squishy said.

“No,” Boss said and walked away.

Squishy scrambled to keep up. “People are dying, Boss.”

“All over the Empire, for all kinds of reasons,” Boss said. “Hell, people are dying in the Nine Planets for all kinds of reasons too. Some are too poor, some are too sick, some still live under repressive regimes. I’m not going in there to rescue those folks. Why should I rescue a bunch of scientists in the middle of the Empire? Scientists who specialize in weapons research, I might add.”

Squishy was shaking. Her initial answers—
there might be someone like me; they’re important; they’re
scientists
for fuck’s sake
—wouldn’t be good enough for Boss.

“You wouldn’t go in,” Squishy said. “I would.”

Boss stopped walking and turned around. “So I should send in the only one of us who isn’t connected to the
Ivoire
who has any chance of understanding how an
anacapa
drive works.”

“There are a lot of people here who understand it as well as I do,” Squishy said. “And they’re not all connected to the
Ivoire
.”

“But they’re not you,” Boss said softly. “So my answer stands. No.”

She started walking again. Squishy started to follow, then stopped. Boss said no. She rarely revisited decisions, and only when faced with a great deal of evidence that her assumptions were wrong.

Her assumptions weren’t wrong here. She was right: this wasn’t a Lost Souls’ mission.

This was a personal mission.

And it was one Squishy would complete. With or without the help of anyone else.

NOW

QUINT’S WORDS OFFENDED HER. Squishy stood perfectly still, trying to control the anger.

“I did not come to destroy you,” she said. “People who destroy things kill people.”

“You killed Cloris,” he said.

“I got everyone out of that facility,” Squishy snapped. “Cloris wasn’t following orders.”

“You didn’t either,” he said.

She stared at him. She was trembling. He was trembling too. He tried to be calm, but he wasn’t. Maybe she
was
seeing him clearer than she thought.

“I didn’t come to destroy you,” she said again. “I came to help you.”

His face flushed. The wounds disappeared in the redness. He took a step away from her, moving his head at the same time so she couldn’t see his eyes.

“That’s what I wanted to believe, Rose,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back. The posture looked terribly familiar. She did it all the time, and she realized, with a sinking feeling, she had learned it from him. “I wanted to believe that you could stop all of the deaths. Didn’t you ever wonder how you got in so easily? Why no one cared that you’d been gone for so many years?”

She had wondered, then chalked it up to the Empire’s incompetence. She figured people were watching her, but it didn’t matter. She had an entire team, she had a way to contact them if she needed to, and she had no actual work to do until she destroyed the research station. For six months, her work had been blameless, although she made a point of stopping those experiments, the ones that would have resulted in someone’s death.

He tilted his head back. “I
believed
in you, Rosealma. You’re brilliant. I honestly thought you could fix it all.”

Her breath caught in her throat. It all fit, how she got in, why he kept showing up, asking the occasional question, keeping an eye on her, telling her she was doing well. He had believed in her, and despite herself, she felt sad that she had disappointed him.

“I’m your magic,” she said.

He turned, a puzzled expression on his face. He didn’t remember the conversation. Of course, he didn’t. That conversation about magic and beliefs had changed her life. It had just been a moment to him.

“What?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I did fix things, just not the way you wanted.”

“You just set them back some, Rosealma. You didn’t fix anything at all,” he said.

She almost, almost told him about destroying the backup research, but she didn’t. The only thing her people hadn’t destroyed was the scientists themselves. Someone destructive would have destroyed them too. But she wasn’t destructive. It would take the scientists years to reconstruct their work and, maybe by then, someone new would come in, someone to tell them about the folly of their ways.

She could send them that researcher. She could send in moles who would direct them away from their own destruction and onto a path that would lead nowhere.

If she ever got out of this.

“What happened to you?” Quint asked softly. “You used to love this work, Rosealma. You didn’t believe in destroying anything.”

“What happened to me?” she asked. She couldn’t believe he had said that.

He didn’t remember that either. Apparently, he had remembered all of the wrong things.

TWENTY YEARS EARLIER

ROSEALMA CAME OUT of the meeting room and crumpled onto a bench beside the door. She put a hand to her face.

She was tired. She had been tired for more than a year, living and reliving the failed experiment, the problems, the attempted rescue, and finally the shutdown. She had testified and argued and fought. She had wondered if any of it was fair, particularly when the court decided to jail Hansen.