City of Ruins

FORTY-NINE



I know we’re being watched. I can feel it, even if I can’t see it. I’ve had the feeling from the beginning that we weren’t alone, and now I have confirmation of it.

Yet there’s no one visible in this gigantic room.

“Did we interrupt them?” Seager asks, her voice shaking. “Are they hiding from us?”

“Have you looked at that ship?” Quinte says. “Do you know how many people can be in that thing?”

The best guess of our own tech people is that the average Dignity Vessel held at least one hundred people, and possibly as many as a thousand. It depended on how many were needed to run the various ship’s systems, and how many people got crammed into the various rooms.

I have always doubted the thousand number. The rooms on the partially intact Dignity Vessels we found looked more like suites or apartments than single bunks. But who knew how these ships were used.

And really, we don’t know what they were used for.

What they are used for.

I look up at the side, exactly where the cockpit is on every single Dignity Vessel I’ve encountered. I stand in front of it for a long time, just to make sure that they’re all watching me.

And then I slowly, carefully, ostentatiously, holster my laser pistol.

“Boss! Don’t!” Rea says. “We have no idea if they’re hostile!”

“If they’re hostile, they would have lain in wait for us,” I say. “They observed us the last two times we were here. This time, they would have sent out a small crew, and blasted us away.”

At least that is what I would have done. If I felt threatened by people coming near my ship, and I thought those people were dangerous, I’d attack first and ask questions later.

I extend my hands, showing that they’re empty.

Come and see me, I’m trying to say. We’re harmless. Let’s talk.

But the door remains closed.

“Put your weapons away,” I say to my team.

“I don’t want to,” Rea says.

“I don’t think it’s wise,” Kersting says.

“Can’t some of us keep them?” Seager asks.

That seems the most sensible. A few weapons, but not a bunch. The problem is that I doubt anyone except me and Rea have experience with weapons, and I’m not really sure about Rea.

I’m more worried about an accidental discharge than I am about the people on that Dignity Vessel.

“How about this?” I say, willing to compromise with my team. “Seager, Quinte, Kersting, lower your weapons. Point them at the floor. If something goes wrong, raise them and use them. But wait until my signal.”

“What if something happens to you?” Quinte asks.

“I think that would substitute for a signal, don’t you?” I can’t help the sarcasm. I miss my real team. I miss Mikk’s quick thinking and Roderick’s impulsive piloting skills. I miss Tamaz’s muscle. I miss their loyalty and their ability to anticipate what I’m about to do.

“The rest of you,” I say, after I manage to regain control of my voice again, “holster your weapons.”

I turn toward them. Rea clutches his like a lifeline.

“Now,” I say, wondering how I’ll enforce this if they don’t listen.

But they do. Rea makes a show of holstering his. DeVries puts his away as if the grip has already burned him. Al-Nasir carefully holsters his as if he thinks it’ll go off if he hits it wrong.

I sigh. I’m stuck in the strangest, possibly the most dangerous, experience I’ve had since some of us went after the Empire’s guards, and this time, I have a bunch of tourists who can’t think clearly if their life depended on it.

And of course, their lives do depend on it.

As does mine.

“Now what?” Rea asks.

“Now,” I say, “we wait.”

* * * *