City of Ruins

FIFTY-NINE



How do you explain five thousand years of history succinctly? How do you describe the sector as it is, without sounding overly dramatic? I glance at Al-Nasir, who looks terrified. My heart is pounding hard, my mouth dry. I somehow did not expect this to be an issue.

I didn’t expect any of it, really. For some reason, I thought the Dignity Vessel was a modern ship, with modern experiences, part of the Fleet that continued on and had somehow got called back here.

I didn’t expect the captain’s shock at five thousand years. I expected him to be surprised by distance, yes, but not by time.

The captain sits across from me, his emotions now so deeply under control that his features are smooth. He watches me with those intense blue eyes. The lieutenant keeps glancing at him, as if she can’t tell his mood either.

All my study of history has taught me that there’s a right side to history and a wrong side. No matter where these people are from—somewhere far away, but part of our timeline, or somewhere from the dark and distant past, brought here through that malfunctioning stealth tech somehow, in a reverse of what happened to my mother and my teammates—these people are not part of our history. They don’t understand the details, the agreements, the deaths, the dangers.

Those things don’t really matter to them.

And I want this to matter.

“Can you translate what I have to say in parts?” I ask the lieutenant. “I don’t want you to miss anything.”

She nods.

I look at Al-Nasir. “I need you to help her as best you can,” I say. “And help me.”

He nods.

The captain looks at the lieutenant, and she translates what I’ve said. Then I take a deep breath and begin.

“Much of this sector is part of the Enterran Empire,” I say. “Vaycehn is part of that Empire. My people are not.”

I feel my stomach twist as I say this. We haven’t told anyone on Wyr who we really are.

“We’re part of the Nine Planets Alliance,” I say. “The Nine Planets have an unstated truce with the Empire at the moment. Eventually, it will try to swallow us up.”

I pause so she can translate. He doesn’t move, and he keeps his gaze on me.

“The Empire is what the Empire is,” I say. “I don’t like it, but I don’t aim to bring it down. I grew up in it. And, at the time, I didn’t really notice parts of it. It’s just big and wants to get bigger.”

I glance at Al-Nasir. He shakes his head. It’s impossible to say all of this without sounding ridiculous.

“It shouldn’t get bigger,” I say. “The bigger it gets, the more unwieldy it is, the less it knows what its governors and leaders in the various communities are doing. People become less important—”

I stop. I’m about to go into a rant about a subject the captain knows nothing about. He probably doesn’t even care. He only wants to know how it would affect him.

That’s what I would want to know.

That’s what I used to want to know about the Empire, before I learned about stealth tech. I just operated small, stayed out of their way, and didn’t let them notice me. I figured as long as they didn’t notice me, I wouldn’t matter.

I didn’t realize that I had already lost my mother to their desire for stealth tech. I didn’t realize that when I was as young as four, the Empire’s reach completely altered my life.

I glance at the lieutenant, who is waiting for me to continue. I sigh, then shake my head slightly, mostly at myself.

“I can give you history lessons all that you want,” I say in a less strident tone, “and you can figure out how you feel about the Empire and the Alliance, and all the politics in the middle of it, which probably will not matter to you at all. What matters to me is this.”

I pause here so that she can translate. Also, I get to choose my words as I get deeper into the discussion.

“The Empire wants your stealth technology. They’ve been trying to recreate it in the lab for more than one hundred years. The Empire’s scientists kept doing it wrong. They’ve lost, I don’t know, dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of researchers and scientists to these experiments. People die in rather hideous ways.”

I don’t tell him about Vallevu, settled by survivors who keep waiting for the scientists to return, or Squishy, who sees her work with us as a penance for all the people she inadvertently killed working for the Empire. I can’t make it understandable.

“Years ago,” I say, “I found a Dignity Vessel. It had malfunctioning stealth tech, and it killed some of my people.”

I stop, unable to explain all the complicated emotions—my initial unwillingness to destroy history; the way that ship started everything, my entire current life, with all of its ups and downs.

“It’s a long story, too,” I say, “but eventually that ship got into the hands of the Empire, and they started using it in their stealth-tech experiments. They even re-created some parts of stealth tech through the ship, and through the Room of Lost Souls.”

The lieutenant repeats the phrase, “Room of Lost Souls,” asking me what that means.

I shrug. “I’m sorry. I think it’s an old base. It has stealth tech too.”

She nods, then translates for me.

The captain frowns at her, then shakes his head. They’re not sure what I’m talking about.

“Okay,” I say. “Here’s the thing important to us. If the Empire gets stealth tech, they’re unstoppable. They’ll take over the rest of the sector and then move on to other areas. Right now, they’re limited in their resources and through their own abilities. They can’t fight every single enemy they encounter. Their ships are too vulnerable. Stealth tech will allow them to encircle a planet and launch an attack without anyone even knowing they’ve arrived.”

The captain frowns as if he doesn’t understand any of this. The lieutenant has been speaking slowly. So have I. I touch Al-Nasir’s arm, then nod toward the lieutenant.

“Is the translation going right?” I ask softly.

“I think so,” he says. “She seems to be doing okay. The Room of Lost Souls threw her.”

“A lot of this is throwing me,” the lieutenant says to me. “I’m doing what I can. We are still new at the language.”

“Yes, we are,” I say, then look at the captain again.

His gaze meets mine. I’m startled at the power in that gaze. I feel a slight flush build in my cheeks.

“Look,” I say to him as clearly as I can. “If we discover how stealth tech works first, ‘we’ meaning my people, we’ll be distributing it throughout the sector. That way the balance of power remains the same. The Empire doesn’t have the ability to suddenly take over a planet or an area of the sector. We remain on equal terms.”

“No,” he says, even before the lieutenant finishes. He speaks quickly to her.

She shrugs, then looks at me.

My flush has grown deeper. “They’ll try to take your ship,” I say. “If they find this room, it’s one more gigantic piece in the puzzle. They have good people working on this, and eventually they’ll figure it out. The entire—”

He holds up a hand and stops me. “Let me speak to my people,” he says, and walks out of the conference room.

* * * *