City of Ruins - By Kristine Kathryn Rusch Page 0,1
engineer, nodded. He trusted her more than anyone else. A former athlete, raised planetside, she had her family’s knack for anything technological.
“Those things are built to fight,” she said. “If I had to guess—and that’s all I’d be doing, since they’re still too far away to scan—I’d say they’re stocked with weaponry.”
“Given what we know about the Quurzod,” Dix said, “I’d expect the fight to be vicious, bloody, and to the death.”
Coop flashed on the images of Mae he’d seen when they brought her on board the ship: blood-covered, too thin, eyes wild. The Quurzod had killed twenty-four members of her linguistic team. Only three survived, and two of those had fled before the massacre. Mae had somehow managed to escape during or after the bloodbath.
“I think you’re right, Dix. We’re in for a real fight.” Coop cursed silently.
He hadn’t wanted this. He didn’t have the weaponry for this—not if the Quurzod swarmed.
“Send a message to the Fleet,” Coop said. “Let them know the situation. We’re going to engage the anacapa. Twenty-hour window.”
“Yes, sir,” Dix said.
Coop hated using the anacapa drive, but he saw no other choice. The anacapa created a fold in space. If the ship was in trouble, it activated its anacapa, moving into foldspace and then returning to the same point in regular moments or hours later. Sometimes moments were all it took to confuse the enemy ships.
The Ivoire had the firepower, but not the maneuverability. Staying would subject the ship to too much damage, damage he could avoid with a simple sideways movement into foldspace.
“Fifty more ships, sir,” Perkins said. “Maybe fifty-five. They just keep coming.”
Coop nodded. That was what worried him. Too many small ships, too many small weapons.
“Activate the anacapa,” he said to Yash.
“I hate this thing,” she muttered, but hit the codes, then slammed her palm against the console.
As she did, half a dozen shots hit the Ivoire.
The anacapa, going through its cycle, froze. Dix’s gaze met Coop’s. Coop held his breath—
—and then the anacapa reactivated.
The Ivoire slipped into foldspace for just a moment while it waited for the Quurzod to give up.
* * * *
VAYCHEN
* * * *
TWO
I
travel to Vaycehn reluctantly. I don’t like cities. I never have. Cities are as opposite from the things I love as anything can get.
First, they exist planetside, and I try never to go planetside.
Second, they are filled with people, and I prefer to spend most of my time alone.
Third, cities have little to explore, and what small amount of unknown territory there is has something built on top of it or beside it.
The history of a city is known, and there is no danger.
But I’m going to Vaycehn on the advice of one of my managers. She has a hunch, and I am funding it, although the closer we get to the city, the more I regret that decision.
I made the decision because I’m learning that a single woman cannot manage an entire corporation on her own. I used to run my own wreck-diving company, but I hired people when I needed them and let them go when the dive was over.
Now I oversee hundreds of employees, with dozens of tasks before them. I need to learn to trust.
Even in the area of exploration.
Especially in the area of exploration.
And I find that to be the hardest of all.
Vaycehn sprawls along a great basin on the eighth and most centrally located continent on the planet Wyr. Wyr is tiny and warm as far as planets go. It exists in the habitable zone near its star but is a little too close for the bulk of the human population.
The planet does have plenty of air and edible indigenous plants. A lot of farming communities have sprouted in its arable sixth and seventh continents. But the planet’s only major city—as cities are defined in this part of the universe—is Vaycehn.
I’d heard of Vaycehn decades ago. Everyone who works in antiquities, history, and collectibles has. Vaycehn boasts the earliest settlement in this part of the galaxy. Its history has continued, uninterrupted, for at least five thousand years.
The city has moved several times, but its footprint remains in what the people of Wyr call the Great Basin, a dip in the planet’s surface so deep that it’s visible from space. That dip provides shelter for the storms that buffet Wyr, and it also has temperatures twenty degrees lower than surface temperatures anywhere else on the planet.
The perfect location for both an ancient and a modern city.