The Lost Ship of the Tucker Rebellion - Marie Sexton Page 0,7
into the bay.”
Laramie frowned. “What if you run into more tracers?”
“Then I’ll hide behind the mystery box and let it kill them for me.”
Laramie wasn’t appeased. “What if it tries to drain your suit power?”
“What if I’m eaten by a space ghost?”
“Fuck you. Don’t make light of your safety.”
Denver rolled his eyes. “I’m not. I swear I’m not.” He looked Laramie right in the eyes as he said it, willing him to check through their connection. “But isn’t it worth a little bit of risk, to see what’s really out there?”
“We have to check it to know.”
<‘Items for colonization.’ That could mean medical supplies—>
“It could.”
“Maybe.”
“Probably not—”
But Laramie was too excited to be dissuaded.
“So you agree, it’s worth the risk?”
“Hello!” Marit said, waving her hand in front of Laramie’s rapt face. “Could you two please include the person without the psychic connection in your conversation?”
Denver laughed as he searched Laramie’s eyes, trying to determine which would win: excitement over what they might find, or fear for Denver’s safety. Laramie ducked his head, suddenly stomping down on the connection between them, cutting Denver out. He was trying to keep Denver from seeing how conflicted he was, and Denver knew he’d just won, but he didn’t let himself smile. If something went wrong, Laramie would blame himself for the rest of his life.
“Then it’s settled,” Denver said.
“Excuse me?” Marit said, standing up and placing her fists on her hips. “It is not settled! I’m still not convinced it’s worth it. Chances of finding a pod under all that junk are slim to none.”
“But what if it is?” Laramie said quietly.
“Look,” Denver said, stepping between them before they could start arguing again. “It’s the same risk we take every time I go on a salvage mission.”
Marit pursed her lips, unconvinced. “I suppose.”
“Except this time, if it’s what we think it is—”
“It could be the last time,” Laramie finished for him.
Marit shook her head. “No. You’re assuming too much. You know how quirky OPAL can be. Odds are, there’s nothing under those tracers but scrap.”
Scrap that attracted tracers and drained them of their energy? It was a stretch, but Denver let it go to pursue the bigger issue at hand. “Yes,” he conceded, “the odds are against us. They always are. At least this time, we have a chance at a real payoff. Think about it, Marit. Not just money for Laramie’s treatment, but money for us as well. Imagine rice with chicken flavor.”
“Or root beer flavor,” Laramie added, rubbing his hands together in excitement. “Or maybe we could upgrade our nav system.”
“Or upgrade OPAL,” Denver said.
“I have always wanted to be a swarm of nanobots.”
Marit chewed her lip to keep from smiling, looking from Denver to Laramie and back. Finally, she sighed, slumping down into her seat. “Fine,” she grumbled. “I guess it really is settled, whether I want it to be or not.”
Chapter Two
Despite his eagerness to see what was under the rubble, Denver wasn’t all that anxious to go walking in the black twice in one day. The suit batteries and his cutting torch still needed time to recharge anyway. The only downside to waiting was the chance that some other ship would stumble over their prize before they had a chance to reel it in. But, as Marit heatedly pointed out, it’d been floating this long. Chances of it being found twice in a matter of hours after all this time were almost nil.
Denver sorted through OPAL’s haul from their earlier mission. It was better than space dust, but it wouldn’t get them much. When he finally fell into bed, his sleep was erratic. Over and over again, he approached the object in his dreams, his breathing echoing loudly in his space helmet. Sometimes, he found nothing beneath the tracers but a cold chunk of rock. Sometimes the object eluded him, leading him on a mad chase until his oxygen ran out and he woke gasping. Other times, the tracers turned on him, vaporizing him in space. And each and every time, he felt Laramie’s growing sense of helplessness as he sat in the cockpit, unable