Page 37 of Music of the Ocean

“Besides, this is not the first time your people have tried to study this planet. It will not be the last,” Indigo said.

“Look, I can’t let you blow up that starship. I know too many people on it. I have friends there,” Saxby said.

“It will not come to that, I promise, because any probe they send will be deactivated. If they tried to send a submersible, that too would be deactivated and propelled back to the surface. And while I have no wish to destroy a starship, because that would bring attention I do not want, I will do what I have to,” Indigo said.

“Fuck.”

Before Indigo formulated a response to Saxby, another siren wailed to life. Scrambling up, Saxby hurried over to the screen. More than one probe had been dispatched, it seemed, not that it mattered. They would meet the same fate.

But as soon as they hit the water, they started to broadcast instead of trying to take readings. The screen thrummed with encoded sound, the edges of the message fuzzing in and out.

Then, Saxby heard the deep, familiar voice of Captain Mollen, clipped and businesslike, but with an undercurrent Saxby only recognized now as worry. Maybe even fear.

“Lieutenant Delmar, respond. Immediately. That’s an order. Awaiting acknowledgment.”

Saxby’s whole body froze, and a hot spike of adrenaline shot through his gills at the demand to contact the ship. For a second, it knocked all the fight out of him. It reminded him of who he was. Well, who he used to be.

Saxby stared at Indigo. “That’s not normal, them trying to contact me. Not protocol. It’s like they know I’m down here and alive. And I can’t stress this enough, that’s not protocol.”

Indigo didn’t move. The city’s pulse flickered, then settled.

“I could tell the captain not to look, not to land, to scrub the logs and write me off as dead,” Saxby said. “Tell him that anyone who comes here and touches the water, well… that the same thing will happen to them.”

Captain Mollen wasn’t going to write him off. That wasn’t how any of this worked. There would be inquiries, reports, a full accounting of every second of every mission log.

There would be paperwork. Gods, there was always so much paperwork, and at the end of it, a name on a list of personnel unaccounted for. The Federation did not lose people and simply move on.

Saxby stared at Indigo, searching for the smallest flicker of acknowledgment, but Indigo’s face was unreadable as ever.

“Okay, granted, that was a stupid suggestion on my part. They’re not going to leave me. But I really do need to speak to the captain. I can’t just disappear. Maybe I could—”

“Nonresponse will be treated as hostile action,” came from the probes on the screen. “Return him to the surface. Now.”

Baring his teeth, Indigo touched the wall, and Saxby watched the new probes deactivate.

“What did you do?” It was more of a rhetorical question because Saxby knew exactly what Indigo had just done.

“Shit, you’re supposed to play for time. You’re supposed to open a channel, run out the clock, make them doubt their own data. Basic stalling tactics, Indigo!” Saxby yelled. “You’re not supposed to escalate to immediate threat response!”

Chapter Fourteen – Indigo

“THEY ISSUED an ultimatum,” Indigo said. “Hostile action was implied. The only response is to demonstrate capacity and resolve.”

“That’s not how they think!” Saxby snapped.

Indigo regarded Saxby with an impassive calm that had been called arrogance by others. “No?”

“Escalating will get you more ships in orbit with enough antimatter to glass the whole southern continent. You threw a rock at the other guy’s face, so now we’re in a standoff.”

“It was not a rock,” said Indigo. “It was a demonstration of power.”

“That so-called demonstration of power won’t cow them. Instead, they’re going to be pissed! You’ve confirmed every paranoid briefing the Federation ever wrote about first contact scenarios. But I guarantee you they’ll think you’re uncooperative and a threat.”

“They would be right.”

“Good gods. Look, if you want to negotiate, you gotta give them a way out! You don’t decommission their hardware and expect them to say welp, guess that’s our sign to go home. Sorry about your luck, Lieutenant. Okay, bye!”

“I see why you are confused. Let me clear this up for you. There will be no negotiation, and I am not interested in giving them a way out.”