The World Watched; I Salvaged Scrap

The shock wave arrived seven seconds later, shoving the *White Heron* into a trough and scattering oxygen cylinders across the deck. Han Jiu hugged the mast. “Forget the stream! Check the coordinates!” Lin had already done so. The impact was twenty-one nautical miles away. A starship watched by billions had fallen into the sea in front of two broke salvagers. Maritime radio erupted. Every civilian vessel was ordered out; the exclusion zone would expand to fifty nautical miles within half an hour. Fishing boats fled. Han rushed to start the engine, but the old diesel coughed like a dying man. “We go home,” Han said. “That thing isn’t ours to touch.” “We can’t.” Lin pointed to the fuel-pressure warning. The line had split.