Linesman (33 page)

By the time Craik docked the shuttle, Abram had prevailed,
and the
Argent
had moved away to await a boarding party. It was now, according to the screen, placed midway between the media ship and the
Wendell
. D'Abo was threatening legal action, Abram was pointing out that Galactic News had signed an agreement to abide by the Alliance's conditions in order to have the media ship remain.

Ean tuned them out. He had work to do.

He sang softly under his breath to the ship lines while Sale dealt with the crew member who greeted them. By his coveralls he was an engineer although he didn't introduce himself. The name on the pocket said
BONNA
.

“If you'd sent a higher-level linesman in the first place, we wouldn't have this problem.”

The lines told Ean he was hiding something. He wondered if they could tell him what Bonna's secret was.

The lines felt different today. The lower lines were much stronger. Especially line one. Engineer Tai and his crew had done good work.

Bonna looked nervous, and who could blame him with his secret and all, and a team of soldiers crowding him, hustling him along as if they wanted the whole thing finished before they even started. “This way.” He led them toward Engineering.

As they walked, Ean sang line ten, strengthening it so that if they had to jump, ten would survive it. At least he wasn't the one slowing them down this time. Radko was. Ean stopped to help her. “You shouldn't be walking.”

“I have a stick. I'm not an invalid.”

She did have a stick, and he probably couldn't help much.

“Besides, I just got my hair to sit down from last time.”

Her jokes got worse.

Sale said, across any further attempt at humor, or maybe she was making her own jokes, “I hope you all know the layout of this ship by heart.”

“Yes, ma'am,” they chorused obediently.

Except Ean—and Fergus, who shrugged and gave a slight shake of his head. Ean smiled at him, and he smiled back. The first bit of camaraderie they had shared.

“Sing,” Ean invited him. “Sing line seven,” and after a
momentary hesitation, Fergus joined him in singing to that line.

Ean expanded his song to include the other lines—all of them this time, not just the higher lines. Line one was definitely different today. Stronger and more familiar. Maybe it was getting used to him. Maybe he was getting used to it.

It was also, he realized suddenly, because some of the crew had changed. Half the egos had gone, and in their place was something he knew. It reminded him of Captain Wendell.

Ean slowed outside the Engineering door. “What if it's a trap?” he asked. Katida's wished-for paranoia was well and truly kicking in.

Sale looked at him uneasily. “What do you mean?” But she and Radko had already grabbed an arm each and started to bundle him back the other way.

“What if—”

What if he was wrong?

The door to Engineering opened, and ten dark-green-uniformed soldiers streamed out. Twenty. Gate Union people. Wendell's crew.

Sale swore. “Too many,” she said. “Craik, Losan, cover us. The rest of you.” She indicated a side corridor.

Ean hoped
she
knew the layout of the ship and wasn't leading them into a dead end. He stopped to help Radko.

“Go,” Radko said. “Don't wait for me.”

He ignored her. Fergus came around to the other side, and the two of them ran for the corridor, supporting her between them.

“Ean. Save yourself, or I'll kill you personally later.”

A beam of light melted the bulkhead above him. The corridor was full of the acrid smell of melted plastic. An alarm started wailing.

At breakfast one morning, Katida had said they didn't use blasters on ships because they did too much damage. They used Tasers instead. Why would Wendell's people use blasters? Surely, they knew how dangerous it was.

The passage forked.

“Left,” Sale called to the two soldiers in front, turning to blast one of the dark-green-uniformed people behind her. A
blue light arced out, felled him. He rolled and kept coming although his face was contorted with pain.

Maybe that was why they didn't use Tasers. The people didn't stop.

The two soldiers who'd veered into the left passage came running back. “Half a dozen down there,” one of them reported.

How many intruders could a ship this size hold?

They turned down the right passage. “There's a cargo compartment three doorways down,” Sale said. “If we get in there, we should have some cover, and we'll be able to fight back. Ean, get ready to open the door if it's locked.”

She really had looked up the specs of the ship.

Ean ducked as another blaster bolt crackled above his head. Radko let Ean and Fergus support her fully momentarily. Next moment a blaster bolt crackled past his ear, so close he felt the burn of it. A green-uniformed soldier went down. He stayed down.

The smell of charred meat followed them.

Ean gagged, then was too busy running and trying to work out how he could sing to unlock the door.

“They're switching weapons,” one of Wendell's people called into his comms.

“Damn,” Sale said. “They counted on us using Tasers.”

They didn't make it to the third corridor. Four soldiers jumped out of the second, firing. Sale's people turned into the first.

“They're herding us,” Sale said. “Forget this. We're not going where they want us to.” She fired back around the corridor, both ways.

“Enemy ahead,” Craik reported.

“Damn. How many soldiers does he have?”

Ean's breath burned in his chest. He should exercise more. Maybe he would after this although you would have thought that Gospetto's training would have doubled his lung capacity by now.

They ran down the only corridor that was empty. Sale was right. They were being herded. Ean felt like they'd run halfway around the ship.

Another blocked corridor. Four soldiers this time. By now
more of Sale's people had armed themselves with blasters. The soldiers went down. Sale's people jumped over them.

Radko turned to fire behind them. Ean stumbled over a body, and only just missed being fired on because the
Wendell
soldier firing his way pulled her weapon up at the last second. The wall above Ean's head melted in a line of molten plastic and sparking wires.

The moment stretched.

Another soldier pointed his own blaster at Ean, then pulled up and away, too, and turned to fire on Radko, who had already ducked and rolled.

“Move,” she yelled at Ean.

They hadn't fired on him.

Fergus hauled Ean up.

“Thanks.” Either soldier could have killed him, but they hadn't.

Radko was already standing, more agile on her one good foot than Ean was on two. Ean and Fergus each wrapped an arm around her waist and ran.

•   •   •

THEIR
way was clear now.

The next door led to a large control room with monitors everywhere. And desks.

“Not perfect,” Sale said, “but good enough.” She raised her voice, and her weapon. “Everybody out.” It started a mad scramble the way they had come. “Ean, can you open that door?”

“That door” had a red, flashing light beside it. Ean had already sung it open before he realized what the sign under the light said.
RECORDING
.

Craik and Losan were through—armed and threatening—before he could tell them they were about to make the galactic news.

Radko shoved Ean behind a desk. “Keep your head down and don't move until we say you can.”

“But they're not shooting at me,” Ean said. Maybe it was because he didn't have a weapon. “I can—”

What could he do?

Radko ducked behind the desk herself and dragged Fergus down, too, firing one-handedly over her shoulder as she did so. “Both of you stay down.”

The programmers' exodus from the control room had bought them time. Outside the door, someone screamed, and someone else shouted, “No firing on the civilians.”

“Unbolt those desks,” Sale ordered, and two of her people did so, using lasers to slice through the metal struts that bolted them to the floor.

Craik leaned back out of the studio. “There's an emergency exit in here.”

“Good,” Sale said. “I have a feeling we're going to need it. Get down, Ean.”

Ean realized he'd raised his head to see what was happening.

Radko pulled him down as a dozen
Wendell
soldiers entered running. Sale's people got the first two, but the next two kept firing continuously. Sale ducked behind an upturned desk that glowed hot to start with, then suddenly collapsed into a molten puddle. Exposed plastic-coated wiring in the wall combusted.

All Ean could smell was burned humans and acrid plastic fumes that made his eyes water.

Radko leaned out across Ean, snatched the fire extinguisher off the wall, and tossed it to him. “Put the fire out,” she ordered.

One of Wendell's crew snatched up the room's other fire extinguisher at the same time. He sprayed the fire with foam while Ean was still struggling with the nozzle on his. Ean added his meager help and put out another fire starting in the same wall.

They looked at each other. In the long pause, which was probably only a second, Ean had time to notice that the name on the man's pocket was
GRAYSON
, and that he had a long scorch mark down the left side of his uniform. Then Grayson gestured to Ean with his fire extinguisher. His meaning was clear. Move. Thataway. Out the door.

“Ready to move, people,” Sale said. “They'll lock this section down any minute.”

Ean tossed the fire extinguisher at Grayson, who ducked.
The extinguisher bounced off the shoulder of the man behind him, who turned to fire at Ean. Grayson knocked the weapon away. “Watch who you're firing on.”

That was at least three times they could have killed Ean but hadn't.

Grayson gestured with his fire extinguisher again.

Fergus stood up from behind the desk and lobbed a broken vid-screen toward Grayson. “Ean, back here.”

“Move. Now. All of you,” Sale ordered.

The edge of the screen caught Grayson on the arm.

“Now, people.”

Sale's guards started running toward the recording studio. Radko grabbed Ean as she hop-stepped past.

They made it to the emergency exit in the inner room, only to find Wendell's people in the corridor outside.

“Shit,” Sale said.

There was nowhere to run. Ean pressed against the wall and tried to work out how he could help. Singing to the lines wouldn't do anything because the lines couldn't control blasters. If they had disruptors, now. Then he could do something. But even Wendell wouldn't be crazy enough to use a disruptor on a ship. Locking the doors wouldn't help. Half of them were already damaged too badly to even close.

Their little group was only six people now, and two of them were unarmed baggage. Him and Fergus, and Fergus, at least right now, was moving carefully sideways toward a downed
Wendell
guard and the blaster at his side.

They were outnumbered three to one.

Radko and Sale and the others would be dead very soon if Ean didn't do something.

Perhaps he could make the fight more even. For some reason, they weren't shooting at him. Would they continue to spare him? More importantly, if he separated from the main party, would any of Wendell's people follow him, leaving fewer for the Lancastrians to fight?

If it didn't work, at least he would have tried.

Radko was busy exchanging fire with Grayson. He couldn't interrupt her. “I'm going to try and divert some of them,” he told Fergus, who'd finally gotten his blaster and was lining it up on one of the enemy.

Fergus missed his target. “I don't think—”

Ean took off before he could think any more about what would happen if he was wrong.

In the corridor outside, three people raised their blasters.

“Don't shoot,” Grayson roared from inside.

Ean paused, they paused. The tableau held for a heartbeat, then Ean bolted past them. They pounded after him.

He turned into the nearest passage, which split ten meters along, saw a green uniform down the end of the left one and veered right. He should have studied the ship plans like Sale had demanded. Not that she'd included him in that demand. Or had she?

It sounded like a thousand people behind him.

He tried to sing to line five, but his lungs and voice wouldn't stay in sync. He gulped in a huge breath of air when he meant to breathe it out. It slowed him down, so he stopped singing and concentrated on running.

Another junction. He veered left.

A blaster bolt sizzled on the wall in front of him.

Right it was then, and he was all kinds of idiot because he was heading straight where they wanted him to go.

He hoped he'd at least drawn enough of them off to save Radko and the others.

He stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned to face the soldiers.

They stopped, too. One of them gestured with her blaster.

Ean rested his hands on his knees and watched them. His lungs burned.

There was a whuff of smoke in one of the corridors they'd come from. Someone yelled. Someone else—it sounded like Sale—swore.

“Move,” said the woman with the blaster.

Ean charged back the way he had come.

Only to run full pelt into Grayson, who rounded the corridor coming the other way as Ean got there, and sidestepped smoothly into his path at the last second.

It was like running into a wall.

EAN LAMBERT

GRAYSON GRABBED EAN
while he was still falling and ran back the way Ean had just come.

“Who are we waiting on?” he demanded of the woman with the blaster.

“You're the last, sir.”

“Good. Seal the door. I've delayed the Lancastrians, but that won't hold them long.”

She didn't just seal the door, she sprayed something into each air-conditioning vent as well. It foamed into the vent, solidified in seconds.

The other soldiers were suiting up.

“You'll kill everyone on the ship.” Ean sang a warning to line two.
“Watch your lines.”
How did you tell a line the enemy had put something in the air-conditioning?

“The idea is not to kill anyone at all,” Grayson said.

So why had they used blasters then? And what about the people they had already killed?

Grayson started pulling on a space suit. “We've stopped the air coming into this room. Suit up, or you'll die.”

Someone thrust a space suit at him.

Every day since they'd returned on board after Michelle's
kidnapping, Radko had made Ean practice suiting up. The first three days, she had made him do it every four hours. He could do it in fifteen seconds now, which still wasn't fast enough according to Radko. Ean thought it was better than not being able to do it at all.

He pulled his suit on.

It wasn't fast enough for these people, either, judging by the way most of them twitched. He checked the essentials. Oxygen, thermals, radio. All okay. What would they have done if he still didn't know how to put his suit on?

Just assumed that he knew, he supposed.

Radko hadn't taken him out into space in his suit yet.

Grayson twitched more than the rest. He looked at the door. “It won't hold them for long,” he said. “They'd better not blow that door while we're blowing out the other side. Ready?” he demanded of Ean.

Ean nodded, and hoped he was.

Grayson clipped a line to Ean's suit. They were all clipped together, Ean noted. “Blow it,” he told his team.

The door they'd locked started to glow red. Sale and her people, presumably. Ean prayed they'd be on time.

One of the spacers in front pressed something against a bulkhead. Hot white light traced out the seam, and suddenly that section of the wall wasn't there anymore. Alarms sounded.

Wendell's people joined the rush of air out into space. At first Ean thought they were simply carried with the airflow, but they used their suit jets to pause outside—like a single choreographed creature—while the woman on the end turned and sprayed foam into the opening. It looked as if she was sealing the hole.

The hull of the ship they'd just blown out of was an enormous wall that stretched away to one side of him. He couldn't tell if it was above him or below him or beside him. On the other side was nothing.

He wanted to cling tight to the ship wall, but he couldn't get to it, and Radko hadn't yet shown him how to use the jets on his suit.

She had taught him the importance of not being sick in your space suit, but for a moment it was touch and go.

It was so empty out here.

The only thing between him and being lost in space forever was the thin line Grayson had clipped to himself and to another spacer.

He hoped the line wouldn't break.

The only sound he could hear was the others breathing through the helmet speakers.

He couldn't hear the lines.

For a frozen moment, Ean couldn't even think.

Then the reassuring alien beat of line eleven settled in his mind, and he realized he'd been hearing it all along.

He wanted to sing to it, but he couldn't open his mouth out here in the massive emptiness. He clung to eleven like the lifeline it was, and through it, gradually tuned in to the other lines.

Funnily enough, the lines on the Galactic News ship were fine, or as good as they had been before. What did the lines consider damage?

On an open channel on the
Lancastrian Princess
's line five Sale was saying, “Sims, Helo, Tanaka, and Rajsan dead. Craik and Radko require surgery. The rest of us are injured but still functioning although Losan will require regen.”

All those dead and injured. Because Ean had refused to turn back when Sale had wanted to. He took a deep breath—like Gospetto had taught him—then wondered if that was wise, given he was in space, with only the two oxygen tanks on his back for life support.

He followed the sounds and felt a moment of triumph when the combined lines five and one allowed him to see Abram standing, hands clasped behind his back, at the central console. Michelle was standing, too, pacing, scowling at the vid. Ean tweaked the line to see what she was seeing.

A row of space-suited figures, one of them bobbing up and down out of line, jets spurting at intervals on the others. He swallowed, watching it, and kept his mouth closed, just in case.

The voice-over accompanying the vid was dramatic. “Twenty fighters escaped the shoot-out on the Galactic News ship.” A schematic diagram overlaid the screen. Ean had seen enough overlays now to recognize what it was. The ships in
space. The
Argent
and the Galactic News ship in the center, with the
Wendell
completing a triangle below them, and the
Eleven
at the top center, the
Lancastrian Princess
on the top left. “As you can see, they are coming here, to the
Argent
.” More dots joined the diagram, coming from the top left of the screen. “Lancia has dispatched three shuttles. They will arrive here at almost exactly the same time as the rebels.” D'Abo's voice rose dramatically. “People, we are right in the middle of the battle zone.”

Michelle groaned softly.

“Our vid team is standing by ready to record their entry.” There was a dramatic pause before, “This is Tenzig d'Abo of Galactic News, bringing you the action as it happens.”

D'Abo might be the chief executive of the company now, but he'd definitely done a stint in front of the camera. His smooth voice knew exactly how to milk every bit of drama out of the action.

“
Argent
,” Ean heard Captain Helmo say to the
Argent
captain. “You have assisted in an act of war in Alliance territory. Prepare to be boarded.”

Ean heard Michelle say wryly to Abram, “If we shoot them out of space, we'll do it on every channel. It will be a PR nightmare.”

“No doubt that's what they're counting on.” Abram tapped the counter, eleven-beat, and his voice took on more strength. “Still, they are in our territory, breaking our laws, killing our people.”

“And they have Ean.”

“And they have Ean,” Abram agreed. He frowned at the screen. “Our shuttles will be lucky to get to them before they jump.”

“Ean's resourceful,” Michelle said, then rubbed at her temples the way Katida did, as if she had a headache or didn't really believe Ean was as resourceful as she claimed.

“Yes, Misha,” Abram said softly, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. “He is.”

“Two hundred twenty-five degrees,” Grayson's voice said in Ean's ear. It was the first time anyone had used the suit-to-suit communication.

Radko had at least taught him about that. Intersuit comms
had no lines, so Ean had only paid cursory attention to it. He did know you couldn't turn it off.

The space suits reoriented themselves. They were still facing the
Argent
, but more toward the rear of the ship.

“Maximum,” Grayson said, and every suit except Ean's fired their jets in a long, sustained blast.

Through
Lancastrian Princess
's line five, Ean heard someone say, “
Argent
has started to move.”

Ean could see it. It was coming straight toward them, and it wasn't stopping.

By the time Ean remembered where the jet controls were on the suit they were up close against the side of the
Argent
and it was too late to use them, even if he could work out how to.

Luckily for him, he didn't have to. Other people in the line were firing jets. They slowed, but Ean wasn't sure it would be enough.

Up close, the ship was huge. Suddenly, the emptiness of space didn't seem so threatening anymore. Ean closed his eyes, opened them again, not sure which was better. Seeing when you went splat or waiting for it to happen.

A dark hole opened in the side. The shuttle bay.

Jets fired. Ean was jerked along as they snaked into the hole and veered to the left, steering well clear of the shuttle already in the bay. One by one, they clunked against the metal bay wall, even Ean. It wasn't something he controlled, but whatever it was held him fast.

The noise of the ship lines settled around Ean. It was like coming home.

The shuttle exited.

The shuttle doors closed.

The ship accelerated away.

The
Lancastrian Princess
commentary continued through line five. “Shuttle launched from the
Argent
.”

Abram diverted one of his shuttles to investigate.

“
Argent
is making for the
Wendell
. Our shuttles won't catch it now,” and in the background someone—it sounded like Helmo—muttered, “Pilot is almost as good as Yannikay. They're going close.”

He heard the
Argent
shuttle hail the
Lancastrian Princess
shuttle that had diverted. “Don't shoot. We're innocent,” in the panicked tones of Tenzig d'Abo, who didn't sound quite so smooth right now.

So Wendell was adding shipjacking to his list of crimes.

They didn't leave the shuttle bay. Instead, they swarmed into the second
Argent
shuttle, which was already full of people. They were wedged in so close Ean could feel three blasters through his suit but wouldn't have been able to dislodge a single one of them.

They waited. One minute. Two. Then one more person joined them, this time from the ship. Ean didn't need to ask who it was, he could hear it through the lines. Captain Wendell.

“Let's go,” Wendell said, and the shuttle exited the bay.

“
Argent
has launched another shuttle,” came through the
Lancastrian Princess
's lines. “Headed for the
Wendell
.”

The
Wendell
would open for its own crew, and Ean couldn't stop that. He didn't plan to ask it of the lines, wasn't even sure if he could right now. The only way he could help was to keep the ships together so that Abram had time to do something.

Abram had left a skeleton crew on the
Wendell
? How many people was that? Twenty, and he didn't ask how the lines had supplied him with that answer.

Given the number of green uniforms squeezing him in, the Lancastrians would be outnumbered, and on a ship the enemy knew intimately. Worse, the ship would be on the enemy's side.

Two of Wendell's men waved blasters at Ean, although how they got their hands free in this crowd he didn't know.

What did they want him to do?

The spacer in front of him put her suited hands on the three-step clasp that held Ean's oxygen tanks on. The tanks fell away.

She unclipped Ean's helmet for him.

“Approaching ship,” Wendell said. Ean heard it through the comms. “Prepare for boarding.”

The
Wendell
lines surged strongly at his words. This was one happy ship suddenly. Ean was going to have to tell Abram they had to keep the captains. Abram wouldn't like that.

“This is Captain Wendell to the
Wendell
,” Wendell continued. “Ship. Plan G.”

The ship responded to that although Ean couldn't tell exactly what it responded to. A Lancastrian accent replied, “Captain Wendell, this is the
Wendell
. Please stand off.”

It was too late. Whatever Wendell planned had been done.

Grayson's voice brought Ean back to his own surroundings. “Abi, Marrl, you're responsible for the prisoner.”

Marrl was one of the men holding blasters. He smiled threateningly at Ean, showing incisors as sharp as an Aquacaelum's, distorted through the helmet. Abi was the woman who had removed his tanks.

She pushed her blaster into his side, and said quietly, “Don't think we won't shoot you if we have to.”

He hadn't been thinking at all, to be honest.

As they docked, the lines of the ship surrounded Ean, enveloping him in sound. He didn't need Grayson's, “Docking now,” to confirm it.

“Let's go, people,” Grayson said.

Abi prodded Ean. “Prisoner first,” she said, and everyone squeezed together and pushed him through.

After all this, they were sending him out to get killed by his own people. And they were his people even though once he would have denied it simply because they were Lancastrian.

Maybe death was what they had planned for him all along although Ean couldn't see the point of waiting till they got to the
Wendell
to carry it out. The bay door opened. Ean stepped out carefully, hands high above his head.