Linesman (35 page)

Orsaya gave a mirthless smile. “Maybe they're having more trouble than they anticipated. Be ready.”

“We are ready, ma'am.”

“Good.”

Rossi asked, “Are you just going to let him—”

Markan arrived then, with Iwo Hurst and a company of twenty soldiers. The atmosphere grew a lot more tense suddenly.

The glance Hurst gave Rossi was almost smug.

Rossi's gaze back was measured. It didn't take genius to realize Orsaya's home planet had to be one of those twenty worlds she spoke about. If he remained with her, and the Roscracians won, would Rossi get back to the
Eleven
?

“You are endangering my operation being here,” Orsaya told the other admiral. “And endangering yourself and your crew. Get out now.”

The
Eleven
arrived, in a burst of noise and an irregular heartbeat so loud it sent Rossi to his knees.

Didn't Orsaya realize what had just happened?

Rossi couldn't breathe. He opened his mouth to explain the miracle that had just occurred. The
Eleven
. Here. Lambert could have the confluence. The
Eleven
was Rossi's.

He couldn't speak.

Orsaya's comms beeped. Markan's did, too, but they both ignored them.

Orsaya glanced at Rossi. Her gaze sharpened, and she turned her attention momentarily from Markan to Rossi.

“Call the paramedics,” she commanded one of her soldiers.

The loudspeaker crackled. Rossi knew who it was before the voice came through. Orsaya's second, Captain Auburn. Line eleven made the other lines clear as clear.

“Admiral Orsaya. Please pick up your comms.”

Orsaya glared at the nearest speaker, then picked up the comms. “What?”

Markan was already answering his.

“Captain Wendell has arrived, ma'am. Along with the
Lancastrian Princess
, the
Gruen
, and the two media ships.” Auburn paused for two full seconds. “And the
Eleven
, ma'am.”

EAN LAMBERT

LINE ELEVEN WAS
stuck in the void. Ean could hear it. He tossed restlessly. It had been there forever. He had to get it out.

“I'm here,”
line eleven said, clear and strong in his head.

“No, no. Part of you is still in the void. I can feel it.”

His own insistence was stressing the line. Ean forced himself awake, forced himself to ignore the echo in the void. “Sorry,” and concentrated on pushing the double beat to the back of his mind so that what was left was the usual irregular beat of line eleven, which he could manage.

That allowed him to hear the other lines.

Gruen's ship, still mostly crewless and lost. Lines needed people, he realized, sentient creatures to interact with them and make them complete.
“I'll do what I can as soon as I can,”
he promised, and hoped he wasn't making too many promises he couldn't keep.

The two media ships, both in a flurry of communications and broadcasting.

There was absolute silence on the
Wendell
.

“Too many ships. Too close,” Grayson said eventually. His voice shook.

Wendell's voice was calmer, but Ean could feel through the lines that he wasn't much better. “How did we come out of that alive?”

Ean could feel there were other—non-
Eleven
fleet—ships around. He wasn't sure if Wendell's comment was for arriving in the midst of them, or if, being the captain, Wendell had experienced part of that terrible trip through the void.

He never wanted to be unconscious going into the void again.

The
Eleven
was calming now that Ean had calmed.

The
Lancastrian Princess
was busy. Line eight was strong, and lines six, nine, and ten were poised ready to jump. Ean listened in to line five. At first it was a meaningless jumble of positions and strengths.

Burnley
at 469. Four hundred crew.
Xavier
at 762.6. Two hundred crew.
MacIntyre
at 972. Four hundred crew.

The list went on.

They were enemy ships.

He'd brought his own ships to the enemy.

Ean pushed his oxygen mask off. An orderly pushed it back over his face.

Behind the count, he could hear another comms. “This is Gate Union ship
MacIntyre
calling the
Lancastrian Princess
. You have entered a Gate Union military area without permission. Please surrender and prepare for boarding.”

That echoed, too, and at first Ean thought the echo was in his head, until he heard a woman's voice through
Wendell
line one. “What the hell is going on, Wendell?”

It was coming through the comms.

“I have your package, Admiral Orsaya,” Wendell said, as if he hadn't brought five other ships along with Ean.

“Do you realize how dangerous that was?” Orsaya demanded. “Do you realize how close these ships are to ours?” while someone else on the station was yelling at him, “You are out of your mind, Captain, pulling a stunt like that. You'll be court-martialed for this.”

Underneath, Abram's calm voice asked the
MacIntyre
, “Since when did the confluence constitute a military zone?”

Confluence? Ean must have misheard that. He struggled to push off the last of the lethargy caused by the double beat. He had called the
Lancastrian Princess
here. He had called it into a trap. He had to get it out.

“As of 0:00 hours Galactic Standard Time,” the speaker on the
MacIntyre
said.

And underneath that Ean could hear other comms. From all the ships and the station. Frantic calls for medical assistance.

•   •   •

AFTER
Michelle had returned from her kidnapping, Abram had moved the
Lancastrian Princess
back to two hundred kilometers away from the
Eleven
—against Ean's advice.

“If anything happens, the
Eleven
will protect you.”

“If anything happens, I want the room to jump,” Abram had replied.

If he had stayed inside the field, Ean could have sung to line eight to turn on the protective field and both ships would be safe now. But the
Lancastrian Princess
was well out of the protective zone. Not only that, Abram had been sending crews to the
Eleven
daily, so the field was turned off.

If he turned the field back on, he would protect the
Eleven
, and probably the
Eleven
's fleet, but what if someone triggered it? The ships could jump, but if they really were at the confluence, everyone on the station would die.

Through line five, he could hear the comms on all ships. “I repeat,” the captain of the
MacIntyre
said again. “Surrender now.”

Ean remembered Captain MacIntyre, who'd been so proud of his ship, so convinced it couldn't be destroyed.

“Get up.” That came through the
Wendell
line one, full of exasperation. It was only when Abi prodded Ean that he realized she was saying it, and she was in the room with him.

She prodded him again, a lot harder.

“Time to go.”

It was time to do something although Ean wasn't sure what. Maybe he should just turn on the
Eleven
's security system again, no matter what the consequences.

Why didn't Abram jump the ships away?

•   •   •

“IF
you do not surrender, we will fire,” Captain MacIntyre said.

Ean's first responsibility was to the
Lancastrian Princess
, no matter who else suffered. He started to sing to the
Eleven
's line eight, to turn on the protective shield. At his first note, the lines came in so strongly it caught him unawares and tripped him up. He couldn't do anything for a moment. Even Abi's prodding couldn't make him move. He should be over unexpected heart-stoppers by now.

The lines were clear. Through them he could see Captain MacIntyre talking to Abram. Captain Helmo, half listening, half watching his crew, who were frantically busy right now, fingers flying over their boards. Captain Wendell, pacing impatiently at what looked to be a shuttle bay, talking through an open comms to the woman Katida had once identified as Admiral Jita Orsaya.

Orsaya herself was in some sort of large control room and looked to be in a tense standoff with a man who wore enough braid to be an admiral as well. The room was full of soldiers. Some of them wore beige, some of them wore purple camouflage colors. Orsaya wore beige, the other admiral wore purple.

Orsaya swept a hand across her comms. “Captain MacIntyre.” The line went private. Private to anyone who couldn't hear the lines direct. “Do not fire on that ship. I repeat, do not fire on any of the Alliance ships unless I give an explicit order to do so. Understand?”

MacIntyre's emotions came strongly over lines one and five. Annoyance, exasperation, and a hint of anger. Ean heard the aside through the lines, to someone on the
MacIntyre
bridge. “Wish these people would bloody well talk to each other?” What MacIntyre said through the comms was, “Admiral Markan's orders, ma'am.”

“I'll talk to Markan,” Orsaya said, her voice cold, and she glared at the admiral in purple. “Meantime, do not fire on any Alliance ships.”

MacIntyre clicked off with an almost assent.

Orsaya thumbed off the comms. “Galenos is just as likely
to call your bluff,” she said to the man with her. Markan, presumably. “And you don't understand what that ship can do.”

Then she called Abram. “Galenos. We have your linesman, and you are surrounded by enemy ships. We will not fire on you unless you fire on us.”

As he listened to Abram's cautious agreement, a part of Ean marveled that he could hold so many threads in his mind at once. Was this how the lines did it? Still, he was only human, and he could only concentrate on one thing at a time. He sang under his breath to line eight.
Turn on the protective shield.

He lost track of everything else for a moment, but he could tell by the increased activity of the lines everywhere that the shield had come on.

Orsaya opened her comms to all ships. “Nobody fire,” she said. “You all know the consequences of setting that thing off. And have a jump ready in case you do.”

Abi prodded Ean again.

He crawled to his feet, in the inelegant way he was getting so used to, and continued walking to the background of Orsaya's calling her assistant. “We've got people in transit. Get them onto the nearest ships. I don't care which ones, and don't take any complaints from the crews.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Ean and Abi arrived at the shuttle bay, where Wendell was still pacing. Grayson, who'd changed his singed uniform and looked impeccably neat now, waited with him.

“I am never going to be so glad to get something off my ship,” Wendell said, but held a hand out to stop Ean before Abi could push him toward the shuttle. “Why did the other ships come with my ship?”

It was time Wendell realized he'd never win this particular battle. “The ships are linked,” Ean said. He hoped. They'd never jumped without him singing them all together, but this time they had entered the void before he'd started singing. And line eleven definitely thought of the Wendell lines as its lines.

Wendell stared at him as if trying to read Ean's lines; more probably trying to decide if he was telling the truth. He
ran his hands through his hair, which was already sticking up. “How linked?”

What could you tell the enemy that would frighten them most?

“We have linked them to the
Eleven
, so that the
Eleven
is the master ship and controls the rest.”

Wendell bit at his bottom lip, and his eyes blinked rapidly, as if he were thinking so fast his brain couldn't keep up. Then he stopped, totally still suddenly. “You can't unlink them, can you,” and he nodded as if he finally understood something. “
That's
why Galenos is dragging the media ships around.”

And two enemy warships, which Katida had once said would normally go back to the shipyard to be refitted. Ean thought it wasn't a good time to remind Wendell of that.

Wendell leaned on his comms, breaking into the argument Admiral Orsaya was having with Admiral Markan. “Your package is about to leave ship. He's singing some very interesting songs right now.”

Ean hoped he meant the old-fashioned way—telling tales—and not literally talking about him singing to the lines. He didn't think Wendell had worked out yet how useful the singing was. He would, though.

He further hoped Abram and Michelle didn't intercept this message. It sounded like Ean was giving away secrets. Which he was, he supposed, only Wendell hadn't been meant to work out that they couldn't unlink the ships. Ean had been trying to scare him.

“Songs?” Orsaya was definitely thinking of the lines.

“I'll have Grayson tell you when he gets there.”

“I'm thinking we should do this on your ship. If the
Eleven
goes off while he's shuttling between, then we're in trouble.”

“No.” Ean was sure it came out more explosively than Wendell intended. “We are linked to the Alliance ships. You might as well hand him back to Galenos now.”

Abram and Michelle needed to hear this, but Ean couldn't open the lines right now because Wendell would hear him sing. It was his only advantage. He didn't want to give it away unnecessarily.

Not like he'd given away the information about the linked ships.

Wendell looked at Grayson. “You know what to tell her?”

“They can't unlink the ships.”

Wendell nodded. “Don't take too long getting back. Orsaya is right. You don't want to be between ships when that thing goes off.”

“It won't go off if people stop threatening my ships,” Ean said.

Wendell waved him onto the shuttle, and Abi backed it up with a prodded blaster. “If they hadn't come along, there wouldn't be anything to threaten, would there.”