With the strength of the lines on the Confluence, Ean could hear and see them as clearly as if he’d been standing beside them, could taste how glad Orsaya was to see them gone.
Dow said quietly to Yu, “She bought it.”
Orsaya couldn’t hear it, but Ean could, through the lines.
“Of course she did. I knew exactly how my daughter would react, Sattur. She has protected this linesman all along, may even have some personal feelings for him. Of course she would send him to what she perceives as safety.”
Yu had deliberately pushed Michelle into sending Ean to the Confluence. He’d wanted the linesmen there. Why?
What had they done?
“Sale,” Ean said. “We have a problem. I think it’s a trap.”
“Over here,” Kentish called. Ean heard the force of it through the lines. She was a nine, and strong with it.
“Trap?”
The paramedic making his way across to Kentish veered toward Ean. He wrapped an arm around Ean’s neck and jerked him back. Ean felt the hard muzzle of a blaster against the side of his neck.
That sort of trap.
Another paramedic pointed a weapon at Sale.
They weren’t supposed to be armed. After the riot on the Gruen, none of the trainees were allowed to carry weapons.
Other paramedics had weapons out. Half of them made for Ean and Sale. The others circled the fallen and not-fallen linesmen.
Bhaksir pressed her own blaster against the back of the man holding Ean. “Move away from him.”
Ean hadn’t seen her take her weapon out. Or move. He’d bet the paramedic hadn’t either.
“Drop it,” the paramedic said to Bhaksir. “Or I kill him.” He looked around at the rest of Bhaksir’s team, who had their weapons out, too. “All of you.”
“Oxygen,” Kentish demanded.
“Keep still, and none of you will get hurt.”
Kentish stood up.
A paramedic raised his weapon.
Fergus jumped in front of Kentish, deflecting half the blast.
They both went down. Scout Ship Three wailed.
The lines came on, urgent, insistent. All ships.
“Radko,” and they opened, without request, to show Commodore Vega at her desk, listening to a message. It was sound only. There was no visual.
“Put your weapons down,” Sale said to Bhaksir. “We’ll let the lines sort this out.”
Ean, she meant, but Ean was listening with Vega to Radko, trying to see at the same time if Fergus and Kentish were all right.
“You are a traitor to Lancia, Commodore Bach,” Radko’s words came through the comms. “You have conspired with Redmond and the Worlds of the Lesser Gods to steal an alien line ship. You have betrayed Lancia, and the New Alliance.”
Ean heard Jakob’s unmistakable voice. “If someone won’t do it, I will.”
“You, and Captain Jakob, and—”
Then Radko stopped speaking.
“No.” Ean’s heart thudded in panic. He pushed the paramedic away, ignoring the blaster held to his neck. “Radko.”
Ten blasters rose simultaneously.
“Hold,” the paramedic yelled to his own team. “Don’t kill the linesman.” Sweat dripped off his face. “You crazy moron. If I say don’t move, you don’t move.”
Ean hardly heard him. Dead man’s message, Vega had called it. The message you sent when you knew you weren’t coming home. Was Radko already dead?
He tried to concentrate on what was happening on the Confluence but couldn’t stop listening with Vega.
If they killed Radko, he would blast them all out of space.
The Confluence lines surged. “Battle,” and the linesmen who’d started to recover went down again.
The lines on the other ships took up the refrain. “Battle. Battle.”
Peters, who had recovered enough to understand what was happening, clambered to his knees. “We’ll die rather than surrender this ship.”
“No surrender. We fight.”
“We fight.” That was Peters, too, who claimed he didn’t hear the lines.
“That woman is Emperor Yu’s cousin.” This voice had clipped Lancian vowels. Commodore Bach. “He won’t take kindly to your killing her.”
“If Yu wants to negate our agreement by sending his own team, he would do well to consider the message I send him.” Jakob’s voice changed, as if he was looking elsewhere. “Find out if she’s had the truth serum yet, and if she hasn’t, for God’s sake give it to her. I want to question her before I kill her.”
She wasn’t dead yet. Ean breathed again. His legs wouldn’t hold him any longer, and he sank to the floor.
“He wants us to move the ship, Ean.” Sale looked at the paramedic holding the blaster on Ean. “I can’t move it,” she told him. “The linesman is the only one who can.”
On the Lancastrian Princess, Vega said, “Find out where that message originated.”
“Ean.” Sale’s voice was amplified by the lines. He forced himself to look at her. How long would they keep Radko alive?
“He wants you to jump.” Her message was clear. He’d jumped ships before, switched places with other ships in the fleet. She expected him to do that now. She also expected that the other ships already knew what was happening. After all, that was what he usually did.
Ean sang the lines open to the bridges of the fleet ships. Both fleets, for there was no time to choose specific ships, and Craik and four of her team were on the bridge here on the Confluence. They needed to know what had happened.
“What the hell?” the paramedic said. “What’s with the singing? Now?”
If Sale had been Radko, she would have said, “He does that sometimes, it’s his way of coping with nerves.”
But Sale wasn’t Radko, and if he didn’t save her, she wouldn’t be around much longer to say things like that.
Sale shrugged, as if she wasn’t sure. “Ean, the jump.”
Another single-level linesman, this one in Balian uniform, said, “We refuse to allow this ship to be taken. If you do this for them, Linesman, you are a traitor. A traitor to the New Alliance. A traitor to Lancia.”
“They’re traitors anyway,” another trainee said. For the Lancastrian linesmen—those who were standing—had produced weapons as well.
“Shit,” from the ship, and Ean had to look to be sure Sale’s mouth hadn’t moved. But the linesmen heard it, every single one of them who was capable of it.
“Did you?” Never mind. It wasn’t the time or the place.
The Lancian captors—they were all Lancastrians, Ean realized—rounded up the linesmen. Was Lancia trying to steal the ships?
Fergus struggled to his knees. “I think I’m going to be sick.” He crawled over to Kentish. “She’s alive.”
“Who are you?” Sale demanded of the Lancastrians. “Who sent you?”
“I need that jump, Linesman,” the paramedic said, holding the weapon on Ean. “Otherwise, I start shooting people. Starting with that one.” He indicated Sale.
“No one will cooperate if you shoot Sale.” Least of all the ship.
Line eight was getting louder. So much so that the human eights—all of them singles—were showing distinct signs of distress.
On the Lancastrian Princess and the Wendell, response teams ran for the shuttle bays.
“Give me the coordinates,” Ean said.
Helmo clicked through to Vega. “Are you receiving this?”
“Spacer Radko? Loud and clear. I’m sure everyone is.”
“Radko? No, I mean the Confluence.”
“Tell me.”
“The coordinates. Please.” Everyone on all 135 ships heard that.
Peters strained forward. “He’s as much a traitor as the other Lancastrians. See how none of them are fig
hting it.”
“That’s because we’re outgunned,” Hernandez said. “Group Leader Sale isn’t stupid.” Hernandez was like Sale, expecting him to swap with another ship. If he did that, he left Radko to die.
The paramedic gave Ean the coordinates for the jump.
Ean read them aloud. “They were 2341.123416.23.21. Where’s that?”
“None of your business,” but Ean hadn’t been asking the paramedic.
Answers came, almost simultaneously, from Helmo and Vega on the Lancastrian Princess, Wendell on the Wendell, and Kari Wang on the Eleven. “Redmond sector.”
Which was still half a sector away from the Worlds of the Lesser Gods, where Bach and Radko were. At least where he presumed Radko was. Half a sector. Far enough away that Redmond couldn’t reach them before they’d had time to rescue Radko and return home.
As for the people on the Confluence. They wouldn’t be any worse off near the Worlds of the Lesser Gods than they would be here.
“Lambert,” Vega said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Vega wouldn’t give him Radko’s coordinates.
“Ean,” Sale said. “We need to act.”
Ean nodded, and directed his song to line ten. “Can you take us to where Radko’s signal was?” The lines wouldn’t remember the signal if they left it too late.
He realized the lines were already acting, and hurriedly sang line seven in. It wouldn’t do to take the whole fleet with him. That would be an act of war.
And this wasn’t?
He didn’t care. Radko didn’t deserve to die. Especially not by Jakob’s hand. Or by traitorous Lancastrians’.
But they couldn’t rescue Radko without people to do it, and they couldn’t do that while the Lancastrians—enemy Lancastrians—were holding weapons on them. And line eight was more than ready.
Maybe Rossi was right. Let the ship do it. Don’t try to force it.
“Well,” the paramedic said.
“We’ve already jumped,” Sale said.
Line eight was waiting. Ready to protect its people and its ship.
“Linesmen, drop,” Ean sang, and put all the force he could behind his words. “Drop. Drop now, to the floor. If someone near you doesn’t drop, pull them down, or they’ll be hurt.”
He didn’t know how he knew it, but he knew the lines would come in waist high. Maybe they always did. After all, they hadn’t exactly measured them, had they.
The lines came in strong to support him, line eleven, too, and if the trainees standing hadn’t been single-level linesmen, the strength of it would have knocked them all down. It sent Ean to his knees, and it was a struggle to stay that much upright. “Drop, all of you.”
The lines took up the chant. “Drop, drop. All of you.”
“What’s going on?” the lead paramedic demanded of Sale.
“Lines. When they’re strong, they overpower the linesmen.” Although she knew as well as Ean did that the single levels shouldn’t have gone down at all. “I need to give Lambert oxygen, or he’ll be no use to you.”
Ean glanced around. His trainees were all down. And the Confluence wouldn’t hurt Sale or her people. “Protect us. Protect Ship from the marauders,” he sang to line eight.
A tsunami of sound rushed past him. A force-wave that crashed into those standing. They were tossed like flotsam in it. Against the wall. Against the ceiling.
Sale was in the wave’s path.
“Sale!”
But the wave flowed around her, and around the paramedic holding his weapon on her.
Sale snatched his weapon while he watched the carnage, openmouthed.
She shot him.
Ean sang a counterwave around himself to protect Bhaksir and her team. The two waves canceled each other out, but he didn’t need it, for line eight flowed around them as well.
Above his singing, he heard Sale, amplified again by the Confluence. “Trainee linesmen. Those of you who are able, collect the intruders’ weapons. Subdue any who resist.”
Sale took out her comms and called Craik, who’d been on the bridge all this time. “Where did he take us?”
“Redmond sector,” Craik said. “We’re still determining exactly where.”
“Redmond.” Sale’s voice was accusing. “You took us where he wanted to go.”
“Battle,” said the Confluence.
Ean staggered to his feet. “Sale, we have to rescue Radko.”
Sale’s comms sounded. Vega. Ean looked at it uneasily. “Maybe you should answer that when we get back.”
Sale glared at him, clicked it on.
“Group Leader Sale,” came Vega’s crisp tones. “You are near a research station orbiting Aeolus, one of the Worlds of the Lesser Gods. Anything you do is likely to be considered an act of war.” She paused, then added, “You are on your own. I repeat. You have no support. Return immediately.”
They were still linked to the Eleven fleet ships. Ean considered turning the link off, but that was childish. Although there was a lot of activity on the media ships. They were listening in. He hastily sang those lines closed.
“Radko’s here,” Ean said to Sale. “On that station. She sent a message. She’s going to die.”
Sale looked at Ean, looked at her comms, then looked at the trainees—busy rounding up prisoners. She looked at her comms again. “There’s only one way home, ma’am. We need to fix his problem before he’ll fix ours.”
She clicked off and watched the Xantos attending Kentish. “How is she?”
Alex Joy shook his head. “She’s alive, but that’s all we can say for her.” He looked from Kentish to Vang, and back again.
Sale looked at Losan, who was nearby. “Take Joy down to the medical store.” She scowled at the paramedics. “If I thought any of them were real paramedics, I’d get you to rouse one.”
If that was possible. Many of them were horribly still.
“But I don’t think any of them are. We haven’t got much in the way of medical supplies,” she told Joy. “See what you can do.” She scowled again. “We’ve a whole hospital here, and we don’t know how to use it.” Then she turned to Fergus. “What in the lines did you think you were doing?”
“I had a suit on.”
“A suit protects vital body organs. It doesn’t protect your head. Or your legs. Not to mention, there’s a hell of a concussion as the suit dissipates the blaster heat.”
Fergus nodded and winced as he did. “Hell-of-a is an accurate way to describe it, I think.”
“Don’t do it again.” Sale turned to Ean. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll send you home,” Ean said. “Give me a shuttle. I need to find Radko. They are going to kill her.”
“Don’t be stupid, Ean. We’re better armed with you on a ship than we are with you in a shuttle. Although you’d better not lose this ship.” She flicked her comms on again, to Craik, on the bridge of the Confluence. “What do we have?”
“The station is threatening to shoot us.”
“Tell them we’ll use the green pulse if they do, so they’d better not try.”
“Right,” and Craik clicked off.
Sale looked at Ean. “Does the Confluence have a green field?”
“Yes.” And line eight was ready to use it, too.
“Not yet. Not until we have rescued Radko.”
Technically, the Worlds of the Lesser Gods were allied with Lancia—and thus the New Alliance. They should appreciate Radko’s uncovering Bach as a traitor, as well as Jakob.
The trainees were rounding up the paramedics who could move, removing their weapons, forcing them into a central circle. Ean tried not to jig impatiently. This had to be done, but every second they wasted here was a second wasted not rescuing Radko.
Sale looked at Bhaksir. “Use what trainees you can to get this lot locked
up. Put them in one of the empty shuttle bays, and get Ean to sing the door locked. That way if they cause trouble, we’ll vent them into space.” She scowled at the paramedics. “I can’t believe they’re Lancastrian.”
She picked out three of the trainees, all single-level linesmen and thus standing, all with rankings on their shoulders. “You, help Bhaksir with the organization. Joy, too, when he gets back. Oh, and none of you try any stupid ‘They’re Lancian’ shit. We’re on the same side as you, and we’re your only way home. You’re right in the middle of enemy territory.
“Ean, block any messages from this ship that’s not ours. Some of those paramedics will have comms.”
That was easy. “Only send comms from Ship’s people,” he told line five. “From our fleet people. You know the ones Ship will let you send.”
It was equivalent to Captain Helmo saying, “No unauthorized comms.”
Sale turned toward the bridge. “Come on, Ean. We’ve work to do.”
Ean ran to keep up with her.
At last. It would take them forever to get to the bridge. He was glad he didn’t have to be on the bridge to know what was going on. Even the ship seemed infected with urgency.
“Hurry, hurry. Faster.”
“I can take a shuttle.” It would be faster than having to go all the way to the bridge.
“That’s not going to happen, Ean. You’ll leave us stranded in enemy space with the most valuable ship in the whole of the New Alliance.”
“Technically, the Worlds of the Lesser Gods are not enemies.”
Sale snorted. “Does anyone seriously believe that?”
No.
“Slow. Faster.”
He was going as fast as he could. Surely the ship understood that.
“Keep an eye on the trainees” Sale said. “I don’t want them turning on us. We’re in a really bad position right now. The only thing between us and the trainees’ taking over the ship is you. Keep it that way.”
He should have waited till they’d sorted out the attack here on the Confluence. But Radko might be dead by then.
“I don’t know how long the station will hold off firing on us. We don’t know what weapons this ship has.”
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