Linesman

by S. K. Dunstall

  “Shhh,” said Sale. “Now, get in there and get back fast? If you’re not back in fifteen we’re moving anyway.”

  They moved up to the next level, with Losan and his unconscious prisoner.

  “What’s he doing?” Ean asked.

  “Finding how many guards there are outside and inside the hospital,” Radko said.

  “But won’t the guards know he’s a stranger?”

  “Clearly you’ve never worked on a military ship,” Sale said. “He’s a maintenance worker.”

  “Yes, but you’d know.”

  Radko said, “We are Princess Michelle’s handpicked guards. The Commodore would skin us alive if we didn’t know the name and face of every person who came on ship—including you—the minute they came on board. On most ships, the active guards and the maintenance crew don’t even eat in the same mess, let alone talk to each other.”

  “Shhh,” Sale said.

  Losan was back a nerve-wracking ten minutes later. “Four guards,” he reported. “Two outside and two in. They’re not expecting trouble.” Which meant that Captain Gruen wasn’t taking Captain Wendell’s warnings seriously. She would soon. “They’re wearing standard weapons. Blasters and knives at the least.

  “There are five medical staff and three patients. Four now, sorry. Only one ward. Ten beds. Two rows of five. The princess is separated. At the far end, away from the door. She has one guard on each side of the bed.”

  They were speaking softly, but if Losan was right, the guards were just around the corner and down the corridor. Ean wiped damp hands on his trousers and hoped no one could hear them talking.

  “Too many people for us to jump without tripping the alarm,” Sale said. “We can surprise the two outer guards, but not the inner.”

  “Emergency hatch?” asked one of the other guards, and shook his head before she even answered.

  “They’ll hear us before we get in.”

  “Where do we go when we’re done?”

  “Shuttle bay,” Sale said. “As fast as we can.” Even Ean could see the chances of their reaching the shuttle bay without getting stopped were remote. “We kill everyone who gets in our way.” She looked at Ean. “Since we will be seen, is there anything you can do, Linesman, to help us?”

  She meant line eight. “I think—”

  “What about an alarm somewhere else on the ship?” Radko suggested. “Hull breach alert will set people running and close off that part of the ship, and everyone else except emergency personnel have to stay put until the breach is fixed.”

  Thank goodness for Radko, who understood that Ean didn’t understand what he could do.

  “Of course,” she added, “guards would be considered emergency personnel in a situation like this. Half of them will make for the breach and the other half will make straight for the hospital.”

  “And if there were two breaches?” It would be better just to lock the guards in their quarters, to lock every door except for the ones in the corridor to the shuttle. Doors were line three, and they would work for him. At least, they had until now. Provided he didn’t involve eight, which appeared to be the gatekeeper for security. The other lines seemed to accept that if a line like Ean asked something of another line, and line eight didn’t stop it, then it was okay to do.

  Wendell’s line eight had protected its ship. This one probably would, too.

  Ean could have done this before if he’d thought about it properly instead of being so fixated on line eight. He might tell Abram that when they got out, but he definitely wasn’t telling Sale.

  “I need to touch a lock.” He didn’t know how to describe a lock to the line.

  “Hospital door okay?”

  He nodded.

  “Good,” Sale said. “Let’s go.”

  They took off at a run and started firing as soon as they got around the door. The guards didn’t have a chance.

  The dead men hit the floor together. The thump rattled the metal of the corridor.

  “Linesman,” Sale hissed, and Ean hurried over. Please let him be able to do it.

  The staff inside the hospital were just starting to react to the external noise.

  Ean put his hand on the lock and started to sing.

  Line three heard him, and the locks clicked into place.

  Someone on the other side came over to open the hospital door. Ean raised a hand to warn the others then, because he couldn’t think of what else to do, dropped his hand to rest on the shoulder of the man who had opened the door.

  “What the?” The orderly’s voice took on the chattering tones of line three. His eyes rolled upward, and he fainted.

  The guards by Michelle’s bed hadn’t moved. One of them pointed his weapon directly at Michelle’s throat.

  Radko waved her blaster at the stationary medical staff. “Touch any alarms, and I kill you. Stay still, and you’ll stay alive.” All the others’ weapons pointed directly at the two guards.

  “Stalemate,” Sale said to the guard with the weapon aimed at Michelle. “You kill her, and you’re dead. If I don’t kill you, your own people will. I’m sure you have instructions to keep her alive no matter the cost.”

  She’d been wearing a suit, so why was she unconscious?

  Ean felt line five come in. The signal originated from this room. It was instinctive to open his mouth and counter it before it could go anywhere. He held the line, and all the comms in the ship came to him, through him, and stopped.

  They couldn’t get a signal out, he realized. While he held the line, they couldn’t call for reinforcements.

  “Take them,” he said through the guard’s comms, because he couldn’t stop the tune to tell them what to do.

  Radko shot both guards in the head while everyone else—on both sides—was still reacting.

  One of the orderlies pressed an alarm. It came out in Ean’s song, but didn’t get through to anyone else.

  Sale snapped out of it quickly enough. “A trolley,” she ordered, and Losan and another guard ran over to get the emergency trolley.

  A patient moved her arm carefully, stealthily. Ean could see what she was trying for. The dead guard’s blaster. Ean glared at her. “Don’t try anything,” he said through the now-dead guard’s comms.

  Craik collected the discarded weapons.

  Losan and another guard loaded Michelle onto the stretcher.

  “You, too,” Sale said to Radko. “Your ankle will slow us down, and we need speed.” She looked at Ean. “What about you?”

  “I can run,” he said through the comms.

  She picked up the comms. “Let’s go then,” and they ran back through the main corridors to the shuttle bay and picked off anyone who had been unlucky enough to get themselves locked in the main corridor. All the emergency calls and requests for maintenance to fix doors went in through line five and out through Ean.

  “I can almost understand this,” Sale said, as they ran.

  Ean slowed them down. It was impossible to sing and run at the same time.

  After two main corridors, Sale said, “Put him on the trolley.”

  “Is that wise?” asked Losan. “Princess Michelle—”

  “Better to have her alive and her hair sticking out than dead because we couldn’t run fast enough.” She gestured to Ean with her blaster. “Get on.”

  Ean thought she might shoot him if he didn’t. He got on.

  Three people on the trolley made more work for the trolley-pushers, but they still made better time.

  Ean tried to avoid people, but the moment he touched the trolley, Michelle moaned and opened her eyes. “Ean. I can hear you through my bones.”

  “So can we,” Radko said, and the vibration in her voice wasn’t just from the rattling of the trolley.

  The shuttle-bay door was locked, and Ean didn’t need the lines to r
ead the huge warning signs around it. There was no oxygen, a ship was coming into the bay.

  “Sorry.” It still came out through the comms.

  Sale didn’t even hesitate. “Can you hold the outer door open for another ten minutes?”

  “Without oxygen?”

  She nodded, and started pulling space suits out of the emergency lockers. “You ever worn one of these?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’ll suit him,” Radko said. “You do the princess. You,” to Ean. “Just keep singing.”

  He did, holding the doors on the ship locked, holding the outer bay open and calling all the comms through him. The resultant noise wasn’t really song, it was a waterfall of sound.

  “You can almost understand what they’re saying,” Michelle said as she moved as much as she could to help those suiting her. It must have hurt because Ean could see the perspiration on her face, but she didn’t say anything, or even wince.

  Line eight came in then because the shuttle-bay doors should have closed. Ean and line eight tussled for control of the door. He’d never had to fight a line before.

  Radko snapped his faceplate closed and checked the seals. “Linesman’s ready,” almost at the same time as the two people suiting Michelle said, “Princess is ready.”

  They linked together to form a human chain. Radko clipped Ean in.

  Sale broke the inner emergency seals on the air lock.

  The alarms went through Ean and out into the emptiness of the shuttle bay.

  They crowded inside the air lock, squeezed together so tight that the song of the lines passed through them all. By the end of the long twenty seconds it took to cycle the air out, Ean was accompanied by a chorus of human voices who couldn’t help but follow his song.

  As soon as the air was gone, Sale—in front—broke the outer seal and used the jets on her suit to get them to the shuttle.

  Losan triggered the emergency lock on the shuttle.

  They piled into that air lock—Michelle half propelling herself, half supporting Ean, and Radko supporting them both.

  Air returned.

  All the while Ean sang control of the locks, control of the comms, control of security.

  The inner door whooshed open.

  Sale and her people turned their weapons on the occupants of the shuttle.

  “You,” she said to the man in the pilot seat. “Take off now, or I’ll fry you.”

  Craik stepped past Sale and put a blaster to the pilot’s head. “Now,” she said.

  The pilot started to press buttons.

  Sale looked around at the other occupants of the shuttle, who were all in various stages of standing up. “The rest of you, on the floor.”

  They dropped to the floor.

  The shuttle took off.

  Ean was knocked off his feet with the force of the acceleration, then lost his footing altogether as they entered free fall.

  All the time he tussled with line eight for control of the song.

  Radko touched his arm and was thrown across the shuttle compartment. Ean wanted to stop, to see if she was all right, but he couldn’t. Not without stopping the song.

  Sale said something—Ean didn’t hear what under all the noise. Radko shook her head.

  Michelle, her torso bruised and burned, pushed herself over to stand in front of Ean. She put a hand over Ean’s eyes—not touching—and said, gently, “It’s over now. You can stop.”

  Ean covered his ears, but it didn’t help.

  Michelle took her hand away and held Ean’s gaze with her own, deep and intense. There was nothing but the deep blue of her eyes, so dark he almost drowned in the color, so strong it damped the music. Ean blinked and could finally stop.

  “Look at poor Radko,” Michelle said.

  Radko’s left shoulder was twisted out of place. Even as Ean watched, she sat up, and winced. “Anyone know how to put a dislocated shoulder back?”

  “Sorry,” Ean muttered.

  “It’s your revenge,” Radko said, trying to sound cheerful. “For what I did when the others—” Her voice closed up with pain.

  It took a moment to understand what she meant. “Your jokes get worse.”

  Michelle fainted then, which saved either of them from replying.

  “She was wearing a suit,” Ean said. At least they were in free fall, so Michelle didn’t fall.

  “She took close-range hits from two blasters,” Sale said, gesturing Losan over to look at her. “No, don’t you touch her,” to Ean. “It stopped her from being fried, but that’s about all.” She waved her blaster at one of the prisoners, who seemed to think “don’t move” didn’t apply to him. “Sit down, Linesman, or I’ll kill you.”

  For a moment Ean thought she was talking to him, then he realized the prisoner wore a cartel uniform of deep midnight blue, with a jumping rickenback stitched in gold on the pocket and ten gold bars above it. House of Rickenback had two tens. Jordan Rossi and Geraint Jones.

  Geraint Jones was as tall and as skinny as a whippet, with ash blond hair. This man was sitting down. Ean couldn’t see how tall he was, but his shoulders were broad, his arms were muscled, and his head was shaved. Not Jones, so it had to be Jordan Rossi.

  According to Rigel, Rossi was a wily political manipulator with a voice an orator would be proud of. Ean smiled to himself. Gospetto would probably be pleased to teach him. Funny that Rigel had never said Rebekah was a political manipulator, too.

  Losan finished examining Michelle. “We should have brought the medic with us.” He moved over to Radko. “Let’s look at your shoulder.”

  “Is she—?” Sale asked.

  “I don’t know. Best thing we can do is get her back to the commodore as soon as we can.”

  “So let’s see what we can do about that. Craik.” Craik was standing over the pilot, her weapon at his head. “Get him to contact the commodore.” Sale swung back to Jordan Rossi, who had moved again. “Linesman, you don’t get many warnings.” She waved the weapon at the other prostrate hostages. There were two of them. One wore Rickenback colors but no lines. An assistant. Rigel had refused to pay for assistants. Wasted money, he called them, and Ean secretly agreed with him. What could an assistant do that you couldn’t do yourself? The other man could have been one of the bureaucrats dining at the buffet on Michelle’s ship every night. He looked what he was. A government official.

  “Ean,” Sale said. “Make sure it’s only our ship he calls.”

  He nodded, hoping he could, and looked at the crowded pilot’s seat. “Do you still have the comms?”

  Sale tossed it across.

  Ean caught it. “Go,” he said to Craik.

  Something hit the shuttle side on, knocking them everywhere. Ean made a clumsy grab for the comms, which had been jerked out of his hands.

  “Strap Princess Michelle in,” Sale ordered, but Losan was already doing that, dropping a stretcher from the specially marked berth along the wall, clipping it into place, and settling Michelle with care into the webbing. There were two stretcher bays and three stretcher logos at each, one near the floor, one toward the ceiling, and the other halfway between. Only a military shuttle would expect to have to carry six stretchers at once.

  “Minor damage to the landing gear,” Craik reported. “A warning shot.”

  Captain Gruen’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “Attention, the shuttle. This is Captain Gruen of the GU ship Gruen. You have fifteen seconds to surrender.”

  The lines were still wide open to him, and Ean knew without knowing how he knew that they would do anything he asked of them. Even Gruen’s ship. Except line eight, which he knew now would always protect its ship first. He was heady with the sudden power, nervous, too. Lines trusted each other, and he couldn’t afford to break their trust.

  He thumbed the speaker on the comms and start
ed to sing, taking back control of line five on the ship, so Captain Gruen couldn’t order the gunners to fire again. This time, instead of stopping it with him, he sent it on, out through the comms channel, so Abram’s ship could hear it because he couldn’t hold Gruen’s comms closed and keep a line open for Abram at the same time.

  “Attention the shuttle.” He sent Gruen’s message straight through to Abram’s command center. Could almost see—hear—Captain Helmo and Abram standing together, identical frowns on their faces, listening. “We have given you warning. Surrender now or we will fire again.”

  The pilot was already preparing for evasive action.

  “This is your last warning. If you do not surrender now, we will fire.”

  Then the command to the gunners, which didn’t go through. “Fire preset one.” And after she realized they hadn’t heard her, “Fire preset one,” again.

  “Get down there and press that button,” Captain Gruen ordered someone on the bridge.

  Ean locked the doors. He couldn’t think of anything else to do.

  Abram’s ship launched a weapon.

  Captain Gruen tried to open another comms line. “Wendell. Get your sorry ass online now and tell me what it is we’re dealing with.”

  “Ean. Ean. Listen to me.” Even that came out through the comms.

  Radko stood in front of him and clicked her fingers. Ean stopped fighting line eight and slowly came back to real space.

  “Commodore Galenos is talking to you.”

  It was Abram’s voice. “Ean. Listen to me.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Jordan Rossi’s rich voice murmured. “It’s crazy Ean Lambert. Singing to the lines.”

  Ean half heard Sale’s sharp, “You have a problem with that?”

  He concentrated on Abram. “Sir.” It came out as song.

  “I want to talk to the captains.”

  “Gruen?”

  “And Wendell. Yes.”

  Ean clicked them through, fighting with line eight for supremacy of line five. Ean won, just.

  “Captain Gruen,” Abram’s crisp voice said. “There is a missile headed toward you. I hope you see it. We will detonate it if you do not stop firing on the shuttle.”