Linesman

by S. K. Dunstall

  Another Gate Union ship fired on the Lancastrian Princess. Ean rocked under the blow.

  Abram should have listened to him. If he had, right now he would be inside that protective field.

  “We’ve two minutes if we’re lucky,” the guard behind Rossi said.

  Rossi shoved Ean hard. “Unlock the doors, bastard.”

  How did Rossi know Ean could unlock the doors?

  “Galenos is bluffing, Wendell,” Markan said through line five.

  “He doesn’t need to bluff. All he needs to do is turn that device on. And remember, we can jump, but you’re on station. You can’t.”

  The station could jump. It had ten lines, even if they were atrophying. If Ean could force the Eleven to fire a pulse, everyone would jump to their designated spaces, and Ean could sing the station into the Eleven’s fleet.

  Another blast rocked the Lancastrian Princess.

  Rossi shoved him again. “Doors.”

  “You could open them yourself.” He was a ten, too. Ean had no breath, wasn’t sure Rossi even understood him.

  Rossi slammed him back against the wall and closed a fist around his throat. He had strong hands. “Open the doors, or you’ll never sing again.”

  Orsaya was too far away to save him. Ean held up his hands, then indicated that he needed some voice.

  Through the lines, the Lancastrian Princess was doing another damage report. “Hull breached, sector 5. Contained.”

  Rossi loosened his grip. Slightly.

  Ean sang the doors open just as Admiral Markan’s voice came through the loudspeaker. And the lines. “This is Admiral Markan to the rebel soldiers. Surrender now, and you will be treated leniently.”

  “Rebels,” muttered the soldier behind Rossi. “This was our op. He takes it over and calls us the rebels.”

  Despite the doors being open now, they didn’t move. Ean, in the middle of the group, couldn’t see what was going on at the front, but he could see flashes of light, and the cooked-flesh smell was strong again.

  The MacIntyre fired on the Lancastrian Princess, which moved behind the Wendell.

  “Six twenty,” Wendell said through the comms to MacIntyre, and the Wendell moved one way while the MacIntyre went the other, firing as it did.

  Ean had to get those comms to Abram and Helmo.

  “Go, go,” Orsaya yelled then, and they ran out into another scene of carnage. Did anyone ever get used to dead bodies?

  Someone pushed him down from behind.

  A crackle of lightning passed above his head. Finally, someone was using a Taser.

  A soldier behind Ean turned the Taser-firer’s face into charcoal. She hauled him up. “You are not worth all of this.”

  Through the lines, Wendell was talking to Captain MacIntyre about the Wendell. “Galenos has destroyed the weapons boards.”

  Abram had ordered all the weapons taken out as well. Wendell didn’t mention that. He’d probably brought along replacements.

  Orsaya’s people shot anyone in their path.

  Through the comms, Markan was preparing for sustained fire on the Lancastrian Princess.

  “Burnley, Xavier, MacIntyre, Rasjeet. Combined ten-second pulses in a 7-4-3 sequence. I want that ship so hot, it melts.”

  Ean forced enough breath into his lungs to sing Markan’s line open to the Lancastrian Princess. As the words came through, he saw Abram and Michelle jerk around to stare at the comms.

  Michelle smiled.

  “They’ll move behind the Wendell again as soon as we start firing,” Captain MacIntyre said. “Xavier and I won’t be in a position—”

  “Captains, the Alliance has claimed the Wendell as its own. Fire on my count. One.”

  Helmo was already moving his ship.

  Why didn’t they jump?

  “Move,” a soldier told Ean. It seemed the only word they knew.

  A platoon of Markan’s soldiers disgorged from a lift at the end of the corridor. Orsaya’s people turned into another side corridor.

  This part of the station was old. It reminded Ean of the secondary yards at Ashery. The walls were scuffed and the markings faded. The two people they saw wore maintenance overalls or civilian clothes.

  In front of them was a blank wall. No doors; no lift. Ean hesitated, but was carried forward in the rush as Markan’s people rounded the corridor behind them.

  He stepped into empty space.

  • • •

  WHEN Radko had first shown Ean around the Lancastrian Princess, she had pointed out the jumps and told him that most soldiers used them in preference to the lifts. It was the first and last time Ean had seen them. He’d forgotten they existed.

  Until now.

  He watched the floor numbers fly past with horrifying speed—11, 10, 9. He hadn’t realized there were so many floors on Confluence Station.

  Around level 6, he started to slow down. The time between levels 5 and 4 was longer than that of 6 and 5, and the time between 4 and 3 longer still.

  Through the station lines, an aide reported to Markan. “Orsaya’s going down to the old shuttle bays.”

  “We’ve got that covered. Get someone down there and arrest them all.”

  Through the ship lines, MacIntyre was warning Wendell to jump, “Just get the hell out of here.”

  Ean had slowed down so much that between level 2 and level 1, he had time to read the huge warning stenciled onto the wall.

  EXIT IMMEDIATELY.

  He planned to.

  “Bend your knees for landing,” Orsaya said.

  How had he caught up with her?

  He dutifully bent his knees but still hit hard.

  He forgot all about exiting immediately.

  Something else Radko had to teach him when he got back. If he survived to get back.

  Rossi and Orsaya grabbed an arm each and dragged him out.

  “Markan knows you’re coming,” Ean gasped as he ran. “He says he has it covered.”

  Orsaya called behind, “We’re expected, people.” She didn’t ask how he knew.

  They stopped at last at a dilapidated shuttle bay that looked as if it wasn’t even used anymore.

  “Thank God,” Ahmed Gann said as he waited, gasping, beside Ean. “I can’t run any farther.”

  Ean couldn’t either, but it was reassuring to see someone who was as unfit as he was.

  “In here?” Orsaya asked Ean.

  He shrugged. He wasn’t sure.

  Orsaya looked at her soldiers, who nodded, then waited.

  “There are people following us,” Gann pointed out.

  Orsaya held up a hand for silence. She waited until their pursuers came thundering around the top of the passage—which wasn’t that long, but it felt as long as going through the void—before she keyed in the door code.

  They waited agonizing seconds for the triple locks to open the door.

  Through the lines, Ean could hear preparations for departure.

  Helmo, and whoever was in charge of Gruen’s ship, calling in the line nines. Abram calling the media ships, telling them to get ready to jump.

  They wouldn’t make it in time. Why had they left it so long?

  Markan had new orders for Captains MacIntyre and Xavier. “Coordinates 174-189-262. I want both of you firing on any shuttle that exits.”

  Ean started to sing, an open message to all the lines. He was here, and they should jump together. They should jump now.

  The attacking soldiers kept up their relentless run.

  The air lock finally opened.

  They came face-to-face with guards in Roscracian uniform. All of them holding blasters.

  Orsaya’s people dived for the floor. Guards dragged Ean down as the lines responded, and jumped.

  Ean expanded his song to include the lines
he’d recognized earlier as those of the station. The lines of the station answered and stayed with them.

  In the forever of the void, Ean had plenty of time to wonder if he was dead yet, for surely the Roscracians would have killed them by now. He also had time to check each of the lines and ensure they were all right. Even the new ones.

  “Station lines?” and the lines sang a yes.

  The second line eleven was stronger here. Ean stretched his song to pull that in, too.

  It tried to come. It couldn’t.

  Even its song was muted. Lost.

  Ean strengthened the sound, but it still wasn’t enough.

  Line nine on the new eleven-line ship was a tiny thread, barely there. More badly damaged even than the Lancastrian Princess’s six had been after Rebekah had tried to destroy it.

  Nine was the line that moved a ship in and out of the void. No wonder the ship was stuck.

  He tried to fix it. Couldn’t.

  He widened his song, searching for anything that could help.

  He found it. Dozens of new lines from the linesmen who’d been on Confluence Station for the last six months. All the way up from one to ten, strongest at the higher levels. Ean took every line he could and sang and sang. Gently at first, using the lines the others gave him to strengthen the tiny thread of sound, knitting it back together until the nine at last had enough sound of its own to take what the others offered.

  FORTY

  JORDAN ROSSI

  ROSSI WAS SURROUNDED by the confluence.

  It was the most glorious music he had ever heard. It was love. It was beauty. It was joy.

  Lambert’s voice interwove through the lines, bringing them together, pulling in every line he had. Including Rossi’s, and every other linesman on the station.

  Rossi gave his gladly.

  It lasted forever, and it was over in a second.

  • • •

  ORSAYA’S people dropped to the ground. One of them grabbed Gann and pulled him down, too.

  Rossi noticed that in a half-detached way, even as he watched them pull Lambert down—not that Lambert needed any help because he was already falling.

  Then his own face hit the deck—he hadn’t realized he was falling, too.

  The soldiers inside the shuttle bay mowed down the ones outside, and vice versa. By the time they realized they were killing their own team and turned aside their weapons, it was too late. Orsaya’s people picked off the rest.

  Two guards seized Lambert and pulled him in and onto the shuttle. Another two seized Rossi’s arms. They almost jolted his shoulder out of its socket as they pulled him along.

  They strapped him into a seat.

  A guard slipped into the pilot seat and started preflight checks. Another strapped herself into the comms seat.

  “Get me Wendell,” Orsaya ordered. “And a safe path to Wendell’s ship.”

  Stupid woman. Didn’t she realize the station had jumped?

  Stupid Lambert. Didn’t he realize the danger in moving a station? Particularly one where the lines hadn’t been primed. Particularly one where extra sections had been built onto the shell. He was just lucky they were alive.

  Not that Rossi felt very alive right now.

  The lines were clear. He heard Markan ordering, “Fire on the shuttle as soon as it exits.”

  Markan hadn’t realized yet that his message wasn’t going anywhere.

  “Go,” Orsaya ordered her pilot.

  “Fifteen seconds for the air to recycle, ma’am.”

  Orsaya nodded, but she looked twitchy.

  Someone shoved an oxygen mask over Rossi’s face, and he realized his heart was trying to beat alien time again. Line time. Two sets of line time.

  Wendell came online. Rossi heard line five before the comms came on. “Orsaya, you can’t let Lambert control things like he does.” He was the calmest Rossi had ever heard him. It was almost scary. “Kill him before he does anything else. At the very least, gag him.”

  They exited the shuttle bay to, “This is Commodore Galenos from the Lancastrian Princess, to Confluence Station and Gate Union ship Wendell. Surrender now, and we will not harm you.”

  Orsaya shook her head. “That man has cast-iron balls. He’s surrounded by enemy ships and he still thinks—”

  “Orsaya,” Wendell cut across her words. “Have you checked your screen yet?”

  The proximity alarm started wailing. The pilot swore and moved his hands swiftly over the board. “What in the nine hells would come this close to a station?”

  “Another shuttle,” someone said, while the woman at the comms brought the viewscreen up.

  Rossi craned his head to look.

  “What in the hell is that?”

  FORTY-ONE

  EAN LAMBERT

  THE VIEW ON the screen reminded Ean of his recent spacewalk, when he’d been so close to the Galactic News ship that he had no idea if he was up or down.

  It was a ship.

  The noise of the lines overwhelmed him. The beat of the second eleven was subtly different from the beat of the first.

  “God,” said the comms-person, and for a minute she sounded like Losan. “Get away from it.”

  “It’s huge,” someone else said.

  “Are you seeing this?” Orsaya demanded of Wendell.

  “Oh yes.”

  The proximity alarm got louder.

  The pilot swore as he powered the reverse thrusters. “We’ll hit the station at this rate. For God’s sake, someone, get me a clear space.”

  “On it,” said the comms-person.

  Ean sat back and listened to the lines. It was different being inside the shuttle. In here, he felt safe, surrounded by the lines, snuggled up against the security of the bigger ship—now with its full eleven lines. Not that they were in perfect health, but they were okay, although line one was quiet. He whispered a special welcome to line nine, which had come back from the dead, or wherever lines came back from when they were so damaged they were almost the equivalent of dead. The deep, resonant line sounded in his head.

  The shuttle crawled on.

  “Have you gotten me a space yet?” demanded the pilot.

  “It’s not as easy as you think. There’s a lot of junk out here.”

  There were a lot of ships. Ean could feel the lines.

  They slid slowly past a gaping hole in the side of the ship.

  “Holy Jackson and Philtre,” one of Orsaya’s people said. “Did you see that?”

  The metal was serrated, as if a gigantic shark with particularly large teeth had taken a shuttle-sized bite out of it.

  “I hope a weapon did that.”

  “A weapon with teeth,” someone murmured uneasily.

  The underside of the ship was pitted and scored. Even discounting the bite, this ship had been in the wars.

  “Got it,” the comms-person said. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  “Get me away from this ship.”

  “Coordinates 172-184-267.”

  “I’d like to get a bit farther out.”

  “Not going to happen,” Comms said. “You want to see this.” She put it up on-screen. “I’m taking this from Confluence Station. They’re otherwise occupied at the moment and haven’t noticed we’re patching in.”

  She panned 360 degrees.

  The Gate Union ships had gone. Ean could have told her that. The station had jumped along with the Eleven’s fleet. He recognized the shapes of the ships he knew. Even better, he could place them against the lines in his head. The Lancastrian Princess. The Wendell and the Gruen. The media ships. The Eleven. Confluence Station. He recognized the lines.

  And here, in the first quadrant, another alien ship similar to the Eleven, only four times the size.

  “Holy—” Ean wasn’t sure who�
�d said it.

  Behind the new eleven was a fleet of smaller ships. Alien ships. Row on row of them. They filled the screen.

  Even Orsaya was speechless.

  Gann was the first one to break the silence. He gave a humorless laugh. “Imagine Markan if you’d brought that out before his coup,” he said to Orsaya.

  Orsaya nodded, and Ean got the feeling she wasn’t even thinking of the war right now. “Impressive.” She shook her head and visibly pulled herself together. “No doubt Roscracia would find a way around it.”

  “I just hope there’s no one left alive on there,” Comms said. “Or if there is, that they know we’re friends.”

  Ean didn’t think anyone was alive. The line ones were too quiet.

  • • •

  MARKAN finally stopped trying to call ships that weren’t there and called Wendell instead.

  “Fire on that shuttle.”

  “I don’t have any weapons.” Ean might have imagined that Wendell’s voice was extra cold, but he didn’t imagine—through the lines—the look Wendell gave the comms at Markan’s request. He was getting used to dipping into the lines he wanted to see/ hear while tuning out the rest.

  Markan snapped off the comms with more force than needed. “Organize two armed shuttles,” he told someone near him.

  Ten thousand kilometers farther out, a ship flicked out of the void. Ean didn’t see it on the shuttle screen, it was too far away, but he saw Wendell’s and Markan’s reaction to its arrival.

  “Magnify,” Markan said.

  Someone did.

  It was a massive Alliance mothership.

  Motherships were the biggest ships in the fleet, the size of a small moon. One of them could reduce a planet to scorched earth in a few hours.

  “Bloody hell.” Markan leaned on the comms until the shuttle crews he had just dispatched answered.

  “Destroy that shuttle. Ensure everyone on board is dead, especially Lambert.”

  “And Orsaya?” his aide asked.

  “Lambert is the only one who can control those ships right now. Get rid of him, and we’ll have the upper hand because we have all the tens.”

  Abram was ordering armed shuttles out, too. Ean could see from the distances that the Gate Union shuttles would arrive first.