Linesman

by S. K. Dunstall

  It was time to even the odds.

  “Markan is sending out armed shuttles,” he said.

  Orsaya gave him a sharp look, as if she knew he wasn’t telling the full truth. “How many?”

  “Two.”

  The pilot was already recalibrating the controls. “Get me a path through this junkyard.”

  It might as well have been a junkyard. All the line ones were poor. There was nothing alive left on the ships. Right now, it was a good thing because the alien lines were stronger than those on the human ships. If they’d been fully active, Ean doubted he would have been able to even pick out the lines of the Lancastrian Princess, let alone lines he knew less well, like Confluence Station.

  “Make toward the Eleven,” Orsaya said, then to Ean, “You can get us in behind the protective barrier the way you did with Lady Lyan’s ship.”

  Once inside the barrier, she was safe from both Markan and Abram. Ean didn’t want that. “I have to sing.”

  She nodded.

  Ean took a deep breath. He wasn’t just going to sing the Eleven’s defense down, he was going to open every channel he could to Abram.

  Something hit the shuttle on the port side and knocked him against the wall.

  “Damn,” the pilot said, and pushed them forward so fast their gravity increased momentarily. They went so close to the new eleven, Ean was sure they scraped against it.

  Markan’s shuttles must have been fast.

  “Get among the smaller ships,” Orsaya said. “It will be harder to hit us there.”

  The pilot nodded, then slowed to an almost stop as a laser beam went past and heated the damaged hull of the confluence ship.

  “Nice flying,” said half a dozen voices.

  “Thanks.” The pilot was too busy sweating—and swearing—to bask in the praise. “Someone get me a fast way out of here.”

  Ean was glad the confluence ship didn’t have a protective field like the Eleven did.

  The field. He’d almost forgotten. Dodging laser beams could do that to you. He sang a quick command to the Eleven’s line eight to turn off the field and only when he was done he remembered he’d meant to open lines to Abram as well. Would Orsaya notice if he sang again?

  The pilot opened the throttle, and the shuttle surged across space between the huge confluence ship and one of the smaller ships. The shuttle rocked, and moved off track as something hit it from the starboard side. Something else hit just after from the port side.

  The comms-person said, “Alliance shuttle. Armed.”

  “We know that,” the pilot said.

  “Incoming.”

  “Incoming from this side, too,” the comms-person said. “We’re sandwiched in the middle.”

  The pilot did something else with the controls that made Ean’s stomach flip, and flip again.

  “Nice flying,” everyone said again.

  “I can’t keep this up,” the pilot said.

  They made for the next ship. Like its parent, it was scored and burned although it was whole.

  “Incoming.”

  They dived behind the smaller ship. Then behind another.

  The third had a huge metal bite taken out of it. It was a wonder it could fly.

  “I don’t know who these guys were fighting,” someone said, “but I don’t want to meet them.”

  “They’re as battered and bedamned as we are,” Ahmed Gann said, looking at the next ship they passed. This one was whole, but the exterior was burned and the outer metal scored.

  He sighed. “Too little too late. We got the ship even if we can’t use it. Still. I’m glad we’ll die rather than watch our own side destroy us.”

  It was interesting he didn’t say the Alliance would destroy them.

  “Don’t be such a defeatist, Gann.” Orsaya glanced back at Ean. “We still hold the wildy.”

  The wildy was a wildcard in an old card game played on the Yaolin worlds. Rare and precious, it could turn a low hand into a winning one—or a winning hand into a losing one—depending how you played it.

  She opened a channel to the Lancastrian Princess. “Galenos, before you continue shooting, let’s remember who I have on this shuttle with me.”

  She waved her blaster in Ean’s face. “Say something to your friends, and make it short,” and pushed the blaster into the side of his cheek.

  What did Abram and Michelle need to know most?

  Politics.

  “There was a battle on the station,” he said. Would she fire if he said the wrong thing? “Orsaya and Ahmed Gann against the rest.” The last was muffled through the hand Orsaya put across his mouth.

  He thought about biting her.

  “Our own people are trying to kill us,” Orsaya told Abram. “Maybe you could do something about it. Then we’ll talk some more.”

  Ean heard the amusement through the Lancastrian Princess’s lines, smelled it even as a cinnamon redmint fragrance, as Michelle said, “And there she has us,” and could see both Abram and Michelle shaking their heads over it.

  Abram’s voice didn’t show any of that amusement when he said, through the comms, “Acknowledged.” He opened a line to Confluence Station. “Admiral Markan. The shuttle is under our protection. Call your shuttles off, or we will be forced to attack them.”

  “What the—? Galenos, keep out of this.”

  Their shuttle nosed out from behind the ship. Two Gate Union shuttles fired on it simultaneously. This time the shudder on the starboard side flipped them over.

  “Starboard engine gone.” The pilot edged back.

  Abram was already on the comms to Markan. “Fire on the shuttle again, and we will fire on the station.”

  A mothership firing on a station would probably obliterate everything in the surrounding space, too—including the shuttle and all the alien ships—so Ean was relieved to hear Abram open a line to the Gruen, and say, “Aim for the station and prepare to fire, then hold until I give the order.”

  Why hadn’t he pulled the weapons boards out on the Gruen, too? Or was it a bluff? The station was part of the Eleven’s fleet now. What would the Eleven do if one of its ships fired on another?

  Then, back on the original line, Abram said, “Confluence Station, prepare to be boarded. Shuttle, be ready to return to the station once we have control.”

  It was quiet in the shuttle. Rossi’s and Ean’s gasping breaths—both lines eleven were strong at present—were the only noise under the everyday mechanics of circulating air and heating. There was a slight off noise in the air-conditioning. Someone needed to fix line two on this shuttle.

  The two Alliance shuttles zoomed past them, lasers firing. On-screen, they joined battle with the Gate Union shuttles. The lights from the lasers flickered on the hull of the ship they were sheltering behind. It looked like lightning in space.

  “Time to talk,” Orsaya said to Ahmed Gann. “Remember that without Lambert, those ships out there are useless debris. Ask for everything we want and more.”

  She looked consideringly at Ean. “I don’t want you interfering.” She gestured with the blaster she held. Two soldiers came over and strapped his arms securely to the seat.

  Ean struggled. “I haven’t done anything to you.”

  “I want to control this particular conversation, Linesman.”

  When they were finished, he couldn’t move from the shoulders down.

  He should have sung the line open. He opened his mouth to do so now, but another soldier shoved a gag into his mouth. He thought he would choke and had to turn his face away.

  Beside him, Rossi’s amusement came clearly through the lines.

  Orsaya nodded at Gann, who took the comms and flicked it on. “Lady Lyan, Commodore Galenos. Ahmed Gann here, currently on the shuttle. We have a deal to offer.”

  Ean smelled the redmint cinnamo
n of Michelle’s amusement again as she said, “Gann.”

  “We have the only means of controlling those ships out there,” Gann said.

  “You’re holding a Lancastrian citizen captive. A member of my personal staff.”

  Michelle could consider everyone on the Lancastrian Princess her own personal staff, but Ean smiled just the same. Not that anyone could see it under his gag. Once he would have hated to be considered part of the Crown Princess of Lancia’s personal staff. Now? He was glad to have found a place among people like Michelle and Abram and Radko. They were “of his line.”

  He had to find a way to help them, however. They had helped him, and if anyone deserved to get out of this alive, it was his friends on the Lancastrian Princess.

  His gaze fell on Jordan Rossi, who didn’t have to sing to the lines. He thought at them. Ean should be able to do that, too.

  He tried, using the techniques his trainers had attempted to teach him at Rigel’s. Nothing. But then, he’d never been able to communicate without sound. He tried harder. The lines couldn’t feel him. And why would they want to? It would be like forcing his thoughts on them instead of working with them.

  Those old trainers would be laughing now.

  Through Lancastrian Princess line five, he heard Abram call the mothership. “Excelsior, dispatch a party to take and secure the station.”

  Soon after that, they saw on-screen a dozen miniwarships—each one as big as the Lancastrian Princess, each one bristling with weapons—drop away from the mothership and make for the station.

  Gann didn’t notice although Orsaya’s shoulders twitched once, and she didn’t relax until it became obvious the ships weren’t coming to the shuttle.

  Ean let himself flow with the lines. On board Confluence Station, the first Excelsior arrivals fought pitched battles with Admiral Markan’s people. By the time the Excelsior’s soldiers had finished pouring onto the station, Markan was outnumbered five to one. The fight didn’t last long.

  The main calls through every comms were for medical staff to deal with heart attacks. Confluence Station seemed to have an epidemic of them.

  The two lines eleven waxed and waned in strength. Ean needed to sing to them, to calm them, but he knew Orsaya wouldn’t take his gag off.

  Ean tried thinking at the lines again. There had to be a way, because every linesman but he could do it.

  Afterward, he lay, exhausted, and listened to the sounds of the shuttle, which was so quiet he could hear the air-conditioning again. Even Jordan Rossi had stopped laughing at him and was listening to Michelle and Gann with all his attention.

  Maybe Ean should be listening, too.

  “So you are proposing a new political grouping? The Alliance, plus the worlds you bring in.”

  “As equals,” Gann said. “Twenty worlds, along with whatever you have.”

  Ean could smell Michelle’s perspiration through line one. This wasn’t something easy she was doing here even though she sounded relaxed. “You could bring that many worlds in?”

  “Twenty of the best,” Gann assured her. “Plus we have the controller for those ships out there.” He glanced at Ean when he said that. “Together, our new alliance will be the start of something powerful.”

  Ean was the only one on the shuttle who heard Michelle’s soft sigh. There was a long pause, then she said, strongly, “The Alliance accepts you as equal partners.”

  • • •

  THAT wasn’t the end of it. Gann and Michelle talked for two more hours before Abram finally gave permission for Orsaya’s shuttle to approach the Lancastrian Princess.

  “Weapons down,” Orsaya said quietly to her crew. “No sign of aggression.” She looked as old and as wrung out as Katida had after line eleven had started giving Katida heart attacks.

  “Thank God it’s Galenos and Lady Lyan in charge,” Gann said as the pilot took them into the designated shuttle bay. “I wouldn’t put it past some of Yu’s other people to double-cross us.”

  They only untied Ean when they had docked. Ean was still pulling his gag off when the air had recycled, and the escort of guards entered. Bhaksir’s team was the escort crew. Radko wasn’t part of it. Ean checked the lines to see where she was.

  In the hospital, joking with the other patients.

  Bhaksir bowed to Orsaya and Gann. “Administrator, Admiral. Lady Lyan welcomes you aboard and asks that you join her and Commodore Galenos for refreshments and further discussion. Your crew will be quartered and looked after.”

  Orsaya indicated that Ean should go in front of her. He stepped out into the corridor, blinking at the familiarity of it. The music of the Lancastrian Princess’s lines welcomed him. He was home.

  He sang to the lines as he followed Bhaksir, and they came in strongly to welcome him back. All of them, including both line elevens. It was so strong, it forced him to his knees.

  Behind him, Rossi muttered something uncomplimentary.

  FORTY-TWO

  EAN LAMBERT

  THE NEW ALLIANCE was formally ratified six weeks after Ean got back to the Lancastrian Princess.

  Fifty worlds of the old Alliance—they’d been hemorrhaging worlds while Ean had been kidnapped, Katida told him—and twenty from Gate Union. The Yaolin worlds and most of those from around them in the Pleiades Sector, plus a small number of other worlds who had allied with Orsaya and whom Gate Union had kicked out. One of those worlds was Nova Tahiti, Ahmed Gann’s home planet.

  “We knew some of the power brokers were unhappy with the way things were going,” Katida said. “But no one was expecting a coup.”

  Some of that was due to the linesmen, Orsaya told Katida over the celebration dinner the three of them shared the evening of ratification. They’d been able to hold the Roscracian faction off until Iwo Hurst and Markan had combined forces. Sandhurst had long been working toward taking over the line cartels; Roscracia was happy to help, provided the linesmen in turn supported him in his bid for Roscracian supremacy in Gate Union.

  Ean still wasn’t sure how he felt about Orsaya, but she and Katida got on well. He wasn’t surprised about that.

  Orsaya stabbed reconstituted steak with a force that should have dug a hole in her plate. Or bent the fork. “Until the confluence, Paretsky, Rossi, and Naidan kept Sandhurst in check. But once they went out there.” She chewed with single-minded ferocity. “Redmond controlling supply of the lines, Roscracia controlling Gate Union, Sandhurst controlling the linesmen. We could see where it was going.”

  Most of the higher-level linesmen were still in the hospital after Ean’s inadvertent use of their power.

  Rossi, when he’d been asked about that, had snarled, and said, “Lambert has no finesse.” Ean hadn’t been meant to hear that, but everything came through the lines now, and Rossi’s noise was clearer than others. Orsaya had also said privately to Katida—another thing Ean wasn’t supposed to hear, but Katida had passed it on—that a lot of it had to do with having the confluence taken away from them. Many of them were exhibiting classic withdrawal symptoms.

  Orsaya attacked another piece of steak. “That’s why we became so interested in Ean Lambert,” as if he weren’t there.

  Ean tried to act as if he wasn’t.

  “For six months, he was the only level ten doing the lines, and he was good.”

  Katida nodded.

  “Lines that we had to retune all the time were fixed. We haven’t touched them since.”

  Katida nodded again.

  You still needed a linesman to keep an eye on them. Little things went wrong, like line six when Ean had first stepped aboard the Lancastrian Princess.

  “I don’t know why Rigel kept him hidden.”

  Ean did. Now. The other linesmen wouldn’t have accepted him. He had to be grateful to Rigel for that.

  “If Rigel had been a different person, we’d have used him to
go up against Sandhurst. But Rigel.” Orsaya waved a dismissive hand. “He’d be eaten the first day. And Lambert didn’t seem overly political or ambitious.”

  “No,” Katida said, but Ean thought she almost smiled.

  “When Rossi came back talking about line eleven and behaved the same way he had at the confluence, it was obvious the confluence was another ship. We knew we needed Lambert to get that ship for us.”

  All three looked up as Abram stopped beside their table.

  “Admiral,” Katida and Orsaya said together.

  Abram grimaced. Promotion wasn’t what he’d planned, he’d told Michelle one evening when the three of them had been alone in the workroom. They had never formally told Ean he couldn’t use the couch there, and it was the only place he felt truly at home nowadays.

  “You can’t refuse it again,” Michelle had said. “That would insult my father.”

  Ean didn’t think Abram would worry about insulting Emperor Yu if he thought it best for Michelle’s safety, but Michelle had added, “Someone has to keep Katida and Orsaya in line, and if not you, who else?” Then she said, “Please. I agree with my father in this.”

  Even though that was what she said, Ean could feel through line one it wasn’t what she wanted.

  “If you don’t want him to, then why ask him?” Ean had asked.

  It was Abram who sighed. “You can’t hold on to the past forever.”

  And Michelle had added, “He’s public property as much as I am. You are, too. You won’t have any choice in what you do, either. But unlike Abram, you and I will be together for a while because you’ve effectively linked yourself to my ship,” and her smile showed just a hint of the dimple Ean was sure must have annoyed the geneticists so much.

  The Alliance wouldn’t let him go. Not with the knowledge he had. Before he’d met Michelle and the crew of the Lancastrian Princess, being tied to Lancia like that would have been unbearable.

  “If the lines are here, I’ll be here.” It was more a promise to the lines than it was to Michelle. He’d be there for Michelle, too, because he wanted to be part of the different future she and Abram promised for Lancia.