Alliance, page 21
part #2 of Linesman Series
Ean bit his lip to stop his smile.
“I’ll talk to Rigel,” Rickenback said. “I may be able to arrange a financial settlement.”
“I would be happy to pay it, of course,” Michelle said.
Rickenback nodded, shook hands with Ean again. “I’ll let you know what happens.” He nodded at Fergus and exited into the shuttle.
They watched as the bay door closed and waited the full minute until the light went green, signaling that the shuttle had left.
“That was quite a tale you told,” Vega said, from behind them. “Is there anything you omitted to tell?”
Ean turned. Vega was so angry his line-addled brain imagined sparks coming off her. “Did you want me to lie? Imagine how Rickenback would have felt about that.”
“I’m imagining how he felt about what you did say.”
Ean glanced at Fergus.
“If he’s anything like me, shocked, but coming around,” Fergus said.
Vega pounced. “Coming around?”
Fergus shrugged. “You had to admit, Rigel had it coming to him. He was known for ripping off people who didn’t know better.”
That was so unfair. “Why does everyone think Michelle wouldn’t know better?” She was the smartest woman Ean knew.
“Lancastrians don’t know anything about lines?”
Ean had to listen hard to hear if he was serious. Fergus certainly looked serious.
“I’m Lancastrian.” Not that he would have admitted to that six months ago.
“The line cartels think anyone not directly connected with the lines has no idea what they’re doing. Lancia doesn’t turn out many linesmen.”
“There were other linesmen on Lancia.” Tai and the other line engineers on the Lancastrian Princess. The Cann siblings, when Ean had been a boy, and a handful of others whose names Ean couldn’t remember. But he’d heard the music in them.
“They never made it into the top cartels. And your reputation—” It was the first time Fergus had ever mentioned the reputation Ean had among the other linesmen. Fergus looked sorry he’d mentioned it.
“Why does every conversation on this ship come back to Lambert eventually?” Vega demanded.
“It’s an interesting topic,” Michelle said.
Vega’s look toward Michelle was almost as withering as the one she’d given Ean earlier. She indicated that Ean should walk with her. He did.
“Whether Rigel’s reputation is known or not, it doesn’t excuse your telling Rickenback the story of what happened to you.”
Michelle said something quiet to Fergus. He nodded, and turned to go. Michelle followed Ean and Vega.
“He’ll hear it from Paretsky. How would he feel if I told him it was a simple transaction, then he hears Michelle threatened Rigel?” Ean thought about what he’d said. “Threatened me, I mean. With a disruptor.”
“So you admit Her Royal Highness threatened Rigel.” Vega paused at the door to her office and ushered Ean in.
“No. She threatened me.” He thought about that. “She didn’t threaten me. She just tried to kill me.”
“And you don’t call that threatening?”
“It was a threat.” Michelle followed them into the room. “Rigel knew that. I knew that.”
“Why?”
“Because someone died.” If Vega didn’t understand that by now, she never would. “What else could she do?”
“Maybe not get caught doing it.”
It seemed to Ean that Vega was so exasperated, she actually forgot, for the first time, that Michelle was her boss. He liked her better for it. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”
Vega bit down hard on whatever comment she’d been going to make. Ean could see from the way the muscles in her neck bunched just how tightly she was biting. When she could speak, her question was aimed at Michelle. “What in the lines were you doing on Ashery attempting to kill a Lancastrian citizen?”
“I can’t ask my staff to do something like that.”
Vega opened her mouth to say something, closed her mouth, tried again. “You were alone. What was Galenos doing letting you go alone? The only witness we have is a linesman from the House of Rigel.”
“I can’t ask my staff to witness something like that, either.”
“What are you smiling at?” Vega demanded.
Ean hadn’t even realized he was smiling.
“This is not a laughing matter. It should never have gotten this far.”
“Rigel will take the money if he can,” Ean said. All this other business about the lines and the cartels was foreign to Rigel. “Except Paretsky is pushing him.” He hoped Fergus’s trust in Rickenback wasn’t misplaced. Jordan Rossi had said Rickenback would be devoured by line politics. “He’ll ask a lot, though.”
“The money’s not a problem, Ean,” Michelle said. “You’re worth every credit we haven’t paid yet.”
“We could hand him over,” Vega said.
Vega wanted him gone. This would be a simple way to get rid of him, and she was in charge of security. If Abram had said he was to go, Michelle wouldn’t have questioned it.
Ean hoped Rickenback would sort it out fast and send Rigel and Paretsky home.
“No,” Michelle said. “We are not letting Ean anywhere near Rigel again. After two failed murder attempts and one snatch, Gate Union has to be wondering why we’re protecting him so carefully.”
“I’m wondering why you’re protecting him so carefully.” Vega held up a hand as Michelle started to speak. “I know what you told me. Line twelve, plus a different way of communicating with the lines. So far, all line twelve has done is link ships—and we could have done without that.”
Michelle opened her mouth to speak again.
Another hand to keep her silent. “We know about the singing. We have Linesman Rossi half-trained. We have linesmen from other worlds in the New Alliance half-trained. If Lambert died tomorrow we wouldn’t be any worse off.”
“It’s not—”
“Are we protecting him simply because you like him?”
“Michelle would never put me before her duty.”
There was a spot of color high on each of Michelle’s cheeks. “Isn’t it enough that he is the only twelve the galaxy has? Isn’t it enough that only he can control the alien ships?”
“We trained people in alien line technology five hundred years ago when we discovered the Havortian. We can do it again.” Vega thumped her desk. Ean couldn’t stop his flinch. “My job is to protect you. So far, what I see is half my staff diverted to protect a man who would normally affiliate himself with Gate Union. He accused you outright just now of threatening someone. He is not important enough to risk your reputation. I say hand him back to Rigel and close this whole thing down before it becomes public.”
Michelle had never lost a fight that Ean had known. He forced away a sudden worry this would be the first.
“I won’t send him back to the cartels,” Michelle said. “There’s more to this than you know.”
“Send him to Admiral Galenos on Haladea III then.”
“He needs to be on a ship.”
“So, send him to Confluence Station.”
“You’re prepared to send half this ship to protect him?”
“Of course not. Galenos can provide protection.”
“No. He’s my staff. I protect him. He stays here.”
Vega stared at Ean. Her eyes were like lasers. “Give me a reason to expend so many resources to protect a linesman. A better reason than being a line twelve.”
“There’s nothing she—”
“No, Ean,” Michelle said, then to Vega, “A better reason?”
Vega nodded. They seemed to have come to another understanding Ean wasn’t part of.
“There is no better reason than his being a twelve,” Michelle said. “But I will show you what he can do that no other linesman can, and why I am dispensable while he is not.”
“You are what’s keeping the New Alliance together right now,” Ean said.
“I am one of many, Ean, and all of us know that if we can’t beat Gate Union at their line games, we have no hope. You are our only hope.”
He’d never heard Michelle speak so bleakly about their prospects.
“I haven’t seen any signs of his saving the world so far,” Vega said.
Ean was grateful for her cynicism. Did Michelle truly believe they had no hope?
“He is the only linesman who can get the ships to do things.”
“We have other tens coming through. Jordan Rossi. Ami Hernandez.”
Ean hadn’t told Vega about Hernandez. How much snooping did she do?
“Rossi can’t—and never will—talk to line eleven. Nor will Hernandez. You won’t even be able to take them away from the fleet ships. You’ve seen what happened to the linesmen at the confluence.”
“A minor problem in the scheme of things. We have two eleven ships. We can make more.”
Ean lost track of the conversation momentarily. How did you make lines if they weren’t cloned? Lines must have a way of reproducing somehow. Something else to put on his long list of things to find out about lines. Maybe that was line seven’s role.
“Linking, keeping together.” It was a whisper in his mind.
Not reproducing lines.
He came back to the conversation in front of him at Michelle’s raised voice. “You don’t understand what line twelve does, and you want to throw that away. Because he doesn’t fit your idea of a tidy life. Because the only thing you understand is weapons.”
“Michelle.”
Michelle ignored him. “If weapons are all you understand, then let me spell it out for you in terms you do understand. Here is the greatest weapon the New Alliance has at their disposal, and you want to give it away.”
“I wasn’t planning on giving it away. Just moving it.”
“People try to kill him when he’s away from here. Or kidnap him.”
Vega glared at Ean as if he were something that had crawled onto the ship uninvited. “I don’t see evidence of a world-destroying weapon.”
Michelle paused. “You don’t?” She smiled, and Ean smelled ozone through the lines. It came out in the frozenness of her expression, too. “Let’s remedy that.” She was calm suddenly. “Show us something line-based Ean. Something only you can do. Show her what a weapon you can be.”
Ean wasn’t a weapon. He was a person, and Vega was right. He wasn’t going to save the world. “It’s Vega’s job to protect you, Michelle.”
“There are more important things now. Our future, as an Alliance and as a world. Go on. Something only you can do.”
What could he do? Open line five so they could hear other parts of the ship through the comms? Vega would say they had equipment to do that. Unlock doors? They had equipment to do that, too.
He could always override an air lock. But what would that prove? Jordan Rossi could do that if he tried.
Maybe he could use line eight to throw her across the room like he had that day to Gospetto. Gospetto had spent a week in the hospital and was still a little scared of him. Unfortunately, Ean didn’t know what he’d done back then, except panic. Line eight had done the rest.
On the bridge, Captain Helmo was sniffing the air, almost as if he could smell the argument. Or maybe he could hear it.
“Helmo will kill me,” Ean said. He would. Literally.
Michelle flicked the screen on her comms. Helmo answered the instant the call came through. “Captain,” Michelle said. “We’re going to do a line experiment.”
If she was in any way nervous, she didn’t show it. Ean was. Nervous and showing it. He shook his head.
“What, exactly?” Helmo’s voice dropped twenty degrees. The ozone smell was back. Ean shivered.
Michelle looked at Ean.
“Um,” which wasn’t the brightest answer.
“Something that’s going to scare the lines out of Commodore Vega,” Michelle said. “Help her realize how dangerous Ean is.”
The ozone should have gotten stronger. Instead, it faded as Helmo stared down at his comms. “Do you think that’s wise?” he asked eventually. “You don’t really want to scare her.”
Ean thought there might have been a slight emphasis on the “really.” Helmo hadn’t asked the obvious question, either, which was what sort of scaring did they want to do?
“I don’t scare easily, Captain.” Vega’s voice was frosty.
“I do. You may regret this, Commodore.” Helmo paused. Ean could see him at the captain’s station. Thinking. The sound of the lines had a worried blue edge to it. “I do not recommend this, ma’am.” But there was also approval, and a bit of relief.
“We need to do it,” Michelle said. “We can’t keep tiptoeing around reality. Vega is right. She needs to know.”
More worried blue thinking. Helmo said eventually, “Maybe we could arrange something.” He hesitated, then added. “Of course, there’s no point if Vega can’t see who is controlling things. Your Royal Highness, Commodore, Linesman. Why don’t you join me on the bridge.”
“Our pleasure.” Michelle made for the door.
Vega followed, her back straight.
“Ean,” Helmo said, as Ean followed them. He’d clicked off his comms, and was just talking out loud, the way he had the day Vega had arrived. “Don’t do anything until I say you can start, but when I do, I want you to take the lines down. In the following order, if you can. Line two first, then line four. Then line five. Then line three, and lastly line six. Do you hear me? Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” Ean said aloud, but, of course, Helmo didn’t hear him.
“Do you?”
Ean sang the feed of the camera just near them in the corridor onto Helmo’s comms. “Yes.”
Vega looked around at him.
Helmo clicked off his comms again—or tried to. Ean had to sing it off. “Good. Now remember, I want my crew prepared. I’ll say when you can do it.”
Ean nodded even though Helmo couldn’t see him anymore.
Vanje Solberg, Helmo’s second, was on the bridge, too. He’d heard the instructions.
“I think this is unwise.”
So did Ean.
“It’s a considered risk, Vanje,” Helmo said. The lines were full of Michelle and Vega when he said it. “It might clear some tension.”
It wasn’t clearing any tension at the moment. As they got closer to the bridge, the lines seemed to stretch tight. Was Helmo regretting his decision?
His face was expressionless as he greeted them at the entry to the bridge, but the lines grew tighter still.
“Commodore Vega, requesting permission for Her Royal Highness, the Crown Princess Michelle, to enter the bridge,” Vega said.
She didn’t ask for Ean or herself.
“Permission granted,” Helmo said, and all three of them stepped onto the bridge.
“With your permission,” Helmo said. “I need to warn people of what is to happen.” He tapped the board at the captain’s chair. An alarm sounded through the ship. “Attention all crew. This is a line-twelve drill. Full suits.”
Full suits meant space suits. The alarm that accompanied it was for full suits as well. Michelle and Vega made for the nearest suit station.
All over the ship, crew were reporting to team leaders once they were suited, and team leaders were reporting to group leaders.
Three crew members checked Michelle’s, Ean’s, and Vega’s suits. Vega pulled away, looking affronted, then let the crew member check the suit anyway.
The crew member gave a thumbs-up. “Secured, sir,” she said to Helmo.
Helmo was suited as well now.
“Group leaders report,” Helmo said.
As the group leaders reported to Helmo, lines went green on the screen in front of him. “Commencing drill,” Helmo said, when all the lines were green. “It’s all yours, Ean. And don’t damage my ship.”
His voice was steady, but Ean could see that his hands gripped the arms of his seat.
Ean checked the ship from end to end. Everyone was accounted for. Everyone was suited.
Take down the lines, Helmo had told him. What would that show Vega? That he could take life support off-line, he supposed.
He cleared his throat nervously. He sang to the lines, all of them, to explain what he was doing. An exercise, to show what could be done. The lines were as nervous as Helmo, but somewhere in the middle of Ean’s song Helmo said, “Permission granted for this exercise,” and the lines calmed.
It was Helmo’s worry they were projecting.
“Close down life support,” he sang to line two. “Quiet, quiet. You stay strong, just hold life support back.” He wasn’t sure how else to explain it to them.
The other lines resisted. He included them all in his song. “This is to show Vega—” What? That he could dampen the lines?
It took lines one, two, and eight working together to do it.
They plunged into darkness, the only lighting the emergency panels on the floor. The flow of air—which Ean hadn’t even noticed until it stopped—ceased. Line two stopped, midchatter, and Ean’s head was filled with the hum of it.
Even with a suit on, it was quiet without life support.
“Problem?” line eleven asked.
“No, no problem. Ship is doing an exercise.”
He hoped he didn’t muck up on the line order Helmo had given him. He glanced at Vega and Michelle. His own voice was unsteady as he sang line four down. He had to sing line eight and one into the chorus as well before he could make it happen.
Helmo clipped on a belt. Michelle grabbed a handhold. Vega’s boots clicked—as did the crew at the boards—as they fastened themselves to the floor. Some form of magnetism in the boots, he supposed.
Ean rose slightly. He’d have to ask Radko how to use the boots.
