Bless Vega for telling her the important things she needed to know about the people she was working with.
She is the only one of your team who has worked off world before.
Yves Han is military police. He works in the main barracks at Baoshan.
Han was a high-caste Lancastrian family name. Combined with a French first name like Yves, his family would move in the same circle as hers. In which case, Radko knew him. Renaud Han’s son.
She brought up the image. The resemblance to Renaud was strong. Yves Han was three years older than Radko. She’d last seen him when she was nine, and he’d been twelve. Her family had been visiting the Hans and she’d found Yves Han standing over his tutor—seventy years old if he was a day—forcing the old man’s hand onto the red-hot heat supply of the furnace.
The tutor screamed as Yves forced his hand down.
“Stop that now,” Radko commanded.
Yves had laughed at her. “Go away, little girl. Keep out of things that don’t concern you.” He’d pushed the tutor’s arm down again.
So she’d beaten him up.
She was the one who’d gotten into trouble. Yves had needed regen, and the tutor claimed he’d burned his own hand. She hadn’t seen Yves since. He’d tested high on the Havortian tests and taken up the offer of an apprenticeship from one of the big cartel houses.
Yet she’d always liked Yves’s parents. Even though Renaud and Amina Han were part of the Emperor’s inner circle, they always had time for the Emperor’s aunt, and for the almost-forgotten young cousin.
Radko frowned at the image. The boy she’d known had bordered on sadistic or worse. She hoped fleet training had knocked some of his nastiness out of him. He definitely wasn’t someone she’d ever introduce Ean to, linesman or not.
I have worked with Han before, back when I spent two years as a captain on Baoshan. I found him reliable and easy to work with. A good man to have at your back.
He didn’t sound like the Yves Han she remembered.
Radko turned to the last name.
Arun Chaudry is six months out of training. His psychiatrist says he has a death wish. Joined the fleet to get himself killed.
The preliminary psych tests should have picked that up.
They put him in Stores—on base—where he’ll never see combat. His group leader is surprisingly protective of him, says he’s lost and needs to find something he can do.
Radko flipped the name to see who the group leader was and wasn’t surprised to find it was Lee Toll.
Van Heel was the only person with any experience in this kind of work. As for the other two—a man who might or might not like power over others and a man with a death wish. Did Vega believe they were dispensable? Or was there something more?
The something more came on the next line.
Yves Han trained ten years at House of Sandhurst. Theodora van Heel, seven years, House of Xun. Arun Chaudry, six years, House of Isador. Van Heel and Chaudry failed certification.
According to Ean, six years was the absolute minimum for a line apprenticeship. The apprentices started in their teens—although a cartel master would take them earlier if they showed real promise—and couldn’t be tested until they were seventeen. The ones the cartel masters thought would fail were tested early. Van Heel and Chaudry probably hadn’t shown much ability.
Vega hadn’t said how old they were, but Radko could guess from their images that van Heel had trained a generation earlier than Chaudry.
I need to know what lines they are and if they are suitable for line training.
Han certified as an exceptionally strong seven but received head injuries in an accident not long after certification. The doctors say there is nothing physically wrong with him, but after the trauma, he lost any line ability. I want you to assess whether Lambert may be able to fix his line problem.
The only ships getting jumps to and from Lancia nowadays were unaffiliated merchants. Mostly small, second-class freighters, and right now they were making a fortune. The ship was crowded. Every ship leaving Lancia was.
Radko didn’t have a cabin. There was a netted-off area in the bar to stow her kit, for she and her team would leave the ship in four hours.
Them and a hundred others.
She recognized Yves Han immediately. He stood like a member of one of the Great Families, as if he expected people to move around him, rather than him to move around them. Sometimes, Radko knew, she did that herself.
She pushed forward to stand beside him. “Han.”
If he remembered the last time they’d met, it didn’t show. “Team leader.” Or maybe he’d had time to decide to ignore the memory. Vega must have sent their names through to the whole team—without the other identifying information Radko had received—or otherwise he wouldn’t have recognized Radko. That was unusual for by-the-book Vega. Radko had a code she could use to identify herself to the other three. That was what she would normally use on an operation like this.
The title felt strange, and not something she planned on getting used to. She liked the job she had.
“This is crazy crowded,” Han said. “I hope we arrive safely.”
She tapped in the identifying code and touched her comms to Han’s. Identity established. “Yes,” she said, and looked around. “Somewhere in this crowd, we’ve two other people.”
Her comms chimed. Van Heel.
“Never mind,” van Heel said, when she answered. “I can see you. I’m nearby.” She pushed through the crowd. “This overcrowding. It’s dangerous.”
It would get worse before it got better. Unless Ean could convince the New Alliance to jump cold.
As Radko touched her comms to van Heel’s to establish identity, the bell chimed to signify the ship was about to enter the void. She paused and looked around to be sure her charge was safe this time. Weird things happened around jumps.
But, of course, Ean wasn’t there.
She waited until they jumped, then went back to her comms. No one else had noticed; no one else cared. She’d forgotten how normal jumps were on other ships.
The public address blared over the top of her attempt to contact Chaudry. “All passengers leaving at Shaolin please assemble at the shuttle bays. Be sure to collect all luggage prior to disembarking.”
“That’s us,” Radko said, and thumbed the comms open to the other member of her team. “Chaudry. This is team leader Radko. We’ll meet you at the shuttle bays.”
“That’s early,” Han muttered. “Can’t wait to get rid of us, obviously.”
Personally, Radko couldn’t wait to get off the ship.
They found Chaudry standing, arms crossed, in the middle of the shuttle queue. He wasn’t much taller than anyone else, but he was wider. His arms were bare, and the muscles bulged. Despite the crowd, people moved a long way around him.
“He’s enough to scare anyone’s grandmother,” Han said.
Radko frowned at him.
“Arun Chaudry,” Han said.
Chaudry narrowed his eyes. “Who’s asking?”
“I wasn’t asking, I was identifying.” Han gave a half bow. “Your teammate, Yves Han, and with me I have Theodora van Heel and Team Leader Radko.”
“I need a code,” Chaudry said.
Radko tapped in the code and touched her comms to his.
Han had names and images to identify the team. So had van Heel. Chaudry hadn’t. “I’m surprised you know us all,” Radko said to Han. “I only got them on my comms as I was coming out here.”
Van Heel was a hacker. If she was as good as Vega said, then she could find out who she was working with. But Han? He was a policeman on base.