“He’s part of the Eleven fleet. We’d know everything they did.”
“That doesn’t matter to some people. Whether they believe it or not, they see this as an opportunity to get one of their own ships into the fleet, as a way to open up space for their world.”
Or the mistake that brought an alien war to human space.
Abram blew out his breath again. “They’d be right, too, because whoever gets there first will have an advantage.”
“So who?”
“It hasn’t been decided yet. But it will be a functioning fleet ship. If this war is over before we’ve got someone, it might even be a Gate Union ship.”
“Will the war be over?” No one else talked as if they thought it would be.
Abram shook his head. “And that’s worrying enough in itself. We’ve two groups of aliens fighting each other, maybe more. I’d rather humans were all allied before we come up against them. Instead, if the Redmond–Gate Union split happens—as everyone expects it to—we’ll be three fragmented groups. Not a good position to be in.”
“Redmond is only six worlds. How dangerous are they?”
“Line factories,” Abram reminded him.
Other worlds had factories that grew individual lines, like mass-producing line five for comms use, but now that the factories on Shaolin and Chamberley were gone, only Redmond could produce the full set of lines required to power a ship or a station. They couldn’t afford to destroy Redmond.
Not even if the Worlds of the Lesser Gods gave them a military base close by.
Ean turned his attention back to the thing he could control the most. Another ship for the Eleven fleet.
“What about a Balian ship?” Admiral Katida supported Lancia—although she claimed she didn’t always. Ean suspected it was less Lancia she supported than Michelle and Abram. He was fine with that. It was his definition of supporting Lancia as well.
“Unlikely. We’re more likely to get someone who opposes Lancia. It won’t be Nova Tahiti, for they have a captain on the Eleven. Maybe Yaolin, if they can talk hard enough.”
Admiral Orsaya’s passion was lines and linesmen. At least she’d want to know more about the ships and their lines than she would about finding new planets to explore. Or maybe not. Even Abram would be thinking about exploration for Lancia.
“Whoever we get,” Abram said, “I want them to join in line training although most of them won’t be linesmen.”
Ean nodded.
“Speaking of line training. The events of the last two days have had most worlds scrambling to get people for us. They don’t want to be left without trained linesmen.”
When he said “events,” Ean thought he meant the battle, and the Eleven, but there was a strong sound of Michelle underneath Abram’s words.
The Confluence would be happy. “Good. We need crews for the ships. All of them. And captains.”
“This batch of trainees will be bigger than the first group,” Abram said. “We’ll house them on the Gruen initially. Once it gets too many, we’ll put them on Confluence Station, but that will take some organizing.”
How many could they train at one time? A group session, Ean supposed, plus smaller groups. At least he had Hernandez and Fergus, and maybe Rossi, to help. And some of the earlier trainees.
Abram said, “We are also training paramedics from the different worlds to deal with line-related problems. That’s going to be fun. We’ll send them with the line trainees, but you won’t have to train them. The paramedics who are already trained will do that.”
“Do we have the room?”
“Captain Gruen has already complained about her cargo holds being kept empty for line training, rather than being put to use for storage now she has a full ship. We’ve promised her supplies every three days.”
Ean grinned. Gruen would milk that for everything she had.
“As for the rest. We’ll take it as it comes.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN: DOMINIQUE RADKO
Back at their temporary home, Radko considered what they knew.
Callista OneLane’s premises had been protected by LoneField Security. When OneLane had pressed the emergency button, the people who responded should have been LoneField employees, not Redmond Fleet soldiers. Not only that, if you were paid to protect someone’s premises, surely you would know who they were, and not shoot them in the head the moment you entered a room.
OneLane had been Redmond’s first target. Protecting the report, Radko thought. In case OneLane had read it? What was in that report?
Stellan Vilhjalmsson had the report now, but Redmond Fleet headquarters wouldn’t know that because OneLane didn’t have a camera in her office. Unfortunately, the cameras Redmond would see showed Radko introducing herself as Tiana Chen and saying she had come to buy something.
EightFields might or might not go to the authorities. If the story he’d told was true, he wouldn’t, but that didn’t stop the military putting the same names together that Radko and her team had. They’d get to him in the end. Radko wanted to be off world by the time they did. But Aeolus wasn’t even a Redmond world. Why have a military operation off world?
“Do you think EightFields is sending us into a trap?”
“Why would he?” Chaudry asked.
“Don’t trust anyone, Chaudry.” But if EightFields had been telling the truth, they could verify it easily enough. “Van Heel, find out about the lockdown. It was supposed to be on the news. Han, see if you can find the Factor’s guest list.” On Lancia, it was easy to find out with whom Emperor Yu had dined. Most rulers had lists, and Han being who he was would know where to look. “Let me know if EightFields dined with him around the time or before the lockdown.”
“What do I do?” Chaudry asked.
“Make us look as different as we can without drawing attention to us.” They’d already changed once, but if EightFields did go to the authorities, he would describe them and what they were wearing. And he had names.
Chaudry seemed to have a talent for disguise. Anything would help, no matter what, even if Chaudry himself stood out. EightFields had known him, even without a layer of fake regenerated skin.
“We need to look different,” Radko said. “Shower, change. Let Chaudry make you up.”
She dressed in the pants Chaudry had picked out for her, and a shirt she thought might have been Han’s, then mulled over escape plans as she let him slick her hair back and use something from the cupboard to add a few dark streaks.
“Here’s the lockdown,” van Heel said. “Two weeks ago, for four days. Lots of speculation about who the Factor’s mysterious visitor was, and the reason for the lockdown. All nonurgent staff were sent home. Staff who stayed said the visitor was masked.”
“And I’ve got EightFields,” Han said, not long after.
Radko looked up once to see Han across from her, almost a stranger with his hair flattened on top and his eyebrows clumping out. The droop to one side of his face made him look as if he’d had a stroke. She looked closer at the scab on the side of his mouth. It looked real and made her want to look away.
“I don’t want to know,” Han said. “Van Heel stared at me before, too.” He looked back to his screen. “EightFields is a regular guest at the palace. He dined there a month prior to that, and three times in ten days before the lockdown.”
Van Heel was not so much unrecognizable as noticeably older. Chaudry had done something to her face to make her look ten years older than she was. Her skin was a shade darker, and her nose and cheeks were red and blotchy with the broken veins of an alcoholic.