“Commodore Vega is being particularly obstructive. I was hoping you might do a friend of your father’s a favor and perhaps intercede for me.”
Ean was sure the “friend of your father” was a pointed reminder that Sattur Dow was, in fact, a close friend, and that Michelle would do well to remember that.
“I could do that. Although I must warn you, I have little to do with the soldiers who run this ship.” Which was an out-and-out lie, but Ean would bet she’d pass any lie-detector test they cared to use on her.
Michelle nodded to Lin, who tapped something into his comms and brought it over to her.
In her office, Vega switched both channels off and sat up straighter—if she could sit straighter than she normally did—before answering Lin’s call. “Vega.”
“Her Royal Highness, the Crown Princess Michelle,” Lin said, and handed the comms to Michelle.
If they had to go through that process every time Michelle answered her comms, she’d never get much work done. Lin wouldn’t either.
“Your Royal Highness.” Vega’s voice became respectful. She inclined her head in a half bow. “What can I do for you?”
They hadn’t talked to each other like that since the first day Vega had come on board.
“My guest, Sattur Dow, would like to meet his betrothed, my cousin Dominique. I believe she is part of your staff. He is upset you have denied access to her.”
Vega didn’t pretend not to know who she meant. “Your Highness. I have already explained to Merchant Dow that Spacer Radko is away on a covert operation.”
Her tone wasn’t exasperated, which it should have been. Or would have been if she’d been talking to anyone else. Who was the act for? Sattur Dow? Emperor Yu? Or both?
“Surely you can send her a message to contact us. Or bring her back and put someone else in her place.”
Surely, Sattur Dow wasn’t fooled by this farce.
But they kept on going.
“Unfortunately, no,” Vega said. “On a covert operation, you do not contact the operatives. It endangers the mission.”
“My Lady Dominque is in a unique position. Surely, once you knew she was betrothed—by the decree of the Emperor himself, no less—you would have reconsidered.”
“Had I known about it, yes.” Some of Vega’s natural bite was back. “But this mission was planned two weeks beforehand. Spacer Radko always meant to leave after seeing her family. Maybe if she had mentioned her changed circumstances, I might have reconsidered. Unfortunately for you, she omitted to do that.” She quivered with apparent righteous indignation that didn’t come through the lines. Line one reflected wariness more than anything else.
“My Lady Dominique is a low-ranking spacer,” Sattur Dow said, and Ean had to hold his own lines in at the insult. “Surely it is unusual to send a spacer on a covert mission?”
“Not that unusual. On operations like these, you take the one with the strongest abilities in the area. Not to mention I also wanted to see how she would perform as the leader of a team.”
“Abilities.” Sattur Dow’s eyes gleamed. “So it was to do with line ships?”
“Why ever would you assume that? Especially on a covert op. No, sir.” Vega’s tone was flat. “Radko has more specialized skills than that. She speaks perfect, unaccented Redmond.”
“Redmond.” Sattur Dow started.
His reaction triggered a response in Vega—and maybe in Michelle, too—for line one jangled. Strong enough and loud enough for Helmo, eating a late meal in the mess, to pull up a screen of the bridge and watch what was happening there while he ate. He was looking in the wrong place. He should have been looking in Vega’s office.
“Apparently her parents planned for her to be a diplomat. Instead, she joined the fleet.”
The first thing Vega did after she clicked off was call Ean. “Lambert, were you listening?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Names were mentioned. I’ll assume that’s a yes. I want to know everyone that man calls, and I don’t want him to know we’re checking him.”
How did you explain that to the lines? “I’m not sure I—”
Vega might have been reading his mind. “You won’t be the only one looking. I want the stuff others are unlikely to catch.”
“I’ll do what I can.” Ean clicked off. So he was a spy now. And Vega was getting very used to the tools at her disposal. Which weren’t even her tools, they were Michelle’s.
Still, Vega had given him something.
Michelle and her people lied by telling the truth, most of the time, and Vega had told Sattur Dow that Radko was somewhere her language skills were required. Therefore, she was on one of the six Redmond worlds.
How could he use that to find out more?
Today, Jordan Rossi accompanied Ean to training. Fergus was there, too, along with Hernandez.
“This ship smells like it’s been through a sewer,” Rossi said.
Captain Gruen bristled. “Are you insulting my ship, Linesman?”
“The people on it are polluting your lines.”
“Exactly. I have tried telling Linesman Lambert that. He doesn’t listen.”
“You’re not a line, sweetheart. He doesn’t hear you.”
“She is a captain,” Ean said. He heard her all right, and Rossi knew that, so it was just another pointless point-scoring exercise.
“They’ll come around,” Fergus said.
Maybe. The antagonism crackling through the lines wasn’t helping, for the lines considered Ean as one of their own. His biggest worry right now was that the trainees would make enemies of the fleet lines before they did come around.
Even now, the lines were promising, “We’ll protect you.”
“Thank you.” For you couldn’t turn their protection away.
At least Rossi’s brooding presence kept most of the trainees awed and cowed today.
Everyone except Arnold Peters.
“Why is Lambert training us, when Linesman Rossi is here?” Peters demanded.
Rossi, who was close to the Xanto quartet at the time, listening to Nadia Kentish, narrowed his eyes. “Are you talking to me, or about me?”
“I’m just saying—”
“You think, I, Jordan Rossi, should waste my time on a level-six linesman like you.”
A chorus of something defensive washed through the lines. No linesman liked the implication he or she was inferior.
“If you think you’re so good,” Nadia Kentish said, “why are you here?”
Rossi turned his narrowed gaze on her. “I am here because some bastard sold my line contract, and my new contract owner demands I come.”
Ean seized the silence that followed. “You are all here because you’ve been ordered to come. It’s part of your job.” He watched them think about that, heard the song of the lines change. “If you’d rather be elsewhere, let me know, and I will arrange to have you returned to your fleet.”
“That is a joke,” Peters said.
“What, that I can’t have you returned to your fleet?”
“You know, and we know, that you can’t back out of a top secret project like this unless you’re kicked out.”
“So put up with it, then, or you will be kicked out.” Maybe even for their own safety, for the lines were starting to pick up on Ean’s exasperation. “Now. We have training.”
It wasn’t the best training session. The only thing of interest that came out of it was that Jordan Rossi spent a lot of time listening to Nadia Kentish.