“One minute to jump,” the Iolo captain said.
Peters turned his blaster onto Ean. “I don’t know what he was doing, but if Linesman Rossi didn’t like it, then I don’t like it either.”
Line eight couldn’t protect them all. Or could it?
The paramedics, waiting around the walls, drew their own weapons.
The paramedics. Here for line eleven. Yes, Ean could use that.
“All blasters on stun,” Bhaksir said, to her own team and the paramedics. “No unnecessary injuries.”
Ean called up the two elevens. “Talk to me. Strong, please. Stronger than you’ve ever been.”
The two lines came in loud and clear, felling half the trainees. Even Ean, who was expecting it, fell to his knees.
It stretched the skin on his leg tight, pulling the skin where his leg was burned.
He couldn’t breathe. Except he had to, for the Iolo captain said, “Jumping now.”
“Here. Jump to here,” and Ean sang a position to the ship. He had no idea where it was, he just knew it was close.
“Jump complete,” the navigator on the Iolo said.
“Confirm position,” the captain said. “Jakob, we have—”
“Sir.” Something in the navigator’s voice stopped the captain.
Behind it all, Ean could hear the Eleven fleet captains swearing. “I’ll kill Ean personally one day,” Kari Wang said. “I wish he’d tell us what he’s doing before he does it. Mael, change course for the Iolo.”
Gruen burst in with a team of soldiers. She was already firing. Blasters on stun. Trainees went down under the combined onslaught of the Eleven, Bhaksir’s team, and Gruen’s team.
“Get me the local gate station,” the captain of the Iolo said.
Ean redirected the request—and the signal from the bridge on that ship—to the only place he could at the moment. The other fleet ships.
Kari Wang answered the call. “Captain, your message isn’t getting through. You are in New Alliance space, attempting to steal New Alliance property. Prepare to be boarded.”
The captain ignored her. “How long till they get here?” he asked one of his crew.
“Thirteen minutes.”
“Damn.” He called Jakob.
Ean thought about rerouting that one as well, but what was the point.
“Jakob. The jump didn’t work, and they’re jamming our comms. The nearest ship will be here in thirteen minutes. The Eleven. I’ll give you five minutes to get your shuttle here.”
“Thirteen minutes should be enough to get another jump,” Jakob said.
“They’re jamming our comms.” Did Ean imagine the gritted teeth that went with it? “You’ve four minutes, forty-five seconds to get your shuttle here, or I’ll abandon you.”
Because Jakob was on the scout ship, Ean knew how seriously he considered staying. The decision to leave was a bitter chocolate on Ean’s tongue.
“Get to the shuttle,” Jakob told the linesmen.
“No,” wailed the scout ship.
It wouldn’t take much for Ean to hold them there, but that would mean he was giving the ship to these linesmen, effectively giving the enemy a ship.
“Let them go. They’re not yours. They’re trying to take you from your rightful crew.”
“Who is our crew?”
“You have to wait your turn. But it’s coming.”
The Confluence came in loud and strong. “You promise and promise, but we never get anything. Make good on your promise. Lines for my ship,” where “my ship” was the distinctive sound of the scout ship.
If he didn’t give them something, they’d take the enemy linesmen. They couldn’t afford to do that. Ean looked around. Two of the Xanto linesmen, Alex Joy and Thomas Peacock, helped Lina Vang to her feet, while Nadia Kentish, bound with the same restraining tags as Rossi, scowled at them.
“These. What about these ones?” The ships were to go to individual worlds, weren’t they? Well, Xanto had got itself a ship.
“Shuttle leaving Scout Three,” Kari Wang said.
Ean sagged with relief.
“Ours.” Scout and parent ship inspected the four. The Confluence didn’t complain about the scout getting assigned linesmen before it did, which was worrying. But then Ean already knew the Confluence was choosing its own crew.
Rossi started laughing.
“What’s wrong with him now?” Bhaksir asked.
“You’re out of control, Lambert. You’re as crazy as the Balao, and you’re in charge of all this.”
Ean ignored him, listening instead to the talk between the ships as they discussed battle tactics. “Too close to fire,” Kari Wang said. “And I don’t know these weapons well enough yet. We’re as likely to hit one of our own ships.”
“They’ll cloak as soon as the shuttle is on board,” Wendell said. “Make us think they jumped.”
Which was exactly what they did.
“Ship has disappeared,” Captain Wendell said.
“No it hasn’t,” Kari Wang said, and a surge of ferocious joy swept the Eleven. “You can’t hide a line ship from us.”
“What do you need me to do?” Ean asked. He didn’t want to think about the mess here on the Gruen. Not yet.
“Keep us linked to the cameras and sound on the bridge of the Iolo,” Captain Helmo said promptly. “Prevent them calling the gate station. We’ll do the rest. Nicely done, Ean.”
Ean looked around the cargo bay, at the stunned bodies lying on the floor, at Gruen and her crew with weapons poised to shoot anyone who made a wrong move. It wasn’t nicely done at all.
At least Rossi had stopped laughing.
Out in the corridor, Bhaksir was supervising the return of the trainees to their cabins, talking quietly through the comms to Sale, on the Confluence. “It blew up out of nowhere.”
“Is everyone okay?”
A paramedic came over to Ean, checked his leg, sprayed painkiller onto it. The cessation of pain was so good it hurt. The dull throb of Rossi’s wrist became the dominant pain. “You need to look at Rossi’s wrist,” he told the paramedic.
“I don’t need help from you,” Rossi said.
The paramedic finished dressing Ean’s leg, then moved over to Rossi. “I have to cut the restraints,” he told Captain Gruen.
She nodded, then glared at the final person still under restraint. Nadia Kentish. “If we let you go, will you behave like a rational human being?” And to the other Xanto linesmen who were hovering close. “You three as well.”
“Yes, Captain,” Lina Vang said although the words came hard.
Kentish looked at Rossi, whose wrist had swelled up around the restraint. “He’s a level-ten linesman. You’re treating him like a—” She stopped, as if she couldn’t think of anything bad enough.
Gruen pointed to the damaged floor. “Nobody damages my ship and gets away with it.” She moved on to help with the cleanup, and to ensure all the linesmen were taken back to their rooms. “You’re all under lockdown until this is sorted.”
Rossi laughed again. “She’s as crazy as he is,” he told Kentish.
Gruen was a little unbalanced where her ship was concerned, but who could blame her since it had been taken away from her once before.