“Lancastrian?” Vega bit off anything more she might say.
“Sale.” Ean and the ship called together. “Wait.”
She paused. “What’s wrong?”
“We’ll use the faster,” because he had no idea what it was called. At least she’d stopped. “This way,” and let lines three and four guide him to the wall.
Sale kept talking to Vega. “We’ve around a hundred—”
They were sucked into the tube and jerked sideways. Then up, then down, then sideways again, and finally expelled into the shuttle bay, where Ean bowled over three trainee linesmen.
Ean heard the distinct snap of breaking bone. Two linesmen stayed down. One of them was Arnold Peters.
Lines three and four conferred. “Still too fast.”
Sale picked herself up. Her voice shook as she continued. “Hundred linesmen who need medical attention. One linesman is badly injured. Blaster burns. Other problems are line-related. Except Burns, who took a blaster in his suit.” She looked at the linesmen Ean had knocked over. “At least two with broken bones from friendly fire.”
They didn’t need the comms, for the lines were still wide open.
Ean heard Jordan Rossi, somewhere in the background, “Lambert strikes again.”
Bhaksir beckoned to Alex Joy and Hernandez, and pointed to the two injured trainees. They came over.
“Sorry.” Ean tried to help, but they didn’t want him to. He limped away.
“We’ll send shuttles,” Vega said. “We don’t have room for them here. Send them on to Confluence Station. Admiral Orsaya?”
“I’ll need paramedics and guards.”
“Done. Sale, once Lambert returns to a thinking, functioning linesman, get him to move the Confluence closer to Confluence Station. And if you’re listening, Lambert, there’s a difference between moving and jumping. There’s also such a thing as ‘too close.’”
“Hear that, ship?” Sale said, as she tucked her comms back into her pocket. “You move. You don’t jump. And you don’t move too close.”
“How close? Where?”
“Closer to Confluence Station,” Ean said.
The ship started to move.
“What’s it doing now, Ean?”
“Moving closer to Confluence Station.”
“Shit.” Even though that was what Vega had suggested. “How does it know when to stop?”
“Sale will tell you when to stop,” Ean told the Confluence.
“Ship will tell.” A little smugness there. They could worry about that later.
Ean said to Sale, “I said you’d say when we’re close enough.”
“Sh—. How am I supposed to tell it that? And what constitutes close enough anyway?”
Helmo said, “We’ll let you know with plenty of margin.”
Sale took the comms out of her pocket again, looked at it, and put it back. “Make sure it’s a big margin because Ean will have to stop the ship. There’s no way it’s going to do it for me.”
“Yes we will.”
Ean could have told her she’d insulted her ship, but the bay where Radko’s shuttle was had finished recycling, and Radko was exiting. Bhaksir and her team covered them.
Radko spared a quick glance around the massive shuttle deck, then looked him over.
Ean relaxed for the first time since Radko had disappeared into the shuttle bound for Lancia. This was how it was meant to be, with Radko back, by his side.
Although, there was something odd, based on the way she looked at him. Then he realized his helmet was still in place from his trip through the tubes. He grinned at her and kept watching her as he checked his readings before he unclipped it. “Hi.” He couldn’t stop smiling, looking at her, whole and healthy and alive.
Sale looked the prisoners over. She scowled on seeing Bach. The lines echoed something like betrayal. “You’re the reason I joined the Royal Guard in the first place.”
“Then Galenos poached you,” Bach said. “He always handpicked the best.”
Van Heel watched them. Sale, to Radko, to Bach, and back.
The best thing about the Lancastrian Princess crew was they trusted each other. If Radko said arrest Bach, then Sale and Bhaksir arrested him. They didn’t argue about it.
“Our crew, too.”
Ean ignored that.
Sale turned to the other prisoner. “Captain Vilhjalmsson. Why am I not surprised?”
“I am. Surprised, I mean.” Vilhjalmsson had put up his hands as soon as he saw Ean. “Especially since I’m helping Team Leader Radko.”
Team leader. She had a team of her own to look after now. Chaudry, van Heel, and Han. She wouldn’t be his bodyguard anymore. Ean pushed away that niggling worry. “Helping. Last time you tried to kill her.”
“Linesman, I know now the folly of doing that on a ship that you control.” He looked around. “Interesting ship, by the way. It’s almost worth getting arrested to see this.”
Chaudry lowered Han carefully to the floor and looked around. Ean tried to see it as the newcomers would see it. Soldiers from multiple worlds, half of them still on the floor, many of them with oxygen. Kentish, surrounded by people trying to keep her alive.
“What happened?” Chaudry asked. “A war?”
Something like that. Only it was their own people who’d started it.
Two single-level linesmen came up with oxygen.
“He’s been stunned,” Radko said. “Oxygen won’t help.”
Chaudry checked Han over. “He’ll be fine.” He looked at Vilhjalmsson, then over at Kentish. Ean heard the hum of uncertainty through line one, and it wasn’t Confluence line one.
The lines were certainly listening, though.
In fact, the whole of the Confluence fleet was considering Chaudry.
“Yes.”
“That one.”
The Confluence cut over the top of them all, strong and loud and brooking no dissent. “This one is mine.”
“Yours,” agreed the other ships, and all 1,291 lines exuded satisfaction. “We like him.”
Ean watched Chaudry make his way toward Kentish. “Radko. He’s a linesman.”
“I know. Level one?”
He nodded.
Radko looked at van Heel. “She’s a linesman, too.”
“If you’re looking at me,” van Heel said. “I’m no linesman. I did training, sure, but I failed certification.” She wasn’t bitter about it, so for her it was a long time in her past.
“I’ll tell you what I think she is. Turn around. I’ll tell Sale and Bhaksir.”
Ean turned around so he couldn’t see her. But after everything that had happened, the lines were wide open. He couldn’t block them. “I can see. You’re holding up eight fingers.”
Radko clasped her fingers together under her chin and smiled. A proper smile, that showed off the dimples that were so like Michelle’s. “It’s good to be home, Ean.”
Ean smiled, too, as he turned around. “It’s good to have you home.”
“We’re glad you’re back, too,” Bhaksir said. “Couldn’t you have left a user manual or something?”
“It’s simple, Bhaksir. He’s a linesman. He thinks like a line. Remember that, and you’ll be fine.” Then Radko sighed and looked at Bach. “Can I borrow your comms, Ean? I need to call Admiral Galenos.”
He handed it over. He hadn’t used it much recently. He was getting used to working direct with the lines. “You can keep it, if you like.”