“Lady, your aircar will have to come from San See. If you were thinking of saving money, this is not it.” The pilot turned abruptly and waved frantically at Chaudry, who’d been about to strap himself in beside a small, refrigerated crate. “Not on that side. Can’t taint the special orders, can we.”
Chaudry squeezed in between van Heel and Han instead.
Radko looked at the crate. She recognized the logo. “Gippian shellfish. Here?”
“You’d be surprised where we take these babies,” the pilot said. “Here. The center of the galaxy. The outer rim. We go from Lancia to Redmond, Roscracia to Yaolin, and everywhere between. Anyplace someone is prepared to pay for them.”
Including Haladea III, where the Lancastrian ambassador served them to his guests.
It was a pity this particular delivery wasn’t going straight to Redmond.
“Gippian shellfish,” Han said, salivating.
“Spacers can’t afford shellfish on our wage,” van Heel said. “You’ll never get to taste it, Han.”
Chaudry shuddered. “I had one once. It was awful.”
“Gunter Wong is a friend of my father’s,” Han said. “He brings it over sometimes when he comes for dinner. Fresh as.”
Van Heel and Chaudry might not have understood the reference, but Radko did. Gunter Wong owned the Gippian shellfish company. His beds were on the coast in the province of Han, across the river from the main Han estate, in fact.
“Wish I had friends like that,” the shuttle pilot said. “I’ve never even tasted the things. That little box is a week of my wages.”
“Some people say they’re an acquired taste.” Radko smiled as she thought of Ean, politely swallowing shellfish, then washing it down with a mouthful of wine.
“It’s a taste I wouldn’t mind acquiring.”
The discussion as to the merits of whether it was worth acquiring lasted until touchdown.
The pilot let them off with a cheery wave. “Order your aircar now,” he said. “It’s got to come half a continent. You’ll be here awhile.”
Radko didn’t tell him the aircar was already on its way, courtesy of Vega’s well-laid plans.
He off-loaded his precious cargo into the drone that waited for it, and he and the drone took off at the same time.
Han looked around. “We must be the only humans for hundreds of kilometers. What a dismal place.”
“We’ve an aircar coming,” Radko said. “Let’s collect our gear.” Their gear was stowed in a cargo container on the edge of the field.
“They couldn’t have gotten it out any farther away without taking it all the way back to San See.” Han clapped Chaudry on the back, making him jump. Chaudry had been looking around nervously. “You don’t have to worry about other people. There’s no one here.”
Radko suspected that was the problem. “Have you been out of the city before, Chaudry?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.” It was a mumble.
There was a cure for that. Take his mind off the wide-open spaces. “Van Heel, you’re in charge of our equipment. Tell us what you want. Chaudry, you pack it. Han, you’re on guard.”
She watched what van Heel chose. She definitely skewed to the surveillance and electronic side.
“Add two sheets of explosives,” Radko said. If all else failed, they could blow themselves out of trouble. “Some hand weapons. A blaster each. And spares.”
She checked the stats of the ship they were to travel to Redmond on. It was a commercial liner. “Van Heel, what can you hide from the ship security?”
“You don’t hide something like this from a ship,” van Heel said. “You bribe the staff. I’ve got that in hand.”
Radko hoped she was right. “More weapons then.” Something that didn’t look like a weapon. Something they could put in their baggage. “A tranq gun. And that Pandora field diffuser, there.”
“That’s not a weapon,” van Heel said. “I don’t even know why it’s in the container. It’s practically an antique.”
Radko hid a smile. Commodore Vega, who collected ancient weapons, had an early-model Pandora field diffuser on her wall. “You never know. It might come in useful.” It wouldn’t be the first time one had been used as a weapon.
“If we come across a meteor shower,” Han said, picking it up and handing it across to Chaudry. “We’ll let the captain know we’ve got one in our luggage.”
“Any other crazy suggestions?” van Heel asked.
“No,” Radko said. “I’m sure you think one is enough.”
* * *
ONCE in the aircar, the extended day caught up with Radko. All she wanted to do was sleep. Instead, she spent the trip to the spaceport going over the job and getting a feel for her new team.
“You all know this is a covert mission,” she said. “Secrecy is vital and will likely save your life. Don’t discuss the mission where we can be overheard.”
“Are you sure it’s covert ops?” Chaudry said uneasily. “I don’t think I’d be good at that.”
It wasn’t a comment Radko would have expected from a man whose psychiatrist said he had a death wish. Radko thought Toll’s assessment might be more accurate.
Van Heel pulled out her comms and held it up to him. “What do you think that code means?”
Radko craned her neck to look. Van Heel had brought up her mobilization orders.
Chaudry looked at the orders as if he’d never seen them before although he had.
Van Heel put her comms back into her pocket. “You can’t say you didn’t look at it, for you’re in casual clothes, like the rest of us.”
“I was on leave. My kit’s in my bag.”
“And I was pulled out of a training course I’d waited two years for,” Han said.
One soldier on leave, another on a training course. Vega must have scrambled to get this together so fast. Even if Vega’s main reason for choosing them had been their line ability, surely there were more than three available linesmen in the Lancian fleet.
Perhaps Vega didn’t trust the Lancian fleet right now. Sattur Dow was getting his information from somewhere, and it was more likely to be inside the fleet than out of it. Radko could understand that Vega might go outside the usual channels to put her covert-ops team together.
Which meant Chaudry and Han wouldn’t have had the usual pre-op training. Vega would deal with it when they got back. In the meantime, a quick overview of the basics would be a good start.
“I hope you all understand what a covert op entails. No uniforms. No comms out until we’ve completed our task. In fact, you should all have received new comms before you left.”
They nodded.
“You should have left your own comms behind.”
This time van Heel was the only one who nodded.
Should she make them wipe their comms? She could, because they’d compromised the job by bringing them. If Redmond got hold of either comms, they would know who they had. But then, they hadn’t known any better.
She coded a security override into her own comms. “Give me your personal comms.”
Chaudry handed his over first. She pushed the override through and handed it back. “Iris and fingerprint recognition.” Radko waited until Chaudry had held the comms up to his eyes, then pressed his thumb on the screen. “You, and only you, can use it. If anyone else tries, the whole thing will be wiped clean.”
Han handed his over but didn’t let go of it. “Mine’s already set for that.” She could see it was true. “My family is paranoid about security.”
Radko remembered Renaud Han as an easygoing man. Still, it had been years. Maybe he’d changed.
“Give me permission to check the settings.”
He did. It was way more secure than she’d made Chaudry’s.
“Right. Don’t use your personal comms for anything. Turn it off and
pack it away in your bag. Use the issued comms from now on.”
Han scowled down at his hands.
“Han?” If he refused to do this, she was going to take his comms away. Or maybe try to use it so that it wiped itself.
“Understood.” Han depressed the back panel to turn his comms fully off. He looked at it, then held it out to her.
She almost took it, shook her head at the last moment. “You’re responsible for your own shit, Han. Look after it.”
He slipped it into his pocket.
“Same for you, Chaudry. Don’t use your personal comms for anything.”
Preliminaries over, it was time to get back to the job in hand. “We’re going to Redmond, where Tiana Chen—that’s me—will attempt to buy a stolen report. You are my bodyguards.”
Han stretched himself out in one of the seats, arms crossed behind his head. “Tiana Chen. You don’t mean that loathsome woman who hangs around court and blackmails everyone?”
“I do.”
Chaudry cleared his throat. “Redmond is enemy territory.”
“Of course it is,” van Heel said. “Covert ops. Remember. You do them in enemy territory.”
You didn’t always, but Radko didn’t correct her.
Chaudry pulled at the knuckles on his right hand. “I don’t speak Redmond; I work in Stores.” He didn’t state his question aloud, but Radko understood, anyway.
“They haven’t made a mistake. You were specifically chosen. All of you were.”
“Why?” van Heel asked. “So when we do get this report they can catalog them properly in Stores?”
“That’s better than the other option,” Han said. “That we’re disposable.”
“No one is disposable,” Radko said. “I intend to bring us all back.” Herself included. “We do this carefully, and we do it safely. I’ll take Chaudry and Han with me. Van Heel, I want you on surveillance, and as a backup if anything goes wrong.”
Van Heel nodded.
“As for not understanding the native Redmond language, Chaudry, you don’t have to. The person we are meeting knows where we are from. She’ll expect us to speak Standard.”
SEVEN
EAN LAMBERT
KARI WANG WAS in the middle of a ship check when Ean arrived with Bhaksir and Hana. Even so, she took time out to meet them at the shuttle bay.
“Touch my ship without my agreeing to what you are doing—without my knowing what you plan—and I will personally boot you off the ship.”
“Understood,” Ean said because there was nothing else she wanted to hear.
“Good.” Kari Wang turned to Bhaksir. “Keep him out of my way until I need him.”
Bhaksir looked dubiously at Ean. “Isn’t he supposed to work with you? I mean—”
She should have done what Radko would have done, which was say, “Yes, Captain,” then let Ean work anyway.
“I’ve an undercrewed ship; no one is battle trained. I don’t have the foggiest how many weapons I’ve got or how to use them. I don’t need Lambert in my way. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”
Kari Wang headed back to the bridge, opening her comms as she went. “Mael, is level three secured?”
“All good,” Mael said.
Ean started after the captain.
Bhaksir hesitated. “Shouldn’t we wait till she calls us?”
“No.” Because no matter what she said, Kari Wang would expect them on the bridge soon. “Listen to the lines,” Ean said. Ship lines were a song of anticipation and calculation. “She says she’s worried.” Worry seemed to come with captaincy. “But she’s looking forward to it.”
The human lines were mostly calm—some nervous. Kari Wang had done a lot of training with these people in a very short time.
Ean sang softly to the lines as he followed the captain through the ship.
“Ready to fight,” the lines sang back, and Ean could taste the anticipation.
The alien ships were all warships. They would be used to fighting. Had that eagerness come from their prior crew or their current captain?
They reached the bridge. Kari Wang continued her checklist. She was nearly at the end, for Ean could hear the nerves and excitement.
Finally, “Dubicki?”
“Line eight is good.”
“Abascal?”
“Line seven is ready.”
“Lambert?”
“Here,” Ean said.
“Good.” She opened the comms—to Abram and to the other Eleven fleet ships. “This is the Eleven. Preparing to jump. Lambert.”
Ean started singing direct to the sevens, linking all the line sevens in the fleet, so that when they jumped through the void, they wouldn’t lose contact.
“Lambert. You have the coordinates.”
Yes, but how did he translate them to something the lines could understand? The captain usually keyed the coordinates on human machines. They didn’t have any way to set the jump on the Eleven.
He stopped singing. “We have a problem.”
The alien ships didn’t understand human references. In their practice runs, one of the human ships had always set the jump. He would have to bring one of the other fleet ships with them to set the coordinates.
He sang the comms open to the Wendell’s bridge. “Captain Wendell. I need you to come with us. I need you to set the jump.”
Captain Wendell never slept. Well, he must, but Ean seldom saw him away from his bridge. He was on the bridge now. Ean wondered if he used the lines to tell him when things were happening.
“Unarmed, into enemy territory.”
He shouldn’t have known where they were going.
“You’re not unarmed. You’ve six bombs. And we won’t be there long.”
“If we do this, I want a full complement of weapons on this ship afterward.”
It didn’t have the snap of the quick decisions Abram and Helmo made. Then, Wendell must have been planning how to get his weapons back. No doubt he’d worked out long ago all the possible ways he could do it, and this was one of them.
“I can’t promise that,” Ean said.
Kari Wang’s impatience was a wave battering at him. The Eleven joined in the chorus. “Battle.”
“Of course you can,” Wendell said. “You’re a level-twelve linesman.”
“We’ll lose our jump window soon,” Kari Wang said.
“I can’t promise weapons,” Ean said, again. “I’ll talk to Abram about it, but that’s all I can do.”
How could he explain to the Eleven where it had to jump? There would be a way to translate human coordinates into something the ship could understand. He just didn’t know what it was yet. It would be like line seven, explaining what it did, but it had taken them months to work out what it meant. He didn’t have months. He had minutes.
“A pity,” Wendell said. “What are the coordinates?”
“I haven’t promised any weapons.”
“I understand that.”
“We have two minutes left in the jump window,” Kari Wang said. She pushed the coordinates through to Wendell herself.
Ean started singing again. “Only the Eleven and the Wendell. The rest of you remain where you are.”
Underneath the song, he heard Wendell’s crisp directions. “Ship, prepare to enter the void.”
He had the usual forever in the void to check the lines. There were only two sets—the Eleven’s and the Wendell’s. That bit worked, at least. Both sets of lines were clean. Both sets anticipating what was to come.
He realized he’d forgotten to clear Wendell’s coming with Abram. He sent a hurried song back. “Wendell’s coming with us.”
Then they were back in normal space, with the chatter of the lines from the various ships in this sector, and Wendell and Kari Wang’s now-familiar relief at the safe passag
e through the void momentarily swamping the lines.
Kari Wang didn’t give Ean time to relax. “Find me a military ship close by.”
How was he supposed to pick a military ship from a nonmilitary one?
He sang to line five on the Eleven. He’d heard military ships before. They were nearly always busy, with information being passed through. They also contained plenty of weapons.
Kari Wang didn’t wait for an answer. She turned to her own crew. “What have we got?”
Her crew was singing, too, bringing up line-five traffic on each of the nearby ships, singing them down again when Kari Wang shook her head. Kari Wang herself was going through ships on the small human screens set around the captain’s chair.
Through the lines, Ean could hear Wendell’s crew doing the same. He sang the lines open from the Wendell to the Eleven, and vice versa. It was easier to do that than have to explain everything later.
For a while, there was no sound except the two ships’ checking off and discounting possible ships.
There had to be an easier way. Like asking. Ean raised his own voice and directed it out through line five. “Which of you have been in battle?”
He got the instant attention of fifty ships, probably more. He chose the strongest. “That one,” and pointed to it on the screen. He had no idea how far away it was.
Abascal sang the comms open.
The multiple messages going in and out made a jumble of sound. Ean concentrated on new messages, pushing them through.
“This is the GU Packard calling Weapons Supplies.”
“Go ahead, GU Packard.”
“We ordered fifty fusion warheads. You sent us heat-seeking missiles.”
“Get us a jump,” Kari Wang demanded, close to Ean’s ear. He hadn’t realized she’d moved.
He nodded. “Be ready to order a jump. Like you normally do,” and sang to the lines on the GU Packard, “We’re going to borrow your lines for a moment.” It was disorienting that he didn’t get an answer—he was used to the alien ships, which answered back—but the lines waited for him. He opened the lines to the gate station in this sector—all linesmen knew how to do that though he’d never had to request a jump before.
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