Confluence

by S. K. Dunstall

  Ean sang the lines open to the fleet ships. The Eleven, the Lancastrian Princess, the Wendell, the Gruen, and the Confluence. “Someone has boarded a scout ship.” He pushed the image up onto the main screens of each bridge.

  “Do we know who?” Captain Helmo asked.

  On the scout ship the boarders were using in-suit comms to talk to each other. That was line five. Ean pushed the comms through as well.

  “Never mind. Anyone know Redmond?” for there was a distinctive uptrill at the end of each sentence.

  The Lancastrian Princess and the Gruen both nudged Ean. “That sound you were looking for.”

  “Thanks.” Wasn’t it obvious he was already listening?

  “That is too advanced for these trainees,” Hernandez said.

  Ean blinked at her.

  “How long?” Helmo asked the other captains.

  “Four hours for me,” Kari Wang said.

  “Five.” “Five point six,” from Wendell and Gruen. Wendell’s navigator was already calculating the fastest way.

  “And six for me,” Helmo said. “Can they jump the ship, Ean?”

  “I don’t think so.” And Ean said to the ship, “Don’t let them take you away from the fleet.” He changed the tune to talk specifically to line eight on the scout and on the Confluence. “You’ll keep the ship safe.”

  A ragged echo followed his song. “Keep the ship safe.” The trainees.

  Hernandez threw up her hands.

  “Safe,” promised the eights, while the scout showed Ean its new lines.

  Without a level-seven linesman—and one who knew what he was doing—they couldn’t jump the scout ship without jumping all the ships. The question was, did they know how to jump the ships at all? And if they didn’t, what was the point of boarding it? Did they think they could camp there while their linesmen worked out what to do?

  “Boarded safely,” said one of the suited figures, this time in Standard, and Ean recognized the speaker. Jakob. “Come in Iolo.”

  “Receiving you loud and clear.”

  Ean was getting used to juggling multiple ships and lines. While he concentrated on the scout and its immediate lines, he heard Vega call Helmo. “The Iolo is the ship Jakob caught to go home. It jumped at 23:11 hours last night.”

  The communication was real-time. How long had the Iolo been in this sector?

  He knew one person who would know, for she was paranoid about strange ships.

  “Captain Kari Wang. When did the Iolo arrive?”

  “Five days, twenty-three hours, and six minutes ago.” Kari Wang knew the exact date and time of arrival and departure for every ship in the Haladean cluster. “It arrived with the Lancastrian Emperor.”

  Vega said, “Yet to all intents and purposes, it jumped at 23:11 hours yesterday.”

  “No it didn’t.” Kari Wang was positive.

  “Redmond has a cloaking device,” Wendell said. “And some of these people were speaking Redmond. They would have cloaked, then moved away.”

  But the Iolo wasn’t a Redmond ship. It was registered to the Worlds of the Lesser Gods; for otherwise, it would never have been allowed anywhere near the New Alliance headquarters. Although, given that Jakob had sent Redmond a message, it was likely Jakob was working with them.

  “Ten minutes to jump,” the captain on the Iolo said.

  On the scout ship, there was a flurry of activity. Two of the linesmen held a U-shaped bar—as big as they were and twice the length—against the wall. Their knees were bent, their faces red with the effort.

  The third linesman gave a thumbs-up.

  “Electromagnetic loops in place,” Jakob said. “Decloak when ready.”

  “Acknowledged,” from the other ship. “Decloaking. Engaging magnets from this end.” Whatever the linesmen were holding thumped against the wall, dragging them with it, nearly knocking them off their feet.

  The linesmen stepped away.

  “Enemy ship has decloaked,” Helmo said. “We can all see it now.”

  “Run test,” the captain of the Iolo said. “Reverse thrusters at 0.01 speed.”

  Ean didn’t notice anything, but a minute later Captain Helmo said, “Scout ship moving at same speed and direction as enemy ship. Electromagnetic field detected. Strength, forty Tesla.”

  It must have been a strong magnet, for no one commented on how close the ships were.

  “Eight minutes to jump,” the Iolo captain said.

  Last time Ean had prevented a ship jumping, it had been with the cooperation of all the line eights in the Eleven fleet. Could he do the same thing with the Confluence fleet?

  “Can you hold the ship?” he asked the eights.

  “Hold?”

  How did he explain it? “Stop the Iolo jumping through the void.”

  “But they’re not jumping.”

  The lines didn’t understand the concept of future. They understood now.

  On another ship—seemingly forever away right now—the engineer for Galactic News was calling his producer.

  “We’re recording,” the producer said in an angry whisper.

  “Coop. Something’s happening. Something big. You’ve got to check it out.”

  “We’re on air.”

  “Coop, you have to listen to this.”

  “Take over,” the producer told his assistant, and stalked out of the studio.

  Ean had to meet that linesman one day. He should be here, training. “The media’s about to get involved.”

  Someone, he wasn’t sure who, pushed that through to Abram.

  Six minutes.

  Ean didn’t know what he had done last time to hold the ship in their space, and he didn’t know how to convince the lines to do it. If he couldn’t prevent the ship from jumping, what could he do?

  What did he know?

  The Iolo had one jump. If they couldn’t get a jump, they wouldn’t move their ship. Therefore, Ean only had to hold it until the jump window was gone. Or until their own people could capture the ship. Which was four hours for the Kari Wang, more for the other ships.

  Unless he moved the ship closer. Which would prove, once and for all, that ships could jump cold.

  “Move that ship cold, bastard, and I’ll kill you myself.”

  Jordan Rossi had never trusted the ships the way Ean had.

  “If I don’t, Redmond will get the scout.” And possibly, the whole fleet.

  “You’ll kill us all,” Rossi said.

  Rossi was wrong. Ean wouldn’t kill them. The lines would ensure ships didn’t jump into each other. He changed his song to target the enemy ship.

  “I need you to come.” He tried to visualize the place in space that the ship needed to come to. He could hear the ships in his mind. A symphony of sound, where each sound placed the ship in a certain position, and he could tell where they were in relation to each other. “When they tell you to jump—” But he couldn’t tell them where yet because they’d jump there now, and that meant the jump would be wasted. He had to make the captain of the Iolo think his jump was gone.

  Rossi grabbed Bhaksir’s blaster. “If you won’t stop him, I will.”

  “Jump in four minutes,” the Iolo captain said.

  Bhaksir grappled for her blaster. But Rossi was determined. Ru Li and Hana came running to assist.

  “You have no idea how dangerous he is.” Rossi managed to get his finger through the trigger of the blaster. He fired as Bhaksir chopped her hand down on his.

  Hot pain lanced Ean’s thigh. The bulk of the burn went onto the deck, left a sizzling hole in the floor.

  Gruen would kill them.

  Bhaksir chopped down again. Something cracked, and Ean shared the pain of Rossi’s broken wrist as it washed through the ship. It didn’t stop him. Not until Ru Li and Hana wrestled Rossi’s arms beh
ind his back and put them into a restraining band.

  “He’s got a broken wrist,” Ean said.

  “I don’t care what he’s got,” Bhaksir panted. “He’s insane. And I am more than happy to kill him right now.”

  Two minutes. Ean’s leg was agony, and he could feel waves of pain from Rossi as well.

  “I’m not the insane one,” Rossi said. “He has no right to play with our lives like that.”

  Nadia Kentish snatched Bhaksir’s blaster off the floor and pointed it at Bhaksir’s throat. “You have no right to treat a level-ten linesman like that.”

  The trainee linesmen surrounded Bhaksir and her crew. Many of them had their own blasters out now. The only ones who stood apart were the three Lancastrian linesmen. But they didn’t help their fellow Lancastrians either.

  “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.

  “If this is what the New Alliance line program is about, then no wonder we’re losing the war,” Kentish said.

  “You’re part of that program, Kentish,” Ean said. “If you stay in it, you’ll have a say in how it goes.” He sounded like Sale. “You can change it from the inside once you’re in, but if you get kicked out, you lose your chance.”

  “It’s self-destructing from the inside. It has been ever since they put a nobody in charge instead of a respected linesman like Jordan Rossi.”

  Fergus, who’d been nearby checking the last of the downed linesmen, stood up and came over to join them. “Yet without that ‘nobody,’ people like you and me wouldn’t be linesmen, Nadia.”

  The other Xanto linesmen moved in front of Kentish, as if she was under attack.

  “So they say. I haven’t seen any evidence of line ability yet.”

  “Maybe because you haven’t listened.”

  “I still wouldn’t pass line certification.”

  “That’s because line testing is flawed.” How many times did he have to say it before they would believe him? “You’re a single-level linesman. You’ll never pass certification because current testing starts at one and goes up. But you’re a linesman all the same.”

  “And you know this. How?”

  “If you listened to the lines, you’d know it yourself. But you won’t. Instead, you listen to people like Peters spouting poison and choose to believe them instead.” Ean forced himself to calm, for the lines were getting agitated, and that was sure to bring Gruen back with a demand they all get off her ship. “You won’t allow yourself to hear. Your mind is closed. Your ears are closed. And as long as they’re closed, you’ll never make it as a linesman in this fleet. Because the lines have no use for someone who doesn’t listen.”

  Rossi sniggered.

  “And you need to learn some things, too,” Ean told him.

  “What, listening?”

  “You need to learn to trust the lines. You’re as paranoid as these people. You can’t try to kill me every time we attempt something new because you’re scared.”