Kari Wang opened the door, then paused to hear the rest of the broadcast.

  “But, Professor Klerk,” Coral Zabi said, “the New Alliance refuses to use the fleet at present.”

  Admiral MacClennan stopped for her in the corridor.

  On-screen, Klerk made a dismissive motion. “It will take time to work out how to use alien technology. If Gate Union has any brains, they will attack before the New Alliance can work it out because once they know what they’re doing with those alien ships, the New Alliance can take on Gate Union ship to ship and beat them.”

  Kari Wang stepped back to let the admiral go first, but MacClennan looked past her to the screen, where Klerk said, “There are two ways to win a war. Pound your enemy so they have nothing left to fight you with and are forced to surrender. Or stop supplies, so their economy fails and their own people will force them to surrender.”

  “And that’s the truth,” MacClennan said softly.

  Zabi’s eyes opened wide. “So you predict that the New Alliance will defeat Gate Union?”

  “The New Alliance can never win,” Klerk said. “Gate Union controls the void. The line cartels affiliate with Gate Union. They’re squeezing the New Alliance now. Delaying jumps, refusing to fix their lines. If you can’t jump through the void, and you can’t fix your higher lines, you’re stuck in local space. Over time, Gate Union will take more and more of the commerce. Worlds affiliated with the New Alliance will have to defect to survive. That’s why Gate Union will eventually win.”

  Forcing an economic surrender was always preferable to killing off half a planet, but an initial quick show of force worked best. If you had the force, and with this ship surely the New Alliance had that but, as Professor Klerk had said, you couldn’t simply take over a strange ship and have it magically work for you. You had to learn how to use it and how to supply it before it became useful.

  “How badly are Gate Union squeezing us?” she asked, as she clicked off the vid and followed MacClennan.

  “Badly,” MacClennan said. “It’s a massive problem getting jumps right now. Short term that hits us hard because worlds have based their economies around access to jumps.”

  They paused to let an excited group of off-duty crew make their way past them to the viewing center. Every ship had a room with a Plexiglas window, which looked out into space. It was usually tucked away in an unimportant area because space was huge and things in it were small, relatively speaking. You couldn’t see much. The best place to view space was the bridge. It had a wall of screens and could zoom in on anything around it. Personally, Kari Wang would have made for the mess, which would have its own big screen. A good captain would patch the best feed through to that.

  “Only short term?”

  “One can hope,” MacClennan said, but didn’t expand.

  Captain Fierro cracked a smile as they arrived on the bridge. “No one is allowed to approach this section of space normally. We are delighted you are aboard.”

  MacClennan grunted and looked at Kari Wang. She got the strangest feeling he’d been about to say, “It’s not for me,” and stopped himself in time.

  “First ships coming up,” the Fierro’s navigator said.

  “Scouts,” MacClennan said, as two small ships came into view. “Six crew.”

  Both captains looked at him, then at each other. Kari Wang gave a miniscule shrug.

  “There are twenty of them,” MacClennan said. “And twenty of these,” as they moved past a larger ship. “Combat ships.”

  Kari Wang leaned forward. “It’s damaged,” she said. “It’s been in battle.”

  “A lot of them are battle-damaged,” MacClennan said.

  They slipped past more ships.

  As ship distances went, the alien ships were close. Kari Wang didn’t want to be the captain who’d ordered that particular formation.

  “Destroyer,” as they passed a large, heavily armed ship bristling extensions. “We think those things jutting out there are weapons.”

  Kari Wang studied them. They might have been weapons. If so, they were like nothing she’d come across before. Will would have loved to see this.

  “Patrol ship.” Not as heavily armed as the destroyer, but some of the weapons were enormous.

  They watched in silence as the ships seemed to slide past them.

  “Mothership coming up,” the navigator said, finally.

  The ship on-screen was half the size of Nova Tahiti’s smaller moon.

  “That’s the Confluence,” MacClennan said. “On board are five hundred one- and two-man ships. It’s like a city in there.” He inclined his head toward a small, human-built habitation nearby. “And that’s Confluence Station.”

  Kari Wang had been on Confluence Station. As stations went, it was large, but it was dwarfed by the ship beside it. Who in the lines had been crazy enough to put the station so close to a hundred ships? If it had been Kari Wang’s navigator, she’d have busted him down a stripe.

  MacClennan looked at the screen, and the star charts in front of him. He looked as if he was doing some calculations in his head. “Can you show us coordinates 234.1234.1343?”

  Fierro nodded at the crewman on the comms board.

  The ship that came up here was also alien. It looked like a series of linked hexagons. Kari Wang did some calculations of her own. Four times the size of her ship, which was big enough in itself, but nowhere near the size of the Confluence.

  “That’s the Eleven,” MacClennan said.

  SEVENTEEN

  SELMA KARI WANG

  AFTER NOVA TAHITI, the autumnal chill of Haladea III went right through to Kari Wang’s bones.

  The spaceport was undergoing massive renovations. Enormous bulldozers pulled up the surface and pushed the debris into waiting carts to be carried away. The racket was immense. Because of the building works, the shuttle had landed at an external field, as far away from the spaceport as it had been on Nova Tahiti.

  It was going to be a long walk.

  A cavalcade of cars, with Nova Tahiti’s emblem emblazoned on each one, dropped down beside the earthmoving machines, tiny beside them. A flock of what looked to be birds followed. The cars skimmed across the tarmac a meter above the ground, and pulled up outside the main barracks entry. The “birds”—which turned out to be media drones—swooped around the stationary cars.

  The door to the first car slid open. Admiral MacClennan indicated that Kari Wang enter.

  There was a protocol about these things. A captain did not enter a vehicle before her admiral, but a captain also didn’t argue with her admiral. Not in front of the press.

  “Captain,” from a drone that was branded Galactic News. Kari Wang recognized the voice from the recent recordings she’d watched. Coral Zabi, self-styled leading reporter on all things alien. “How do you feel about—”

  Kari Wang slipped into the car. MacClennan entered after her. The doors slid shut.

  “Who in the lines told them what was going on?” MacClennan sounded irritated.

  “The New Alliance is like a leaky sieve.” The woman in the front passenger seat wore a Nova Tahitian military uniform. So did the driver. “Someone was bound to say something.” She tuned the vehicle screen to what was happening outside.

  Kari Wang watched the screen. Spacer Grieve shepherded Fitch and Jon into the next car almost as fast as she and MacClennan had gotten into the first. Their own car started to move, the drones so close their cameras were like eyes, peering in the window.

  “Such a pity we can’t run them down,” the commodore said. “Or even pick them off. I could use some handgun practice.”

  Kari Wang couldn’t see her face, or the name on her shirt, but she didn’t have to. This would be Clemence Favager, who worked closely with Admiral MacClennan and had a reputation for straight talking—even when it was inappropriate.

  Favager turned back to look at Kari Wang. “Welcome to hell, Captain. I hope you have a tough hide because you’re going to need it.”

  * * *

  FAVAGER kept up a constant information dump as they moved level to the ground until they were past the spaceport, then rose past more cranes and earthmovers. They flew over at least four kilometers’ worth, Kari Wang estimated.

  “Most of the crew is in place by now although they’re the most mismatched crew you ever saw. It’s going to be a nightmare getting them to work together.” This last was to Kari Wang.

  Her new crew. For the ship she didn’t want. Kari Wang looked out the window. They were moving over an industrial area now, mostly storehouses, based on the boxlike buildings.

  “Balian has provided a full-blown seven.”

  “That’s their second seven,” MacClennan said. “Or did they give us that woman they’re training?”

  “Hernandez.” Favager shook her head. “This is another one. I don’t know where they’re getting them from. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a cartel house right in the middle of the Balian military. Two sevens at least, and we all know the rumors about Admiral Katida now.”

  They did? Kari Wang didn’t.

  Favager looked back at her. “That’s not common knowledge, by the way. Keep that to yourself.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” but she was going to find out what that particular rumor was. And why everyone was interested in lines and line ability all of a sudden.

  “Haladea III has given us a one. A spacer who’s just finished basic training—and she may even have been pushed through early. She was a borderline fail until this business. I can’t work out if they don’t want to offer us any better or if they genuinely haven’t got anything.”

  Below them the storehouses gave way to residential buildings.

  “Maybe they don’t have,” MacClennan said.

  “Aratoga’s brought in some crazy old coot from the rim. He’s two years off retiring, so old he looks like a good wind would blow him over.”

  Many fleets sent old soldiers they couldn’t use out to the rim to work until retirement. Even Nova Tahiti did. They were usually sent for a reason.

  “He used to be a subcommander. Whatever he did to get sent to the rim also got him booted all the way back to a spacer. Aratoga’s trying to reinstate his rank.”

  Of course they would. After all, on a multiworld ship, it would be advantageous to have your soldier ranked highly.

  “What level?”

  “He failed certification.”

  MacClennan straightened up so fast he almost knocked his head against the ceiling as the car abruptly started to descend.

  What was so significant about failing certification?

  “Exactly,” Favager said. She waited for the door to open. “Showtime. Let’s give these drones absolutely nothing to report on, shall we?”

  The Nova Tahitian embassy was built into the side of a cliff although it was rapidly being overshadowed by the new buildings going up all around it. Kari Wang could see the faint haze shimmering over the polished-rock exterior, along with the hum that signified a protective field. It might be an old building, but someone had gone to a lot of trouble to protect what was inside.

  The drones moved in. Whoever was controlling the Galactic News drone should have been a fighter pilot. It had maneuvered itself to the front again. “Captain. Do you believe you can pilot this ship?”

  Kari Wang blocked her out.

  The drones stopped at the door.

  * * *

  INSIDE there were people everywhere. “There’s a big function in your honor tonight,” Favager told Kari Wang. “Formal dinner. Everyone will want to grill you.”

  An elaborately dressed secretary stopped in front of them. “First Councilor and Councilor Gann are ready to see you.”

  Favager took Kari Wang’s kit. “I’ll see this gets to your room,” she said. She looked at Fitch and Jon. “I’ll show you your rooms,” and she and Grieve neatly divided Fitch and Jon away from the other two.

  Kari Wang followed MacClennan and the secretary. She was physically and emotionally exhausted even though she’d spent ten hours sitting in her cabin. Maybe now she’d finally get some answers.

  * * *

  FIRST Councilor didn’t look much different from that long-ago day when young spacer Kari Wang had stood beside her. She had more lines around the eyes, but she still stood slender and straight. Yet Kari Wang could sense a determination that hadn’t been there before, almost a desperation.

  “Captain,” First Councilor said.

  Kari Wang saluted.

  “I am sorry for your loss.”

  Kari Wang couldn’t speak. She nodded. It was the sort of thing Agda Ayemann would have said, all that time ago.

  Ahmed Gann hurried in. “Captain. So delighted to see you here.” He shook hands with her, then with MacClennan.

  They sat, like civilized people, and First Councilor offered drinks all round.

  “Thank you,” Kari Wang said, “I’m on medication. Could I have water or tea, please?”

  A secretary hurried to get both for her.

  “I understand you are reluctant,” First Councilor said. “I don’t want to embarrass you by saying how much we need this. It may not even succeed. We understand that.”

  Would somebody, for the lines’ sake, please tell her what was going on?

  “The power in the New Alliance is delicately poised at the moment. There are those from the old Alliance who mistrust those of us from Gate Union. There are others who are prepared to work with us.” First Councilor took a sip of her drink. “And, of course, there are those who came over with us from Gate Union who thought things would change.”

  “What do you think?” Kari Wang asked bluntly. It was all very well to hear things in abstract. She wanted to know what she was working with.

  “I think—” She could see First Councilor seriously consider her answer. It wasn’t to consider what she thought, for no doubt she knew that already. No, she was considering what to tell Kari Wang.

  “We can make Nova Tahiti a power in the New Alliance,” Ahmed Gann said. “If we are smart and use to our advantage whatever luck comes our way.”

  First Councilor smiled. “I think,” she said, “that most members of the old Alliance want change as much as we do. We are well positioned to take advantage of that. We have Ahmed Gann. But we are but twenty worlds out of seventy, and every world has two votes. I think we need to use some of that luck Ahmed talks about to help cement our position. You’re our luck even though you may not agree with it at the moment.”

  She raised a glass to Kari Wang. “Admiral MacClennan told me you wanted to resign,” she said. “Ahmed will tell you that there has been considerable discussion at this end on your mental suitability. Nevertheless, you are the only experienced captain currently without a ship in the whole of the New Alliance fleet. And there are 130 ships out there in need of captains.”

  MacClennan said, “But there are only two ships that matter right now.”

  They wanted to put her into one of the alien ships. With a mismatched crew who answered to their own world first, and to her second. “Which ship?”

  First Councilor looked at MacClennan, who looked at Gann.

  “It will be the Eleven. Almost certainly,” and everyone except Kari Wang nodded, as if they agreed with his analysis.

  * * *

  THE function was held at the Aratogan embassy.

  Fitch, uncomfortable in formal uniform, reminded Kari Wang of Will again. She forced back the wave of despair that threatened to engulf her.

  “We might be able to slip away early,” he said comfortingly. “We can use your legs as an excuse.”

  Kari Wang had news for him. It sounded as if they wouldn’t be able to slip away anytime soon, and sure enough, the first of the diplomats approached even as they talked.

  “President Rjinders of Haladea III on the left,” Grieve murmured in her ear. “Governor Jade from Aratoga on the right.”

  Grieve had to be part of MacClennan’s staff, whatever else he was. He was tremendously informed. Or maybe he had a minicomms secreted on his person, feeding the information to him even as they stood there.

  “President, Governor,” Kari Wang said.

  Rjinders nodded. “I trust you are enjoying yourself,” he said.

  Governor Jade wasn’t as polite. “So, do you think you can do it?”

  “Of course,” she said. It wasn’t so much whether she could do it, it was more did she want to do it.

  “You’ll have to manage a multiworld crew, all answering to different bosses.”

  As if the thought hadn’t already crossed her mind. “They’ll answer to me on my ship.”

  “You might find that more difficult than you expect,” Governor Jade said.

  “Maybe,” Kari Wang said. “But it’s my ship. My rules. No matter where they come from.”

  “Well spoken,” and Governor Jade turned away to speak to a man in an admiral’s uniform. “She might do.”

  “Admiral Galenos,” Grieve said quietly near Kari Wang’s ear.

  Kari Wang looked again. Sure enough, the man wore Lancian colors.

  “Governor Jade,” the admiral said. He smiled at Kari Wang. “Captain.” Nodded to Fitch. “Doctor.”

  Aratogan and Lancastrian moved away, Governor Jade still voicing her opinion that Kari Wang might do.

  An admiral in the mottled blue of Gallardia took Jade’s place. “Captain, you lost your ship. You lost your crew. Are you up to this?”

  “Admiral Ivov of Gallardia,” Grieve said, under Fitch’s protesting, “That’s hardly appropriate right now.”

  She could see it wasn’t going to be the last time anyone asked that question tonight. If she was going to crack up, she’d prefer it was in private. “Why don’t you be the judge of that, Admiral? If you don’t like it, why not take steps through the New Alliance parliament to have me ousted?”