“They’re trying to destroy us.”

  “We simply need to show them that we can destroy them if we want to. Scare them into dropping their sanctions.”

  Ean had always expected that if the New Alliance won the war, then Gate Union would be reduced to secondary citizens. “That means things won’t have changed at all.”

  “Oh, they’ll have changed,” Katida said grimly. “Not all for the better, I grant you, but definitely changed.” She dismissed the subject with a wave of her hand. “Enough about politics. How did you like the linesman I sent you?”

  “She’s strong,” Ean said.

  Katida’s line eight exuded satisfaction.

  “You should be training as well,” Ean said. Her eight was stronger than her lower lines. “And you should be exercising all your lines, not just eight.”

  “I would love to learn your method,” Katida said. “But let’s not forget it’s only the people on this ship who know I am a linesman.”

  “Why do you hide it? You should be in a cartel house. So should Hernandez.”

  “The problem with the cartels, Ean, is that they demand a loyalty some Balians can’t give.”

  “To Gate Union?” For the cartel houses were allied to Gate Union.

  “And to the line cartels.”

  “Someone trained you.” Hernandez and Katida were both trained in the lines. Someone must have known about them. “I mean, who certified Hernandez? Because we think they got it wrong.” Hernandez’s reaction to line eleven had been too strong for a seven.

  “Wrong?”

  He didn’t want to raise her hopes. “Ask me after we’ve done more tests.” If they were right, and Hernandez was a higher level than her bars signified, then whoever had certified her had done a terrible job. If Hernandez had been miscertified, how many other linesmen had? Ean himself would have failed certification if Rigel had taken him to the Grand Master to be certified. If then–Grand Master Morton Paretsky could deliberately fail one person, he could do it to others.

  “She trained at House of Sandhurst,” Katida said. “I’ll find who certified her.”

  “Thank you.”

  A ship arrived then, another set of lines among all those that came and went with regularity. Human line ships all had a similar sound. A base identifying beat, overlaid with the ship sounds.

  Except this one didn’t have an overlay.

  Ean lost the thread of what Katida was saying as he listened. “A new ship arrived,” he told Katida. “Brand-new. Fresh lines. They’re still—”

  She looked at him, then pulled out her comms. She called up the Balian warship. “Captain Seafra. Which ships have arrived in the last ten minutes?”

  Ean knew Captain Seafra almost as well as he knew the fleet ships now. Katida called her often.

  “No ships, Admiral,” Seafra said. “Not for the last twenty minutes. Everything was cleared for the arrival of Aratoga Station. That arrived two minutes and twenty-seven seconds ago.”

  “How new is it?”

  “New?” Seafra scratched the back of her head and looked away from the comms a moment. “Fairly new, I’d say. It’s just been commissioned.”

  “Thank you.” Katida clicked off. “Define ‘new,’” she said.

  He was lucky Orsaya wasn’t there, Ean reflected, as he finally escaped with the valid excuse, “I’ve got line training,” or they’d still be talking about it. He jogged down the corridor to where Radko was coming to see what was keeping him.

  “Do you think that because human ships are all cloned from the same set of lines, they have the base personality of the Havortian?”

  “I think,” Radko said, “that we’re late, and we have a timetable.” Radko, Bhaksir, and Sale were all particular about timetables. She jogged beside him and increased the pace. “It’s an interesting theory. Do you believe it?”

  What did he think? “I think—” That he still couldn’t run and talk at the same time.

  He sank into his seat in the shuttle and gained his breath. “I think the ships have all been cloned from the Havortian, and when they’re first built, they are all basically the same.” He thought about Helmo and Wendell. “They develop unique personalities from their captain, and from their crew.”

  FIVE

  SELMA KARI WANG

  KARI WANG WOKE in a military hospital.

  She stared at the walls, wondering if she was still in the last throes of death. She’d heard those final seconds elongated out forever. If she could choose her final seconds, she’d choose to be with her ship.

  “Drink this.” An orderly pushed a straw into her mouth. She sucked obediently. Water. She pushed it away.

  “My crew?”

  The orderly didn’t answer, which was answer enough in itself.

  “My ship?”

  The orderly moved away.

  She couldn’t feel her legs.

  She went over and over the last three minutes of ship time. What if she had moved the Kari Wang the other way? What if she’d moved five seconds earlier? What if she’d jumped as soon as the other ships had?

  The medical staff came and went. Drink this, move that. How does it feel?

  She still couldn’t feel her legs. She used her elbows to raise the top half of her body, already knowing what she’d see. The hump of a cage over her thighs that went down to almost where her knees might have been. Below that, the bed was flat.

  * * *

  A commodore in a shiny dress uniform came to sit by her bed one day and debrief her. He brought with him two aides, as smartly dressed as their boss, and a long-nosed soldier with a deep red face who wore the seal of a psychiatrist to the right of his name—Ofir. He looked as if he should be in the bed, not her.

  “Tell us what happened?” the commodore said.

  She wished he’d go away, but she was a soldier, so she reported to the best of her ability. Not that she was very clear, not with the drugs they were sending through her system.

  “Four ships. Cloaked.” She had to enunciate carefully. “GU Byers, GU Haralampiev, GU van Andringa, and the GU Akaki.” Bless Will, with his attention to detail. She blinked hard at the memory.

  “Are you sure?” one of the aides asked.

  She nodded. Once.

  “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Yes.” She made it as clear as she could.

  “Captain Kari Wang is a decorated officer,” Ofir said. “She ran a ship with two hundred crew.”

  That ship was gone now. As dead as her crew.

  He added gently, “I don’t think you should be questioning her observations.” He winked at Kari Wang.

  She couldn’t even smile.

  The aide nodded but said stiffly, “Those ships were accounted for. None of them was anywhere near that sector at the time of the accident.”

  Accident. The surge of anger was the first real emotion she’d felt. “It wasn’t an accident. It was the deliberate destruction of my ship. An act of war.”

  “Maybe you didn’t have time to identify the ships properly,” the commodore said.

  Will had identified them. He didn’t make mistakes like that. “No.” All Kari Wang wanted to do was get rid of them. “Four ships. Cloaked. They uncloaked.” The adrenaline rush from the anger subsided and left her head as muzzy as her mouth. “They jumped. They left a Masson field. As big as—” She couldn’t move her hands wide enough to encompass the enormity of it. Couldn’t control her hands either. One knocked into the other aide, who jumped back, startled.

  “A Masson field?” the first aide said. “Do you know how big they can make them?”

  A lot bigger than people realized.

  “Cut. My. Ship. To. Pieces.”

  The commodore and his aides looked at each other, as if wondering if she was lucid enough to report. The commodore stood up. “Thank you, Captain. You have been most helpful.”

  The psychiatrist stayed behind. “My name’s Jon Ofir,” he said. “Call me Jon. I’ll be around. If you need me, ask. Everyone here knows me.”

  She moved her head in acknowledgment, almost too tired to nod, and didn’t even notice him go. What could she have done differently in those last three minutes?

  * * *

  ONE day, she woke to realize she could feel her legs again. Which was impossible because she didn’t have legs anymore. But feel them she could, and the doctors who crowded around that day all looked pleased with themselves.

  “Move your right leg,” a bearded doctor ordered her.

  She ignored him. Beards were an affectation she’d had little to do with. It was inconvenient to shave in space because the tiny pieces of hair got into the water supply, then could get into the wrong places and had to be broken down. Most spacers depilated rather than kept beards or shaved. Then they never had to worry about things like stray hair causing the water purifier to clog up.

  “Captain Kari Wang.” This was the earnest young doctor, Fitch, who’d been there since the beginning. He reminded her of Will when Will had first come on board as her third-in-command. Serious and focused. Yet underneath Will’s serious exterior had lurked a wicked sense of humor and an instinct you could trust.

  Will was dead now. She should have died, too.

  “Can you move your right leg, please?”

  He sounded like Will, too. He even looked young the way Will had. Far too young to have earned the array of purple ribbons that sat under his name.

  She moved her body like she would have if she’d still had legs. Her leg felt heavy, which was impossible, of course, and hard to lift.

  There was a pleased murmur from the watchers above her bed.

  What had they done to her?

  “Now the left leg,” the bearded doctor said.

  “Captain Kari Wang. Can you move your left leg please?” Fitch asked.

  She moved her left leg, too, because they’d hang over her forever, demanding she do things if she didn’t.

  The watching doctors broke into spontaneous applause. Fitch’s grin stretched almost ear to ear. “Congratulations, Captain. You have a new pair of legs.”

  She stared at the bright white ceiling and ignored them.

  The light dimmed with the night. Brightened again with the new day. Over and over.

  They should have let her die along with the rest of her crew.

  SIX

  EAN LAMBERT

  LINE TRAINING WAS coming along well. Or parts of it, anyway.

  Ami Hernandez was as strong as any linesman Ean had known. She was prickly with it, and as soon as she heard Ean in her mind, she rammed up a wall. Ean could have forced his way past, but it wouldn’t have been polite.

  “I just want to test you,” he said, exasperated.

  “I’ve been tested.” A strong blast of defiance came with it.

  Ean looked at her with interest. There was a story there, that was obvious.

  Rossi snickered. “Finding training a little difficult?” he said to Ean.

  “You can’t talk,” Hernandez said. “With your secret singing and your experiments.”

  Rossi narrowed his eyes.

  “We’re all linesmen here,” Ean said hastily. “We work together.” They were going to spend a lot of time in each other’s company, and it was hard to keep things private with lines. Not only that, if Hernandez was as strong as he thought she was, she’d be sharing some of the line-repair load soon. He turned to Fergus.

  “Maybe we should ask Hernandez to work with you on line seven.”

  “Sure,” said Fergus, although Ean detected some disappointment through the lines, almost jealousy.

  What was wrong with everyone today?

  He looked back at Hernandez. If she wouldn’t show him her level, maybe she would show the lines. “Hernandez. I want you to lead the next round.” They’d already greeted the lines, so they needed something else to sing about. “Ask each line on the Gruen how it is. One at a time.”

  “How it is?”

  “That’s what he said, sweetheart. Or don’t you understand Standard?”

  Ean was going to have to do something about Rossi’s sniping.

  “I understand Standard, all right. What I don’t understand are the strange requests I’m getting from high-level linesmen that are making me question their sanity.”

  Maybe Hernandez could take care of herself.

  He listened as Hernandez asked line one how it was. There was a hint of martyrdom in her greeting, as if she was tired of the exercises.

  Line one heard her and grew sad.

  “No, no,” Hernandez hurried to assure it. “I’m not annoyed at you. I’m annoyed at him.”

  Annoyance didn’t seem to be a concept the lines understood.

  “You know she trained at House of Sandhurst,” Rossi said. “Iwo Hurst kicked her out before she was certified. It was the day of the certification ceremony, so she went along anyway. Forced herself in—because no one knew she wasn’t part of the house anymore, and Hurst was busy with the private certification for Tomas Teng.”

  One mystery solved.

  “Of course.” Rossi’s lines were maliciously gleeful. “He didn’t realize she was a ten. Even a cartel master will put up with a lot from a ten.”

  The lines of the ship picked up Rossi’s glee and echoed it.

  Hernandez stopped. “Do you mind?”

  “Sorry, keep going,” Ean said. He considered Rossi’s words, spoken and unspoken, as he listened to Hernandez lead the other trainees. Rossi thought Hernandez was a ten, no question.

  So did he.

  The song of line eight soared in response to her query. “Secure, safe.”

  The other trainees didn’t respond, but Hernandez nodded, and nodded again to nine’s “Waiting” and ten’s “Ready.”

  Hernandez stopped. “The lines are fine.”

  She was correct. The Gruen was always lonely and melancholy when they first came onto the ship, and no wonder, given its skeleton crew. But they’d been working two hours already. It had brightened up with people around it. And because they used it as a training ship, the lines were strong and straight, with line one the only weak line.

  It was time Ean let Admiral Katida know she had a ten in her fleet.

  * * *

  THEY left the lines on the Gruen singing with that peculiar kind of line pleasure that came from having people around them, but Ean knew it wouldn’t last. And the Gruen wasn’t even the loneliest ship.

  “People for us, too,” was a tiny whisper in the back of his mind, and he wasn’t sure if it came from the Eleven, or the Confluence, or both. Along with the whisper came views of empty corridors, and the loneliness was an ache that made him clench his teeth together.

  “What’s wrong?” Radko asked.

  Ean shook his head.

  “I’m doing what I can.” Maybe he could hurry it up. He’d talk to Abram and somehow make it happen.

  It was almost as if Abram had heard his determination, for he was on ship with Michelle when Ean arrived back from training. Ean stopped at the door of the workroom, unsure if he should disturb them. They didn’t get much time to talk anymore. He went down and used the fresher instead.

  He’d give them a bit of time alone before he inundated Abram with demands.

  Michelle was waiting in his sitting area when he came out. She looked more relaxed than she had in a long time. “I found the perfect fresher for you, you know. This big.” She stretched her arms wide. “Helmo said it wouldn’t fit.”

  He hurriedly pulled on clean trousers and shirt. “I don’t need a new fresher.” He knew his cheeks were pink.

  “I’ll have it installed in your apartment when you get one.”

  Ean had never had an apartment in his life. A one-room walk-up with his father. A room at Rigel’s cartel house, and some squats in between. And now a cabin. He was never likely to have an apartment to put a new fresher in.

  Michelle smiled her dimple smile and stood up. “Abram wants to talk to you.”

  Abram hadn’t changed. There was more braid on his collar; he was a little more tired if that was possible. He held out a glass of tea.

  “Thank you.” Ean took it and went to sit on the couch he considered his.

  “I see line training is going well,” Abram said, taking his own tea over to his couch.

  With Michelle settled on her couch, it might almost have been like old times. Ean knew it wouldn’t last but relaxed anyway.

  “It is,” he said. “And I’m glad you’re here because I want to talk about crew for the Eleven and the Confluence. They need crews. They need linesmen around all the time.” He’d even take nonlinesmen.

  Abram grimaced. “A lot of people want to talk about crew for the alien ships. Especially the Eleven. Everyone thinks they should crew it.”

  “Someone has to,” Ean said. “These ships are atrophying from lack of crew.”

  “Atrophying?”

  “The lines. Line one particularly. Line one on the Eleven hasn’t been this bad since we discovered it.”

  “Which wasn’t that long ago,” Michelle said.

  Ean turned to include her in his plea. “The lines don’t understand why we’re not doing something. We’ve had plenty of time.”

  “I wouldn’t call it plenty,” Abram said.

  “But—”

  He held up a hand to stop anything else Ean might say. “It so happens, everyone wants these ships crewed. They’re no use as a military fleet if they’re not.”

  “Thank you.” It couldn’t be that easy.

  “The consensus is that we’ll give the Eleven a multiworld crew, under the auspices of a combined New Alliance military unit. Each fleet is searching for crew now.”

  “Linesmen?”

  “Linesmen,” Abram confirmed. “Two from each world. One a known, certified linesman from within the world fleets, the other a failed linesman from the same.”