Confluence Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE LINESMAN NOVELS

  “Rich with that sense of wonder that makes SF delightful.”

  —Patricia Briggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Fire Touched

  “Riveting and fast-paced . . . A great read.”

  —Jack Campbell, New York Times bestselling author of the Lost Fleet novels

  “Full of fast action, interplanetary intrigue, appealing characters, and a fascinating new take on the idea of the sentient spaceship.”

  —Sharon Shinn, national bestselling author of Unquiet Land

  “Thought-provoking.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “If you enjoy space operas, you should give this one a read.”

  —Bibliophilia, Please

  “Linesman caught me from the very first page . . . Fast-paced and full of both tension and action.”

  —Mixed Book Bag

  “Where the story shines—in the characters, especially Ean, and in its dynamic of emotionally sentient technology—it shines brilliantly.”

  —LitStack

  “Careful construction, excellent dialogue, and tremendously entertaining action . . . [an] enjoyable read.”

  —Reading 1000 Lives

  “A fabulous debut novel in a series which promises to be a sci-fi classic.”

  —The Intrepid Mathematician

  Ace Books by S. K. Dunstall

  LINESMAN

  ALLIANCE

  CONFLUENCE

  ACE

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2016 by S. K. Dunstall

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  ACE is a registered trademark and the A colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN: 9780698187689

  First Edition: December 2016

  Cover art by Bruce Jensen

  Cover design by Diana Kolsky

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Producing a book is not simply writing it. We would like to give a huge thank-you to and acknowledge, once again, the people who have been important to our getting this book out there.

  Our agent, Caitlin Blasdell, and our editor, Anne Sowards. Without both of you, we wouldn’t have this book.

  Bruce Jensen, for another amazing cover.

  All those people at Ace involved in making this book.

  And, of course, copy editor Sara Schwager, who put our commas in the right places again.

  Our beta readers, Alison, Arthur, and Jenny. Thank you for reading the book and for your feedback. It was invaluable.

  Dawn, your encouragement and support were timely and appreciated.

  Our family, who are there for us always.

  Helen, you have taken care of our garden so wonderfully and have been such an ambassador for our little books. Thank you.

  And, of course, you, our readers, who took the time to read our books, to send us encouraging messages, and to tell us you cared what happened to these characters we had created.

  CONTENTS

  Praise for the Linesman Novels

  Ace Books by S. K. Dunstall

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  New Alliance Department of Alien Affairs—List of Lines and Their Purposes

  CHAPTER ONE: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER TWO: DOMINIQUE RADKO

  CHAPTER THREE: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER FOUR: DOMINIQUE RADKO

  CHAPTER FIVE: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER SIX: DOMINIQUE RADKO

  CHAPTER SEVEN: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER EIGHT: DOMINIQUE RADKO

  CHAPTER NINE: DOMINIQUE RADKO

  CHAPTER TEN: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: DOMINIQUE RADKO

  CHAPTER TWELVE: DOMINIQUE RADKO

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: DOMINIQUE RADKO

  CHAPTER NINETEEN: DOMINIQUE RADKO

  CHAPTER TWENTY: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: DOMINIQUE RADKO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: DOMINIQUE RADKO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: DOMINIQUE RADKO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: DOMINIQUE RADKO

  CHAPTER THIRTY: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: EAN LAMBERT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: EAN LAMBERT

  NEW ALLIANCE DEPARTMENT OF ALIEN AFFAIRS—LIST OF LINES AND THEIR PURPOSES

  LINE

  REPRESENTS

  1

  Health of crew and lines

  2

  Small mechanics 1—air circulation, heating, cooling, power. Overall comfort and running of a ship.

  3

  Small mechanics 2—tools. Interact individually with other lines for repair, maintenance, management.

  4

  Gravity

  5

  Communications

  6

  Bose engines (engines with the capacity to take a ship through the void)

  7

  Allows ships linked by line eleven to move autonomously

  8

  Security

  9

  Takes ship into the void

  10

  Moves ship to a different location in space while in the void

  11

  Links ships together. Allows them to move/behave as a single unit.

  12

  Actual abilities unclear, but known to communicate across all lines and appears to have some control over other lines

  ONE

  EAN LAMBERT

  EAN LAMBERT’S QUARTERS on Confluence Station were in the same area as Jordan Rossi’s, with a brand-new titanium-bialer-alloy door between them and the rest of the station. The first apartment inside the blocked-off section had been gutted, and the newly opened space filled with state-of-the-art surveillance equipment, some of it of human origin, some salvaged from the damaged alien ships in the Confluence fleet.

 
It had been secure when Rossi was the only linesman here. Now it was triply secure.

  Ean gave it a cursory glance and turned to the more immediate problem.

  His bodyguard, Radko, had inspected Ean’s apartment with a thoroughness that bordered on paranoia. That was before she’d dropped the news that she wasn’t staying.

  “You’re staying with the Lancastrian Princess.”

  Radko scowled at one of the screens. “It won’t be for long.”

  Ean didn’t know line one on Confluence Station as intimately as he did the line on the Lancastrian Princess, but he knew Radko, and he could hear a strong undertone of worry.

  “But why?”

  “Family business,” Radko said.

  Ean knew nothing about her family except that she was a distant relation of Crown Princess Michelle. “Will you be all right?”

  “I’ll be fine, Ean. So will you.”

  She shouldn’t try to lie when the lines knew her so well. She was worried about something. And if Radko was worried, so was he.

  The song of Confluence Station changed. Jordan Rossi, Yaolin’s level-ten linesman, had arrived. This was Rossi’s home, and the lines welcomed him.

  “Be careful, Ean. Don’t do anything—”

  “Stupid?”

  “Don’t do anything that would upset Vega. At least, not until I get back.”

  How long would she be away? “I’ll be a model linesman.”

  Ru Li, who—like the rest of Bhaksir’s security team—was pretending to work at the screens while Ean and Radko talked, snorted. “That will be the day.”

  Bhaksir frowned at him before turning to Radko. “The shuttle is ready to depart. And Captain Helmo only has a small jump window. We’ll take care of him for you.”

  Radko nodded and glanced at her comms. “Remember, Ean. Be sensible.”

  She took off at a run.

  Ean looked around. Everyone in Bhaksir’s team pretended to be busy again. There was an underlying hum of worry from line one. It echoed the worry from line one on the Lancastrian Princess, for Crown Princess Michelle was going home on family business, too. Her father, Emperor Yu, had demanded her presence.

  “Will Radko be all right?”

  Bhaksir shrugged. Ean was glad she hadn’t tried to lie. He was glad, too, that Rossi halted in the doorway then. It stopped him from asking what the problem was with Radko’s family. If she’d wanted him to know, she would have told him.

  “This is cozy,” Rossi said. “I go away for two days, and look what moves in.”

  Ean ignored him. Through the lines, he saw Radko run onto the shuttle. The bay doors closed, and air was being pumped out before she’d even clipped herself in.

  * * *

  CAPTAIN Helmo called as soon as Radko was back on her home ship. “We’re ready to jump, Ean.”

  On board the Lancastrian Princess, Michelle patted Radko’s shoulder. Radko tried to smile; couldn’t. Something was seriously wrong, and Ean had no idea what it was.

  “Ready.” Ean pushed the worry to the back of his mind. Being distracted when you worked with the lines was a disaster waiting to happen. “Fergus?” Fergus was on the Lancastrian Princess.

  “Ready.” Fergus’s line hummed with anticipation.

  At least someone was happy.

  The Lancastrian Princess was part of a fleet of six ships, joined together by the alien ship, Eleven. Until recently, they’d only been able to jump the fleet as a single entity. Then they had discovered that line seven could be used to allow a single ship to move on its own. They’d tried it before—of course they had—as often as they could get jumps. But every other time, Ean had been on the ship that had jumped.

  Please let it work.

  “Of course it will work,” the lines told him.

  Fergus started to sing.

  Ean could see it as clearly as if he were on the Lancastrian Princess. The ship lines connected. Line seven to every other seven in their mismatched fleet of six ships and one station. He heard them as song, saw them as lines of light, different colors for each ship. Every line had a knot at each end, tying the ships tightly to each other. Ean smelled fresh bread, tasted it, as the colors ran together and turned white.

  “Ready, Captain,” Fergus sang.

  “Prepare to jump.” Helmo’s voice was calm although Ean could hear the nervousness underneath. Helmo always said it wasn’t the jump that captains worried about; it was coming out the other end.

  Line nine moved the Lancastrian Princess into the void, with Fergus’s line seven linking the fleet ships.

  Line ten came in, and the Lancastrian Princess jumped.

  Then they were out of the void. Helmo’s relief swamped the lines momentarily.

  Ean checked the lines on each ship in the fleet. All were good. All were strong and straight. The song of the Galactic News ship had changed. They had a new engineer on that ship. He was surprisingly strong. Ean hadn’t realized he was a linesman.

  The navigator on duty on the Lancastrian Princess said, “Confirming position 33.76785.23.45.” The first digits were the sector—33 was Lancia.

  It was the first time Ean had been in a different sector from the Lancastrian Princess since he’d started working for Lancia.

  Helmo opened the comms to Abram Galenos, and to everyone on ship as well. “This is Captain Helmo, from the Lancastrian Princess, calling Admiral Galenos on Haladea III.”

  “Receiving your call loud and clear, and in real time,” Abram said.

  A spontaneous cheer went up from the listeners. For this was history. The first time two humans had ever communicated officially in real time between sectors.

  “Ean?” Helmo asked.

  Ean could hear and see the Lancastrian Princess as clearly as if the ship were nearby rather than half a galaxy away. Michelle and Radko were entering shuttle bay eight. Vega and two teams entered with them. He normally knew everything that happened on ship, so why hadn’t he known about Radko?

  “Ean?”

  He dragged his attention back to his job. “Everything looks normal. Are you sure you have moved?”

  He didn’t need to ask, for the leaving of the Lancastrian Princess was already causing a flurry on both media ships. The producer on the Blue Sky Media ship was saying, “Find out where they went,” while Coral Zabi, the reporter from Galactic News, said, “We’re supposed to be part of the entourage. They could have told us where they were going.”

  Captain Helmo laughed. “Look at the view from outside this ship, Ean.” He pushed the view through the comms to Abram, but not to Ean. He knew Ean would see it, anyway.

  A purple-tinged planet. Lancia.

  The shuttle exited from the ship, and Ean couldn’t see Radko or Michelle anymore.

  * * *

  BACK in the common outer area, Bhaksir’s team were swapping gossip with Rossi’s bodyguards. Bhaksir glanced at Ean and looked as if she was going to say something, then thought better of it.

  Ean forced himself to break the awkward silence that had fallen. “We’ve still got full comms with the Lancastrian Princess. It’s in real time.”

  Even if they got nothing more from the eleven-line ships, this one ability, that of being able to communicate instantaneously between galactic sectors, would revolutionize trade. Communication within sectors was instantaneous. But to relay a message to another sector, a ship had to jump into that sector first. Until now. The companies that made a fortune providing message ships would lose out, but everyone else would win.

  “And full comms with Lancia,” Ru Li said. “Look, all the latest shows.”

  “You already have the latest shows.” Ean didn’t watch them; he hadn’t watched anything from Lancia in ten years, but the crew loved them. Helmo bought them in batches. They were no more than a week old.

  “But these are happening
on air, right now,” Ru Li said. “Look, Cry for the Stars.” He changed the channel on the largest screen to where a woman in a scarlet dress was kissing a green-tentacled alien—which looked nothing like the real aliens. “Happening right now.”

  “Turn it off,” Hana said. “We haven’t seen last week’s episode yet.”

  Ean sang a different channel up for them. This one was a news channel, with a striking black-haired newswoman with a high-class Lancian accent, saying, “Her Royal Highness, Crown Princess Michelle, has arrived at Lancia and is believed to be making for Baoshan Palace to—”

  Bhaksir turned it off.

  No one looked at Ean. What didn’t they want him to know? Never mind. He could look it up later, in his room. For now, he had work to do.

  He forced himself to stop thinking about what was wrong with Radko—and maybe Michelle, too—and spent the rest of the afternoon communicating through the lines with Sale’s team on the Confluence, with Abram on Haladea III, and Captains Helmo, Kari Wang, Wendell, and Gruen on their respective ships, testing what they could and couldn’t do between sectors.

  He was so busy trying not to think about Radko that initially he didn’t notice the activity on the Galactic News ship.

  “Wait,” he said, midsentence, and pushed through images from the media ship, where people were gathered around the new engineer, who was gesturing at a screen. “Something’s happening.”

  They were watching a newscast, where the black-haired Lancastrian reporter was saying, “His Imperial Majesty is hosting a party tonight to welcome home his daughter, Her Royal Highness, Crown Princess Michelle. There are rumors that an announcement will be made tonight.”

  “I tell you, this is real-time,” the engineer said. The linesman. “The Lancastrian Princess only arrived there today.” He waved his comms at the man Ean recognized as the producer. “Call someone you know in the newsroom at Lancia.”

  “What? I haven’t got time, Christian.”