"Measure twice, load once," Tink muttered as she wiped sweat from her forehead with a grimy hand, then gave the hoist another whack with the sledgehammer. Finally, a clunk and a sad whirr rewarded her efforts, and the winch started reeling in the cable snaked across the cargo bay floor. The space was empty, and would stay that way, given that the tentacles now strapped the cargo snug against the belly of the Lyra.
Everything would have gone a lot smoother if they'd been able to stow the crates in the cargo bay. "But no, off-gassing is dangerous." Tink wrinkled her nose. And they wouldn't even get paid more, since it was an all-in job. The ship gave a slight shiver, as if disgruntled at the containers of zinc strapped to its underside. But that small tremble was enough to stop the winch.
"Argh!" Tink tried to pick up the small sledgehammer, but her arms were too tired after shifting crates of ore into the cargo hold. Then out of the hold again when Cass complained that the beaten-up crates were spewing something toxic, confirming Tink's suspicion that they held more than zinc. Which wouldn't have been such a problem if the load hadn't been twice the size advertised. So, onto flats it went, to be strapped underneath the ship.
Which is why she was surrounded by unused cable. But the heavy lifting was done, and the ship was on its way to the nearest slip point. All that remained was to tidy up the snaking mess. She inched the sledgehammer closer, but then gave up as a muscle in her back twinged.
"Can I help?" Severn stood at the bottom of the stairs, hands in his pockets, looking exceptionally clean for someone who'd just been hauling the same ore she had. When he came to stand beside her, the scent of resinous soap wafted in the air.
"You've had a shower." Tink sighed again, then breathed in deeply, leaning a few mils closer.
Severn shrugged. "I think most of us have. If I had realized...." He cast his gaze around the chaos. Instead of continuing, he picked up the sledge. "I should hit here?" He indicated the spot where the paint had chipped away.
"That obvious?" Tink flashed him a smile.
He returned her smile with a grin, then sent the hammer toward the crank. When metal hit metal, the Lyra shuddered. Severn stopped and stepped back, his mouth dropping open. "I...."
"That wasn't you." Tink spun around, as if the source was in the cargo bay, even though it clearly wasn't. "Something just hit the ship." As she finished speaking, the alarm sounded. With klaxons blaring and red lights strobing around her, she sprinted for the stairs without looking to see if he followed.
Just as she arrived at the bridge, out of breath, hands on her knees, another impact threw her against the doorjamb. "What the hell is going on? Have we been caught in a gravity well?"
Rebeka jerked her head sideways, the move half negative, half indicating the viewscreen. Tink turned her attention to the screen, and her mouth gaped open.
"What the...." Tink stopped when she saw the colours on the side of their attacker's ship. Her hands clenched into fists. "Pirates. How dare they! And why are they attacking us?"
"Because we're hauling 35 tonnes of something that's not just zinc ore," the captain said. Although her tone was even, Tink saw the tic in her jaw.
"I can't slip yet." Ish's voice was tight when he spoke. "Closest point is 754 kiloklicks away."
"10 minutes at present speed." Alek punched a finger at a flashing light on the console in front of him.
"So go faster!" Tink grabbed the railing behind the cockpit, her knuckles white with tension.
"I'm going as fast as I can." Nonetheless, he shifted the stick. The ship whined. "Unless you can get that engine to give me more juice."
"Shields are failing," Kandi said. "I can get us EMP but that leaves us vulnerable too until we can reset. Or I can prime the depth charges."
"But the kick from those might push us even further from the slip point." Ish's fingers flew over the holoscreen. "Recalculating. Looking for another slip. Come on, Cass, help me out here."
Cass' calm voice filled the space. "The next slip point is 670 kiloklicks away. 9 minutes at present speed."
"That's not the help I needed, Cass."
"I'm sorry, Ishmael." Cass' voice stuttered as another blast hit the ship, and Tink nearly toppled over the railing.
"Shields at 15%." Kandi didn't turn from her station as her fingers flew over her display. "Targeting solution in 5...4...."
"I can lose them and hide us in the asteroids." Alek's voice was disturbingly calm.
"Those asteroids will tear us apart without shields." Tink glared at him.
"Kandi said our shields are at 15."
Rebeka barely glanced at her before turning back to him. "Do it."
"Captain!" Tink turned to Rebeka as acid burned in her stomach.
"Yes, I am the captain." Her lips pressed together, then she breathed in and out slowly through her nostrils. "The blasts from that ship will kill us. The asteroids might. I'll take those odds right now."
"Strap in," Alek said.
"Sit down and buckle up, Tink," the captain said.
Tink debated being willful but changed her mind at the look on Rebeka's face. She sat and strapped herself into the normally unused Second's seat beside the captain. She was glad she did. She barely had the buckle closed when Alek pulled them into a spin that caused the ship to groan and her stomach to flip. Even without the bulk cinched to its hull, the manoeuvre would have made the ship unhappy. It also exposed their back end to the pirates for a few long seconds before he headed straight towards a large asteroid.
It had been thirty minutes since anything shot at them, and Tink's stomach had finally descended from her throat. That meant she could focus on how on edge her nerves were.
Despite being a spacer most of her life, it was still eerie to float through space, through a field of ship-sized asteroids, passing them like ghosts. The lights were dim to conserve power, the main engine was off, and the ship silent except for the occasional hum of a low-impulse correction. She knew every burp and sneeze of this ship when it was running at full capacity. It was the symphony of her life, and it was gone.
Alek made another minor correction, and the ship purred as it shifted slightly to avoid an incoming chunk of interplanetary debris. She hated to admit it, but he seemed to know a thing or two, using the gentlest nudges needed to keep them from crashing into rock.
"Any sign?" Rebeka whispered. They all whispered, the few times they spoke, even though it wasn't necessary.
Kandi shook her head. "Nothing." Yellow lights flashed on the display in front of her, interspersed by the occasional red of an asteroid getting a little too close for comfort.
"Shields?"
"25 percent."
"That's all?" The captain's voice got louder before dropping again. "Let me know when we're at 50."
"You can't be thinking of going out there again?" Severn paused his pacing back and forth behind Tink and the captain.
They were all there now, crammed onto the bridge. Tink had remained in her occasional seat on the bridge since there was no help she could give in the engine room and, for once, she didn't want to be alone. Even the cat was there, perched on the ledge that ran around the room, eying them as if his predicament were their fault.
"We should wait here until we starve?" Rebeka peered at Severn, who opened his mouth to say something as he stepped past Tink and took a seat at the Ops station beside Kandi, but Rebeka forestalled him. "Or until the cavalry shows up?" His mouth snapped shut at that. "No, at 50 percent maybe we can stick our noses out."
Another red blip appeared on Kandi's display, but this time an audible proximity alert accompanied it.
"Ship ho." Even Cass' voice coming from the ship comms seemed to be a whisper.
"Jacks!" Kandi and Alek said simultaneously.
"I don't suppose you can fly us out of this, hot shot?" the captain asked.
"Not likely." Severn squinted at the display in front of him. "We've been tagged." He pulled a copy of what he was looking at onto a corner of the viewscreen so everyone could see, while shifting and magnifying a section.
"When did they have a chance to spike us?" Ish asked.
"Maybe when flyboy showed them our butt." Severn pulled the display off the viewscreen and started tapping something out at his console.
Tink glanced at Alek — he didn't say anything, but his face darkened as he glared at Severn.
Severn flipped through lines of code on his display. "I think I can get rid of it, but..." His lips scrunched.
"But what?" Tink said. Getting up, she went to stand beside him, hovering in the doorway of the bridge. "If you can get rid of it, get rid of it."
"I need to tweak Cass' logic gates...during an engagement."
Cass' brain. Despite her flippant dismissal of his reservations about Cass, she knew the CASS-ANDRA's reputation. And, even for her, the idea of messing with the guts of the AI caused a flutter in her stomach. A shudder coursed through the ship as a blast hit it. Tink clutched the door frame to keep upright.
"Do it." Rebeka sounded calm, but Tink caught the twitch of her fingers as she clenched her armrests, before she forced them to relax.
Severn ran out, pushing past Tink as he headed towards the computer cupboard to do the captain's bidding. Tink thought about joining him, but realized she'd be even more useless there than she was on the bridge.
"Asteroid passing through." Two red lights flashed on Kandi's screen and the proximity sirens blared.
"It's fine," Alek said, even though the chunk of rock loomed large in the viewscreen.
"Get ready to fly us out of here as soon as he deals with that tag...and Cass, can you shut off the bloody sirens?" Cass didn't answer, but the sirens stopped. As they did, another blast shot past their starboard side.
Tink sidled up to the captain, keeping her eye on Alek, who focused intently on the pilot's console. "Do you think maybe we should let Ish—" She hoped her whisper was quiet enough that only the captain heard.
"No." Rebeka glanced at her. "I don't. Whether or not he opened us up to be tagged, I imagine he wants out of this alive as much as you do."
"Slip point detected dead ahead," Ish said, his voice bright.
"Will it take us where we want to go?" Tink asked.
"Away from here, yeah." Ish tugged at strands of light in his holoscreen, causing them to ripple and glow in a mesmerizing dance.
"Priming slip drive." Alek punched a button and swiped his palm across his console. The ship whined, but soon it became the purr of a ship ready to run.
The captain sat back in her chair, punching a button beside her. "How's —"
"Tag disabled." Severn's voice, high pitched through the comms, replied before she even finished speaking.
Rebeka drummed the armrest as she spoke. "Take us out of here, flyboy."
Alek shifted in his chair, the only sign that he was doing as asked, but the ship responded. So did the red lights on Kandi's display.
"You might want to sit down." Alek didn't turn as he spoke. Again, Tink debated staying on her feet out of spite, but decided it wasn't worth the cracked ribs or worse. She sat down in her seat and strapped in just as they emerged from behind the asteroid. The proximity alerts started again, faster this time. And Tink saw why. They were about to shave the belly of the pirate ship. Better than the sides, which bristled with pulse cannons, but still too close. Alek pushed them forward at full speed. Tink closed her eyes and tucked her hands under her knees to keep from clutching the seat.
She braced for impact...5...4...3...2.... Nothing. She opened her eyes, but only saw empty space ahead. But Kandi's face was still grim, imbued with green from the light of her display. Tink saw the red blob of the other ship close behind.
The Lyra's backend slid sideways as Alek flew around an asteroid at full speed.
"Slip point in 2 minutes." Ish's fingers plucked at his holoscreen. "We might pull some of these rocks in with us."
"Is that bad?" Alek asked, not taking his eyes off his display.
"Yes." Ish continued tweaking the slip point calculations, or whatever it was he did with those ripples and wavy lines.
"The stream speeds them along, same as us," Tink said, letting Ish focus. "But with the wrinkles and eddies, we don't know where. We don't know how fast." The ship screamed and listed as another jolt hit them, and Tink pressed a palm to her thigh.
"What was that?" the captain asked.
With a sick feeling in her stomach, Tink realized what had caused such a howl. "The cargo." She pulled over her display and flicked through to find the tentacle controls. "They hit the cargo." She stabbed at the disconnect button with her index finger. A grinding sound was followed by a thunk. "Zeus' bollocks!"
"What?" Rebeka glanced at her as Tink struggled to unbuckle her strap.
"The cargo has shifted, causing us to be unbalanced," Cass' calm voice added.
"The disconnect isn't responding." Finally getting herself unstrapped, Tink took off at a run towards the cargo bay. She heard Ish yelling at her as she fled along the corridor towards the stairs: slip point in 60. Tink wasn't a navigator, but she was pretty sure entering the slipstream with unhinged cargo was dangerous for ship and crew.
Her heart pounded in her ears as she sped passed Severn on his way back from the computer cupboard, spanner already in her hand. She barely spared him a glance as she continued headlong, almost throwing herself down the stairs. It was only when she got to the cargo bay that she realized he'd followed her.
"Hit the emergency disconnects," she shouted, running to the first one. It was a big red button he was unlikely to miss. She swerved right to slam her palm into the first one. She dared a small smile at the clunk of the tentacle disengaging from the cargo. Another thunk followed seconds later. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw he'd done the same on his side and was heading to the second one. She sprinted to the last one on the right and punched it with her fist.
Nothing.
"15 seconds to slip." The ship groaned, and a metallic clang reverberated through the cargo bay.
"What are you doing down there, Tink?" Alek's voice said, followed by a curse as the ship swerved, even more unbalanced now that one tentacle connected the cargo to the hull.
She hit the button again with the same result. She lifted her leg, intent on kicking the thing when Severn appeared beside her, hammer in hand. He swung it at the disconnect. Nothing happened for a second, during which she heard every beat of her heart. Then there was a clunk as the last tentacle let go, and the ship shimmied before finding its line again.
"Slipping."
Tink collapsed against a pylon, welcoming the nausea she always felt in the stream. Severn slid down beside her, hands on his knees. Then he made a sound. It took her a second to realize he was laughing. She turned to see a relieved smile on his face and couldn't help joining him.
Then she stopped as his lips pressed against hers.