25: Tink

Tink frowned from where she sat in the captain's chair glaring at Alek's back. The muscles of his shoulders shifted as he nudged the ship onto a slight course correction.

"Captain." Cass' tone, usually calm, held an edge, almost human.

Tink glanced to the far end of the ready room, at the door that led into the captain's cabin. It remained closed.

"Pilot Wa," Cass said.

"Yeah, Cass?"

"I'm sensing..." There was a pause that worried Tink. She'd fought the loudest to keep the Cass AI after the incident 12 years ago, despite being only a teenager, arguing that it wasn't this AI's fault. She really hoped the Cass onboard the Lyra wasn't glitching out on them. "...an anomaly."

"An anomaly?" Alek said, glancing up. "Can you be more specific?"

Tink watched him out of the corner of her eye as she leaned back in the chair, crossing her arms over her chest. Changing her mind, she stood up, intent on knocking on Rebeka's door. The two of them needed to talk, regardless of any anomalies. Time to wake the captain up — she'd had enough beauty sleep.

"An anomaly. To starboard. It's like...an empty spot in the sensor readings."

"An empty spot?" Tink paused then turned around, her head tipping sideways. "Are you feeling okay, Cass?"

"I don't feel, Tink, but yes, systems are running a-okay."

"Can you describe the empty spot?" Ish glanced from Alek to her. "Maybe it's just a slip point?"

"It is not a slip point. But thank you for your suggestion. It is...empty. The stars that were there are not there anymore." Cass' voice stopped.

"What —" Tink began, intent on asking the others what they thought the problem might be, but Cass interrupted her.

"And it's moving. Heading our way."

"The empty spot is moving?" Alek asked.

"Yes."

Tink loomed over Alek's shoulder. "Kandi, can you confirm?"

"I'm looking, but I'm not an AI."

"Look faster."

"There seems to be a lot of chatter out here."

Tink spun around to see the captain pulling on her jacket. "You're awake."

"I am now. What's up?"

"Cass has detected...an anomaly."

"An anomaly." Rebeka raised an eyebrow. "Cass-related anomalies concern me." She turned to Kandi. "Shields up?"

Kandi nodded, looking at her sidelong. "Of course." Her tone was razor-sharp.

Rebeka's lips pressed together, then she shifted her attention from Kandi to the rest of them. "Any more information?"

"There's a —" Kandi started to answer, but the ship rocked sideways before she could finish.

Tink found herself thrown into Alek's lap with his arms wrapped around her. She flailed, struggling to get up. "Let me go."

"I'm not the one who fell onto you." He lifted his hands, palms out. She crawled off him, only to have to grab his shoulders to stay upright as the ship bucked again.

"Status," Rebeka said, sitting down. "And Tink, get yourself buckled in." For once, Tink did as she was told without argument, using the railing to pull herself to her occasional seat beside the captain.

"The anomaly." Kandi looked up from her display. "It's shooting at us."

Tink watched Rebeka's jaw clench and her eyes narrow. "What is it?" she asked, her voice quiet as a thread of fear wound its way around her abdomen.

"It was hypothetical." The captain spoke in a hoarse whisper. "A myth of starstruck spacers."

"What?" Tink swallowed against the lump in her throat.

"A shroud. They're warping space, wrapping it around themselves."

"Who? Pirates?" Tink glanced at the others and saw they were equally horrified by the prospect of pirates that could hide themselves until the last second. Everyone except Alek, who just looked angry.

Rebeka shook her head. "Even the richest pirates don't have that kind of tech."

There was a hush on the bridge. That only left three options: the Guilds, the Cartels or the Dominion. None of those were comforting thoughts, even if the thing weren't shooting at them.

Rebeka's voice broke the silence. "Fly boy, can you get us out of here?"

"I can try."

"You said you could get my ship out of any spot it found itself in."

He turned to his console. "You didn't say there'd be a whale of a vessel strapped to my belly."

The ship banked as he touched the controls, but Tink felt its struggle as it towed the bulky Leviathan, either under-driving or over-compensating. The ship whined as they were hit again.

Tink started to unbuckle. "I should get down to the engines."

"Sit down, Tink." Rebeka didn't look at her, but Tink heard the conviction in her voice and re-did her buckle. In the next second, she was glad she had as the ship shuddered again.

"Miscreants! Hitting my ship." Tink's cheeks flushed, her head spun, and her palms started to sweat.

"That one hit the Leviathan." Kandi turned around. A thought began to form in Tink's brain, but Kandi beat her to it. "If they're after the Leviathan, maybe we should disengage."

Tink heard the captain breathe in slowly and huff the air out quickly. "Do it."

"I've got it." Tink pulled up the retractable console at her seat and accessed the tether controls, hoping they behaved this time. "Releasing tentacles." One of the tethers blinked red. It wasn't releasing, and they were travelling at evasion speeds. "Jacks!" She punched it again, knowing there wasn't time to get down to the cargo bay before the off-balance load caused damage. "Third time's a charm." She hit it so hard her finger stung. After a split second, the light shifted to green. The ship lurched forward as the tethers released their load.

"Okay, heading into the asteroids."

"The tethers are still reeling in," Tink said, her voice sharper than intended.

"Better the tethers are damaged than us." Alek didn't look at her, all his focus on the console in front of him.

"Kandi, what's the status of the anomaly?" Rebeka asked.

"The anomaly is holding position," Cass' voice answered.

"Not quite," Kandi said. "A small runner's broken off from the anomaly."

"Not shrouded?" Tink asked, though she could see the blip on the viewscreen plain enough.

"Nope, clear as crystal. It's heading for the Leviathan."

Another hush fell over the bridge, once again broken by the captain. "And the anomaly?"

Kandi flicked her fingers on her display. "It's headed our way."

"Prep decoy charges," Rebeka said, and Kandi nodded, her fingers already moving.

"Tentacles in," Tink said, turning back to her display as another blast rocked the ship's measly defenses. They were a hauler, a small-job salvager. Their weapons and shields were meant for repelling pirates, who tended to give up if they deemed the cost outweighed the gain.

"Those aren't warning shots, Captain. And they're not EMP charges." Kandi craned her head around. "They're shooting to kill."

The Lyra banked again, followed by a bob and a swerve. Then it plummeted. Sometimes artificial gravity had its downsides, and for Tink this was one of them. Bile burned in her throat.

"What are you doing...trying to crash us into an asteroid?" Her cheeks were hot.

"If I can make it look like that..." Alek twitched the stick again, and the ship yawed. A gargantuan mass of rock filled the viewscreen, and Tink let out an eep despite herself. She didn't feel so bad when she glanced sideways and saw Rebeka's fingers clutching her armrests, tendons taut.

"Decoys ready." Kandi's fingers flicked over her console as she peered at her overhead display.

"Releasing now." The captain tapped the display beside her as something pinged off their port side.

"That was an asteroid!" Tink shouted.

"It was a pebble." Alek pulled harder on the stick, hugging the asteroid that filled their viewscreen. There was a crash and bang from somewhere inside the ship, and Tink started to comment. But her mouth hung open, no sound coming out as a lump formed in her chest. Her eyes went wide for a second as she stared at the viewscreen. Then she shut them as tight as she could, tucked her chin to her knees and threw her hands over her head as they headed straight for the large asteroid.

The cargo bay had a muffled quality, though every thud and groan caused Tink to wince. She didn't trust the hollow in the asteroid Alek had flown them into anymore than she trusted the cock-sure pilot with his winsome smile. A clunk sounded from above, and Tink frowned. The flatness of the sound unnerved her, reminding her of the lifeless Leviathan. It didn't help that the lights were dim, in night mode, part of the effort to conserve power and minimize their signature. Not quite as dark as the dead ship...but near as.

Tink threw another kick at Kandi, who dodged it with ease, swatting Tink's leg with her padded hand a little harder than was necessary.

"Focus." Kandi's hushed voice still cut through the heavy air. "Or else what's the point?"

"That is the point." Tink brought her attention back to Kandi, lifting her gloved fists in front of her chin. "To distract me. And you." Tweaking and building all alone in her engine room hadn't been enough to stave off the heebie-jeebies.

Kandi's eyes narrowed, then she gave a sharp nod. "One more time?" She lifted her padded hands and forearms back up for Tink to take a swing at.

Tink swung at her with a right cross, hitting the pads with a satisfying thwack, before driving her opposite leg towards Kandi's other side. She shifted to get ready for the next sequence when a muted ping sounded by the staircase. Tink glanced over to see Alek descending, but a second later found herself flat on her back. She swivelled her head back to glare at Kandi. "Hey!"

"Pay attention. An opponent won't let you look away without paying for it."

She frowned at Alek, angry at him for distracting her. When he sat down at the bottom of the stairs, her frown deepened. "What do you want?"

"Can't a person watch?" He leaned back, resting his elbows on the stair behind him, a cockeyed smile on his face.

"Of course," Kandi said. "You might learn a thing or two."

He arched an eyebrow. "I might at that."

"Maybe you two should spar," Tink said, trying to take off her gloves.

"No, no, no." Kandi bobbed in time with her words. "Then how would we distract you?"

Alek is distraction enough. Tink blinked, disgruntled by that unbidden thought. She turned her gaze to the floor as her cheeks flushed. Thankfully, she was saved by the lights. In that moment, they flickered again, as they had intermittently since the last attack.

"I should get back on that." She seriously attacked her gloves this time, but they fought back, resisting her attempts to remove them. Then, somewhere in the belly of the ship, a clunk sounded as the asteroid shifted. The lights went out entirely. Kandi swore. Even the curse was muted. Tink paused her efforts to get her gloves off, waiting for the emergency lights to kick in.

"At least we still have gravity," Alek's voice said, annoyingly calm. "And life support." The seconds ticked away without the lights coming on.

"This is not good." In the dark, Tink attacked her gloves with her teeth, finally able to pull them off her sweaty fingers. Then, as suddenly as they went out, the lights came up again, a blinding bright white before dimming to dull twilight. The floor tilted once more, following the turn of the asteroid.

"You couldn't have landed us in —" She was stopped by another sound, much closer by this time, a tearing like...fabric ripping. She glanced to her right, then charged into Kandi, throwing her back onto the cargo bay floor as the smaller of the two crates from the Leviathan — still large enough to cave a person's skull in — slid across the floor.

The biocon unit. A jolt of adrenaline punched her heart at the thought of what might be unleashed if it busted.

She landed on top of Kandi with an oomph and braced herself for the bang of the crate against the stairs...a sound loud enough that their pursuer's sensors might pick it up. But the crash never came. She rolled over and popped up facing the stairs. Alek had his hands against the crate, feet braced against the bottom step. The muscles of his arms and torso strained, and his neck and jaw were rigid with the effort of holding the crate. Tink's mouth dropped open, then the asteroid shifted again, and she had to step back quickly to keep from falling. The crate slid back to its starting point, grating against the metal floor with an unpleasant screech.

Alek grimaced and craned his neck, rubbing his left thumb on an old scar on his right forearm as he stepped towards the unit. Tink sprinted to get another set of tie-downs. As she ran back to Alek, her steps faltered. A jagged crack ran down the side of the biocon unit.

"Cass, seal the cargo bay!" She crossed the last few strides to the crate and handed Alek one of the straps. As he cinched his strap into the anchor ring on the floor, he looked at her over the crate, a question written on his face.

"The biocon crate. It's broken." Her sweaty hands slipped on the winch, and she wiped them, one at a time, on her tank top, before she was able to tighten the tie-down.

Kandi went over to the crate and unhooked the latch.

"What are you doing?" Tink grabbed her hand.

"If it's going to kill us, we're probably dead already. I want to see the cause of my death." She finished unhooking the latch. "Aren't you a little curious?"

"No."

Kandi shrugged and hefted the lid up. "Well, maybe they packed an antidote." Turning back to the crate, she peered inside. A few seconds later, she started laughing. Her laugh grew, becoming so strong her eyes teared up as she draped herself over the open lid. Tink and Alek both stepped away. "It's..." Kandi stopped to catch her breath, pushing herself up and wiping her eyes. "It's fireweed," she managed before she was taken by another fit of laughter.

Tink kept her distance. "What's a fireweed?"

Kandi took a few gulping breaths before she was finally able to string more than a few words together. "If you're stressed or can't sleep, you can make a tea out of it. And the people of Hadrian's Drift use it in love potions. Apparently stokes the libido."

"So, it's not going to kill us?" Alek took a cautious step forward.

"Not unless you feed it to Tink to make her moon over you. And then it'll be her that kills you when she comes down from her love high." Kandi collapsed into another laughing fit, though Tink didn't see what was so funny.