"Bleeding Hades."
Tink's head lifted, shocked enough at hearing those words in Rebeka's voice to be dragged away from tweaking settings on the flux condenser. Her eyes homing in on the captain. Rebeka rarely swore, and if she did, it was the softer curses: jacks, barnacles and the like. But returning her gaze to the viewscreen, Tink had the urge to swear herself.
The Wall was up. Gossamer strands of light reached out from the portal, still a pinpoint speck in the black. They dissipated into flecks of silver before strengthening again as they neared an accelerator on their way to the next port. More like a web than a wall, it stretched for uncountable klicks, creating a mesh of lines that could slice a ship apart. And she recalled Ish saying it was replicated in the slipstream: the portals appeared as points of light, like bioluminescent plankton in a dark sea, while the lines made a net that sliced through the currents, leaving inky black.
"When did this happen?" Kandi said. The Wall was old, older than the Dominion some said, and it had fallen out of use, full of gaps and tears. And there was no purpose to it anyway: no one wanted to go into the Desolation.
"Can you get us through?" Rebeka asked.
Kandi shook her head. "The Sisters could. Or Emmon Bell, if we could contact either of them, but our comms are still down. Should we light them up?" Rebeka gave a sharp nod of her head, and Tink's finger hovered over the tablet beside her, ready to send a response to Kandi's message, one that would be bounced from ansible to ansible, unable to be traced back to her. Then Kandi's hand hit her console, making Tink jump. "Jacks!"
"What?" The captain stood and stepped towards the Tac station.
"Something's jamming the comms." Kandi turned to the station beside her. "Severn?"
"Busy. Sharks closing fast." Severn didn't turn as he pronounced what they already knew. A shiver of Sharks pursued them, sleek and matte grey and bristling with weaponry. They'd already scorched the Lyra's port flank, despite Alek's piloting. Tink's gaze slid towards the pilot. Noting the tension in his neck and the straining muscles of his forearms, he certainly seemed to be trying to get them out of this in spite of the ship's protests. Severn's voice interrupted her contemplation. "How did they know we'd be here?" He punched something on the console in front of him with his knuckle.
"Can you get the comms up?" Tink asked.
"Comms or weapons, your choice." Kandi stabbed her console with her fingers.
"Can we slip through?" the captain asked, her voice back to neutral, as she sat back down.
Ish shook his head. "Not without a slip point, and I don't see one. Besides..." He plucked at his holoscreen, squinting as if that would make a point appear. "Navigator lore says the Wall exists in the stream."
Tink felt useless, unable to help her crewmates. Her friends. She couldn't manufacture a slip point. She couldn't make the engines go faster than they were. She was just glad she'd installed the plasma booster the captain had bought, otherwise the Sharks would have caught them already. All she could do was fix the comms, or at least pretend to. As she reached for her console, their portside was strafed by a pulse cannon blast, and she was forced to grab her armrests.
"The portals are the only way." The words were rough coming out of Alek's tight jaw. "There isn't a gap big enough to get this ship through."
"But they're all closed, as far as the sensors can read," Kandi said, shaking her head. Her fingers moved almost as fast as Ish's when she flicked through the screens on her display. "I don't see any way through the portals."
"Not without the owner's access code," Severn added, his tone almost casual despite the situation. "Maybe we surrender...."
Tink glanced at the captain, who'd looked sideways at her. Another blast rocked their stern, starboard this time. Tink watched as Ben's hand clutched the arm of the jump seat he was strapped into beside Severn. Tink opened her mouth as the ship slid sideways.
"Were we hit?" Rebeka said.
Alek shook his head slightly, the muscles in his jaw tight. "Just making us a harder target."
"If we get out of this, we're retrofitting the Lyra with pulse cannons." Rebeka looked entirely serious, even though she'd always argued most ship-mounted weapons cost more than they were worth.
The ship shuddered from another glancing blow. "That was not me," Alek said.
"How far to that portal?" Tink asked, and Rebeka's hand grabbed hers and squeezed. She looked into the captain's deep brown eyes as the woman shook her head ever so slightly. "Do you have another plan?" Tink's voice was almost a whisper, as she grasped at a wild hope that the captain had a card she hadn't played. Tink had kept her secret for ten years...they both had.
"Life or death situations are not the time to make critical decisions." Rebeka's eyes held hers.
"Next portal is 15000 klicks away," Cass said, the AI apparently realizing Alek was too busy evading Sharks to answer. "Sharks at 16000 klicks and closing."
Tink pulled her console in front of her, punching in an access code that unlocked advanced admin systems.
The captain grasped her hand again. "Tink. You don't have to."
Four sets of eyes turned to stare at her. Only Alek — who was busy — and the boy — whose face was nestled into the cat's head — didn't turn her way. Recovered from his recent lack of atmo, Grim looked disgruntled but resigned.
"Sharks at 11000 klicks."
Scanning the faces, the ache in her gut disappeared, taking her doubt with it. "Yeah, I do." Turning to her display, she pulled up a screen that stayed hidden except in the privacy of her own quarters with the door locked. "Alek, head towards the portal."
Alek spared a glance at her, confusion written on his face. "Are you insane? We'll be scattered across space if we fly into a closed portal."
"It won't be closed." Tink started to punch in a series of letters and numbers and seemingly random symbols.
"Sharks at 7000." Cass counted down the distance between them and their pursuers. "6000."
"Do it!" the captain ordered. "Now." The ship slued sideways, towards the energized mesh and the shut iris that filled the viewscreen.
"Impact with portal in 5000 klicks."
Tink slammed her palm to the display to be scanned.
"4000."
Slowly, too slowly, the iris opened.
"Impact in 10...9..." Cass continued her countdown, her voice calm, as if she were counting the remaining protein packs in storage.
"Shark coming in hot on our stern," Kandi said.
"5...4..."
The Lyra turned sharply, the ship moaning in protest. At the same time, the port side tipped up while the starboard tipped down. After a lifetime spent on a ship, Tink felt space sick for the first time outside the slipstream.
"One."
Tink held her breath as the ship slid through the half-open iris.
"We made it." Her voice was a whisper. "We made it," she added louder, as if that would make her believe it.
The ship shivered as a shot from a pulse cannon grazed their tail.
"Some of the Sharks are heading through after us." Kandi focused on the display in front of her as the viewscreen shifted to the rear view. Through the iris, Tink could see the Shark that had fired at them, followed closely by its cohorts.
"No, they're not," Ben said as he curled his fingers into a fist. Tink's mouth dropped open as the iris snapped shut. Sparks and shrapnel shot through the air on the far side of the portal.
"Ha." Tink felt a brightness in her chest and a lightness in her head at the fact that they'd survived. Everyone else looked so grim, except Ben, who returned her smile. "Cheer up," she said, scanning the room. "We're alive." Then she arrived at Ish, and her smile dropped.
"How do you have the owner's codes?" His tone was flat, his eyes revealing a mix of confusion and hurt as realization dawned. She struggled to undo the uncooperative buckles of her seat then stepped forward, opening her mouth to answer, even though she didn't know what to say. Faced with his angry expression, she turned to stare at the floor, to try to come up with some explanation for why she'd have the owner's codes. Failing, she returned her gaze to meet his, but he looked away.