A horrid screech filled the engine room as the axial stabilizer reacted to a chain ratchet being tossed into it. The sound pierced Tink's heart. The Lyra seemed to hold its breath, and time paused. Then the ship juddered, and the stern slipped sideways. The movement threw her into the solid metal of the inner hull just as another blaster shot hit the ceiling above her head, sending down a cascade of sparks.
The wild shot told her that Severn had been unprepared for the ship's spin. She shook her head to clear it, and tried to grab onto something, anything, to keep herself steady. Pain seared through her right shoulder when she moved, but her hand landed on a pipe carrying coolant to the engine. The cold seeped through the metal to sting her skin. As the ship shifted wildly again, she heard a curse. Peeking over the unhappy stabilizer, she saw Severn shaking a red hand. Glancing up, she smiled at the expellant pipe above his head.
"Serves you right for messing with my ship." A flash and ball of heat over her left shoulder suggested she'd be wiser to stay silent.
"This could have been easy. I told the truth when I said I'd take you with me. But, no, you had to be stubborn." The ship rolled again, but she didn't hear any stumbling or swearing, only the steady clunk of boots on grating. "What kind of Tinker damages their own ship? No wonder the empire purged the rest of your insane clan. Now you can join your uncle."
Tink's blood pounded in her ears as her anger flared again. But fury had an upside — it drowned the nausea of the bucking ship. She bit back her retort and crawled to the far side of the stabilizer, where a lever was attached to the edge of the cycler amendment tank...ready to be put into use to lift the lid manually if need be. Or bash treacherous brains in. Twisting the lever free, she fell back against the stabilizer, the metal warm on her back.
"You've made a big misstep, haven't you?" she said, which resulted in another spray of blaster-induced sparks too close to her head. The footsteps neared as she did some quick math on her fingers: four shots spent. "First, thinking I cared more about my ship than my friends. And second, what will your employers do when they discovered you've failed?"
"I haven't failed yet." She could hear the sneer in his voice as he fired another shot. A spark singed her skin. The footsteps stopped.
"And that's five," she said as she popped up to standing, the lever at her side. Severn smirked at her, leveling the blaster at her head. He pulled the trigger, then his eyes opened wide and his nostrils flared as the weapon whined. Tink stepped forward, swinging the lever. "Those wee weapons are convenient for hiding," she said as Severn staggered back, dodging just out of her range. "But their charge only holds five shots."
She followed through on her momentum and jabbed Severn in the stomach with the pointy end of the lever. It forced the air out of his lungs and made him stumble and fall backward onto the decking. Unfortunately, the lever didn't draw blood. She strode over to him, ready to bring the bar down on his head if need be. Standing over him, she hesitated...she'd never killed a person. She didn't even kill the bugs that lived in the ship's nooks and crannies. She left that to Grim.
Instead, she dropped her knee into his abdomen, using her body weight to add force to the impact. She pushed the bar across his throat in an attempt to cut off his air until he blacked out. Then the ship spun again, and she tumbled sideways, landing on her already bruised right side. Pulling herself up onto hands and knees, she coughed, trying to orient herself. The lever twisted from her grasp as Severn wrested it from her. A second later, he was sitting astride her back, forcing her to the floor. The bar ended up across her throat.
Severn pulled back hard, and stars filled her vision. "You know one benefit of being a Omega division agent?" His voice whispered in her ear, his tone flat. "Extensive training in all the deadly arts where they break us." He pulled the bar tighter, not budging as the ship heaved once more. "And break us again." Black started to creep across Tink's eyes as he pulled the rod tighter. She clawed at the bar, her mouth moving but unable to draw enough air into her lungs. "And they keep breaking us until we die or we can't be broken anymore. Then they mould the survivors into killers who can fight anywhere."
Stars speckled Tink's vision, telling her she was close to passing out, when she noticed a grey blur in amongst the stars. For a moment, she thought it was only a fuzzy spot created by her oxygen-starved brain, then it resolved into a four-legged form. She tried to shake her head, but the bar across her throat prevented her. Hissing like an Andoran asp, Grim skidded to a halt at Severn's side, challenging him with all his sharp, pointy bits exposed.
Severn seemed to accept the cat's challenge because the pressure eased from Tink's neck. She coughed as she clutched her throat where the bar had been. Then she watched in horror as Severn swung it at Grim, making contact across the side of the cat's abdomen. A sob escaped her tight throat as his small form flew through the air and struck the bulkhead. Grim slid to the floor, where he lay unmoving.
Her fingers grasped at the grating, trying to pull herself towards the cat as Severn advanced on him.
"No," she said, but it was barely more than a whisper through her battered throat.
"No," a louder voice said. Tink closed her eyes as tears formed in the corners. Ben. He hadn't listened. He hadn't run. She watched, unable to do anything as Severn turned slowly to the boy, a sneer forming on his lips.
"They certainly didn't breed you for intelligence, did they?" He jerked his chin toward the cat then looked back at the boy. "After I kill that creature, you're next." He spit the words out as he turned back to Grim.
Tink pushed herself up on all fours and started crawling towards Severn. If I can just.... But another erratic turn of the ship flung her sideways, and what little air she had was knocked out of her. Her back would be as bruised as her side after this. If she survived at all.
Through star-filled eyes, she saw that Severn hadn't yet hit the cat with the lever he clutched over his head. In fact, he was moving as if through a vat of bearing grease, even though every muscle in his body was tense.
"I. Said. No." Ben's fists clenched at his sides, tension holding him stiff. Glancing at him, she realized the boy held Severn frozen in place. Blood dripped in a steady stream from Ben's nose, and purple bruises marred the skin under his eyes. He took plodding steps towards Severn, and Tink pulled herself after him, trying to grasp at his clothes to stop him. But her fingers caught only air.
She watched Ben reach out an open palm to the back of Severn's head. But then Ben fell to his knees, and Severn was able to move again. He turned, pulled the lever back, and prepared to strike.
"No." Tink closed her eyes, not wanting to watch, but unable to stop it. But what she heard next forced her to look. It wasn't the sound of a boy's skull being crushed, or even of a cat being hit. It was the sound of Severn babbling in a language she didn't understand.
Opening her eyes, she saw Severn fall to his knees in front of Ben, cheeks flushed, the forgotten lever falling from his fingers with a clatter. The man's eyes were wide as he gesticulated towards Ben. Unintelligible words spat from his mouth, and the more he babbled, the wilder his eyes became.
Tink mustered all her strength and, ignoring the muscles and tendons that cried out in protest, dragged herself to Ben. "What..." she started but stopped when an angry juddered coursed through the Lyra.
"I scrambled him." Ben's eyes peered at her, glistening. His mouth twitched. Tink wrapped her arms around him and the unconscious Grim, steadying them as the ship swung wildly again.