No one found time to complain while we shot straight towards the Ticotan Black Hole. I fought the dizziness clawing at my brainstems, aware I had to pull us out of hyper before we ended as a neat, squashed ball of intermingled ship and body parts. "Hijac, any signs of our friends?"

"A single severill signature to starboard. We shook the patrol." Did I smell an accompanying hint of sweet triumph? Still, every severill ship was one too many. I had to cut this close.

"Aalyxh, drop out in five... four... three... two... one... now!"

The deceleration shot a new wave of nausea through my body, and I dug my claws into the armrests while the ship tore free of the attraction of the black hole. "All stations, status."

"Jump engine capacity on eleven percent." Ben's nasal voice suggested he was close to vomiting again. I couldn't blame him, not with the ship shaking like a tortaloose snapper on spice deprivation, the engines probably overheating while fighting against the gravitational pull.

"Captain, half our ss'sensors'ss are blocked by ex'ss'ceptional ion activity."

That explained the joggling better than the proximity of the black hole. "An ion storm? How bad?"

A conspicuous lack of reactions told me it must be grave. I called up the sensor readings on my screen. Hrrovr hadn't been exaggerating. "Well. The severills will struggle to relocate our track in this muck." My teeth rattled while speaking.

"Us or the scattered remains of the Topsy?" Hijac's emotionless question sent me close to a fit of hysteric giggles. But I knew our ship wasn't built for a prolonged exposure to the forces that pelted the hull.

"Hrrovr, divert our energy into the stabilisers. Aalyxh, plot a course out of this mess."

"Aye, Captain." Aalyxh never called me Captain—unless she was convinced I'd manoeuvred our precious ship into another hopeless situation. "Told you to steer clear of the severills in the first place. But you didn't listen, of course."

I winced. She was right, but I'd been young, bored, and thought I was invincible. "I admit it was stupid, but I can't undo it. And you didn't need to stick with me." A yuuol snort was the only response. At least the stabilisers gave me renewed confidence the Topsy wouldn't shake apart any moment. "Any news about our friends?"

Hrrovr hissed in denial, and a flowery fart of relief told me Hijac couldn't find them either. This part of my plan had worked. Ben's call cut my blossoming enthusiasm at the roots. "Cap, the stabilisers drain our energy fast. We will either need a recharge in less than twenty clicks, or we cut them before our mellow storage is damaged beyond repair."

"Can we ride the storm instead of fighting against it?" It had been done in a few tall stories I remembered from my smuggling days. "Reduce energy and go dark, absorb the ions pounding our hull to recharge our storage?"

Hrrovr's scales clicked in sync with his claws on the screen. "It might take days'ss to replenish our energy. But it's'ss pos'ssible if we avoid the black hole."

"The ride will get bumpy, though." Hijac mentioned the obvious without pointing out he wouldn't be affected. "At least the storm should carry us away from the singularity."

"Should?" I didn't like his use of a subjunctive.

A reassuring citron odour hit my nostrils. "All known parameters say so. But it's a black hole we're dealing with, a low percentage of unpredictability remains."

"Low enough to risk it, I gather. Aalyxh?"

"Aye. Let's see where this takes us. I cut the engines—now." She stretched her back and rolled her four eyes in a dramatic show of fatalism. "To think your crush on that sleazy geleneian brought us here, surfing an ion storm under the nose of a black hole where no intelligent being in their right mind considers venturing..." She trailed off, her eyes back on her screen.

While the ship lost speed, the shaking became almost bearable. I tried to massage some tension out of the knotted muscles in my shoulders. Before the exercise showed results, the Topsy, caught in the fangs of the storm, started a weird spiralling motion.

"Ugh." Ben climbed the ladder from the engine room, clinging to the safety grips like a blue-clad monkey affected by hair loss. "I'm not sure this is an improvement to the Tanencha's lair." He dropped into a free chair and hurried to belt himself in.

"On the bright side, there is no slime." My attempt at lightening his mood earned me a desperate glance.

"There will be—if this corkscrew treatment doesn't stop." A treacherous paleness on his face kept me from asking what his metaphor meant. He rubbed the back of a hand over his mouth. "Or there would be if my guts weren't already empty."

"There is a remedy for that." The sharp pine-needle scent of anticipation made me laugh. Food was a high priority in karjkan culture. On eight spindly legs, Hijac scurried towards the galley, unaffected by the ship's crazy motions.

Hrrovr swivelled his seat to face me, his emerald head scales raised in curiosity. "What's'ss the ss'story with the ss'severills'ss, Captain? We have time to hear it while we wait."

I sent him a glare, searching for an excuse. "Nothing much." As long as the Topsy was an impotent play-ball of an ion storm, pretending I was busy seemed out of the question. So I plunged ahead. "I sneaked aboard their flagship as a youngster although Aalyxh insisted it was a stupid idea."

The pilot furrowed her brows and snorted. "She did it to impress a geleneian kid in our astrophysics class."

"I did it because I could do it. It was a bet." My gills burned like the exhaust of our plasma drive, showing off my embarrassment.

Aalyxh giggled. "Yeah, one that bought us the eternal friendship of the severill tribe. Besides, you never told me what you did to get them boiling with anger." She had a point. It felt too awkward back then, but if someone deserved the truth, it was her and my loyal crew.

I tightened my belts to prevent being thrown around in my chair and searched for the right words. "I sneaked aboard pretending to be the child of a wharf worker. There were enough oolians around, and I hadn't shed my soft baby skin yet, so it was easy to pass as a toddler. Aliens have a hard time telling our age, anyway. I didn't make it far, though, before a guard caught me and brought me to their boss. There, I made a fatal mistake."

All eyes were on me. I sucked air through my gills, ready to reveal my long-kept secret when Hijac reentered the bridge. Despite the ship's rolling, he balanced a tray loaded with various foods. "Sandwiches for Ben and Aalyxh, a bag of fried gookookies for Hrrovr, and the Captain's favourite spongy algae in brine."

We hurried to catch the packages thrown in our direction. I almost missed mine and clamped my hand hard enough around the bag for one of my claws to pierce it. Salty liquid trickled down my arm, and I hastened to lick it up. "Thanks, Jac."

"You're welcome." He inserted a straw into his own container and sucked at his protein shake. "Did I miss something?"

There went my hope the interruption would leave me off the hook. Aalyxh blinked. "We finally got Kali to spill the nuggets about her mysterious first encounter with the severills."

"Oh." The strong peppery scent filling the bridge made me sneeze. The karjkan was curiosity impersonated. No, there was no easy way out for me.

"Right. They dragged me to the severill chief. But instead of playing the role of the dumb kid, I got sidetracked and tried to impress a random youth standing beside him." I glanced at Aalyxh, prepared for a scolding. But she only shook her head, motioning me to continue. "I pulled my slingshot. I'm sure you remember I had a talent for it."

"Kali, if I weren't your friend, I'd say you're a lunatic." Unimpressed by the ship's erratic movements, Aalyxh chewed on her sandwich. "And yes, you were a true rapscallion with the sling."

"Unfortunately, yes. To my surprise, my bolt scored a hit. While the severill principal clawed at his bleeding eye, I took my chance and fled." I hesitated, lost in the memory of skidding around corners while shouts and bullets zipped around me. "No idea how I made it out of there unscathed. It's all a blur."

"We found you the next day in our hideout in the maintenance tunnels. The severills had already left the station." Aalyxh's eyes rolled. "You could have died."

"I still can, if they catch me. There is a price on my head since they matched the DNA on that bolt with the one I left on a glass in a bar on Gogaloosh."

"So it was you who took his eye?" Ben's eyes were wider than our cargo hatch during loading. "Who told you about the DNA? And why go to Gogaloosh? It's an open secret it's run by severill minions." Ben was right, but I'd doubted they were still hunting me a decade later.

"They arrested me and told me. That's where Hrrovr comes into play."

"Couldn't let them cut a cuddly ss'softss'skin to piess'ces'ss." Truth was, he risked his life to liberate me. And it earned him a place at my side on the hunted list. He smoothened his head-scales with clawed fingers. "Was'ss he worth'ss it? Your clas'ssmate?"

"No, he never acknowledged my achievement. Instead, he sweet-talked our astrophysics teacher. Since then I leave the subject to Aalyxh."

Amidst my crew's laughter, the Topsy lived up to her name and somersaulted, sending Ben's sandwich in a sweeping arc across the bridge. Hijac clambered over the nav console to retrieve it, but stopped mid-step. "Captain?" A wave of minty enthusiasm engulfed me. "Check the density radar, there might be a calmer zone to the left, course six-two-oh."

Aalyxh turned back to her own station, stuffing the remains of her food into her mouth. "Confirmed, course six-twenty. Perhaps we're nearing the edge of the storm. Can we engage the main drive?"

"Negative, the charge is still beneath fifteen. We'd damage the storage." Ben was on full alert, ignoring the loss of his dinner. "What about the auxiliaries? They are almost at full capacity, and if we surf the storm, small bursts should bring us a long way." Sometimes, the human surprised me. His single, soft brain was capable of quite creative ideas.

The pilot seemed to agree. "Fine, squishy-brain, let's try it. Ready for auxiliaries on three... two... one."

A shiver ran through the Topsy's hull, and Aalyxh cut the burst after a few clicks to let the ship adjust to the new course. The rolling was back. "It works. But it will take forever to bring us out of here. We should take shifts and get some sleep."

She was right. We would need our wits as soon as the storm set us free. "Ben, Hijac, get some rest. Hrrovr, can you hold the bridge?"

"Aye, Captain."

"Thanks. Call us when needed. I'll replace you in three."

Ben seemed unwilling to leave his chair at first but followed Hijac when I insisted he would be better off in his cabin. I imagined already the smooth, relaxing liquid of my sleeping tank seeping into my pores when Aalyxh called me back.

"Kali, something is wrong." Her eyes were covered by a white membrane, a sign she concentrated on her telepathic skills. "I sense brainwaves."

"I hope you do, we're five aboard." The nice, cooling sensation rushed down an imaginary drain while I turned around.

One of her eye-membranes slipped back, and I found myself at the receiving end of a stare spelling idiot. "Not ours. There's an invader on the ship."

(201q words)