But Gineos and Inverr knew this much: it was nearly impossible—and almost never heard of, over the centuries of the Interdependency—for a ship to exit the Flow unexpectedly. A random rupture in the Flow could strand a ship light-years from any human planet or outpost. Guild ships were designed to be self-sustaining for months and even years—they had to be, because the transit time between Interdependency systems using the Flow ranged between two weeks to nine months—but there’s a difference between being self-sustaining for five years or a decade, as the largest guild ships were, and being self-sustaining forever.

Because there is no faster-than-light travel. There is only the Flow.

And if you’re randomly dumped out of it, somewhere between the stars, you’re dead.

“I need a reading for where we are,” Inverr said, from his station.

“On it,” Lika Dunn said.

“Then get the antennas up,” Gineos said. “If we got dumped, there’s an exit shoal. We need to find an entrance shoal.”

“Already deploying,” Bernus said, from his console.

Gineos flipped open communications to Engineering. “Chief Hybern,” she said. “We’ve experienced a rupture exit from the Flow. We need engines online immediately and I’m going to need you to make sure we have sufficient push field power to counteract extreme high-G maneuvers. We don’t want to turn into jelly.”

“Uuuuhhhhh,” came the reply.

“For fuck’s sake,” Gineos said, and looked over to Inverr. “He’s your minion, Ollie. You handle him.”

Inverr flipped open his own communication circuit. “Hybern, this is XO Inverr. Is there a problem understanding the captain’s orders?”

“Weren’t we having a mutiny?” Hybern asked. Hybern was an engineering prodigy, which advanced him through the guild ranks. But he was very, very young.

“We just dropped out of the Flow, Hybern. If we don’t find a way back to it soon, we’re all screwed. So I’m ordering you to follow Captain Gineos’s directives. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” came the reply, after a moment. “On it. Starting emergency engine protocol. Five minutes to full power. Uh, it’s probably going to mess up the engines pretty badly, sir. And ma’am.”

“If they get us back to the Flow we’ll figure it out then,” Gineos said. “Ping me the second they’re ready to go.” She flipped off the communication link. “You picked a very bad time to have a mutiny,” she said to Inverr.

“We have a position,” Dunn said. “We’re about twenty-three light-years out from End, sixty-one out from Shirak.”

“Any local gravity wells?”

“No, ma’am. Closest star is a red dwarf about three light-years away. Nothing else significant in the neighborhood.”

“So how did we come out if there’s no gravity well?” Inverr asked.

“Eva Fanochi probably could have answered that for you,” Gineos said. “If you hadn’t murdered her, that is.”