Will and Horatio followed her, floating into the passage outside.
The alarm continued sounding.
Rhea grabbed the rungs on the bulkhead beside her and used them to thrust herself forward along the surface. She reached the door to the bridge and similarly opened the hatch to pull herself inside.
It was more a cockpit than a bridge, considering how cramped it was, with just a small seat before a solid metal wall. The merchant pilot was strapped into that seat.
Rhea squeezed in behind the chair.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Will and Horatio squeezed in behind her.
Targon glanced askance. “Shut the hatch.” He returned his attention to the fore, toward some view screen she could not see, even though she had augmented reality overlays enabled on her HUD—the merchant hadn’t given her the access rights she needed to view it.
Horatio obediently closed the hatch, and Rhea felt Will shove against her from behind. His smell enveloped her. If she were human, perhaps she would have found his touch and smell arousing. As it was, since she had no genital attachments, and the backend algorithms to support them were disabled in her mind-machine interface, to her cyborg senses he simply smelled… unwashed; and the press of his body against hers was uncomfortable more than anything else.
“Targon?” she repeated.
“We’re under attack!” Targon said.
Will glanced upward. “Attack? I feel nothing.”
“That’s because I’m taking evasive action!” Targon spat.
Inertial dampers would prevent their bodies from being wiped against the bulkheads during any high-speed directional changes.
“I’m doing me best to avoid letting any of them touch us!” Targon continued.
“Any of what?” Will asked.
“Kinetic kills,” Targon replied. “Objects launched by railguns, or similar. Because of their kinetic energy, or high speed, if one of them hits, it’ll tear right through our hull. Warden, I suggest ye and your companions get suited up.”
“What about you?” Rhea asked.
“Can’t leave me controls,” Targon said. “Besides, if I lose me ship, I’m dead anyway. I’ll never be able to repay the bank: insurance company doesn’t cover pirate attacks. Now go!”
Reluctantly, Rhea left the bridge with Will.
Horatio didn’t join them.
“Not sure why I should bother,” the robot said.
Rhea floated to the storage closet where she and the others had stowed the spacesuits they carried aboard. Those suits were rentals: they’d be returned at the closest spaceport—in this case, Ganymede—and then steam-cleaned before being added to the local inventory, ready to rent out to the next travelers.
She shrugged into the bulky suit and sealed the faceplate, activating the pressurized environment. Though the suit was obviously heavy, it didn’t weigh her down thanks to the zero G environment.
Will similarly finished suiting up.
“I always feel like one of those nested Russian dolls or something, when I slip into a spacesuit,” Will transmitted.
“A matryoshka?” Rhea asked over the comm.
“Someone’s been checking their database…” Will said.
Rhea ordinarily would have had something witty to say in return, but she was too distracted at the moment.
Together the two of them returned to the bridge. There wasn’t enough room now to close the hatch behind them, not while they wore those unwieldy suits. There was probably some protocol they violated by leaving it open, but Targon didn’t say anything. If they were hit by a kinetic kill, it probably wouldn’t matter if the bridge was sealed off or not—the ship was likely too small to survive. That was her takeaway on Targon’s silence, anyway.
“Any news?” Rhea asked over the comm system.
“They’ve let up,” Targon said. “Our opponents weren’t expecting me ship to be so maneuverable. I’m glad I upgraded the engines of me baby a few weeks ago. If I hadn’t, the attack would have killed us.”
“Are we able to pinpoint the source?” Rhea asked.
“No,” Targon said. “Whoever it is, they’re keeping well back. Gotta be pirates. There’s been an uptick in piracy in recent years. Has to do with ship prices… as they’ve gone down and become more affordable to the masses, piracy has gone up. Why do ye think I updated me engines?”
“If it was pirates, wouldn’t they have tried to capture you for boarding?” Rhea asked.
“Not necessarily,” Targon said. “Some pirates prefer to disable the ships with kinetic kills. Then they can salvage the metal, and whatever cargo survived the impact. They don’t have to deal with any potential crew that way, either. Though admittedly, most transport ships are unmanned these days, so there usually isn’t a crew. I’m one of the few fools who insists on babysitting his investment as it travels between planets. Honestly, I can’t understand why other owners would leave their precious ships under the control of AIs. For something that costs this much, I’m not going to dare let it out of me sight!”
“There are sometimes automated defense systems aboard AI-driven ships,” Horatio said.
“Another reason pirates like to shoot first!” Targon said. “Shipboard defenses go offline when the merchant is torn apart!”
“So, even if this pursuer of ours is keeping well back, shouldn’t we be detecting his thermal signature?” Will asked over the comm.
“In theory,” Targon agreed. “But I’ve heard of pirates using masking tech. It helps that the bastards keep their ship profiles nice and small, housing one or two passengers at most. Many pirate vessels are automated, too, by the way: so we might be pursued by a wee robot, not a man.”
“But even a small, unmanned vessel produces heat,” Will said.
“Yea, but if it’s distant enough, and vents heat properly— as in away from us—it can remain invisible, revealing its position only when it opens fire,” Targon said. “Because of the latter, I have a general idea of where the vessel is, but there’s nothing I can do about it, since me craft has no weapons.”
“Then we keep flying,” Rhea said.
“By the way, why did our attacker use railguns?” Will said. “Wouldn’t lasers work better? More instantaneous
