by Isaac Hooke
“Even so,” Targon continued. “The radiation will get fairly strong when we’re at the closest approach to Jupiter. Don’t worry, they’ll give you rad therapy when you arrive at Centaar.” That was the Europan base on Ganymede where Rhea was headed.
“Are you sure I’ll need rad therapy?” Rhea asked. “Considering my makeup…”
Targon rubbed his upper lip. “Mmm. Maybe not ye, me Miss Warden, seeing as ye are a cyborg and all. But him, he’ll definitely need a patch.” The merchant nodded at Will. “Plus a good hair washing.”
Will growled softly. Then: “What about you? You’re human… radiation doesn’t affect you?”
The trader pulled up his sleeve to reveal a white square attached to his bicep. “Got meself an anti-rad patch. Anyhoo, I guess I’ll leave ye to your cogitations. Please, though, join me in a virtual gaming session later. Robot Wars. Or… ye pick the poison.”
“We will,” Rhea promised, though she had no intention of doing so.
With that, Targon bowed and jetted out.
2
The days passed at a crawl. Targon continued to visit at least twice a day, and always nagged Rhea and the others to join him in VR. “It would be an honor to play with the great Warden.”
Finally, Rhea reluctantly agreed to a VR roleplaying session with Targon. Will and Horatio joined in. It wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be, so much so that in subsequent days she actively messaged Targon to begin the day’s session. It did help pass the time.
A week into the journey found her seated inside the cockpit of a mech. She was actually sitting cross-legged on her sleeping bag in the cargo bay, with a strap folded over her thighs to secure her to the deck, but her mind couldn’t tell the difference. The controls in her hands felt real, courtesy of the direct feedback her mind-machine interface relayed to her brain, even if those controls didn’t exist in the real world.
The game was called Robot Wars. It was an offline copy of a massive online RPG. Players on Earth and other planets could participate in local planetary copies in realtime, potentially interacting with millions of other players. But since she was in deep space, where Delay-tolerant networking was prevalent, online realtime play was impossible.
Will and Horatio were on her team. The three of them scouted a mountain pass, searching for Targon, who was the sole opponent on the opposing team. One might think that three against one wasn’t exactly fair, but the merchant was exceptionally good at this particular game, and Rhea and her friends would be lucky to come out on top.
Apparently Targon had been a world class player at one point, attracting hundreds of thousands of daily views on the streaming channels, but when the gamers moved on to the latest and greatest release, his following reduced to a trickle. Targon tried to switch to other, more popular games, but he could never really get into them. His income plunged, and he was forced to find a real job. He used the money he’d earned to place a down payment on a cargo hauler, and the rest, as he said, was history.
Horatio brought up the rear in that pass, while Will held the lead. He’d jetted up to the top of the rightmost cliff and kept an eye on the surrounding terrain as the team advanced.
“I think we’re going to have to try a different game after this,” Will said. “I’m getting sick of this dude beating us. Plus, if he calls me Dirty Hairy one more time, I think I’m going to explode.”
“Well, at least now we understand why he wanted to play the Warden so badly,” Horatio said.
“Why’s that?” Rhea asked.
“To show off, of course,” Horatio said.
“I don’t mind actually,” Rhea said. “Losing, I mean. It just makes me want to keep playing, if only to find a way to beat him and rub his face in his mech.”
“Tell me about it,” Will said. “But I gave up any hope of ever defeating this dude days ago.”
Will’s mech exploded.
“See what I mean?” Will replied. “He said he was going to go easy on us. Does this look easy? I’m already out.”
Rhea rotated nervously, scanning the upper passes. She retreated behind a boulder and waited. Nothing happened.
“Horatio, take cover,” she sent.
“Already one step ahead of you,” he replied.
She glanced at her overhead map. The robot was indeed lurking in a small hollow not far behind her.
She peered passed the edges of the boulder and scanned the pass, looking for signs of Targon’s mech, but saw nothing.
“This game really needs proper scouting units,” Rhea said.
“Too bad I can’t take Gizmo into the game with me,” Will agreed.
Rhea decided to try a different tactic this time. She ejected, and clambered out onto the hull of her mech, then leaped down.
“What are you doing?” Horatio asked. “You’re exposing yourself.”
“Just a little experiment,” Rhea said.
She switched to remote control of her mech and sent it forward.
Missiles erupted from the top of the pass to her left, spiraling down toward her mech.
“Bingo. Horatio, distract him.” She activated the jetpack unit the game provided her and swooped upward, staying as close to the rocky surface beside her as possible. The hope was to avoid detection by Targon.
Horatio was unleashing several missiles of his own, launching them toward the top of the pass where Targon had struck.
Explosions filled the air above, and a cloud of dust arose. As Rhea got closer, Horatio ceased firing. Rhea entered the dust and landed.
She didn’t activate LIDAR or other active sensing protocols. Instead, she used the dust as a cloak.
She heard the crunch of heavy mech feet to her right.
Crouching, she quietly darted forward until she emerged from the dust.
Targon’s mech was crouched behind a tall rock; its back was to her.
Smiling, Rhea highlighted Targon’s position for Horatio.
“What?” Targon spun around.
Those shoulder-mounted turrets trained on her, but an instant later Horatio’s missiles slammed into the mech, destroying it.
“Well done, Warden!” Targon transmitted. “I was wondering when you’d get the best of me! Let’s reset!”
“No, I think that’s enough for the day,” Rhea said.
“What, ye can’t leave me hanging like this!” Targon said. “Ye got lucky! I was going easy on ye! I’ll show ye, yet!”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Rhea said. “You want to prove you’re the best, which you are. We’ll probably never beat you again. But honestly, I want to quit on a high today. Grant me that, my friend.”
Targon sighed. “Very well. We can play on the same team then for the rest of today. I’ll load some AIs into the enemy slots, and Bob’s your uncle.”
An alarm sounded.
The VR environment winked out and Rhea was sitting cross-legged on her sleeping bag once more.
“What’s going on?” Will asked from where he was similarly secured to the overhead.
“Dunno.” She switched to the shipboard comm band. “Targon, talk to me.”
Targon didn’t answer.
As the alarm bayed on, Rhea gave Will a nervous glance, then she slid from the strap that secured her to the deck and shoved off toward the entrance to the cargo bay. She reached the sealed hatch and wrapped her hands around the locking wheel. Her feet landed on the metal surface a moment later, and she turned the wheel. When the locking mechanism retracted, she pulled the door open, then swiveled her body around so that her feet rested on a nearby crate, then shoved off again.
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 and all that.”
“Perhaps,” Targon said. “But keep in mind that in order for a ship to mask itself like our pursuer, it would have to be very, very small. Too tiny to carry a laser. In fact, the entire vessel could probably fit inside the typical laser focusing array found aboard a warship.”
“That would explain it,” Will agreed.
Rhea turned toward the merchant. “Can I take off this bulky suit now?”
“Up to ye,” Targon said. “If it was me, I’d wait a few hours to ensure our trigger-happy pirate friend doesn’t make another attempt. Though I suspect he won’t be wasting ammo again until he can assure a guaranteed shot.”
“And when will he have a guaranteed shot?” Will asked.
“Well, it won’t be guaranteed, but when we’re slingshotting around Jupiter, that would be the best time to try again, assuming this pirate follows us all the way to Great Planet, which is doubtful,” Targon said. “See, while slingshotting, it will be difficult to move out of the way in time. Me hull will have too many forces acting upon it…”
“Let’s hope the pirate doesn’t pursue,” Rhea agreed.
She turned around and floated back to the cargo hold with Will and Horatio. She left the suit on, for now, and strapped herself in above her sleeping bag. She had to loosen the straps to fit over the tighter thighs of her space suit.
“So, what do you think?” Will asked. “Is it really pirates? Or one of your assassins? When you left earth, it wasn’t exactly a secret…”
Rhea nodded, remembering the crowd of well-wishers who had waited to send her off. “Looking back, I probably shouldn’t have been so open about my plans.”
“If someone wanted to follow you, it wouldn’t have mattered whether you revealed your plans or not,” Horatio said.
“No, I suppose not,” Rhea agreed. Technology made it all too easy to keep tabs on a target that didn’t want to be tracked.
“I tried telling you this would happen,” Will said. “But you wouldn’t listen.”
“She wouldn’t have been any better off on Earth,” Horatio said. “Struck by a stray bullet or laser in a crowd, versus getting hi
t by a railgun in space? There isn’t much difference. Except the latter case turned out to be the better scenario. At least she had a chance of survival. But hit by a sniper in a crowd? No chance. Yes, I believe she made the right choice… living her life on her own terms, rather than sitting still, too afraid to leave her house because she feared assassination.”
Rhea glanced at Horatio and nodded in thanks. “At least I have someone on my side.”
“I’ll always be on your side,” Horatio said.
“Suck up,” Will said.
Rhea scowled at Will and gave Horatio a grateful smile. Then she sighed. “What kind of assassin leaves Earth to hunt its prey?”
“You might be surprised at the resourcefulness of assassins and bounty hunters,” Will said. “Especially when the bounty is high. Some assassins certainly have their own ships.” He shrugged. “Lets them hunt targets systemwide. Besides, interplanetary space is a great hunting ground: the rule of law doesn’t apply.”
She shook her head behind the faceplate. “I should have tracked down Veil before leaving.”
“Maybe,” Will said. “But that could have taken you months, even years.”
“Or sooner,” Rhea said. “If I’d let his assassins come to me.”
“Well, if this really is one of your assassins, most likely he’s tailing you now,” Will commented. “So you’ll get your wish soon enough. Though when he ‘comes to you,’ as you say, it probably won’t be in person…”
“You think he’ll strike again?” Rhea asked. “When we’re slingshotting?”
“If not then,” Will said. “Then when we reach Centaar.”
“I’m not looking forward to it,” Rhea said.
“None of us are,” Will agreed.
3
The Molly Dook was harassed no further during the journey, and they entered into their slingshot trajectory above Jupiter without issue. They had all donned their spacesuits as they entered the stronger portions of Jupiter’s rad field, as they wanted the added protection the material provided: the suits were composed of BNNTS—hydrogenated Boron Nitride NanoTubeS. Made of carbon, boron, and nitrogen, hydrogen was interspersed throughout the empty spaces between tubes. Because protons and neutrons were similar in size, hydrogen blocked both extremely well, and boron was an excellent absorber of any secondary neutrons that got through.
