Black Hull by Joseph A. Turkot

sort.
     
    “Class?” Mick asked.
    “Another light-class.”
    “And we’re coming at them in an
intersystem cruiser?”
    “Damn right. Do you think I control
Bessel 2 because of my strength alone?”
    “Oh dear,” XJ joined. “Sera’s up to a
scheme. GR, GR!”
     
    XJ bolted from the cockpit as fast as
his hydraulics allowed.
     
    “What’s with him?” Mick asked.
    “Let’s say I’m hit and miss. Most of the
time my plans work, sometimes they don’t.”
    “She makes entirely irrational
decisions, incalculably inconsistent with probability,” XJ rattled as he
motored away.
     
    A gambler. I do like this woman.
     
    Mick eyed the cords of Sera’s forearms
as they tensed, vigorously punching command after command into her console. Her
body worked as a limb of the ship, directed by the laws of physics and her gut.
     
    “We’ll sweep them,” she said.
     
    Sweeping: Flying below a ship and
launching a targeted EMP at its main thrusters. Cruisers can sweep under
anything bigger than a tugship—they can’t sweep under a light-class.
     
    “You can’t,” Mick said. “They’re too
small.” He eyed the radar blips, their signatures indicating two light-classes:
the Cozon and one mystery vessel. “They’ve seen us too.”
    “Sure they have. But you’ve never seen
me fly.”
     
    The urge to take over rose in him: rip
the controls from her, throw her to the ground, fly the ship with some sense.
     
    The cruiser dropped, turbulence shook
Mick to his knees. Metal on metal issued from the back of the ship: XJ and GR
had fallen. The cruiser’s plastisteel prow hurtled directly at the two
light-classes. Mick stood up to behold the collision: On the viewscreen, four
giant thrusters flared, the light-classes attempting maneuvers of their own to
avoid the kamikaze strike of the cruiser.
     
    Crashing us into the light-classes;
she’s sweeping under them my ass. Suicide run.
     
    “What the fuck are you doing!” Mick
yelled.
     
    Mick grabbed at the pilot’s stick. A
swift elbow caught his temple. White light flashed; shock led to a delayed
sensation of pain.
     
    “Jesus Christ,” he moaned, rubbing his
head.
     
    The light-class ships roared away at a
ninety degree angle from the cruiser.
     
    “They’re priming plasma missiles,” XJ
said, returning to the crammed cockpit with GR.
    “They won’t hit,” Sera said.
     
    The cruiser barrel rolled under the
Cozon and fired upward. A targeted EMP struck its main thrusters. The unknown
light-class fired two plasma missiles: condensed firecrackers of coiling light
snaked toward them. Sera rocked back on her stick, pulling everyone to the
floor.
     
    “Hold onto something,” she said. Mick
grabbed the nearest metal rod, XJ’s leg: together they slid out of the cockpit.
     
    Bright orange plasma missiles exploded
upon the starboard hull of the Cozon.
     
    “Shit!” Sera screamed. “Not supposed to
hit my own ship.”
     
    A band of grey smoke shrouded the
crippled ship. She turned the stick and punched a button. The cruiser rolled on
its side and shot into the cloud. Mick rushed back into the cockpit.
     
    “There he is,” Mick said. On the
viewscreen, the silhouette of a light-class, thrusterless, floated.
    “He sees us,” she said.
    “Get under him!” Mick yelled.
    “Can’t—too late.”
    “We can’t take a hit in a cruiser.”
    “We won’t if we park on the Cozon,” she
said. The cruiser shook, its landing claws hooking onto the Cozon’s deck.
“We’re gambling that they won’t kill each other.”
     
    Mick waited for the orange flash of
plasma missiles; nothing came.
     
    “What now?”
    “Isn’t it obvious?”
     
    Is she a robot, AM, just like the
others? No—she’s too warm inside.
     
    Sera smiled. Mick wondered at her
sanity. XJ stared out a porthole at the light-class squared against them. GR
crawled to his feet, testing his capacitors.

25
     
    Baroque chamber music filled a pillared
hall of white. A woman clad in a