Learning to Dance

Up on the shoulder. He rubbed it ruefully. “The people love
you.”
“Oh, go do something useful, like check the radar, will
you?”
Taz swung around to look at the screen, its pulsing green
lights showing exactly what it should: the Arrow, the much
larger Panther, and farther away, their destination, the
Cazadora. Glowing dully in purple were the Graali planet
and its thirteen moons, and there, in red-
“Up, we have a problem.”
“Well, don’t drag it out,” he said.
The Arrow’s sensors then caught the same thing she had,
and the ship’s lights began to flash red. “Enemy ship
approaching mark 2324 – it’s robotic!”
“Weapons,” Up said, switching the controls back to
manual, and Taz unbuckled herself to sprint back to the
weapons array, still keeping half an eye on the radar.
“Up, there are three of them!” she called. “Closing fast –
they see us!”
“Engaging the cloaking device,” Up said, pressing
buttons faster than she could keep track of as she swung
into the artillery seat, gearing up the cannons. The Arrow
only had four – she wasn’t meant to be a combat ship.
“Panther, this is Commander Up. Do you read me?”
Silence.
“They’re blocking transmissions,” Taz said, her eyes
scanning the sensors.
“And the cloaking device,” Up confirmed, then turned to
her. “It’s fight or flight.”
She looked at him, and at the robot fighter now looming
in the viewscreen behind him. “Let’s get it done.”
“Shields up,” he said, turning back to the screen. “I’m
going to try and get in their blind spots. Fire when you get a
clean shot, but don’t-”