Don’t Shoot Yet

Dragged into Vexus, Captain Uma has seconds to decide what a “target” really is.

“Damn it! Now you decide to throw errors?” Uma kicked the atmospheric pressure gauge. The cabin was cold enough for the robot to start chirping like it was possessed.

“Temperature dropping! Alarm! Temperature dropping!”

“Buddy, do you really have to do this right now?” She killed the robot with one motion. It stayed suspended beside a short metal worktop where the mess was almost painful to look at: cables, measuring devices, two pulse monitors, and a synthesizer. Uma rummaged through it like her life depended on it.

“Aha. Found you.” With her left hand she grabbed a cylinder filled with a colorless liquid, sealed with a red cap. Emergency antifreeze—the last one. With her right, she popped open the compartment at the bottom of the device. Inside, a small chamber trembled faintly, like a nervous heart.

“Hold your breath.” She looked at the robot as if it could understand what was coming. “Either it starts… or we blow.”

Not a single facial muscle betrayed her tension. Two indicator lights flickered once. Uma took a step back. Slowly. The lights went out. Only then did her hand tighten on the Tri-Phaser strapped to her hip.

“Atmospheric pressure at normal levels. Cabin pressurization begins now,” the autopilot delivered its verdict. The cabin hatch slid open with a mechanical hiss.

Uma patted the little robot’s head as she switched it back on.

“Wake up, you lazy tin can. We’re safe.”

“Tempera—” It cut off mid-word, running its security routine. “Captain, the ship is fully operational. We can depart.”

“Let’s drink something first: a synthetic Parma wine. We’ve earned it, haven’t we?” Uma pulled out a dark bottle. She took two clear glasses and poured a finger’s worth of thick liquid. She handed one to the robot. It took it, ceremonially.

“To your health, Captain.” It raised the glass, dipped its head slightly, and clinked with Uma. She tossed hers back, satisfied. Then she took the robot’s glass too, lifted it in its honor, and drained it in a second.

“Now we can get to work.” The two of them moved to the control panel of the small ship. Uma’s eyes ran quickly over the indicators—fuel, shields, route… everything looked fine.

Then the autopilot engaged.

“Danger! Unauthorized ship activation! Danger! Unauthorized ship activation!”

Uma dropped into the pilot’s chair. The robot sat in the seat behind her.

“Security Code A1234 Nasq 2. Repeat: Security Code A1234 Nasq 2. Pilot, switch to manual control.”

“Prepare to enter warp speed. Destination—Alpha Sector. Location—unknown.”

“Pilot, this is Captain Uma, identification code STAR2026PRIM. I order you: override the previous command and stop the ship.” Her jaw clenched as her hands crushed the armrests.

The Vexus Network came online. The small ship was sucked into interlacing tunnels at a dizzying speed.

“When we exit into hyperspace, arm the weapons automatically,” Uma ordered the robot in a low voice. She braced for the worst.

“Yes, Captain. Exiting warp in three, two, one.”

The ship snapped out of Vexus. For the first time, Uma’s face twitched into a grimace. More than fifteen ships hung around what looked like a small planet. All of them—shields up, battle-ready. The question was: against whom?

Multiple faces popped onto the screen at once, like a galactic zoom. Thank God for the automatic translator.

“Captain Uma. I didn’t expect to see you here. Tell me—did you hack our navigation systems?”

Amphibia appeared first, throat swollen with anger.

“Hey, Amphibia. Do you use those gills to think too? You were here before I arrived, weren’t you?”

Amphibia nodded, displeased.

“I see you’re all here,” Uma said, dripping sarcasm. “The Mano tribe, the Arcar tribe, Nanuk—last time I thought I killed you. Looks like I’ve got another chance.”

Nanuk bared his teeth in a grin too wide to be friendly. The alien with the monkey face—flattened like a squash hit by a truck—leaned into the screen and howled.

“Uma! What a surprise!”

A tall man, thin as a stalagmite, made his entrance on the strength of his cheerful tone alone.

Thom raised two fingers in a lazy salute, like he’d walked into a bar, not an ambush.

“A real party we’ve got here, Thom. Don’t tell me you were kidnapped too. I hope you were dressed decently when it happened,” Uma said, deadpan.

“Uma, Uma… when are you going to forgive me?” Thom sighed, still playful.

“Hey, nobody cares about your marital drama, okay? Not that half the system doesn’t already know what kind of circus you two are,” Nanuk laughed, letting out sharp, high sounds.

Amphibia cut in.

“Enough, enough. I’ve got cargo dying in my hold. Let’s make a plan to get out of here.”

“Finally, you talk like the merchant you are,” Uma snapped, straightening. “But you’re right. What do you know about this planet? Have you scanned it?”

“It’s round, as you can see.” Thom kept needling her. “We don’t know if it has life. It’s a sphere with a shell made of an unknown metal.” His voice turned serious.

Arco didn’t raise his voice. He simply tilted his head—calculated—and held his gaze steady, like a predator.

“A sphere can’t sabotage fifteen ships at once and drag them here. Don’t you think?” Arco said, the Mano tribe’s representative in this sector.

“I say we torpedo it,” Nanuk slammed a fist into his console.

“Aren’t we rushing this?” Uma fired back.

“I agree with him,” Thom added. “At least then we’ll find out what we’re dealing with.”

“Fine. Minimum-yield payload,” Uma concluded.

The connection cut. Each of them was ready to fire.

“WARNING. TORPEDO ARMED,” the autopilot announced—what the robot had already executed on Uma’s earlier command.

In the next second, shields rose automatically.

“INCOMING ASTEROID STORM! BRACE!”

Vexus flared open violently. Dozens of asteroids slammed into the ships with shocking force—like the right hook of an angry boxer in the final round.

Half the ships were damaged. Uma’s ship took serious hits too.

“Uma, are you okay?” Thom asked, faintly worried.

“Not in your dreams will I ever ask you for help, if that’s what you were thinking,” Uma snapped.

Thom smiled like he already knew her line by heart.

“At least now we know it’s alive. And not only that—it knows all our moves,” Thom emphasized.

The asteroids settled into a protective belt around the sphere.

“It’s alive, all right,” Uma muttered to herself.

“Robot, scan every frequency you know. Let’s see how the runt communicates.”

“Yes, Captain,” the robot said curtly, feeding crisp commands into a navigation console.

“Scan complete.” The robot tilted its head as if listening to music only it could hear. “Captain… the signal isn’t aggressive. It’s cyclical.”

“Cyclical how?” Uma pressed her forehead to the screen, fingers flying over controls.

“It has the rhythm of contractions,” the robot replied.

Around the sphere, the asteroid belt slowly shifted formation. It was a ring tightening and loosening in waves—like breathing.

“Contractions… in metal?” Uma clenched her jaw. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Do you like the sound of a torpedo better?” Nanuk’s voice cut into comms. “My finger’s on the button.”

On-screen, Amphibia adjusted a translator at its throat and flared its gills in fury.

“If we blow up, just know my cargo—!”

“Shut up, Amphibia.” Uma didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t need to. “Robot. Give me the frequencies. All of them.”

“Yes, Captain.” The robot projected a string of values onto the display. “The signal has multiple layers. One is set to S.O.S. Another—to stabilization.”

“Captain,” the robot added, “it can feel our tractor field. It’s aligning itself to it.”

“Tractor field.” Uma felt her pulse jump. “Damn it…”

On the open channel, Thom slid in with that same irritating ease.

“Come on, Uma—what brilliant idea have you had now? This corner of the sector could use some entertainment.”

“Thom, you don’t want me to collect that debt right now, do you?” Uma bit her lip. Thom leaned back, hands up—message received.

“Listen, all of you. The sphere doesn’t want to attack us. It’s keeping us here for… synchronization.”

“Synchronization with what?” Arco growled.

Uma swallowed.

“With us.”

On the main display, the sphere pulsed once.

“Captain. Internal separation detected. Pressure increasing,” the robot reported.

“Say it in my language,” Nanuk snarled.

“It’s giving birth,” Uma said, eyes locked on the sphere.

For a second, everything froze: ships, asteroids, even their breathing.

“WARNING. TORPEDO LAUNCH IN 10… 9… 8…” the autopilot announced.

“NO!” Uma shot up like she’d been burned and slammed her fist into the panel.

Nanuk gave a short laugh.

“Stop the torpedoes! Stop them now!” Uma’s voice vibrated with fury.

“You dragged us here?” Amphibia spat. “And now you lecture us about… births?!”

“You’re about to kill something we don’t even know what it is,” Uma replied flatly.

“WARNING. TORPEDO LAUNCH IN 5… 4… 3…”

The robot lifted its head slightly.

“The tractor field, Captain.”

Uma felt a clean, bright line ignite in her mind—as if someone had drawn the solution with a laser.

“Vexus,” she whispered.

“Yes.” The robot’s hands were already on the console, fast and efficient. “Our tractor wave can stabilize the process. It needs an external field for… alignment.”

“And if we tear it apart?” Uma shot back.

“The decision is yours, Captain,” the robot answered.

“Thom!” Uma called without looking away from the sphere. “Does your tractor wave still work?”

“Yes.” Thom’s tone wasn’t playful anymore. “How fast?”

“Now. Everyone who has one—aim your tractor wave at the sphere.”

“WARNING. TORPEDO LAUNCH IN 2… 1… Action cancelled.”

A heavy silence.

On-screen, the asteroids moved abruptly. Under the pressure of the combined tractor waves, the sphere’s metallic shell split into large pieces.

“What the hell is that?” Nanuk whispered.

From inside it, a mini-sphere throbbed with life. It stayed in the tractor field for a few seconds.

The robot lifted its gaze.

“Stabilization successful.”

Uma exhaled, relieved.

One by one, each ship withdrew its tractor field. Vexus ignited. The mini-sphere flickered once more—and slipped into Vexus.

“Uma, my dear—until next time!” Thom slid into Vexus too, sounding like he’d just left a party. The other ships followed in a hurried chain of jumps. One after another.

Silence.

The robot pulled Uma out of her trance.

“Captain, it’s time to go.”

Uma nodded, eyes still fixed on the space where the sphere had broken open.

“Don’t you still want a glass of synthetic Porto before we leave? After all that…” The captain reached for the bottle, with the stubbornness of someone refusing to let the universe dictate her pace.

“Would you like to clink glasses with the asteroids this time?” the robot asked, dry.

Uma raised an eyebrow.

“Robot joke.”

“According to my data, the field instability here will soon become… incendiary.”

Uma put the bottle away with a short sigh.

“And I got a prohibitive one, too,” she said flatly. Then she tightened the Tri-Phaser strap and sank into her seat. “I hope your upgraded version is more party-friendly.”

The robot blinked once.

“I have seven party programs.”

“Seven?” Uma started the engines without looking back.

“Yes, Captain. All of them end in evacuation.”

For one second, Uma actually laughed. A small, tired laugh.

Then she pulled the lever— and let Vexus swallow her whole.