They waited in the garbage bin for a while, but neither the brute nor the red-haired pirates returned.
"It looks safe now. Let's get back to the ship. Seriously, what was with those guys—chasing us out of nowhere?" Naomi muttered as she pulled Serena up.
"Ugh, the smell still clings... but at least nothing splattered on my clothes. Come, let's reach the street and find a taxi," Serena said, sniffing her sleeve with a frown.
They checked each other quickly, ensuring they looked passable enough, and headed toward the main road.
* * *
By luck, they hailed a taxi and reached the rental dock where the Grim Reaper waited.
"Damn shame. I was still in a good mood after that meal... Osaka, can we even use the bath or shower? You fixed that water generator, right? Or was it just for drinking?" Naomi asked.
A hologram flickered alive on the bridge—Osaka, arms crossed, grinning wide.
"Shoot, don't sweat it. That rig was busted 'cause it couldn't make oxygen. I patched it all up—now it does both. Shower, hot soak, whatever you want. And hey, I even picked up soap when we went shopping with the princess. Got y'all covered."
Naomi rolled her eyes at his smug look, but the stench from the bin was too much. Bath came first.
* * *
"Ahhh... finally. A real bath. It's been nothing but life-or-death scrapes. I feel human again," Naomi sighed.
For the first time in weeks, both women relaxed in warmth. Later, Naomi sat back in the captain's chair while Serena took her place at the comm station, both sipping chilled lemon water.
Then Osaka's voice cut through the calm:
"Cap, we got ourselves a problem. Empire brass just locked down every port in the colony. Word is, they're huntin' an impostor claimin' to be royal."
"What?! That means they've figured out Serena!" Naomi exclaimed.
The hum of the air system was the only sound. Serena stood slowly.
"Naomi. I must leave this ship. Thank you for everything. Truly, I wanted to repay your kindness, but it seems impossible now." She bowed deeply—an unthinkable act for royalty, but gratitude left her no other choice.
"What are you saying? You're leaving 'cause you think we'll be hunted for sheltering you!" Naomi snapped.
"But the Imperial Army is not a band of pirates. You cannot fight them with one ship. If I go, perhaps they will leave you in peace," Serena said softly.
"No! They'll believe I know something—that you entrusted me with secrets. They'll capture me either way. And that's not the point! I won't abandon a friend and run!" Naomi slammed the armrest.
"But if you stay, you'll be branded a criminal," Serena whispered.
"Then so be it! Better outlaw than traitor. Osaka! Spin up the engines!"
"You got it, boss. But heads-up—dock doors are locked tight. Ain't no one openin' 'em for cash now."
"Serena, don't give up yet. I'll get you to Gordia Central, no matter what! Osaka, fire up Main Guns One and Two!"
The hologram smirked.
"Now that's more like it."
"Naomi!! ...but... thank you," Serena murmured.
* * *
The Grim Reaper bristled with firepower: two main guns forward, one aft. The first had been swapped with a massive cannon scavenged from the graveyard.
"Engines hot. Guns locked and loaded," Osaka called.
"Second Gun, target dock doors. First Gun, the colony gate. Fire in sequence! Serena, strap in tight."
Naomi buckled down and watched Serena do the same.
"Main guns—fire!"
Boom!
WHOOOM!
The particle cannon of Gun Two tore the dock doors apart, glowing red across the air. Gun One followed, blasting the colony gate into shrapnel.
"Engines to full! Rip us free of these moorings!" Naomi barked.
Crack... screech... SNAP! Metal shrieked as clamps tore free. The Grim Reaper surged ahead like a warship on emergency launch. Blue-white thrusters flared, hurling the ship through the shattered gate into open void.
On the rear cameras, the colony's emergency bubble system swelled, sticky foam sealing ruptures as fast as it could.
* * *
Hours later—
The Grim Reaper glided through outer space. Inside, Naomi hauled a heavy crate into the armory—each Subspace Torpedo crafted back in the ship's repair bay.
"There! That's the lot of them. So, just leaving them here loads them in order when needed? I always thought someone had to drag each one by hand into the launch tube," Naomi said, wiping sweat from her brow.
Osaka's hologram leaned against the bulkhead with a grin.
"Ha! Ain't no way you'd be shufflin' torpedoes mid-battle. They ride the rails—automatic feed into the tubes. Then it's just a few seconds to set target and range before you fire. Lucky thing this ship's launch tubes were still intact."
"Oh, right. When I found the blueprints for these Subspace Torpedoes, you called them classified military tech. Does that mean they're hard to come by?" Naomi asked, remembering the dusty container in the food stores where she had stumbled across both the designs and the real thing.
"Hard to come by?" Osaka chuckled. "Try near extinct. Back when this ship was in service, Subspace Torpedoes were hot stuff. But then came auto-dodgin' missiles, smart seekers, all that fancy business. Torpedoes that just fly straight started lookin' old-fashioned, so folks shelved 'em."
"Hmm. And yet you said this was the ship's trump card. Kind of odd, isn't it, relying on a relic?"
"That's the kicker. By the time this bird retired, AI defense systems had caught up. Those smart missiles? They got intercepted. Evadin' tricks, pursuit programs—all of it countered. But a torpedo that slips into subspace and pops back out almost on top of its target? Now that's damn near impossible to swat down. Only trouble is... the know-how to build 'em got lost along the way."
"I see," Naomi murmured. "So, while they're warping, they can't be intercepted. And once they drop back to realspace, it's already too late—they're too close for a counterstrike. But centuries passed, the method of making them vanished with the times."
Just as Naomi was piecing the history together—
BEEEEEP. BEEEEEP.
The shrill alarm blared through the ship. The sound struck her like a ghost from the past, sharp and cruel—a warning tone she knew all too well, one that had carved itself into her nightmares.