The story “Ship Rats” is written in the best traditions of pirate science fiction, familiar to us since the days of Jack Williamson.

From the author: ““Ship Rats" is a vivid example of this. The idea arose in the fall of 2000, but at the time I thought a story about a hijacking of a starship, in which the crew and passengers encounter misogynistic terrorists, would seem strange. Airplane hijackings had not been in the news for several years, and the topic seemed irrelevant to me, much more suitable for fantasy than that. science fiction. Nevertheless, I still wrote the story, and it was supposed to be published in Asimov's just before the nightmare of September 11. That's when I realized what this story was really about."