The First Nova I See Tonight by Jason Kilgore (best ereader for pdf and epub TXT) 📗

The cyborg's right forearm detached, still sporting the activated plasma saber.

Dirken stared in disbelief. "You can do that?"

"Just take it and fight!" Yiorgos yelled, handing his arm to Dirken, then picking up the Heart and hobbling toward the fighter.

Dirken didn't have time to think. The Bloodhawk whooped and leaped upon him, knocking him to his back.

He raised Yiorgos's arm and blocked, just in time. The captain's sword swung down. The plasma edges threw blue sparks as the blades met and slid.

The centaur's strength was like that of three men. Even with two hands around Yiorgos's arm, the Bloodhawk was still sliding his scimitar, one-handed, down the saber toward Dirken. The swords crackled where they touched each other.

Then the pirate swung again. Once again Dirken blocked it, hitting the saber and getting pushed lower.

He gritted his teeth. Their blades lowered further until they were just a centimeter from his face. The heat from the plasma burned at his cheek.

The Bloodhawk smiled in victory, his four eyes narrowing.

Rifle bolts exploded around and past them.

The Bloodhawk half-turned and shouted, "Stop firing toward me, you mongrels!"

It was the distraction Dirken needed. He kicked up into the Bloodhawk's lower body as hard as he could and made contact, his boot going deep into the soft part of the stomach.

The pirate captain grunted and coughed, stepping back. Then swung again.

Dirken parried then made a right cut and sliced through the pirate's chest. It cut through a bandoleer, which fell to the deck with a dozen power packs and a blaster.

Dirken grabbed the Bloodhawk's blaster from its holster. As the Bloodhawk leapt again, Dirken aimed and fired at the bandoleer.

The power packs detonated.

Dirken was thrown back and momentarily blinded by the flash and heat. When he blinked and focused again, the Bloodhawk was two meters away, laying on his side with a massive burn across his lower body.

"Come on, Dirk!" Yiorgos yelled.

Neenan tried to rise up but fell back to the deck.

Dirken picked up Yiorgos's forearm and ran to the fightercraft. As he bolted up the ramp to the open cockpit, the remaining pirates opened fire again, hitting the ramp around him.

He leapt into the ship, careful with the plasma saber, and the fighter immediately hovered, the transparent canopy lowering over them. The fighter had two cockpits: the front for piloting, and the back for the gunner. Eow was in the front cockpit sitting on a padded bench perpendicular to the console. Dirken and Yiorgos were in the back, separated from the front cockpit by a wall console and a narrow entry off to the side.

"I have access!" Eow shouted back, then she took the controls and fired. The massive prow cannon cut huge craters into the hangar walls, shredding pirates as they dragged the Bloodhawk out of the hangar. Dirken was glad Yiorgos was right; the ship controls weren't coded.

From the front cockpit came a computerized voice, speaking in a swirling, grunting vocalization.

"I cannot get attitude adjustment," Eow said. "It is voice-activated in the Aquarian centaur language."

Yiorgos reattached his arm and deactivated the plasma saber. "Trade places with me."

Eow stepped back and Yiorgos slid to the front, using the divider to steady himself and sit on the bench. He activated his vocal inserts while tilting his head, letting the computerized part of his mind take over. Soon he was speaking the language of Aquarian centaurs.

Yiorgos turned the ship and aimed at the other fighter. Two well-placed shots, and the fighter exploded in a massive yellow fireball.

Alarms flashed, and the hangar door opened.

The fire extinguished as the oxygen left — probably part of the automated fire safety protocol — but it gave them the chance they needed. Yiorgos engaged the engines and they shot out of the hangar.

"Fold now!" Dirken yelled.

"I haven't calculated a trajectory yet," Yiorgos shouted back.

The two other ships opened fire, narrowly missing the craft as Yiorgos dodged to port. Two missile ports slipped open on the side of the brigantine.

"Just do it! We'll be in a thousand different trajectories if one of their missiles hit us!"

Yiorgos activated the gravwell engine. Large rods extended out of the fighter and arched around it, surrounding it like a cage. Then space folded, pinching in on itself and exploding outward again to another part of the galaxy.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

IN THE COCKPIT

Dirken sighed in relief once they had folded, and they hadn't landed in the middle of a planet or next to a star. Doubtless there was a neutrino tracker in the ship, but after a couple more gravjumps, they were far enough away that it would take at least an Earth day before the signal could get to the Bloodhawk — assuming he was even still alive.

Dirken felt for his lucky runestone and was relieved to find it in the hidden breast pocket of his leather jacket. He pulled it out, gave it a rub with his thumb, then tucked it back in.

The rear cockpit was just large enough for two, with Dirken and Eow upon a comfortable, padded couch, and just enough height to stand upright before hitting the transparent aluminum canopy. A display on the wall in front of them showed an interactive navigation chart and auxiliary weapons control.

They looked under the cushions of the bench and found a compartment. A toolbox had been stowed inside. It wasn't well-equipped, but there were enough tools for Yiorgos to augment his native repair system and work on his blasted leg up in the front cockpit, after he'd taken off the spacesuit. The cyborg hoped it could at least get him walking on his own. Next to the toolbox was a duffel bag. Opening it, Dirken found a money purse containing currency from different worlds: a handful of United Worlds chits, iridium coins from Proxima Centauri, a few very valuable palladium spheres the size of ball bearings from Oran c, and a dozen cloth-of-silver bills from Aquaria. No emergency kit is complete without some spending money, he thought, and pocketed the