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

"I should have known," the cyborg said, deactivating the saber. "I honestly thought you were killing each other back here." He turned and walked back to the front, shaking his head. "I'm going back to my Netfolding. Try to keep it to yourselves, eh?"

Eow laughed — light and carefree — then moved off his lap.

Dirken's eyes widened. The upholstered wall in front of them had been slashed and ruined by her claws.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

MAKE A WISH

Still nude, they reclined together on the couch with Eow in Dirken's arms, his legs intertwined with her legs and tail, his arms lightly wrapped around her.

The cabin light was off, allowing easy sight through the transparent canopy. Dirken leaned his head back and looked up at the vast array of stars.

A heavy vibration thrummed through the craft as gravjump ribs surrounded the fighter, arcing over the canopy, and Yiorgos piloted the ship into a jump. The Jacobian gravwell generator spun up, shaking the ship with its strong throbbing. Then the starfield pinched in and exploded outward to a new part of space.

The ribs retracted, and as Dirken's eyes readjusted, he saw a bright red star gleaming in the expanse.

"Make a wish," he said, pointing at the star.

Eow turned her head partway toward him. "A wish? Why?"

Dirken smiled at the silliness. "Nevermind. It's stupid, really."

"No, tell me."

He chuckled. "Well, it's a silly old Earth custom for little kids. When night comes, and you see the first visible star, you sing, 'Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight; I wish I may, I wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight.' It's superstitious, really."

Eow played her fingers over Dirken's forearms. "It is cute."

"The really silly thing is that the first 'star' that the kids usually saw was a planet called Venus."

Eow laughed. It was that light laugh that's so opposite her warrior ways — the sort a young girl might make while running with friends through a field.

"You are no better, Dirken. The joke is on you! The 'star' you pointed at is a nebula, not a star. I think your people call it the 'Red Rectangle Nebula.'"

"Oh. Well…." Now he really felt sheepish.

She laughed again. "But I would rather wish upon the product of a supernova than some stagnant star or planet. It is an honorable death for a star, giving birth to something… majestic… proud."

Yiorgos yawed the fighter away from the nebula and rotated. A red giant star rolled into sight, relatively close, filling most of the view. The canopy tinted in response as the nav chart on the wall gave the star's name as "Aldebaran."

In response to the ship's movement, the Heart rolled out of the circle of clothes it had been situated in and came to rest against his left leg. He pushed it away and it rolled back into the corner to his left, illuminating the cushions green with its slow blinking lights. The thought flitted through his mind again that the Bloodhawk had called it the "Heart." What the hell is this thing?

Dirken pushed the thought out of his mind. "So," he said. "What would you wish upon that nebula?"

"Like a supernova, I also wish for an honorable death."

Dirken ran his hand down the silky fur of her firm belly and came to rest where the line of her thigh slanted down to her groin. He felt himself getting excited again.

"That seems like an unexpected thing to wish for."

"Why?"

"Well, death isn't the usual thing people wish for, honorable or not."

"Maybe not your people. For mine, back on Ananakia, there is no greater wish — at least for a warrior. It is what I was taught from the time I first started training."

"How young were you?"

"We start as soon as we can run, around six years old for my world, enrolling in a training center where we live for the rest of our youth." She paused, seemingly lost in a pleasant memory, then added, "When I was fifteen years old — which I think might be around twelve in your Earth years —  I blooded my first grenloc on the Plains of Yenla. The beast was three meters long and as massive as a hovcar. Its hide was tough, and it had three long horns on its forehead. If a grenloc charges you, all you can do is dodge or it will gore you to death. Death is not seen as a poor outcome, if it is a death without cowering or fleeing. Some of the trainees died. But I survived and bled him with my spear."

"Did you kill it?"

"No. I was too small and weak to kill such a beast. Too young. But that was the point. I showed bravery and skill against a foe I could never hope to kill. I injured it and lived to fight another day."

Impressive! Dirken thought. He wondered if he could have done such a thing at that age. "Your parents must have been worried."

"My mother was a great warrior, as was her mother before her, and those who came before. She understood."

"And your father?"

She shifted to look at him again, her whiskers sweeping across his cheek as she turned her amethyst eyes to look into his hazel ones. "You know nothing of Ananaks, do you?" She chuckled and turned back. "I do not know who my father is, for my mother had many studs in her harem. Men on Ananakia are either studs of great value and strength or they are lower-class workers who are unable to live up to those select standards." She ran her fingers through his hair as she spoke. "The women are either warriors or property owners. Warriors have many studs. But the studs are sometimes freed… after they have bred past their peak, often going on to positions of authority or out into the galaxy as warriors in their own right." She reached around him with her right hand and ran it over his thigh and