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

tail. We're going to have to wait another three hours or so until that end rotates out of the tail."

"We don't have time," Dirken said. "The Bloodhawk is surely tracking us. He'll catch up to us before then."

"We must go now," Eow said. "Not just because of the Bloodhawk, but because I have told them we are coming. You do not keep the Eridani Mafia waiting."

"Great," Yiorgos said, making adjustments to their trajectory, sighing. "I've always wanted to fly at high speeds through a gauntlet of ice and rocks that could smash us in an instant — while trying to line up with a hangar — and navigating in a language I can't naturally speak — so I can visit the most dangerous people in the galaxy." He gave a mock smile. "So blessed."

Dirken put his hand on his partner's shoulder. "I'll help. I can control the weapons from a console in the rear cockpit."

"Fine, fine." Yiorgos waved him away. "Just go away and let me concentrate on this. I'm calculating the trajectory now. We'll have to come into the tail at a very acute angle to minimize our time in it. Touchy."

"One more thing," Eow added. "Just before we get to the hangar we will fly through the ionized atmosphere of the coma. You have to line up with the hangar before then, or fly by eye, since the ionization can affect navigation sensors."

"Good to know," Yiorgos groaned.

Dirken stepped to the rear cockpit with Eow. He gave a quick glance at the sphere then tapped the display screen to bring up the weapons console. An interactive holographic display projected around him, and he started going through the systems. The fighter had a heavy prow gun: a military-grade phase cannon with a two-second recharge. But there was also a short-range missile array strapped to either side of the fuselage, each capable of firing two intermediate-strength graviton bursts and two standard thermion explosive warheads.

"You will not want to shoot directly toward the comet with those," Eow said. "The cannons at the gate will think you are shooting at them and will return fire."

"Cannons?! You didn't say anything about cannons."

She shrugged. "Of course there are cannons. Did you think the hangar would be unguarded? There are two at the gate, the biggest Grimmag could find."

"Great." He adjusted the 3D holo settings on the display. "You just secure the Heart so it doesn't bounce around. Okay?"

He had just figured out how to arm the missiles when Yiorgos announced, "Comet in sight. Coming up fast!"

Dirken looked forward from the canopy and saw it. The body, or "nucleus," of the Witch's Tits was half in shadow and surrounded by a halo of gas and dust, but a two-part tail stretched out far to their right: a bright, sky-blue gas tail, and a pinkish-white dust tail. The nav chart measured the nucleus at a whopping twenty kilometers. The tails, though, went as far to the right as they could see, over seven-hundred thousand kilometers.

"Beautiful," Dirken said. He'd never flown so close to a comet before. He was about to get closer than he ever wanted.

Eow reached down from the couch and secured the Heart in the duffel bag, then pushed it into the compartment under the couch. "Want me to do the shooting, space jockey?"

He shot her a look of annoyance. "I've got it covered."

"Suit yourself. I'll just sit here and watch you perform." She winked, then she pulled out a safety harness from the couch and buckled it around her slim waist.

A few minutes passed, and he took a few test shots with the prow gun. The comet expanded and expanded until it took up nearly all their forward view. Yiorgos hit the forward thrusters, slowing their approach. "Entering in about one minute. Strap in!"

Dirken looked around, but there wasn't another safety harness. The couch is designed for a fucking Aquarian centaur, he thought. The only non-centaur harness was already around Eow.

So he quickly slipped his feet into Eow's space suit then activated the magboots. At least this way his feet would be rooted to the spot.

The comet, meanwhile, now utterly dwarfed the fighter. It was white and gray with visible geysers shooting out from the front and sides, giving rise to the tails. The dust tail towered over them in a pinkish glory shot through with streaks of flying boulders and concentrated lines of ejecta.

"Look at the size of that dust tail," Dirken said. "That's one hell of a rocky comet. They're supposed to be more like snowballs!"

Eow regarded him coolly. "Does it intimidate you to fly into it?"

Dirken scoffed. "No! I've flown in worse." But he took another glance up at the tail and wondered about the wisdom of their plan.

"Facing Grimmag Ruby-Eye is not a task for weaklings," she said. "Facing the dangers of a comet pales in comparison."

He heard an Aquarian centaur automated voice calling out a warning from the front cockpit computer. Dirken was rubbing his lucky Rigellian runestone when Yiorgos called out, "Here we go!" He checked the targeting sensors one last time, tucking the runestone back in the hidden pocket of his leather jacket.

And then they entered the tail.

Immediately the ship resounded with a million small bits hitting the canopy and fuselage at high speed. There was nothing he could do about that. On his screen he saw a largish rock, maybe a meter across, and fired the prow gun. It was a direct hit, shattering it into dust that flew harmlessly by.

Half a dozen alarms mixed with the automated centaur voice from the front cockpit.

In among the dust were snowballs — literally — palm-sized globs of ice that hit the canopy and splattered into tiny ice crystals that momentarily covered that patch of the canopy. But they came faster and faster as Yiorgos piloted the craft toward the middle of the tail.

Dirken fired the prow gun, and then again, and then again. The two second recharge wasn't fast enough to keep up with all the debris. The