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

surprisingly lithe. She escaped Eow's grasp, swung herself around the Ananak's body, and hugged her from behind, her arm around Eow's throat to choke her.

Eow stiffened. The albino screamed as Eow's body spikes plunged into her.

Dirken pulled the albino off.

Eow spun and hit him in the face with a closed fist, then lunged for the Heart. But she was cut off by Yiorgos. He fired, but she leaped away, turning a somersault.

For a brief moment she landed, surveying the situation, the albino's blood dripping from her back and her own blood from her head. Her eyes darted from Dirken and Yiorgos to the body of Dimitri. She retracted her spines, then she fled, running with amazing speed past the dais toward the front tunnel.

Yiorgos touched the control panel and the reinforced doors slid open again. Another distant explosion, and the room shook again, large clods of ice crashing down around them.

The Saffron Guards fired through the dais gap, narrowly missing them as the room shook, but Dirken leaned down to the albino woman. Her chest was a mess of gaping holes and pulsing, bloody wounds. He was surprised she was still alive.

She gasped, spitting up blood, but her eyes focused on him. She pointed through the doors. "Second… left. Yellow… airlock." She sputtered. "Must… go." She grabbed Dirken's collar and muttered, "May AVA bring peace… at last." This last was stated with a long sigh, then her eyes fixed and her hand released his collar and fell to the floor.

The comet shook with another massive explosion — the largest yet. All around them, the walls of the hall splintered and cracked. Large sections fell from the ceiling.

"Come on, Dirk!" Yiorgos yelled.

The Saffron Guards continued firing, but the shaking continued, clearly affecting their aim. The dais had also stopped lowering and appeared stuck, but the guards now squeezed through the gap and dropped to the floor.

Dirken grabbed the Heart duffel bag and ran through the doorway, retrieving his blaster as he went.

One Saffron guardsman jumped down and spread his arms wide. Little ports opened all over his body, then a dozen miniature missiles shot out.

Yiorgos touched the control panel on the other side, closing the doors again, just as the rockets slammed into the other side. The hallway shook.

Dirken's eyes had gone wide. If the door had stayed open another millisecond they would have been pulp. He reached into his secret pocket and pulled out his lucky runestone, gave it quick kiss, and tucked it back inside.

Yiorgos blasted the control panel. "It won't hold them for long," he shouted, and they ran down the corridor.

They passed a tunnel to their left that sloped downward, then came to another on their left that stopped at a yellow airlock.

"Here," Dirken said. "The albino said to escape through here."

Behind them they heard a metallic screech as the reinforced door was being forced open.

Yiorgos tapped on an interface with his good hand, but the readout flashed red. "Someone's overriding it from the other side."

"What?" Dirken said. "Can you stop them?"

From behind the airlock came an echo of small explosions. Dirken felt the vibrations through the floor.

Yiorgos cocked his head. "Maybe this way…." He reached to his mangled right arm and pulled a cable from it. It seemed caught on something internally, but it was just long enough. He raised his arm to the panel and connected the wire to a port on the interface.

From behind them came another metallic screech and the sound of gears winding back.

Dirken looked back around the corner and saw the reinforced doors slide back. "Hurry! They're through!" He leaned out and fired several shots, then pulled back just as several blasts hit the wall.

"Ah!" Yiorgos exclaimed, and the airlock swung open.

The little Gogonoian fluttered his wings in surprise on the other side. He shrieked, eyes wide, and flapped past them into the hallway…

…where he was immediately shot, a pulse rifle bolt from the Saffron Guard blasting through his right wing and into his torso. He flopped to the ground in a smoking heap.

Dirken and Yiorgos ran through the airlock and pulled it shut behind them as they heard the echo of boots growing louder.

What they met on the other side was a corridor filled with fumes. The air was alive with the sounds of a explosions, the smells of burning synthalloys, the screams of the injured. But the corridor sloped downward before leveling out, so they couldn't see what lay beyond the slope.

Yiorgos hacked into the airlock interface. "That should lock it for good," he said. Then they crept down the slope.

What they saw down the corridor made Dirken's eyes widen. "Oh shit!" was all he could say.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

ANOTHER FREAKIN' HANGAR BATTLE

Less than five meters ahead of them was a checkpoint manned by half a dozen heavily armed guards, an Oranchian in mirrored armor, and two mini pulse cannons mounted on the wall. They were hiding behind barriers and firing into the hangar, which opened up in front of them, their backs to Dirken and Yiorgos.

Beyond them, the hangar presented a scene of chaos. Lasers of different colors flashed back and forth. Parked spacecraft exploded. Guards ran for cover.

And through the yawning opening that led to space, the nose of the Bloodhawk's brigantine, the Dragonfire, pushed forward. Half in the hangar and half out, the starship crowding the opening with its massive body, its prow decorated with a gigantic figurehead shaped like a four-winged hawk with outstretched talons. Most of the rest of the front had been blasted to hell, probably by those massive cannons. The ship was so large that there was no way it could fully enter the hangar. It blocked the exit against any mid-sized vessels trying to escape, including the zeppelin-like ship that Eow had said was Grimmag's.

But smaller craft can easily get through the edges, Dirken thought, including the fighter. He craned his neck, but he couldn't see the fighter from where he was.

"Holy shit," Yiorgos whispered. "It's another