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

freakin' hangar battle. That's three in less than two Earth days! We sure as hell don't want to go out there." He turned to look at Dirken. "So what's the plan?"

Behind them they heard pounding on the airlock and attempts to wrench it open. Then came the energetic whine of a plasma beam as the Saffron Guard started cutting through the airlock.

"Well, no going back that way, either!" Dirken stopped to consider their odds, then came to a conclusion, looking toward the hangar. "Okay, I have a plan."

"Oh shit. Here we go.…" Yiorgos muttered.

"Our choices aren't good, but we have one advantage. Those guards down there are all looking the other way and focused on the pirates. They don't know we're here."

Behind them the metallic whining intensified. Ahead of them, a laser flashed across the hangar and hit the Oranchian dead on, but the mirrored armor reflected it and it burned a line across the comet wall next to him. The hulking beast just laughed with a "Ho ho!" and returned fire at the brigantine.

Dirken pressed the button on each of the bracelets and watched as they folded out into mirrored vambraces — his own bit of laser-proof armor. He then readied his blaster. "You aim at the cannon on the left. I'll take the right. Fire at its energy pack when I do." Dirken took careful aim as Yiorgos did the same. "Ready? Three, two, one…."

They fired at the same instant and hit the mini-cannons dead on. Dirken's cannon exploded, knocking several guards off their feet and sending shrapnel into the rest. Yiorgos's was damaged, but his mini-blaster wasn't strong enough to do serious damage.

Dirken hefted the duffel bag and the Heart. Dirken yelled "Come on!" to Yiorgos. They rushed forward, firing their blasters at the guards. Yiorgos followed behind Dirken as fast as his gimpy leg could allow. He fired his mini-blaster and hit the Oranchian in the head. The mirrored helmet shattered, but the beast still stood.

Dirken shot a couple other guards and dropped them instantly, then kicked the Oranchian in the gut, distracting him long enough for Yiorgos to run through the barricade and past the guards.

"Make for the fighter!" Dirken yelled, pointing to the far side of the hangar and sprinting behind his partner.

He turned and fired over his shoulder at the other mounted cannon. The blast hit, but the cannon recovered and turned toward him.

The other guards raised their rifles at them. But just as they aimed, a massive explosion rocked the hangar. Missiles fired from Grimmag's ship hit the nose of the brigantine and exploded in a fireball. The four-winged hawk figurehead was blown off, tumbling end over end upward and then in a trajectory right for Dirken and Yiorgos.

"Watch out!" Dirken yelled, dodging for cover.

The figurehead slammed into the deck in a hail of debris, narrowly missing the pair, and crashed into the guard post. The Oranchian was smashed against the wall in a rain of pink blood and shattered mirror armor. Then the ice-and-rock ceiling over the guard post collapsed onto the remaining guards.

Dirken paused to check on Yiorgos, relieved to see the cyborg still alive.

"I'm okay!" Yiorgos yelled. "But look!" He pointed with his wrecked right arm up toward the Bloodhawk's ship. The front was a fiery wreck, but further down the craft several ports opened and red-clothed pirates in hoversuits jumped out, firing rifles as they lowered toward the deck.

"The fighter!" Dirken yelled and pointed across the hangar. The yellow fightercraft sat serenely untouched in the midst of flaming spacecraft and falling debris. It seemed impossibly far away, but they made for it. It was their only choice.

They dodged left as a laser cut across the deck and hit a Pleiadean hauler, slicing off her port thruster panel. Then they ducked as a Terran yacht lifted up from behind them, barely above head height. The craft had hardly gone twelve meters when cannon blasts from the brigantine hit the cockpit. The craft veered right, tilted at a sharp angle with an ear-splitting thruster roar, then collided with a spherical scout pod and exploded against the hangar wall.

"There!" Dirken heard someone shout. The deep voice was instantly recognizable. He looked up toward the brigantine and saw the Bloodhawk, a hoversuit strapped to his four-legged torso, flying near the burning nose of his ship. His uncovered chest was bright green and inflamed from the explosion he'd suffered in their last encounter, and one eye was swollen shut. Half a dozen of his pirates hovered near him. They immediately swooped into action, making a bee line toward Dirken.

"Crap! That's all we need!" Dirken shouted.

Several shots barely missed them, until Dirken heard the Bloodhawk yell at his pirates, "Don't fire toward the Heart, you curs!"

The hangar was absolute chaos. They passed by a Tau Cetian screaming in polyphonic agony, her legs both cleanly severed at the knees by a laser. A moment later, a block of ice as big as a shuttle slammed into the deck with a resounding crash that sent chunks as large as Dirken's head in every direction. A clipper exploded back the way they'd came. The air was saturated with fuel, spilled chemicals, and smoke. It was hard for him to focus.

They managed to get halfway across the hangar when Dirken spotted Eow running across the hangar as well, somersaulting over a disabled shuttlecraft. She sprinted up the ramp to the cockpit of their fightercraft.

"Eow!" Dirken yelled, but she apparently didn't hear him over the explosions and weapons fire. Dirken sped up, but he'd hardly gone ten paces before Eow lifted off in the fighter, turned, and flew through the narrow gap between the brig and the wall of the hangar entry. The fightercraft had plenty of room in the gap, but any larger ship would likely not squeeze through.

"Our fighter!" Dirken yelled. "That treacherous bitch stole our fighter!"

"What do we do now?" Yiorgos responded. "Can we take one of these others?"

Dirken looked around, but most of the remaining