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

bodies thrown to the back of the cabin as well. Dirken felt around anyhow.

'TakTrak unbuckled himself, looked around in a daze, and briefly locked eyes with Dirken. As difficult as it was to read the face of a Corthian, the look was clear. Despair at the loss of his ship. Fear. Anger. Bewilderment. Dirken knew the feeling all too well.

'TakTrak then hobbled the two steps over to Feleesha and put his winged arm onto the woman's back.

"Feleesha, my dear…." Behind the synthesized translator, 'TakTrak's voice was uncharacteristically gentle. Dirken wondered in that moment if their relationship went further than just pilot and captain.

The Corthian gingerly pulled Feleesha off the console. She was unconscious and bleeding from her forehead. Emitting a pained twitter, 'TakTrak put his hand on his pilot's neck to feel for a pulse. He seemed to relax. "Tough gal. You'll make it."

Dirken glanced to Yiorgos, and they seemed to read each other's thoughts. Time to go. They edged toward the door.

Andy moaned, seemed to wake, then passed out again.

'TakTrak whipped around and yanked his flechette rifle from the side of the captain's chair.

Yiorgos raised his mini-blaster at the same moment. It was a draw.

"Drop the blaster," 'TakTrak demanded.

"You first," Yiorgos replied. "You're outnumbered."

"This damned gig cost me my ship and my crew. I should kill you where you stand! If it were not for the fortune awaiting me, I would not hesitate. Do not tempt me."

Yiorgos hesitated a moment before complying. His blaster clattered to the floor at his feet, throwing up a puff of foam powder.

Andy tensed, ready to spring at the captain.

"Think twice, escort," 'TakTrak warned, his flechette rifle now aimed at the young man.

"You still think he's an escort?" Dirken asked.

"Yes, of course! I hired him and the Rigellian myself."

This confused Dirken. Andy was clearly part of something bigger, some secret society of AVA. How could 'TakTrak not know?

The ship groaned. A metallic whine. Then many things happened at once….

The Raptores rolled several more degrees to port.

All of them stumbled sideways. Andy rolled over with another moan.

Yiorgos lunged to his mini-blaster.

'TakTrak fired. Yiorgos's blaster exploded, blazed orange. The cyborg howled in pain.

Dirken swung the duffel around and slammed it into 'TakTrak's head, the heart emitting a clang as it hit him. The Corthian flung against the side of his captain's chair, but he recovered quickly. As Dirken tried to swing again, 'TakTrak bashed the rifle butt into Dirken's face.

Dirken fell back, his face aflame with pain and unable to see for a moment. When he recovered, he was looking down the barrel of the rifle.

"Do not do it, old rogue," 'TakTrak warned, his translator modulating weirdly.

Dirken raised the hand that wasn't holding the duffel.

Yiorgos groaned. Looking over to his partner, Dirken saw that the skin of Yiorgos's left hand was beet-red and inflamed from the exploding blaster.

"Yiorgos!" Dirken said, resisting the urge to rush to his partner.

"This job is not over yet," 'TakTrak said. "With the money I will make on this, I can buy a new ship. I need you alive, as much as it would give me pleasure to end you."

Yiorgos grimaced and stood up, his left hand clawed in pain in front of him. With his cybernetic right hand blown off and his biological left hand now injured, he seemed helpless.

Dirken slowly leaned down and felt Andy's neck. There was still a heartbeat, but he had gone into shock, his eyes going blank and his breathing shallow. Still, his wounds didn't seem fatal, and when Dirken touched his neck, Andy let out a low moan.

Keeping his eyes on Dirken and Yiorgos and aiming the rifle with one hand, 'TakTrak reached down to Feleesha's side and picked up a palm-sized device with a dish on it. He pressed a button and it displayed a holographic sphere in front of him: a blue and green topographic map with a dashed red line meandering through it to a circled location.

He gestured with the rifle. "Now, slowly step through the door to the gangplank. We're going on a little trek through the jungle."

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

TREK THROUGH THE JUNGLE

Dirken and Yiorgos stepped through the corridor, dodging broken conduits and live electrical panels, to the gangplank. Dirken led the way. He considered his possibilities for escape or attack but ruled each one out. His choices inevitably boiled down to either abandoning Yiorgos and saving his own skin, which was definitely out of the question, or attacking 'TakTrak and hoping the Corthian didn't shoot the cyborg, or him, before he could land a punch. 'TakTrak still had the rifle at Yiorgos's back, and the cyborg was in poor shape to defend himself. So Dirken continued as ordered with the hope that a better opportunity would arise.

By some miracle, the gangplank mechanism still worked when he pressed the panel. It creaked open, gears grinding. Blinding sunlight spilled into the darkened corridor, making them all squint. A gust of hot, humid air hit them. It carried with it a myriad of smells: the sweetness of fresh oxygen, smoke from burning wood, and the vegetation of jungle. It was almost overwhelming after spending so much time breathing stale, recirculated air in spacecraft and the comet.

The gangplank whined with a metallic squeal and stopped. The angle of the ship wasn't quite right, so the gangplank halted about a meter from the ground.

"Go on!" 'TakTrak said.

Dirken gingerly tested his weight on the gangplank. Though there was some flection and a disturbing crunch of the gears, it was intact enough to carry them. He continued down, the Heart and its duffel bag in hand.

The Raptores lay at the end of a trench that it had tilled through the forest, with thick, clay-rich soil heaped in mounds to each side. Tree trunks and limbs, still sporting wide, emerald-green leaves, lay shattered along the margins and extended at least a kilometer away, some of them on fire. Looking back toward the engines, the stern of the Jen'torian clipper was a mangled heap