The First Nova I See Tonight by Jason Kilgore (the false prince .txt) 📕

"Uh-huh. And my Grannie's wheelchair is a rocket." Yiorgos laid back down. "Next time you have a brilliant plan, maybe you should think about what Therese would do."

Dirken gasped in exasperation. "You know, I have plenty of great ideas of my own! Thanks to my decisiveness, we didn't get torn to pieces by hunter droids!"

Yiorgos waved him away and crossed his arms across his chest. "Well, while you were snoozing, these pirates wanted to tear me to pieces — to take the tech built into me!"

Dirken massaged his head. All this arguing was inflaming his headache.

He examined the cell. There were no other features besides a chemical toilet, a glaringly bright white LED array in the ceiling, and a host of unidentified stains of different colors dried on the floor. He was pretty sure from the wretched sulfur smell that at least some of the blue stains were Proximan blood. And he didn't want to think what the rust-red stains were.

The safebox they were escorting was nowhere to be seen. "The safe?" he asked Yiorgos.

Yiorgos just motioned toward the door. The pirates had it.

Crap, he thought. So much for buying my own ship.

The walls were covered in scratched graffiti in a dozen alien languages, most of which he couldn't read, but he got the gist of it. It's basically the same sentiments you find in jail cells and brigs throughout the galaxy and as far back in time as there have been criminals. Scrawled over the toilet in Terran was "Flush twice — it's a long way to the captain's mess." And next to the bunk was written in neat Tau Cetian script, "The Bloodhawk can suck my galnar." Harsh!

The room had a door made of steel bars with a rectangular slot for putting food through, and an old-fashioned key lock. There's no hacking that. On the wall opposite was an array of sensors and cameras and a number of long metal needles pointing toward the cells. Some sort of torture device?

Yiorgos noticed Dirken's gaze. "The guards were quick to point out that if we show any attempt to escape, electricity will arc out from those needles and electrocute us instantly."

"Lovely," Dirken said. "We'd have to get through the bars before we could disable them, but they'd fry us before we managed it."

One of the cell walls, the one behind Yiorgos's bunk, was also made of steel bars. Another cell lay beyond.

Someone was lying on the bunk in there. Someone with… lavender fur?

"Is that…" He looked again, fighting back the pain in his head. "…an Ananak?"

At the mention of her species, the Ananak rolled over, her cat-like ears rotating toward him. She was covered head to tail in plush, lavender fur that ruffled with a glossy sheen as she turned. Distinctly feline, she looked like a cross between a human woman and a panther, wearing a stretchy one-piece blue outfit that adhered tightly to her thighs and ran up the front of her svelte torso to her muscular neck. She clasped one of the bars with a hand that looked almost human save for dark pads on her palm and black claws that peeked out of the fur on her fingertips.

She turned her face to the bars and opened her eyes with a fluid carelessness. They glimmered like amethysts around ovoid pupils. She regarded him with a mischievous grin, a dozen slim whiskers angling upward with the movement.

"Is that… a human?" she japed with a voice like polished chrome, then she smiled broader, showing the tips of pearly fangs.

Dirken swallowed hard, his eyes wide. He'd only once seen Ananaks: a pair of males, much larger and more muscular, acting as bodyguards for an underworld kingpin on Tesla. They had been more like pictures he'd seen of extinct tigers from Earth. But this one…

He wanted to run his hand through her fur.

He sat up, though he regretted doing so as the pain in his head flared. "You speak Terran. What's your name?"

She examined him, deliberately, her eyes moving up his body to his face. "You first."

"Dirken." He gave a sidelong smile and tilted his head. "Dirken Nova."

Yiorgos rolled his eyes.

She didn't answer. Instead, her ears turned and her gaze darted past the cells. A fraction of a second later came the screech of metal-on-metal of a bulkhead door unlatching and opening.

Three pirates entered, including the Brit who had knocked him out and two Pleiadeans shambling behind him, hunched over and sporting a mass of little curved horns over angular scalps, their bodies very much like the fauns of ancient Greek mythology. Both of them wore translator necklaces around their necks. The Brit hadn't unholstered his weapon, but the Pleiadeans each brandished laser pistols. One held a set of magnetic handcuffs.

"You there!" the Brit said, pointing at Dirken. His lurid grin strained at the red scar tissue that ran down through his face and lips. "It's time for ya to meet the Bloodhawk. He's got some questions for ya! "

One of the Pleiadeans approached and said, "Turn around and present your hands through the bars," his words automatically translated by his necklace from his squeaky and not-at-all-imposing Pleiadean language into a stern and very masculine Terran voice.

Dirken glanced to Yiorgos as he got up. The look they exchanged held an inner understanding.

Attack?

No, came the response with the slightest shake of the head. Then a tilt of the head, Later.

Dirken looked to Yiorgos's right arm, the one with the plasma saber, then gave the slightest of nods. Understood. They were outnumbered and outgunned, and Dirken needed to learn more about the layout before they could attempt an escape. And where was the safebox?

He approached the cell door.

"Turn around, maggot," the human said. As Dirken followed the command, he looked over to the Ananak, but she had slid back against the wall and eyed the pirates coolly, the end of her long, furry tail wrapped around her knees, twitching slightly at the rounded tip.

He heard the metal slot open, then the leathery