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

him off with a left hook to the head, knocking the pirate to the ground, going unconscious with a sigh.

The Rigellian fired his pulse rifle, its bolts burning through the air within millimeters around Dirken. Then Yiorgos bolted forward and sliced clean through the Rigellian's tube-like head, which flopped to the ground, his long, vermiform tongue shooting out of the tentacled mouth at the top of his head. The rifle, still in his hand, continued to fire in rapid bursts. One shot hit a pipe, which ruptured and sprayed water into the room, a length of the pipe clattering to the deck. Another shot hit the safebox near its top, spinning it around.

There were shouts as more pirates came running toward the room.

"Eow!" Dirken yelled. "The door!"

Eow slammed the door, then lodged the broken length of pipe against the mechanism just as the other pirates arrived.

Dirken reached down and picked up his Gree-tech blaster from the dead hand of the Tau Cetian. He wiped the pale blood on his pants. Then he spied a device on each of the Tau Cetian's wrists. Wide, silvery bracelets with a prominent button. He pressed one and it immediately expanded into a mirrored vambrace that covered the forearm: a bit of mirror armor to protect against lasers.

These could be handy to deflect lasers, he thought, though only my forearms. He shrugged and pressed the button again, causing the vambrace to fold back to a bracelet, then he took the bracelets off and put them on his own wrists.

The pirates pounded on the door, trying to force it open. But it was holding… for now.

Eow was covered head to feet in Grendel's blood. She stepped under the spraying water and let the blood wash off. The water showered her, glistening over her lavender fur and adhering it to her skin. Every firm muscle was revealed as she ran her hands over her body, wiping it clean. Her hands slipped over her head as she looked up into the downpour, eyes closed. Her hands slid down her shoulders, across her slim breasts, then down over her tight abs and over her muscular thighs. She stepped out of the water, dripping, and opened her eyes to look into his.

Dirken didn't look away. He met her eyes with hunger. She returned the look with a mischievous smile and ran her hands over her breasts and down her firm belly to her thighs. "Care for a shower, space jockey?"

The pirates banged on the door and there came a metallic, ripping sound. They were prying it open.

He tore his eyes away from Eow and stepped over to the safebox. There was work to do. The keypad, door, and top of the safebox had been mangled by multiple attempts to cut through it, and the top was scorched by the pulse rifle. He reached down and grabbed the handle to pick it up. The safe raised half a meter, then, with a horrible metallic screech, the top ripped off and the rest of it crashed to the deck.

Dirken blinked in surprise, still holding the handle and top, and peered inside. Eow and Yiorgos also came over and looked in.

Inside was a metal sphere with a diameter almost the length of his forearm. The thing that the Bloodhawk had referred to as "the Heart."

He dropped the lid with a clang and reached inside, pulling the sphere out to examine it. It was heavier than he'd thought. The silvery metal of the outer sheath had an old, slightly oxidized look, and ages of dust still hid in the nooks of the mechanism. There were dozens of ports arrayed on the outside as if it were to be plugged into multiple data cables. Small, green lights blinked very slowly from in between the creases.

Ancient English words were imprinted on one of the metal outer sheaths, along with a yellow symbol of a circle with three, broad, radiating rays.

"Yiorgos, what does this say?"

The cyborg looked closely at the words and brushed off a portion. "Most off it is worn off. I think it says 'central action' or maybe 'center process' in ancient English. And I don't know what this symbol means," he added, pointing to a small yellow circle with three radiating rays coming from it.

"What the hell is this thing?" Dirken asked.

"Maybe it's a bomb," Eow said. Dirken certainly hoped not.

"Not likely," Yiorgos said. "Why would they keep an ancient bomb locked in a safebox?"

The pirates on the other side of the door stopped their banging as someone gave a command. Then sparks flew through a slit in the door as they started cutting through.

"Crap," Dirken said. "Is that the only way out?"

"No," Eow said. "There's another way. Come with me." She picked up the pulse rifle and ran down a side corridor.

Cradling the heavy sphere, Dirken followed. They quickly came to a dead end at an airlock. A handful of red spacesuits with bulbous helmets hung on the wall. One suit was clearly for an Aquarian centaur. The other three were bipedal and of different heights to accommodate different species.

Eow started suiting up. Yiorgos deactivated his plasma saber and started suiting up as well. "Come on!" Eow said to Dirken. "They'll be through in just a minute."

"Out there?" Dirken asked. He gulped and stared out through the little airlock window. Extra-Vehicular Activity. He hated going EVA. The vacuum of space was nowhere for a being to be. He'd seen his share of people die when their suits ruptured, frozen almost instantly as their eyeballs explode and their lungs rupture. Going EVA was a necessary part of being a spacer, mainly for maintenance and repair purposes, and he had done it more times than he could count. But it still gave him the willies.

He cleared his throat and tried to shake off the fear. "And just where are we going?" He looked down at the suit and realized it didn't have any thrusters. One wrong slip off the hull and he would go floating