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

Grimmag shifted slightly toward Eow. "Please escort our guests to their quarters. Make sure they are comforta…."

The room shook violently as a thick boom issued through the ice. This was more than one of the tiny quakes that occasionally vibrated through the comet. An exclamation of surprise rippled through the drug lords and they immediately started checking devices to see what was happening.

The room shook again, twice more, as distant explosions rang out. Bits of ice rained from the ceiling. Everyone looked nervously toward one another, but no one dared to flee without Grimmag's leave.

The Morlani checked a device as well, then leaned over and whispered into one of Grimmag's ear pads.

Dirken and Yiorgos looked toward each other. Their fear was confirmed when the human drug lord, Mukherjee, looked up from his wrist communicator and shouted, "We're under attack! It's the Bloodhawk!"

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EYES!

The drug lords exclaimed in their various languages and nervously started moving toward the entry.

Grimmag emitted a rumbling chuckle. "My lords, do not fret," he said through the Morlani interpreter. "They cannot breach the comet or make it past our cannons."

But the comet shook a third time, this time quaking worse than before. Alarms rang through the corridor outside.

A fissure shot across the left wall and ceiling with an ear-splitting crack. Chunks of ice fell from it, shattering on the floor and rolling away. A one-meter-wide lump landed on the head of a Rigellian drug lord, collapsing her fleshy, pear-shaped head and throwing her to the floor, dead or unconscious.

The Morlani's eyes grew wide as it looked at its tablet, then he whispered again into Grimmag's ear pad.

Grimmag belched a statement to him. "My lords, you are excused," the interpreter said. The drug lords left immediately, falling over each other in their rush out the doorway.

The don extended a tentacle and touched a contact on the floor of the dais. The ceiling over the dais opened with a mechanical iris, the metal sheaths sliding across each other as it widened. The dais shook as an internal mechanism activated and jolted it upward half a meter.

The Saffron Guard ran toward the dais as it started to rise from the floor toward the opening — with the Heart still in front of Grimmag in its duffel bag.

"The Heart!" Dirken said, shooting a look to Yiorgos.

"My arm!" the cyborg responded.

Both of them launched themselves toward the dais.

Dimitri and the other guards were slower to react, distracted by the chaos around them. The Reptiloc fired a shot at Yiorgos, which missed his leg by millimeters. Dimitri just yelled "Hey!" Dirken didn't look back to see if he was going to fire. Dirken realized he was directly between the Martian and Grimmag and a miss might hit the mafia don.

Eow reacted by somersaulting onto the dais, trying to head off Dirken. She flexed her hands and extended her claws.

The Morlani interpreter yelped in surprise and fell backward, rolling off the dais and hitting the floor with a thud.

The Saffron Guard, too, had climbed on and raised their weapons toward Dirken and Yiorgos.

Dirken reached to his back pocket and pulled out the little stun grenade. Yelled "Eyes!" Ripped off the activation pin. Squeezed his eyes shut. Threw the device at the guards' feet.

Immediately there was a loud BANG and a white-hot explosion of light so powerful that Dirken saw spots behind his eyelids. He hoped Yiorgos remembered his earlier warning and shut his eyes in time. The air became saturated with the overwhelming acrid scent from the phosphorous combustion.

Dirken's ears rang, but he still heard Grimmag utter a deep, spluttering howl, his tentacles waving madly.

The Saffron Guard all shook their heads and yelled in pain. The cybernetic sensors built into their helmets and linked directly into their optic nerves were saturated and blinded by the stun grenade.

Dirken grabbed the duffel and hefted the Heart. Yiorgos tossed him his blaster, holstered his own, then attached his arm.

Eow had also been blinded and deafened. She twirled, eyes watering, and no doubt deafened, yet stalked forward toward Yiorgos with her eyes wide and watering and her ears rotating back and forth.

Grimmag uttered a loud slurping grumble and swatted Dirken with two of his tentacles, knocking Dirken on his ass. The Heart slipped out of the duffel bag and rolled off toward the edge of the dais, which was now lifted halfway to the ceiling. Dirken scrambled after it on all fours.

A tentacle wrapped around his right ankle and dragged him back, suction cups clamping down on his skin.

Grimmag spoke, his words dripping and rolling. Dirken didn't need an interpreter to understand there was anger there.

He tried to shake off the tentacle, but it didn't budge, so he aimed his blaster and fired. The bolt grazed the tentacle, but Grimmag released his grip. Dirken lunged forward and grabbed the sphere, stuffing it back in the duffel.

Glancing behind him, Dirken saw Yiorgos had also been grabbed by a tentacle. Yiorgos swept down with his saber and cut the tentacle neatly in two. Grimmag yowled in pain, then heaved a stream of acidic vomit at the cyborg. Yiorgos fell back, just in time to avoid the stream, but landed at the feet of Eow.

Then Ananak struck, kicking Yiorgos cleanly in the face. The cyborg fell backward off the dais and smacked to the floor with a metallic clang, two meters down.

With less than a meter before the dais reached the ceiling, Dirken clutched the duffel and threw himself through the gap and off the dais. Rolled across the floor. Bowled over the Reptiloc guard. Eow neatly jumped through as well, landing with a graceful pose.

The Saffron Guard had finally overcome the stun grenade. Two of them fired their rifles through the gap. One bolt hit the top Dirken's shoulder, knocking him to the ground with a yelp of pain. Somehow he still managed to hold onto the Heart.

Grimmag belched again in his grumbling language, his remaining tentacles pointing down through the gap at Dirken