The First Nova I See Tonight

by Jason Kilgore

  From the plaza, below, came the cries and blaster fire of a pitched battle between the remaining pirates and the feds.

  "And Eow? Where is she?"

  "She left. She took the Heart — AVA — and ran. I was in no shape to fight her."

  "Come on, then!"

  Dirken ran around the top level to the back of the stone building with Yiorgos following. No sooner had they reached the other side when they saw the yellow fightercraft rise up over the treetops and zoom away eastward.

  A pang of sadness flitted through Dirken, but he quickly shook it off and pointed the plasma scimitar at the retreating ship. "That bitch! She stole my fighter. Again!"

  A thought struck him. "That's how the Bloodhawk knew to find us. He followed the fighter's signal! And Eow probably followed 'TakTrak."

  "United Worlds security will be here any minute." Yiorgos slumped back against the stone wall of the building. "Fleeing into the jungle really doesn't appeal to me after the march we took. We're both injured, not to mention my head is scrambled from being in the brain of a damned supercomputer. Maybe we should just surrender? We stopped the bad guys, after all. The feds will be lenient."

  "Sure they will, since we aided and abetted traitors." Dirken looked around at the surrounding jungle, the burning remains of the Dragonfire, and then back around the stone building toward the front of the pyramid. The Bloodhawk's corvette, the Speartip, was still settled in the plaza below the acropolis. A dozen pirates, arms or flaps in the air, were being led single-file off the ship by armed UW security at blaster-point.

  Dirken looked back to Yiorgos and shook off a wave of dehydration and exhaustion. He pulled out his lucky runestone and ran his thumb over the carved design while his mind turned. He nodded to himself, gave the runestone a kiss, and stuck it back in its hidden pocket. "Come on, I've got a plan."

  "Oh shit. Here we go!"

  "Trust me," Dirken said, and started down the crumbled staircase on the far side of the pyramid. The going was steep, and the stonework was crumbling, but they descended faster than he'd imagined they could. The deep wound on his arm started stinging part-way down, and by the time they got to the bottom the pain was bad enough to make him grit his teeth with almost every movement. He needed to immobilize it.

  Once to the ground, they ran for cover behind a wall of stone and checked to see that the coast was clear. United Worlds security had made it to the top of the tower, blasters pulled. Dirken watched as they secured the top of the pyramid and the little stone building, then attended to Governor Juarez. Dirken recognized the man leading them. It was Prasad, the white-haired first mate from the UW destroyer. Prasad raised an arm and spoke into a device there. Dirken could just make out, "Excellentia, Team One. It's Governor Juarez!"

  As Dirken and Yiorgos turned to go into the forest, they saw a small band of pirates still trading blaster-fire with the feds. It would serve as a good distraction.

  They ran through the woods, moving around the back of the acropolis. They entered a thick cloud of smoke and soon saw trees on fire only a dozen meters to their right, from the crash of the brigantine. The wind picked up and blew scorching hot air and embers over them. But the plume provided excellent cover.

  "Where are we going?" Yiorgos asked, coughing.

  "The Speartip," Dirken said, leading the cyborg through the forest.

  "Are you mad? That's right into the feds!"

  "Exactly!" Dirken edged down an ancient rock-walled alley lined with curious Mayan symbols. "They won't expect it. And most of them are off fighting the pirates."

  "Then what? Surely you don't plan to…?"

  "Yes, I do. Like I told you when we left the Excellentia, I plan to board her and take her over."

  "Still? It was a bad plan then, too! Don't you remember the whole pirates-nearly-blowing-us-to-pieces thing as we tried to board her the first time?"

  "Sure, but you may have noticed the UW feds arresting them and escorting them out of the ship. The other feds are distracted with Juarez and rounding up the remaining pirates. Now's our chance!"

  Dirken ducked under thick vines at the edge of the plaza, wincing at the pain in his badly cut shoulder. Blood from the wound had long since soaked through his sleeves and down his side. Parting the undergrowth, he saw they were behind the corvette as she sat there on her broad landing gears, looking like the starship had time-traveled thousands of years into the past with the pyramids and other ancient stone structures around her. The Speartip was about the same size as 'TakTrak's Jen'torian clipper.

  And no one was guarding her.

  "I don't know, Dirk. I think your brain is more scrambled than mine."

  "I need your help. And running in the jungle isn't a good option. Besides, we'll have a cover story to get away."

  Without further explaining, Dirken ran across the plaza to a rear landing gear with Yiorgos at his heels. They hid there for a moment, looking out to see if anyone had seen them. No one raised an alarm. The closest feds were nowhere near the lowered gangplank.

  "And what's this cover story?" Yiorgos asked.

  Dirken grimaced in pain and gingerly pressed against his sliced arm. "Do you still have the United Worlds ship code we used for the heist at the Mars Colony 1 shipyard?"

  "Yeah. That's what I am to you, eh? A memory bank?"

  "Only the best memory bank!"

  "It worked to get us in and out of the shipyard, and netted us a couple thousand gravwell mass expanders, but I don't know if the code is still good. That was two Earth years ago!"

  "There's only one way to find out."

  Yiorgos muttered some sort of curse in Greek, but he followed Dirken as they ran to the gangplank and up to the entrance.

  They met no resistance. Not at the door, which they closed after raising the gangplank. Not in the corridors. And not on the bridge, which they found after a few confused minutes of trying to read signs printed in Aquarian and Rigellian glyphs and winding up in a map room. For once, Dirken had been right: the entire ship had apparently been emptied and, remarkably, left completely unguarded inside, at least as far as they could tell.

  "Dirk," Yiorgos said, and pointed to a first aid kit hanging on the wall.

  "Right," Dirken said, and opened it up. Digging through the box, he found a hyposprayer of wound-healing nanites and pressed it again the open wound. Instantly a green mist sprayed out and quickly foamed up, covering the entire wound.

  The pain diminished to tolerable levels. He knew in minutes the microscopic bots would work with the cellular matrix in the foam to repair blood vessels and form new skin. He let it do its work, trying not to move it much, and turned his attention back to the bridge.

  He sighed with relief as they entered the command center and secured the door behind him and Yiorgos. The windows had been closed with blast shields, so they didn't have to worry about guards seeing them in there.

  The bridge was spacious and outfitted with the latest technology. The command chair was in the middle of the circular room and could rotate around. Holographic interfaces surrounded it. Around it were other semicircular consoles, each marked for navigation/communication, weapons, engineering, or environmental/damage control.

  "I don't know if the two of us are enough to pilot this thing," Yiorgos said.

  Dirken deactivated the plasma scimitar. "We'll manage. We won't need weapons… I hope. And since we're not going into space, we won't need most of engineering or environmental support. You navigate, and I'll take care of the rest."

  "Not going into space?" Yiorgos raised his one eyebrow. "Just where are we going, then?"

  "Trust me," Dirken replied, trying not to rub the shoulder wound as it healed. "I've got a place. Just need to find it on the charts."

  Yiorgos sighed and looked over the navigation as Dirken turned his attention to automated systems and sensors. Since pirates ran without transponders and had a number of methods of scrambling detectors, they weren't likely to be tracked — unless the UW had already installed t
heir own tracking devices when they boarded. They'd just have to take that chance.

  Dirken leaned over the damage control panel. Fire suppression systems had put out a number of fires across the ship, though smoke still filled some holds. As Dirken suspected, the Speartip was not space-worthy, with blasted holes all over, as evidenced by big red splotches on the ship's holographic display. And the Jacobian gravwell generator was non-functional, so no gravjumping. Most weapons were offline, though if his plan worked, he wouldn't need to fire a shot. At least the atmospheric propulsion systems and control surfaces were all working — well enough. That's all he'd need.

  Yiorgos pulled up a blinking chart. "The Bloodhawk tracked his fighter here. He followed Eow to find us!"

  "I figured. And she probably followed 'TakTrak." Dirken sat in the broad captain's couch, built for an Aquarian centaur, and laid the scimitar on the far end. "And when 'TakTrak battled the orbital patrol ship, the Excellentia was already in the area for repairs. When the Bloodhawk showed up, her big guns were ready for payback."

  "Okay, now for our getaway," Dirken continued. "You ready?"

  "No," the cyborg said, sitting in the navigation section and plugging his right forearm port into the console. "But we've come this far."

  "Okay. Hail the Excellentia, and be sure to scramble the visual from us as if our comms array is damaged."

  "It is, by the way, but I'll make sure of it." Yiorgos took a deep breath and pressed a couple of holographic buttons. A line opened.

  "Excellentia, Team One, aboard the corvette Speartip," Dirken said, covering his mouth with his hand to muffle the voice a bit. "The ship is secured. We are ready to transport the captured vessel." A secondary screen showed his own image, greatly distorted and unrecognizable with interference.

  Shit, Dirken thought, as Captain Chen appeared on the main screen. She'd survived the bombardment by the pirate. "Team One, please explain," she responded. "What transport? Where is Commander Prasad?"

  "Commander Prasad is attending to the Governor. He ordered the ship to be taken to the Guiana Spaceport impound yards, since it isn't spaceworthy."

  There was a long pause as the line went silent. Captain Chen turned and spoke to someone off to the side. Dirken held his breath.

  Yiorgos looked over to Dirken, eyebrow raised in concern. He closed his eyes and tilted his head, going into the computer for a moment, then he came out of it, muting the line. "They're trying to hail Prasad, but he's not responding. If he's inside the pyramid, the signal may not be penetrating the stone walls."

  Finally the line opened again. "Has your team seen any sign of the Heart? Or the two passengers who went missing, Nova and Ganas?"

  Dirken and Yiorgos exchanged knowing looks. "That's a negative, Captain."

  "The Heart's here somewhere. It's the only explanation. Be sure to search that vessel thoroughly upon impound, then report back," Captain Chen said. "Enter your flight code,"

  Dirken nodded at Yiorgos, and the cyborg entered the old United Worlds code from their Mars gig from two Earth years before. Then, once again, they waited. Dirken eyed the scimitar. It wouldn't be of much use if the feds stormed the ship.

  The Excellentia line opened again. "You are cleared to launch, Team One. Please notify us if there are any flight difficulties. The ship is badly damaged."

  And just like that, things had gone their way again. Dirken rubbed his lucky runestone and said with a smile, "Will do, Excellentia. Team One out."

  Yiorgos closed the channel, laughed out loud, and pulled up the navigation maps. With a roar of thrusters, the Speartip shook as it lifted off. In moments, the landing gear was up and they were soaring southeastward across the Yucatan Peninsula.

  "You crazy fucker!" Yiorgos said, ignoring a dozen alarms coming from the damage control console. None of them were necessary for atmospheric flight. "This has got to be the biggest heist we've ever dared!" His smile faded a bit, and then he added, "This is why I stick with you, Dirk. You have some lame-brained, half-cocked plans, but somehow we always come out ahead."

  Lame-brained? Dirken decided not to argue. He had to admit, things had gone pretty sideways. "Well, partner, we're a team, aren't we? Couldn't do it without you."

  Yiorgos tilted his and gave a nod. "Now what, partner?"

  "Take us beyond their detection range, then swing wide to the south over the sea. Stay low." He pulled up a map on his holo display and started scrolling around. Minutes later, he'd found the location he'd been thinking. "Head to this location."

  Yiorgos pulled the map over to his navigation console's holo display with a wave of his hand. "The southern coast of Chile? There's nothing in this region but a bunch of islands and mountains. No real cities or spaceports."

  "Exactly. We need to lay low. Repair ourselves and our bodies. There's a black-marketeer I did business with down there for ship parts, long ago. I think he's still in the biz." He cocked his head. "Besides, I know a great little brothel in an alien commune nearby." He flashed a smile. "They have Ursans with, um, modified tentacles!"

  "Ah," Yiorgos said, rolling his eyes. "That explains it." He set the coordinates, then looked back over to Dirken. "Um… look at your shoulder."

  "What?" Dirken said. And then he saw it. The wound had healed, but his new skin was green with tiny scales. "Shit!"

  "You fool," Yiorgos said, laughing. "You injected yourself with Aquarian centaur nanites!" The cyborg doubled over with laughter, sputtering.

  Dirken couldn't help but chuckle along with his partner. "Next thing you know I'll sprout another pair of legs!"

  This set off another round of laughter until they were both struggling to get control over themselves.

  Minutes later, Yiorgos swung the ship around, leaving the land behind and flying low over the waters of the Caribbean Sea. For the third time that day, Dirken's lucky runestone had come through for him.

  He finally had a ship of his own again.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA

  After Dirken and Yiorgos absconded with the Speartip they continued southward, soaring along the ridges of the Andes, then down to follow the Pacific coastline. Hours later they touched down in a forested valley in southern Chile surrounded by the breathtaking, snow-capped heights of the Cinco Hermanas Mountains and the imposing peak of a dormant volcano, the Volcán Macá. The last time he'd visited this place he had been hiding from the Zlyye Lokhi, a Martian crime syndicate, when he was still captain of the Brilliant.

  After tending to their wounds and getting some much-needed rest, Dirken and Yiorgos explored their new starship... only to discover they weren't alone. A dozen roly-poly Dracordan mechanics were living in the engine room and trying to fix the gravwell generator. The leader of this little crew, named Dimbok'toy'chu, stood up on her four stubby legs and pointed three of her six arms at Dirken. "Who da fuck are you?" she proclaimed through a translator bracelet, her emerald eyes narrowing at the end of waving eyestalks.

  It turned out the Dracordans didn't care who was in charge of the ship as long as they got paid with raw chicken, Pleiadean muscat, and inter-species BDSM pornography, of which the Bloodhawk had promised them a never-ending supply. This explained the multiple freezers full of chicken meat and kegs of muscat in the galley and the special memory drive labeled "NOT YOUR MOMMA'S PORN" (beside it was another drive labeled "MOM'S PORN" with a picture of the pirate with the laser-scarred face) in an alcove next to the galley.

  It was a good thing the Dracordans were there. The only reason the engine room hadn't blown up during the fight over Edzná was because the Dracordans worked in a high-nitrogen, low-oxygen atmosphere which quickly snuffed the fires that broke out. Dirken agreed to continue the terms of their hire and left them to attend to repairs.

  More surprising than finding the Dracordans was the discovery of two Reptiloc crewmen hibernating in cocoons in the portside stowage bay. After some debate about whether to kill them as they slept, Dirken reluctantly decided it would be b
est to build a cell around them. When they awoke a month later, their choice was to serve as crew or be marooned on a Chilean island off the coast. To Dirken's mixed relief, both of them chose to serve. They were impressed by the stealing of the ship, something that rivaled anything the Bloodhawk had managed since they'd been aboard. And besides, they didn't like the smell of Earth air. It probably helped that both of them were male. Female Reptilocs were much more aggressive and likely would have preferred a fight to the death.

  In stowage next to the Reptilocs were two dozen crates full of United Worlds military-grade laser cores, the sort used to cut open the hulls of starships. Where the Bloodhawk got them was a complete mystery, but Dirken suspected they may have come along with the barrage bots used against the Excellentia.

  The next stop was the local alien-human commune of Lupanar, named after its famed bordello, where Dirken got his share of entertainment and alcohol. To his immense pleasure, the bordello had not one, but two Ursan prostitutes. Also known as "space octopuses" to humans, they used their tentacles to massage, stroke, and probe every sensitive organ and orifice, sometimes all at once, with tentacle tips modified both mechanically and genetically to give ultimate sensual stimuli.

  As Dirken pursued this rare pleasure, Yiorgos would go to a Cyberalia server temple for communal Netfolding with other cyborgs. He had a lot of meditating to do after the mental invasion by AVA.

  Lastly came a visit to Dirken's old friend, Hank the Monkeywrench, a jovial elder human with one tooth who knew Dirken from his street hustling youth on Tesla. Hank was more than happy to help him repair the Speartip in exchange for those laser cores, and he fixed Yiorgos's legs and arm.

  Despite the extreme pleasures of the bordello, there was still something missing. The Ursans didn't have the softness of lavender fur. Their delights weren't tinged with a warrior's lusty playfulness. And they didn't have eyes that sparkled like amethysts.

  The next four months passed in a blur of repairs and frequent trips to Lupanar from the ship for supplies and stimulating entertainment. Soon the Speartip was in top shape and ready for new gigs with a couple new weapons arrays, a repaired gravwell generator, and spaceworthy. He couldn't wait to put her through her paces. The first trip would be to Mars to recruit some seasoned crewmen. Dirken reckoned that a corvette of this class could easily outrun most of the United Worlds patrol ships, with her faster sublight speed and a gravwell engine that could spin up quicker. The Bloodhawk had been a ruthless bastard but very smart about his tech and ships. Aquarian centaurs were a famously starfaring species, after all.