Pixie Hazard by Archibald Bradford (top young adult novels .txt) 📕

Donnie’s head was shaking back and forth as a feeling of unease washed over her.

“I don’t like this. If this ship is intact, why is it here? And if it’s junk, why is it so completely and totally buried at the bottom of this huge scrap heap, while one hatch just happens to be accessible by shifting one thing?”

Maria and Eva both shouldered their repeaters and began to scan the area again.

“You thinking bait Skipper?” The muscular blonde asked.

But again Donnie shook her head.

“That’s an expensive piece of bait! No. Someone put this ship here to hide it.”

“Lucky us.” Eva snorted; “Finders keepers right?”

Donnie put her hand on the hatch but didn’t try to open it.

“Do we seem the lucky bunch the last few weeks?”

The little redhead didn’t say anything, which was usually what happened when she thought someone else was right.

The skipper turned from them to face Kyle, still struggling to get used to the gyros in Billy’s exo-suit as he shifted some more debris away to reveal more of the hull.

“Kyle, you’ve been quiet. Use your words.”

“I gotta say, I’m with Eva. Look!” He pointed at a barely legible smudge that meant nothing to her; “This manufacturer makes a heap of the same parts as are in the Pixie. I can’t tell you how badly I want to get in there and strip her down to nothing!”

Donnie mulled it over for another few minutes.

For sure the ship was too intact to be on Kentis, but they needed the parts, and they certainly needed the deks for the salvage.

They only had the one option really: they’d have to risk it.

She turned to the others who were on tenterhooks waiting for her call.

“Alright Kyle, you get your way.” She sighed, then gestured at the hatch; “How long to get inside?”

She couldn’t see his smile through the opaque visor, but she could hear the excitement in his voice.

“No time at all Captain! Just need my plasma cutter from the Pixie, I’m assuming you don’t want to try to take the ship intact?”

“I dunno. If she’s space-worthy then we can fly her to port, take the parts we need from her and sell the rest. Or just sell her whole and get brand new parts for you to fuck around with.”

“I’d go with the first one, new parts for everything I want to fix wou-”

“Kyle!” She barked, cutting him off; “We can’t do shit until we get inside!”

“Uh, right, sorry. Hey Davie! I need the Pixie to-”

He was interrupted again, this time by a hissing noise not unlike a pissed off snake being shot out a cannon.

A second later a rocket fired from the top of a nearby junk pile slammed into Maria’s abdomen and exploded, sending her armoured form careening backwards to smash into the side of the ship next to the hatch.

Right after their heavy went down the other marines were lit up on three sides from assault rifles and several repeaters, the charged rounds of the latter pounding like sledgehammers against their suits.

Acting on instinct Donnie tackled Kyle to the muck beside Maria, taking cover behind the assembly arm.

“Contact!” Eva’s voice crackled.

Her repeater tore through the top of the heap where the guy that launched the RPG was hiding, but she had to take cover on the other side of the hatch when she felt the burning heat of a pulse-laser trying to melt its way through her armoured shoulder.

Donnie lifted her head above the robot arm enough to spot a multitude of figures swarming all over the place above them, having secured the high ground before launching their attack.

“We got Junkers! And they’ve got real guns this time! Sledge is down, I repeat, Maria is down!”

She ducked as another rocket whizzed past her face, exploding against the side of the ship and causing a heap of metal to shift and land next to Maria’s prone form with a screeching clatter.

Though she cursed at the sudden shift in the terrain, the captain kept giving her orders.

“Reeves, get the Pixie in the air! We need fire-support now! You copy?”

“We’re moving Skipper.” The pilot’s tense voice came back.

Donnie was distracted though as she had to grab Kyle by the shoulder and throw him back to the ground when she heard the familiar pinging sound of ricochets off of his borrowed suit.

The mechanic simply didn’t know how to react to bullets bouncing off of his armoured helmet.

She scanned the scrap heaps above them, spotted the guy that had been shooting at him and took him down with three quick bursts from her pistol, her shotgun no good at that kind of range.

But she had to duck again when a pulse-laser burst seared past her face.

“Hooker! Up and to the left! Laser-rifle, you got eyes?”

The multitude of other weapons that were raining down on them were more of a distraction than anything, more powder based burners; even the Junkers’ repeaters could only really knock them around, though that kind of trauma would kill them eventually.

But a couple lucky bursts from a pulse-rifle could frag any one of them, armour or no.

“Yeah I saw him! Fucker already tagged me once. That guy with the rockets is reloading at your twelve o’clock!”

“Right! I’ll take boom-boom, you get sparkles!”

She counted down from three with her fingers as the two of them stayed huddled low.

“GO!” She announced as her digits reached one.

They leapt up at the same time, another triple burst of lasers came at Donnie, but Eva’s repeater barked and the oncoming fire ended.

Meanwhile the captain lined up her charge-pistol, a kinetic projectile weapon like the other marine’s repeaters. Ignoring the multitude of rounds pinging off of her, Donnie stood totally exposed for