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

themselves when the Javelins’ work hit some unknown structural elements deep within the piles of random scrap.

Out of the corner of her eye, Donnie saw one of the Junkers recklessly leap down from the high ground in a bid to escape the rain of death from above, but Eniella spotted him and quickly tasked one of the batteries to drop a round at a downward angle that punched through his body from shoulder to foot while he was in mid-air.

A gory mess of blood and ruined flesh rained down in front of the captain and a split second later all that remained of the poor bastard splattered against the manufacturing arm they were using for cover.

The methodical thumping roar lasted for a very long two minutes before Eniella let up, but Donnie stayed down for a good ten seconds afterwards to ensure she was finished.

“Check fire?” She asked loudly.

Even with the noise cancellation buffers engineered into their helmets, her ears were ringing from the danger-close air support.

“Fire checked Skipper.” Eniella confirmed; “I don’t see anything moving from up here.”

“Copy.”

She wagged her fist to get Eva’s attention, then signalled her orders with sharp movements of her fingers, in case the redhead’s hearing was worse off than hers.

“Hooker, we’re doing a sweep.”

The pair of them moved through the ghastly remains of Eniella’s symphony. As ordered she had left the buried ship intact, but the same couldn’t be said for a huge crescent of land radiating outwards from it.

“This one’s alive.” Eva called out, closely followed by a bark from her repeater; “Oh, wait. No he isn’t.”

It was gruesome work, but it needed doing.

Though Donnie had always felt that Eva enjoyed it far more than was healthy.

They found two others that had survived the Pixie’s sweep: one missing a leg, the other his jaw and most of his shoulder.

Two more barks, this time from Donnie’s pistol, ended their suffering.

“We’re clear on the ground.” She commed up to the ship; “Set down as close as you can and we’ll get Maria inside so Billy can have a look.”

“I’m fine Skipper.” The blonde protested, having gotten back to her feet, though Kyle was still in the dirt struggling to rise; “See? Right as rain.”

“Good, now get back to the ship and prove it to Billy.” Donnie ordered.

The Pixie’s bulk made a deep rumbling noise as it came down between two tottering scrap piles some thirty metres away, the closest Davie could manage without scratching the paint.

As the ship came to rest though, there was a painful screech of straining metal that caused Donnie to wince and the pilot to curse over the coms.

“What the hell was that?” The captain demanded.

“I must have sat on something.”

“Dammit Davie! We’re here to fix the ship, not break her more!”

Shaking her head in exasperation, Donnie ordered Eva to make sure Maria did as she was told and while the mismatched pair began to pick their way towards the ship she pulled the hapless Kyle to his feet.

“Sorry Captain, these suits are not as easy to maneuver in as you make them look.” He grumbled.

“No worries. This shit isn’t in your job description, you’re coping well though.” She gave him a congratulatory smack to the ass that neither of them felt through their armour and got back on task; “Billy, you on coms?”

“I am Captain, where’s my patient?”

“On her way with Eva, meet her in the airlock. How’s the Bunny?”

“Same as always, trying to get in my pants.”

Donnie chuckled, her nerves steady despite the carnage around her, she’d certainly seen worse: twenty odd pirates blown to bits by the Pixie’s wrath was nothing compared to the sight of Bunny face down in the muck.

“I keep telling you to just let her jump you.”

She could hear the shrug in Billy’s voice.

“I don’t swing for the ladies, you know that.”

Donnie chuckled.

“Neither do I, but I swing for Bunny!”

Kyle broke in then, a bit awkwardly given that it was his wife they were talking about.

“So uh, what’s the plan now?”

Donnie turned back to the ship they had yet to get into, her eyes narrowing as she considered the sealed hatch.

“As much as I’d like for everyone to take a breather, this second attack proves that it’s a clan we’re up against, so we need to kick down that door and get that conduit thing if we can find one. They come at us any heavier than this and we’re bugging out. We’re not dying for a payday, I don’t give a shit how good it is.”

Chapter 7: Work Work Work

Given their string of violent encounters since landing on Kentis, Donnie vetoed Kyle’s plan to cut through the hatch. Instead she had Eniella come out of the ship and set up a plasma charge against the sealed entryway.

“Are you sure this won’t breach the inner airlock?” Kyle fretted for the third time, on his knees beside her as she worked.

The pink-haired woman’s voice crackled a bit over the coms.

“Yes! Relax hermana.”

He scowled.

“Even I know that’s the feminine version. Do you really speak Spanish?”

“You caught me.” Eniella chuckled as she continued with her work; “No, and neither did my parents, but I picked up on a lot of choice wordage from my abuelo. That’s granddad to you white-folk, though he called me gabacha all the time growing up. Now relax hermaNO. I’ve done this like, at least eight times.”

“That doesn’t sound like a lot.” His tone was still dubious, unimpressed at her limited vocabulary.

Donnie was largely ignoring their banter, instead covering the pair of them while they worked at the hatch. She had snagged Maria’s heavy repeater for the extra range and was scanning all of their sight-lines while Eva was on overwatch from the