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

if you’ve disabled the guns then reach out to the Pixie. If your sister isn’t airborne by now then we might all be fucked.”

The ship began to vibrate and the emergency lights came on as Eva kept at her work in the engine room.

“Oh fuck, I don’t wanna die!” The wounded Junker blubbered as Donnie was distracted.

Seeing that he was clearly panicking, she let up on the stick and tried a bit more carrot.

“Tell me where that hostage is and I won’t kill you. Sound fair? You have three seconds.”

She pressed the muzzle of her shotgun against his nose.

“Three, two-”

“The b-brig!” The suddenly cross-eyed man screamed; “That way! Go left, hatch at the end!”

“Thanks.”

Donnie immediately got back to her feet, though she grunted at the searing pain in her hip from the movement.

She and Maria quickly beat a retreat back to the T-junction, leaving the terrified man to bleed out on the floor or get saved by his shipmates, whichever.

The shaking in the ship grew more violent, causing Donnie to pitch to one side abruptly and slam into the wall.

“Hooker way overdid it! Mass-gen is going out for real! Next will be the life support. Then the reactor! Eva if you’re still breaking shit, cut it out!”

As if the redhead was thumbing her nose at Donnie, the ship groaned and the vibrations grew more intense as a distant explosion rocked the entire vessel, while the distinct groan of metal strained too far echoed around them.

“Oops.”

She at least she had the decency to sound sheepish over the coms.

Once again Donnie was pitched to the side, her injury greatly hampering her movements in the fucked up gravity.

“Shit! We’re bugging out, Sledge you check the brig while I find us an exit!”

“Right!” Maria said.

The powerhouse was hopping deftly down the corridor as gravity became intermittent and random, at one point she appeared to be running along the wall from Donnie’s point of view.

Meanwhile the captain had to take two seconds to tear an emergency sealant off her belt and press it deep into the hole in her hip, no longer able to ignore her HUD’s flashing warnings regarding her suit’s integrity given the likelihood of them ending up in vacuum again.

The little injector nozzle filled the opening with a black foam that quickly expanded and hardened until the alarms stopped flashing in her face, though the overlay in her HUD still had a red glowing bit on her hip, as if the searing pain wasn’t enough of a reminder that she’d been shot.

With that worry off her list, she set off to find a way out.

Chapter 10: Big Damn Hero

Bryan Everson was in worse shape than ever.

He was still on the floor with his hands bound, though they had left the hood off after the crazy Junker had beaten the crap out of him the previous day.

He was more than ready for the nightmare to end, even in death at this point.

Which is what he was expecting when the ship began to shake and he flopped around the brig as the gravity failed.

And he was definitely expecting it when the hulking brute in black armour all but tore the hatch off its hinges and stormed into the room to find him slumped against the far wall.

A female voice crackled over the armoured suit’s intercom.

“You alive over there little buddy?”

He didn’t respond, didn’t move, still expecting death.

“Aw man! If you’re dead this was all for nothing.” The woman said in annoyance.

A brief flicker of hope floundered in his chest, but he remained silent.

Abruptly they were both floating as the mass generator finally cut out completely.

With his hands behind his back he could do nothing, but the hulking figure looked as comfortable in zero gravity as he was on his feet as she kicked off the wall and drifted over to him.

Even floating, he remained still, letting his muscles relax, though it hurt when his numerous bruises stretched out. He kept his eyelids narrowed to slits as he slowly turned in mid-air until his back was to the black armoured soldier.

He half expected rough hands to grip him at any moment and choke the life out of him.

And indeed her hands did grab him, but lightly and only to still his slow spin as the mystery woman activated her mag-boots to secure herself to the wall.

He felt himself turned around so that his bruised and swollen face was inches from the figure’s opaque faceplate.

Releasing him for a moment, her hands reached up and took hold of her helmet, twisting it to one side and unlocking it with a hiss before pulling it off of her head.

Blonde hair floated out to hover around her angular features, framing her face like some sort of floating blue-eyed war goddess.

His eyes widened abruptly and he let out a surprised noise.

She smiled at the life returning to his features.

“Alive it is then. Don’t worry cutie, I’m here to rescue you.”

It was a cliché but she had to say something.

She reached behind him and snapped the wiring off of his wrists with ease, then reached up to remove the gag from between his swollen lips, wincing sympathetically when he made a pained noise from the dirty rag being pulled off of his bruised face.

Despite the pain of his numerous injuries and the chaos of floating in mid-air on a ship rumbling as it broke apart in space, Bryan was fixated on her eyes.

Even with blood on her armour and hair plastered to her face with sweat she was just so damned beautiful.

But Maria wasn’t nearly as distracted as the young man in her arms, and once she determined that he was alive she corralled her hair back into her helmet and