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

Today it was a veggie noodle stir fry, with genuine vat-chicken in it to boot and the others were already at the long table on one side of the room, laughing and eating with gusto.

Despite their latest job turning into such a financial fiasco they were still in good spirits.

Fact of the matter was, when you’ve spent weeks in combat ops with nothing to sustain you but canned water and nutrition-cubes, sitting down to a home cooked meal became about the best part of your day.

And Bunny was a fantastic cook.

“Hey Skipper! Where’s the happy couple?”

“Doggystyle, when we left them, who knows now.”

That got a laugh from the four people around the table.

Together with Donnie and Eniella, the six of them were the only women left out of their original unit of the Dungeness Corporation’s Zero-G Marine Corps, amongst a lucky few who completed their full enlistments and collected the big fat bonus cheque for doing so.

Women commonly gravitated towards each other in the service as a means of keeping the menfolk at bay, and once their enlistments were over they were all recruited by the former Major Donjoon Nelson to crew her new starship: the Pixie Hazard.

She had scrimped and saved throughout her entire career to afford the old girl and together they had crewed the dual-purpose Dragoon class dropship for seven years now, with Kyle and Bunny having come aboard just two years prior.

Eniella was a halfway decent mechanic, which had earned her the nickname ‘Mecha-dike’ back in the day, though it fell into disuse after she lost her arm. She could get into the guts of the ship if she had to, but as their fire control officer, or FCO, her specialty was the weapons systems.

Meanwhile Kyle Airedale was the real deal: fully certified and licensed with six different mega-corporations to operate on anything from the smallest mining drone to the largest Titan class carrier. Given enough time he could take the Pixie apart, give you the first and last name of every nut and bolt that came out of her, then turn around and put her back together again.

Blindfolded.

Needless to say he was highly sought after by ship captains throughout the sector.

Unfortunately Bunny was even more sought after by would-be crewmates, which was why Kyle’s nose had been broken three times and why the couple were eager to sign on with an all-female crew.

As Kyle once put it: it was one thing to share, something else entirely when someone tries to take without asking.

The eight of them pulled off whatever jobs came their way and lived pretty much free from the planetary governments and mega-corps and their petty squabbles. If you called borderline bankrupt free anyways.

Donnie’s second in command, raven-haired and chesty Bridget Wu, or Billy as she was more commonly known, wordlessly stood up to set a plate down for her and Eniella, loaded up with healthy portions of stir-fry.

She was their calm and quiet mother-hen most of the time, which made sense given her role as the ship’s doctor, but when shit got real she could also bark orders like the first sergeant she once was.

And the fan of leather she still is.

“Thanks Billy, but make sure you save enough for Kyle and Bunny.” Donnie warned.

The mixed-birth Asian beauty deliberately winked one of her almond shaped eyes at her long-time commander and dearest friend.

“Don’t worry, there’s more on the stove.”

“They should do without for fucking around in the corridors!” Eniella said with a chuckle as she tucked in.

The others laughed as well, but Donnie frowned.

“Not if we want to keep them around, that girl’s got needs. And we’re going to need them, especially Kyle, pretty soon.”

Billy sat down again and took a sip from her stainless steel mug.

“That bad huh?”

“Bad enough that our next stop is Kentis Four.”

The waifish Davie Reeves, their hot-shot pilot and Eniella’s long time lover, gave a low whistle and her eyes widened in surprise.

Meanwhile her sister Eva scowled.

“Are we Junkers now Skipper?”

She was Davie’s twin, and when the bullets were flying everybody called her Hooker, a remnant of a complicated past she shared with her sister.

She possessed the same phenomenal reflexes that made her identical sibling such a good pilot, though she directed hers towards hurting people rather than flying starships. She also had the same freckled face and fiery red hair, though she kept it wild and frizzy whereas Davie preferred braided pigtails just behind her ears.

In Eva’s case, she also had the temper to match the hair and even with good chow in her belly she was still feeling raw about their last payday disappearing on them.

“I’m pretty sure we get to call ourselves scrappers, since we haven’t turned to piracy yet like the clans all have. But in any case we are what we need to be to keep the ship from exploding.” Donnie finished drily as she chewed on a juicy chunk of vat-chicken.

Damn was it good to have unsimulated meat in her mouth!

She decided right there she didn’t want to know how much Bunny had spent on tonight’s meal.

There was a long silence at her serious words, broken only by the clinking of cutlery.

“It is that bad.” Six-foot-four Maria Gustav said with some concern.

Strawberry blonde and with a bust to match her height she was their bruiser, their heavy, and the one they called when the pickle jars needed opening.

Loaded up with combat augments, her powerful muscles definitely weren’t for show. Everybody in their old unit called her Sledge, she found it flattering.

But despite the tough nickname she was really a big softy, with a heart of gold to match her hair.

Naturally she and Bunny had been thick as thieves since they met.

“What’s the