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

That and she was feeling a familiar itch between her shoulder blades that told her someone nearby intended her harm.

She walked swiftly through the curving promenade, slipping past people deftly before abruptly kiting to one side and down a narrow corridor that led into the central ring of the station.

When the two thugs rounded the corner in a half run to catch up with her, she met them head on, almost causing them to trip over their feet to avoid slamming into her.

These weren’t Demarco’s fancy bodyguards: these were proper station trash, and they looked mean as rats.

Donnie was meaner.

She greeted the first one with the heel of her palm to his solar plexus, causing him to double over wheezing. Then, before his friend could stop her, she gripped him by the hair and wrenched his face down to collide with her knee.

She felt his nose break, and quickly deduced that she’d knocked every bit of fight out of him when he slumped to the floor.

A wild haymaker from his buddy caught her in the ear but she got her arm up in time to blunt the worst of it, her ear both numb and stinging but her faculties undamaged.

To limit his options she ducked further into the narrow space, forcing him to step over his injured friend in a bid to reach her. She read some hesitation on her assailant’s features now that he was fighting alone, so she felt the need to keep him invested.

With a cheeky shrug and a wink, she brought her fists up in a pair of rude gestures.

“Just you and me now princess.”

He was less than articulate in his response.

“-Kill you bitch!”

He dove at her wildly, but she stepped into his lunge and tangled her arm around his, twisting until she felt a pop and heard a squeal.

She pulled him into an improvised shoulder throw that had him hitting the wall with his back on his way down to the floor. Before he could get his bearings she introduced him to her boot as she brutally stomped his head against the neocrete of the station’s deck, rendering him a fair bit beyond unconscious.

The fight over in seconds, she looked up to see a couple had spotted her efforts from just outside the corridor, both watching with shocked expressions.

With a sniff and a shrug she brushed the whole thing off like it was no big deal.

“Ex-boyfriends. Wanted to DP me, I wasn’t into it.”

It was a rough station so the pair left it alone, hurrying away from the hazardous woman.

A few minutes later Billy met her in the Pixie’s airlock with a concerned look on her face and Donnie’s shotgun in her hands.

“You’re bleeding.”

“Not mine. Give me good news.”

“Eniella’s with our civvies, on their way back. They had found some rando interested in the transport but he backed out all of a sudden, Demarco got to him most likely. Maria took Bryan somewhere out on the promenade. She’s... not on coms.”

Donnie’s eyes widened as the medic tossed her weapon over.

“Fuck. I said good news. Anything else?”

“Davie says a ship just pulled into the station. Thing looks like a red dildo covered in Iowa markings, they just finished docking.”

“Great. Tell Eniella to haul ass, you and the gingers hold the ship while I find the happy couple. If we make it off this station alive, Bryan and I are going to have a long talk.”

Billy frowned, but didn’t disagree.

They had all thought they were safe.

Donnie tucked her shotgun against her side under her jacket, not that it did much to hide the weapon, and darted out the airlock in search of Maria and her little boy-beau.

Chapter 26:Uncomfortable

Illicit Inc. was the corporation when it came to all things sexual in the universe, and as such they were right up there with the likes of the Dungeness Corporation in terms of profit margins.

A few decades prior they made the very savvy business decision to move their headquarters in orbit of the planet Macka in order to establish a partnership with the locals.

This allowed them to make their high-end products by taking advantage of the unique silk-worms that the cat-people had cultivated over the last several millennia.

Fully one third of the Macka trade fleet worked in partnership with Illicit Inc. And as such they were the only corporation that had K’or-Macka matriarchs sitting on their board of directors.

Their annual board meetings were extremely popular events, though not a lot of work got done.

But Bryan was unaware of most of those facts, his mind occupied with other things.

When Maria had told him the previous day that she would be picking up some lingerie for his viewing pleasure, she had neglected to mention that he would be intimately involved in the purchasing process.

So it was unsurprising that a short while after they left the ship he thought he was going to die of shame.

“Which one do you want baby?” She asked as she held up two lacy bra and panty combos: one set a soft shade of pink, the other rich crimson.

He couldn’t answer her, they weren’t alone in the store and she wasn’t exactly keeping her voice down.

She bit her lip and her eyes hooded.

“Yeah, I guess I should try them both.”

She pulled him to the back of the shop where a changing booth waited.

“One person per stall.” A matronly woman said without lifting her face from the datapad in front of her.

“Sure, sure.” Maria replied breezily only to promptly ignore the restriction by dragging Bryan into the enclosed space.

“Make a mess and I’ll taz you.” The clerk’s voice sounded from outside, still largely indifferent.

Again the blonde ignored the warning, pulling the curtain closed