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

said unapologetically; “Not that I mind you showing me your cute little brass ones, but you need to stow them. We got a crime-scene to stage.”

“Sledge, deal with that.” Donnie said calmly while gesturing at the emotionally fuming Bryan; “The rest of you, load up the airlock, we’ll go through it once we’re a few light-years away, anything with corporate markings gets turfed on the next trash planet we visit.”

Just then a familiar alarm started blaring and plans got changed.

“Proximity sensor!” Maria declared as she popped her helmet back on her head.

“Fuck it, we’re gone! Billy drop it!”

“It’s twenty grand worth of nanites.” The doctor said evenly.

Donnie cursed again.

“Fine! Nothing else! Get back to the ship, we’re fucked if it’s Outerlight anyways!”

Her coms crackled to life then as Davie’s urgent voice sounded in her ear.

“Someone tagged us Skip! Eniella just killed the tracker’s frequency, but we’re definitely blown!”

“Tell me something I don’t know! How long do we got?”

The station shook and another alarm sounded, just to make Donnie look stupid before Davie filled her in.

“We’re out of time! That red cruiser from Mung came out of slipspace barely a thousand klicks out and they’ve already opened up on us! We’re getting hammered!”

Each boom of the enemy’s railguns hitting the Pixie’s hull sent vibrations throughout the station.

Donnie’s blood ran cold as she looked to her crew.

Grim faces looked back.

It was a shitty call to have to make, but it was her job to make it.

“Bug out for now Davie! Get around behind this rock! We don’t make it off this station have Eniella let the Dobermans out and bury the lot of us!”

Revenge was a hollow request, but it was all the Pixie could do against the other ship with the crew so exposed onboard the station.

“Wilco Skip. Eva, I’m...” She paused as emotions unspoken flooded her mind until she could suppress them; “Don’t die.”

The pilot’s sister was busy dragging a solid cabinet towards the corridor to use as cover, Maria quickly stepping over to help.

“No promises. Love you. Now get the hell out of here Sparks.”

A childhood nickname not spoken in fifteen years?

Yeah, things were serious.

Chapter 33:Overwatch

If they tried to hold the airlock the Junkers could just disconnect from the station and vacuum them into space, so Donnie and her crew had no choice but to defend the interior of the professor’s secret lair instead.

It wasn’t the most ideal situation, but they had dealt with worse.

Of course, that was back when they had the full backing of the Dungeness corporation’s marine units.

Billy tucked the container holding her precious nanites away in a corner and unslung her high-calibre pulse-rifle. The medic hadn’t had cause to fire it since before Bryan and Bunny joined the crew but she was still a proficient shooter.

While her marines worked to make the room as defensible as they could, Donnie pulled up the stations security holograms on a console safely tucked against the far wall.

“These bastards must be hungry. They’re ignoring the Pixie and moving in to dock.” She ran her hand through her hair and leaned heavily against the console; “Shit, we need overwatch if we’re going to pull this off.”

Searching for a solution to the problem, Donnie’s eyes clapped on Bryan.

Fuck his emotional state.

She stomped up to him and seized him by the rim of his suit, the surprised kid not struggling as she dragged him to the holo-feeds and gave him the single most important tutorial of his life.

“Here’s north. Here’s east. And here’s west. Once they get inside these are the only angles they can come at us without getting creative. Keep your eyes fixed on these feeds and call out how many are coming and from which direction.”

“I don’t-”

She jerked him off of his feet, barely having to rely on the gyros in her suit as she held him nose to nose.

“Half of my crew is bent over a barrel right now over you and your little drama with the dead professor! So you either help me get them out of this mess or I drop you right now!”

Everyone in the room heard the clatter of her plasma shotgun as she primed a charge with one hand.

Wide-eyed and terrified, Bryan could only stammer at the outrageous threat.

“Make the call kid. You have ten seconds before I make it for you.”

Her voice was so cold it made his insides shrivel, but after several tense seconds- like... maybe five, six at the most, certainly not ten- he looked to the holo-feeds.

“N-north, east, west.” He confirmed as much as asked, one shaky finger moving between them and the corridors they represented.

“Good boy.”

Non-to-gently she helped him put his helmet back on.

It wouldn’t do a damned thing to stop a bullet, but at least he’d be okay if the station depressurized or if he ended up back in vacuum again.

Once his suit was sealed, she reiterated his job.

“No matter what happens, you’re glued to that feed. We live or die on your say so.”

Though the words were meant to be encouraging, he could tell she wasn’t happy about it as she turned back to her crew.

“We got about the time it takes for them to cycle the airlock before this shit goes down. Hold your corridors or we’ll end up in a crossfire. I’m floating so call out if shit gets dicey. I want this mess behind us in time for chow.”

It wasn’t much of a speech, but that’s because speeches were for officers and at her core Donnie was just another marine, former rank be damned.

Maria and Eva were both positioned at their respective hatches, but Billy was further back in the room, behind a sturdy metal desk with her rifle’s bipod resting