Pixie Hazard, Archibald Bradford [100 best novels of all time .TXT] 📗

hit them with a vengeance, and the crew felt their teeth rattle some more from the added weight of their own bodies catching up to them.

It only got worse from there.

Their personal sense of mass increased by the second as the behemoth was slowed down in its reckless hurtle towards the planet’s surface, until they all felt like their weight had quadrupled.

Soon enough the rattling and the strain on their bodies began to ease off. While Bunny and Kyle recovered from the intense sensation, Billy activated the coms in her helmet.

“Eniella, what are the scans telling you?”

“Uh, that I should have been a television repairman?” Eniella responded with a bit of snark.

Donnie shared her first mate’s exasperation at that point.

“The hell is a television? Mendez! Quit fucking around!” She snapped.

“We’re still shedding atmo Skipper! Scopes can’t see shit until- wait! Okay scans are up. Give me a minute.”

With each second that passed, the heavy gravity in the pod diminished further as they gradually slowed and stabilized, finally hovering barely a hundred feet above the assorted piles of garbage below.

Hardly standard drop protocol, but Donnie didn’t want the Pixie’s landing gears touching the ground until she was sure their landing zone wasn’t compromised.

“Talk to me Mendez.” She said impatiently.

“Good so far, my lovely lady with the perfect skin and good taste in women nailed the re-entry, with a point zero five deferential, I might add. Well done mi cielo.”

They mostly missed that last bit as there was a series of whistles and catcalls from the rest of the crew at their pilot’s skill: that small of a differential meant a perfect drop, in a ship that was closing in on a half-century old.

The venerable Pixie Hazard had two options for deploying troops via gravity assisted planetfall: it could either release its eight man pod from orbit or carry it down on its belly, either way it took about three minutes to go from ‘hanging-out-in-space’ to ‘boots-on-the-ground.’

Modern dropships in the Pixie’s weight class had done away with the dual purpose model though. Typically they instead focused on either faster ship re-entry with the ability to deploy a larger squad than the Pixie could in less time, or on launching multiple single-occupant pods from orbit, which could then be scattered over a larger area to increase the odds of more marines making it to the ground if someone spotted them coming in and started popping off shots.

Basically the Pixie wasn’t the fastest dropship, or the most manoeuvrable gunship, or even the best all around troop carrier. But she was a little bit of each, with a robust hull designed to take a beating.

And when you’re a small crew that isn’t sure what you’re going to need from one job to the next, a little bit of everything is just what you want.

Once the celebratory chatter stopped they listened to Eniella as she continued her report.

“Rads are still good, nitrogen is pretty high, atmo is breathable but I’d still say keep those hats on unless you want to feel like you’re drowning in fart. Good news is the hydrogen and methane are low enough that you are more than welcome to bust off a few shots of that beast of yours Captain and not have to worry about lighting yourself on fire.” She clicked her tongue a few times as she read the scopes, until finally she made a satisfied little noise and finished her report; “And the weather is a calm and balmy twenty two degrees so I hope you packed your thongs ladies. All in all, it is a sunny day out there with not a Junker in sight. We’re all green Skipper.”

Donnie breathed a sigh of relief; they didn’t need any excitement, not with the ship so close to packing it in.

“Alright, set her down Davie, and smack your woman for me once we’re on the ground. ‘Television’ my ass.”

Seconds later they all shook in their seats once the landing gear made contact with the uneven ground and heard Eniella snickering over the coms again.

“Gentle as a Sledge fart!”

“Get her once for me Davie!” Maria said as Eva laughed at her.

“On task people.” Billy said sharply.

She was back in her roll of sergeant, which basically meant she rode herd on the crew so that her captain could focus on the more important shit.

Donnie smacked the quick release on her drop harness, the others doing the same.

“On your feet! Hooker, Sledge, I want your weapons hot and pointed at that ramp. I don’t care what the scopes say. This place can snatch the life out of you just for blinking so we’re not taking any chances.”

“This is so much fun! It’s like we’re playing army!” Bunny whispered to Kyle who couldn’t help but smirk at his wife’s innocent words.

“Bunny! Stay off coms unless you’re bleeding!” Billy snapped again.

The cat-girl jolted, jostling the others in the cramped pod and throwing up an awkward salute, smacking her glove into the middle of her oversized suit’s face-plate.

“Sorry Skipper!”

Eva laughed and pointed at the captain with one armoured finger, her gun still trained at the ramp.

“Billy is the X-O. That’s the skipper. And speaking of which, door?”

“Ten seconds.” Donnie responded; “Everybody get your gear. Eniella, how’re we looking?”

“Still clear. Nothing bigger than a quail moving for a thousand metres in any direction Skip.”

“What the hell is a quail? Quit making shit up Mendez!” Donnie said in irritation before addressing her fire-team; “Alright then. Let’s take a gander.”

She smacked the release for the door of the pod and it slammed to the ground, the heavy ramp stirring up a cloud of yellow dust with the impact.

Before the dust even settled Eva and Maria were on the ground, back to back as they scanned the piles of debris all