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

rapid footsteps of someone running away.

She booked it after him, her gyros whirring as she rounded the corner.

“I got a rabbit! Sledge, Hooker, we’re blown! Time to get messy!”

“I figured that much when you started shooting! I heard that monster from down here!” Eva complained.

Before Donnie reached the end of the latest passageway someone at the end popped out of a door and lit her up with a pulse-rifle.

With no cover to speak of all she could do was return fire, her shotgun barking again as it splattered his head and shoulders across the hatch he had stepped out of to shoot at her.

Donnie cursed as she pressed against the wall.

She had gotten lucky and she knew it: he was a lousy marksman.

Two of the shots went wide, but she felt the stinging burn in her hip where one of the laser bursts made it through her armour.

Having doubled back at the sound of the captain’s firefight, Maria rounded the corner to see her leaning against the wall.

“Skipper!” She cried out in alarm as she moved beside her.

Her repeater winged another Junker as he charged out of the same hatch as his friend, sending him twirling to the floor in the corridor.

“Keep moving, go!” Donnie said between grit teeth; “Fucker tagged me but I’m fine! Clear that room!”

The deep stinging pain in her hip told her she was lying, but she could still move.

The powerhouse stalked up to the hatch, kicking it in when someone on the other side tried to hold it closed. She came out right quick though when her head bounced back from a repeater round ricocheting off of her helmet.

Awkwardly turning with the force of the blow she took cover next to the broken hatch and fired a few shots in blindly to keep whoever was inside ducking.

“Found their armoury! Two more inside!”

The charged round had rung her bell pretty good but not enough to stop her.

A different toned alarm began to sound in the corridor even as the men inside shouted desperate epithets at the hulking marine.

Donnie caught up and took her position on the other side of the door, doing her best to avoid limping as she straddled the man Maria had winged.

“Just two?”

“That I counted very briefly before getting hit in the face with a watermelon.”

“You okay? You sound loopy.”

“Oh I’m fine, just having fun is all.”

“Right.” Donnie focused back on the corridor and called inside; “You boys wanna surrender?”

“Suck my-“

“-yer mother with a cactus!”

Their words garbled together as they swore at her.

Donnie briefly considered how best to get at the two hostiles in the room, then stooped down to unclip a grenade off of the dead Junker’s belt.

“That a good idea Skip?”

The captain mulled it over for a full two seconds before shrugging.

“Probably not. But fuck it. Hope none of your shit is combustible!”

“The hell does that mean?!”

She primed the high explosive grenade and tossed it as close as she could, using the pirate’s voice to get a rough idea of where to throw.

At which point minds were abruptly changed.

“Wait! We surren-”

The panicked capitulation was cut off in the ensuing blast as smoke and debris flew out of the hatch and caused the wounded man in the corridor to scream as he was pelted by bits of his friends.

Once the smoke cleared a bit Maria went in again, this time without any resistance as Donnie’s toss had been spot on.

“Room’s clear. That was underwhelming. Thought for sure you would have done something structural with all the ordinance in here.”

“Life isn’t a holo-vid.” The captain responded as she flipped over the last living Junker; “How many onboard?”

He didn’t answer right away; the grenade had his ears ringing and he was bleeding profusely from where Maria’s repeater had taken a sizable chunk out of his bicep.

Donnie wasn’t in the mood for tight-lipped Junker trash and their health problems though, so she jammed the muzzle of her gun into his wound until he squealed.

“How many?”

She didn’t raise her voice, simply repeating the question as Maria came out of the room to cover her.

“I dunno! Maybe twenty f-five?! Half the crew got iced dirtside.” He whimpered.

“What about hostages?”

Again she didn’t get a response right away, so she hurt him some more, this time drawing a proper scream out of him. Maria’s cheek twitched at the noise, but she swept through the rest of the corridor, checking a few empty bunks while her skipper did what she had to do.

“Are there any hostages?”

Donjoon Nelson was implacable when she needed to be: if there were civilians onboard, she intended to find them.

“O-one, I think he’s dead though! Cletus kicked the crap out of him after his brother bought it yesterday.”

“We did all of this for one guy?” Maria complained; “Whatever. He’d better be cute.”

“Where?” Donnie demanded.

Before he could answer they heard footsteps running towards them and more angry shouts from the corridor past the armoury even as a call went over the Junker ship’s intercoms.

“Some sneaky sumbitches stowed away! They’re on deck two, everyone get down there and smoke ‘em!”

Maria started shooting again, forcing whoever was coming to duck for cover, but she had to take cover herself when more repeaters started pounding into her armour.

“Short on time here Skip! They’re coming down from the upper decks. We need to keep moving before they hem us in!”

But before Donnie could answer the ship suddenly lurched and she felt a wave of vertigo as the mass generator lost power for the briefest of moments.

Eva’s voice came over the coms then.

“Captain, I secured the engine room but I hit something expensive looking in the firefight, rads spiked for a second there.”

“Copy,