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

hand as it cupped her face, blood streaming down her chin.

“Billy better hab bore nanites!”

“I’ll take that as a yes. They say a crooked nose adds character.”

“Blow be!”

Donnie laughed as the Pixie continued to shake them around inside her. The absurdity of their latest situation was too much for her not to.

Like Davie had warned, the ride down got pretty rough, but they reached the planet’s surface without any major issues, landing heavily in a clearing in the middle of Lewanna’s wilderness accompanied by the sounds of straining bulkheads and the staccato hiss of heated metal being cooled by a light rain.

Once the ship settled Donnie scrambled out of Eniella’s lap to get to work, ensuring that the white-knuckled pilot was okay before asking the pressing question.

“How’s the lifeboat?”

Davie checked one of her consoles before responding.

“Cracked like an egg.”

“Fuck.”

The redhead slumped into her seat and her cheeks billowed out as she let out a hearty breath.

“Not necessarily, she’s all tore up but I think the mess helped her stay on top of the Pixie. Might look worse than it is.”

“Only one way to tell for sure.” Donnie activated the coms; “Billy, casualty report?”

“Everybody’s fine in tac-ops. Eva was in the airlock, but she was in her armour so she’ll live.”

“Says you, I bit my tongue.” The redhead cut in sullenly.

Ignoring her, Billy continued.

“We’re unstrapping now and heading outside, I’ll need all hands out there for triage.”

“We’re on our way.” The skipper responded as Davie and Eniella unstrapped themselves and prepared to leave the cockpit; “Sorry Eniella, your busted beak is low priority.”

“Blow be.” The pink-haired woman repeated unhappily.

“You keep saying that. Let’s go save some lives.”

It took them a half an hour to get the survivors out of the wrecked lifeboat, by which point help had arrived from the Andromeda Promise in orbit as well as from the nearest settlements on the colony planet.

There was a tense moment when a number of guns were leveled at the armoured Eva, but Billy managed to avoid any unnecessary drama by barking orders at the incoming medics to keep everyone’s priorities straight.

By some miracle the worst injury the survivors had sustained was a badly broken femur, the proud owner of which was whisked away aboard the Andromeda’s dropship with a trio of people working on her.

As it turned out the escape craft held the surviving crew of the doomed Stardust, with one arm in a sling the emotional captain shook the hands of the Pixie’s crew vigorously for twice saving the lives of his people.

Meanwhile the second she and Eva got him out of the lifeboat, Donnie snagged the frazzled but unharmed Bryan and stuffed him into her office aboard the Pixie before coming back out to help with the others.

The survivors were so grateful for still being alive that none of them missed him in the chaos.

As the last of the Stardust’s crew were carted off by Lewanna’s first responders, Donnie handed the weary doctor a bottle of water.

“How did Bryan even end up on that boat anyways?” Billy asked as she downed a good third of the beverage.

The captain had managed a brief conversation with him when she had taken him back aboard and had caught the broad strokes of his latest misadventure so she was able to answer.

“He gave up his seat to another passenger, a woman naturally. Chivalrous little shit must have a horseshoe up his ass to be so lucky.”

Now that the wounded were tended to, a stern looking fellow whose uniform was buttoned right up to his chin approached the wearied pair.

“Which one of you is Captain Donjoon Nelson?”

Evidently it was just as the man from Lewanna Central had said: she had some explaining to do.

Billy finked immediately, pointing at her and throwing her to the bureaucratic wolves.

“Do I have to be?” Donnie sighed.

“I’m afraid so.” The uptight man replied with a stern glare.

She told the truth, mostly, about the two ships trying to rob them after their salvage operation on Kentis, and about Eniella recording their reactor signatures.

As for why the Stardust was targeted... nobody thought to ask the heroes of the hour who had risked everything to save so many lives.

Which was just as well because none of them had a good answer for that particular question.

All told of the Stardust’s twenty-five crew, seven were killed in orbit. Meanwhile thirteen passengers were missing and presumed dead, sucked into vacuum when the hostile ship broke through the passenger liner’s hull.

Twenty dead and twice that severely injured.

Just numbers to most, but Donnie felt the sting of them nonetheless, even knowing there was nothing more she could have done.

Later on the motivation behind the aggressive action was determined to be desperation: hungry pirates, tired of subsisting in orbit of Kentis, decided to seek out a juicy target in a populated sector.

At least that was the most popular theory according to the local holo-feeds.

With both vessels destroyed by the Pixie’s Dobermans, there was little evidence to prove otherwise.

But Donnie had her suspicions.

Epilogue:Destroyer of Worlds

With the immediate crisis over, Donnie and her crew politely declined the numerous offers of hospitality dirtside in favour of remaining on the Pixie.

Sure she wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry just yet, and she was canted at a funny angle in the mossy clearing, but she was still home.

Once again Bryan found himself in the captain’s office, listening as she outlined what she suspected had just happened and why.

“This whole scheme reeks of black-ops. Outerlight is cleaning up the professor’s mess. That’s why those ships were at Kentis. They weren’t interested in us, or the transport, they were after the Junker frigate. And you.”

“Oh.”

She nodded at his flummoxed response.

“Yeah. That’s