Pixie Hazard Read online

  The captain pursed her lips.

  “Why didn’t you fix it while we were dirtside?”

  “Didn’t catch it, I have been up for thirty something hours.”

  “Boo-hoo, so has everyone else. What’s the hold-up? You didn’t need to wait for my permission to get this done.”

  Davie shook her head.

  “If we get jumped with them out there-”

  “Fine, fine.” Donnie grumbled as her tired mind realized the legitimate concern; “Can we do the repairs later, make slipspace as is?”

  The pilot winced.

  “We’re lucky we made the second drop onto Kentis. Slipspace conversion is basically a continuous explosion going off all around us. Throw in a venting O-2 line...”

  “Right, boom goes the Pixie.” Donnie leaned in and flicked a switch above Davie’s head to activate the ship’s intercom; “Kyle, do you need Eniella for this patch job? If we’re going to be sitting ducks I’d rather my FCO was in the cockpit with her head on a swivel.”

  She kept her finger in place as she waited for the mechanic’s response. It was a second or so before his voice came back.

  “I’ll need another pair of hands out there Captain. I suppose it doesn’t need to be Eniella though.”

  She waited for him to finish before nodding to herself and clicking the switch again.

  “Great. Eva, get your peevish ass to the airlock, double-time. You’re a mechanic now.”

  “Oh that’ll be a fun conversation.” Davie chuckled.

  “Don’t I know it, but with Billy tied up playing doctor and Bunny nursing a headache I don’t have a lot of options. Any other issues?”

  The pilot shrugged.

  “Cargo-hold is a disaster, one of the straps came loose during the second drop, but that’s hardly pressing. One of the starboard thrusters is underperforming: twelve percent from nominal. Kyle thinks one of the junctions got knocked loose again, also hardly pressing.”

  Donnie nodded.

  “We’ll have a few days in normal space to sort all that shit out.”

  “No jump window?” The pilot asked.

  “You gunna pay for it? I’d have to max out my line of credit to reserve one. Besides we can use the time to rest up and get the ships squared away, rather do that floating through millions of kilos of nothing than do it all tense and puckered up while docked at Mung.”

  “Nothing worse than a tense pucker.”

  “Um. Ew?”

  Davie grinned.

  “What’s the matter Major, can’t handle a little anal word-play?” She teased.

  “Huh, I never noticed that before.”

  “What.”

  “How stupid you are when you’re tired.”

  “Ow. That stings. Please stop.” The redhead protested in a monotone before her face split in a yawn; “Blech. I am way overdue for a shoulder rub and a cup of coffee.”

  The captain snorted and handed the weary pilot her mostly full mug.

  “Why does everyone think this is a spa? Hope you like lots of cream and lots of sugar.”

  Davie gratefully accepted the mug and took a sip, though her nose wrinkled at the saccharine sweetness.

  “Real women drink it black Skip, but I’ll take it. Oh, and Maria is starting to royally piss me off. How hard is it to fly a spacesh-”

  She was interrupted by the blonde in question as her voice came over the coms from the transport ship.

  “Davie, I need to adjust the heading, I’m drifting away from you again.”

  Donnie covered her smile while the redhead cursed.

  “Just leave it alone! The autopilot will make course corrections for you if you quit fucking with it.”

  “Hey! Don’t yell at me you ginger midget! This shit is stressful! I keep waiting to shoot out into space by myself or for- oh, wait... never mind, it’s fixing itself.”

  Donnie had put her on the transport to keep her focused on a job while she came down from the combat-high. But it was only really busy-work so long as she didn’t actually do anything, such as piss of Davie.

  The two women in the cockpit shared a look at the reported non-issue, then the captain activated the intership coms, once again crowding the waifish pilot.

  “Maria, once we’re ready for slipspace I’ll send Davie over to properly set up remote navigation and you can come back aboard the Pixie. Until then, don’t bug her unless something is on fire.”

  “Yes ma’am.” The towering woman replied sullenly.

  Satisfied that everything topside was running as smoothly as could be expected, Donnie bid her pilot farewell and slid down the ladder, abruptly finding herself face to face with Billy as she stepped out of the infirmary.

  “How’s our guest? He got a name yet?”

  “Not ready for an interrogation. And his name is Bryan.” The dark-haired woman answered immediately while sliding the door closed behind her.

  Donnie held up her hands defensively.

  “And I’m not keen on interrogating him. But we need to know who he is and where he’s from if we’re to get him back to wherever.”

  Billy crossed her arms over her chest and directed the captain towards the common room with one raised eyebrow.

  A sweating Eniella gave them a scowling nod as she pushed past them on her way to the cockpit, having just suited up for the external repairs only to have to strip down again.

  Donnie poured herself another cup of coffee in the galley before settling across from the medic at the dinner table.

  “Okay Billy, spill.”

  “Physically, he’ll recover. He’s got a ton of bruises and cuts, not to mention a fractured wrist from the latest beating the Junkers gave him, but even a ten cc injection of nanites will sort that out. The worst of it he got from the decompression. He’s lucky though, it wasn’t long enough to do anything permanent. Just some frostbite and minor soft tissue damage.”

  “And mentally?”

  Billy made a tsking noise between her teeth.

  “Not so great. From what I could gather, they kept him onboard for a few weeks. Routinely kicking the crap out of him while asking him questions that he swears he didn’t know the answers to.”

  “Shitty. What kind of questions?”

  “Mostly about his mentor, one Professor Timothy Calvin. They raided the research facility where he was doing his apprenticeship. It looks like they took him and some others when they couldn’t find the prof. The others are most likely dead or wishing they were by now.”

  “That kid was in an apprenticeship program? He looked like a baby!”

  Billy chuckled as she cracked her knuckles over her head and worked her neck side to side.

  “He is a baby. Eighteen. Guess he’s a smarty pants.”

  They shared a long look as Donnie took a draw from her mug.

  “Bridget... We need to know what the Iowa Clan wanted him for. If they were just after slaves he would’ve been sold off with the others. You know that.”

  “He doesn’t know anything Captain. And even if he did, he’s in no condition to talk about it. We’re not in a warzone anymore. He’s just a boy. And more importantly, he’s my patient. Nobody talks to him unless he wants them to.”

  The doctor’s expression was steely.

  Donnie sighed as she set her coffee on the table and slowly turned the mug in place.

  Finally she stood, Billy rising with her.

  “Fine. I’ll put away the thumbscrews, but at least try to find out what you can. We’re too close to our biggest score in three years for everything to go tits up just because Maria forced us to play hero to some kid that knows something we don’t.”

  “You’re such a softy.” Billy said evenly.

  “I am what I need to be to keep this boat flying. Shit, feel like I’m saying that a lot these days.”

  Abruptly she let loose with an ear popping yawn as her eyes welled with tears.

  Seeing the obvious sign of her skipper’s fatigue, Billy reached out and stole her
mug.

  “Go get some rack time, we need you clear-headed. Doctor’s orders.”

  Donnie scowled as her coffee was taken out of reach.

  “I can’t. Too many balls in the air. We got people going outside.”

  “And there is nothing you can do about any of it. Go. To. Bed. Your bunk is right across the hall from the infirmary. Something catches fire or the ship explodes, I’ll wake you.”

  The captain’s scowl endured, until finally she rolled her eyes and gave in.

  “Fine, but if the ship explodes I expect you to let me sleep in.”

  With that, she sought out her bunk.

  Chapter 12:

  “Science”, Inbound

  Despite Billy’s promise, it was Eniella’s voice coming over the coms that woke Donnie some time later.

  “Captain we need you on the bridge, proximity alarm. Two unknown bogeys on approach.”

  She rolled out of her bunk and scrambled into her pants as fast as only a marine could.

  Her console told her she had been out for just over three hours, so her eyes were gritty and her head felt like it was packed with sand, but she forced herself into action, slapping her palm against the coms station on the wall.

  “I’m on my way.”

  Barely a half-minute later she was pulling herself up the final rung of the ladder to the cockpit.

  “Talk to me. Are Kyle and Eva still outside?”

  Davie shook her head, her pigtails wobbling.

  “No they just finished, Billy’s cycling them through the airlock as we speak. O-2 is trending towards nominal again.”

  Eniella cracked her knuckles and worked her neck side to side for a moment, before addressing the captain.

  “Gunships will be within viewing distance any moment, the Javelins are spun up.”

  “Good. We ready to jump?”

  “No dice Skip.” Davie’s pigtails wobbled again; “The Pixie is, but I still need to go over to the transport to set up navigation. I can’t walk Maria through a tandem jump, too complicated.”

  “Here they come.” Eniella’s said simply.

  “Lock onto them the second they’re in range. Davie, com them. Let’s avoid a fight if possible, we just got patched up.”

  Through the window of the cockpit Donnie barely caught the flash of sunlight reflecting off of the two vessels in the distance before the armoured shutter closed.

  Davie gave a nod and gestured towards the hand-held coms unit above her head.

  “Line’s open.”

  Pressing the mic to her mouth Donnie was quick to speak her peace.

  “Unidentified vessels. This is the Pixie Hazard, divert course or we’ll open fire. Do you copy?”

  “I don’t see any markings on their bows. They’re not Junkers.” Eniella remarked.

  It was a tense couple of seconds before a deep male voice responded.

  “Attention Pixie Hazard. Stand down. We’re not hostile. I repeat: we are not hostile.”

  “Then identify yourselves already dipshit!”

  Donjoon Nelson was good at many things, diplomacy wasn’t one of them.

  “We’re with the Galactic Regulatory Committee. We are investigating the remains of a frigate that was destroyed near Kentis Four.”

  Davie’s head shifted back on her neck and she let out a skeptical laugh.

  Her captain was in agreement with her.

  “The GRC? Out here? Fuck off.”

  “Stand down your weapon systems and prepare to be boarded. Non-compliance will result in civil penalties.”

  “No seriously, fuck off. Do I sound like I was born yesterday? The GRC’s purview is controlled substances, not galactic security. And even if they happened to be in this shitty neighbourhood they would’ve sent a heavy cruiser at least. Not a pair of patrol boats.”

  Eniella broke in as the readings on her console became more relevant.

  “They’re targeting us. Pilums, not as heavy hitting but twice the fire rate as our Javelins. With two batteries each they’ll likely chew through us before we can get them both, unless their pilots are morons anyways.” Despite the grim prediction the FCO’s voice was calm.

  “Copy. Ships that size, probably no antimatter loadouts right?”

  Eniella shook her head and Donnie smirked.

  “Then let the dogs out.”

  “You got it, Skip.”

  The pink-haired woman danced her fingers across her console, using the target locks from the Javelins to prime the starboard Doberman launch pod.

  “Hey assholes, say hello to el perro!” She declared dramatically.

  “That’s Spanish for Fido.” Davie said in a stage whisper that the preoccupied captain ignored.

  The voice on the coms turned more than a little panicky as the other ships’ sensors sounded the dreaded alarm of an antimatter weapon preparing to fire.

  “P-Pixie Hazard! Stand down! You don’t know who you’re messing with here! The GRC is-”

  “You got that backwards dickweed.” Donnie shut him down again, quickly cutting through the bullshit; “Or are your dinky boats also packing a full complement of antimatter warheads?”

  A long minute of static greeted her words.

  “I thought not. Next time you impersonate someone, try one of the smaller corps. The GRC was a dead giveaway. Now, unless you want to get treated like the pirates you clearly think you aren’t. Hit the bricks.”

  Without antimatter weapons ship-to-ship combat was a slug fest to determine whose railguns could break through the other’s carapace armour first.

  But when one side had them and the other didn’t the result became a foregone conclusion, which was why Donnie had used her Dungeness contacts and spent a fortune to ensure the Pixie never ended up in the situation the wannabe pirates were in.

  Less than a minute later, both ships turned tail and disappeared into slipspace.

  Donnie replaced the com unit as Davie gave her a funny look.

  “Hit the bricks? Old Earth expression?”

  “Nah, I just made it up.” She gestured vaguely towards the closed shutter; “That was a fine good morning though.”

  Eniella powered down the Pixie’s arsenal and twisted in her seat with a bright smile.

  “I would have gone with: the only ship you’ll be boarding is the one straight to hell hijo de puta!”

  “That’s Spanish for-”

  “I get the picture.” Donnie cut off the bleary eyed pilot; “Seriously, this sector has been way too eventful for us. You two get any rack time?”

  “Not yet, and a good thing too.” Eniella said around an enormous yawn.

  “True enough.”

  Davie echoed her girlfriend’s yawn, wiping away tears afterwards.

  “Yeah their timing was perfect, I was about to hop over to relieve Maria when they showed up.”

  Donnie nodded.

  “Get it done. I can manage a jump here, provided you already did the hard math?”

  The redhead unstrapped herself and stood with a groan, her back audibly popping as she stretched.

  “Yeah, I’ve gone over the calculations four times so we’re ready. Unless you changed your mind about going back to Mung Station? In which case I’m going to need to borrow my boo’s potty mouth.”

  “No, we need supplies and it’s the closest thing to a legit outpost. We can scope out our prospects there, maybe offload the transport if someone offers a good price. Nobody on Mung gives a crap about provenance. You just need to keep your sister from going after Demarco.”

  Donnie activated the ship’s coms as her pilot climbed down the ladder out of the cockpit.

  “Alright people, the excitement’s over. Davie’s going over to the transport for the jump. Let’s get the hell out of here before anyone else tries to mug us. Maria? You sleeping?”

  The blonde’s voice came back immediately and she was not happy.

  “Who the fuck would be sleeping?! Davie didn’t tell me how to shut the proximity alarm off! I t
hought I was about to get rammed or something!”

  Eniella snerked and bit down on a stupid joke regarding Maria’s phrasing while Donnie shook her head slightly.

  “Good to know you can keep your head in a crisis.” The captain responded drily.

  “Oh you can all just eat me! I get paid to lay the hurt on people, not play at being a pilot!”

  “Still not into blondes. Now go prep the airlock for Davie. The good folks with Juan Corps keep their sector well patrolled so once we make the jump we’ll have a few days in normal space to catch up on sleep before we make it to the station.”

  Executing a jump anywhere near any sort of planetary body or active space station was rolling the dice with fate; the main limiter for space travel was how inexact a slipjump could be, so unless you had a reserved jump window you risked dropping out on top of anyone else unlucky enough to be meandering through the system at the same time.

  The results of such rare collisions were never pretty and always fatal.

  The standard practice for people who didn’t have access to the mega-corps’ private jump sites, or the funds to secure a jump window in controlled space, was to pick an empty spot a short distance outside of a given system and safely fly the rest of the way in normal space.

  Sadly when dealing with light-years that usually meant a couple million kilometres, but at least at that distance the odds of a collision were miniscule enough for people not to dwell on the possibility.

  Slipspace travel was many things, convenient it was not.

  Less than an hour later they all felt the familiar hum of the slipdrive engaging, then that moment of ethereal breathlessness as the jump initiated before the drive compensated for the shift, causing their ears to pop as the interior of the ship was normalized.

  Some people couldn’t handle the effects of slipspace travel, while others loved the rush of their composite molecules shifting in and out of normal space.

  Donnie and most of her crew were indifferent, the mode of transport having long since become old hat. Bunny insisted that it made her horny, but as the others were quick to point out: so did light, oxygen, and non-stick frying pans.

  Kitty loved her Teflon.

  Quantum entanglement being a thing, slipspace was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. And once faster-than-light travel and artificial wormholes were deemed technologically unfeasible, it became the only viable option for interstellar travel.