Pixie Hazard

by Archibald Bradford

“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 around the ship, both of their weapons ready.

  Regardless of what the scopes said or what story the intel told, every marine knew that one of the most dangerous parts of an operation was opening a door.

  After a tense minute where the pair were fully prepared to get shot at, they relaxed.

  “All clear.”

  “We’re clear Skipper!”

  The others filed out of the pod and onto the ground, Kyle and Bunny taking a second to orient themselves on the very real planet with its very real gravity while the marines with the inner-ear implants didn’t even notice the difference.

  The ground was an unhealthy looking yellowy-green, with an equally unhealthy looking yellow haze hanging over everything; assorted piles of garbage were piled as far as the eye could see. The drone-operated waste haulers weren’t picky; they swooped down on designated planets and dropped their hatches without even landing.

  Gone were the days of local landfills and recycling campaigns. With the whole galaxy open to them humanity had theoretically unlimited resources, with consumption and commerce driving the push into the unknown.

  But coming out of slipspace in a busy sector only to smack into someone else’s junk got old quick, so extremely stringent laws were enacted to prevent illegal dumping into the vacuum of space within so-called civilized sectors. Kentis IV was one of many designated trash planets.

  “Okay, you know your jobs people.” Donnie gestured sharply in two different directions for the other two teams, and once they were on their way she looked to Bunny; “Come on frisky kitty, you’re with me. You do the sniffing, I do the shooting. Got it?”

  The poor girl was all but vibrating out of her suit at the exhilaration of the rapid drop and the excitement of being given orders.

  “Yup! I mean, Skipper! Wait, no that’s not right. Aye! Clear! Kyle’s baby! Army! Aaah!”

  Donnie chuckled through the coms at the overly-stimulated girl.

  Back in the service there would be no way she would ever be allowed off the ship, or on it in the first place really. But that was another life, and the fact was she had more experience as a scrapper than Donnie, even if she did tend to see the best in people that the cynical marine would sooner shoot between the ears.

  When you’re wielding a gun as big as hers, it’s between the ears, the eyes would just be in the way.

  She indicated a direction opposite the other teams with the tip of her shotgun.

  “This is us, unless that thing is beeping to go somewhere else?”

  Bunny took a moment to examine the readings on her sniffer.

  The device looked like nothing more than a ceramic coated metal rod with a handle and a little screen, Donnie didn’t know the science behind it, but the ingenious little gizmos could detect radioactive particles like iridium with more accuracy than even the ship’s sensors could.

  “Nope, not getting anything but our Pixie yet, sorry.”

  “Okay, I’m in front. You follow behind me doing your thing.”

  “Okee-dokee!”

  For the next hour they picked their way carefully through the piles of scrap and garbage, until they were several hundred metres out from the ship. They had since lost coms with the other teams, though they could still hear Eniella on the ship loud and clear.

  “Bunny? Have you gotten any readings at all?”

  The cat-girl swept her device back and forth, her eyes flicking from the screen to the junk at her feet to be sure of her footing.

  “Nope! Sorry army-lady!” She chirped.

  Donnie groaned.
/>   “Do me a favour kitty, stop calling me army, it’s insulting.”

  “What? Why? I thought you were all in the army!”

  “The army? What army?” The captain chuckled; “We were zero-G marines, sweety.”

  She could almost hear Bunny thinking over the coms.

  “Okay, so what’s the difference?” She finally asked.

  “Armies are made up of fat idiots that live dirtside. They fight on the surface of planets against other fat idiots on planets, usually over who owns what part of said planet. Might as well be a two dimensional field they’re farting around on compared to what we do. Zero-G marines are trained to fight wherever we need to: on planets, off planets, or skipping from one micro-asteroid to another while the wreckage of enemy ships rains down all around you. We don’t have the luxury of two dimensional fields. We have to fight in every dimension, usually while spinning around in vacuum and bleeding internally.”

  All the while as she spoke she was scanning their surroundings, her shotgun lowered, but at the ready.

  “If you say so I suppose.”

  Bunny still sounded uncertain so Donnie elaborated.

  “The main difference is situational awareness baby. Kind of like how I’ve been keeping my eye on that ugly ass scrap-hawk that’s been eyeballing that rotten diaper to your nine o’clock.”

  The veteran marine was looking in the opposite direction of what she was describing.

  Bunny’s tail puffed up in the confines of her suit and she meowed in panic while her head snapped to her left.

  Once she spotted the bird in question though she relaxed quickly.

  “You scared me! That’s not a scrap-hawk silly! That’s just a cute little birdy!”

  “Oh?” Donnie puzzled as she sized up the ugly-ass bird again, thing looked like a plucked turkey had a baby with a rat; “I thought Kyle called them scrap-hawks? He said they were dangerous.”

  Bunny nodded emphatically, though it looked a bit odd as her suit was too big and her helmet didn’t move along with the face inside.

  “Scrap-hawks are super dangerous! But they’re also enormous. Don’t worry, I know what they look like!”

  “Good to know. Still nothing on the sniffer?”

  “Nope!” Bunny said cheerfully; “It’s all part of the scrap heap adventure! We could look for weeks without finding anything! Then bam! Big shiny starship part and hubby is buying me salmon steaks!”

  Donnie’s coms crackled to life suddenly, with Eniella’s words coming just as the cat finished speaking.

  “Skipper, Sledge is on the line, says Kyle’s got something.”

  Bunny leaned forwards.

  “Whoa! That was crazy! I just finished telling you that we weren’t going to find-”

  The captain held up her hand to silence her.

  “Bunny, cut the chatter for a sec sweety. Mendez, can you give me a piggyback and link our coms?”

  “Nah, relays are for shit down here, too much interference, I have their coordinates though. They don’t know what they have yet. You and Bunny girl are pretty close if you want me to redirect you?”

  “Hey! Cat-girl! I’m a cat-girl, my name is Bunny!” The girl in question said in exasperation.

  Donnie grit her teeth at the inane chatter, but continued.

  “Send the co-ordinates to my HUD, and let the others know what’s up.”

  “There’s no such thing as a bunny-girl, that’s stupid!”

  “You got it Sk-” Eniella suddenly broke off, though Donnie could still hear the empty crackle of the open line even over Bunny’s protests.

  In the distance she suddenly heard the faint sound of thunder and the all-too-familiar popping of Maria’s charged-projectile heavy repeater going off.

  Immediately afterwards the FCO was back on with her, her urgent voice loud enough to crackle with static.

  “Contact! Maria is reporting contact! You need to book it to heading two-two five! She is engaged, I repeat she is taking fire!”

  Donnie reflexively shouldered her weapon and crouched lower as she scanned the horizon in the direction Eniella indicated.

  Without turning she sharply gave her companion her marching orders.

  “Bunny! You head back to the ship, you hear me? Straight back! And stay off coms unless it’s an emergency!” The frightened cat nodded earnestly and bolted, sprinting through the debris recklessly while Donnie likewise moved towards the coordinates now flashing on her HUD; “Eniella! You know what we’re up against?”

  “Negative ma’am, Sledge is too busy. Stand by.”

  Donnie kept moving, tensely listening to the continued fire in the distance. Whoever had pissed off Maria, she was pouring it on ‘em, and though the skipper was anxious for more intel she was also disciplined enough to wait for it.

  Before she was even a quarter of the way to Maria’s position the noise of thunder abated, with just a few more deliberate pops from her repeater.

  When Eniella spoke again the relief was plain in her voice.

  “Contacts terminated ma’am. A squad of Junkers with dinky little powder-based weapons, they must have been shadowing her and Kyle, waiting for them to find something. Maria tore them to pieces. Says the survivors are booking it. Sounded like fun actually.”

  Donnie stopped her headlong pace.

  “Injuries?”

  “None Skipper, though Kyle’s cute little onesie got ripped in the excitement, he’s bleeding air but in no immediate danger.”

  “Copy that. Bunny? Do you read, you hearing me kitty-cat?”

  No response.

  “Shit. Mendez, you got eyes on our Bunny? I sent her back to you when the excitement started. Poor girl’s probably still running.”

  “Nothing yet Skip, I’ll get you her transponder coordinates.”

  “Standing by.”

  It took Eniella less than two seconds to get back to her.

  “Yeah I got her, she’s moving at a fair clip, not answering her coms.”

  “That’s my fault, I told her to stay-”

  There was another crackle of static as Eniella’s voice cut her off, louder than before.

  “Holy shit! I’ve got a big-ass biological moving towards her position fast!”

  Donnie was running before she finished speaking.

  “Give me her heading on my HUD now! Can you spin up one of the Javelins?”

  Her legs were pumping, the gyros in the suit turning her movement into loping strides that would’ve broken long-jump records on Old Earth.

  As fast as a panicked cat-girl can run, a zero-G marine in an exo-suit was much faster.

  “Negative ma-am, Javelins won’t track on this thing, it’s too small!”

  “Can’t you go manual?!”

  Eniella’s answer came back and she was clearly trying to hide her mounting panic.

  “I’d have no time for target acquisition! Skip! That thing’s heat signature is right on top of her!”

  Donnie vaulted over the crushed remains of an industrial refrigeration unit, landing with a curse as her gyros whirred to absorb the impact.

  “Dammit! I see her!”

  She was still a good fifty metres away when she spotted her target, barely able to make out the orange of Bunny’s suit overlaid by the transponder icon on her HUD.

  But just as the captain caught sight of her, something that looked like a friggin pregnant lizard-horse landed on her, bowling her over into the ground hard.

  Even without the wings the scrap-hawk was the size of a one-seater air-car, and its taloned feet were quickly working to tear through the durable mesh of Bunny’s suit in a bid to get at her tender flesh.

  Donnie closed the distance in several long strides to get right up close to the ugly ass thing as she shouldered her weapon.

  Scrap-hawk, meet high-energy plasma shotgun.

  The weapon bucked and the brilliant green of the scattered particles ripped through the beast’s scaly hindquarters like tissue paper, the superheated plasma shredding i
ts flesh and searing into its bones.

  The big beast wasn’t done though; it let out a shriek of rage and agony, its clumsy wings buffeting the air and stirring up crusty yellow dirt from the mucky ground as it turned to face the threat to its meal.

  Its mutated and fang-filled beak swung around on a neck easily three feet long to screech down into Donnie’s face as her left hand worked the pump to charge another plasma shell.

  “You kiss your mother with that mouth you scaly bastard?!”

  She let another round go, hardly feeling the powerful recoil of her gun against her shoulder with the adrenaline pumping through her.

  This time it caught the beast center mass below its neck, and abruptly the nasty critter let out a keening wail with far less aggression in it.

  Funny how terror was recognizable on the face of even a butt-ugly bird monster like this one.

  Donnie advanced and let off three more shots in rapid succession, the plasma discharge pulping huge holes deep into it until it slumped to the muck practically in two pieces, its upper body draped over Bunny’s prone form.

  She took a step closer to give it one more blast to its ugly face just to make sure it wasn’t getting up, and then had to use all of the amplifiers in her suit to heft the carcass off of the cat-girl.

  She carefully rolled her onto her back and didn’t at all like what she saw, her throat closing in a rare moment of panic.

  “M-medic! Eniella! I need Billy here now, Bunny is down! Her helmet is fucked and her suit is compromised-”

  “Ouchie.” A tiny voice interrupted her.

  “Bunny?! You alive baby girl?”

  Dimly she heard Eniella copy her orders, but her focus was locked on the injured cat.

  The orange suited girl sat up slowly, though the entire inside of her mask was coated with blood and sludge-like muck from where the faceplate had cracked.

  “I’m not baby, I’m Bunny. Urgh, this place really smells. Can we go home now?” She answered blearily.

  “Yeah, but quit moving around! You’re all fucked up sweetheart.”

  With the crap on the faceplate of her helmet hiding her features from Donnie’s view, Bunny wiggled from side to side in her suit for a bit, then shrugged almost carelessly as if a giant mutant turkey lizard monster trying to tear her apart was all in a day’s work.