Pidge coaxed the attitude jets of the Maverick 3 into reluctant life again, slowing the ship as it approached the imposing bulk of Pioneer station. They hissed and spat erratically as the avian fought the controls and attempted to manoeuvre alongside.
“Gently !” hissed Drenk. “We don’t want to side-swipe this one as well”.
“Then stop being such a cheap-ass and get the thrusters fixed” retorted the pilot in her distinctive warbling.
“If you hadn’t smacked into that drifter around Johannes, they wouldn’t need fixing ! Any more and I’ll drop you on the nearest planet and fly it myself”
“I’m sorry, but we needed to get out of there fast, no way did we want any more of those bugs on board. It took us days to purge the ones that made it through the airlock”.
The rest of the crew waited near the starboard airlock, listening to the bickering of their captain and pilot. Triclops rolled his eyes – all three of them – while the other checked weapons and equipment. They all remembered their last escapade – the drifting hulk in the Johannes system looking inviting, and the systems read no life-forms on board. But the systems were wrong – they hadn’t picked up the thousands of insectile creatures swarming the derelict vessel. The big ones were easy enough to deal with, Goat Girl had a field day with her fusion cannon and turned hundreds of them to crispy ashes. But the little scuttling ones were the problem – they got everywhere, and some made it into the Maverick itself. After a frantic getaway that saw them make contact quite heavily with the derelict’s outriggers, they spent several days tracking down and squishing as many as they could find. The whole crew ended up cramming into the bridge and opening the rest of the ship to vacuum, blasting the critters into the void. Any left aboard were frozen solid and easily dealt with once the atmosphere had been replaced.
But opening the airlocks like that had cost them a lot of equipment and supplies, as well as most of their reserve oxygen. So Captain Drenk had pored over the star charts and identified Pioneer station as an easy target. A large, isolated research base in an otherwise empty system, it was bound to have plenty of stores, equipment and tools that they could liberate. These places were usually unarmed and had little in the way of security – why would they need it, when there was no-one else in the whole system to need protection from ? And even if some of the eggheads on board decided to put up a fight, they’d soon be cowed into submission just by the appearance of the Maverick 3’s crew. The nine assorted aliens and mutants were a ragtag but fearsome looking outfit, and a bunch of white-coated brainboxes weren’t likely to to resist for long – shoot one and the rest would wet themselves. And afterwards, hopefully they’d be able to find somewhere quiet to get the ship patched up.
So they eased into Docking Bay 54, manoeuvring jets sputtering fitfully. As they rounded the curve of the station, a little way further along Pidge caught sight of a black painted shuttle docked at another airlock.
“What’s that ? It says “ARCS Security” on it” said the pilot. “I thought this was supposed to be a research station ?”
“Don’t worry about it” replied Drenk. “It’s probably just making a supply drop. This is a milk run, nice and easy.”
He opened a channel to the ship’s PA. “Get ready” he called out to the other crew members, “Contact in thirty seconds”.
This was answered by the sound of guns being cocked, magazines being slapped home and energy weapons humming into life. As the boarders moved to the airlock doors, Professor Mandrake felt something soft and fluffy slip between his lower tendrils. He looked down to be greeted by the sight of Jonesy’s furry ears and head, along with the muzzle of the feline’s huge sniper rifle. The cat just had to be first out the door again !
With a solid CLANG! the Maverick docked with the station. With assorted clanks, rumbles and hisses the two systems connected, then the red lights above the lock cycled to green. The doors opened to the interior of the airlock, past the already open inner portal and then onto the station corridor. Ahead of them, the crew saw the backs of a number of what must have been station personnel. The figures turned to face the noise of the opening airlock – but there was something wrong. All of them were disfigured and, well, wrong. Their skin was discoloured and covered with sores and blisters, and many had weirdly misshapen limbs. The closest of them, a female with strangely green hair, opened her mouth to reveal a set of what could only be described as fangs, and hissed.
“Oh, crap” uttered Rex Hisseron from behind his breather mask. “Get ’em, Dad!” squealed Grew from his pouch on his father’s stomach. As one, the guns of the Maverick 3’s crew roared into life…
The Scavengers are a colourful bunch of eight new assorted humanoid aliens (yes, it said nine earlier, but Kanga and Grew come as a pair). They eke out a living in the frontier systems, getting legitimate jobs where they can, and stealing where they can’t. As with all the other Pioneer range figures, they’re 3D printed in resin at either 32mm or 28mm.
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