Thursday Prompt – Burn: A Babsie Hottail Short
#1 of Thursday Prompt
This is a piece that would take place in the same timeline as a story I wrote for N.A.F. When I thought of the prompt that was the first thing I thought of: Babsie's burning ship, so I thought I'd write a little short about that. Something short to get back into the swing of things.
Since it's a prompt it's more me playing around with ideas.
Icon art is @ ekbellatrix
Thursday_Prompt
Thursday Prompt - Burn: A Babsie Hottail Short
By: Tyvara
When we last left our heroine, Babsie Hottail had tracked her nemesis, the infamous Rat Bastard, to a planet off the Atarax system. As she neared the planet, he shot her spaceship with a weapon he'd stolen from the First Alliance. The weapon she'd come to take back. Now as her ship spirals out of control, how will that resplendent harlequin rabbit save herself?
~
Babsie banged on the flight control panel desperately as flames shot up around her. It was hopeless. "Don't give up on me now!" she begged her ship. "Screw Rat Bastard and his weapon! Get us through the atmosphere so I can jettison. I'll die out here in space!" She coughed.
Warning lights flashed and crackled as the flames licked their way upwards burning everything it touched, melting plastics and other alloys creating an acrid smoke that billowed around her. Shoving her head into her spacesuit, she fastened the helmet down around her neck, the airlock kicking in with a whoosh, and she could breathe again. "I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do for you," her voice echoed within the helmet. "But don't get us both killed. Keep me alive and I'll get Rat Bastard for you." She coaxed her ship, knowing it didn't matter to the hunk of machinery spiraling down to the planet below. But she'd done stranger things than talk to her ship.
When finally the atmosphere came onto the sputtering viewscreen, it was now or risk exploding with her ship. Pushing a big red button opened the door next to it.
Alarms continued to flare.
Without looking, Babsie flung herself from her spaceship. She aimed herself down like a bullet, shooting away from the burning craft, but closer to the ground. The rush of air slid around her spacesuit as she steered herself away from her craft. The ground rushed toward her at a dizzying pace.
With a quick tug of her safety harness a parachute burst from her back. Jerking her backwards, her descent slowed to a graceful glide.
Now she took a moment to gauge her surroundings. Her craft plummeted to the ground, but before it got there, it exploded with a burst that shook her even from this distance. Below was a dense forest of jungle trees that she'd eventually get tangled in. The forest stretched on like a green ocean as far as she could see with nowhere clear enough to steer toward to land.
"You'll pay for this Rat Bastard," Babsie shouted. "I'll cross this jungle and find you, you just wait and see!" Grumbling, she crossed her paws over her chest and pulled her feet in.
The descent took forever and the sound of animals below did not help reassure her. It was downright unnerving.
Crashing into the trees took the wind out of her as gravity pulled her downward, the parachute getting tangled in the process until she finally stopped. Her feet dangled in the air as she fished around for something to cut the parachute straps. Once she got her pack from behind her, she rummaged around for her pocket knife. Finding it, she began the arduous task of releasing herself from the parachute.
Sawing back and forth, the first strap began to give way, when her blade went through the last of it; she began again on the next one. She continued at it until the very last strap. When she sawed through that she dropped down into the dark forest below.
How will our heroine make it out of this next scrape? Find out next time on The Space Adventures of Babsie Hottail: Rabbit Bounty Hunter.