Meteor Mags: Omnibus Edition

by Matthew Howard

  “But this night, we’re rolling through town. Right down the main street, which is pretty much a dirt road with ragged little houses on either side. I’m in the back of the utility vehicle, supposedly manning the MK48 we’ve got mounted there but really just having a smoke and watching the sunset. It could get so peaceful there. Sunsets were just gorgeous. A man could almost forget he was in a war.

  “That’s when the gunfire started. All of a sudden, these kids come running out from both sides of the street. It’s the kids we see every day. Only they’ve got semi-automatic rifles. And I mean like every kid in the village, all at once. They fill the road in front of us. The driver slams on the brakes. Not even seconds have passed, and the transport is getting riddled with bullets.

  “I guess I just got scared. Guys like to talk tough, but when you’re getting shot at, you find out real fast that anyone can get scared. I didn’t even think. There wasn’t time to. I just reacted. I shot back.” He hung his head.

  “You don’t want to fuck with an MK48. And there was this moment. Couldn’t have been more than a second or two. But time just sort of slowed down. And I was watching these kids, kids I’d seen the day before, the kid I gave a candy bar to, their bodies—”

  For a moment, he saw every detail frozen in time, the way the candy bar kid turned into shreds and scraps of things he was not about to describe.

  “It didn’t last long. When the driver heard me shooting, he launched that fucking vehicle. It didn’t matter who was in front of him or who got under the wheels. He got us the hell out of there.

  “I collapsed on the floor in the back, and I looked up at the sky, and I thought, what in the fuck did I just do.

  “Not long after that, after the adrenaline had worn off and we were a safe distance away, I knew I had to get the hell out of there. It wasn’t right. None of it was right. Not that I’d ever been a big flag-waver before going over there. But like a lot of us at the time, I thought we had something important to accomplish. I thought we could do something about it. Find the bad guys. Help the good guys.

  “But there weren’t any of either. It was just endless war, chewing up anything decent in its path.”

  “There are no sides in war,” said Mags. “Just the people it destroys.”

  “And the people it makes rich.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Anyway, I didn’t leave that night. We made sure our wounded got back to base and got treated. We had paperwork to do. Always paperwork. People ask me what I think happens when we die, and I tell them paperwork. But I’d made my decision.

  “Three days later, I went on a courier assignment and never came back. It wasn’t easy getting out of that country, but it wasn’t impossible if you knew who to bribe. I got far, far away. Got myself a new name. Got good and fucking drunk for two or three years.

  “Then I realized it wasn’t making things any better. So, I hooked up with the right kind of people if you want to do the wrong kind of things. And that was that.”

  “You sound like such a pacifist sometimes,” she said, but softly. “Done with the war, and all that. It’s hard to believe the first time I met you, you were blasting those MFA losers with buckshot!”

  “Fuck the MFA.”

  “Aye. But what I have in mind for them won’t be a war. It’ll be a bloody retribution.”

  “Mags, you can count me in.”

  ★ ○•♥•○ ★

  Soon, at a Bar.

  Mags pounded another shot of rum. Her glass slammed onto the tabletop. “Fuck this noise.” She poured another.

  “Relax,” said Plutonian. “You’re trashed.”

  “The fuck I am! I ain’t no bloody garbo.”

  “No, I mean—” Plutonian watched her stand up. “Oh, forget it.”

  She stormed up to the DJ booth. She found the music selection lacking. “Play some fucking Unida!”

  The DJ heard nothing through his headphones. He glanced up, saw her approaching, and went right back to mixing.

  “I said play some fucking Unida!” Mags chugged her shot and whipped the glass over the DJ’s head.

  He saw the motion just in time to duck. The shot glass smacked into the wall behind him, bounced off, and landed on his digital turntables. A blaring scratch punched through the club’s smoky air.

  “Oh, hell,” said Plutonian. He pushed his chair back to stand up as two bouncers rushed Mags.

  “Fucking play it, you poser!”

  One of the bouncers set a hand on her shoulder. Mags spun toward him, peeled the hand back, and put him in a grip that set his pressure points on fire. He fell to one knee.

  “You call this rock and roll?”

  A second bouncer stepped up to her. Without loosening her grip on the first man, she delivered a roundhouse kick to the second’s ribs.

  A customer behind Mags swung a chair, preparing to smash her with it. Plutonian coldcocked him in the jaw.

  He shook his head before leaping into the fray. “Remind me to never take her out again.”

  ★ ○•♥•○ ★

  Patches dashed to the edge of the dance floor to avoid the stomping boots. She bobbed her head, making sure the rim of the DJ booth was clear. Through the air she flew, to howl in the DJ’s face.

  He tried to shoo her away, but she swatted and hissed. Jerking his arm away, he narrowly avoided her claws.

  She plopped down on the mixer and sprawled her bushy belly across it. She purred, listening to the bass drum to assess the beats per minute. Her tiny paw moved along the buttons and dials. Sex, Money, and Murder by MC Pooh moved onto the playlist.

  Patches dropped in the beat over the last track. With one flick of her paw, the chorus took over. Sex from yer bitch. Patches purred. Money from the crack. She squinted her eyes, vibrating her torso rapidly. Murder is a hobby. Mur. Murder is a hobby. Mur. Murder is a hobby that I had since way back.

  She stared wild-eyed at the DJ. Was he coming at her? He better not be! She tensed, ready to pounce. But he only held out his hand, with a joint burning between his fingers.

  Patches happily inhaled. She blinked her eyes at the DJ, twice quickly followed by one long squint. She switched to the other deck on the table. Then came the guitar riff Mags loved so much, and John Garcia. He sang like he knew something about a red-haired woman who loved and hated with equal fire.

  Patches did not care what the song was about, as long as Mags liked it. The happy calico decided she would spin a little longer. It might be more fun than killing their way out of another asteroid dive bar. This time.

  Then again…

  Patches brought up an old Medeski, Martin & Wood track that Mags told her featured Guru. Us. Us. Us. There’s no justice, there’s just us. Word to ma man, Gus. Who was Gus, wondered Patches. A musician?

  She perused the DJ’s library. Naxatras. Chapstik. Pile. Cherry Choke. Function. This DJ couldn’t be all bad, if he had tracks like this.

  Patches blinked at him for another hit. He made an awkward duck face and grooved beside her. Dancing at the edge of the booth, his friends gathered around him. They waved and smiled.

  This kid isn’t so bad, she thought. He’s just a bloody dork. Maybe Mags was too hard on people.

  Fuck that, thought Patches. She prepared to beat-match a Kyuss concert performance of Gardenia. If that didn’t make her friend happy, nothing would. Just us, thought Patches. Just us. And then nothing.

  She would miss her entertaining but not indestructible friend so much when Mags was gone. Patches turned up the bass until the building nearly broke off into space. There, she thought. That’s about right.

  ★ ○•♥•○ ★

  A hand grabbed Plutonian’s shirt and pulled him out of the melee. He found himself around the corner from the main room. Music thundered in his ears, and Mags pressed against him.

  He had seen her dance many times, but nothing prepared him for what came next. She planted one leg firmly between his, clamped her thighs, and ground against him. He
felt her breath on the side of his face, the deep rumbling of her purrs vibrating like an instrument with the blaring music. Some part of his mind registered the DJ had finally put on her Unida song: Red.

  He placed his hands on her hips and moved with her. Few things frightened him, but Mags did. She frightened him like a lightning storm, unpredictable, filling the sky with rage and energy, impossible to ignore. Her hands entered his shirt, and her fingernails dragged down his back, leaving welts. He pulled her closer until there was no space between them.

  The guitar riff resonated throughout the club. The bass shook the walls, and the ending passage full of toms began. Her hair, and her sweat, and then her lips were on his. The soft curve of his tongue met hers, and he was unsurprised to find it raspy. His fingers penetrated the mass of curls she wore and found the back of her head. He breathed her in and drank her until the song was over.

  “What?” he yelled.

  She placed her cheek against his again and shouted. “I said, let’s get out of here!”

  He nodded yes, but her hand had already taken his. She led him out of the club and back to the Queen Anne.

  ★ ○•♥•○ ★

  The Outer Planets.

  The dragon lifted her head and roared. The mating ritual began with combat. It always had, as far back as the dragons had recorded history.

  For the army’s highest-ranking officers, however, the mating ritual encompassed their entire career. Only by surviving and advancing in rank could a dragon hope to bear offspring who would survive. With the decline in health of their breeding stock of live food, the dragons had established strict measures for population control. The lower ranks were free to mate and lay eggs, provided they did their civic duty by eating their young.

  Major Dekarna had eaten several of her own litters. Sometimes, that season’s chosen mate had helped. Other times, she had chased him off. Her eggs tasted strong. They tasted healthy. She knew they would make mighty warriors. Now she had advanced far enough in rank to get a chance to prove it. Tonight she would prove her strength.

  Dekarna had felt a familiar warmth in her cloaca just two weeks before. The High Council had at last reinstated Cragg’s command. But the reinstatement carried a mandate that he exterminate the troublesome smuggler.

  Nothing could have pleased Cragg more. Nor Dekarna, who joined him after the official hearing. She waited for him to speak first.

  Cragg inhaled her scent, and chuffed. He met her eyes. “Come with me, Major. You need to see something.”

  “Commander,” she said.

  He marched off.

  She walked beside him but one step behind, as befit her rank, and escorted him to his private chambers. A section of the wall slid open to reveal a small elevator.

  Cragg strode in and turned around in the confined space. His tail slid along the walls. “Come see the future, Major.”

  Dekarna entered headfirst. She had no room to turn around. Cragg rested his head on her hindquarters, and she did the same to him. The familiar scent of her commander comforted her. All seemed right with the world.

  The elevator descended to an interior level of the starship.

  “You will fight in the mating ritual,” he said. “And you will either conquer or die.”

  She rumbled defiantly.

  “I favor the former. Let me show you what awaits your children.” He chuffed again. “Our children.” The door opened. Cragg slithered past her, so she could turn around and step out face first.

  As Dekarna beheld the tanks before her, he spoke again. “Not all who die are buried. Here we harvest their organs. Their tissues. Their bones. Many are fallen soldiers. Some die of natural causes. And, not all of the lower classes’ young are eaten.”

  What Dekarna saw made her happy she had eaten her litters. In the tanks, bodies floated, suspended by wires and tubes. Small bodies. Large bodies. Fetuses. Organs and pairs of limbs. Eyeballs. Kidneys. Hearts. They bubbled in a viscous fluid, glowing green in the darkness of the ship’s interior. They cast stark shadows across her face and Cragg’s. “You can extend their lives for decades.”

  “Centuries, in fact. Nothing else would have allowed me to return to this System. We may, like the tortoises, live hundreds of years. But it took me nearly half a millennium to return here. You, Dekarna, and your young could live forever. Well,” he hissed. “Not forever. We can’t replace a brain. And brains do eventually deteriorate. Identity remains mortal.”

  Dekarna understood. “This is an incredible opportunity. To go into battle knowing your wounds will be repaired. To push yourself to the limit, to the breaking point and beyond.”

  Cragg hissed with pleasure. “Indeed, Major. And to breed an army of warriors to do the same. You see.”

  “An army within the army.”

  “An army worthy of leading the new empire when we complete our control of this System. When the humans are contained, our farmers of live meat and labor, the old ways of population control will end. We will have a new era of plenty. Our children will cover that small, green planet. We will, at last, have our paradise.”

  Dekarna stared into the tanks. “Do they suffer?”

  “Who?”

  “The ones in the tanks, sir.”

  “Their suffering would be a small price to pay for the greatness they give us. But no. They do not. Their mental functions are reduced to zero. The organ function is governed by machines. The brains are nearly useless to us anyway, though we extract the raw materials to replenish the body’s natural supply. It decelerates the mental decay.”

  Dekarna reviewed the specimens as she would inspect her troops. They would, she thought, make a fine reserve for her offspring. “When I defeat the other two,” she said confidently, “have their eggs brought here. They will not be worthy to lead. But they will be strong. They will serve us well.”

  Cragg’s lips peeled away from the daggers protruding out of the meat along his jaw. “Yes, they will. My future queen.”

  “Commander.” She bowed.

  She believed in him then, in his strength, and she believed in him now.

  The combat arena measured thirty meters in diameter, small enough to keep the combatants close to each other but large enough to give them room to charge. Its firmly-packed dirt floor gave the combatants more traction than the cold metal floors throughout the rest of the ship. All around its edge, a carved stone wall stood twice as high as the combatants’ eye level. The carvings displayed dragons in various poses of battle and procreation. It was one of the few places the dragons had any use for what we would consider art.

  Atop this wall, dividing it into four equal quadrants, stood four guards selected from the officers’ lower ranks. They held powerful laser rifles obtained from the humans. In the old days, they would have brandished their electric rods. But the dragons had been training with the human weapons for the past year and grown quite fond of the long-distance killing power. The guards’ purpose, however, remained true to tradition. They would, without hesitation, kill any combatant who attempted to escape the ring before the fight was over.

  A stone dais rose above the arena’s rim by a flight of stairs. A stone arch curved above it. A member of the High Council stood at each point where the arch met the dais. Those on the Council were Cragg’s only true superiors in this System. They would oversee the fight to guarantee and record its validity.

  A stone carving of a dragon’s skull adorned the central peak of the arch. Its hollow eyes looked down into the arena without pity. Directly below the skull, Commander Cragg stood in full battle armor. His eyes held no less menace than the skull’s, but considerably more fire.

  Cragg felt pleased, in his ruthless way, with the scene before him. Three female dragons stood naked in the arena below. They had no armor and no weapons. Only their personal power would help them here. They hissed and waved their tails, menacing each other from a distance. Their growling pleased him. As the ancient ritual demanded, they would fight until only one of them remai
ned alive.

  Cragg walked in the dragons’ reptilian gait to the edge of the dais. He drew himself to his full height and raised his tail. At his command, the combat would begin.

  Dekarna allowed herself a moment to take her eyes off her opponents, as did they. Each raised her head in a salute to her commander. All three of them wanted to win, but none of them had Dekarna’s level of personal respect for him. True, they all desired the prize of bearing a litter that would survive and grow to become future soldiers. But only Dekarna, with her years of serving immediately under Cragg, regarded the old reptile as something of a prize as well.

  She knew both of them. Ashtiga and Caldic each outweighed her, and both held seniority over her. They were practically commanders themselves, but their seniority betrayed their age. And besides, serving under Cragg had given Dekarna the most combat experience of any of them. But none of that mattered to her now. Only destroying them mattered.

  Cragg waved his tail and slapped it hard onto the dais. He roared, “Begin!”

  Dekarna lunged at Caldic, the dragon to her left. She had no use for posturing, no use at all for waiting for her opponents to expose a weakness. She merely lashed out.

  The object of her rage met her attack with open jaws. Dekarna smashed into her, driving her backwards, and sprung away.

  But it was not cowardice that propelled her retreat. She knew that focusing on one target for too long would only make her vulnerable to a second attacker.

  As if to prove her right, Ashtiga had immediately leapt at the pair. Now she slammed into Caldic. The force drove Caldic against the stone wall.

  Dekarna charged at Ashtiga to smash her into Caldic. But Ashtiga was too smart to let herself be pinned between two pairs of jaws. She feinted quickly and leapt away.

  Caldic pushed off the wall with her powerful hind legs. She rammed her bony head into Dekarna’s chest.