Meteor Mags: Omnibus Edition

by Matthew Howard

  The most outlawed cat in the System stretched lazily beneath the clear Phobosian sky. She scratched behind her ear with one back paw and sprang to her feet.

  Together, the new pair of friends walked back to the Calico Tigress.

  PART TWO: SENTIENT TENTACLES

  Meteor Mags oversaw the unloading of the rail guns from the Hyades onto Vesta 4. Fuzzlow and Donny handled the bulk of the work. Donny’s mining experience made him no stranger to unloading space freighters.

  Alonso instructed them on the procedure for taking the massive armaments out of the ship and maneuvering them into place. Most of it was automated, and the guns came out in an orderly fashion. They made their way down a conveyor belt and out to where they could be wheeled across the rocky terrain.

  Alonso appeared to be a natural leader, directing the young women of Club Assteroid. They gathered around the weapons and helped steer them into place. One by one, the guns formed a line along the rim of the crater Rheasilvia.

  As the work progressed, happiness filled Mags’ heart. They had really done it. Other than her crew, no one in the System knew they had these guns. Fuzzlow had disabled the tracking system on the Hyades, and the Port Authority lacked any reason to suspect Kaufman was in league with her. Their ill-advised caper almost got all of them killed, but it worked out in the end. Now, they were armed to the teeth.

  The announcement of Kaufman’s criminal status had surprised Mags, but the tornado’s total destruction of von Zach Division meant Spassky’s murder and Kaufman’s presence on Ceres would not have been discovered by the Port Authority—and might never be. Mags suspected her great-grandmother had something to do with the unexpected turn of events. But for all she knew, it was only dumb luck. Storms were like that.

  Sarah and Anton ran up to her. “Mags,” called the young woman. “We’re starting a band!”

  Mags took one look at Kaufman’s son and laughed. “What the fuck did you do to his hair?”

  Anton frowned, but Sarah giggled. “He’s going to be our guitarist!” The boy’s formerly well-groomed hair stuck out in spikes at all angles, with the tips bleached and dyed every color of the rainbow. Generous amounts of hairspray held the spikes in place, and each was decorated with a skull bead threaded onto the end.

  “His dad’s gonna be thrilled.” Mags rolled her eyes. “Can you really play guitar?”

  The good cheer returned to his face. “I can play the rhythm part to 100% by Sonic Youth. And Body in the Bayou by the Orwells!”

  “Fuck yeah! When did you learn those tunes?”

  Anton shrugged. “Dad got me a guitar last year, but we had to leave it.”

  “Don’t you worry, darling. I’ll get you a new one. What’s the name of your band?”

  Sarah shouted, “Dumpster Kittens! We’re the punk-rock sensation that’s trashing the nation!”

  “Or the space station,” said Anton.

  “Thrash in the Trash is our album title.” Sarah jumped up and down like her feet were made of springs. “We’re already working on our first song!”

  They grow up so fast, thought Mags.

  But as she pondered the rapid pace of adolescence, Anton looked around and grew noticeably concerned. “Where’s Dad? Where’s our ship?”

  Mags had few regrets in her long and reckless life, but she instantly regretted her carelessness in not finding the boy before the unloading began. Her crew’s activities and the whirring of the machines and conveyor belts faded to nothing in her ears.

  She knelt before him. “He’s on his way, Anton. We got separated on Ceres, and frankly we got our arses handed to us by a massive storm.”

  Anton’s eyes grew wide. “He’s not here? Is he okay?” Whatever joviality he felt discussing his new band melted away.

  “He’s on his way.” The pirate placed her hand on his shoulder. “And he’s okay. Patches is with him, and they have your ship.”

  “When will he be here?”

  “Soon,” said Mags, though she had no reason to believe it other than her unassailable faith in her felonious feline. “I’m sorry I didn’t come see you first, before we started unloading. I know how much you love him, and how much he loves you, too. We heard your dedication on the radio.”

  Anton gave her a self-conscious smile that took all his courage to perform. “Dad loves that song.”

  “Don’t worry, Anton,” said Sarah. “He’s coming back. I know it.”

  Anton had not known Sarah for even a day, but he trusted her. They had talked about how she just knew things sometimes. Though he did not fully understand her special talents, she had told him in detail of her adventures with Mags and Patches, and her words comforted him like none but his father’s ever had. He wiped a tear from his eye. “I hope so, Sarah.”

  “Hope’s got nothing to do with it,” said Mags. “He’s with the baddest bad-ass in the entire System, and there’s no way Patches will let anyone harm a hair on his head. We just have to give them some time.”

  Anton had never entrusted his fate to a calico cat before, but Mags’ certainty bolstered his resolve. “I miss him when he’s gone.”

  “I know, dear. And I miss Patches. We’ve never been apart for a single day since we met. Did you know that?”

  Anton shook his head.

  “But she’s coming back. She promised me. And I promise you, your dad will be here in no time. And you know what? We met one of the Sterile Skins on the way home!”

  “No fucking way!” Anton’s face lit up.

  “Way,” said Mags, pleased with the boy’s change in demeanor. “I’ll introduce you as soon as we get these bloody rail guns unloaded. He’s an old friend of mine.” She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. “Now you little Dumpster Kittens get back to the club, and tell Plutonian to get out here, okay?”

  “I’ll tell him,” said Sarah, and the founders of what would become the hottest teenage punk band in the Belt left the space pirate to finish her job.

  ★ ○•♥•○ ★

  Mags and Celina joined Alonso for a smoke break by the time Plutonian found them.

  “Plutes, look who we dug up on Ceres!”

  “I can’t believe my eyes,” he said. “Lonso from the Sterile Skins!”

  “You blew my cover, homie, playing the Skins like that.” Lonso gripped the DJ’s hand. “But it was damn nice to hear us on the airwaves again.”

  Mags brought everyone up to speed on the space-monkey situation. “Listen,” she said. “I promised those goddamn gorillas I would take them to a new home, but the Queen Anne is fucked and Plute’s ship is still docked to the only port on that rock. But look!” She swept her hand across the vista to denote the Hyades. “We’ve got the perfect solution right here!”

  Alonso agreed. “It’s got enough room for them to live while they get the asteroid set up.”

  Celina shook her head. “Of all the crazy things you ever came up with, wagtail.” She surveyed the gigantic freighter. “This one might actually work. But why now, for shite’s sake? Don’t we have enough to worry about?”

  “Why now? Because I made a promise, that’s why! I can’t be taking my little octos food every week. Do you want them to starve to death? Someone’s gotta grow food for them, and these bitch-ass bonobos are just the blighters to do it!”

  “Macaques,” Plutonian interjected.

  “I knooow,” said Mags. “Hello! Those Marxist mandrills have been growing their own food since day one, so they can bloody well grow some for my krakens, too!”

  Alonso piped up. “I can show them how the Hyades works and help them get settled in. Take me with you.”

  “Done, motherfucker!” Mags held out her fist, and Alonso bumped it. “We just gotta get this thing in orbit and somehow get down to that asteroid to pick them up.”

  “Hey, tía, I got everything you need for a spacewalk. We take position, get inside your boy’s ship, and load your monkeys. Then we take them wherever you want to go.”

  Mags smiled. “So we g
ot a crew, or what?”

  “I’m in,” said Celina. “I wouldn’t miss a chance to see these little freaks you’ve been collecting.”

  “You’ll need me for communication,” said Plutonian. “Unless anyone else here speaks Russian.” He held out his open palm.

  Mags slapped it. “Fuck yeah! We’re doing it. Just let me make sure the peeps have everything they need to get these bastard rail guns in place. Then we’re on our way.”

  “I need to say ‘bye’ to Fuzzy,” said Celina. “You bloody psycho-maniac.”

  “Look who’s talking. Oh, and Lonso? There’s someone I need you to meet before we take off.”

  ★ ○•♥•○ ★

  “Anton seems like a nice kid.” Alonso’s hands moved over the controls and set the ship’s auto-pilot, guiding the Hyades through the cold vacuum of space. “But how did you hook up with his old man?”

  Plutonian chimed in. “The Chief Administrator of Mars in your back pocket. How did that happen?”

  “He ain’t the Chief Admin anymore.” Mags cracked open a beer. “We fucked up that little arrangement.”

  “And I thought we didn’t have any secrets between us.” Celina held out her hand.

  “Don’t get butt-hurt about it. A smuggler’s gotta have her sources.” She handed over the beer and grabbed another. “He was one hell of a source, too. I’m happy to have him in our crew, but we just lost a major informant. Celina and I saw the wanted poster.”

  “Presented to us by one—what was his name?—Lieutenant Spastic.”

  “Spassky.”

  “Right.” She tipped the neck of the bottle in a casual salute. “Lovely bloke. Until you hit him with a frag.”

  “Point is,” said Mags, “Kaufman isn’t Port Authority anymore.”

  “Now he’s one of us.”

  “Aye. A criminal, through and through.”

  Alonso added, “I hope he’s got the cojones for it.”

  “We’ll find out,” said Mags. “One way or another.”

  At their destination, Alonso adjusted the Hyades’ position with brief bursts from its radial thrusters. He dialed the ship’s GravGens to account for the additional gravity generated by the ship’s spinning. In the viewport, Plutonian’s ship began to line up with the monstrous freighter.

  It was a complex process for anyone who had not completed Port Authority flight training. Alonso found it relaxing. “You done this before, right?”

  “Spacewalk?” said Mags. “Oh, yeah. All the time.”

  Celina laughed. “You are so full of shit sometimes.”

  “What?!” Mags glared. “I’ll have you know I spacewalked the fuck out of the job on Valentina 6, and I singlehandedly captured a freighter as big as the bloody Hyades after spacewalking from the Queen Anne.”

  “You mean the freighter you brought back to Vesta, only to find all its cargo had been unloaded before you ‘captured’ it?”

  “Yeah, but I still captured it.”

  Alonso interrupted. “What about you, chola? You ever do the walk before?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Celina. “All the time.”

  Mags exhaled a puff of smoke from a stolen cigarette. “She ain’t mestiza, amigo. This little hell-raiser’s a hundred percent pure Aussie.”

  Alonso furrowed his brow. “Ozzy? Like Osborn?”

  “Not Ozzy, dipshit. Aussie.”

  “She don’t eat no heads off no fuckin’ bats?”

  “Imma eat your fuckin’ head.” Celina placed her hands on her hips. “Are we lined up yet?”

  “I got you covered, Ozzy.” Alonso locked the ship’s flight computer on an orbital trajectory. Slowly the Hyades aligned with Plutonian’s ship and the mining station. “See, a maneuver like this means you need to account for the field the Hyades’ GravGens pump out, the lack of that field on our target asteroid, and the field that old mine creates by spinning on its axis. It sure as shit ain’t easy. Look there.”

  Alonso pointed through the viewport. A ragged scar tore its way across the asteroid. The mark stretched for a kilometer before ending at the mine’s generators. “Some stupid bastard learned the hard way. That is the mark of someone who don’t know how to land a ship in a set-up like this.”

  “Stupid bitch.” Mags stubbed out her cigarette. “Not bastard.”

  “What’s wrong, tía?”

  “I mean I’m the dumb-ass who made that landing.”

  “You really fucked that up.”

  “Tell me about it,” said Mags.

  “Nah. But I’ll tell you a few things about a spacewalk while you get suited up. You know. A refresher course for you two experts.”

  Celina swept her hand in the direction of the hallway to the airlock. “Lead the way.”

  After the women pulled on the lower halves of their spacesuits, Alonso snapped cables into place along their belts. “We tether you two together, ‘cause spacewalkers never go alone. We got a buddy system in case the shit gets real out there. A’ight?”

  Celina added, “Except when Mags wants to capture a ship with no cargo.”

  “Oh, please,” snapped the smuggler.

  Alonso gave her a look. “You’d have to be suicidal to go out there alone.” He did not wait for a reply. “Spacesuits got seven layers in them. That’s in case some little particles of space shit come along and rip the outer layers.”

  “Micrometeoroids,” Plutonian offered.

  “Yeah. Micro-shit.” Alonso hooked a tether from the wall to Celina’s belt, and then one to Mags. “If the suit gets ripped open, then it depressurizes faster than a gangbanger runnin’ out a liquor store. And when that happens—”

  Celina said, “This is my favorite part of the lesson.”

  “And when that happens, all the gases trapped in your body fluids try to expand. Your blood boils inside your veins. Even the piss in your bladder. Your sweat. The liquid in your eyes, yo. If you’re pregnant, then the—”

  “I get the picture, Lonso. Can we just get these suits on?”

  “If you say so, tía. I’m just saying you do not want to rip your suit. It could be micro-meteor shit, but it could be torn on part of a ship, or a corner, or like a tool you have, whatever. Any sharp object. Be careful.”

  “You mean like this?” Mags reached inside the left leg of her suit. She pulled out a knife, flipped it in the air, and caught the tip of the metal blade. She handed it to Alonso.

  “Sí. Just like that.” He tucked the weapon into his waist band.

  “What about this?” Celina reached into her suit and pulled out a snub-nose .38 revolver.

  “Oh, right.” Mags pulled out a Smith & Wesson 64-6. “I got one like that, too.”

  “Damn, girls!” Alonso took the weapons and stuffed them into his pockets. “You tryna get yourselves killed out there. What else you got?”

  He soon found out. The pirates unloaded their secret arsenals into his hands, until Plutonian needed to join him to help hold everything.

  Eventually, the founders of Club Assteroid were suited and ready to go. Mags held out her gloved hand to Celina, who took it. The airlock depressurized, and they entered the void.

  ★ ○•♥•○ ★

  “Curse me for a papist,” said Mags. “Of all the bloody—”

  “What’s wrong?” Celina’s voice came through the helmet’s speakers.

  “I’ve got liquid in the suit.”

  “Did you not take a leak before we left?”

  “It’s not funny, convict! My tits are floating in here.”

  “How does that happen?”

  “I don’t know!” Mags punched a button on the arm of her suit. “Lonso! Lonso!”

  “What up, tía?”

  “I’m up to my—this—goddamn—”

  “Say again?”

  Mags spluttered above the pool of water rising in her spacesuit. “Fucking drowning out here!”

  “Fuck! Listen. It’s gotta be the ventilation system sprung a leak. Hold your breath, and get to Dr. P’s a
irlock. Hear me? You’ll be there in two minutes. Let it pressurize, then get out of that helmet!”

  Mags did not waste energy gurgling a response. The liquid rose above her chin. She expelled all the air from her lungs and drew a deep breath through her nose. Then the watery shroud covered her nostrils.

  Aboard the Hyades, Plutonian’s hand gripped Alonso’s shoulder. “Can she make it?”

  “She has to.” Alonso switched off the mic. “Most anyone can hold their breath for half a minute. About a hundred years ago, the record was three. Guys that practice can go longer. I knew a guy who could do fifteen, but man was he fucked up after that.”

  “Fifteen minutes?”

  “No joke, ese. Problem is, your blood turns to acid after that long. It all goes to your brain, ‘cause your body figures you can survive losing a limb or two. But the real shit goes down when your lungs explode.”

  Plutonian’s eyes pierced Alonso like needles. “Explode?”

  “They fuckin’ rupture, yo.”

  “You’re just full of fun facts, aren’t you?”

  Alonso shrugged. “They teach you this shit in Port Authority, homie. Now shut the fuck up about it, ‘cause our girl needs us out there.”

  The sharp reply galvanized Plutonian. He bent over the mic on the console. “Patch me in.”

  The former Sterile Skins drummer obliged. He had no need to argue with the DJ. He could see the concern written on Plutonian’s face as clearly as he could have heard a baby’s cry.

  He had seen that look before on men’s faces when they watched Mags dance, but something about this man struck him. Alonso realized Mags was more than a co-conspirator to the DJ, and more than an object of animal desire. It was like his life depended on her.

  “Mags, you’ll be fine.” Plutonian gripped the microphone in his fist to steel his own nerves. “Focus on that airlock. I’m opening it from here. All you need to do is get there.”

  With his free hand, he punched his tablet. The touchpad sent a signal to his ship, and the airlock’s handle spun as if by magic. In seconds, the door opened, casting a cold, fluorescent light into space. He spoke again.