Meteor Mags: Omnibus Edition

INTRODUCTION

Ahoy, dear. We meet again!

Now, as soon as you get all the cash and jewels out of that safe, you and me can go up on deck. You will not sound the alarm, or radio for back-up, or whatever crazy plan you have. Instead, we’ll open a bottle of rum and discuss the possibility of your joining my sorry lot of criminals.

We will also consider tossing you out the airlock. It’ll be a point in your favor if you can play an instrument.

You know, when my great-gramma ruled the seas of Earth, this was called impressment. That’s when you take another ship’s crew and make it your own. So, consider yourself impressed.

That’s right. Put the guns in the bag, too. Just throw them on top of the money, and be quick about it. Me, my cat, and everything we can bloody steal are getting off this goddamn rock right now.

Coming with us?

XoX XoX

Meteor Mags

Vivan las anarquistas!

1

The Secret Laboratory of Dr. Plutonian

No holy bell nor pastoral bleat

In former days within the vale.

Flapped in the bay, the pirates’ sheet

And curses filled the gale.

Rich goods lie on the sand, and murdered men.

Pirates and wreckers kept their revels there.

—The Buccaneer;

Qtd. by Charles Ellms in The Pirates’ Own Book, 1837.

PART ONE: TURN IT UP

2027: The Asteroid Belt.

Punk is dead, pouted Meteor Mags. And so is the fuckin’ web. She cut the sound to the speakers, disgusted with the music. Standing up from her command chair aboard the Queen Anne, she pulled off her boots and tossed them in a corner. Her socks quickly followed.

She wiped the tangle of hair, dirt, and dried blood out of her face, searching unsuccessfully for a brush. An entire asteroid belt colonized, and you still can’t find a decent radio station out here! She grabbed a lighter from her bedside table and plopped back down in her chair.

Mew, said the filthy grey cat at her feet.

"Madre de dios, you are one dirty kitty. Come here. Mags patted her lap. Come on up, dirtball!"

The cat crouched and mewed again, then leapt. She turned around and around in Mags’ lap, kneading her thighs.

Not twenty minutes ago, the cat had run aboard the Queen Anne as fast as she could, while the thunder of Mags’ machine gun pounded her ears. Regarding the body count they had racked up in the last few minutes, the cat felt nothing but relief. She had wanted off that rock for nearly two months, and she could not be happier about leaving.

Is that your name, then? Dirtball? God, I am so fagged out right now. Mags leaned her head back and sighed, staring towards the ceiling but not really seeing it for a minute. Her body had run on adrenaline and rage for hours, trapped in the spaceport. If not for her new friend, she thought, she would still be stuck in that goddamned storage closet. Or dead. Or worse.

Mags absent-mindedly patted the cat in her lap as it licked its paws. She sank into her chair, letting the fatigue wash over her. The next time she looked down, the cat had cleaned one of its paws and a patch on its face. Awww, said Mags, You aren’t grey at all! You’re a little calico under that grease.

The cat stopped for a moment and looked in her eyes.

Mags rubbed the cat’s ears. How would you like to be called Patches?

Patches purred, squinting twice.

Oh, you like that name? Patches?

Patches bumped Mags’ hand with her nose and went back to licking.

You need a bath, Patches! Now that your name is sorted, let’s see if we can find something to listen to on the way home.

Twenty minutes earlier, a single drop of blood fell from Patches’ lacerated ear. It fell past the narrow girders where she hid near the ceiling of the tiny storage room. The blood fell a meter through the air to splatter on Mags’ shoulder.

Mags had problems of her own. A sticky mess of half-dried blood, sweat, and dirt caked her forehead and the side of her face. She pressed her back against the wall.

She hid there for twenty minutes or more. The bleeding slowed from the gash in her scalp, but a steady trickle of dark red flowed from her white hair, over her eyebrow and cheekbone, and down the side of her neck. But Patches caught her attention. She looked up.

The cat crouched on a single skinny girder above her head. Poor little kitten, Mags thought. A laser pistol had vaporized the tip of its right ear. So much dirt covered Patches that Mags could not see her calico markings at all, just a grey and black blob in the shadows.

But Mags recognized something in her eyes—something burning, but cold and hard like a steel blade. Mags raised a single finger to her lips, pursing them as if to say, Shhh, without making a sound. She pointed over her shoulder. Footsteps outside.

If the patrolmen cornered her in this small room, they would shred her to bits with laser fire in less time than it takes to tell. She stood against the wall, behind the door if it opened, out of sight for a moment at least. Maybe it would be enough to shield her from the patrolmen’s eyes if they looked inside.

The spaceport was crawling with patrols now. Even if she could get out of this room, they had posted guards outside the Queen Anne, and Mags was seriously outgunned until she could get aboard her ship.

Patches stood up from her crouch to dart along the narrow girder. She moved quickly, but Mags detected a limp.

The footsteps stopped outside. Mags held her laser pistol ready. The door creaked open.

Rooowwwrrr! Patches hurled herself at the patrolmen. One had advanced to open the door, and the second one stood behind him, pistol at the ready. Patches caught the second one square in the face and swung her claws.

Mags kicked the door as hard as she could. It slammed shut on the first patrolman’s arm. She put a laser round into his hand, and then another round to vaporize it in a spray of blood.

He screamed. Mags threw the door open. She put three quick rounds into his chest. His body fell backwards into his companion, who tried in vain to pull the angry cat off his face.

When the bodies collided, Patches leapt clear. Mags fired her pistol twice into the face of each patrolman. The cat mewed at her and bolted down the hallway.

Mags did not really know why she followed, but Patches seemed to know where she was going. She hurried to catch up, dashing around corner after corner in the maze of hallways. Then she heard shouting.

She tried to stop, but her momentum carried her around one final corner. There sat the Queen Anne, not twenty meters away. Patches had taken her to the edge of the landing zone where patrolmen now guarded her ship.

Patches had also captured their attention. She howled like a demon, running full-speed through their ranks. They raised a hateful yell. Without a second thought, they chased the dirty cat across the landing zone to the cargo crates on the other side.

Patches had stalked this spaceport for two months. She had crept aboard a ship looking for food but soon found herself whisked off planet Earth and parked on this miserable moon. She spent her days stealing food from these patrolmen and destroying their furniture.

She wanted a ride off this godforsaken mud ball. But as long as she was stuck here, she felt compelled to make the patrolmen regret they ever knew her. Hunting the angry cat with laser rifles became a daily sport for them, one they pursued enthusiastically.

Mags ran aboard the Queen Anne, straight into the armory she kept there. From a case on the floor, she pulled out an old-fashioned favorite of hers: the Negev SF machine gun. It had a bipod and a 200-round supply of bullets in a belt clipped to the magazine housing. She grabbed a few extra belts just in case.

Mags ran to position herself in the ship’s doorway. Lying on the floor just inside it, she pointed the Negev at the mass of patrolmen on the other side of the dock. They ran this way and that, trying to corner the little cat darting between the cargo crates as fast as she could.

Kitty! Mags yelled. Get the fuck down! She pulled the Negev’s trigger, pouring round after round into the group of patrolmen. The bullets slammed into their bodies, sending them sprawling against the cargo crates. Those that dove to the ground, Mags sprayed with another hail of bullets. Die, you fuckers!

A group to the side pulled itself together and returned fire. Mags mowed it down in one, two, three sweeps of the machine gun.

From the other side of the crates came a grey blur heading straight for her. Patches hated the sound of gunfire, but she knew a ride off a moon when she saw one. Mags laid down suppressive fire throughout the room.

Let’s go! Mags slammed the ship’s door shut behind them. A fresh wave of patrolmen poured from every door in the spaceport. Laser rounds pinged off the hull of the Queen Anne. Mags brought the ship to full power. Bloody fuck, she said to the panting, filthy animal beside her. "We gotta get off this rock now. Hang on!"

And that was how Patches and Meteor Mags became friends.

Mags pressed a button in the arm of the chair then spun a small wheel beside it. A screen on her console came to life. As the ship’s radio searched for broadcasts, the display showed two things: a waveform shifting through frequencies and amplitudes as the computer tried them, and a changing web address as the computer searched domains.

The overhead speakers suddenly came to life with the Beatles ballad, Hey Jude.

Damn it, radio! Mags pulled off her soiled gloves and threw them at the console. If I wanted crap, I would have installed a septic tank! What the fuck? She frowned and spun the dial again, this way, then that.

A monstrous guitar riff by Kyuss erupted from the speakers. The singer’s raspy voice shouted her name.

She jumped out of her chair, sending Patches howling through the air. Sorry! She waved her arms over her head and spun around. "Gardenia! That’s my song!"

Patches looked from Mags, to the speakers, to Mags’ empty chair, then back again. Her new friend suddenly seemed miles away, thrashing her hands in the air, shaking, and singing the chorus at the top of her lungs.

Patches had seen many things in her first year on Earth. But in her year prowling the forests and learning to survive, she had never witnessed head banging. Watching the pointing fingers in the air and the strange, rhythmic seizure, she decided the display was no threat. She jumped into Mags’ chair and curled into a ball, content to keep licking the dirt from her bushy calico tail.

Mags felt not a drop of fatigue any longer. In her mind, she was transported to the time she first heard Kyuss play Gardenia in concert.

It was 1993. Night blanketed the California desert. The humming generators and shouting crowd were drowned out by the massive amplifiers and drum kit the four young men had brought to the party. Hardly a meter to Mags’ side, on the makeshift stage hauled here on a trailer, the bass player held his axe in the air. Face hidden by a mane of hair, he pummeled the strings with his fist.

On his other side, the clean-cut guitarist rose in a half crouch above the pedals he had manipulated a moment before. Now he began a relentless riff, his pick hand swinging, strafing the strings with mechanical precision. Mags writhed on all fours on the wooden stage. A plastic cup sailed through the air, trailing a stream of beer behind it. The stars burned holes in the sky above her. The singer attacked the mic like a street prophet just let out of jail.

Mags had agreed to dance at this party for the same payment the musicians accepted: free beer. She hadn’t expected to actually like the band. But now the kick drum slammed her body over and over, the crash cymbal kissed her in the darkness, and then—

A blood-curdling screech filled the Queen Anne. Mags covered her ears. Patches jumped into a crawlspace under the console and pinned her ears back. A sound like a truckload of washing machines falling into a wood chipper roared from the speakers. Then nothing.

Mags frowned. Damn it, she shouted, kicking the back of her chair. Just when it was getting to the good part! She reached for the controls. But as her fingers touched the dial, she froze.

Kzzzt. Kzzzt. A man’s voice came through the speakers in a mess of static. —On? Shit—are we still on? They’re breaking in!

Mags heard growls and noise, then a shotgun being cocked near the microphone.

PBN signing off! Long live the resistance! The speakers fell silent.

Patches peeked out from her hiding spot.

What was that?

She meowed and came out to rub Mags’ leg.

Not good is right! I think that station is in trouble, Patches. And you know what that means.

Patches mewed inquisitively.

No, not find another radio station, you dork! Do you know how long it’s been since I found a station I don’t have to physically threaten to play Kyuss? I don’t know who these PBN cats are, but they aren’t going down on my watch.

Mags sat down and touched the controls lightly, setting up a search. Maybe we can pinpoint their location from the last known signal.

Mags could have had a voice-controlled unit if she wanted, one with a name and unique voice who would answer her with programmed but flexible responses. But the last time she had one, she yelled at it so fiercely the system crashed and never came up again. It especially had trouble copulating with itself in the manner she had described. But if anyone asked, Mags just told them she was old-fashioned about some things.

Whoever it is, they don’t want to be found. I don’t even know how we picked them up in the first place. The signal source is under so many layers of encryption that—oh, wait. I have an idea.

The blast knocked him backwards into the wall. The back of his head slammed into a rack of servers, forcing his teeth to clamp on his tongue. Ow! He stumbled forward into the cloud of white smoke, raising his shotgun. Come on, then! He fired a blast down the hallway, pumped the shotgun, and fired again.

Beams of light penetrated the smoke from the pile of rubble. Only moments ago the rubble had been a steel doorway set into the rough surface of the asteroid. The lights scattered wildly at the shotgun blasts. Give it up, Plutonian, a voice shouted through a loudspeaker. Don’t make it any worse for yourself!

Get fucked! He pumped the shotgun again and fired. The pellets clanged off metal shields, pinging off the tunnel’s rocky walls carved into the asteroid. Plutonian pounded a red button on the wall. A series of three reinforced steel doors dropped into place in front of him. That will keep them busy for a while. Come on, Tesla!

The Siamese cat called out from his hiding space on the shelves of records on the back wall. His head poked out from a hole in a cardboard box sandwiched between dozens of Duke Ellington records and a box of 45 rpm singles marked UK Punk 77–80. Tesla called out again, pinning his ears back. Above his head, in Sharpie marker, the box read Tesla’s Bomb Shelter.

The coast is clear! A dull thud on the other side of the steel doors. For a minute, anyway. Let’s go!

He spat blood on the floor. Through the smoke-filled room, he made his way to the back wall where Tesla pawed urgently at the bottom of the shelves. By the time they melt through those doors, we’ll be long gone.

He pulled the box of punk 45s off the shelf, reached into the space behind it, and grabbed a metal handle set on a circular plate. He cranked the rod and plate 180 degrees to the left. The cat stepped back as the shelf swung into the room like a door. Beyond it stretched another tunnel, a cavern dimly lit by LEDs placed every meter or so on both sides of the rocky, uneven walls.

If we do this right, we can sneak around front and trap them in here. In fact, let me grab the— But a red light flashed.

On the monitor on the wall he saw troops swarming around the hidden exit. It was the only other way out of the station, and great care had been taken to make it invisible to the human eye. "No. They’re at the back door already! How did they…"

His voice trailed off. He crouched down to pet Tesla, who rubbed against his hand.

Plutonian felt fear squeeze his heart. It had taken him years to track down all these recordings. Hundreds of hard drives sealed in anti-magnetic containers sat next to open crates of vinyl albums. A pair of original Rick Griffin concert posters hung framed above his broadcast equipment: the servers, the mixing board and patch bay, the boxes and cables sending power and signal to the antennae.

He lingered on the reel-to-reel deck holding master tapes from the Bitches Brew sessions. It glowed warm in the light of a console full of vintage USB drives. They held millions of twentieth-century cat videos and every Negativland album. Skulls floated in a Slayer lava lamp. Its glow, like radioactive blood, spilled across a table cluttered with remixes of all the dubstep revival bands from 2023–2025.

It would all be seized and destroyed. Or worse, the people confiscating it would sell it back to the black market. Then seize it all over again.

Plutonian rose from his crouch, bathing his fear in icy calm. Over my dead body, he whispered.

Tesla paced nervously just inside the tunnel, flicking his tail sharply. His blue eyes locked on the man who, opening a fake boxed set of compact discs, flipped a series of switches hidden inside it.

Sequence one, set, said a mechanical voice.

That’s the magnets. He marched to the shielded case full of hard drives, unlatched the lid, and kicked the whole thing over onto the floor. They’ll fry all the drives. Still holding the box of switches, he flipped another series.

Sequence two, set. Awaiting final approval, said the little box.

That will blow the rest of it sky high. He walked one last time through the shelves, the stacks of books, and boxes. Damn, he swore, spitting another mess of blood. I was just getting to like this little shithole.

The steel door glowed red behind him. They must have some serious lasers, he thought. He grabbed a handful of shotgun shells from a box, shoving the shells into the pocket of his cargo pants. His hand came to rest on a single compact disc, wrapped in a cardboard sleeve. Its thin plastic wrapper, carefully sliced open, still clung to the sleeve.

Tesla, they say you can’t take it with you. But I’ll be damned if I’m going anywhere without my Psycho 78s disc. He stuffed the green and black album into his pocket alongside the shells.

Tesla meowed in agreement. He sprang into the shadowy tunnel and took off.

PART TWO: BURN IT DOWN

Meteor Mags pulled up a display labeled MFA Channels. See, we don’t need to track the signal at all. If they’re getting shut down, it has to be those MFA idiots. And I have a little surprise for them.

The Musical Freedoms Act of 2019, or MFA, had created paramilitary squadrons to shut down illegal broadcasts, impound equipment, and imprison anyone suspected of possessing unregistered musical products. Meteor Mags was no fan of the MFA.

"You don’t even want to know what it cost me to get this code cracked. It took me all year to smuggle enough records to pay for it. But totally worth it."

Within minutes of scanning encrypted MFA channels, she found the unit dispatched to shut down the mysterious PBN. Listen to this. They are really lighting up the airwaves on this one. She paused and listened. And that would be coordinates for their destination. She smiled wickedly, arching an eyebrow at Patches. Let’s go teach these fascists a lesson, dear.

Soon, Mags brought the Queen Anne to the asteroid from the opposite side of the action. She landed out of sight and surveyed the scene with long-range cameras. Artificial gravity allowed the rock to hold a shallow but breathable atmosphere.

Look at these MFA goons. She shook her head. Someone ought to teach ‘em to cover their asses.

Patches purred in agreement. She rubbed her cheek on the monitor’s corners. The screen showed both the armored vehicle at the pirate radio station’s entrance and a small team working half a kilometer away. Tiny figures swarmed around what was once a hidden exit in a rocky hill, now surrounded with explosives. Body armor and biohazard masks obscured the figures’ faces, though the ship’s sensors read a breathable atmosphere.

We’ve got enough air out there, assuming they don’t kill the GravGens. But I want you to stay here. No sense getting yourself rescued and killed in the same day, is there?

Patches whined.

"Rescued me, did you? Ha! Why don’t we go halves and call it teamwork?" Mags strode across the deck to the armory. Her cat followed closely behind.

Sooo sick and tired of these MFA goons. How many more years do I have to put up with this crap? Mags picked out a pair of modified Desert Eagle handguns from a shelf in the armory and quickly inspected them.

Patches stopped here and there to rub her face on shelf corners and boxes of ammunition.

It’s been what? Eight years of this nonsense? Radio, Mags ranted, picking up a fresh ammo belt for the Negev, has sucked since before you were born.

A leather band around her right thigh held five extended magazines, each with fourteen .50 caliber shells. She strapped an identical band to her other thigh.

Ever since laser pistols had become as cheap as a phone to manufacture, most body armor had been treated against them. A laser rifle or larger artillery packed a punch, but Mags found her arsenal of twentieth-century weapons even deadlier. She checked her boot knife and tightened the straps, continuing her rant about the state of radio today under the MFA.

But an explosion shattered her tirade.

They’re not wasting any time, Patches. I’ve gotta go.

Mew?

You’ll be okay. Don’t go anywhere unless you don’t have a choice about it, okay? She patted Patches’ hip. Then she grabbed a black bag from the shelf and ran out the door.

On her missions to liberate cargo, Meteor Mags found all sorts of interesting things. Recently, she found a collection of tablet batteries waiting to be broken down and recycled. Mags had thought of a few better uses for them than powering a device.

She approached the MFA squad from behind a series of small hills. Unnoticed, she took up a position on a ridge. It gave her a modest high-ground advantage and a clear line of sight to most of the squad. The rest of them would need encouragement to become targets.

Mags got on her stomach. With her machine gun on its bipod, she strafed the squad until the ammo ran out. Those who did not fall sought what meager cover they could on the barren rock. Mags saw a pair duck behind the rubble created by the explosion.

She dumped the contents of her bag. A dozen spikes and batteries clattered on the stone. She pounded the sharp end of a spike into a battery.

Ahoy, motherfuckers! She threw the spike. The battery impaled on its point smoked violently before it even hit the ground. It burst into bright flame. She spiked another and flung it at the squad.

The battery chemicals shot white-hot fire when they mixed, and the flames easily lasted a couple minutes. Two members of the squad ran from outside Mags’ line of sight into her view. Their uniforms had caught fire. They trailed smoke and screamed inside their masks.

Mags drew a Desert Eagle and squeezed off four shots in rapid succession: pop, pop, pop, pop. The bodies fell to the ground. From behind a rock, another soldier returned fire.

Mags spiked another battery and lobbed it at her assailant. She spiked and threw another. Screaming told her one of them had hit the target.

She raised herself up on her elbows and took aim. As the shooter moved to escape the fiery fountain in his hiding spot, he stumbled into her sights. Pop, pop, pop. He went down.

She felt the rumble of the troop vehicle and realized it must be on its way from the front door. Mags picked up the Negev and slung the strap over her shoulder. She pulled out her earplugs and tossed them to the ground. Mags ran down to the bodies, taking advantage of any cover she could in case she had missed anyone. The battery flames sputtered.

The squad had blown a hole in the side of a stone hill. Mags approached it carefully, pistols at the ready. She kicked a still-sparking battery out of her way. Dust settled.

Hey! PBN? She shouted into the rough-hewn hallway that led into the asteroid’s interior. Anybody there? The liberation is at hand!

She heard a cough and then a man’s voice. Who’s there?

"It’s Meteor Mags! Are we taking back the airwaves or what? I don’t have all day!"

Plutonian walked out of the dust and darkness into sight. A stream of blood ran from his mouth into his beard. He lowered his shotgun and coughed again. Asteroid dust rose from his hair and clothes.

Are you okay? You’re bleeding.

Damn near bit my tongue off. He wiped his beard and smeared blood. "Just got knocked around a bit when they—wait. Meteor Mags?! What are you doing here?"

She laughed. I heard you on the air getting shut down! Now look sharp. There’s a vehicle on its way from around front. It’ll be here any second. We need to move!

Tesla emerged from the tunnel to rub the man’s ankle and peer at the scene of destruction. He sniffed the air, disliking the smell of chemicals.

What a cute cat!

Say hi to Tesla, the greatest pirate cat of all time.

We’ll see about that. I just signed on a new kitty crew member this morning! Mags chirped at Tesla and blinked her eyes, smiling when he meowed back. Now let’s go!

Wait. We can’t fight this on two fronts. We’ll have company on our rear if they get through the studio.

Just how many of these creeps are there?

Too many. The DJ smiled ruefully. But anybody not in that transport is undoubtedly in my broadcast booth by now. He stepped back into the darkness, where Mags heard him click something into place.

A robotic voice announced, Final sequence approved.

Plutonian stepped into the light. Now, we should run like hell. Come on, Tesla!

This way, gestured Mags.

Then their escape fell into ruin.

Sergeant Jack Kuso heard his troops being slaughtered in his earpiece. B Team, taking fire, a voice shouted before turning into indistinct screaming. Kuso gripped the steering wheel in a rage.

B Team is under attack, he yelled to the squad inside the vehicle with him. Get ready to kick some ass!

This bust should have been a cakewalk, he thought. He had a squad through the front door, a squad at the back, and a manned, armored vehicle—all to take down one lousy pirate radio station. Now his troops were dying, and for what? The crap kids listened to these days? They hadn’t made music worth dying for since 1988.

As the transport rumbled across the unforgiving landscape, Kuso focused on a monitor. His troops’ assailants had positioned themselves outside the visible area. But now he adjusted the camera controls and scanned the area. He saw one of his soldiers shooting then bursting into flame. Kuso watched the soldier run a few steps and fall.

Kuso swept the camera in the opposite direction. A lone figure stepped into view. Kuso zoomed in. Star tattoos on her arms came into focus. Across her chest she wore more stars, and the word ANARCHY. Her tail swished behind her as she strode with her weapons through the carnage. Meteor Mags!

What’s that, Sarge?

It’s Meteor Mags out there! That filthy slag just wiped out B Team.

She gon’ die, Sarge, Kuso’s squad assured him. About time we brought dat bitch some justice.

You got that right. Kuso grimaced. He touched the weapons console and brought up a computer-guided missile. The turret on top elevated and swiveled in response. Kuso tapped the screen twice in quick succession to set the target, then fired. That should soften her up until we get there. Out the door in seventy-five seconds, troops!

He did not mind obliterating anything associated with criminal activity on this rock. But, he would have preferred to have someone to turn over to the regional attorney, and some evidence his troops could move on the black market. Their families needed to eat, and an MFA officer’s salary wasn’t what it used to be. Getting paid for a product and paid to impound it again made good business sense to the sergeant.

Kuso saw the missile explode on his monitor, and then nothing but dust and smoke.

Mags rolled twice on the ground and sprang up. The blast had thrown her, but she had plenty of experience falling. She coughed, waving her hand in front of her face. It merely stirred thick smoke through the air. DJ! Tesla! Sound off!

Over here!

Mags made her way toward the voice in the smoke. The missile had struck near the hole into the underground tunnel, burying it in rubble. In the haze, Plutonian stood on the pile of broken stone, bent over, hurling jagged chunks of space rock to one side.

Tesla, he called out. Tesla!

We’re outgunned. We need to get to my ship and even the score!

Then go, he shouted at her. Tesla’s trapped in there.

We’ll come back for him.

"No! The whole fucking studio is about to blow." He picked up a large stone and tossed it away.

Mags had loved many cats in her long and colorful life. She knew better than to argue with him, because she would have said the same thing. But, she saw no sense in all three of them making an easy target for the MFA’s artillery. Be quick about it, then! And leave the Mother Fucking Assholes to me.

The transport came into view. She fired five shots at it to get its attention. Then she ran as fast as she could back to the Queen Anne.

Aboard the ship, Patches enjoyed the view from her seat at the console. She breathed softly, watching moving lights on the screens. Her head turned this way and that as one light then another caught her attention.

Then, Patches saw a small figure on the same screen they had studied earlier. Other figures had stopped moving, or burst into bright light, or both. But this one strode confidently through them. Patches noticed the swishing skirt above star-covered socks, and the tail which lashed the air. She studied the screen, cocking her head.

Her curiosity piqued, she pawed at the screen. Suddenly, the view zoomed out. Patches watched with amusement as the ship’s automatic targeting system showed flashing circles with crosshairs over the motionless figures, but none around Mags.

Another target lit up at the edge of the monitor, larger than the tiny humans. It approached the target cluster. As Kuso’s missile struck the hillside, Patches crouched, pinning her ears back. The explosion on the screen at nearly the same time caught her attention.

She suddenly understood the small screen represented something happening outside. She realized the tiny moving picture of Meteor Mags was not just a picture. Angrily, she mewed and pawed at the screen where the new target grew ever closer to her friend.

Her paw pads tapped the circle and crosshairs over Kuso’s transport, twice, in quick succession. The crosshairs stopped flashing, changing to a bright, solid red.

A new light flashed rapidly in the bottom right corner of the monitor. Like the struggling of an injured bird, it earned her rapt attention. Without thinking about it at all, Patches batted mercilessly at the new light.

The flashing light read FIRE.

Meteor Mags ran for the Queen Anne. She held not a shred of hope she could reach it in time to stop another missile from obliterating Plutonian on the ground. But if you had asked her, and she had time to answer, Mags would have told you she did not believe in hope. Mags believed you just kept going as hard as you could until you died, and she had no plans to die today.

Kuso opened fire on her with the laser artillery mounted atop the transport like a pair of anti-aircraft guns. Mags leapt for the ridge she had commanded earlier, rolling when she hit the ground. The lasers smashed into the ridge as she rolled away, obliterating it chunk by chunk. Mags sprang to her feet and ran for cover behind a large stone.

Then she heard another missile, but not from the direction of the transport. Her sharp eyes picked up its smoky white plume in the air, approaching her position. Who else is on this rock, she wondered, wasting half a second looking for a shelter from both attackers. She bolted and ran.

The missile went over Mags’ head. It exploded at the wheels of the transport. The vehicle shot lasers into the sky as it toppled onto its side.

Mags had no time to feel any joy. A second explosion startled her. It blasted the transport back onto its wheels. The charges in the radio station had gone off. She saw no sign of Tesla and the DJ. Mags clenched her jaw. A stream of hate and sadness ran through her blood.

The door on the side of the transport opened. She ejected the clip from her Desert Eagle and slammed a new one into place. MFA soldiers poured from the transport. Mags chambered a round. She drew a second Desert Eagle.

Even through the thick padding of her leather gloves, the recoil from the pistols felt like smashing her palms into a brick wall. White noise filled her ears. The savage joy of a lioness swelled within her breast. Her bullets ricocheted inside the troop carrier, tearing the squadron to pieces.

Twenty-eight shots later, she dropped to her knees and ejected both clips. With practiced speed, she loaded fresh ones. She ran screaming towards the transport, surrounded now by fallen bodies.

The last living pair of the MFA soldiers emerged from the vehicle. They fired laser rifles at the smuggler. She leapt into the air like a cat, diving behind a rock for cover. She returned fire, but they had pinned her down behind the stone. She cursed.

Then a figure emerged from the smoke billowing behind her attackers. He pumped two shotgun blasts into them. Their bodies jerked forward, crumpling on the ground, shredded and still.

Don’t fuck with the PBN, he said. Sergeant’s bars decorated the uniform of one of the soldiers at his feet. There would be hell to pay for this, some day. To Mags, he raised his fist in salute. Long live the resistance.

Aboard the Queen Anne, Meteor Mags took them to a safe distance and set a course for her club on the asteroid Vesta 4. I can’t believe it, she said. Your entire archive, just—destroyed.

As long as Tesla is okay, I can’t complain. We’ve been through worse. Tesla meowed in agreement. Everything else though—it’s history.

Suddenly, he smiled. Ah, but not this! He thrust his hand into the pocket on the leg of his cargo pants. He pulled out the compact disc in its cardboard sleeve. My Psycho 78s disc.

But his face fell again. From the bent sleeve, he pulled out half a disc. Its jagged edge dropped a few fragments of silvery plastic to the deck. Goddamnit! This was the only original pressing still on the market! He looked into the sleeve, saw the broken shards inside, and threw it down to the deck in disgust. He sat on the edge of a chair and slumped.

Mags chuckled but quickly stopped herself. I’m sorry, dear. I know it’s not funny. But cheer up, will ya? She stood up from her chair and marched back to her armory. Look what I have here. On the wall inside the armory’s open doorway, she set her hand on a locker door.

He stood up and walked to her side without enthusiasm, but his eyes lit up when she opened the locker door. Inside, a dozen pairs of colorful socks hung from magnetic clips on the walls. A magnetic mirror etched with five-pointed stars and a smiling cat face hung on the inside of the door. The mirror held a small photograph of her best friend Celina behind it, also smiling. And there, at the bottom of the locker, sat an open box of Psycho 78s albums. Their cardboard surfaces, silkscreen printed in green and black, looked glossy inside their plastic shrink wrap.

"Cheer up, mate! I produced the bloody thing. Take a couple! I got a whole case back at the club." Mags beamed proudly.

Plutonian stepped in close to her, reached into the box, and took two of them. Thank you, Mags. I fucking love this album! That track with you singing is just amazing. He turned the discs over in his hands, reading the small print on the back.

Mags swiped one from his hand. Here. Let me sign one for you. She tore off the shrink wrap and tossed it into the box. Mags removed her right glove and placed her thumb in her mouth. Then she pressed her wet thumb into the smear of blood drying near her scalp.

Mags rolled her bloodied thumb across the bright green area on the cardboard sleeve, leaving her thumb print. She handed the album back to him. "Prints plus DNA! No one can call that a forgery, Captain Collectible."

The DJ without a radio station smiled. He watched Patches and Tesla sitting near each other, quietly grooming themselves on Mags’ bed. Cats had such simple ways to deal with tragedy. I have a gift for you, too.

From another pocket, he took a charm identical to the one hanging on his necklace. He held it out to Mags. It was shaped like a tiny man, set into a silver blaze of fire. She held it in her glove, touching it with one finger. It’s pretty, she said. Thank you.

It’s more than pretty. These two charms are Plex drives. Tesla and I have been digitizing and archiving everything on that asteroid for months, and backing it up to these. We were almost done, too. We’re only missing the last 1300 hours of dolphin song from the NASA experiments in 2023.

Plex drives had used nanotechnology to revolutionize portable storage, but the cost to produce even a single drive remained astronomical. Each one could hold a googolplex of bytes worth of data. Mags admired hers.

This should go in a safe place, then. She reached into the cabinet’s top shelf to pull a small wooden box from the back. Opening it up, she said, This belonged to my great-gramma.

She pulled a silver chain from the box. Its shiny links rose like a cobra to follow her fingertips. She unfastened the clasp and slid the charm onto the chain. Mags leaned her head back, shook her curls, and fastened the necklace around her neck.

And that was how Meteor Mags found a DJ for her club.

Asteroid Underground Interview:

Meteor Mags

Mags, welcome back to the Underground.

Thank you, dear. Did you bring the rum?

Right here.

Service is definitely getting better in this joint. Yum. What’s on your mind?

How do you manage a club when your… commercial activities keep you so busy?

We run the club the same way we did Gramma’s place back in France. And that is, we run it together. It’s not like I’m the boss. I just yell the loudest. But seriously, the whole place would fall apart without Celina.

Do you have any plans to release another Psycho 78s album?

Great question! We do. The boys have been bashing out one sonic monstrosity after another. They’re talking about recording a concert at the club.

You’ll be singing with them again?

Oh, I love to mutilate a couple standards with the boys from time to time, but it’s really their thing now. Besides, I couldn’t tour with them or anything. I got places to go, cargo to liberate, lizards to exterminate.

Would you sing a little bit of Something to Destroy for us?

A capella?

We have a piano in the studio. Over here.

Really? And a sledge hammer?

I um, uh—

Baseball bat?

No. I have this, though.

Ahahahaha! Where did you get that?

Doesn’t everyone have one of these?

I have one, but how do you? That is hilarious. Okay, bring it on over. You can back me up.

Do what now?

Come on. Here. Just stand beside me. That’s the bass end of the keyboard, okay?

Right.

Actually, it’s on your left.

Right. I mean, got it.

Now take that and bash it on the keys as hard as you can, like one two three four.

Like this?

Oh my god, what a hideous sound. Hahahahaha. Yes, that’s perfect, young man. Just like that. Okay, now on my count. One. Two. Three. Four. When I was a little girl, they fucked up my mind. Now I have come back to kill—ahahahaha, no don’t stop, you arse-bandit.

Sorry, I was just—

Part of playing a song is not standing there with your mouth open when the song starts, okay? Alright, once more. From the top. One. Two. Three. Four.

When I was a little girl

They fucked up my mind

Now I have come back to kill

Everyone I find

Left me in a cage to die

None could hear my screams

Now I have come back from hell

Show you what it means

Now I ain’t your little girl

Ain’t your fucking toy

Your life don’t mean shit to me

Something to destroy

Something give me something

To destroy!

Something give me something

To destroy!

Very good, dear. I think you got the hang of it! Now let’s have another round of that rum, shall we?

2

Old Enough

I wonder what is the appropriate first action when you come from a country at war and set foot on peaceful soil. Mine was to rush to the tobacco-kiosk and buy as many cigars and cigarettes as I could stuff into my pockets.

—George Orwell; Homage to Catalonia, 1938.

July 2028: A Warehouse on Earth.

The guard’s punch sent Meteor Mags stumbling backwards. She smashed into the stacks of boxes behind her. Her head struck something hard and snapped forward. As she brought her chin up, she howled, Eeeyyyaaarrr! Like an animal, she pulled herself up from the scattered boxes and lunged forward. She landed on the guard, sending them both to the floor.

The guard struck at her, but she was inside his arms. She grabbed a fistful of his hair. Don’t! She bashed his head into the floor. Fucking! Bash. Hit me! Bash.

Tarzi stood with his mouth open, frozen by her howl. Damn, he whispered. This was the first time Tarzi had encountered a guard when raiding this warehouse. Running into Meteor Mags was a surprise addition, too.

He watched her tail switch back and forth. A low growl emanated from deep inside her. Mags?

She relaxed her grip on the motionless guard. Straddling his body, she sat with her knees on the floor to either side of him. She flung her head back, shaking her bangs out of her eyes. White curls poured into place over her shoulders, not quite obscuring Tarzi’s view of the large anarchy symbol tattooed in black on her upper back. How’s that for a birthday present?

Are you alright?

She stood up, smoothed her skirt, and adjusted her thigh-high socks. I’m fine. Now put that crowbar down, kid. You are scaring me to death.

He tensed. I must look ridiculous brandishing this thing.

No, no. It’s got a—caveman kind of cool to it. Just, you can put it down now. Thanks. She had already stormed off to the crates bound up on pallets along the wall of the warehouse. The moon shone through a skylight, casting white triangles of light across the floor. How old did you say you were today?

Fourteen.

Fourteen! Hahaha! Are you sure you’re old enough to be breaking into warehouses in the middle of the night all by yourself?

As Jack White once said, Tarzi began. Then he sang a verse from Old Enough.

Oh, a Raconteurs fan! Nice.

Tarzi stopped, but the note continued. He looked down to see a calico cat running in circles around his feet, howling with his song.

That’s Patches, said Mags, glancing at the two of them over her shoulder. She’s supposed to be guarding the van, but she probably heard the scuffle. Her flashlight shone on the crates until she found what she was looking for. Nice to meet you, kid. Patches says you’re okay. Here’s your other birthday present. Bring your crowbar.

Tarzi joined her and set about prying open the wooden crate.

There, get that nail loose—yeah, that’s it. Mags grabbed the board and pulled it away.

Happy sodding birthday indeed, he whispered.

I tell you what, Tarzi. Help me load a couple of these pallets into that van outside, and you can take as many cartons as you can carry. We’ll even give you a lift back to town.

Deal! He gazed in wonder at the contents of the crate. It held carton after carton of imported cigarettes. These fine pieces of tobacco craftsmanship had no filters, and an oval profile instead of a circle. These are pure Turkish tobacco, Mags. No blends, no fillers, nothing but—

Good old tabaccy. I know. These are hard enough to get in this hemisphere anymore. Imagine what I can get for them in the Belt.

Mags meant the asteroid belt, which humans began mining and colonizing as soon as they established warehouses on Mars. So far, Earth supplied essential goods and services to the Belt, using Mars as a port and central distribution point. Essential, however, meant different things to different people in the System.

There’s one rock I know where they haven’t seen a fag in three years. But, she said, placing the plank back atop the open crate, Meteor Mags to the rescue.

You’re a regular sentinel of the spaceways. Tarzi stuffed a couple cartons into each of the pockets in his cargo pants. Let me grab a pallet jack and help you.

She pulled a cigarette from a carton and lit up. What are you doing all by yourself on your birthday, anyway? Don’t you have a family?

He had not expected to meet anyone when he snuck out that night. My parents are both on speaking tours this weekend. But it’s cool. We got a thing planned for next week.

As long as he kept straight-A grades in school, he explained, Tarzi’s parents assumed he must be staying out of trouble. He kept the house impeccably clean and only smoked at his secret hangout.

Staying out of trouble seems like a great idea. Let me get the van open. Her boots clacked across the wood floor. She swished her tail and disappeared around the corner.

He followed her out with the first crate on the pallet jack. Rolling it up the ramp, he froze. Uh oh. He pushed as hard as he could, holding his own against the crate.

What a noob! Just back it down, little man. I’ll get it. She puffed as Tarzi eased the crate back down the ramp. Then she backed it up two meters, ran it up the ramp, into the van, and down onto the floor. Like that! Now we can get three more in. Let’s see if there’s another jack.

Three crates later, they were all set. Mags took the rear doors of the van in her gloved hands. Her ears picked up a distant warning.

Tarzi, walking out of the warehouse, stuffed another couple cartons into his shirt. Can’t ever have too many. Then he heard it, too: sirens.

She slammed the doors shut. Time to go! Patches jumped in, and Tarzi ran to the van.

Pulling himself up into the seat, he said, I know the back way out of here! It’s a dirt road, past that main office building up there. The door slammed shut.

Yeah, said Mags. And one way it ends up is at the dam. She gunned the engine, launching the van in a cloud of dust. Which, coincidentally, is where Patches discovered the scent of these Turkish fag ends you’ve been dumping there for, oh, I’d say a couple of months.

What?

She swerved around the corner of the office building, throwing them to one side in their seats. We just stopped to enjoy the view from the cliffs up there, but you left us a trail to the tobacco treasure. It wasn’t too hard to track you back to this warehouse.

He stared at her in disbelief until she killed the lights. Are you nuts? Tarzi grabbed at the wheel, but Mags blocked him with one hand.

Don’t worry, kid. I can see a hell of a lot better than you can at night. Now let me drive!

He sat back. She had already saved his arse once tonight, he thought. So you came here to rip off my score, huh?

She smiled. Relax, my little pirate. You’re right about this much: I owe you one.

Patches crawled onto Tarzi’s lap. He cradled the calico cat as Mags navigated curves he could not even see. He closed his eyes and felt Patches purring.

Hey, said the smuggler. Have you ever been off-world?

And that was how Meteor Mags and Tarzi became friends.

August 2028: A Moon in the Outer Planets.

Okay, Tarzi. What’s Rule Number One?

He sighed. Auntie, how many times do we have to go over this?

As many times as I say so.

Fine. He looked at the distant hills through the visor of his biohazard mask. He could hear her chomping bubble gum through the small speaker in his earpiece. This moon had enough atmosphere for combustion, but it was not conducive to breathing. "The gun is always loaded. Even when you think it isn’t."

She smiled inside her mask. Good. Now what’s Rule Number Two?

Never, ever, ever point the gun at any living thing you don’t intend to kill.

Very good, little man.

Yeah, but, what if I just want to scare them?

"Are you trying to fail this test? You’d better be ready to scare them to fucking death, or shoot them. Don’t make idle threats. I don’t have any patience for that shit."

Okay, okay. So can I shoot it already?

Mags held the TEC-9. Just look at this beauty, she said. This is one of the originals. Pre-ban, open bolt, converted from semi to full automatic. And this, she continued, presenting the clip to Tarzi, is one of the original thirty-two-round magazines. Don’t fuck around with it. She handed the pistol to her nephew.

Just down the beach, towards the mountains on the horizon, Mags had set up several human-shaped targets. She loved to come to this lunar beach to test weapons, even if the sea was utterly toxic. Nothing but bacteria can live for very long on this rock, she had told him, which makes it perfect for blowing up random shit! Patches chose to stay aboard the Queen Anne, well down the beach in the opposite direction.

Thirty-two rounds? Why don’t you use it more often? He loaded the clip and chambered a round.

Because it jams like a little bitch. Make sure you got the magazine fully inserted, or it will just jam worse. Now see how many rounds you can put into these Thatcherite scum-dogs before we have to un-jam it.

Tarzi took up the stance Mags had taught him. He fired again and again. From her position behind him and off to the side, she could not see his smile. But in her earpiece, she heard the change in his breathing, and she knew he was enjoying himself. Then the pistol jammed.

Fuck! He fumbled with it.

Okay, cool it, Captain Rapid Fire. I’ll show you the quick way to do this. Butt first!

He handed her the weapon butt-first. As she un-jammed the pistol, he watched and learned.

Not bad, she told him, "but you’re letting the recoil throw your arms too high in the air. You don’t want to pull the pistol towards the ground, but you don’t