Wings of the Magpie: Space Operettas

by Loch Erinheart

  Contents

  Wings of the Magpie

  Frontmatter

  Action Figure

  The Girl Dee-Jay

  The Pride of the 419th

  Tech Support

  About the Author

  Wings of the Magpie

  Space Operettas

  by

  Loch Erinheart

  Wings of the Magpie © 2014 by Apeshit! Media

  Cover image © Philcold | Dreamstime.com - Cosmos Beauty Photo

  Cover design by Apeshit! Media

  All rights reserved

  An Apeshit! Media ebook

  Action Figure

  The boy scuttled, crablike, across the floor of the closet, scattering toys as he retreated into the corner. The soldier pressed her way through the door, pinioning the boy within the beam of the spotlight attached to her rifle barrel. She moved forward toward the boy, navigating her way through the plastic figurines and playsets spilled along the carpeted floor, noticing that he still held one figurine, a man in a red coverall, tightly in his hand. In the distance, an explosion sounded, shaking the room.

  The soldier dropped to one knee, to the boy’s eye level, then lowered the barrel of her rifle. She reached forward with a gloved hand, grasping him by the chin and staring into his face. The red crosshair lens covering her right eye flashed a light into the boy’s left eye and, after a moment’s pause, a tinny, electronic voice said, “Identified. Gilmour, Peter. Son of Commissioner Gilmour. Age six.”

  The soldier smiled. She spoke into the com unit attached to her shoulder. “Target acquired,” she said. “Requesting pickup.” She released the boy’s chin. “Hello, Peter,” she said, flipping the crosshair lens up onto her helmet. “I’m Lieutenant Mayr. My friends call me Magpie.” She picked up one of the figurines, a blond man in a blue jacket, and held it out to the boy. “These are some nice toys you have here,” said Magpie as the boy reached for the figurine. “Why don’t you tell me about them?”

  Magpie watched the boy’s face as he took the figurine. Much of his fear had fallen away. “This one’s called Numbers,” said the boy, indicating the man in the blue jacket. “And this one,” he said, holding up the little man in the red coverall, “his name’s Rackjob.”

  Magpie nodded, glancing at her chrono. Fifteen Minutes, she thought. Give or take. She backed toward the closet door, checking over her shoulder to make sure the room was still secure. She reached out her hand, tousling the boy’s hair. “Gather up your toys, Peter,” she said. “And follow me. Some very nice people are coming to get us out of here.”

  “This one’s called Trucks,” said the boy, holding up a figurine in a blue-checked shirt with rolled sleeves. “He’s a Teamster. I’ve got the whole set. Well, wave one, at least. I don’t have the Factory, since that just came out this year. And I sent off for the Buyer, but he hasn’t come in the mail yet.”

  “That’s nice,” said Magpie, picking up a handful of figurines and dropping them nonchalantly into the vehicle, a large multi-wheeled truck. In the distance, small-arms fire sounded, a series of pops followed by an explosion.

  The boy pointed. “They don’t go in there,” he said. “They belong with the Outlet.” He indicated a plastic building topped with a handle. “That one’s the Manager,” he pointed to a figurine of a balding man in a suit jacket. “And that’s his Assistant. I only got two clerks, one red and one blue, ’cause my dad only gets me one of each.” The boy picked up a figurine, a man in a green suit. “This one’s the Middle Manager,” he said. “He’s like my dad. He watches the other guys, makes sure they do what they’re supposed to.”

  Magpie forced a smile, glancing again at her chrono. “It’s okay, Peter,” she said in a steady, metered voice. “You can sort them out when we get to safety. For now, it’s okay if your little soldiers ride in Trucks’, umm, truck.” She glanced around, scanning the room, noting that the LED light on the corner security camera was dark. No backup power, she thought. “We need to get going.”

  Magpie and the boy loaded the truck and the playset with figurines and accessories, Magpie constantly keeping one eye tuned to her chrono. Soon, she was leading the boy, one hand on his shoulder, the other on her rifle, through the house. The boy carried the truck in one hand, the plastic building by its handle in the other. A high-pitched whistle sounded, followed by an explosion that violently shook the building. Framed pictures fell from a wall. “I’m scared,” said the boy, his voice faltering.

  “It’s okay,” said Magpie, giving the boy’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “I’m here. I’ll protect you.”

  “My dad told me to hide when the explosions started. He said somebody would come to find me, then he left. How did you find me?” asked the boy.

  Magpie bent down to the boy’s eye level. Pointing at the goggles hanging from her neck by a strap, she said “Infrared optics. I could see your heat signature. I’ll show you, once we get picked up.”

  “Do the people who are blowing things up out there have infrared optics too?”

  Magpie nodded. “They’ve got a lot of the same things we do. But it’s okay, we’re going to get you out of here before they come. You just have to trust me.”

  “Are you going to take me to my dad?”

  Magpie hesitated, then forced a smile. “Of course,” she said. “Now come with me.” Magpie ushered the boy down a flight of stairs and towards the front of the house. The sound of gunfire was closer now, the distant pops evolving into a percussive crackle that one could nearly feel. When they reached the front hallway, Magpie directed the boy to stand beside the antique piano that sat four or so meters from the front door, then moved, crouching, to the wide and curtained picture window. She parted the curtains with the barrel of her rifle, risking a glance out into the night. Red and orange flame-flickers danced across her face. She spoke into the com unit attached to her shoulder. “We’re ready,” she said. “What’s ETA to pickup?”

  Magpie sagged into a sitting position in response to the answer, her back pressed against the wall beneath the window. She breathed heavily, perhaps a dozen sighing breaths, then crawled across to where the boy stood, pressed into the corner between the piano and the wall.

  “Do your little soldiers fight the bad guys?” asked Magpie.

  “My dad says there are no bad guys,” said the boy. “That the invisible hand of the marketplace works for the greater good of all.”

  Magpie smiled. “He taught you that?” she asked.

  The boy nodded. An explosion, practically deafening, shook the building, illuminating the room. “I’m scared,” said the boy, his voice a hoarse whisper.

  “It’s okay,” said Magpie, placing her arm around the boy’s shoulders and pulling him close. “I’m here. I’ll take care of you.”

  “Is it Diggers?” asked the boy, looking up into Magpie’s eyes. “Are they the ones blowing stuff up? My dad says they were here before there were people on Ragged Head, that they’re indigenous.” The boy stumbled over the unfamiliar word, pronouncing it syllable by syllable. “My dad says they can’t understand money or trade, so they fight us sometimes. He says they’re like bugs, all they can think is what their queens tell them.”

  “No,” said Magpie. “Not Diggers.”

  “Then who?”

  Sighing, Magpie said, “Your dad ever tell you about the Nine Dragons Corporation?”

  The boy nodded. “They’re our competition.”

  “Yeah,” said Magpie. “This is what’s called a hostile takeover. Lucky for you, my team was already working in system when negotiations went south. We’re extracting key Five Rams personnel and their families.” She touched the boy’s nose with the t
ip of a gloved finger. “That means you.”

  “Oh,” said the boy, reaching up to scratch his nose. “Were you born on Ragged Head?” Magpie shook her head. “Then where?” asked the boy.

  “I was born on Terra. Do you know where that is?” The boy shook his head. “It’s far away, another system. It’s so far that you would have to sleep all the way from there to here.”

  “Could I go to Terra?”

  Magpie shrugged. “Sorry, little boys don’t travel from system to system. Maybe some day.”

  “Do you work for Five Rams?”

  “No,” said Magpie. “Not directly. I’m a Terran Fleet Marine, a specialist. My job, among other things, is to rescue misplaced little boys like you.” Magpie glanced at her chrono, then held out her gloved left hand so that the boy could see. “Can you tell time?” she asked.

  The boy leaned forward, examining the face of Magpie’s chrono. “Three twenty-three,” he croaked, looking up at her.

  “That’s good,” said Magpie, her voice calm, practiced. “You’re a very smart little boy. In two more minutes, my friends are going to pull their truck up in front of your house. It’s a Marauder. It’s a lot bigger than Trucks’ truck.” She reached out, touching the boy’s hand that held the plastic vehicle. “When they show up, I’m going to need you to run as fast as you can towards the open door. Can you do that?” The boy nodded. “But you can’t run straight,” said Magpie, pressing her index finger against the boy’s chest. “You need to zig-zag.” She demonstrated with the finger, marking an irregular path down to the boy’s navel. “Have you got that?” The boy nodded.

  A deep diesel rumble grew, louder, louder, until it rattled the windows of the house, followed by a shriek of brakes and a thrumming idle. Magpie stood, moving to the door, motioning for the boy to follow. She opened it a crack, then a bit further, then stepped outside, leading with the barrel of her rifle. Scents of char and carbon filled their nostrils. Magpie glanced from left to right to left, then up into the sky before shouting to the boy. “Now, Peter,” she barked.

  The boy ran, passing Magpie where she stood, rifle in hand, on the front porch, darting left, then jinking right down the stone-paved lawn toward the massive vehicle waiting at the curb. At its center, limned by red light, a pair of soldiers, dwarfed by the Marauder’s colossal tires, stood in a steel-framed doorway beckoning him, waving. “Come on, Peter,” they called. “You can do it.”

  A phosphorescent streak arced across the sky, then burst, turning darkness momentarily into daylight. A monumental explosion sounded behind the boy, its brisance knocking him forward. He threw up his hands, dropping the toys he had so lovingly clutched as he was driven down toward the ground. He felt his knees burn through his pants as he slid along the grass, felt cobblestone bite into his palm, tasted grass and dirt. Tears welled in his eyes as he looked toward the Marauder, through the toys scattered ahead of him.

  A hand grasped the back of the boy’s shirt, pulling him to his feet and pushing him towards the Marauder. “Get to the truck,” a voice shouted. “Now!”

  The boy looked up into Magpie’s face, backlit by orange fire. Her helmet was gone, her rifle slung across her back. Her short, dark hair was matted by darker, glistening patches that continued down onto her right cheek. Dark red flecked her teeth. “I dropped my Middle Manager,” cried the boy, turning, pointing back towards the toys scattered along the lawn that led back to the burning house. Small-arms fire echoed through the neighborhood. The boy staggered forward, crossing half the distance toward the Marauder before turning back to look accusingly at Magpie. “I dropped Trucks,” he said. “And Numbers.”

  “Move!” shouted Magpie, pushing the boy forward with a bleeding hand. “Forget the toys.”

  “B-But…” stammered the boy as Magpie lifted him up by the armpits, handing him off to the soldiers standing in the Marauder’s doorway. Jets streaked past overhead, releasing screaming missiles that impacted in the distance, shaking the world with their explosions. One of the soldiers mopped the boy’s forehead with a cloth as the other, along with Magpie, pulled the great door closed with a resounding clank. “But my dad gave me those,” said the boy, tears streaming down his cheeks. “I want my Middle Manager.”

  Magpie sank to the floor, leaning her back against the metal door. Breathing heavily, she spoke into the com unit on her shoulder. “Target secure. Call Commissioner Gilmour and tell her that her boy is alive. And go, now! It’s way too hot out there.” The Marauder’s diesel engines roared, great wheels turned, and the massive vehicle began its long trek through the burning suburb, towards dawn and safety.

  The Girl Dee-Jay

  Moments before the wall of the discothèque exploded, Grummand Fifty-Seven had needlessly allowed himself to become distracted. He’d been hanging from the lighting rig by his footclaws, thirteen meters above the gyrating crowd, his matte black Titanoplast shell rendering him effectively invisible among the complex web of metal scaffolding and electronics. He’d been watching the target, the jadegreen girl on the raised dais, as she manipulated a series of Plexiplast Sounthorbs, and was caught up in analyzing the complex relationship between the small movements of her hands, the shuddering rhythms which blanketed the dancefloor, and the grandiose reactions of the teeming horde of dancers. He should have been alert, scanning the bacchanalian revelers for potential flashpoints, for trouble.

  The target, the girl, was high-caste Sini, a Pureblood, beautiful by the standards of a dozen of the thirteen spacefaring races. Her pronounced forehead was marked with her house identifier, a small, radiant jeweled sun. She wore a designer holographic mini which changed color with her every movement, expensive high-heeled black boots, and a pair of bonewhite Schuller-Mach headphones. She was obviously slumming.

  “Oh my GAWD!” shrilled a cloying drag queen of a voice, disturbing Grummand Fifty-Seven’s revere. “There are robots in the disco!” Then the wall collapsed in a cascade of stone and smoke and fire, drowning the mash-up of the rap from Shrupa’s “Mutant You Loves to Hate” and the pounding beat of Panik’s “No-Go-Mo-Fo” in an unbelievable cacophony. For a split second, Fifty-Seven thought he’d been outed, that his cover had been blown. Then, as the smoke began to clear, he noticed the sextet of ludicrously-armed Bruisers and a pair of snarling leatherclad Badgers pressing through the rubble and into the battered, burnt, and bleeding audience, firing indiscriminately.

  Grummand Fifty-Seven dropped to the dancefloor, his three meter metal body crushing a cluster of Konks, so inbred and stoned on Eros Psystim Candies that they hadn’t even stopped dancing, and sprinted towards the stage, shoving terrified dancers as he advanced. Nearby, a Noisebomb cut through the crowd, spattering his shell with half a dozen colors of blood and other bodily fluids. A Gwyndon male staggered past, his purple mane on fire, ineffectively clutching at a gaping neck wound that spurted a fountain of bright green blood in an impossible arc. Fifty-Seven backhanded a pair of shrieking Lizards, dolled-up as human females. (Hermaphroditic Lizards enjoy picking up human males, typically naïve spacers or drunk tourists, and simulating mating practices with them. Two weeks later, the poor saps suddenly find themselves birthing twelve thousand screaming, squirming tadpoles from their nostrils. Needless to say, everybody hates Lizards.)

  Fifty-Seven knocked them out of his way and leapt onto the stage, gathering up the target into his arms in a single motion, severing the cord of her headphones with a single snick of his clawhand. She took one look into his Transplast face, her cool grey eyes met his visual sensors, and passed out.

  It was at that moment that one of the Bruisers managed to draw a bead on Grummand Fifty-Seven, and a salvo of whitehot metal spit from its chaingun-barrel arm, tattooing Fifty-Seven’s back with a steady poc-poc-poc. Fifty-Seven shielded the girl with his body, the ricocheting lead bouncing off his shell and indiscriminately dissembling the bodies of nearby sentients into piles and puddles of meat, liquid, and bone. He realized that there were only three ways out, through the ni
ghtclub’s front doors, which were already choked chest-high with the bleeding and dying bodies of fallen scenesters, up through the ceiling where he’d come in (impossible without his flightpack, which he’d carelessly left on the roof), or through the hole that the Badgers and their motorized minions had blown in the wall. In any scenario, Grummand Fifty-Seven would have to make it past the gatecrashing Bruisers and Badgers, so once he’d calculated the odds, he decided to opt for the hole.

  Fifty-Seven glanced back over his shoulder, noticing that one of the Badgers was priming a shouldered rocket launcher, and estimated how many seconds he’d have until all hell broke loose. This would be close.

  Grummand Fifty-Seven set the girl down, continuing to shield her with his bulk, and began fingering the side of his chest. He found the panel release lever quickly, exposing his emergency transport cavity, then gathered the girl up again, stuffing her into himself. Fifty-Seven resealed his chest, then rolled left as a rocket cut through the space where he’d just been crouching. It exploded against the far wall where a choir of terrified Gnubs cowered, showering the scene with plaster and internal organs. The target was secure, for now. Grummand Fifty-Seven turned to face his adversaries. Two Bruisers stood a dozen meters away, wading slowly towards him through the carnage, chaingun arms trained on him. Ten meters behind them, the remaining four Bruisers gleefully fired zapguns and flamers at any sign of movement, mopping up the few remaining signs of life in the once-teeming dancehall. The two Badgers remained by the hole, barricaded behind rubble. The black and gray Badger with the rocket launcher swore loudly as he worked to reload his weapon. The other, brownfaced, snickered through a toothy mouth. “Give us the girl,” it shouted, “or you’re stewed.”

  Grummand Fifty-Seven glanced down towards his feet. His internal sensors informed him that the girl’s heartbeat and breathing were steady. He’d suffered some cosmetic damage from the chaingun, but was otherwise unharmed. He regretted that he’d come unarmed, but reminded himself that a zapgun in hand didn’t necessarily equate a comet by the tail. He reached down, his fingers finding a reasonably-intact Lizard skull and spinal column, flesh cleaned away by a zapgun blast, on the ground by his feet. The Bruisers advanced, their head-mounted orange targeting lasers slicing through the smoke. Fifty-Seven closed his fingers around the skull, felt its weight, triangulated, then hefted it toward the foremost Bruiser, shattering its faceplate. The Bruiser dropped, sparks flying from where its face had been. Grummand Fifty-Seven rolled right, avoiding the retort emanating from the second Bruiser’s chaingun. Inside his chest, he felt the girl’s weight shift, her body thunk against the capsule walls, his onboard sensors showed her pulse rate increasing, but her vital signs remained steady.