Magnolia Blume sat alone at a round table. Club Iridion was packed. The club was a drift, a space station that had been repurposed. Maggie didn’t know what the original purpose had been, and she didn’t care. Tonight, her friend Denny was playing winds for an incredibly popular singer called Betty Richards. Betty bounced and swayed above her, seemingly seconds away from falling out of her tiny dress. Maggie was putting a strain on her own evening gown, but Betty Richards made her look like a child.
At least mine are real, Maggie thought. She shifted her attention to Denny Epsom. He was only twenty-one, but he had been a prodigy, performing professionally for nearly ten years. He had grown a lot in that time. He was extremely tall with carefully groomed black hair just touching his ears. He seemed to be in his own world as he played his electronic wind instrument in the dark corner of the stage behind Betty.
A few old-timers were on the dance floor, but most of the crowd was seated and staring at Betty as she crooned about broken hearts and chance meetings. The lights were dim but not too dark to find your way to one of the bars without tripping. Maggie leaned back in her chair casually. She didn’t usually have a chance to wear her nice dress or take in a show, so it worked out well that Denny had invited her to check out his new gig aboard Club Iridion in interplanetary space. Her spaceship docked in the cheapest bay furthest from the club was three quarters full with supplies destined for an asteroid mining operation nearby.
Betty finished her show and told the crowd how much she loved them all. Then everyone disappeared backstage. A DJ took over. Half the audience left and half ambled onto the dance floor. Maggie waited patiently for Denny to join her. She didn’t see where he came from. He just appeared between her table and the mass of bodies gathering in the middle of the room. He was certainly nimble for such a big man. She stood up and hugged him.
“I can’t believe you made it,” Denny said.
“Of course I did,” Maggie told him. “I’m in the middle of a job, but the club was literally on the way there. I would have had to adjust course to avoid its path.”
“Well that’s convenient,” Denny said with a big smile.
“Besides,” Maggie added, “I would have found a way to get here eventually. It only lasts a few months, right?”
“Right,” Denny said. “I think it’s going to lead to big things, but nothing is solid yet.” Suddenly his face fell as if he remembered something. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a dress,” he said. “You look great!”
Maggie laughed and said, “Thank you.”
Betty Richards crossed the room surrounded by bodyguards and a random assortment of people she had brought with her. A few dancers stopped and looked as she passed near the dance floor, but nobody bothered her. Then she disappeared on her way up to a private booth on the balcony. “Is Betty okay to work with?” Maggie asked. She took a seat at her table and Denny joined her.
“Yeah,” Denny replied. “She shows up, rehearses, and thanks us for our time. I’ve worked with worse.”
Suddenly Maggie was on high alert. The music was loud, and she had been focused on their conversation, but she heard a distinct banging noise somewhere in the mix. “Is that the music?” she asked.
“No,” Denny said without hesitation. He was looking toward the exit, but the crowded dance floor blocked their view. “Follow me.”
He stood up quickly. Maggie slipped her fingers into the slit of her dress and pulled the skirt aside enough to reach the compact pistol holstered against her thigh. She held it casually against her body and let Denny guide her past the stage and through a door. They climbed a small set of stairs with Maggie trying to keep her heels from clacking violently with each step. Denny led her to a thick stage curtain, carefully peeling it back ever so slightly where the curtain touched the wall.
They were looking out over the dance floor. In the balcony, two of Betty’s bodyguards were standing against the railing and looking down at the crowd and the entrance to the room. Suddenly the door burst open. No one in the crowd seemed to notice at first, but three men with rifles filed into the room. The bodyguards rushed back into the booth to protect Betty.
The intruders wore scraps of armor over black jumpsuits and skeletal masks over their faces. Furnace Dawgs. One of them raised his rifle into the air and fired. The crowd reacted instantly. People screamed and began to run. One of the Furnace Dawgs climbed onto the stage and smashed the DJ’s equipment with the butt of his rifle. The other two fired into the crowd. People fell. Some reached the door to the balcony, some reached the door Maggie and Denny had taken, but none got past the trio to the main exit.
“We have to get off this space station,” Maggie whispered. They backed away from the curtain. The thug on the stage was too close. The last thing they saw was one Furnace Dawg moving to block the door they had used and the man on the stage grabbing a microphone now that he had stopped the music. The survivors in the crowd were crouched low. Some were hysterical while others were paralyzed with fear.
The Furnace Dawg’s voice boomed through the club and backstage, distorted through his skull mask: “I need everyone to calm down. If we were going to hurt you, we wouldn’t have fired warning shots, but of course you proved yourselves to be the hysterical sheep you’ve always been.”
Maggie and Denny made their way down the hall away from the gunmen, but up ahead they heard loud and extensive gunfire. More men were mowing down the escapees. Maggie ducked into a closet and pulled Denny with her. “We can’t leave all those people,” Denny said.
Maggie asked, “What are you going to do? Beat the bad guys to death with your saxophone?”
Denny just shook his head helplessly. He didn’t know what to say. Maggie added, “We’re not going anywhere for now anyway. Get comfortable.”
She plopped down on the floor and leaned against the wall near a pile of electronics. Denny followed suit nearby. “We’ll get to my boat as soon as we can,” Maggie said quietly. Then we’ll get out of here and call somebody. I don’t even know what planet is closest right now, but everybody hates Furnace Dawgs.”
“What do they want?” Denny hissed.
Maggie shrugged. “I’m sure they’ll tell us soon.”
They heard commotion in the hallway. Distorted voices were calling out to each other and doors were opening. Maggie climbed to her feet without a word. Denny did the same. The voices grew closer. Then their door opened.
Maggie fired as soon as she saw black. The top of the skull mask exploded, and the man dropped backward like a felled tree. The shot was deafening in the confined space. Someone shouted, and Maggie turned the corner and emptied her magazine into another Furnace Dawg’s chest. He crumpled in on himself in the middle of the hallway. She closed the action of her empty pistol and holstered it, careful not to touch the hot barrel against her bare leg.
Both men had dropped short-barreled laser rifles. Maggie picked up one and passed it to Denny. Then she picked up the other one and kicked her heels off. They were such nice shoes. She was disappointed to leave them behind. “More effective than a saxophone,” she said. “You remember how to use that?”
Denny nodded. “Yeah I’ve got the basics.”
“Then let’s get out of here.”
They worked their way through the halls. The further they got from the club, the more the structure turned into the sterile, austere scientific tool it had once been. Another distorted voice got their attention, but Maggie quickly realized it was coming over a broadcast. She turned the corner and found a screen on the wall showing the interior of the club. The hostages were crammed against one wall while the dead remained scattered in the middle of the floor. A masked Furnace Dawg loomed over Betty Richards. She was on her knees and her face was streaked with makeup ruined by her tears.
“…symbol of mindless consumption and insatiable lust that drains the star system of its resources while dragging new victims into…”
Maggie said, “We have to keep moving. I can’t. If I have to listen to this idiot crying because the rest of us choose not to be as miserable and pathetic as him, I’ll turn this gun on myself.”
But Denny was staring with his mouth open. “No, look,” he said, pointing to the screen.
The Furnace Dawg continued, “…will be cleansed with fire. The stars will be rid of this temple of consumerism, and all will be one step closer to harmony.”
“Is that a bomb?” Maggie asked, looking at a large crate drifting into the frame, hovering on a dolly steered by another terrorist.
Denny replied, “I think he’s claiming it is. We can’t let them all die.”
Maggie sighed. “I don’t think we’d get far enough from the blast anyway. Let’s kill some bad guys.”
They retraced their steps back to the club. “There’s a man by the door we used,” Maggie said. “Focus on him. Don’t stop shooting until his gun is on the floor and he’s not moving.”
“Okay,” Denny said nervously.
“Do you understand?” Maggie asked forcefully. “I’m going to completely ignore him. Do you have it under control?”
“Yes,” Denny said more firmly this time. “One guy. I’ve got it.”
They stepped over the bodies of innocents who had tried to flee and of the Furnace Dawgs Maggie had killed and approached the club. Denny was too civilized for all this, but Maggie had been hauling freight between planets for years, spending weeks at a time alone in space and convincing unsavory figures in frontier territories to pay their bills. She wasn’t new to this.
They reached the door. Maggie held up one finger. One guy. That was Denny’s job. Denny nodded and raised the rifle to his shoulder.
Maggie shoved her way through the door, and Denny followed. The guard was standing where they had anticipated. Maggie quickly turned to the right as Denny opened fire on the Furnace Dawg. Everyone in the room turned toward the muted but violent sound of the laser rifle. Maggie placed two shots center mass on the leader as he loomed over Betty Richards. He stumbled backward and dropped the camera he had been using to broadcast himself to the entire system.
The remaining terrorist raised his rifle, but Maggie squeezed off a few more blasts, striking him in the face, throat, and chest. The man collapsed immediately. She closed the distance to make sure both of them were really down.
The leader was not in fact down. He was sitting up, groping about for what Maggie now realized was the detonator that he had dropped. His fingers touched on the camera he had also dropped, and he flung it aside angrily, slumping over to better reach the detonator. Maggie shot him between the eyes, shattering the skull mask. She spared a glance at Denny and saw that he had successfully downed his target. He was in the process of kicking the man’s rifle out of reach just in case the lights weren’t completely out yet. Denny might be freaked out later, but for the moment only he looked focused.
Maggie moved toward the detonator. Furnace Dawgs weren’t generally subtle. There were probably no sleepers among the crowd, but she didn’t trust anyone else to get their hands on the detonator. “You okay, Denny,” she called out.
“I’m okay,” he replied with a shaky voice.
Magnolia Blume scooped up the device, careful not to touch the screen or any of the buttons. She pointed the laser rifle safely at the floor and studied the detonator. She would have to assume it was real. The odd assembly of parts inside the crate nearby looked real enough. She looked it over, careful not to touch it or the hovering dolly that held it aloft. “I guess today could have been worse,” she said.