Sabine lost her eye in a government raid. She was lucky. The other two members of the band lost their lives. She had been saved by her guitar. It had taken the bullet meant for her. She couldn’t save the eye, though, and it was removed in the re-education camp when infection set in.
She often wondered who had tipped the United Corporate Government goons off to the illegal battle of the bands happening that night in the abandoned warehouse by the river. Music had been tightly controlled for decades and unlicensed bands weren’t allowed to perform. Playing music had become illegal for all but a few government controlled outlets. If you wanted to be a rockstar you had to fill out various government forms in triplicate or sign up for one of the six year training programs at various record labels. They controlled everything you did, said and wore no matter how famous you became. They arranged relationships and rivalries and made sure your music toed the government line.
Music made before the great culture schism and the multiple, bloody wars was banned completely. Thousands of singers and songwriters silenced by a government that claimed the music was unhealthy and harmful. It was all about control. The United Corporate Government didn’t manage dozens of star systems without controlling every single detail of their citizenry’s lives. They claimed it was for the good of humanity. Sabine knew it was nothing but lies.
She restlessly tapped her foot against her desk as she listened to Bob Dylan’s jaunty, nasal voice fade out in her headphones. The last few notes drowned out the hum of the ship’s engines. The broadcasting studio was hidden behind the engine room and the drone of the machinery sometimes found its way onto the radio signal. Sabine clicked a button on the system in front of her, switching the audio input from the record player to her microphone.
“That was Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues and before that I played The Smith’s Panic. Let me tell you, listeners, it’s amazing what Morrissey got right before the schism and the war. Maybe not eating meat makes you psychic. Who knows?”
Sabine queued up her next song, chatting into the microphone and imagining the people listening to the illegal pirate radio broadcast. This had become the best way to get banned music to the people who still loved it. After escaping the reeducation camp, Sabine had scrapped together the money for a small space ship and managed to collect an even smaller crew who were just as dedicated to music as she was. They pooled their resources and went from planet to planet hunting for banned vinyls, old hard drives full of mp3s, and radio equipment. They broadcasted on different frequencies, changing it as often as they could to escape UCG detection and sending out the new info in coded messages online. They were financed by donations of untraceable digital crypto-currency from fans and the last shreds of Felix’s trust accounts. Everyone fought their own private battles against the UCG and Sabine’s personal war was music.
“Thanks for risking your lives and listening to me. Hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow with even more banned music. I’m going to leave you tonight with one of my favorites. This is DJ Pirate Queen from Radio Caroline’s Revenge, signing off. Remember to be strong and don’t let the bastards get you down.”
She cut the mic and let The Clash’s Rock the Casbah play her out. Her program was the last music show they aired every night. In an hour, Claire would come in to do her midnight reading. The former librarian wasn’t big into music but she was ravenous about books. She successfully petitioned Sabine for air time to read banned texts. Sabine had to admit that some of the stories were gripping. She was particularly enjoying the Victorian detective series Claire was in the middle of reading.
She heard Felix before he walked in. His steps were distinctive. He walked with a slight limp ever since he was injured in the UCG marines. Sabine never heard the whole story of his injury but she knew it had left scars that went deeper than just the skin of his knee. Felix ducked as he walked in, his frame taller than the small doorway. He waved and made a hand motion, asking if she was still on the air. Sabine took her headphones off and laid them around her throat.
“Hey, everything okay?” she asked, noticing the tight look on his face.
“Distress call from Radio Free Luxe.”
Sabine was up like a shot, shoving past Felix and going down the off white corridor of the little space ship they called home. She heard him duck and lurch after her as she hurried to the cockpit. The ship was nothing more than a glorified pleasure cruiser, a pokey little beater with minimal weapons and shielding. The cockpit was a small room at the nose of the ship and all corridors inevitably led right to it. The pilot of the Radio Caroline’s Revenge was a small woman with bobbed hair dyed bright navy blue. She looked just as tense as Felix and made room for Sabine near the control board without saying a word.
Sabine looked at the screens on the board: “When did the call come in, Garnet?”
“Just a few minutes ago. I decoded it and verified it. It’s definitely from Radio Free Luxe.”
“Definitely a distress call?”
“They weren’t calling up for a friendly chat, if that’s what you mean. It isn’t a fake out, either. Teddy Boy sounded scared out of his wits.”
Felix leaned against the wall nearby, still bent over in the cramped room. He rubbed at the stubble along his jaw.
“Coordinates?” he asked.
Garnet pointed to her console: “Already plugged in.”
Sabine sighed.
“Alright. Let’s go investigate. But if this is another one of Teddy Boy’s pranks, I will wring his scrawny neck myself.”
Garnet nodded and changed their course with a few button clicks. Sabine watched for a moment before walking back out into the hall with Felix to prepare.
Felix watched the Radio Free Luxe ship from the starboard windows, looking it over for damage or booby traps. It floated dead in space, its lights off but Garnet assured them that the life support was still working. They wouldn’t know what was really going on until they boarded.
The ship grew bigger in the window as Garnet brought them in as close as she could. It looked fine enough, but Felix was still anxious. He was already suited up for the short space walk between the ships and he waited for Sabine to finish buckling and zipping hers on. She shoved her hair into a messy bun and adjusted her eye patch before she finally put her helmet on. After a few system checks, she gave him a thumbs up. He returned the gesture and they stepped into the air lock.
“We’re ready, Garnet,” Sabine’s voice crackled in his ear.
There was a mechanical thump as the airlock disengaged its safety locks and a sharp shriek as the outer door slowly began to open. Radio Free Luxe loomed before them and Felix did a final visual inspection before giving the signal. Sabine may have been the captain, but Felix had military training that made him the perfect person to lead any dangerous mission. He toggled the thrusters in the soles of the suit and pushed out into the starry embrace of space.
It took only a moment to get to the side of the other ship. Sabine floated next to him and messed with the airlock entry code, prying it out of its casing and twisting the wires she found beneath. It took a few tries but soon the airlock opened with a clang. They made their way inside and Felix waited while she hit the button that would flood the airlock with oxygen and artificial gravity. He felt his bones creak unhappily as gravity settled over him. Once they were sure the air was on, they opened their helmets and took a deep breath. Sabine waited for him as he pulled out his gun and took point again.
The hallway of the ship was quiet. It had been painted maroon and a dejected disco ball hung over the door to the cockpit. There was a soft hiss of static playing over the sound system, as if someone had turned on the broadcasting equipment but had forgotten to queue up a song. Sabine looked at him, her remaining hazel eye wide with unspoken unease. Something was definitely wrong here.
Felix kept his gun up and they walked quietly down the hall. The first door on their right hung open and he carefully walked inside, looking around the corner with his gun leading the way. The room turned out to be the kitchen and the living space. The walls were painted in wild circles of color, making the space both cheerful and garish.
In the rear of the room was a corner full of broadcasting equipment, crates of records and CDs and a curtain that had been half torn off the ceiling. The desk was cluttered with mugs and plates and tech. A messy mop of brown hair wearing headphones sat in the chair, its back to them. Sabine sighed with relief.
“Goddamn, Teddy Boy. You scared the hell out of us.”
She gently tapped him on the shoulder. When Teddy Boy didn’t react, Felix reached over and slowly turned the chair around. Sabine gasped. The huge bullet wound in his chest left no doubt to Teddy Boy’s fate. His eyes were still open and he looked almost comically surprised. Blood stained his usually white cravat and his velvet blazer, dripping down to pool in his lap.
“Oh god,” Sabine whispered. “What about the rest of the crew?” she asked. “Sally Anne, Matchstick Jack and Sunbeam?”
Felix shook his head and reached over to close Teddy Boy’s eyes.
“Dead, I’d imagine. We’ll have to search all the rooms,” he said, grimly. “Then we gather their contraband and send out the message that Radio Free Luxe was attacked and all aboard perished.”
“I’m sorry, Teddy Boy,” Sabine said, as she shut off the broadcasting equipment. The static cut out and left the room eerily quiet.
Felix began to put his gun away but froze before he fully holstered it. He turned quickly, pulling it back out as swiftly as he could and aiming it directly at the man who had walked into the living area.
“Who are you? State your name!” Felix barked, his gun steady in his hands.
The man raised his arms above his head, eyes wide with fear. Sabine stared at him. She had known everyone on the crew of the Radio Free Luxe and this guy was totally new. He was slender of build with wild blonde hair tied loosely back from his face. His clothes were impeccably stylish, straight from one of the inner UCG planets. He trembled as he tried to answer Felix, his eyes darting between them and Teddy Boy’s body. He went pale as all the blood drained from his face.
“Is he dead?” the man asked, his accent posh and cultured.
Felix leveled him with a look: “No, the giant sucking chest wound is just decoration. Who the fuck are you!”
The man lifted his arms even higher.
“My name is Leo. I promise you I’m not a threat. I’m a refugee. Mister, uh, Boy was transporting me. I was just a passenger, I swear!”
Felix looked like he didn’t buy it.
“Alright, Leo, what happened?”
“I don’t know. I ran and hid once I heard gunshots.” Shame brought a flush to his cheeks and he lowered his arms a bit.
Sabine frowned and glanced back at Teddy Boy. He was still hooked up, as if he had been in the middle of broadcasting, but his mayday had to have come from the cockpit. Something wasn’t adding up.
“Hey, guys?” Garnet’s voice crackled in their helmets. “I have bad news.”
“So do we,” Sabine said.
“Not as bad as mine. Radio Mercury Prime is here. They got the same distress call.”
“That doesn’t sound that bad?”
“It’s not. The UCG ship that showed up after them does, though. It was cloaked. It was waiting for us.”
Felix cursed and Sabine felt her blood run cold.
“It was a trap.”
She often wondered who had tipped the United Corporate Government goons off to the illegal battle of the bands happening that night in the abandoned warehouse by the river. Music had been tightly controlled for decades and unlicensed bands weren’t allowed to perform. Playing music had become illegal for all but a few government controlled outlets. If you wanted to be a rockstar you had to fill out various government forms in triplicate or sign up for one of the six year training programs at various record labels. They controlled everything you did, said and wore no matter how famous you became. They arranged relationships and rivalries and made sure your music toed the government line.
Music made before the great culture schism and the multiple, bloody wars was banned completely. Thousands of singers and songwriters silenced by a government that claimed the music was unhealthy and harmful. It was all about control. The United Corporate Government didn’t manage dozens of star systems without controlling every single detail of their citizenry’s lives. They claimed it was for the good of humanity. Sabine knew it was nothing but lies.
She restlessly tapped her foot against her desk as she listened to Bob Dylan’s jaunty, nasal voice fade out in her headphones. The last few notes drowned out the hum of the ship’s engines. The broadcasting studio was hidden behind the engine room and the drone of the machinery sometimes found its way onto the radio signal. Sabine clicked a button on the system in front of her, switching the audio input from the record player to her microphone.
“That was Bob Dylan’s Subterranean Homesick Blues and before that I played The Smith’s Panic. Let me tell you, listeners, it’s amazing what Morrissey got right before the schism and the war. Maybe not eating meat makes you psychic. Who knows?”
Sabine queued up her next song, chatting into the microphone and imagining the people listening to the illegal pirate radio broadcast. This had become the best way to get banned music to the people who still loved it. After escaping the reeducation camp, Sabine had scrapped together the money for a small space ship and managed to collect an even smaller crew who were just as dedicated to music as she was. They pooled their resources and went from planet to planet hunting for banned vinyls, old hard drives full of mp3s, and radio equipment. They broadcasted on different frequencies, changing it as often as they could to escape UCG detection and sending out the new info in coded messages online. They were financed by donations of untraceable digital crypto-currency from fans and the last shreds of Felix’s trust accounts. Everyone fought their own private battles against the UCG and Sabine’s personal war was music.
“Thanks for risking your lives and listening to me. Hopefully I’ll be back tomorrow with even more banned music. I’m going to leave you tonight with one of my favorites. This is DJ Pirate Queen from Radio Caroline’s Revenge, signing off. Remember to be strong and don’t let the bastards get you down.”
She cut the mic and let The Clash’s Rock the Casbah play her out. Her program was the last music show they aired every night. In an hour, Claire would come in to do her midnight reading. The former librarian wasn’t big into music but she was ravenous about books. She successfully petitioned Sabine for air time to read banned texts. Sabine had to admit that some of the stories were gripping. She was particularly enjoying the Victorian detective series Claire was in the middle of reading.
She heard Felix before he walked in. His steps were distinctive. He walked with a slight limp ever since he was injured in the UCG marines. Sabine never heard the whole story of his injury but she knew it had left scars that went deeper than just the skin of his knee. Felix ducked as he walked in, his frame taller than the small doorway. He waved and made a hand motion, asking if she was still on the air. Sabine took her headphones off and laid them around her throat.
“Hey, everything okay?” she asked, noticing the tight look on his face.
“Distress call from Radio Free Luxe.”
Sabine was up like a shot, shoving past Felix and going down the off white corridor of the little space ship they called home. She heard him duck and lurch after her as she hurried to the cockpit. The ship was nothing more than a glorified pleasure cruiser, a pokey little beater with minimal weapons and shielding. The cockpit was a small room at the nose of the ship and all corridors inevitably led right to it. The pilot of the Radio Caroline’s Revenge was a small woman with bobbed hair dyed bright navy blue. She looked just as tense as Felix and made room for Sabine near the control board without saying a word.
Sabine looked at the screens on the board: “When did the call come in, Garnet?”
“Just a few minutes ago. I decoded it and verified it. It’s definitely from Radio Free Luxe.”
“Definitely a distress call?”
“They weren’t calling up for a friendly chat, if that’s what you mean. It isn’t a fake out, either. Teddy Boy sounded scared out of his wits.”
Felix leaned against the wall nearby, still bent over in the cramped room. He rubbed at the stubble along his jaw.
“Coordinates?” he asked.
Garnet pointed to her console: “Already plugged in.”
Sabine sighed.
“Alright. Let’s go investigate. But if this is another one of Teddy Boy’s pranks, I will wring his scrawny neck myself.”
Garnet nodded and changed their course with a few button clicks. Sabine watched for a moment before walking back out into the hall with Felix to prepare.
Felix watched the Radio Free Luxe ship from the starboard windows, looking it over for damage or booby traps. It floated dead in space, its lights off but Garnet assured them that the life support was still working. They wouldn’t know what was really going on until they boarded.
The ship grew bigger in the window as Garnet brought them in as close as she could. It looked fine enough, but Felix was still anxious. He was already suited up for the short space walk between the ships and he waited for Sabine to finish buckling and zipping hers on. She shoved her hair into a messy bun and adjusted her eye patch before she finally put her helmet on. After a few system checks, she gave him a thumbs up. He returned the gesture and they stepped into the air lock.
“We’re ready, Garnet,” Sabine’s voice crackled in his ear.
There was a mechanical thump as the airlock disengaged its safety locks and a sharp shriek as the outer door slowly began to open. Radio Free Luxe loomed before them and Felix did a final visual inspection before giving the signal. Sabine may have been the captain, but Felix had military training that made him the perfect person to lead any dangerous mission. He toggled the thrusters in the soles of the suit and pushed out into the starry embrace of space.
It took only a moment to get to the side of the other ship. Sabine floated next to him and messed with the airlock entry code, prying it out of its casing and twisting the wires she found beneath. It took a few tries but soon the airlock opened with a clang. They made their way inside and Felix waited while she hit the button that would flood the airlock with oxygen and artificial gravity. He felt his bones creak unhappily as gravity settled over him. Once they were sure the air was on, they opened their helmets and took a deep breath. Sabine waited for him as he pulled out his gun and took point again.
The hallway of the ship was quiet. It had been painted maroon and a dejected disco ball hung over the door to the cockpit. There was a soft hiss of static playing over the sound system, as if someone had turned on the broadcasting equipment but had forgotten to queue up a song. Sabine looked at him, her remaining hazel eye wide with unspoken unease. Something was definitely wrong here.
Felix kept his gun up and they walked quietly down the hall. The first door on their right hung open and he carefully walked inside, looking around the corner with his gun leading the way. The room turned out to be the kitchen and the living space. The walls were painted in wild circles of color, making the space both cheerful and garish.
In the rear of the room was a corner full of broadcasting equipment, crates of records and CDs and a curtain that had been half torn off the ceiling. The desk was cluttered with mugs and plates and tech. A messy mop of brown hair wearing headphones sat in the chair, its back to them. Sabine sighed with relief.
“Goddamn, Teddy Boy. You scared the hell out of us.”
She gently tapped him on the shoulder. When Teddy Boy didn’t react, Felix reached over and slowly turned the chair around. Sabine gasped. The huge bullet wound in his chest left no doubt to Teddy Boy’s fate. His eyes were still open and he looked almost comically surprised. Blood stained his usually white cravat and his velvet blazer, dripping down to pool in his lap.
“Oh god,” Sabine whispered. “What about the rest of the crew?” she asked. “Sally Anne, Matchstick Jack and Sunbeam?”
Felix shook his head and reached over to close Teddy Boy’s eyes.
“Dead, I’d imagine. We’ll have to search all the rooms,” he said, grimly. “Then we gather their contraband and send out the message that Radio Free Luxe was attacked and all aboard perished.”
“I’m sorry, Teddy Boy,” Sabine said, as she shut off the broadcasting equipment. The static cut out and left the room eerily quiet.
Felix began to put his gun away but froze before he fully holstered it. He turned quickly, pulling it back out as swiftly as he could and aiming it directly at the man who had walked into the living area.
“Who are you? State your name!” Felix barked, his gun steady in his hands.
The man raised his arms above his head, eyes wide with fear. Sabine stared at him. She had known everyone on the crew of the Radio Free Luxe and this guy was totally new. He was slender of build with wild blonde hair tied loosely back from his face. His clothes were impeccably stylish, straight from one of the inner UCG planets. He trembled as he tried to answer Felix, his eyes darting between them and Teddy Boy’s body. He went pale as all the blood drained from his face.
“Is he dead?” the man asked, his accent posh and cultured.
Felix leveled him with a look: “No, the giant sucking chest wound is just decoration. Who the fuck are you!”
The man lifted his arms even higher.
“My name is Leo. I promise you I’m not a threat. I’m a refugee. Mister, uh, Boy was transporting me. I was just a passenger, I swear!”
Felix looked like he didn’t buy it.
“Alright, Leo, what happened?”
“I don’t know. I ran and hid once I heard gunshots.” Shame brought a flush to his cheeks and he lowered his arms a bit.
Sabine frowned and glanced back at Teddy Boy. He was still hooked up, as if he had been in the middle of broadcasting, but his mayday had to have come from the cockpit. Something wasn’t adding up.
“Hey, guys?” Garnet’s voice crackled in their helmets. “I have bad news.”
“So do we,” Sabine said.
“Not as bad as mine. Radio Mercury Prime is here. They got the same distress call.”
“That doesn’t sound that bad?”
“It’s not. The UCG ship that showed up after them does, though. It was cloaked. It was waiting for us.”
Felix cursed and Sabine felt her blood run cold.
“It was a trap.”