Star Cat: Infinity Claws: A Science Fiction & Fantasy Adventure (The Star Cat Series - Book 1) (2nd Edition)

by Andrew Mackay

  Back on Earth…

  Jamie sat on the tiny brick wall in his back garden, holding his mini-telescope in his hands.

  He extended it and held the small end to his eye, "There’s the moon."

  Jamie adjusted the lens and a series of craters, came into focus. "The man on the moon."

  "Jamie, poppet," his mother’s voice drifted from the kitchen door. "Come in for your dinner."

  "Yes, mom."

  "And can you collect your sister’s bottle from the counter, please?"

  "Okay, mom,” Jamie tapped the thick end of the telescope in his hand, "You’ll be at Saturn by now, Jelly."

  He moved the small end of the device to his eye and settled on a shimmering white dot to the left of the moon, "I have a new daddy, now. Just like you."

  Jamie removed the telescope and held it between his legs. He pursed his lips and considered the events of the past twelve months.

  "I’ll wait for you, Jelly." He stood up and took one final look at the starry sky. A lump formed in his throat, "I should never have let you go. I miss you…"

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Crew Hub

  Staff briefing

  The entire crew took their seats around the table.

  "We have the results from Pure Genius," Tor said.

  "So, what’s the skinny?" Bonnie asked.

  Tor waved his hand. A string of numbers displayed over the conference table.

  Androgyne was the last crew member to enter the room, dressed in her USARIC outer-skin, "Captain Katz?"

  "Yes, Androgyne?"

  "I am ready to board Opera Alpha."

  "So I see," Katz turned to Tor, who waited for the chance to present his findings, "We have an update. Please listen carefully."

  Tripp took Jelly from Wool and cradled her in his arms, "What did we find?"

  "Take a look at these numbers," Tor said.

  1691411192513168151425

  "Okay?" Wool said. "What of them?"

  "This is what we flushed into Pure Genius. Along with Manuel, she scanned for every known linguistic permutation we are aware of. It took Pure Genius less than ten minutes to arrive at the answer."

  "Why?" Katz asked.

  "Because it was staring us in the face all along. Unusually simple, which may or may not reflect the intelligence of whatever we’re dealing with."

  Tor pushed the tops of his hands together and spread the numbers out.

  16 9 14 11 19 25 13 16 8 15 14 25

  "Twelve individual numbers," Tor explained. "Can anyone see the pattern, here?"

  The crew looked along the string. It didn’t take Androgyne very long to figure out what it meant, "Oh, yes. It is simple."

  "Exactly," Tor smiled. "Anyone else?"

  "Eleven," Haloo smiled and picked out the relevant numbers, "Nineteen and thirteen. Primary numbers?"

  "True, but that’s not the point," Tor said, "But you’re looking in the wrong place. Take a step back and look at them again."

  "I don’t understand?" Haloo said, dismayed by her lack of comprehension, "Step back?"

  "Androgyne?" Tor turned to her and pointed at the numbers. "Would you like to explain?"

  "Certainly."

  She walked over to the table and pointed at the first two-digit number, "The sixteenth letter of the alphabet. P."

  "Oh," Bonnie now understood the answer. "What’s the ninth letter?"

  "I," said Tripp. "Which means fourteen is N."

  "And there you have it," Tor clicked his fingers. Each number spun around revealing their corresponding letter.

  P I N K S Y M P H O N Y

  Baldron joined Tor and snapped his fingers, "Pink Symphony. It explains the color of the waveform we saw while Jelly was in Pure Genius extracting the data."

  "Yes, it was pink," Katz said.

  "What does Pink Symphony mean?" Jaycee asked.

  "We don’t know."

  "So what use is it to us?"

  Tor made eyes at Baldron, "I’ll let my colleague explain."

  Baldron pushed the test aside and brought up a live visual feed of Enceladus. A live visual feed of Enceladus appeared in an inset in at the top of the screen, "How long till we reach Alpha, Katz?"

  "A little under an hour."

  "Okay," Baldron pointed at the live feed of Enceladus, "Here, one of USARIC’s Star Drones currently orbiting Enceladus. This image is live but on a two-minute delay. If you look closely at the dark side you may see something occurring right in the middle."

  Baldron enlarged the image, revealing a small pink dot. It appeared to breathe in and out from within the darkness.

  "It’s pink," Tripp dropped Jelly to the conference table, "Is that something to do with the deciphering of the message?"

  "Again, we don’t know," Baldron offered.

  Bonnie felt her patience reach an end. "Well, what do you know?"

  A vector image of Enceladus appeared next to the visual representation of Alpha. A dotted line shot out from the center of the moon and marched its way to the transmitter on Opera Alpha.

  "We know that Enceladus is using Alpha as a transmitter," Baldron explained. "Somewhere deep in her core. It’s sending the source signal to Alpha and using her as a sort of repeater to strengthen its message."

  Tor stepped forward and pointed at the vector of Enceladus, "Before Alpha went to investigate Enceladus, the message received by IMS and Corpus Claudius was just a bunch of noise. Now, with the Saturn Cry going through Alpha, the signal is stronger and filtered."

  "Let me see if I have this correct," Katz tried to make sense of what he was hearing. "The original message was designed to get Alpha to go to Enceladus. To figure out what was going on?"

  "Yes," Baldron said.

  "With the express purpose of using Alpha as a transmitter to send a strengthened signal?"

  "It seems so."

  "Why would it do that?" Katz asked.

  "Who knows," Tor said. "What we do know is that we got a response. A response that enabled us to get Anderson up here to make sense of the message. And it worked."

  Androgyne considered the revelation, "Whatever, or whoever, is sending that message clearly knows English. Numbers."

  "And music," Wool added. "Could we have found life out here?"

  "The probability of life out here is beyond calculation," Androgyne said. "Even in this vicinity. Extended to neighboring galaxies. It’s not possible. And even if it were true, they wouldn’t know English."

  The team were perplexed. Faced with the daunting fact that Saturn Cry originated from a place where numbers and, more bizarrely, the English language were a known quantity.

  "It’s futile to speculate any further," Baldron said. "We’re due to dock with Alpha shortly. We’ll ask questions when we get there. The most likely explanation is that whoever, or whatever, is using Alpha to transmit their message has done so from what they’ve learned about her."

  "It explains why the code was so simple and easy to decrypt," Tor rubbed his chin, thinking over his answer. "Yes, it makes sense. What we have here, Pink Symphony, is an answer to a question we do not know."

  "It is remarkable just how simple it was to decipher," Baldron said as the rest of the crew turned to Jelly. She licked her private parts in full view of them with nary a care in the world.

  Or the galaxy.

  "I’m sure one of us would have figured out given enough time," Wool said. "It wouldn’t have taken a genius."

  Tor and Baldron looked at Jelly, who stopped licking herself and looked up at them.

  "It didn’t," Tor quipped.

  Rest & Recuperation

  Space Opera Beta - Level Two

  Space Opera Beta’s mess hall was large enough to house a few beds and a kitchen counter set-up. A place for the crew to relax and maybe read a book or watch a movie.

  Its primary function was to serve hot meals. Long gone were the days of having to drink through straws and eat from packets.

  The kitchen contained all the
essentials one could possibly want.

  A kettle.

  A microwave.

  A wash basin.

  An electric cooker.

  A coffee machine capable of making fancy hot drinks.

  The rectangular table in the middle of the room contained assorted snacks. Three bowls of fruit hung from the ceiling, a few inches from the table top.

  In the corner of the room, unofficially referred to as "hind quarters’, was where Jelly went to the bathroom. In many ways, she was spoiled aboard the Space Opera Beta.

  She had a larger-than-necessary sleeping area with a mattress and sheets. A water dispenser released pure H2O into a bowl on the hour, every hour.

  Jelly lapped away at the water, washing down the contents of her lunch - a chicken medley. Her favorite.

  Baldron waited for the coffee machine to reach its boil and took out two mugs from the cabinet.

  "It’s amaziant, really, when you think about. How much you miss the little things."

  Katz turned to look at Jelly drinking from her bowl, "This time, we do have a little thing with us."

  "Ha," Baldron reached inside his pocket and took out a bunch of napkins, "That’s not quite what I meant."

  "I know," Katz chuckled. "Hey, Jelly. How you doing?"

  She looked up from her bowl and meowed.

  Katz, much like the majority of the crew, couldn’t resist the urge to talk cutesy at her, "You’re a good girl, aren’t you?"

  "You take milk?" Baldron poured some of the white stuff into his mug.

  "Yes, please. One sugar," Katz cautiously approached Jelly and held out his arms, "Water’s good, huh?"

  "One sugar," Baldron whispered to himself as he fanned out the napkin. His black cyanide capsule lay in the middle. A quick check over his shoulder to ensure the captain couldn’t see him was all he needed, "Coming right up."

  Jelly’s ears pricked up. She watched Baldron break the two plastic ends and drop the yellowy dust into the second USARIC-themed mug. He poured the hot coffee into it and watched the froth race up the sides of the ceramic and spread across the surface.

  Katz scooped Jelly up under her belly, "Ooh, gotta be careful. You’ve just eaten."

  "Meow."

  Baldron poured the coffee into his blue mug and replaced the coffee filter into its housing.

  "I have to say, Daryl, that we’re very appreciative of everything you’ve done for us. You’ve been a real inspiration for the crew of Opera Beta."

  Katz, having seen nothing of Baldron’s sneaky move, approached the middle table and eyed his coffee. Jelly purred in his arms as he made a fuss over her.

  "It’s not often you get to hear that from your own team. But thanks for saying that. It means a lot."

  Baldron smiled and nodded at the cat, "Anderson’s something else, isn’t she?"

  "Oh, you can say that again."

  Jelly looked up at Baldron and showed him her fangs. She lifted her paws away from Katz in an attempt to free herself. Obligingly, he dropped her to the table.

  "There you go, puss."

  Baldron made conversation, trying not to look at the two mugs, "So, not long to go now till we board Alpha?"

  "Nope," Katz eyed the two coffee mugs. He reached out for the handle on the red one nearest to him. Baldron suppressed his desire to celebrate his plan coming to fruition.

  Jelly walked around the two mugs, sniffing the rim on each one. She whined and blinked up at Baldron.

  "What are you looking at, Anderson?"

  "Meow," she ran her face along the side of the piping hot red mug. The heat made her tear her face away and rub it with her paw, "Meeooowww."

  "What’s the matter, girl?" Katz hooked his finger around the cyanide-laced mug of coffee, "You can’t drink this. It’s not good for you, pet."

  "Meow."

  Baldron lifted his mug and offered to clink it against Katz’s, "We have what we need, now. We solved the puzzle. Cheers."

  "Yes, of course," Katz lifted the red mug and clinked it against Baldron’s, "To Jelly Anderson."

  "Yes, to Jelly Anderson."

  As Baldron lifted the mug to his mouth, Jelly launched at him and scratched his forearm.

  "Oww."

  Baldron’s mug tilted and spilled a few drops of coffee over the floor. Katz put the red mug down and accosted Jelly, who looked up at him with widened eyes.

  "Bad cat," Katz snatched the blue mug from Baldron’s hand. Jelly hissed back at him.

  "That damn creature is more trouble than she’s worth," Baldron inspected his torn inner-suit sleeve, "Ugh, can’t we just have her dealt with?"

  He reached over the kitchen counter, tore off a sheet of paper from its holder and mopped his arm down.

  "Dealt with?" Katz asked.

  Baldron scrunched the paper and threw it into the basin, "Yes. Dealt with. We have everything we need from her. She’s only getting in the way, now."

  "Meow," Jelly definitely knew who the bad guy was in all of this.

  Katz picked up the red mug. He watched Jelly’s face following the rim, "Here, take your drink back.."

  "Thanks," Baldron took the red mug failing to realize that Katz had swapped them around.

  Katz picked up the blue mug and lifted it to his lips. His mood flipped on a dime, "We’ll deal with her when we return to Earth, I think."

  "Fine," Baldron huffed and watched the tip of the blue mug rise as Katz sipped away at it, "But, but…"

  "What’s wrong, Baldron?" Katz said with a smile. "Not going to drink?"

  "No, I—"

  "Meow," Jelly shifted along the counter and yawned at Baldron as if to say “Hey, drink it.”

  Katz gulped down the contents of the blue mug and slammed it to the counter, “Ahh, that’s better.” He reached into his inner-skin suit flap with his right hand and watched Baldron with his red mug, "You must be parched, fella."

  "I, uh, suddenly don’t feel too well."

  "Oh," Katz feigned sympathy, "Well, a bit of caffeine might perk you up a bit, right?"

  Baldron didn’t know what to do. If he drank the coffee, he was dead. If he didn’t, he was busted.

  Katz clenched his fist within his inner-suit, losing his patience. Jelly completed the double-act by growling louder than before. They both wanted Baldron to drink whatever was in the red mug.

  "Come on, drink up."

  Baldron closed his eyes and double-over himself, pretending to feel sick, "Ugh, must be something I ate. My stomach—"

  He released the red mug from his hands

  It shattered across the floor, spreading the fizzing, deadly contents around their shoes.

  Katz took out his Rez-9 firearm and pointed it at Baldron.

  Jelly squealed in the man’s face, backing her captain up.

  "Cyanide?" Katz flicked the side catch on his Rez-9 down, arming it, "You try to kill me on my ship?"

  "I’m s-sorry, please don’t shoot me—"

  "—Don’t say another word, Landaker," Katz shifted the barrel of the gun to his face. Baldron put his hands in the air as Katz snapped his fingers with his free hand.

  "Manuel."

  The holographic book appeared out of thin air and hovered around the kitchen counter, "Yes, Captain?"

  "Call Jaycee to R&R," Katz said, "We have a problem here that needs to be dealt with."

  Baldron trembled with fear, "No, please, don’t tell the others—"

  "—I swear, Landaker. You say one more thing and I’ll blow your god damn head off. Don’t you make a move or say another word."

  Baldron hung his head in shame. The cyanide-infused coffee spat and sizzled around their feet, burning into the ground. Katz turned to Jelly, "Stay there, pet."

  "Meow," Jelly snarled at Baldron.

  ***

  Jaycee pushed Baldron down the vessel carriageway by the back of his shoulders.

  "Hey!"

  "Shut up, killer," Jaycee’s sheer size, made even larger on account of his exo-suit, somehow felt more t
hreatening than ever before. He hulked his K-SPARK shot gun in his arms, enjoying tormenting his prisoner, "Get off the floor and walk."

  Baldron scrambled to his feet and walked backwards along the corridor, "I swear, it was a mistake."

  "The only mistake that was made was letting you on board, traitor," Jaycee lifted his behemoth of a gun to the man’s head, "Right between the eyes, if I had my way."

  "Wh-where are you taking me?"

  "Keep walking," Jaycee stormed forward and threaten to pulverize his new captive, "If I had my way I’d put a proton charge right between your eyes. Then I’d take you to the airlock and flush you out of this ship along with all the other human waste."

  "P-Please, d-don’t kill me," Baldron pleaded for his life. At the far end of the corridor was the ship’s prison - N-Carcerate.

  "Crew of Opera Beta, may I have your attention, please?" Katz’s voice came through the speakers in the corridor and vessel at large, "I regret to inform you that we have uncovered a traitor among us. Do not be concerned. Jaycee is dealing with him as we speak…."

  Jaycee booted Baldron in the chest, sending him tumbling down the corridor, closer to N-Carcerate, "Congratulations, big man. You’re famous."

  Katz held the communication device in his hand. He kept on speaking as Tor watched on, utterly dumbfounded by the revelation.

  Androgyne entered the room and scanned the control deck’s walls.

  "… communications second officer Baldron Landaker has been placed under arrest for attempted murder. He will be housed in N-Carcerate until we return home, where USARIC will deal with him. Please do not approach or attempt to communicate with him. Failure to comply with this order will be seen as a contravention of Infinity Clause twenty-five-point-five. Thank you. Katz, over and out."

  Tor shook his head and felt like crying, "Baldron?"

  "Yeah," Katz hooked the communicator to the flight deck, "Baldron Landaker. Tried to kill me."

  "How?"

  "Dropped his cyanide capsule into my drink. If it weren’t for Jelly acting up you’d be speaking to a corpse right now. Under commander Healy’s directions."