Star Cat: Killer Instinct

by Andrew Mackay

  “Understood,” came the response. “Clear the area.”

  “We have, you’re all clear,” Grace took the opportunity to boot one of the scurrying employees up the ass and help him along, “Get moving, dickhead.”

  Rana’s voice throttled everyone’s headgear, “Coming in, standby. Five, four—”

  Sierra shouted at Finbow, “Clear the doors. All hell is about to break loose.”

  “Wh-what are you d-doing?” asked one of the petrified workers.

  “Shut up,” Sierra screamed as she rammed the butt of her machine against the console.

  SPRRAASSH-TCH.

  The glass panel shattered into a thousand sharp pieces.

  One by one, the cages in Bays Two and Three burst open. The cats tussled over each other in a mad dash for freedom.

  “Finbow, get out here and move them in.”

  “—and that’s one,” Rana finished. “Open sesame—”

  KRAAAA-BAAAAMMMMMM.

  The back of the van hurtled through the wall. Its back tires crunched over the worker’s seats and computers, throwing the van around in all directions.

  Grace coughed as the smog from the exhaust flooded the animal compound.

  “Whoa, stop. Stop,” Grace held out her hand, “You’ll run us over.”

  ARRROOOOGAH.

  The compound’s alarms fired to life.

  “That’s it, let’s go,” Sierra yelled over the deafening security alarms that fired up all around them.

  “This is not a drill,” a voice came through the speakers. “Security breach in west quarter, animal compound. Please remain where you are.”

  Finbow waved at the cats and chased them towards the back of the van, “Get in, get in.”

  Sierra hopped from the console and ran along with them, “Come on, my pretties. Go, go, go.”

  One by one the cats raced along the ground and made their way into the vehicles.

  “Come on, come on,” Finbow stomped after them and woofed like a dog. “Let’s go.”

  Grace kept her shotgun on the workers and licked her lips, “Anyone got a problem with what we’re doing?”

  One of the workers, a lady with red-rimmed glasses, crawled forward, “Jesus Christ, do you have any idea what you’ve just done?”

  “Yeah. As a matter of fact, we do.”

  “You won’t get out of here alive,” the lady yelled. “They’ll massacre you.”

  Grace didn’t care. She was too busy watching Finbow and Sierra usher the majority of the cats into the back of the van.

  A few felines stopped to claw at the unconscious guards as the others hopped into the van and trampled over them.

  “Huh, they’re still sleeping on the job, are they?”

  Sierra pointed at the workers, “Stop your lessense, for God’s sake. Keep an eye on those animals, please.”

  “Okay, fine.”

  Grace buried the end of her shotgun against the woman’s forehead and pushed her to the ground, “You were saying?”

  “N-Nothing.”

  “Good,” Grace spat. “I was about to tell you to shut the hell up.”

  Finbow struggled to get a particularly vicious-looking ball of orange fluff to follow his instructions to get in the van.

  “Come on, don’t just stand there looking at me like a fluffy ball of crap,” he squinted at the tag around her neck. “Suzie Q-Two?”

  “Meow.”

  “Jesus, come on. Run.”

  “Meow,” she repeated and licked her right paw. A strange contraption hung over it, containing four, metal talons.

  “What the hell?” Finbow ran over to her and tried to scoop the cat into his arms.

  She scowled at him and threatened to jab him with her claws.

  “Jesus Christ,” Finbow turned to Sierra. “Hey, this one won’t move.”

  “Damn it.”

  Sierra ran up to Suzie Q-Two and shifted her behind with her boot, “Let’s go, you little terror.”

  “Mwaahh.”

  Suzie Q-Two swiped at Sierra’s shin and tore the fabric from her leggings.

  “Damn it, get in the van.”

  Sierra booted the defiant cat over to the van.

  Finbow exhaled and shook his head at her, “Really?”

  “What? She doesn’t know what’s good for her.”

  Finbow climbed into the back of the van and forced the cats into the two cages.

  Suzie Q-Two hopped into the back of the van and shrieked at the other cats.

  “Hisssss.”

  The majority of them crept back along their hind legs, scared.

  Suzie Q-Two put one paw forward and yelled at them once again, making sure they knew who was in charge, “Maaooow.”

  “Okay. They’re all in,” Sierra said. “Let’s go.”

  SLAMMMM.

  The main door to the animal compound opened. Two USARIC mercenaries with rifles stormed in.

  The first immediately spotted Sierra making a run for it past the console.

  “Citizen, stop.”

  “Run, run,” Sierra launched herself forward and landed ass-first on the console. She twisted her body around as she stormed over the panel and fired at the two mercs.

  THRAAA-TAT-TAAAAT.

  Bits of the wall exploded behind them as they dived for cover.

  “God damn it,” Grace swung her gun to the two mercs, “You’re down, now. So, stay down.”

  Finbow squinted at the darkness behind the opened door, “There’s more of them coming.”

  Sierra jumped to her feet and stormed over to the van, “We got what we came here for. Let’s go.”

  Grace pressed her hand against her hip and felt around for her grenade, “Want me to block the corridor?”

  “God, no,” Sierra hopped into the van and knocked one of the two unconscious security guards with her foot, “They’re still out. Rana, start the engine.”

  “You got it,” Rana yelled and slammed on the gas.

  VRA-VRA-VROOOOOM.

  The tires whizzed around, grating against the slick floor.

  SQUAH-SQUAH-SQUEEEEEE—

  The van bolted a few feet and tore the rest of the wall down. Segments of brickwork and wires exploded as they crashed to the ground.

  Daylight burst through the wreckage surrounding the van.

  VRRRR. VRRRRR.

  “We’re stuck,” Rana yanked the handbrake and grabbed the back of her seat. She saw the opened doors rammed tight against the edges of the workstations, “Damn it, get in and close the doors.”

  Grace raced over to the back of the van and grabbed Sierra’s hand.

  “Get in.”

  “I’m trying,” Grace climbed aboard and turned around to see Finbow aiming his gun at the two USARIC mercs on their knees by the door.

  “Finbow, come on. Leave them,” Grace said.

  He moved forward and jammed the nozzle of his gun into the first mercenary’s face, “How many?”

  “How many what?”

  “How many are coming?”

  “What?” Grace yelled from the van doors as Sierra bolted the two feline cages shut behind her, “Who cares? Let’s go.”

  “More than you can handle, scumbag,” the first mercenary said. “You think you can break in and just take our product?”

  “Product?”

  “You and your friends are dead.”

  A rumbling of a thousand footsteps whooshed from up the end of the corridor.

  Finbow swallowed hard, fighting back the urge to question the men further, “At least we’re not dead inside.”

  WHUMP.

  Finbow socked the mercenary in the jaw with the butt of his gun and held the barrel at his colleague as he ran, backwards, towards the van, “You. Stay there. You stay.”

  “You won’t make it out of here alive.”

  “Shut the hell up and stay.”

  Finbow turned around and climbed into the back of the van as Rana stepped on the gas.

  “Hold on.”

&nb
sp; WHIRRRR-WHIRRRR.

  The wheels of the van skidded, causing an almighty screeching sound.

  It jolted forward, tearing the workstation console away from the opposing walls.

  KERRRRAA-CRASSSSH.

  The van shunted forward, restricted by the broken bits of wall clawing it back. Grace, Sierra, and Finbow stumbled inside the van, off balance. The latter stepped forward and slipped over the first of the two passed-out security guards.

  “Whoa,” Finbow kicked himself back just in time. The first guard rolled over on his chest and dropped to the road below.

  The van tore the rest of the compound’s wall away. Rana turned the wheel to the left, spinning the wheels across the road.

  The van skidded onto its side, throwing all the human occupants against the cages.

  “Close the doors,” Rana yelled as she hit the gas once again.

  The van sped across the air strip, carrying scores of howling and meowing cats in the back.

  Grace toed the second passed-out security guard, “We need to get rid of this second guy. We can’t take him with us.”

  “Then do it, don’t revel in it,” Sierra said.

  Finbow bent over and held the bar across the top of the back doors. His face fell when he saw what was following them.

  “Oh shi—”

  A USARIC mega-vehicle roared onto the airstrip and gave chase. It traveled speeds that threatened to catch up with - and crush - the van in front.

  Finbow looked up the length of the van and clapped eyes on the road, “They’re onto us—”

  BLAM-BLAM-BLAM.

  The canons on either side of the mega-vehicle fired three shots.

  The first missed the van entirely.

  The second took a chunk off the corner of the roof.

  The third hit Finbow in the shoulder. He toppled backwards, released his gun and accidentally booted the second security guard’s body across the floor.

  Finbow’s gun bounced out of the van and hit the air strip.

  A few seconds later, the mega-vehicle ran over it, blasting it to smithereens.

  “Jeeeeez.”

  Rana slammed on the gas, “I said hold onto something.”

  The unconscious guard’s body tumbled forward and out of the back of the van.

  SCHWUMP.

  His body hit the airstrip a few feet in front of the mega-vehicle’s trajectory.

  WHIIIRRR-STREEEEK.

  The mega-vehicle’s chassis lifted five feet into the air, exposing its two-ton chained conveyor.

  GROWL-CRUNCH.

  It rolled over the security guard’s body and crushed it into the air strip ground.

  “Gaaaaah,” Finbow sat up and held his bleeding wound.

  “You’re not dead, yet,” Grace offered him her hand. He took it and stood to his feet. A fountain of blood gushed from his shoulder and through the fingers on his good hand.

  An ungodly roaring noise blew across the airstrip, several hundred feet up in the sky.

  “I lost my gun,” Finbow winced and kept his back pressed against the side of the van.

  “That’s not all you’ve lost—”

  “—Oh, no, no,” Rana slammed on the brakes and peered up through the windshield. “Ohhhh, Christ.”

  “What is it?” Sierra bellowed from the cages.

  “Remember when I said to hold onto something?”

  “Yeah, what?”

  “I meant it. Hang on.”

  Rana spun the steering wheel to the right and off the airstrip, just as—

  WHOOOOOOOOOSH.

  A fighter jet opened its landing gears and descended.

  NEEAAWWWWWW.

  The van swerved out of its path just in time. The left wing of the jet clipped the top of the van, sending it spinning like a boomerang across the grounds of the training center.

  SCREEEECH.

  The mega-vehicle jolted to a stop and saw the fighter jet darting towards it.

  BLAAAARRREEE.

  The jet’s wheels hit the ground. The mega-vehicle tried to veer off the air strip, but it was too late.

  They collided head on. An almighty fireball from God blasted in all directions, taking out the facade of the adjacent buildings.

  WVHOOM-SMASH-SMASH-SMASH.

  The windows blew out of the buildings. Anyone unlucky enough to be outside them incinerated in an instant - reduced to a cloud of black and red mist.

  The van toppled on two of its wheels and crashed back down on all fours.

  SCHLAAAAAM.

  The impact of the van landing on all four wheels flung Finbow out of the back of the van. He reached out and caught the handle of the swinging door as Rana floored the gas.

  VROOOOOOM.

  “Jesus Christ, Rana,” Sierra screamed from the back, “Hit the brakes, Finbow’s hanging off the door.”

  “We can’t, we can’t,” Rana flipped her binocles down over her face and flicked the switch on the side, “He’ll just have to, uh, hang around for a bit.”

  “Damn it,” Grace reached out for Finbow as he swung to and fro from the waving van door.

  The entrance gates formed a blue rectangle in Rana’s visor, “I think we’ve caused enough damage for one day.”

  “But?” Sierra hollered over the wailing cats cooped up in both cages.

  “But we need to get through security,” Rana flung the stick shift into sixth gear and eyed the reading on the dashboard - 80 mph.

  “I think we’ll have to go old school on this one, too.”

  The security guard climbed out of his kiosk and waved his hands as the van barreled toward him.

  “Huh?”

  He squinted and saw the fireball from the collision on the airstrip throw up a mountain range of black, thick smog.

  “I knew it, I knew they weren’t deliveries,” his muttering turned to a scream of defiance, “Hey, stop.”

  Rana slammed her palm on the horn, “My friend, if you know what’s good for you, get out of the way.

  BEEEEEEEEP.

  “Stop, stop.”

  The security guard retrieved his gun from his pocket and fired several pot-shots at the front of the van.

  BANG-BANG-BANG.

  Rana lowered her head and steered the van right at him. The windscreen shattered, coughing shards of glass over her head and shoulders and into the back of the van.

  Finbow hung from the back door, but couldn’t hold on much longer. The blood from his arm sprayed across the road below, which intermittently kicked against his heels.

  BWUP-BOP-BUP.

  “Aghhh, my feet,” he said as he attempted to lift his knees to his chest.

  NEEAAAAAWWW.

  The van stormed toward the security guard. Rana lifted her head and elbowed the shattered windshield remains away from the front of the van.

  “Get out of the way, asshole.”

  The guard refused to move as the van shot towards him.

  “Move, move, move,” Rana screamed through the van’s opened windshield.

  The security guard jumped out of the way at the very last moment. The van blasted past him as he spun around and opened fire on the back of it…

  WHOOSH-SMASSSSSH.

  The van plowed through the yellow gate and crashed through the giant metal entrance gates.

  The poles yawned out of the ground and kicked up mounds of cement. The vehicle pushed through and groaned, trying to wrench itself away from the metal grates.

  YAAWWWWWWWN.

  The van bolted away, throwing Grace and Sierra to the back of the van.

  WUUUSSSH-SCHUNT.

  The back doors slammed forward and hit the back of the van, closing them in.

  Rana hit the gas for the final time and tried to catch her breath, “Everyone okay back there?”

  “Ugh, ugh,” Sierra picked herself off the floor and helped Grace to her feet, “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Wait, wait,” Grace gasped. “Where’s Finbow?”

  Both girls looked through the window to se
e Finbow roll across the road by the security kiosk.

  “Nooooo,” Grace turned around and yelled at Rana. “We can’t just leave him there.”

  “What? You want us to go back and get him and risk all of us getting killed?”

  “But, but—”

  “—No buts, Grace. We can’t go back,” Rana gripped her mouthpiece and focused on the road ahead.

  A sign for Interstate 608 whizzed past the wing mirror.

  “Siyam, this is Rana. Do you read me?”

  A few seconds went by without a response.

  “I repeat. This is Rana. Siyam, do you read me?”

  “Yes, I read you.”

  “We’re headed for I-608, now. We’ve left the compound.”

  “Understood.”

  Grace took her anger out on the van wall. She thumped it twice and finished it off with a scissor kick, “Arrrggggghhh.”

  “Grace. Calm down,” Sierra said. “There’s nothing we could have done.”

  “There’s something I could have done.”

  Grace pulled the bottom of her USARIC jacket open and revealed her grenade.

  “I could have shove it down their throats is what I could have done—”

  “—No. Enough,” Sierra stared her friend in the face, “There was nothing we could have done. We outran a freaking fighter jet. We’re lucky to be alive.”

  “Meow,” one of the cats offered from the second cage.

  “We did it for Handax,” Grace said.

  “No. We didn’t,” Sierra pointed at the cages full of cats, never once averting her eyes from Grace’s, “We did it for them.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Staircase

  Opera Charlie - Level One/Two

  Alex led Tripp, Jaycee, and Jelly to the top of the staircase to the first level.

  Due to the angle of the ship, the steps were at a slight angle, making progress extremely difficult.

  The emergency lights shimmered, creating bizarre silhouettes of the quartet.

  Alex grabbed the railings and pulled himself the final few steps, “Come on, we have to go to the control deck.”

  Jelly staggered forward. She was badly injured. Pink blood escaped from a wound in her side. She didn’t remember how she got it.

  “Ugh, my suit,” she gasped and spluttered, “I d-don’t feel too g-good.”

  Jaycee kept an eye on her as she took the next step up the flight of stairs. Her knee buckled, threatening to throw her against the wall.