Star Cat: War Mage

by Andrew Mackay

  GRUMBLE… BLUCK…

  “Ooophhh,” Tor bent over and clutched his rumbling stomach, “Th-thanks, Jaycee.”

  “I’m going to check up on Jelly and Wool. I’d stay near the bathroom if I were you.”

  “That damn c-cat,” Tor grabbed the railing and staggered down the step, almost losing his footing, “She c-can’t be t-trusted, you know. She has a k-killer instinct. She’s b-bigger than us, n-now.”

  Jaycee watched as Tor made his awkward and painful descent down the staircase.

  He shook his head and moved away, muttering to himself, “The grass ain’t always greener, I guess.”

  Medix

  Space Opera Beta - Level Three

  Jaycee entered Medix and saw Jelly sitting crossed-legged on her bed. Wool knelt behind her and brushed the cat’s hair with the golden comb.

  “Yes, Jaycee?” Jelly waited for a reaction. “Are you getting ready to take out the trash?”

  “Huh?”

  Jelly smiled at him and pulled her head forward as Wool brushed her hair back.

  Jaycee gripped the door frame, “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you two were—”

  “—What do you want?”

  He covered the vomit marks on his exo-suit chest plate with his gloves.

  “Just to tell you that Charlie is about to dock. Tripp wants us all ready to disembark.”

  Wool watched the teeth of the comb slide through Jelly’s bountiful orange hair. Every knot that burst apart filled her with delight and distanced the stench of bile that had entered the room.

  “What’s that smell?” Wool asked.

  “It’s him,” Jelly flapped her tail and lifted an infinity claw at Jaycee, “He smells of sick.”

  “Really?” Wool asked. “Have you been throwing up?”

  “No, it wasn’t me—”

  “—Can you leave us alone for a while, please,” Wool returned to Jelly’s hair.

  “I’ll be on at control if you need me. Sorry, again,” Jaycee stepped into the corridor and let the door to slide shut behind him.

  “Bye, Jaycee,” Jelly winked at him and wrapped her arms around her bent knees.

  SCHWUMP.

  The tiniest sound of the comb’s teeth racing through Jelly’s hair dispelled the otherwise silent atmosphere.

  Wool closed her eyes and moved her face closer to Jelly’s head. She pressed her nose against the strands and breathed in.

  “Mommy? What are you doing?”

  “Be quiet a minute, honey,” Wool’s heart filled with light as Jelly’s scent engulfed her lungs.

  “Mmm,” Wool felt a tingle roll down her spine. She whispered so quietly, she barely heard herself speak, “God… I love you so much. I hope you know that.”

  Jelly scrunched her face, wondering what was going on behind her. Playful to a fault and still childlike in her naivety, “Are we going home soon?”

  Wool waited a second to allow the last moment of wonder to escape her body, “Yes, honey.”

  “Why do you keep calling me honey?” Jelly asked. “Is it because I’m the same color as it?”

  “No, hon—uh, Jelly. It’s because you’re sweet. It’s a term of endearment.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  Wool resumed combing Jelly’s hair, “Don’t worry. Our friends from USARIC will be here any moment, now. We need to look nice so we can meet them, right?”

  She removed the comb and ran her fingers along Jelly’s scalp and brushed past her left ear.

  “Look at me,” Wool whispered.

  Jelly purred and tilted her head to the side. Wool’s knuckle ran through the fur on her cheek and down under her chin.

  “I like it when you do my chin.”

  The half-cat’s wonderful pupils glowed a dark orange. A mesmerizing sensation tumbled around Wool’s chest like a pair of sneakers in a washing machine.

  “God… look at you, Jelly Anderson,” she muttered, utterly confounded by the girl’s beauty, “You’re so beautiful. I look into your eyes, and all I see is love.”

  Jelly pulled a face of naive contrition, “I don’t know what to say when you say things like that.”

  “Then don’t say anything,” Wool pressed her lips on Jelly’s forehead, “Don’t say a word.”

  Jelly licked her lips as she received her kiss. She wanted an answer to a question that quickly formed in her head.

  “Do you love me, mommy?” Jelly looked up at her with adorable dough-eyes.

  “Yes, honey.”

  “Are you in love with me?” Jelly asked without a trace of emotion.

  “God, no,” Wool held her chest, troubled by the question, “Why would you think that?”

  “Because when I was with Jamie, his mommy always said how in love with his daddy she was.”

  “That’s not the same thing, honey.”

  “Why?”

  “Being in love with someone is…” Wool found the relatively easy distinction difficult to verbalize, “It’s not the same.”

  “Why?”

  Wool arrived at the simplest explanation available, “You wouldn’t want to have babies with me. Would you?”

  Jelly didn’t say no. She was over the prospect of sharing a child with her new mommy. Wool, on the other hand, was seriously hoping Jelly would say no.

  “Mmm. No, I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Wool exhaled and clutched at her heart, “But, uh, you do love your chicken pâté, don’t you?”

  Jelly licked her lips and providing Wool with an inadvertent reminder of just how sharp her fangs were, “Mmm, chicken.”

  “See?” Wool smiled. “The difference between being in love and love?”

  Jelly shrugged her shoulders and planted her bare, furry feet on the floor.

  “Not really. Sorry.”

  “Never mind,” Wool tossed the comb on the pillow, temporarily disappointed with Jelly’s innate ability to learn the essentials but flatly unable to process anything past nuance.

  Jelly turned around and held the bulge in her belly, “Do you think Pink Symphony was in love with me?”

  “I don’t know. What makes you say that?”

  The pink glow shimmied through her fur, “Because it gave me a baby.”

  Wool considered the statement very carefully.

  Jelly had a point. No one knew how the pregnancy could have happened, but, the end result was potentially an act of having made love.

  “That’s too strange to even think about, honey. All we know is you went in the water and came back pregnant. God, just saying it loud sounds crazy.”

  “I never wanted a baby,” Jelly lifted the bottom of the exo-suit up, “But now it’s here I’ve changed my mind. I feel like it belongs to me. Like I have to save it from harm.”

  “Whatever that is inside you, we must protect it,” Wool placed her palms on Jelly’s baby bump, “At all costs.”

  “Did you have a baby? Jelly asked.

  “No, sweetie. I wasn’t able to have babies.”

  “Why not?” Jelly asked.

  “It’s a long story, honey. I’m not able to have babies.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Wool ducked her head like a sad child, “It makes me sad.”

  Wool’s fingertips snaked across Jelly’s belly bump. The synthetic skin on the back of her hand cracked apart and spat pink gunk onto her wrist.

  “Ugh, you must have nicked me with your claw, honey.”

  “I didn’t.”

  The pair shared a moment. Both knew deep down inside that something wasn’t quite right.

  Wool shook her head and pointed at the wall by Jelly’s bed, “Let’s get a new measurement, honey.”

  “Okay.”

  Jelly walked backwards to the wall, “Do you miss Bonnie?”

  Her question caught Wool off-guard.

  “Press your shoulders against the wall,” Wool squeezed the thumb on her left hand as she marched in front of her. �
�Of course I miss her. Why did you ask me that?”

  Jelly pressed her back to the wall and yawned. Her ears and mouth stretched across her face, inadvertently revealing her fangs and bright orange eyes.

  Wool would never get over how horrific Jelly’s face looked when she yawned.

  “I noticed you stopped speaking to Bonnie before we went to war,” Jelly asked. “Why?”

  “I didn’t,” Wool dismissed the accusation and clocked Jelly’s height, “I didn’t feel like talking to anyone.”

  She looked at the height marks on the wall beside Jelly’s leg.

  3’3” - 4’6” - 5’4”

  The latter recording marked chest-high to Jelly.

  “You’ve grown so quickly over the past day or so,” Wool glanced at Jelly’s face, “Hold still a moment.”

  “Why am I growing?” Jelly asked.

  “We don’t know, honey. It’s something to do with the Symphonium.”

  “Sim… fow… knee… umm…” Jelly repeated.

  Wool tiptoed and pressed the fleshy part of her thumb on top of Jelly’s head. The sharp curve lit up and scored a line into the wall.

  “Height reading, please,”

  The mark on the wall throw a beam of soft, white light to the floor and calculated the distance.

  “Seven feet exactly,” advised the thumbnail.

  Wool paced back and took in Jelly’s towering height. A sickening idea popped into her mind. One that she felt couldn’t be repeated verbally.

  “Is everything okay, mommy?”

  Wool rubbed her face and tried to halt her emotions, “If you keep growing like this, it’s not good.”

  “Why are you crying?”

  “I’m not crying,” Wool lied and sniffed away her tears. “Honey, please. You need to stop…”

  Jelly didn’t know how to respond. She tried for a smile - a wry attempt to make her assumed mother happy once again, “Am I a big girl, now?”

  “Yes. You are.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Space Opera Charlie

  Alex opened his eyes. He didn’t recognize where he was at first. He felt something crawl across the side of his face.

  Whatever it was that touched him had an elbow attached to it. Alex ran his tongue across his lips. A thin layer of film had formed over the skin.

  “Where am I? What happened?” he whispered.

  “You passed out,” Nutrene’s reassuring tone drifted into his right ear.

  He looked up the length of the arm to find the woman smiling at him. Her scary monocle tore his gaze away from her lips.

  Alex felt the urge to grab his gun and defend himself, “Jesus, he tried to kill me.”

  “No. He didn’t. Oxade was just making sure you were on-point.”

  “On-point? He accused me of espionage,” Alex blurted, still reeling from the effects of escaping execution, “He sure has a funny way of making sure his crew are okay.”

  Her face crept over his. An undeniable heat rolled across her pupils as she stared into his eyes, “It’s okay, now. We’re about to board Opera Beta.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “Perfectly.”

  Without warning she planted her lips on his and kissed him. He didn’t fight at first due to the shock. The deeper the kiss, the more he felt the need to push her away.

  Alex clamped his hands on her shoulders and extricated himself from the unwanted attention. Nutrene wouldn’t stop and hoped Alex would sink into the event and enjoy it. Her palm slapped against his forehead and pinned the back of his head against his pillow.

  “Nggg,” he struggled and flung his head to the side. His lips yanked several ropes of saliva across his cheek.

  “Hey,” Nutrene’s monocle twisted around and focused on his face. She grabbed his hand and thrust it against her bare midriff, “Don’t you want this?”

  “No,” he shoved back and threw his legs over the side of the bed, “Get off me.”

  Nutrene jumped off the bed and rotated her monocle, “I guess we don’t see eye to eye, then.”

  “Very funny,” Alex stood to his feet and brushed himself down, “Anyway, I have a girlfriend.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “If you must know, it’s Grace.”

  “Ha,” Nutrene folded her arms in defiance. She threw her body weight onto her left leg, making damn sure her thigh was visible, “You know what they say about women who are named after adjectives, don’t you?”

  Alex turned away, “It’s not an adjective. It’s a noun. Graceful would be an adject—”

  “—Is she better than me?” she interrupted, taking offense at his dismissal and little interest in his ad-hoc English class.

  “What is it with you, Nutrene?” Alex stood up and ran his hands through his hair, “Ever since we met you’ve been making eyes at me—”

  “—That was a cheap jab.”

  She turned away in a huff.

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been looking at me. You’re meant to be focusing on the mission.”

  “We spend all our time killing on behalf of the government,” she tried to win him around with a sly wink from her monocle, “Make love, not war. Right?”

  “A bit of professionalism might help, here. Nutrene.”

  “Oxade was right,” she snapped. “There’s something not quite right about you.”

  “Really? How so?”

  “Just the way you’re behaving. You’re not like any USARIC merc I’ve ever met. In touch with your feminine side? Acting like a little fairy, more like.”

  “You’re screwed in the head. And that’s the only part of you that’s getting screwed if I have anything to do with it.”

  “Funny man, aren’t you? Alex Hughes,” Nutrene bit her lip and decided she couldn’t look at him any longer, “You can’t blame a red-blooded woman pining for some human contact.”

  “That’s the price you pay for dealing USARIC’s dirty work,” Alex made for the door with a steely determination to get the job done, “Don’t lecture me about right and wrong, Nutrene. You don’t know what you’re up against.”

  “What’s that meant to mean?” she screamed. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  “Assault them, Nutrene. Don’t assault me,” Alex finished and left the room.

  Primary Airlock

  Space Opera Charlie

  “No messing around. Just get on board and transmit your findings,” Oxade’s voice emanated through Poz’s head as he rolled toward the airlock on his cylinder.

  “I don’t intend to mess around, Oxade.”

  Poz turned down the walkway and saw Neg rolling towards him, “Would you hurry up, please?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Not good enough.”

  The front of Poz’s crescent body opened up and produced a cylindrical magnet.

  SPIZZZZ…

  It rumbled violently and shook the air in front of it, “Come on, we’re wasting time, here.”

  WHIZZ-SCHUNT!

  The magnetic force lassoed Neg across the walkway. The side of her body slammed against his magnetic plate. He released her and spun around to the first airlock door.

  “Oxade, we’re here. Can you open door A?”

  “Opening, now,” Oxade advised.

  The door slid open and allowed the pair into the chamber.

  “Standby for decompression.”

  The Control Deck

  Space Opera Charlie

  Oxade and Manny watched the giant three-dimensional holographic live feed of the airlock. Poz and Neg rolled into the decompression chamber.

  The first door slammed shut behind them.

  “Manny will attempt communication with Beta’s autopilot. The bridge will connect in sixty seconds.”

  “Understood,” Poz said.

  “Can you switch to 3-D representation, please.”

  A black
rod crept out from Poz’s scalp and fanned out into three prongs. Three transparent beams blasted around the decompression chamber.

  Oxade took a few steps back as the live feed developed depth, slinking out into a three-dimensional box.

  “Very good, thank you,” Oxade hit a button on the console. “Commencing decompression. Standby.”

  SWWIIISSHHHH.

  A blast of white gas flew out of the chamber’s walls and engulfed Poz and Neg. The glass-covered pressure inlet dial on the wall spun around.

  “Reminds me of the last time you farted,” Neg chuckled to herself through the blast.

  “I don’t fart.”

  “Guys, knock it off,” Oxade said. “Taking you down to zero point five, ay-tee-em,” he turned to Manny, “How’s the link-up with Beta?”

  “The bridging process is nearly complete,” Manny shuffled around in the air. A loading bar hung in front of her cover.

  Opera Beta and Opera Charlie hung side by side. Beta’s white bridge rails extended toward its sister ship’s airlock.

  CLAMP.

  Opera Charlie’s bridge end latched on Opera Beta’s. The two vessels connected successfully.

  “Connection secure,” Manny turned to Oxade, “Decompression set.”

  Oxade stepped into the three-dimensional image, effectively appearing alongside Poz and Neg, “Okay. Listen up. I want an atmosphere reading as soon as you’re on board. Second, we need to know who’s alive and, more particularly, where Anderson is.”

  “Understood,” Neg said.

  “Keep your feed transmitting at all times. Upon connection break, we will wait thirty seconds until advancement.”

  “Understood,” Poz said. “I will keep transmitting. Twenty second responder time.”

  Oxade stepped out of the image and held out his arm, “Manny, proceed with disembarkation.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Oxade winked at the pair of bulbous droids, “Good luck, guys.”

  “We don’t need luck,” Neg chuckled and turned to the outer airlock door, “Let’s go kill us some bad guys.”

  Primary Airlock

  Space Opera Beta

  Tripp checked his appearance in the airlock window. Poz and Neg rolled in tandem across the bridge, pausing occasionally to look up at Saturn.