Star Cat: War Mage

by Andrew Mackay

  “She won’t stop growing,” Wool watched Jelly throw the Kevlar exo-suit over her shoulders. She pulled the cord from the lapel, enabling it to soak around her chest, arms and abdomen.

  “I like this,” Jelly said with her back facing the other two.

  “Does it fit okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  She lifted her right leg and placed her foot on the bed, forming a statuesque right angle which inadvertently revealed her impressive thighs.

  Wool held Jaycee back and took a step forward, “Honey? Are you okay?”

  “I said I’m fine.”

  The subtle croaking in her voice indicated otherwise. She tried her best to keep her cries to herself.

  Wool turned around and caught a pink tear welling in her eye with her knuckle. She afforded Jelly some privacy and grabbed the exo-suit leggings, “I’ll cut a hole open for your tail.”

  “No, give me it. You don’t know where the hole will be, yet,” Jelly cleared her throat and grabbed the waistline with her large paws, “Careful, don’t touch my claws.”

  “Okay, okay,” Wool joined Jaycee and watched Jelly yank the fabric out into a thin, Kevlar belt. She wrapped it around her hips, accentuating the muscles in her thigh.

  Jaycee’s hands shook at Jelly’s magnificence. He felt a sensation he was rarely used to. Standing before him was a woman who was his equal - or as damn near as could possibly be.

  A beautiful, striking creature.

  His eyes followed the fabric unravel down, away from her waist and down her thighs to her knees.

  Wool cast a wry eye at Jaycee’s face. She knew what he was feeling, and didn’t approve.

  “Jaycee—”

  He half-heard her as he ogled Jelly’s legs.

  “Jaycee. You’re not serious, are you?”

  “Wha—?”

  The fabric crept around her shin and soaked into her fur. She looked up in some discomfort and looked at Jaycee.

  His eyes traveled from her waist, past her subtle baby bump, past her well-endowed chest - accentuated all the more by the tight top - and, finally, to her neck and face.

  Both sets of eyes met quite by accident.

  “What are you looking at?” Jelly stomped right foot to the ground and brushed her tail, “Were you checking me out?”

  “No, no, I—”

  “—You were checking me out, weren’t you?” Jelly hissed at him.

  Wool buried her head in her hand, “Oh, God, don’t do that. You’ll make it worse.”

  Jaycee’s tongue hung out of his mouth. He didn’t realize it at first, but short of having a neon love heart strapped to his head, anyone could tell he was smitten.

  “I love it when you hiss at me,” he said.

  BOP.

  Jelly booted the bed off its wheels. She spread her claws out and poised to attack the man, “What the hell did you just say?”

  “Nothing. I didn’t mean—”

  “—Do you want me to kill you?”

  Jaycee looked at his feet and apologized, “No, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “God help me,” she scowled in pain and clutched her stomach. The pink shimmer of light from her abdomen pounded through the suit, “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  She staggered forward and slammed her paw against the wall. A spider web of cracks shot across the wall and coughed out a plume of dust.

  “Guuuh,” she cowed and doubled-over, trying not to be sick.

  Wool’s hands shook. The reality of Jelly’s predicament had major repercussions for the safety of the ship and its crew.

  “Honey, you’re getting worse.”

  Jelly lifted her head and widened her ashen eyes.

  “I’m not g-getting worse,” she growled, “I’m g-getting better.”

  She held herself against the wall and exhaled, blowing the dust from the cracks created by her claws, “Miew,” she whined, “My tail. Cut me open.”

  Wool raced forward and placed her hands on Jelly’s hips, “Where? Tell me.”

  “Right… h-here…” she tapped her infinity claw at the base of her spine, “Where it usually is.”

  Jaycee’s forearm buzzed to life and tore his attention away from the bizarre spectacle. He rolled up his sleeve and thumbed the ink toward his wrist, “This is Jaycee?”

  “Jaycee,” Tripp’s voice came from the pinpricks in his wrist, “This is Tripp.”

  “I read you, Tripp. Hang on, why are you whispering?”

  “We’ve docked with Charlie. They’re performing an audit and getting ready to take us home—”

  “—Meeoowwww,” Jelly whined.

  “Hold still,” Wool ran her hot thumbnail ten inches down the back of Jelly’s Kevlar leggings, “Nearly there.”

  “What’s that noise?”

  Jaycee lifted his wrist to his mouth, “You’re never gonna believe this.”

  “What?”

  “Anderson. She’s getting bigger. We’re trying to fit her with my back-up exo-gear.”

  Tripp ignored the comment, “Never mind that now. I need you to come and make yourself known to Charlie. They’ve sent these bizarre little droids on board but the actual crew haven’t docked yet. Getting kinda spooked, here, if I’m honest.”

  “On it,” Jaycee palmed the panel on the wall and opened the door, “Gotta love you and leave you, now. We’ve docked with Charlie and Tripp needs me on the deck.”

  “What?”

  Jelly’s tail whipped out of the hole and accidentally slapped Wool across the face.

  “Oww,” Wool cupped her cheek in her hands, “Jelly!”

  “Sorry, mommy.”

  Jaycee sniggered and shook his head, “I’ll leave you two to it. Leave your Individimedia on, Wool. We might need you.”

  “Ugh,” she spat a tuft of fur from her mouth, “Fine. Just get us home, will you?”

  Wool patted Jelly’s paw away from her shoulder, “Please. Be careful with your tail. You’re not a little pet anymore.”

  “I said I was sorry,” Jelly began to purr and made a cute face of contrition at her ‘mother’, “Sorry.”

  Wool squinted at her face and lifted her hand away. Her eyes suggested she was lying.

  “You’re not sorry, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if there’s one thing you’ve learned then it’s to lie convincingly.”

  “Lying is fun,” Jelly chuckled. “I didn’t mean a word I said.”

  Wool stepped through the open door and glanced at the window, “You’re getting weirder as well as bigger.”

  Jelly stepped after her, “Mommy, wait for me.”

  Wool focused on Saturn’s rings and raised her eyebrows, “Huh, that’s funny.”

  “What, mommy?”

  “The rings. It looks like Saturn is wearing a Decapidisc,” she shook her head and walked out of the room. “Speaking of which, where’s Tor?”

  Rest & Recuperation

  Space Opera Beta - Level Two

  A jolly muzak version of Swan Lake played in the gents bathroom.

  Tor sat in the first of five cubicles with his pants around his ankles. He grabbed the rail with his left hand and clenched his bowels.

  “Uggghhh…” his heels squeaked along the tiled floor, “Ohhh, no. I think I’m gonna pass out.”

  It looked as if he’d been swimming - the sweat smothered his face like a wet cloth. The veins in his temple bulged through his skin as he took a deep breath and squeezed once again.

  Then, his left forearm beeped.

  “Huh?”

  The ink swirled around into three, long lines, waiting to be answered: Tripp Healy.

  “Ah, God. Not now… ”

  Tor rolled his shoulders, cleared his throat and relaxed his muscles. He squelched the ink to his wrist with his shaking index finger.

  “Tripp?”

  “Tor?”

  “What is it? I’m kinda busy right now,” he winced in pain. “Can it wait a couple minutes?”

&n
bsp; “Where are you?”

  “I’m busy.”

  Tripp’s huffs of displeasure waded from Tor’s wrist, “Look, we’ve docked with Charlie. You’re meant to be liaising with them.”

  “I’m…” Tor groaned through his turmoil, “Not ready, y-yet…”

  “Are you in the Fit Room?”

  “No,” Tor burst into tears and drooled from his mouth, “I’ll be there soon. Just w-wait for m-me-oh-Christ-alive—”

  “—Tor? I didn’t catch—”

  He swiped the ink away from his wrist and slammed both hands on the sides of the toilet bowl.

  BLOICK-CRUNK!

  Something beyond evil occurred inside his abdomen. He kicked his feet apart and tore the waistline of his inner-suit legging apart with his ankles.

  “Gaaooooowww…,” he squeezed his eyes shut and tore the plastic off the toilet seat. A final squeeze of his stomach muscles was all it took.

  Tor’s eyes bulged out of their sockets. A blood vessel burst in his forehead.

  SCH-JUNTT-SPLASH.

  Then, an intense wave of relief smothered his very being. He’d released whatever had been causing the turmoil into the bowl.

  “Ohhhh,” he cried pink tears with insane joy, “Thank God.”

  He looked at the toilet paper dispenser and found that it was empty.

  “Damn it,” He brushed the empty cardboard tube and muttered to himself, “Does no one replenish the facilities anymore?”

  Against his better judgment, and with little option to improvise, he removed his left boot, rolled his sock off his foot and held it up for inspection.

  “Farewell, my friend.”

  Thirty-Eight Seconds Later…

  Tor dropped the used sock between his legs and into the toilet bowl. He bent over, grabbed his inner-suit pants and pulled them up his legs.

  The pain in his back had gone, too, much to his surprise. All in all, a very worthwhile trip to the convenience.

  “A comfort break like no other,” he smiled with relief and went for the flush. His face fell when he saw the contents of the bowl.

  “Eh? What the hell…?”

  A fleshy arm the size of a toilet brush wriggled around in the water, thrashing for dear life.

  SCHWIPP!

  A talon swung out from the end and scratched at the porcelain, trying to climb out.

  Tor gasped and slammed the toilet seat shut - right on the end of the limb. It squealed and kicked its talon around in pain.

  GROWLLL.

  Tor buckled over in pain and clutched his stomach, “Ooof,” He could feel something wagging from his behind. He squeezed his stomach muscles and put a stop to the commotion.

  “Nuuuhh,” he squealed, “What’s h-happening to m-me?”

  CREEAAAKKK!

  The material on his right shoulder snapped apart, pushing the skin and joints through the sleeve. “Oh my God, Nooo—”

  KEERRAAATTTCH!

  His arm burst apart, splattering the cubicle walls with pink goo. The sleeve tore off and slopped to the flooded ground.

  “Aggghhhh”

  A Shanta limb unfurled from the socket in his shoulder and swished out its talon.

  “Sha…sha…” Tor’s head shook around. His mouth flung a rope of pink gloop into the air. “Shaaaaantaaaaa—”

  Thinking fast on his feet - and then his knees - he lifted the toilet seat up, scooped the dead limb from the water and lifted it in the air.

  “Sha… shaaaaan…”

  He gargled through his tears and hacksawed at his shoulder with the talon. The large limb squealed and flailed around as he hacksawed the Symphonium-laced talon across his upper forearm.

  The razor-sharp edge punctured through the grotesque right Shanta arm.

  HACK-HACK-SLASH!

  “Nggggg,” he dropped the spent limb to the floor and slammed the toilet lid down on his newly-formed wrist. He planted his boots on the wall and tore himself away from his mutated arm, all the while keeping his weight pressed down on the lid.

  “Gaaaaaah,” the arm tore away from his shoulder socket and writhed around in pain.

  He slammed the lid down, trapping the vicious limb inside the bowl. The sound of talon-on-porcelain scratched and squealed from inside.

  “Take th-that, you Shaa-aaanta s-scumbag.”

  SLAMM-GROOWWLLSSCCHHH!

  He hit the flush handle, slammed his palm on his right shoulder’s stump and kicked the cubicle door open.

  The Bridge

  Alex and Nutrene pulled themselves along the weightless metal gantry.

  Alex spoke into his headgear microphone, “These outer-suits are kinda funky.”

  Nutrene burst out laughing when she caught sight of his USARIC-issued helmet skin. The thick, wet protective membrane looked like his face was melting.

  “You look like a waxwork that’s been left in the sun for five hours,” Nutrene said before realizing she must have looked the same.

  “Touché, Nutrene.”

  A rocketing sound occurred above their heads, forcing Saturn’s light away from them.

  Alex lifted his head to inspect the source of the noise. A giant fireball the size of Enceladus moved towards Saturn at a snail-like pace.

  “What’s going on up there?”

  “Is that Enceladus?” Nutrene’s voice came through Alex’s headgear.

  “It must be.”

  “What’s she doing?”

  “How should I know?”

  Alex grabbed the bridge railing and yanked himself further along. The front of his boot drifted a couple of inches from the grille, “I don’t want to hang around to find out.”

  Oxade’s voice chimed in with disdain, “When you two lovebirds are quite finished enjoying the view, do you think you could get on Beta and take what’s ours, please?”

  “We are, we are. But we think you should see this,” A pang of nerves socked Nutrene in the stomach.

  “What is it?”

  “Do you have a feed of Saturn and Enceladus?”

  “No, but I can get one. Why, what’s wrong?”

  “The moon. Well, one of them, anyway. It’s a fireball, like a raging inferno,” Nutrene widened her eyes and took in the scale of the spectacle, “It’s fantastic.”

  “Never mind that now. I’ve advised Beta team that you are en route. Go in, take the data download package from Poz, and get the hell out of there.”

  “Oh, uh… yes, of course,” Nutrene just about managed to tear her eyes away from Enceladus and focus on Opera Beta’s outer airlock hatch.

  “Nutrene? Come on,” Alex waved her over. “Let’s go.”

  “I’m coming…” she took one, final glance at the giant inferno rocketing towards Saturn.

  The Control Deck

  Space Opera Beta - Level One

  Neg watched Poz retrieve Beta’s data from the communications console via his arm extension.

  “Seven minutes until data transfer is complete,” he advised to anyone listening.

  Tripp watched the process take place with Jaycee. The pair were mesmerized by the technology on display.

  “So, this is what the future looks like?” Jaycee whispered. “Manning/Synapse ditches the human look and goes with a tin of beans?”

  Tor stumbled into the room looking for all the world like a shivering, bag of sweating nerves with post-traumatic stress disorder.

  Tripp, Jaycee, Manuel, Poz, Neg, and Jaycee turned around to see who produced the wretched gurgling.

  “Tor,” Tripp yelled, “Where have you been?”

  “S-Something’s happening to me, I’m s-sick,” he grumbled through his mouthful of saliva, “M-My organs feel so c-c-cold…”

  “Who’s this?” Poz asked, flippantly.

  “Oh, this is Tor Klyce. Our sort of communications officer,” Tripp clapped eyes on the sweating man properly, “My God, Klyce. Pull yourself together.”

  “I’ll b-be okay,” Tor’s doubled-over and almost vomited on the floor.

  Po
z knocked the swivel chair over to him, “Here, have a seat.”

  “Th-thanks.”

  Tor staggered across the control deck and turned around, thumping his behind onto the chair, “Owww.”

  “What happened to you?” Jaycee reached into his belt, preparing himself to blow the man’s head off.

  “I’ll be okay. I think I’ve caught some kind of space flu, or something,” Tor lied. He needed to keep his mutation a secret from the others, or else he was dead.

  “Ah, that explains it,” Poz rolled his head around and blink his eyebulbs, “The flu? Whatever it is pervading the atmosphere on this ship has clearly gotten to him.”

  “What do you mean?” Tripp spat. “Flu? Pervaded the atmosphere?”

  “Captain Healy, your ship is infected with whatever this pink gas is. If it’s even a gas, of course.”

  “Bleuurrgggghhh…” Tor pressed his only arm to his knee and spat a rope of pink drool to the ground.

  Tripp noticed Tor didn’t have a right arm now that he’d uncovered the stump, “Holy hell, Tor. Where’s your arm?”

  “I had to remove it. It malfunctioned.”

  “Malfunctioned?”

  “Where is it now?” Jaycee asked. “Don’t lie to me, Russian. Where did you leave it?”

  “Why-why d-do you c-care?”

  “When Baldron took my hand it fell to the floor and tried to attack him. It ran out of battery and flipped him the bird. You can’t leave Androgyne parts lying around—”

  “—It’s o-okay, I took c-care of it.”

  “Russian, huh?” Neg tucked the side of her head onto her cylinder ‘shoulder’ area and scanned Tor’s face.

  “Wh-what are you looking at?” Tor wiped the drool from his lips and complained to Tor, “Why is she looking at me?”

  “I dunno. It’s better than her making eyes at me for a change.”

  Tor spat another mound of pink phlegm to the floor, “You do all realize that there’s a giant cat on the loose who’s—”

  “—Oh. I know you,” Neg beamed and cut off Tor’s note of caution, “Viktor Rabinovich.”

  The sick man sat back in his chair, dumbstruck, “How do you know my name?”

  “Dummy,” Neg giggled in her childlike electronic voice, “Everyone knows you. You were assassinated five years ago. But, here you are, alive and well. Tut-tut. Bad man.”