Sierra folded her arms and found the report difficult to watch, “Look at him with his white teeth and stupid, silver hair.”
Rana chuckled, “Ha. Yeah.”
“Smug douchebag.”
“Hot douchebag, though.”
“Ugh,” Sierra winced. “Really? Sleeping with the enemy. Makes me wanna vomit.”
Santiago continued with his report, “As we approach the five-year anniversary of USARIC’s ground-breaking Star Cat Project, the questions are inevitable. What really happened? Who, in fact, joined the crew of Space Opera Beta? Moreover, just who knows what the hell is going on? Stay tuned to Viddy Media channel one-one-eight to find out more—”
“—Okay, that’s enough,” Noyin clapped his hands together, “Get rid of him. I don’t want to see his stupid face.”
Sierra snapped her fingers and grabbed her thumbnail from the arm of her seat. She clipped it back onto her thumb and turned to Jamie for a reaction.
Rana ran her knuckle across her cheek and collected up a sliver of transparent goop, “Speaking of which, I need to get this stuff of my face. It’s starting to harden.”
She walked out of the cabin and made her way to the restroom at the back of the plane.
“Be quick. We’re due to land, soon,” Sierra turned to Jamie and sized him up, “You see that report, Anderson?”
Jamie attempted to process the information from the replay, “Yeah.”
“We got to you just in time.”
A million questions bubbled in Jamie’s mind, “What—who?”
Sierra felt her patience drain away.
“Imagine if you had been at home, or at school. They would have swarmed you.”
“But, but—”
“—Jamie. They know,” Noyin said. “Everyone knows.”
“Knows what?”
“That Jelly went to Saturn with Opera Beta,” he huffed. “Are you really that slow?”
Jamie leaned back into his seat and closed his eyes, “I can’t believe this.”
“Well, you’d better believe it, young man. It’s a fact.”
Jamie slammed the armrests, “This isn’t my fault. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Noyin stormed over to Jamie’s chair and gripped the armrests, “Listen to me, you little turd.”
Jamie yelped as his oppressor’s face moved closer to his, “No, don’t hurt me—”
“—Do I look like someone who would hurt a child?” Noyin fumed, taking great offense to the boy’s allegation.
“Y-Yes?”
Sierra let Noyin release his anger with the child. Anything to speed up the friend-making process.
“You’re an ingrate,” Noyin barked at Jamie. “We’ve gone to all this trouble to protect you, and you’re—”
“—You kidnapped me. Took me away from my mom and my sister and my dad.”
Noyin chuckled evilly, “He’s not your real dad, though. Is he?”
“How do you know that?” Jamie looked at Noyin’s big arms imprisoning him in his seat, “Get off of me.”
He lifted his knees up and booted the man in the chest, pushing him across the cabin.
“Ooooph.”
“You don’t know jack about my real dad.”
Jamie jumped out of his seat and ran over to the cabin door. Then, he remembered where he was - thirty-thousand feet above the fluffy, white clouds.
“Ugh, you asshole,” Noyin recovered from his attack and pointed at the cabin door, “What are you gonna do? Open the door and try to escape again?”
Jamie looked through the window, mournfully.
Sierra held Noyin back with her arm, “Okay, that’s enough. Look at him. He’s scared out of his mind.”
In that very moment, Jamie climbed out of childhood and stepped into adolescence.
He had little choice in the matter.
Emily had borne the brunt of both her and her son’s actions five years ago. There was no question it had landed Jamie in serious trouble. As he looked at his captors, he wondered who’d go to the trouble of snatching him and transporting him what surely must be thousands of miles away?
No escape.
No answers.
No time to pity himself - not anymore.
Jamie turned to Sierra with immediacy, “Tell me what’s going on?”
“Okay, Jamie,” Sierra turned her left forearm up and pushed the ink around her skin, “You wanna know what’s going on?”
“Are you really that slow?” Jamie spat with sarcasm.
Noyin frowned and shook his head.
“Yes, I want to know what’s going on. I want to know why you’ve kidnapped me, and where we’re going.”
Sierra held her Individimedia Ink in front of Jamie’s face. The ink swirled around to form of a man in his thirties.
A chiseled jawline, and with bright blue hair.
“You know who this is, don’t you?”
“It’s Handax Skill,” Jamie nodded. “I know him.”
“Shortly after your real father died, your mom got you Jelly. Handax delivered her to you. Some rescue kitten, or other.”
“Yes, I know him. He checked up on her from time to time.”
Sierra lowered her arm, “Past tense, Jamie. You knew him.”
“Huh?” Jamie asked, puzzled, “How can I knew him? I know him—”
“—He’s dead, Jamie,” Sierra affected a very serious tone as she sat into her seat.
“Dead?”
“Murdered,” Noyin thumped the cabin wall with frustration, “Him, Leif, Moses, Denny. All dead. All gave their lives fighting for the truth.”
“Huh? Who are they?”
Sierra offered Jamie a seat opposite hers, “Sit down, Anderson.”
He obliged the woman, careful not to bang his leg on the table that separated his seat from hers.
“A couple of years ago, Handax and some of the People Against Animal Cruelty broke into USARIC’s animal compound.”
This was news to Jamie. Exciting news.
“Why?”
“Because, Jamie, sometimes big companies do bad things,” Sierra explained. “A few years ago, one of USARIC’s commanders, a guy named Tripp Healy, discovered that the household cat was responding to something called Saturn Cry. A distress call sent from Saturn. The discovery was a complete accident.”
“How did he find out?” Jamie asked.
“We don’t know for sure, but it’s not important. What is important is that USARIC decided to hold a contest to find the best cat for the task. And I think you know who that was, right?”
“Yeah,” Jamie whispered.
Sierra held her hands out, hoping Jamie would take them, “Take my hands, Jamie.”
He chewed over the offer, and eventually relented. He slipped his fingers across her palm and saw the sincerity in her face.
“A couple of years ago, Handax and three of his team broke into USARIC’s animal compound. They believed the bosses there were abusing the animals. They wanted to stop them.”
“Did they?”
“Get in, go everywhere, steal everything,” Sierra continued, “That was their mantra. Yes, they found what they were looking for.”
“What did they find?”
“Unbelievable,” Noyin walked away from the pair and shook his head, “Cavorting with the perpetrator. Why don’t you two get a room?”
“Hey,” Sierra barked at him and squeezed Jamie’s hands, “Someone around here needs to show Jamie a little empathy right now.”
Noyin pointed at Jamie’s face and huffed, “Who, him? You want me to empathize with this little brat? He’s the whole reason we’re in this mess.”
“It’s not his fault,” Sierra spat back and shooed Noyin away before returning to the young boy.
Jamie smiled at her, at once realizing she genuinely wasn’t the bad guy in all this.
If she was, it was a damn good act.
“What did they find?” Jamie asked.
“They found Bisoubisou’s body
. They found most of the runner-ups in the enclosure. They hadn’t been returned to their owners.”
Jamie’s hands lilted in hers. She knew the information would kick him in the gut, but now was the time to grow up and face the facts.
Jamie became upset, but found the strength within to remain mentally intact.
“All of them?”
“I’m sorry, Jamie,” Sierra smiled as politely as she could. “One of Handax’s friends, Moses, absorbed as much information as he could from the animal compound data bank. We managed to retrieve quite a lot of it, but it was scrambled. USARIC killed all our friends, including Handax.”
“USARIC killed them?”
Sierra looked at Noyin. He stared back at her with a small grin, acknowledging her success in winning the boy around to their side.
“Yes, Jamie. They did,” Noyin offered.
“It’s taken our team a long, long time to decode the data that was sent from Moses’ data transfer,” Sierra continued. “About a month ago we made a fantastic discovery.”
“What did you find?”
“We’ll reveal what we found when the time is right. After we’ve issued USARIC our ultimatum.”
Jamie squeezed her hands in solidarity, “Do you know where Jelly is?”
“Yes. USARIC sent another ship to go and get them. One of our team went with them, but the crew of Space Opera Charlie don’t know his true identity.”
“Really?” Jamie jumped in his seat and let go of the woman’s hands, quite to her surprise. It was clear to Sierra that Jamie might have gotten the wrong end of the stick.
“Jelly’s alive?”
“Yes, but we don’t know what happened to Opera Charlie, yet. We’re waiting to hear from Alex—”
“—Oh, wow,” Jamie hopped onto his seat, his inner five-year-old making a wild reappearance, “I knew it. I bloody knew it.”
“Get off the seat, Jamie.”
“Bloody?” Noyin said. “Those damn British and their stupid words.”
“Jamie, listen. There’s so much more you don’t know. And you’re not going to like much of it.”
Noyin rolled his shoulders, “Ain’t that the truth.”
Overjoyed, Jamie calmed down and took a deep breath. Finally, someone knew that the love of his life was definitely alive - in his mind, at least.
“Where is she?”
Chapter 7
Primary Airlock
Space Opera Charlie - Level One
“Where are you?” Jelly yelped as she bolted down the walkway, on the hunt for Opera Charlie’s Primary Airlock.
She’d forgotten, for a moment, that she wasn’t on Space Opera Beta for a moment.
“Tripp? Jaycee? Ugh, why are there no signs on this stupid ship?”
Jelly turned a left corner quite by accident and saw both men huddled together.
A wave of suspicion fell across her face as she approached the pair. They acted strangely, almost as if caught red-handed.
“There you are,” Jelly huffed. “Manny said there was an explosion outside. What’s going on?”
“Miew,” the white kitten called out from Tripp’s arms, allowing him to change the subject.
“We, uh, have your baby, Jelly,” he said. “Jaycee took care of her.”
“Give me her,” she held out her paws and took her second daughter in her hands.
The two men smiled as they watched Jelly sniff around her baby’s belly. Tripp caught sight of the bloodied and smashed inner airlock hatch and slid in front of it to obstruct Jelly’s view. He looked at Jaycee’s thigh compartment and bit his lip.
“We heard an explosion, don’t tell me you guys didn’t hear it,” Jelly lifted her head and glanced at Tripp, who held his gaze at Jaycee’s leg, “Why are you looking at his genitals?”
“Huh?” Tripp looked up at Jelly and cleared his throat. He stepped back against the hatch, “Explosion?”
“Yes. Fifty yards from the ship.”
Jaycee moved aside, forcing her to look away from the busted inner airlock hatch.
“Oh, okay. We wondered what that noise was. We heard it, too.”
Jelly turned to Tripp and slid her baby into the crook of her elbow, “Healy? Shouldn’t we go out and investigate?”
Tripp couldn’t have acted more guilty if he tried. Jelly could see in his face and general demeanor that something was seriously amiss.
“Well, uh, we’re just waiting for Manny to come back to us with a report—”
“—Why are you sweating, Healy?” Jelly squinted and moved her face closer to his, “You seem hassled by something.”
Tripp shook his head and felt his skull heat up. Had Jelly busted him? Was it worth the risk to tell her the truth and risk getting killed?
No, as it turns out.
“I’m n-not hassled, Jelly. I just don’t feel too well.”
Jelly looked him over and wiggled her nostrils around his face, “You look fine to me.”
Jaycee cleared his throat, wanting to interject, “Tripp?”
“Yeah?”
“Maybe we should just tell her?”
Tripp’s face fell as Jelly’s curiosity piqued. He hung his head in shame and moved forward, revealing the bloodied, broken hatch window behind his head.
“What happened to the door?” Jelly shoved Tripp out of the way and sniffed around the shards of thick glass, “Blood?”
“Look, Jelly. There’s no easy way to tell you this, but—”
“—But what?” Jelly’s heart began to thump. The scent from the blood wasn’t that of a human. “Tell me, Healy.”
Jaycee nodded at his Captain, “It’s for the best, mate.”
CREAK.
The walkway rumbled slightly, but not enough for the crew to notice. The lights shimmied off and on for a brief second - again, unnoticed by all concerned.
Jelly lost her patience as Tripp stumbled over his decision to tell her what she needed to know, “Tell me. What do you know that I don’t?”
“Now, don’t get angry,” Tripp said. “But, when we crashed here, we—”
CRREEEAAAAAAAKK.
The walkway rumbled again, this time twice as loud and violent. The walls shook for three seconds. The cause of the commotion was occurring outside.
“What was that?”
BZZOOOOOOWWWW.
The lights snapped off in a split-second. The emergency strip lights snaked down the sides of the walkway, offering little in the way of light.
“Power’s off,” Jaycee said as the airlock lit up from inside. “Manny? Alex?”
“They can’t hear us,” Tripp scanned the ceiling.
THUD-BOOOOOM.
“Jesus,” Tripp flinched and looked over his shoulder at the airlock, “What the hell was that?”
The walls vibrated like pneumatic drill.
Jelly clutched her daughter to her bosom for protection.
“Miew,” the kitten squealed, frightened out of its fur.
“Shhh, honey,” Jelly whispered. “Mommy will look after you.”
RUUUUUMMMBBLE-SCHTOMP-SCHTOMP.
“Guys?”
A tinny voice came from Tripp’s wrist, “Opera Charlie Team. Does anyone read me?”
Tripp lifted his Individimedia to his face and stepped away from the airlock with the others.
“Yes, Alex? This is Tripp. Something’s happening down—”
“—I know, I know,” Alex interrupted. “There was an explosion outside about two minutes ago.”
“Yes, we know.”
“There’s something approaching Primary Airlock One.”
Jaycee unhooked his Rez-9 from his belt. Tripp spotted him and grabbed his wrist.
“No, wait,” Tripp spoke into his forearm, “What do you mean something approaching?”
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.
The ship rocked back and forth, followed by a heavy gurgling noise, like that of a congested air passage trying to breathe.
“It’s big. According to the drone, there’
s more than one of them. I advise you seal off the walkway and get back to control till we figure out what the hell is going on—”
A God-like grunt reverberated along the walkway.
Then, a sound of sucking, which morphed into a deafening, guttural sound.
“Mah-shta-zee-tah.”
Vicious-sounding animal howls flew through the shattered airlock glass and into the walkway.
“We gotta get out of here,” Tripp yelled.
“No,” Jelly roared.
Tripp and Jaycee reached the end of the walkway and yelled after Jelly, “What are y-you doing?”
She remained by the airlock, not wanting to escape. If anything, she wanted to investigate the source of the commotion even further.
She lowered her head, and held her baby up at Tripp.
“Take her.”
“What?” Jaycee blurted, keen on getting as far away from the event as possible, “Are you crazy?”
“Yes,” Jelly whined as her ears flicked.
“Mah-Shta-Zee-Taaaaaah,” the voice from outside bellowed, this time conforming to the intense draught blowing in through the airlock window.
SCHTOMP-SCHTOMP.
The walkway shunted forty-five degrees to the left, turning the floor onto its side. The shift in gravity forced Jaycee, Tripp, and Jelly to slide against the far wall.
“Something’s out there,” Tripp spat. “It’s attacking the ship.”
“You don’t say,” Jaycee quipped with sarcasm and laid eyes on Jelly once again.
She stepped toward the airlock and peered through the window, “Hissss.”
“She’s seen something,” Tripp hollered after Jelly, “Don’t go out there—”
“—Take care of her.” She hurled her daughter up the walkway, knowing Jaycee was adept enough to catch her.
The kitten tumbled through the air, rocketing towards Jaycee’s open arms.
WHUMP.
Jaycee caught the kitten and yanked Tripp by the arm, “Okay. Let’s go.”
“What about Jelly?”
They both turned to the airlock. The door was open, and Jelly had walked through.
“She can look after herself, I guess. Curiosity seems to have gotten the better of her.”
“Jelly, don’t go out there.”
She turned to him and scowled, “No. I want to go out.”
Tripp turned the corner and tried his best to keep upright walking along the slanted floor, “Alex, this is Tripp. Are the comms still down?”
Star Cat The Complete Series Page 76
