Star Cat The Complete Series

by Andrew Mackay

  “Jesus,” Alex waved his hands, “Slow down, you’ll crush all the equipment.”

  He ran to the right-hand wall and tried to wave the tank to a stop, “Jaycee?”

  “Yeah, what is it?” his voice came through Alex’s headgear, “Can’t you see we’re busy?”

  “Stop, slow down. You’ll hit the equipment—”

  VROOOM-CRASHHHH.

  The conveyor on the truck pushed into the stationary pod and shattered its glass frontage.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Alex ran up to the side of the tank and thumped it with his fist, “Slow down. Be careful.”

  The tank rolled over the pod and busted it clean apart with its weight.

  “Uh, Alex?” Jelly shouted from the turret a few feet above. She pointed at the open door and the approaching wolves, “Uh, they’re coming?”

  BANG-BANG-BANG.

  Alex gasped and rammed the side of the tank, “Jaycee, Tripp. Get out of there, now.”

  “I’m coming, I’m coming,” Jaycee pulled himself through the tank’s roof hatch and joined Tripp and Jelly in the turret cage.

  HOWWWLLL-ROOAAARR.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Jaycee reached into his belt and pulled out his Rez-9, “Guys, get down. Now.”

  He aimed down the sight and blasted three wolves in the head. Their carcasses blasted into the air and slammed down on the rest of the pack.

  “Go. Now.”

  Alex raced to the front of the tank and palmed the safety catch on his D-REZ, “Manny? Why aren’t the doors closing?”

  “The link-up is delayed.”

  “Oh, amaziant,” Alex quipped with sarcasm and lifted his D-REZ at the approaching horde of wolves, “Close the damn doors.”

  “I’ve already sent the command,” Manny insisted through their headgears.

  “You’re useless.”

  Alex yanked on the trigger.

  THRTAA-TATA-TAAAAT!

  A torrent of bullets rocketed from left to right, taking out more and more of the wolves.

  SCHPITT-SCHPLATT-CRACK.

  The front row of wolves exploded in a gory miasma of flesh, teeth, and blood. Alex released the empty clip to the ground, reached into his belt, and slotted in a fresh grip.

  “Guys, get back,” Alex ordered as he took aim at the approaching beasts once again.

  Jaycee jumped from the top of the tank.

  WHUMP.

  He landed feet-first and joined Alex with a Rez-9 in each hand, “Actually, Jelly, Tripp. Stay up there in the cage. It’s the safest place.”

  GRRRRIIINNNDD.

  The door to the Motary began to close - slowly. The sound of metal on hardened ceramic was ear-piercingly loud.

  The next row of wolves stormed forward, kicking dirt and mud into the air as their claws unhooked from the ground.

  Jaycee screamed at the top of his voice, “Come and get some, you ugly bastards—”

  BLAM-BLAM-BLAM.

  Jaycee’s bullets dispatched five wolves, pushing their bodies back over the carcasses of their previously-slain cohorts.

  “Manny?” Alex yelled, “Please tell me the door is operational.”

  “Yes, it’s closing. Did you notice?”

  Alex turned to the wheels at the door frame as they spun around, folding the door down as slowly as it could.

  “Damn it, it’s not quick enough.”

  Alex fired another round of shots.

  Five of them climbed up the building mound of animal corpses launched themselves into the Motary.

  BLAM-BLAM-BLAM.

  Jaycee shot each one out of the air, rendering the ferocious hounds of hell into bursting blood-filled balloons.

  “Get out of here, now,” he stepped back with Alex as they tried to fend off the marauding beasts of hell.

  The door slid towards the ground, preventing most of the beasts from getting inside.

  SNARL-GRRRRRR.

  Three of them lowered their fronts to the ground and splayed their limbs out flat, trying to push through.

  Jelly grabbed Tripp’s one remaining hand and pulled him away from the tank, “Get to the back wall.”

  GRRRIIINNNNND.

  One of the wolves slipped through the closing gap and raced up to Jaycee.

  “Who’s a good boy, huh?” he aimed down his sight and squeezed the trigger.

  CLICK-CLICK-CLICK.

  Jaycee’s gun was empty, “Oh, shi—”

  ROOAAARRR.

  The wolf pounced into the air.

  Alex swung his body around and yanked on the trigger, “Jaycee. Duck.”

  Instead of ducking, Jaycee covered his face with his left arm, “Nooo.”

  THRAAAA-AA-AAATTT.

  Alex unleashed fifty bullets from his D-REZ, tracing the wolf’s trajectory. The Motary side wall shattered to pieces as the bullets chased the beasts’ hind legs.

  CLIP-SCHPLATT.

  The next bullet caught the wolf’s foot, chewing through its flesh and splitting the bone. The paw burst away from its arm and rocketed towards Alex’s face.

  “Noooo.”

  SCHWIPP.

  The claws on the severed, flying paw scratched along Alex’s mask, tearing most of it away from his face. He screamed and twisted his body around, all the while spraying bullets at the rest of the wolf.

  The final bullet punctured its body, twisting it around in the air and out of Jaycee’s path.

  Jaycee finally crouched, hoping he wouldn’t be murdered in the process.

  SCHLUMP.

  The freshly-executed wolf’s body slammed against the wall and slid down the surface toward the ground.

  GRRRR.

  The rest of the wolves shuffled forward under the closing door, stuck between one another, still hungry for blood.

  Jaycee lifted his arms away to see Alex remove the empty clip from his D-REZ.

  He took a brief moment to swallow and catch his breath, “Thanks, man.”

  “Anytime.”

  Alex went for a fresh magazine, but was out of ammunition, “Damn. I’m out.”

  “Your mask.”

  “I know, I know,” Alex chucked his spent firearm to the floor and felt, for the first time, a blast of pure air against his face. He didn’t have time to enjoy the freeing sensation, however.

  HOWL. BARK-BARK.

  Alex and Jaycee turned to the door as it closed shut - right onto the heads of several wolves who became jammed together in the tussle to enter the ship.

  The pair turned away in disgust as the door crushed the wolves’ heads into the ground.

  GRIND. SCHWUNT-SCHPLATT.

  Alex winced and tried not to watch, “Oh, man. That’s just nasty.”

  Angry howls and murderous banging occurred from the other side of the hatch. The wolves wanted in, and weren’t going to relent any time soon.

  Jaycee stood up straight and dropped both Rez-9s to the ground, “I’m out, too.”

  Alex nodded at the dead wolf by the wall, “What are we gonna do with him?”

  “Leave it. It’s dead,” Jaycee yelled over the commotion coming from outside. He turned around and ran over to Jelly and Tripp, “Right, we need answers.”

  “Too right,” Tripp looked at Alex to find him staring at the dead wolf’s eyes, “Hughes?”

  No response.

  Alex froze on the spot. He tried to process what had just happened, and entered a state of near-catatonia.

  “Hughes?” Tripp repeated.

  Alex snapped out of his daydream and turned to Tripp with a confused and frightened look on his face.

  “Uh. Yeah?”

  “Let’s go. Back to control.”

  “Oh. Okay,” Alex cleared his throat.

  Tripp noticed that the young lad’s arms were shaking. Jelly and Jaycee saw it, too, but didn’t have time to empathize - at all.

  “Pfft. Newbie,” Jelly huffed. “Hey, Alex.”

  He scooped up the remains of gelatin with his fingers and flung them to the floor, “Yes?”

 
“Stay away from me. I’m toxic.”

  Alex took a deep breath, acclimatizing himself to his facial freedom, “I know, you said already. We have no masks left.”

  “I’m serious, Hughes,” she pointed around the Motary in a state of anger, “You think with all these guns you got, you can kill anything you don’t like?”

  Alex blinked, awaiting a response. He’d never been told off by a feline before.

  “What if what you don’t like is inside you?” Jelly palmed the panel on the wall and opened the door. “How are you gonna shoot it, then?”

  She stormed out of the Motary in a huff, leaving Tripp and Jaycee to fill in the blanks.

  “She has a point, Hughes,” Tripp moved off with Jaycee.

  Alex spotted Tripp’s busted wrist, “What happened to you?”

  Tripp nodded over at the dead wolf carcasses and, “They did.”

  Alex hung his head and stared down at his feet.

  He felt his heart calm down despite the wild uproar outside the ship.

  A strange moment in his young life, for sure. Surrounded by death and a peculiar situation no one would ever believe if he’d told them.

  The wolf carcass began to freak him out. Quite incidentally, the head and eyes stared straight at Alex.

  It was time to leave the Motary and get some answers. Alex exhaled, rolled his shoulders and walked through the door…

  ***

  A smoking battleground lay a quarter of a mile away from Opera Charlie. It may as well have been a canine cemetery.

  Scores of dead wolves scattered amongst mud and sludge. A fine mist formed a few feet over the ground from the battle that had taken place.

  The wolves that were lucky enough not to have been killed traipsed around, sniffing at their dead brothers and sisters.

  One of them looked up in the darkness. A huge shadow covered the view of Saturn, blocking the reflective light from its face.

  It whined with mercy and pawed at its dead sibling.

  SCHTOMP-SCHTOMP-SCHTOMP.

  The gargantuan beast loomed above the wolf and looked left, then right. Eventually, it stood into the light.

  Mastazita, in all his glory.

  Twelve feet tall.

  A twisted and metallic nightmare-fuel of a beast.

  A tiny cracking of bones could be heard with each minuscule movement.

  His face was that of a wolf - or, at least it could have been.

  An extended jaw with six upturned bullet-shaped metal fangs, and a curious thin, vein-strewn webbing holding the bottom half of his face to his cheeks.

  A much smaller wolf ducked its head and let out a pathetic whelp in reverence for Mastazita.

  The giant moved its right foot forward and crouched to its knees. Sections of the grounded spaceship Jelly had found were wrenched and folded around Mastazita’s arms and legs.

  A very convincing attempt at a suit of armor.

  Cyrillic writing adorned its ‘shoulder armor’, fashioned from the wing of the ship.

  Mastazita ran his colossal paw over the wolf’s head, trying to calm him down.

  It worked.

  The wolf seemed to purr as he made a fuss of the padding in Mastazita’s ‘palm’, careful not to hurt itself on his master’s claws made from the gears of the spaceship.

  Mastazita moved his head to the carcass on the floor.

  He slid his paw underneath its shoulders and lifted it a few inches off the ground.

  Its neck had been snapped.

  Sniff-sniff… snore.

  Mastazita pulled the carcass to his face and sniffed around. A deathly liquid-gurgling noise billowed out through its face as it took in the dead wolf’s scent.

  Something strange, and unfamiliar.

  A scent Mastazita despised in that very instant.

  A scent indicating that a new oppressor - or prey, at least - had made itself known on their turf.

  Mastazita’s heart beat faster and faster. The blood rushing through his arteries and veins may well have been gunpowder.

  A tumultuous feeling of anger and hate rumbled through his body. It had yet to display fully, but the scores of scared wolves knew that it was only a matter of time before their master would erupt.

  Mastazita stood up straight with the broken-necked wolf in his arms and held it out at arm’s length.

  ROOOAAAAARRRR!

  Slowly, he lifted the slain lump of furry flesh toward Saturn, above his head.

  An offering to the Gods that should have protected them.

  “Muhhh,” he roared. “Shta—zee—tuuuh.”

  The wolves stood on their hind legs and howled at their fallen friend resting in Mastazita’s paws.

  Finally, he tilted his head up to the giant, ringed Goddess in the sky and expunged his anger. A giant, planet-shattering roar of hell, accompanied by the howls of a more than a hundred wolves.

  Mastazita released the dead wolf from his clutches. It spattered against the mud as he, and the wolves, headed for Space Opera Charlie.

  Chapter 12

  USARIC Headquarters

  Cape Claudius, South Texas, USA

  Rana drove the van off the freeway and joined a slip road.

  The giant complex hung in the distance

  She peered into her rearview mirror, “Okay, guys. We’re on the approach. Get ready.”

  Sierra and Grace stepped into their USARIC suits and zipped them up.

  “God bless Alex Hughes,” Sierra held her arms out and turned to Grace. “How do I look?”

  “Like a nasty mercenary,” Grace turned to Sierra and palmed the last goop of Black Gold to her cheek, “How do I look?”

  “Like one of them,” Sierra lifted her machine gun and watched Finbow inspect the empty cages in each corner of the van, “Are the cages locked and ready?”

  “Ready,” Finbow unlatched both of them and unhooked his firearm from his belt. He pointed to his face and turned his cheek to Sierra, “Am I fully covered?”

  “Let me have a look,” Sierra stepped up to him and noticed a dry spot on his chin. She scraped some Black Gold from her brow and plastered it under his lip, “Missed a spot.”

  “Damn it.”

  Rana yelled over her shoulder as the van approached the security gate, “Guys, get out of sight. We’re on.”

  Grace knew Finbow struggled with his nerves. His hands were shaking.

  “Hey, stop that. Look at me,” she said. “Do it, look at me.”

  The look in his eyes told Sierra everything she needed to know. He was deathly afraid of what they were about to do.

  “Finbow, listen. We’re in, and we’re out. No one has to die, you know—”

  “—I know, but—”

  “—No buts, my friend,” Sierra squeezed his shoulder. “When we’re in, you just have to unlock the doors and usher them into the cages.”

  “Okay.”

  “I don’t get it,” Sierra said. “You were perfectly fine with kidnapping Dreenagh?”

  “I didn’t need a gun for that, though,” Finbow muttered.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Grace squeezed her shotgun and licked her lips, “Leave the big boy stuff to us.”

  A USARIC mercenary stepped out of the security kiosk. He waved his circular drone over to the giant sliding gate, just behind the yellow prevention bar.

  “Stop, please.”

  Rana rolled down the window and brought the van to a gentle halt, “Hi.”

  The security guard peered through her window with suspicion. There wasn’t much to see save for the facade of tins of food behind her shoulders.

  “Clearance papers, please.”

  “Sure,” Rana reached onto the passenger seat and presented him with her ID and a single sheet of paper.

  The security guard checked over the image on the card and tilted his visor to her face. She couldn’t see his eyes on account of the reflective black glass covering his face.

  Rana closed her mouth and kept an eye on the drone as it buzzed down and thre
w a red light over the front of the van.

  TRING.

  “Vehicle authorization. Four-four-niner,” announced the drone.

  The gate slid along its ground rails as the yellow bar lifted into the air.

  The security guard passed the documents to Rana and stood back, “Have a good day, citizen.”

  “You too.”

  She threw the stick shift into first gear and rolled on through the gate.

  A quick sigh of relief expended her nerves, “We’re in.”

  “About damn time,” Sierra said. “Back up to the west quarter.”

  Rana pressed her finger to her ear, “Okay, we’re in. Siyam, do you read me?”

  Interstate I-608

  Ten miles north of Cape Claudius

  Siyam reversed the Mack Truck onto the freeway’s side verge. Dozens of MagCycles zipped along both magnetic strips on either side of the road.

  “Yes, I read you. In position, now.”

  “Good. Will advise when we’re out, standby.”

  Siyam scanned his surroundings. The I-608 underpass loomed in the distance, and the traffic had begun to build up.

  “Be quick, Rana. We don’t have all day.”

  Rana spun the steering wheel and drove along the airstrip, “Animal compound dead ahead.”

  “Good, back the hell up and let us out.”

  “On it.”

  Sierra knocked Grace’s arm and threw her a sly wink, “Here we go, get the doors ready.”

  Grace moved to the double doors at the back of the van and gripped the handle, “Standby.”

  Finbow couldn’t help but clock all the various USARIC employees milling around outside the hangars. It didn’t help to allay his fear of the mission.

  “Jesus Christ, there’s hundreds of them.”

  A giant mega-vehicle with USARIC written on the side rolled past them. It looked like a huge tank designed to kill.

  “My God. What’s that?”

  Sierra pulled him away from the window, “Damn it. Stop freaking out and concentrate, you dummy.”

  Finbow’s sweat threatened to clear away the Black Gold from his face. “But. But—”

  “—Extra security measures. That’s why we left as soon as we did, before they all get here.”

  A roar from a fighter jet screeching across the sky made Finbow jump in his shoes, “Oh, God. They know. They’re going to trap us—”