Star Cat The Complete Series

by Andrew Mackay

  Home.

  Jelly Anderson held her right fist in front of her breathing apparatus and clenched her fingers together.

  The on-board computer knew her days - and hours - were numbered.

  “Jelly Friggin’ Anderson,” K-BOLT said. “We are one hundred thousand miles from Earth. I recommend you acclimate those in the hyper-sleep chambers and prepare for orbit.”

  Jelly’s chest heaved as her breathing slowed.

  She’d be damned if the view of Earth left her vision - a vision heaven she’d thought she’d never see again.

  “Jamie,” she whispered into her mask, “I’m coming home.”

  “Jelly Friggin’ Anderson?”

  Jelly blinked and turned to the flight deck, “What?”

  “Did you hear what I just advised?”

  “Yes. I heard you.”

  K-BOLT’s voice dulled. Its desire to inform the assumed feline pilot of the details wore thin.

  “We will be entering Earth’s atmosphere in a little under twenty minutes. Unless, of course, you wish to change trajectory?”

  Jelly looked at her claw-less right hand and clenched her fingers.

  “If you dare change our trajectory I’ll punch you so hard you’ll forget who you are.”

  Biddip-beep.

  “I thought as much,” K-BOLT offered. “Besides, it’s all academic at this point. We cannot change course at this time.”

  “Good.”

  Jelly faced the windshield once again and soaked in the comforting view of home once again.

  “Get us home.”

  “Understood. I will initiate heat shields. You may feel some discomfort as we enter the Earth’s atmosphere. I suggest you get into the payload area with your passengers.”

  Jelly took several steps back, careful not to bang her head on the flight deck door frame.

  “I’ll wake the others up. Get them into payload.”

  “Good luck, Jelly Friggin’ Anderson.”

  “Thanks, K-Friggin’-BOLT.”

  Jelly spun around and made for the back of the vessel.

  Jelly ran into the payload area and opened the compartment on the wall. Five oxygen masks hung inside.

  She only needed two of them.

  SNATCH — SWIPE.

  The heavy breathing units came free from the housing and dropped into her left hand.

  “Time to wake up and get the hell out of here.”

  She slammed the door shut and stormed into the hyper sleep area.

  Jelly lifted her shoulders and ducked her head as she approached the pods in the middle of the chamber.

  She lowered the two masks and caught sight of Alex J. Hughes’s sleeping face under the glass. The interior of his transparent slider had fogged up with a bizarre pink gas.

  Her daughter Furie’s pod was just as calm.

  Whose pod would she open first?

  It didn’t matter much to her. She crouched to her knees and slung the two masks over her left shoulder.

  Both her arms stretched out and grabbed the dial on each pod - Alex to her left, and Furie to her right.

  Switch.

  A perfect one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn sent the pods into decompression. The front panels slid down and released H2O into the airless chamber.

  Alex reacted first. No sooner had he opened his eyes than he felt his lungs begin to contract.

  “Guuuuh—”

  Jelly threw the first oxygen mask at his chest, “Hughes, don’t breathe. Put this on.”

  Instinctively, he caught it in his right hand and scrambled to pull it over his face.

  SCHWUMP.

  The mask sucked onto Alex’s face. The cartridge on the side fired up and funneled pure oxygen into his lungs, forcing him to splutter and wheeze.

  “Wh-what’s h-happening?”

  “Don’t talk, just breathe,” Jelly growled through her own breathing apparatus and shuffled forward on her knees to Furie’s pod.

  The little girl’s whiskers turned out and up as her eyelids lifted, “Muuuuh—”

  “—Shhh, honey. Save your oxygen.”

  She slid her palm under Furie’s head and lifted her forward.

  “Muuhhhh—”

  Furie tried to scream but couldn’t as her lungs had no air.

  “Shh, shh,” Jelly whispered as she threw the oxygen mask straps over her daughter’s bare shoulders and pressed the tube to her nostrils and mouth.

  SCHLUMP — SPRRRIISSSHHH.

  The gelatin mask stretched across Furie’s nose and mouth. The attached oxygen cartridge kicked in and provided her with clean air.

  “Good, good. Keep breathing, honey.”

  Jelly looked into Furie’s face as her chest expanded. The temptation to smile was hard to resist.

  “Better, honey?”

  “Huh, huh,” Furie’s voice waded under the mask, “Y-Yes, mommy.”

  A quiet moment fell between mother and daughter. Both were alive and well.

  “What h-happened?”

  “We’re nearly home, honey.”

  “Home? But where—”

  WHUMP.

  Alex slammed his bare feet to the floor and pushed himself upright. He lost balance for a brief moment and caught the wall to steady himself.

  “Why did you wake us up?”

  “We’re less than one hundred thousand miles from home, Alex.”

  His eyes lit up at the news, “We made it?”

  “Yes.”

  Jelly squinted at the young man standing before her dressed only in his briefs. He scratched his extended finger nails along his five o’clock shadow.

  “The beard suits you, you know,” Jelly quipped.

  “Ugh, I need a manicure.”

  “No time to get dressed, Hughes. We need to get into payload if we’re going to survive the landing.”

  Alex watched Furie climb out of her pod and into her mother’s arms. She’d barely changed since the last time he saw her which, as far as he was concerned, was only a matter of a few seconds ago.

  “How long were we out?” Alex asked.

  “Don’t ask.”

  He turned to face the girl in her mother’s arms.

  “Is Furie okay?”

  “She’s fine.”

  Jelly straightened her back with Furie in her arms. Alex almost had to lift his head right up to take in the sheer size of the beast in charge.

  “Jesus, Jelly,” he muttered. “You’ve grown.”

  “There’s something to be said for traveling in a bigger spacecraft next time we do this, Hughes,” Jelly said.

  The desire to protect her daughter swamped any notion of feeling sorry for herself. Alex remembered she was twelve foot tall when they left.

  How much had she grown since he and Furie had been asleep?

  Only time - and a different environment - would reveal the answer.

  Jelly’s shoulders threatened to scrape chunks of the ceramic interior away from the wall as she moved into the Payload area.

  “Come on, Hughes.”

  “Yeah, I’m coming.”

  Jelly tightened her shoulders and ducked through the door.

  The sight Alex had was astounding. A half-woman, half-tiger with a battered tail attempting to squeeze through the door. It felt as if her weight might throw K-BOLT off course if she shuffled forward much further.

  He spotted five battered infinity claws stabbed into the wall. Titanium rods that had once connected to her wrist twisted were now and eviscerated and caked in blood.

  A testament to how she felt about traveling alone.

  “Jesus,” he whispered. “She must have lost her mind.”

  He moved back and took in the artistic spectacle of her effort to record the time that had passed. Scores of scratch marks formed a pattern of the days and weeks she’d been alone.

  “Oh my God.”

  The individual blocks of five scratches formed a six-letter word with her five infinity claws stabbed in the middle.

  T
he word was USARIC.

  Alex didn’t know what to say, or how to respond. In that precise moment he even forgot who he was.

  “Hughes?” Jelly snapped.

  Alex snapped out of his daydream and turned to the Payload door.

  “Uh. Yes?”

  “You wanna go down with the ship? Or do you want to return to Earth with us?”

  “Oh, uh—” he tripped over his sentence. Going down with K-BOLT’s impending obliteration wasn’t an option. The only course of action available was to get into Payload with that cat - the same one who held a grudge against everyone, or so it seemed.

  “Snap out of it, Hughes,” Jelly growled with impatience. “I’ve had enough of this damn ship. Let’s go.”

  Nothing like the venomous insistence of a woman scorned to get this young man moving and taking action.

  He leapt through the Payload door and readied himself for action.

  Jelly strapped Furie into one of six available seats on the far wall of the payload cabin. She had to be careful not to dislodge her daughter’s breathing apparatus as the straps fastened over her beady, little shoulders.

  Furie’s voice shuddered through the mask, “Mommy?”

  “Not now, honey.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Things are gonna get a little rough, honey. So we need to strap in and be brave girls. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Furie looked at her lap and watched her mother slip the lower strap around her thighs.

  CLUNK.

  Jelly lifted her daughter’s face with her knuckle, “Furie, look at me.”

  The girl’s anxious eyes met with her mother’s.

  “It’s going to be okay, you know.”

  “Okay, Mommy.”

  Jelly snapped the strap taut and sat in the seat next to Furie’s.

  She lifted the shoulder harness and pulled it down her front. The contraption was much too small for her, but there wasn’t any other option.

  Riding without a safety belt would have been a suicidal mistake.

  “Nggg,” Jelly fumed as she tried to slip the metal into the lower strap’s housing. It wouldn’t reach far enough.

  Alex strapped himself in and slammed the red button on the wall, “Initiate payload, please.”

  A voice flew out from the speaker in the corner of the room. “Payload preparation complete. Checks complete. Heat shields set. Please remain seated.”

  Alex turned to Jelly to see her struggle with her harness, “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not okay,” she wailed. “It won’t fasten.”

  “Just hang on.”

  BEEP — BEEP — BEEP.

  “Warning,” announced the speaker. “Payload initiated for disembarkation.”

  Jelly gripped the handles on the side of the seat and braced herself.

  SCHWIPP.

  Her seat vibrated and formed a wet, spongy front which crept from under her feet, up her legs, past her waist and torso, and over the top of her head.

  SCHLUUUCK.

  “What’s going on, Hughes?” her voice boomed from within the soft cocoon.

  “It’s okay,” Alex said as he watched his safety slip crawl up the front of his and Furie’s body, “It’ll harden and protect us when we land.”

  “Mommy, I’m scared—”

  SCHLLLUUUUURRRCCCKK.

  Furie’s sentence muffled as the gloop ran up her face and breathing apparatus.

  Alex’s wet surface glazed over in the red warning light and hardened around him.

  “Here we go.”

  WHOOOOOSH.

  K-BOLT blasted into the first layer of Earth’s atmosphere.

  A dusty blanket of rubble pinged at the side of the vessel. Most of it shuffled away from the glowing orange around the spacecraft.

  The entire vessel lit up like an angry firework.

  “Please remain seated,” the voice advised within the payload area.

  “I’m trying, you stupid computer.”

  Jelly felt her ass lift out of her seat. The straps of the safety harness lifted into the air like weightless tentacles as she squeezed the edge of her seat.

  The Payload interior shook around like a violent food mixer, smashing Jelly’s feet to the ground and up into the air again.

  “Mommy, hold tight.”

  “I am, I am—”

  Her ankles punched to the ground as the ship vibrated to an intensity never-before seen.

  The detail on the walls shimmied back and forth, producing a God-almighty streak of white light.

  WHARK — WHARK — WHARK.

  “Christ, what’s that?” Alex said in an attempt to keep the contents of his stomach down.

  “Uggghhhh,” Jelly shut her eyes and weathered the pain in her legs as the interior rocked back and forth, “I c-can’t—”

  BLAAAAAAAMMMMM.

  A hellish rattle rocked through the payload chamber.

  “Attention, attention,” the speaker advised, “Commencing ejection. Please remain seated.”

  SCHWUMP — KERRR-AAAATCH.

  The payload door slid up and locked into place. Jelly slammed her behind into the chair and coiled the loose safety harness around her left thigh. Her wrist wrapped around the adjacent end, forming a bizarre tourniquet which held her steady.

  “Do your worst,” she screamed at the wailing alarms. “What are you waiting for?”

  Boom.

  Darkness.

  Jelly turned to Alex to find he’d passed out, slumped in his seat. Furie toppled to the left and drifted into unconsciousness.

  “Ngggg,” Jelly whimpered. “Please, help us God—”

  The glass in the bulbs blew out, blanketing the entire room in darkness.

  Much like her fellow passengers, Jelly’s eyelids turned to stone and cut off any sign of life.

  The last thing she felt was her tail bone press against the back of her seat. The last thought she had was they’d either died, or made it through the atmosphere. She settled for either outcome as she felt her organs turn to mush.

  Then, silence.

  Nothing but unfettered and unabated nothingness.

  Chapter 2

  R.A.G.E. Arena

  Laguna Vista

  (South Texas)

  Young Jamie Anderson knew something was happening as he ran past the holoscope and out into the barren R.A.G.E. waste ground.

  The mud around his shoes sprung into the air as he stopped at the fence by the Gulf of Mexico.

  “Huh?”

  WHOOOOOSSSHHH.

  Jamie looked up to see three American Star Fleet jets scream past his head. His eyes followed them into the horizon of the Gulf of Mexico, en route to that bizarre sight in the middle of the ocean - the tree that wasn’t a tree.

  A bright, white light blasted across the surface of the moon above his head.

  “Huh?”

  Sierra and Siyam ran through the door and caught sight of the spectacle, which stopped them dead in their tracks.

  “It’s them. It’s USARIC,” Sierra gasped. “They know something’s about to happen.”

  A rectangular line drew across the blue sky and sparked to life.

  PTCHOW — PTCHOW — KRAA-BLAAASSSTTT.

  A blast of pink gas exploded from a tear in the night sky and streaked down to the tip of the tree.

  A small black object tumbled out after it.

  “Is that a—spaceship?” Siyam asked.

  The streak in the sky sealed up as the object hurtled towards the water.

  Remy, Leesa, Roman, and Saad sprinted into the waste ground. The Russian boy pointed at the black thing careening towards the water.

  “No, no,” Remy stepped away from Roman and Saad, “That’s definitely a spaceship.”

  “It’s headed straight for the Gulf,” Sierra said. “Look at it.”

  An orange capsule blasted out of the back of the flying object and splashed in the water ahead of the hundred-strong cats swimming towards the tree.

>   “Suzie, come back,” Leesa shouted at the determined cats as they continued to breast stroke and meow.

  The spacecraft ran out of sight and disappeared into the horizon.

  Leesa gave up on trying to holler her cat. She turned her attention to the orange object falling from the stars, “It’s dropped something—”

  “—Like a parachute?” Remy asked.

  Jamie’s put two and two together and hoped he’d arrive at four.

  “Oh, my God,” he said. “It’s her, it’s her.”

  “Who?” Sierra asked.

  “Jelly.”

  Jamie clapped his hands together and jumped in his shoes.

  “She’s back.”

  Sierra held everyone back to allay their astonishment, “No. It can’t be.”

  Jamie stomped his foot to the floor and faced the gang, “Who else can it be? Aliens? I don’t think so.”

  Roman folded his arms as he watched the ASF fighter jets circle the tree in the middle of the water.

  “They seem to have a welcome party. Whoever it is.”

  Jamie, Leesa, and Remy turned their heads toward the middle of the Gulf. The jets circled around the tip of the tree as the colossal entity waded around and around.

  WHOOOSH.

  Two helicopters appeared from behind the clouds and blasted their lights on the side of the tree.

  The first chopper issued an announcement to the tree, but it was so far away no one could quite make out what it was saying.

  The second banked to the left and illuminated the falling black object as it splashed into the water.

  “Is that USARIC?” Jamie shouted.

  “That’s them, all right,” Sierra said.

  Jamie bolted forward, but Sierra grabbed his sleeve and kept him back.

  “Jamie, no—”

  “—They’ll kill her.”

  “There’s nothing you can do, Anderson.”

  The gang watched the second chopper lower itself above the violent waves that crashed over the orange capsule.

  Jamie squinted at something shooting out of the side of the second chopper. The lights at the front of the flying machinery dipped. The vehicle settled over the waves and pulled at something beneath the surface of the water.

  “Jelly Anderson?” Roman asked.

  Everyone turned to him for an explanation.

  “Star Cat Jelly Anderson?”

  Jamie nodded, “Yes. My cat.”