Zorroc: Feline Predators of Ganz

by Lil Gibson

  * * * *

  Something busily chewed on her toe while another something had entangled itself in her hair, gnawing on her ear. Syphors…no kittens. Spock and Scotty greeted Cat in their usual manner and there droned a consistent beep on her COM signaling a message that must have awakened her. The kitten's antics had become so familiar they no longer roused her. The aunts had managed this surprise, no doubt, in an effort to make her feel more at home. The mini-terrorists looked like two matching black spooks with perfectly round moss-green orbs. Spock had a tiny white tuft on his chest while Scotty looked pure black, even though she knew black cats were in actually a deep, deep mahogany. They had grown in the short time she had been away but remained as open and playful as always. If she hadn't known better, she would have believed they had actually missed her. She had certainly missed them. Finally, she acknowledged the persistent beckoning of the COM and rose to approach her incoming.

  As Zorroc proceeded toward his quarters, he could hear a gaggle of female voices chattering and giggling like schoolgirls and he knew the three friends had connected with each other again. Somewhat surprised it had taken that long; he surmised Carpov and Prolinc must have been keeping their women very occupied. He intended a confrontation with Cat to see if he could make things better between them and delve further into her Dargon confrontation. Something there was amiss. He had a niggling in the back of his neck that told him Cat would have been horribly used had they had deduced her identity. He would like to question her immediately but maybe gossiping with her friends would provide what she needed most, for the moment. Zazu knew what she would have to say about him but decided not to intrude anyway.

  Dee and Cat finished their accounts of the past week and now it became Angel's turn. She almost didn't know where to begin. How could someone’s entire being change in the space of a few days. Most of what she had to impart surpassed glorious but there loomed one thing she dreaded to share. It would hurt them. She decided to start with it and then bombard them with the good stuff afterward.

  "Remember Octapaws at the ed-center?" Angel broached, while focusing on the way Spock jumped and swatted at the proffered length of ebony hair she swished for his enjoyment.

  Dee and Cat exchanged matching blank looks. Of course, they all remembered that lowlife; he constantly laid in wait for a quick feel from a passing girl, and rumors had persisted of worse. They had tried, on more than one occasion, to get him fired but his brother, a trustee of the board, dismissed their complaints. Octapaws, however, being informed of the grievances, would retaliate by cornering the accuser and making her life a living hell. It proved a compelling reason for the three to stay glued to one another as much as possible. They found safety in numbers. Had Angel met someone like that on board the ship, where had Carpov been?

  "We remember, Angel, his clone is not lurking in the hallways, is he? I'd say the three of us could take him out easily these days." Cat tried for a little levity but at the somber expression on Angel's face, decided on the direct approach. "What brought him up?"

  "He caught me alone in the lab a few times. He raped me," she whispered, once more reaching into that dark pit that had not yet been totally cleansed by Carpov.

  "I knew we should have killed him when we had the chance. Why didn't you say something, Angel, we would have stopped him," Dee fumed while trying to grasp the importance of what Angel had just revealed.

  Angel lowered her lashes, her lips forming the half smile of a seraph, and then gazed at her friends with all the love in her heart. "I feared you'd succeed in killing him for me and spend the rest of your lives in jail. Then where would I be?" She sighed, working up to the real reason. "He said if I told, that you two would be next. I couldn't let what happened to me, happen to you."

  "Typical Angel, trying to take the lead sister role again. We could have dealt with him and kept each other safe, if only we had known. Never again, Angel, never again hold back on us," Cat threatened as she and Dee exchanged twin glances of guilt.

  They should have picked up on the situation by the changes in Angel, beginning about the time she turned thirteen; the cloudiness seeping steadily, over time, into her fathomless dark eyes. How could they have missed it?

  Because they remained innocent and naïve, thanks to Angel.

  She had shielded them and kept them safe with her own body. Then another thought occurred to Cat. "Why are you telling us this now, after hiding it for so many years?"

  With a wider smile she admitted, "Carpy made me do it; he told me you'd be pissed but would most likely let me live."

  Angel’s eyes, finally free of darkness, glowed like shiny black halos. At times, she embodied such ethereal goodness Dee wanted to weep. "Carpy…and you call him this because he carps at you worse than Cat and me?"

  "Uh-huh." She proceeded to fill them in on her life and love with 'Carpy', their progress relating to the FIS vaccine and her very full play of passions.

  "You know the aunts stayed with us on Jasper, don't you Cat?" Cat nodded and began rubbing Scotty's tummy; he was the more laid-back and affectionate of the two. "They want to see you and explain. They feel like they have become your real aunts and they love you; promise me you'll listen to them and give them a break for the deception, okay?" Angel implored, beseechingly.

  "They COMd me earlier but I was saved from answering when you two busybodies showed up. I guess I could visit them one of these days to hear what they have to say." Cat deflated like a balloon only to re-inflate like a blowfish and pin both of them with her best no-nonsense glare. "You do realize that the reason we are all here is because Marie and Helen set me up, don't you, and as a result entangled both of you in the snare," Cat cast back, determined to score one last point in this already lost battle. "We emulated a small school of minnows swimming merrily into the net, not realizing it would end the world as we knew it and our freedom, as well," she ended with the flair of a splashy triggerfish.

  "Yes," Angel sighed, "and I don't know how I will ever return the kindness."

  "At least they feed us well," Dee added.

  "Probably just fattening us up for the kill," Cat concluded.

  Everyone believed Angel the 'brainy, aloof one', 'The Ice Princess'. If they only knew the truth. In actuality, she was as shy as Dee was brassy and kindhearted to a fault. Like now. Not the shy part of course, the shy part disappeared when she got to know you and morphed into the bossy part. Bossy and kindhearted, who could win an argument with someone like that? Only a sycophant, whose main enjoyment in life involved drowning little kittens, Cat grumbled the last part almost silently to herself.

  Dee and Angel exchanged a conspiratorial nod; the aunts would be jumping out of their tennies. They all needed the aunts, they represented the only family the three of them had known in a very long time and had become an integral part of their lives.

  * * *

  The aunts were euphoric and ecstatic to see Cat; and nervous, apprehensive, agitated, flustered, and all together ruffled.

  Cat felt better already.

  They launched into a soliloquy of how they transported the kittens and kept them safe; how they gave notice to Cat's employer so they wouldn't worry about her; then followed this revelation by saying that they hadn't given Angel's company notice on purpose. Let them wonder what had happened to her. They would probably conclude that she quit and left the state, which is exactly what she should have done when that mess began with one of the owners of the company. After everything she'd already endured with men, well, they deserved to worry and wonder whether she intended to speak with an attorney about a sexual harassment suit.

  It took them about another fifteen minutes to finally wind down to a blessedly silent, pregnant pause. Clearly, at a loss as how to proceed, the two went Gattonian still and fixed twin gazes on Cat. That's when she noticed it. They had matching tawny cat-eyes.

  She couldn't help herself. "What happened to your eyes, they used to be brown."

  "Well, dear," Helen cast an anxiou
s look at her sister, "these are the real color of our eyes; when we are on earth we wear contacts to blend in."

  "That must have been extremely uncomfortable for you, considering the length of time we lived under the same roof together," she observed politely.

  "You're damn straight it was," mumbled Marie.

  "Oh my, this isn't going very well at all," Helen messaged to her sister. Catarina was a fey little creature with too much openness, enthusiasm, and naïve generosity. The three friends had raised each other and done a fine job of it but there remained missing pieces in each of them. They needed an anchor to firmly bind them together as a family and she and Marie had, long ago, determined that they would be that anchor.

  They had decided to fix the three girls' lives as best they could and had been working diligently toward that end. They hoped Cat would let them stay in her life long enough to finish the job. She was a member of their family now, as were Angel and Dee, being extended sisters to Cat.

  Cat observed 'her aunts' sitting too still as if waiting for some invisible axe to fall. They looked like two peas in a pod, literally. They reached no higher than five feet…and were plump. Well, maybe a little plumper than plump. They currently looked like two overfed, colorful Prairie pups propped together on the sofa that lined their quarters in an L shape. She had to let them off the hook.

  "Zorroc told me he sent you to evaluate my suitability as a mate for him. I understand that you had no choice but to carry out his plans. I also know that my parents, if not the instigators, certainly facilitated the plan." She improvised, determined to clarify her parent's exact role in this dilemma.

  "All the people of Gattonia were contacted for potential fertile females. You belong to a High House with noble blood and therefore were considered the strongest possibility. Your parents knew this and, indeed, put your name into the hat, so to speak. They will be very proud that you mated with our leader," Marie explained in logical terms.

  "So, given a choice between duty and daughter, they chose duty. Is that the gist of it?"

  "They thought you would be pleased once you got used to the idea, dear, they didn't mean to hurt you with their decision," Helen suggested, in an effort to comfort their charge. Cat had a distressed, pinched expression with too large eyes and, not for the first time, the aunts wished that Rowan and Nancia had just once put their daughter before a mission.

  Cat had a tinkling concern hovering behind all else that had occurred. What would happen to Habi-Cat and its occupants now that they had departed? Who would be there to fight for, feed and protect them and keep them safe from needles, electrodes, deadly injections, and meat-grinders? She needed to know. Euwitti could not be allowed to succeed. "What of Habi-Cat?" she finally voiced.

  The aunts, at first startled at the change of subject, smiled brightly. "Oh well, dear, I think you could say we wet Cecil's wick and soon it will be as rotten as the rest of him; with the world watching it all. It turns out that Dr. C. Euwitti has another use for animals other than those stated. He apparently enjoys having conjunctional relations with them, as well, or so the photos will depict. The un-retouched photos."

  Cat stared, stupefied, viewing her aunts in a completely new light. "How?" she croaked.

  "Where there's a will, sweetheart, there's a way," Helen beamed. "I just wish we could have stayed for the show," she sighed. "I guess the reports will have to suffice. This will not guarantee the safety of pets, by any means, but at least the movement will have been discredited for a time. One of our people has taken over the Habi-Cat to make certain your charges are protected. Have no fear, Cat, we have taken care of everything."

  Cat loved these two incredible women. They may not be her true aunts, but they certainly remained the aunts of her heart.

  Marie decided that the time had come to change the subject. "What of you and Zorroc, is he making you happy?" she asked, knowing almost certainly that he was not.

  Cat squirmed under the aunt's avid attention. Well, it had been the primary reason she decided to visit sooner rather than later. "He’s fulfilling his obligations to his people and to me but he doesn't…I’m merely another responsibility heaped on to his many others; I feel like yet another millstone around his neck. I had hoped you could tell me if this is Gattonian normal for mates or whether I am doing something wrong," she finished in a soft whisper, refusing to meet their eyes.

  "Catarina Achilles, you will stop that this instant. You are much more than a responsibility to Rocky. We raised him from an infant and know more about him than any other living soul and he cares for you deeply, he just doesn't know what to do about it…or you," Marie hmmphed looking an awful lot like an older Merryweather in Sleeping Beauty.

  "He’s made it clear that I am nothing more than an obligation. A baby-making machine to preserve his family’s holdings and status, and to populate future generations. Where do you get that he cares anything at all for me, beside my bloodline and reproductive capabilities," Cat demanded, eyes direct and hands clasped together.

  "Maybe he doth protest too much," Helen suggested while giving her a moment for her comment to sink in. "Has he told you anything about his family; about how his parents died, dearling?" Helen ventured, not sure how to present the trauma that Zorroc had undergone at too young an age, but then, any age was too young to loose a parent, let alone both before you gained maturity.

  "I know that you are his aunts, he mentioned a sister briefly but he hasn’t spoken of his parents. I assume his father is dead or he wouldn’t hold the rule; aside from that, he hasn’t shared his life with me. We’re like sexually mated strangers and frankly, I am at a loss as to how to proceed from here." She blew a wayward curl away from her right eye before proceeding to jump out of her seat and dart from one end of the room to the other, pausing briefly to collect her thoughts and proceed. "One moment he is impossibly gentle, kind, and attentive; like he truly does care for me, but in the next he's spouting bloodlines and procreation with no emotional attachment in evidence. He turns himself off completely. Can you tell me what I have obviously missed?" she pleaded, not sure where the aunt's loyalties lay.

  "Child, we will do all we can for both you and Zorroc; we love you both. Our sister, Zorroc's mother, died when he was thirteen in childbirth but successfully delivered a girl child named Nadia. It was over quickly and it devastated both son and father. Shortly afterwards, Zion, Zorroc's father, seemed to succumb to a wasting illness and lost the will to live. We believe that Zorroc blames the love that his parents shared to be the cause of his father's eventual death four years later.

  "During his father's illness Zorroc came to sexual awareness. In all of his relationships he never became personally involved. They consisted of unions based on uncomplicated sex. We kept waiting for him to progress into more rounded relationships, incorporating friendship and respect but that never materialized. We believe that he sees love as a great weakness to be avoided at all costs instead of the strength it provides to make one stronger. The more drawn he is toward you the more he retreats. We know this will prove to be quite a challenge for you but one you will meet successfully. A little patience will go a long way in this particular situation and even though we know patience is not one of your stronger points, we are depending on you to win him over with perseverance and love. You do love him, do you not, otherwise, why would you care about his changeable moods." Marie looked inordinately pleased with herself after this latest observation but Cat was grateful for the confirmation of what she’d begun to ascertain herself. She and Zorroc actually had a great deal in common. She’d never experienced emotional ties with someone of the opposite sex and, for all his sexual prowess; it seemed, neither had he.

  "I love him," she admitted, "…and you!"

  Cat returned to her quarters with renewed determination and purpose. The time had come to take her tiger by the tail and yank, then hold on for dear life. She prepared for one hell of a ride. She COM’d Angel to learn about acquiring tactical armor. A formal dinner, he
ld to honor the Earth females, had been set for that evening and Cat wanted a dress to stun some sense into her Gattonian. Angel COMd the simple instructions back to her and Cat proceeded to procure a dress to die for.

  Amethyst and demure in the front with a high neck, long sleeves, and covering everything down to her toes; the back, in contrast, presented a different picture entirely. The material clung to her shoulders but was backless, exposing her shoulder blades, the delineation of her firm contours almost to the crack of her behind and showing off the dimples dotting either side of the base of her spine. It shimmered and flowed down to her strapless three-inch heels, which completed the outfit. She let her hair flow freely to play peek-a-boo with her back and took extra care with her make-up. As she clasped on the final addition of dangly earrings, the panel of their quarters slid open and she turned to face her heart-stopping male.

  Zorroc's heart skidded at the sight before him. She appeared more confection than human and she was his. Her hair billowed around her like a live entity. The color of her dress set off her emerald eyes to perfection. He had never seen her dressed thus and it took all of his considerable control to keep from pealing it off and skipping dinner in favor of a more enjoyable meal. From the look in her eyes, he did not think she would object. Then a nasty thought occurred to him. Whom had she dressed for? It would not be him; he had destroyed her blossoming affection with his last barrage of careless banter.

  "You look…" he croaked and cleared his throat, "you look like a treasure," he finished, feeling every bit the untried youth.

  She smiled gratefully and replied, "Thank you. You look good enough to plunder me at will." Then she turned around and faced the mirror for a last check on her appearance.