Star Kitten

by Purple Hazel

Zorgs who captured Schpleeftii office staff, Pokonji laborers, or Human mining engineers in the terminal, delighted in torturing them to death and even staged bizarre circus-like events where they dragged screaming, terrified, defenseless beings out to be slowly burned to death, impaled on stakes, or skinned alive until their bodies bled out. Spleef Nausties were quick to connect this Zorg behavior with the repulsive Zorg delicacy of eating infant rodents (Warden Ggggaaah for instance, was reported to have kept a small mouse cage in his office for occasional snacks).

  Pumalar Security Troops, when wounded and captured, were humiliatingly bound to big tables and SHAVED from head toe by cruel Naustie Earthers or Spleefs. Then they were forced in some cases to duel each other to the death with only clubs or daggers in a makeshift arena constructed out of the lobby of the main terminal.

  The arena spectacle was downright disgusting. It was degrading, and offensive too. Thousands of Nausties attended these Roman Gladiator-style “games”, as the Nausties came to call them. And these various offenses gradually led to former rival gangs becoming once again resentful toward each other. After all, shaving a Warrior Cat’s fur removed his family breed identity, so when killed in the arena, he died in shame, by Pumalar standards. In the afterlife, when his soul had left his body and went to Fukuoka, as Pumalars called Heaven, he’d not be recognized by his ancestors, and this was a grave insult to the slain warrior.

  Warden Ggggaaah was executed for all to see as well, not long after the final battle in the terminal. This occurred about a week after his surrender. In a fate befitting such an evil and arrogant being, the Nausties merely dragged the fiendish captured Warden out of the terminal building and onto the center of the outside retractable cavern roof. They tied him to a post and just left him out there to die of exposure in the searing heat of the Rijel 12 afternoon, with temperatures soaring into the 150’s by midday. His stripped lizard-like body roasted in the sunlight until it turned white and scaly, burning and flaking off him as he suffered in the heat. By the next morning, after temperatures had plunged into the teens the night before, he appeared dead. The Nausties merely left him out there to rot and disintegrate. No one felt like going out to retrieve his body.

  But on that first day, literally thousands watched from inside the safety of the tinted windowed main terminal as he pitifully kept looking to the sky on occasion for rescue from Interplanetary Authority forces. He’d look up searching the sky mournfully, then squint his lizard-like eyes in the oppressing sunlight, wincing and bowing his head in agony. He groaned and cried out every once in a while, struggling to breathe in the thin air, while painfully baking in the incredible heat. It was a horrifying death that many witnessed and absolutely no one would ever forget.

  It was the end of an era. An end to not just the life of their tormentor and captor, it was technically the end of the rebellion itself. After all, with the final capture of the entire five square mile terminal facility, there were warehouses full of high quality food, gallons of purified water, kitchens, comfortable barracks, new clothing, and sanitation facilities that many Nausties had not seen the likes of in over a decade.

  Gang leaders sensed the need for stability again; and began re-forming their membership; as military units disbanded and Nausties returned to their original territories within the mine network. Some even moved into sections of the Service Tunnel near newly discovered Food Warehouses which were located every few miles throughout the globe; and spider-webbed across the planet. One big problem had now been eliminated: The Nausties had won their freedom. But with the victory came two new sources of conflict; and both were caused by the elimination of the prison system, as well as the atrocities committed after the victory….

  Cultural insults remembered from the aftermath of the battle led to minor squabbles between gang members. Memories of the ill-treatment of captured Security Troops, mining engineers, workers, or office staff in the Arena, led to resentments between rival gangs. Resentments led to minor squabbles. Minor squabbles led to open conflict, and gang members occasionally teamed up to avenge some of the things done to their fellow species in the Arena.

  Now skilled at warfare, and now also experienced with military organization, many gangs which were made up of the same species, began to return to their identities as gang members, no longer seeing themselves as fellow Nausties and comrades of all newly liberated prisoners on the planet. It was only natural, after all. There was no common enemy anymore!

  Architeuthis was the SPIRITUAL LEADER, not the military commander anyway. That meant his job as the inspiration for the rebellion had already been performed. He was no longer needed as the supreme leader of the planet’s army. No army was necessary any more either. General Hicks was dead, and there was no need to name a successor. Warden Ggggaaah had been defeated.

  Gangs re-formed as military discipline faded away and all Nausties searched for some sense of normality again. The mine and the guards ironically had been the only source of structure in their previous lives in the first place. Without the mine labor, and the production quotas to determine who got to eat and who might die, there would have been no need for the formation of gangs in the first place. So now, with the planet completely captured and beings competing with each other for captured plunder, the gangs took on a brand new role. Members now needed protection more than ever. Hoarding supplies after the fall of the prison system became the new mode of survival for gangs.

  It was now time for species of the same origin to become protective of their own kind -with the exception of the Schpleeftkorkii tribe, of course. This was nearly the oldest gang on the planet, and it was made up of many different species, but that was rare on New Australia. Most other gangs were all from a single species. And gradually rivalries began to develop or re-emerge. Both old ones and new ones, that is.

  Disputes occurred over access to supplies, territorial dominions, and then control over distribution. Then these disputes evolved into organized confrontation. It was only natural after all, given the barbaric nature of their existence; and the violent circumstances of the achievement of their independence. The gangs had always fought for their survival, then they’d fought with the guards for their freedom. The only thing left for them to do now was to fight each other… for the only two things left on New Australia that had value: Food and Water.

  Fights over food depots, terminal storage facilities, and also the recently discovered massive food warehouses located throughout the global service tunnel, evolved out of the need to reestablish gang "territories" after the fall of Warden Ggggaaah. Some gangs were stronger than others. Some gangs merely became absorbed into other stronger gangs. Some merely got wiped out entirely. But as about fifty major gangs rose to the top and began vying for complete control, the planet gradually began to descend into a devastating civil war.

  Amazingly enough, after all they'd gone through by uniting together to defeat the prison authorities; they still fell into the natural trap of fighting for their own survival at the expense of the planet’s future. This is precisely what Warden Ggggaaah predicted would happen to the rebels eventually. Just like mutineers on a pirate ship, they’d eventually distrust each other and kill off one another until only a handful of ragged survivors remained.

  The leaders of the bigger, stronger gangs knew that only those gangs who controlled the most resources, could then vie for power over the whole planet. Yet they knew in their hearts… it was a zero-sum game. To capture resources meant war with other gangs, and engaging one gang in battle, meant becoming vulnerable to attack from another.

  This foolishness and depravity went on for many months. It was incredible how quickly things degenerated. The heroism and sacrifice demonstrated by so many Nausties so very recently, meant nothing now with the harsh reality everyone had to accept: that the planet, almost a year later, had only a limited amount of food, and no central governing authority to control its equal distribution. What had happened instead was tens of thousands of warriors fighting for control of i
t all. Alliances were formed, and then broken. Truces would be established, then violated. Shared control agreements would be penned by a few warring gangs and a little progress would be made; but with no real means of proper enforcement, those agreements failed to secure any kind of global peace.

  It was over a year before the top fifty gangs finally began to realize that if they didn't stop fighting over food depots and warehouses, they might very well starve out the entire planet and then everyone would die. Controlling access to the limited amount of food ON the planet would soon mean nothing. Even with tens of thousands dead from fighting and starvation already, there was still only a limited amount of food left on the planet for still a very large population of Nausties to have to share. They had to stop all the fighting immediately and band together once again; otherwise the entire planet would die out.

  It really almost seemed like it would eventually come to that, at one point; with rival gangs beating each other to a pulp; only to have another gang sweep in to capture the spoils. It was like they knew better, but just couldn’t come to terms with the harsh truth about what they were doing to themselves.

  A very similar bizarre thing occurred on the planet Earth way back in the 23rd century. Like many industrial age planetary cultures, Earthers had learned to burn their own planet’s fossil fuels to generate power to run their machines, appliances, devices, and vehicles. But climactic change occurred on Earth, which was exacerbated by the carbon dioxide emissions from burning these fuels; sending the whole planet into centuries of violent weather pattern changes, rising sea levels, and gradual extinction of both plant and animal species. Governments at first denied there was a problem, while scientists warned of disaster to come. The public for the most part remained oblivious to the truth or didn’t really want to believe it. Each generation merely left the problem to the next one until finally the net results were becoming overwhelmingly clear.

  Starvation followed years of massive climate change and repeated crop failure. Governments toppled. The nations of the planet warred on each other for control of limited resources, rather than coming together to devise solutions. Dictators and tyrants rose and fell. Armies fought and killed and destroyed and wiped out entire regions of the planet. Nothing was accomplished. Just thousands and then millions of deaths, until the few surviving nations of the earth joined together and instituted massive reforms in the way food and electrical energy were produced and distributed.

  Populations were redistributed via forced emigration programs, and females were limited to a single offspring per household to control overpopulation. Massive space stations were developed too for the mass production of crops in floating perpetual Galactic hydroponic farms. Even the dietary intake of Earth citizens was controlled and dictated by central governing bodies to avoid overconsumption and conflict over shortages. Within a few decades, the whole planet had changed considerably, with some coastal cities located near oceans ending up being abandoned entirely to the rising sea; and populations settling into the interior of the continents to reestablish society and begin a new civilization.

  Now New Australia was going to have to make some tough decisions just like Earth did all those centuries ago. And the first order of business was a general cease fire.

  When The Schpleeftkorkii gang, who'd been protecting Architeuthis all this time, came forward to seek peace with a neighboring Pumalar gang, the Smilodons, it created a chain reaction of several gangs throughout the planet calling a global armistice to resolve their differences. Everyone was exhausted. Food supplies which once seemed endless, now seemed to be dwindling. And there was nothing noble about it either…. Gang leaders knew very well it would be their own heads on the chopping block, if they one day couldn’t feed their own memberships.

  A territory map was created using the Warden’s old planetary network blueprints. These incredibly detailed maps were used to determine borders; and Architeuthis himself came out of hiding to develop a new system of government where all the gangs could send representatives to a brand new “Parliament” as he called it, located inside the main lobby of the old terminal complex. They actually even used the site of the old ARENA used by the Nausties for “entertainment” after the capture of the main terminal. Nearly a thousand captured Security Troops, mining engineers, and office staff had been put to death in this place. Architeuthis felt it was important to teach a lesson here by reminding his violent and barbaric comrades of what they should strive to be; and what they should avoid becoming ever again.

  But he even went one step further, to give all Nausties a new basis for identity. The gangs were now to be called TRIBES; and the Parliament took on the format of a planetary confederation. Not a full democracy of course, but more of a loose alliance of tribal governments tied together by a common need to survive on a planet that had no ability yet to grow crops on its forbidding surface.

  This first parliament met nearly night and day for over one earth month. Each tribal delegation was given its own quarters within the old Security Forces barracks; and Architeuthis had only one demand to be placed on all of them: No weapons of any kind were allowed inside. And everyone observed his request, out of respect for their spiritual leader. Food was brought in daily for the delegates to eat; but then they all agreed to be locked inside their barracks rooms at night so they could actually feel safe from each other.

  Heated discussions often developed during the parliamentary sessions, but Architeuthis presided over every session, allowing member delegates to express their personal feelings and ideas freely. Debates were often intense; but no one needed to be reminded just what was really truly at stake: the planet’s own survival.

  Once the basic rules and systems of borders and territories were established, the second big order of business became literally to "get back in business". And by that, what they all really meant was this: The Mining Business. There was only one way they could get food to feed their planet, and that was to trade for it. Everyone recognized that. And the only things they had to trade, were mineral ore, crystals, and precious gems. They all quite immediately agreed and it was all quite simple after that. Each TRIBE would go back to its newly established territory, and put its tribal membership back to work. And each of the fifty tribes would send a hundred workers each to clear out the massive dirt ramp from the terminal loading bay.

  They would need that Earth Cruiser, after all! The Anarchy was now their only means of interplanetary transportation….

  And so, after all the violence and destruction and death that followed… after all the devastation of global civil war… it turned out that when faced with the brink of disaster, the creatures of “New Australia” found they could wisely halt their own decline into the oblivion and abyss of history. The end of Warden Ggggaaah would NOT result in the END of New Australia, after all.

  Chapter 10:

  The Star Kitten

  “Welcome to Staaaaah Pussss-ay,” a rather sexy, low, disembodied human voice announced over the loudspeaker, as the shuttle craft from Pumalar approached its docking station. The voice continued, “Prepare to disembark… and get ready for an experience you’ll nevvah … evvah… wanna foooh-get….”

  Passengers onboard from three different species murmured, chattered, snorted, and growled with delight, including sixteen working class Pumalar males who were arriving from one of the big cities for a special discount package weekend getaway. Star Pussy was always putting on promotional packages like that just to draw in more blue-collar customers. These were beings who might never be able to afford a vacation like this in normal circumstances. In fact, for the typical working class male, it would have cost half a year’s pay—just to spend a week on Star Pussy.

  In addition to about twenty other beings from various other planets, there were also nine or ten Star Pussy employees on the shuttle. They were merely heading back to work after having completed their semi-annual two week shore leave to go home and visit family and friends on Pumalar. Employees of Star Pussy liv
ed on-site in several crowded dormitory sectors of the massive facility. Many rarely if ever even went home, too, because life on Star Pussy, it was widely known, was just about as fun for the employees as it was for the guests!

  Management always saw to that. Happy employees meant more satisfied customers… and after all this WAS a pleasure palace, wasn’t it?

  Rex Middlefield was one of those employees on board. He was excited to be reporting back to work the next day for his job as a Chef in one of the many fancy restaurants on Star Pussy. The resort had been open now for nearly a full Earth year and business was booming. Beings from all over the galaxy flocked to the converted space station which had been turned into a floating interstellar pleasure palace. Most came there to escape the drudgery and monotony of their lives; or because they won some fantastic prize or lottery back on their home planets. Some, just like Rex, had come there to start a brand new life as employees.

  Rex was a Caucasian human, originally from planet Earth. He’d come to planet Pumalar ten Earth years earlier to seek the good life… by trying to become a male concubine to a wealthy male Pumalar—or Fat Cat—as the gay guys called them back on Earth. Back then, when he was in his early twenties, he was exactly what some wealthy older “Fat Cats” (or Toms as Pumalars traditionally called them) wanted for a lover. Gorgeous, blonde, thin, athletic, and with muscular bulbous buttocks that some Toms really craved, Rex fell right in with the “Tomcat culture”. That’s what Pumalars called the jet-setting lifestyle of the wealthy male socially elite classes.

  His first function had been to work nights in a Bath House as a personal valet and waiter to wealthy male customers. Gradually he found ways to work himself into relationships with some of them, too. His sexual energy and endurance was vital to his early success in hooking up with a few; and soon Toms started trading him off with one another, passing him around within their community to try him out. His “dance card” was nearly always full after only a few short months. And within a year he’d be getting called late at night for a Midnight Meow, or “booty call” basically, like they used to call it back on Earth.