Star Kitten

by Purple Hazel

  Their legal adoption was of a human girl who was sired by one of the human tribesmen of the Michoacanos Tribe. This warrior had “mated” with one of the human captives originally purchased by their tribe; but the female died in child birth and the child was left motherless. The warrior responsible for the child, a gigantic man named Umberto (but who went by the nickname Feathers because of large birdwing-like tattoos on his back) brought the baby to Felina and asked humbly if she'd care for it. Felina eagerly agreed; and with that, New Australia had its first real family. Many more were to follow.

  Many other marriages were to follow as well; and other Chieftains, just like the Slarts had predicted, came forward wishing to accomplish the same thing as Solomon by taking a wife. Not just Chieftains either. To warlords maintaining hold over their territories, a marriage was a great way to seal a bloodline for the holding of that land (whether it was a simple network of caves and a supporting farm... or if it was a massive section of the many mine operations going on within the planet core). A bloodline meant stability. A strong, well-raised and strapping heir to a warlord’s lands meant no challenges to his authority or reign even as he aged into feebleness and failing health. Legal recognition of the marriage would lend even more credibility to the heir’s claim to his father’s estate.

  Much of New Australia and its different tribal territories functioned for the most part like the old European feudal system from Earth’s ancient history; with roles assigned and fealty sworn to an overlord being rather common in most of these little kingdoms. War between tribal territories was not allowed of course, but disputes could and did arise on occasion; all of which were settled in Tribal Confederation Assembly. Now that so many years had passed since open warfare erupted between tribes, those disputes were still rather rare. But... RIVALRY was certainly commonplace as many tribes had experienced conflict with each other during the planetary civil war—only to remain contentious neighbors several years later. Resentments had certainly cooled over the many years since then, but opportunities for one-upmanship were eagerly seized upon among tribes who traditionally despised or resented neighbors with whom they had a conflictive “past”.

  It was only natural therefore, that when one tribe's Chieftain staged an impressive wedding, then its rival neighboring tribal Headman just had to try and top them. And when Chieftains of the many tribes got married, their assorted loyal warlords in their tribe followed along eagerly to the altar. Weddings gradually became so commonplace; that it became a booming industry on the planet. A whole commercial wedding planning and ceremonial arrangement business developed. It was certainly an exciting time on New Australia. Wedding bells were a’ ringing it seemed; almost every week.

  Rex Middlefield even started his own catering business; and franchised the business model for it throughout the planet. Felina was so very proud of her old entrepreneurial friend! He’d made quite a good life for himself on New Australia and never really had to work as hard as he used to unless he wanted to. That said, he usually downright enjoyed the frenetic stress of planning a wedding party and dealing with all the challenges of last minute foul-ups. He was the happiest she’d seen him in years. Besides he ended up getting quite wealthy while growing the wealth of his tribe in the process. Once he explained the concepts of franchise “royalties” and percentages of ownership to his tribal Chieftain, there was no further objection. His Chieftain realized that when he’d bought Rex as a slave years before, he’d not just acquired a great cook… the balding paunchy human was actually a damned good businessman. The chieftain not only made him a member of the tribe; he eventually even knighted him and gave him lands within the tribe’s kingdom! Felina just loved teasing him about this, calling him “Sir Rex” whenever she just felt like kidding with him.

  Meanwhile however, things had been developing quite differently millions of miles away on the planet Earth….

  On Earth, reports had been coming in for years ever since the straggling, coughing, wheezing humans from the Chengshi staggered into one of the shore bases on Kapteyn B. They’d struggled through miles of wasteland and choking swamps and barren desserts to make it to safety, it was reported. And once recovered, they all spun harrowing tales of captivity on board a barbaric pirate vessel. The Chengshi, they said, had been their original ship; and when their Captain had been duped into halting their voyage to take on “passengers” posing as Pumalar nobles making their way back to Pumalar for a funeral; they had been overwhelmed and taken captive by brutal filthy pirates. The survivors then proceeded to shock their rescuers—and later the notorious Earth media—with sordid details of what all happened “below decks.”

  Several of these survivors even hired publicists and went on the video media talk show circuit. One or two… then several… tried writing a book; and eventually at least three different versions did get published; based either directly (or rather “loosely” in some cases) on the events that unfolded on board. One version in particular, a book called They Come to Me in the Dark: A Survivor’s Account of Captivity and Terror Aboard a Space Pirate Ship was an intergalactic bestseller, published in three languages and also made into a movie, simply called "Captive", that was a box office smash on Earth (as well as on Pumalar). It made for scintillating reading that was for sure; but even more significantly, it played into the hands of political conservatives who began campaigning for tougher policies toward Earth’s relations with the Interplanetary Authority.

  Accusations of ineptitude and malaise flowed regularly from the Earth press. Editorials pointed fingers at government officials; or at the government itself (since that was always so much easier to do than to try and identify a single culprit). No one in office or in any position of power wanted to be the target of this hot media spotlight—that was for sure. Investigative reporters were all too keen to point out the supposed conspiracy; and found many “expert witnesses” and “highly placed officials” whom they could bring on screen to verify or at least allude to an ongoing cover-up by Interplanetary Authority in regard to pirate bases and raids. “Unnamed official sources” were commonly cited; and when they ran out of those, there was always the venerated retired Star Fleet officer or eager campaigning politician quite willing to weigh in on the issue. Action needed to be taken—everyone seemed to agree—and like what so often happens with emotional political topics, people and factions took sides based on respective political agendas.

  First there was the Earth military complex: Not just the generals and their officers either, but the whole military machine and the contractors feeding materials, machinery, supplies, and weapons to the military. They were the first to champion the cause of using deadly force or at least taking definitive action. Vengeance for the nearly one hundred pirate raids—and justice on behalf of the victims who’d died or suffered the degradations and depravity of pirate captivity—that was what they demanded. Many upstanding citizens supported this as well.

  Actually the Earth military had been clamoring for a mission to "Rijel 12" ever since a few months after the Star Pussy raid itself. Back then the pursuing Star Fleet squadron reported that they'd detected the infamous earth freighter Unity, and of all credible unbiased sources that could be relied upon, nothing topped a Star Fleet battleship’s sensors. Not unless the ship itself landed right in the middle of Nebraska and surrendered to authorities, could anyone in the galaxy have any more definitive proof than a battleship’s computer. Star Fleet did eventually break off the pursuit, yes; but only because whoever was flying the Unity, had headed into deepest space and the battleship’s captain finally just chose to let them go. Frankly the chase “became pointless,” he maintained. Wherever these pirates were from, if they kept traveling that far from any known civilization, they'd likely perish in uncharted space anyway. The Star Fleet Squadron Admiral also emphasized that he could “rule out without any reservation that the raiders might have been from another galaxy deep in space.” They weren’t “unknown aliens” he assured his superiors; and no one doubted him
.

  There was no way Star fleet was going to waste a battleship and its escort flotilla to follow this “ghost pirate ship” into infinite space and vanish forever. This was too valuable of an attack force. And by the time that fleet returned into Earth’s solar system, it didn’t matter anyway. The story had already leaked out about the released captives on Kapteyn B. Their harrowing stories of abuse by the pirates on board was plenty enough to confirm, that the perpetrators of the Star Pussy raid were indeed pirates from several different known species. And where then could they have possibly come from? All indications were that it was Rijel 12, just like most everyone had been assuming for years. Sure they could have been from elsewhere. Pirate bands… were often a hodgepodge of assorted species. However, someone knew the truth. Someone somewhere high up in the IPA knew who they really were, but officially no one in the government was talking.

  So what about the released captives? What did they say? Most had no real idea; but many were happy to speculate about their observations in the news. True, a couple of plump, plus-size women from among the survivors did say they’d been forced to become the personal consorts of the pirate Captain… a Porkonji whom they’d heard addressed as Snout. But that’s about it as far as anyone could provide in terms of specific identification. Unfortunately for them though, Earth media brutalized those two mercilessly as trying to “hog some attention” (as a few less ethical reporters put it or cruelly inferred). The derogatory and hateful moniker stuck, and in time other broadcast personalities and even nightclub comics picked up on the joke. Every “fat” or “pig” pun imaginable soon followed; and the public gradually rejected their “accounts” as being attempts at shamelessly grabbing the public spotlight. It wasn’t their fault, those poor women. They merely told the honest truth about their ordeal and how they’d made the best of their circumstances to survive, but the media punished them unmercifully for their fifteen minutes of fame.

  Then there were the ultra-conservative Earther political activists. They were the “extreme right”, if one wanted to call them that—or “Firebrands” as they were often called in the media. These factions quickly glommed onto the public outrage and sudden surge in militarism, by urging Earth to just sieze this returned battle fleet and turn right around to raid Rijel 12 with it. Chances were good, they proclaimed, this had been the Pirate Base for the Star Pussy raid all along; and few disagreed with this theory. Most any average man on the streets of Moscow, Paris, or the inland-relocated New York City believed it to be so anyway. “IPA just doesn’t want to admit it,” they raved. “IPA wants to ignore the problem,” they speculated. Cooler heads among them even speculated “logically” that Interplanetary Authority wanted to bury the issue by just letting the Pirates all kill themselves off over time (or be eliminated in skirmishes with Star Fleet forces). This theory made sense with a lot of people on Earth… but it did little to quell the growing bitterness.

  And then there were the families of prisoners unaccounted for. This group often found its way into the media over the years and when no further attacks occurred after Star Pussy raid, they wildly accused that IPA had the excuse it needed to just let it all go and hope the pirates had just disappeared somewhere or otherwise perished. Of course this political group had been lied to and brushed off so often over the decades… that they were no longer willing to listen to any official rational explanation; no matter how logically put to them. In their minds, their loved ones were still alive somewhere; and the government needed to go find them. Never mind that in reality, most reports were indicating that humans also had been perpetrators on many of the raids—including Star Pussy. It did no good trying to convince those families that their once-incarcerated relatives might well have all turned pirate right along with the other rebelling prisoners from New Australia Planetary Prison. They simply wouldn’t hear of it.

  However above all that, the main issue was Earth’s economy. After Rijel 12 was put out of business as a major source of mineral ore and quartz crystal nearly nine years earlier; Earth developed an entirely new mining industry of its own. The booming opportunity for bringing new energy crystals back to earth for its space craft and industrial needs led to the creation of nearly a hundred new millionaire tycoons and hundreds of thousands of new jobs created. Miners, mining engineers, shipping managers, Transportation Workers, security forces: all of these new jobs were created and filled quickly by the working classes. Plus these new workers needed housing and food services (plumbing and infrastructure too) to be able to live on newly colonized planets—some of which were barely inhabitable to begin with.

  This industry soon had money—lots of it actually—with which to influence politics and politicians. But several years later when New Australia started selling vast mineral loads, quartz crystals, silver ore, and precious gemstones on the black market at what equated to fractions of market rates, within only a few months Porko and Zorg traders began driving down prices throughout the galaxy. The earth mining industry was gradually devastated. When prices dropped just 20%, profits plunged and mines started closing or laying off workers. When they fell further, many other industries on Earth became affected negatively as well. Layoffs, shutdowns, and even complete abandonment of colonies occurred in some cases, with speculators in the exchange markets of Chicago and New York making or losing millions overnight as they tried taking advantage of the wild swings in commodity futures prices.

  Basically it happened this way because New Australia’s barter exchanges for food equated to—on average—a mere 60% of going market rates for energy crystals and silver ore. Bartering for comparatively cheaper food supplies and building materials created the equivalent of a mass dumping of product onto a market whose established suppliers back on Earth—and out on her colonized planets—tried to regulate supply with demand to keep prices stable and profitability high.

  Industrial crystals and silver wire were used in anything and everything needing an infinite electrical power supply due to its remote location or due to its necessity for constant operation. Space craft and surface planetary travel vehicles were especially big users. Power plants providing electricity to colonies and cities did as well. And gigantic perovskite or quartz crystals from New Australia were some of the purest and best available. They were better than most actually; but particularly in greater quantity which made it even easier for clandestine Porko and Zorg traders to just stockpile millions of tons of New Australian crystals and ore. They could then make a killing in the commodities markets by first short-selling energy crystal futures on the commodities exchanges and hold that short position for a month or two… maybe more. Then, they could SELL millions of tons of crystals in the wholesale markets to drive down exchange market prices. A few months later, when prices had plunged, they could “cover” their short sales by buying back the contracts at a much lower price; creating a paper profit sometimes in the millions.

  This enraged earth mining industry executives. It aggravated commodity exchange officials too, and it ruined many a savvy trader back on Earth. It was fraud basically; insider trading for all intents and purposes. When investigations led to arrests at major well-established brokerage firms… and arrests led to plea deals… the paper trail always seemed to peter out somewhere out in space; with the main culprits behind the activity never seeming to be clearly defined. There just never was a name or any revelation of the true origin of the product used in the trading scheme.

  What’s more, on Earth the powerful quartz crystal energy industry had become a formidable political lobby over the years. And the politicians whose campaigns they bankrolled were all too keen to demand government action. It was “just another form of piracy in effect,” they would assert. And this piracy was hurting Earth’s economy and the livelihoods of Earth’s work force.

  So that now put three main political lobbies—three major factions with decent financial clout or at least strong public sentiment—in bed with each other. The military wanted to take action because of the Star
Pussy raid. The securities and commodities exchanges wanted action taken to end the instability caused by black market trading; and the energy industry was now clamoring for some kind of military action to identify the true source of black market crystals and ore being dumped onto the market. If the IPA wasn’t going to do something about it, some said—then many more said—then Earth needed to “take matters into its own hands."

  Yet, by way of comparison, on New Australia times were quite good. Building had been going on for some time now; and the frenetic mining and export of minerals, silver ore, and crystals had led to very nice trade opportunities for New Australia to acquire ample food and building materials. Mining and exporting were indeed far more efficient than piracy. Importing food and luxury goods was far easier than raiding for them too! But best of all, stability within New Australia's many societies really began to blossom into a sustainable culture. The erratic and sometimes violent warrior practices of many tribes evolved into much more civilized tradition and pageantry. Due process of the law replaced brutality and vigilante justice. Borders once highly contested years before during the Naustie Civil War, opened between territories whose warriors once fought each other viciously. Tribes and their noble families occasionally even started sharing tribal traditions! The planet was evolving, slowly but surely, into a pan-cultural society.

  Five years after Solomon’s and Felina’s wedding, babies were being born. Porkos were having litters of piglets. Zorg hatchlings were crawling out of their nests. Schpleefti populations grew… and Pumalar kittens were soon heard mewing and purring in caverns and caves. Siring offspring was changing a lot of males on New Australia. It gave them a sense of responsibility and with it some measure of personal prestige. It made them feel proud of the legacy they were leaving behind. Marriage and family fulfilled them spiritually. It gave them something to love… and something to defend with their lives.