SCat s-3

by Mercedes Lackey

Oklahoma Station—that was this station. Drug Inter­diction? He whistled softly.

  Then a date, followed by the ominous words, Ship missing, all aboard presumed dead.

  All aboard—except the shipscat.

  The cat himself gave a mournful yowl, and SKitty jumped up on the desk to press herself against him comfortingly. He looked back down at SCat. “Did you jump ship before they went missing?”

  He wasn’t certain he would get an answer, but he had lived with SKitty for too long to underestimate shipscat intelligence. The cat shook his head, slowly and deliberately—in the negative.

  His mouth went dry. “Are you saying—you got away?”

  A definite nod.

  “Your ship was boarded, and you got away?” He was astonished. “But how?”

  For an answer, the cat jumped down off the desk and walked over to the little escape pod that neither he nor SKitty ever forgot to drag with them. He seized the tether in his teeth and dragged it over to an access tube. It barely fit; he wedged it down out of sight, then pawed open the door, and dropped down, hidden, and now completely protected from what must have happened.

  He popped back out again, and walked to Dick’s feet. Dick was thinking furiously. There had been rumors that drug-smugglers were using captured Patrol ships; this more-or-less confirmed those rumors. Disable the ship, take the exterior airlock and blow it. Whoever wasn’t suited up would die. Then they board and finish off whoever was suited up. They patch the lock, restore the air, and weld enough junk to the outside of the ship to disguise it completely. Then they can bring it in to any port they care to—even the ship’s home port.

  This station. Which is where SCat escaped.

  “Can you identify the attackers?” he asked SCat. The cat slowly nodded.

  :They know he gone. He run, they chase. He try get home, they stop. He hear of me on dock, go hide in ship bringing mates. They kill he, get chance,: SKitty put in helpfully.

  He could picture it easily enough; SCat being pur­sued, cut off from the Patrol section of the station—hiding out on the docks—catching the scent of the mates being shipped for SKitty’s kittens and deciding to seek safety offworld. Cats, even shipscats, did not tend to grasp the concept of “duty”; he knew from dealing with SKitty that she took her bonds of personal affection seriously, but little else. So once “his” people were dead, SCat’s personal allegiance to the Patrol was nonexistent, and his primary drive would be self-preservation. Wonderful. I wonder if they—whoever they are—figured out he got away on another ship. Another, more alarm­ing thought occurred to him. I wonder if my fishing about in the BioTech database touched off any tell-tales!

  No matter. There was only one place to go now—straight to Erica Makumba, the Legal and Security Officer.

  He dumped a copy of the pertinent datafile to a memory cube, then scooped up both cats and pried their life-support ball out of its hiding place. Then he ran for Erica’s cabin, praying that she had not gone off on shore-leave.

  The Spirits of Space were with him; the indicator outside her cabin door indicated that she was in there, but did not want to be disturbed. He pounded on the door anyway. Erica might kill him—but there were people after SCat who had murdered an entire Patrol DIA squad.

  After a moment, the door cracked open a centimeter.

  “White.” Erica’s flat, expressionless voice boded extreme violence. “This had better be an emergency.”

  He said the one word that would guarantee her attention. “Hijackers.”

  The door snapped open; she grabbed him and pulled him inside, cats, support-ball and all, and slammed the door shut behind him. She was wearing a short robe, tying it hastily around herself, and she wasn’t alone. But the man watching them both alertly from the disheveled bed wasn’t one of the Brightwing’s crew, so Dick flushed, but tried to ignore him.

  “I found out where SCat’s from,” he babbled, drop­ping one cat to hand the memory-cube to her. “Read that—quick!”

  She punched up the console at her elbow and dropped the cube in the receiver. The BioTech file, minus the holo, scrolled up on the screen. The man in the bed leaned forward to read it too, and whistled.

  Erica swiveled to glare at him. “You keep this to yourself, Jay!” she snapped. Then she turned back to Dick. “Spill it!” she ordered.

  “SCat’s ship was hijacked, probably by smugglers,” he said quickly. “He hid his support-ball in an access tube, and he was in it when they blew the lock. They missed him in the sweep, and when they brought their prize in here, he got away. But they know he’s gone, and they know he can ID them.”

  “And they’ll be giving the hairy eyeball to every ship with a black cat on it.” She bit her knuckle—and Jay added his own two credits’ worth.

  “I hate to say this, but they’ve probably got a ­tell-tale on the BioTech data files, so they know whenever anyone accesses them. It’s not restricted data, so anyone could leave a tell-tale.” The man’s face was pale beneath his normally dusky skin-tone. “If they don’t know you’ve gone looking by now, they will shortly.”

  They all looked at each other. “Who’s still on board?” Dick asked, and gulped.

  Erica’s mouth formed a tight, thin line. “You, me, Jay and the cats. The cargo’s offloaded, and regs say you don’t need more than two crew on board in-station. Theoretically no one can get past the security at the lock.”

  Jay barked a laugh, and tossed long, dark hair out of his eyes. “Honey, I’m a comptech. Trust me, you can get past the security. You just hack into the system, tell it the ship in the bay is bigger than it really is, and upload whoever you want as additional personnel.”

  Erica swore—but Jay stood up, wrapping the sheet around himself like a toga, and pushed her gently aside. “What can be hacked can be unhacked—or at least I can make it a lot more difficult for them to get in and make those alterations stick. Give me your code to the AI.”

  Erica hesitated. He turned to stare into her eyes. “I need the AI’s help. You two and the cats are going to get out of here—get over to the Patrol side of the station. I’m going to hold them off as long as I can, and play stupid when they do get in, but I need the speed of the AI to help me lay traps. You’ve known me for three years. You trusted me enough to bring me here, didn’t you?”

  She swore again, then reached past him to key in her code. He sat down, ignoring them and plunging straight into a trance of concentration.

  “Come on!” Erica grabbed Dick’s arm, and put the support-ball on the floor. SKitty and SCat must have been reading her mind, for they both squirmed into the ball, which was big enough for more than one cat. They’d upgraded the ball after SKitty had proved to be so—fertile. Erica shoved the ball at Dick, and kept hold of his arm, pulling him out into the corridor.

  “Where are we going?” he asked.

  “To get our suits, then to the emergency lock,” she replied crisply. “If we try to go out the main lock into the station, they’ll get us for certain. So we’re going outside for a little walk.”

  A little walk? All the way around the station? Out­side?

  He could only hope that “they” hadn’t thought of that as well. They reached the suiting-up room in seconds flat.

  He averted his eyes and climbed into his own suit as Erica shed her robe and squirmed into hers. “How far is it to the Patrol section?” he asked.

  “Not as far as you think,” she told him. “And there’s a maintenance lock just this side of it. What I want to know is how you got all this detailed information about the hijacking.”

  He turned, and saw that she was suited up, with her faceplate still open, staring at him with a calculating expression.

  This is probably not the time to hold out on her.

  He swallowed, and sealed his suit up, leaving his own faceplate open. Inside the ball, the cats were watching both of them, heads swiveling to look from one face to the other, as if they were watching a tennis-match.

  “SKitty’s telepa
thic with me,” he admitted. “I think SCat’s telepathic with her. She seems to be able to talk with him, anyway.”

  He waited for Erica to react, either with disbelief or with revulsion. Telepaths of any species were not always popular among humankind. . . .

  But Erica just pursed her lips and nodded. “Eyeah. I thought she might be. And telepathy’s one of the traits BioTech doesn’t talk about, but security people have know for a while that the MF type cats are bred for it. Maybe SKitty’s momma did a little wandering over on the miltech side of the cattery, hmm?”

  SKitty made a “silent” meow, and he just shrugged, relieved that Erica wasn’t phobic about it. And equally relieved to learn that telepathy was already a trait that BioTech had established in their shipscat lines. So they won’t be coming to take SKitty away from me when they find out that she’s a ’path. . . .

  But right now, he’d better be worrying about making a successful escape. He pulled his faceplate down and sealed it, fastening the tether-line of the ball to a snaplink on his waistband. He warmed up his suit-radio, and she did the same. “I hope you know what you’re getting us into,” he said, as Erica sealed her own plate shut and led the way to the emergency lock.

  She looked back over her shoulder at him.

  “So do I,” she replied soberly.

  The trip was a nightmare.

  Dick had never done a spacewalk on the exterior of a station before. It wasn’t at all like going out on the hull of a ship. There were hundreds of obstacles to avoid—windows, antenna, instrument-packages, main­tenance robots. Any time an inspection drone came along, they had to hide to avoid being picked up on camera. It was work, hard work, to inch their way along the station in this way, and Dick was sweating freely before a half an hour was up.

  It seemed like longer. Every time he glanced up at the chronometer in his faceplate HUD, he was shocked to see how little time had passed. The suit-fans whined in his ears, as the life-support system alternately fought to warm him up when they hid in the shade, or cool him down when they paused in full sunlight. Stars burned down on them, silent points of light in a depth of darkness that made him dizzy whenever he glanced out at it. The knowledge that he could be lost forever out there if he just made one small mistake chilled his heart.

  Finally, Erica pointed, and he saw the outline of a maintenance lock just ahead. The two of them pulled themselves hand-over-hand toward it, reaching it at the same instant. But it was Erica who opened it, while Dick reeled the cats in on their tether.

  With all four of them inside, Erica sealed the lock from the inside and initiated pressurization. Within moments, they were both able to pop their faceplates and breathe station-air again.

  Something prompted Dick to release the cats from their ball before Erica unsealed the inner hatch. He unsnapped the tether and was actually straightening up, empty ball in both hands, when Erica opened the door to a hallway—

  —and dropped to the floor, as the shrill squeal of a stun-gun pierced the quiet of the lock.

  “Erica!” Without thinking, he ran forward, and found himself facing the business-end of a powerful stunner, held by a nondescript man who held it as if he was quite used to employing it. He was not wearing a station-uniform.

  The man looked startled to see him, and Dick did the only thing he could think of. He threw the support-ball at the man, as hard as he could.

  It hit cleanly, knocking the man to the floor as it impacted with his chest. He clearly was not aware that the support-balls were as massy as they were. The two cats flashed past him, heading for freedom, and Dick tried to follow their example. But the man was quick to recover, and as Dick tried to jump over his prone body, the fellow grabbed his ankle and tripped him up.

  Then it turned into a brawl, with Dick the definite underdog. Even in the suit, the stranger still outweighed him.

  Within a few seconds, Dick was on his back on the floor, and the stranger held him down, easily. The stun-gun was no longer in his hands, but it didn’t look to Dick as if he really needed it.

  In fact, as the man’s heavy fist pounded into Dick’s face, he was quickly convinced that he didn’t need it. Pain lanced through his jaw as the man’s fist smashed into it; his vision filled with stars and red and white flashes of light. More agony burst into his skull as the blows continued. He flailed his arms and legs, but there was nothing he could do—he was trapped in the suit, and he couldn’t even get enough leverage to defend himself. He tasted blood in his mouth—he couldn’t see—

  :BAD MAN!:

  There was a terrible battle-screech from somewhere out in the corridor, and the blows stopped. Then the weight lifted from his body, as the man howled in pain.

  Dick managed to roll to one side, and stagger blindly to his feet with the aid of the corridor bulkhead—he still couldn’t see. He dashed blood out of his eyes with one hand, and shook his head to clear it, staring blindly in the direction of the unholy row.

  “Get it off! Get it off me!” Human screams mixed with feline battle-cries, telling him that whichever of the cats had attacked, they were giving a good accounting of themselves.

  But there were other sounds—the sounds of running feet approaching, and Dick tried frantically to get his vision to clear. A heavy body crashed into him, knocking him into the bulkhead with enough force to drive all the breath from his body, as the zing of an illegal neuro-gun went off somewhere near him.

  SKitty!

  But whoever was firing swore, and the cat-wail faded into the distance.

  “It got away!” said one voice, over the sobbing of another.

  A third swore, as Dick fought for air. “You. Go after it,” the third man said, and there was the sound of running feet. Meanwhile, footsteps neared where Dick lay curled in a fetal bundle on the floor.

  “What about this?” the second voice asked.

  The third voice, cold and unemotional, wrote Dick’s death warrant. “Get rid of it, and the woman, too.”

  And Dick could not even move. He heard someone breathing heavily just above him; sensed the man taking aim—

  Then—

  “Patrol! Freeze! Drop your weapons now!”

  Something clattered to the deck beside him, as more running feet approached; and with a sob of relief, Dick finally drew a full breath. There was a scuffle just beside him, then someone helped him to stand, and he heard the hiss of a hypospray and felt the tell-tale sting against the side of his neck. A moment later, his eyes cleared—just in time for him to catch SKitty as she launched herself from the arms of a uniformed DIA officer into his embrace.

  “So, the bottom line is, you’ll let us take SCat’s contract?” Captain Singh sat back in his chair while Dick rubbed SKitty’s ears. She and SCat both burdened Dick’s lap, as they had since SCat, the Captain, the DIA negotiator, and Erica had all walked into the sickbay where Dick was still recovering. Erica was clearly nursing a stun-headache; the Captain looked a little frazzled. The DIA man, as most of his ilk, looked as unemotional as an android. The DIA had spent many hours with a human-feline telepathic specialist debriefing SCat. Apparently SCat was naturally only a receptive telepath; it took a human who was also a telepath to “talk” to him.

  “There’s no reason why not,” the DIA agent said. “You civilians have helped materially in this case; both you and he are entitled to certain compensation, and if that’s what you all want, then he’s yours with our blessing—the fact that he is only a receptive telepath makes him less than optimal for further Patrol duties.” The agent shrugged. “We can always get other shipscats with full abilities. According to the records, the only reason we kept him was because Major Logan selected him.”

  SKitty bristled, and Dick sent soothing thoughts at her.

  Then the agent smiled, making his face look more human. “Major Logan was a good agent, but he didn’t particularly care for having a cat talking to him. I gather that Lightfoot and he got along all right, but there wasn’t the strong bond between them that we would
have preferred. It would have been just a matter of time before that squad and ship got a new cat-agent team. Besides, we aren’t completely inhuman. If your SKitty and this boy here are happily mated, who and what in the Patrol can possibly want to separate them?”

  “Judging by the furrows SKitty left in that ’jacker’s face and scalp, it isn’t a good idea to get between her and someone she loves,” Captain Singh said dryly. “He’s lucky she left him one eye.”

  The agent’s gaze dropped briefly to the swath of black fur draped over Dick’s lap. “Believe me,” he said fervently. “That is a consideration we had taken into account. Your little lady there is a warrior for fair, and we have no intention of denying her anything her heart is set on. If she wants Lightfoot, and he wants her, then she’s got him. We’ll see his contract is transferred over to Brightwing within the hour.” His eyes rose to meet Dick’s. “You’re a lucky man to have a friend like her, young man. She put herself between you and certain death. Don’t you ever forget it.”