She giggled to herself and nodded.
“I think I can make the food last, though. I bring most of it up in the toilet, to be honest. It’s nice to have variety, though, isn’t it, Hughes? I love how USARIC offered us a choice. One day we can have pork, the other we can have chicken. Or, and this is the kicker, we can have pork and chicken. And water. You see? Very reasonable.”
Jelly took herself by surprise and hopped over to his pod. She thumped the Perspex and looked at her reflection in the shield.
“Alex, you can hear me, right?”
No response.
“Nah, you’re oversleeping. I get it, it’s a Saturday. I think? You need a lie in. Ha.”
Knock-knock.
“Okay, my friend. I gotta go pee. I’m getting used to this toilet thing, now. Better than spraying it all up the walls and sleeping in it, am I right?
Day 52
Jelly rested her head on her arms as she gazed out of the windshield.
“I spy with my little eye,” she huffed. “Something beginning with S.”
“Oh, um,” K-BOLT said. “Well, Jelly Friggin’ Anderson, I regret to inform you that I have no visual aids—”
“—Just shut up and play, okay?”
“I’m afraid I see no object beginning with the letter S.”
Jelly pressed her cheek onto the back of her wrist, “I don’t care.”
“But I do know that there are stars in space, of course. So my initial guess would be stars.”
“Correct.”
Jelly thumped her hands to the control deck and nearly knocked a lever. It was a utility she’d seen so many times in the past six weeks, she barely registered it any longer.
Yellow, and bright. It seemed serious, and familiar.
“K-BOLT?”
“Yes, Jelly Friggin’ Anderson?”
“This yellow lever.”
“What of it? Are you going to ask me what it does, like all the other buttons in here?”
“Um, no,” Jelly acted offended, “It’s just that I’ve noticed all of USARIC’s Opera fleet all have a yellow lever. The last one I pushed blasted us off into Enceldadus.”
“Yes, so I hear.”
“You heard about that?” Jelly said, without remembering if she’d said anything at all, and so elected to say it once again, “How did you know that?”
“Everyone knows.”
“Huh.” Jelly said. “Really?”
“Yes. Are you feeling unwell, Jelly Friggin’ Anderson?”
“No, I’m perfectly okay.”
Jelly sniffed and shook the fatigue from her head, “I think I need some water. I’ll come back.”
“Yes, I was about to tell you not to go too far.”
“Very funny.”
As Jelly walked past Furie’s pod, a bolt of lightning pulsed through her eyes. She staggered forward and clutched the pod.
“Owww,” she squinted and rolled her shoulders, “God, what’s h-happening to m-me?”
Carefully, she sat next to the pod and twisted her neck left and right.
CRUCK-CLICK.
“Ah, that’s better. I need to stop standing up, it’s not doing my neck any good, honey, you know,” she said as if Furie could hear her.
“Yes, mommy’s fine, honey.”
Jelly wiped her face with her hand and sniffed the fur on her knuckles, “Ugh, I’m so gross. I haven’t cleaned myself in a week.”
She turned to the glass frontage on Furie’s pod and offered a wry smile, “Honey, you don’t mind if I bathe myself, do you?”
A pause befell the two.
“Thanks. I really need to do this.”
Jelly licked up the length of her arm and splayed her legs out, preparing herself for a full body wash.
Day 99
BLLOOOOOARRGGGGHHHHH.
Jelly puked into the toilet bowl, “Guuuhh.”
BWUCK — BWUCK.
She palmed the flush button and watched the water swirl and rocket down the u-bend.
PTCHOO.
A ball of dirty, matted fur sprung from her mouth and dropped into the water.
“Bwugh,” Jelly coughed and spat into the bowl again, “So gross. But it’s worth it, right? Worth it to get back home.”
An hour later, Jelly sat next to Furie’s pod and updated her daughter.
“I don’t know how much longer I can do this, honey. I don’t know how much longer I can do this honey, honey. Honey.”
Jelly sniffed and tried not to get upset. She kicked her legs around and shoved the soles of her bare, furry feet against the wall.
“I took my boots off, honey. They were hurting my feet, hurting my feet. So I took them off. It’s much better, now. Much better.”
Day 140
Jelly woke up in the pilot’s chair as she always did. The material had been scratched to hell. The foam padding protruded from the tears and blossomed out in all directions.
Jelly snored loudly as the infinite vacuum of space hung outside the windshield. She’d spent as much of her time sleeping over the past couple of weeks as she could.
Only awake for as long as was necessary.
Sleeping for sixteen hours just wasn’t possible, even though she’d managed it as a common house cat back on Earth.
K-BOLT and the airless playground that lay outside wasn’t Earth, no matter how Jelly tried to convince herself otherwise.
Not even close.
Her own snores woke her up in a fit of despair and rage, “Ugh, where am I?”
“Good afternoon, Jelly Friggin’ Anderson,” K-BOLT chirped. “How are you feeling today?”
“My muscles feel like they’ve turned to pâté. My back is killing me.”
“Yes, that will be due to your over-sized nature on such a small spacecraft.”
“You don’t say, genius.”
“I do say. As a matter of fact.”
“Ugh, I wish Manny was here instead of you.”
K-BOLT took offense to Jelly’s retort, “Manny? The Space Opera Manuel computer, you mean? That over-hyped molecular imbecile?”
“Yeah, The Manuel. He—she, knew a lot more than you did. At least he or she had a sense of humor.”
“Yes, and look where that got you.”
“It’s not their fault I ended up here.”
“No? Whose fault was it?”
“Mine. Evidently.”
K-BOLT beeped, “Even though I can’t see you, I can sense you’re upset.”
“The last thing that couldn’t see me had its still-beating heart torn out of its chest.”
“Oh. I wouldn’t like that to happen to me. Who on Earth would do such a thing?”
“It was me.”
“I see.”
“Yeah, and it wasn’t on Earth, as you full well know. It was on that planet we landed on. The one with all those wolves.”
Jelly enjoyed the lack of response as she stared through the windshield. The pink streak of light was still above the ship.
“K-BOLT?”
“Yes, Jelly Friggin’ Anderson?”
“Are we following the light?”
“Very observant of you, but no. It is, in a manner of speaking, following us.”
“Following us?”
“Both we and it appear to be making the same journey.”
“Huh,” Jelly snorted and found the revelation interesting. Then, a thought crossed her mind, “Oh, I’m meant to ask. How are the oxygen levels? And the food and water?
“Sustenance levels are healthy. With your conservative consumption, you have enough food and water for the journey.”
“Good. What about the oxygen?”
“Because you’ve been sleeping, you’ve used a bit less than expected. At the current rate of consumption, I can confirm K-BOLT’s oxygen reserves will be depleted in approximately ninety days from now.”
“Three months? That’s not nearly close to being enough time,” Jelly freaked out as the news sunk in, “What am I going to do?”
“Jelly Friggin’ Anderson, you knew the situation of the vessel before you boarded.”
“Yes, but I can’t run out of oxygen. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.”
“I wish I had better news for you.”
“This is lessense,” Jelly fumed. “Can’t we do anything?”
“Without a botanical facility there is simply no way to generate oxygen.”
“I just assumed if I controlled my breathing I could conserve oxygen.”
“You assumed incorrectly.”
Jelly leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes in a huff.
A short while later, she trundled into the hyper-sleep quarters and stared at Alex’s pod.
“Hey, friend.”
Jelly sat on his pod and stared at his face through the glass, “K-BOLT tells me what we feared all along. All along. The air is going to run out and I’m going to die.”
No response came from the pod.
“I know, I know, stop saying you were right. It’s not K-BOLT’s fault. I guess we were lucky we even got this far. That’s something, right?”
Alex didn’t respond, but in Jelly’s mind he all but confirmed her statement.
“Thanks. Look, I wanted to ask you something. Do you have your standard issue on you?”
She stared at Alex and smiled.
“What, in your pants?” she asked as she pointed to the wardrobe on the wall, “Over here? Okay, thanks.”
She stood up and pulled the slider to the right.
His USARIC jeans dangled over a hanger, along with a few other items of clothing he’d removed before boarding the pod.
Jelly reached into the left inner-thigh pocket and pulled out a small, black pill.
“Got it, thanks.”
She pulled the door shut and held the black cyanide capsule up at the harsh, fluorescent light.
“What, now?” she asked Alex. “You think it’s a good idea to take it now, do you?”
She licked her lips and saw the tiny powder roll back and forth in the bright light.
She giggled to herself and lowered her hand, “Hey, you don’t know this, but back on Opera Beta, Wool, my Mommy, put one of these in my mouth and got me to swallow it. I hid it under my tongue and spat it out. Funny how life repeats itself, isn’t it, Hughes?”
She teased the plastic coating with the tip of her tongue, “Mmm. Taste a bit like zinc, doesn’t it? Honey, what do you—”
She turned to Furie’s pod and focused her eyes on her peaceful daughter.
“Honey.”
She pocketed the cyanide capsule and approached Furie’s pod, “Oh no, honey. Mommy was only playing around. Mommy wouldn’t kill herself like that. Well, not now, anyway.”
CLINK — CLUNK.
Her infinity claws rapped across the glass, one by one.
“What, honey?” Jelly asked her daughter who, for the hundredth time this week, failed to respond physically.
“You want me to wake you up when the oxygen runs out so we can be together one last time?”
Jelly looked at the dial on Furie’s pod and pinched it between her fingers.
“I don’t know, honey. This might be a mistake. If I do this, we’ll definitely die together.”
Jelly waited for Furie’s response. She scanned Alex’s pod and turned to face her daughter.
“Okay, let’s do it.”
SCHWIP — WHIIIRR.
She spun the dial and unlocked the pod.
The Perspex front slid into the housing and released a waft of gas.
SPRRIISSSHHHHH.
Jelly rose to her feet and looked down at her daughter, who writhed around and opened her eyes.
“Mommy?”
“Yes, honey.”
“Are we home?”
“Yes, my baby,” Jelly leaned down and scooped her child into her arms, “Hold me.”
“Mommy, I’m c-cold.”
“I know, hug me. I’ll warm you up.
BADDUM-BADDUM-BADDUM.
“Uggggghhhh,” Jelly’s heart pounded against her daughter’s chest, “I’ve missed you so, so much.”
“I only just went to sleep, mommy. It only happened a few seconds ago.”
Jelly ignored her comment and squeezed her daughter tighter, “Yes, honey.”
“Mommy? Look at me.”
Jelly lifted her away from her chest and looked into her daughter’s eyes.
“Please don’t swallow the pill, okay?”
“Honey, I’ve made a terrible mistake,” Jelly confessed and turned to Alex’s pod, “I didn’t consider Alex in all this.”
“How do you mean, mommy?”
“We’re going to use up the oxygen and die together. Alex will be killed, too.”
“Oh no,” Furie burst into fits of giggles quite unexpectedly. She gripped her mother’s arms in her claws and tugged on the fur, “Jelly Friggin’ Anderson,” she sang, “Are you there?”
Jelly screwed her face in confusion, and then terror.
“What did you just say?”
“Jelly Friggin’ Anderson,” Furie snapped. “Jelly. Friggin’ Anderson.”
A paused drifted between the two as they held their gaze at each other.
Furie roared in her mother’s face. A shot of thick, silver fur flicked down her face, followed by a set of gnashing teeth in her mouth.
Her pupils ran silver in color, accompanying her wolf-like, low-pitched grunt, “Jelly. Friggin’. Anderson—”
“Gah.”
Jelly woke up in the pilot’s chair, startling herself out of her nightmare.
“Jesus Christ,” she panted and kicked her legs off the control deck. “What the hell was that?”
“Jelly Friggin’ Anderson?” K-BOLT asked. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going insane is what I think I’m doing,” Jelly jumped out of the pilot’s seat and ran towards the hyper-sleep chamber - and smashed her forehead on the lip of the cockpit door frame when she forgot to lower her head.
BOP.
“Owwwww. Ugh, for God’s sake—”
She punched the wall in anger, producing a cavernous crack in the material.
“Please don’t destroy my ship,” K-BOLT said. “It won’t get us anywhere.”
“Yeah, like punch, like spacecraft, huh?” Jelly quipped.
Day 199
Jelly slept atop Furie’s hyper-sleep pod. The cold surface quickly warmed whenever she rested her stomach on it. Scant sacrifice for being close to the one she loved.
Falling asleep proved to be difficult for her over the past couple of weeks.
She valued the downtime because it was the only way to make time move faster.
When she woke up, the first thing she’d see was her daughter’s face. A reminder of why she was putting herself through this misery.
A reason to keep battling on, despite the fact they’d never make it home alive.
Jelly pressed her hands to the Perspex and blew Furie a kiss. Her mouth quivered as she moved off the pod and sat upright.
CLOMP — CLOMP.
Her feet hit the ground, enabling her to shift her weight to her thighs. The muscles bulged out, somewhat less rigid and strong than they used to be.
She lifted her head and chose not to speak.
Blink, blink.
Several counter scratch marks lined the far wall by the cabinet. Sets of five marks with a line through as far as the eye could see.
Jelly stumbled to the wall and lifted her pinkie to the wall.
Scritch-ch.
Another mark, another day gone - presumably. The fourth line in a new set of five for her collection.
Jelly’s routine, now, was to walk around the hyper-sleep chambers one-hundred-and-fifty times after she woke up. The exercise was key to reducing fatigue. She’d stop by Furie’s pod, turn around, and do the same in the opposite direction.
It killed an hour or so before breakfast.
Chicken or pork sludge from a packet. Both tasted the same at this point. She�
�d long since given up using the plastic cutlery. After all, no one was around to see the filthy state K-BOLT was in.
She sucked the remainder of the pork sludge from the packet and tossed it over her shoulder.
Lap — Lick.
The ground pork stuck to her teeth, but a swig from the water dispenser always took care of it.
No paper cups - she’d run out of them somewhere past Jupiter. Instead, she got in the habit of having her face under the nozzle and blasting the fresh H20 across her fangs. Why not, after all? She had to bend her head to move around the ship.
After the third month or so, she became convinced that the ship was shrinking. There was no way to measure herself formally, and so used the length of Furie’s hyper-sleep pod as a measuring stick.
Seven foot in length when they first boarded, from toe to nipple.
Today, seven foot in length bought her from toe to waist.
She was definitely growing in size. The ceiling height confirmed it.
Now, one day shy of two hundred - a mere third of the journey - it wasn’t a case of surviving whatever remained of the oxygen.
Jelly knew that if she continued to grow at such an exponential rate she’d cease to be able to move outright. Entombed in a suffocating vessel that closed in on her hour by hour.
Just under a third of the journey.
The additional weight alone might slow the light spacecraft down.
Once she’d completed her daily constitutional walk around the pods, she moved to the back end of the ship.
To get in, she needed a code - the year of her birth. If one tired of the view through the windshield, or the sterile and featureless bright, white walls, one could enter the payload area and look at something different.
Much different.
K-BOLT had told Jelly that the payload department was fit for launching a modest strike against an enemy. It held the thrusters underneath the ground that fueled their journey home.
Its second use would be to detach entirely from the rest of the ship and secure a safe landing.
Ha, Jelly thought. Fat chance of that ever happening.
The glass pods were delicate to the touch despite being inches thick.
Star Cat: Exodus: A Science Fiction & Fantasy Adventure (The Star Cat Series - Book 5) Page 21