“Nooooo,” she squealed, as the light from the swirling circle of light spun around faster and faster.
The falling sack rocketed toward the ground in ultra-slow motion.
Her elbows hit the ground as she twisted her body upright.
The sack enlarged in her eyes, falling closer and closer to her face. Her claws appeared on either side of her eyes as she attempted to catch it.
But before she did, she became entirely blinded by the wonderful white light…
The back-end of Opera Charlie pulled away from its mid-section. The whole ship elongated like a stretched piece of chewing gum toward the swirling hole in front of Saturn.
The fireball that was once Enceladus blasted toward the giant planet’s surface from several hundreds of thousands of miles away.
The middle of the ship pulled away from the front, streaking like toothpaste across the twinkling stars, seemingly absorbing some of them as it bled out towards the hole.
SCHWIPP.
Like a camera flash, the entire event was over as quickly as it started.
Opera Charlie disappeared, leaving behind a relatively calm and serene vacuum of space.
It was almost as if they had never been there.
CHAPTER FOUR
The black van joined the main freeway on its route to west London.
Jamie clutched the sides of his seat and watched the scenery and other cars whizz past his window.
Sierra tapped the back of the driver’s seat, “How long till we get there?”
“Dunno. With this traffic, maybe thirty minutes,” Rana said.
“Good,” Sierra held her gaze on her young captive, “Anderson?”
Jamie didn’t want to look at her. His weak reflection stared back at him through the passenger window. Several cars rolled away as the van sped up.
He caught sight of a young woman driving a red car. Behind her, a little girl looked through the window and momentarily clapped eyes on Jamie.
He pressed his palm to the glass and considered begging the girl for help.
“It’s not worth it, Anderson,” Sierra grinned at the boy’s temperament. “They can’t help you, now.”
Frightened and upset, Jamie turned to her. His arms and legs wouldn’t stop shaking.
She offered him her hand to shake, “I’m Sierra,” she pointed to her male colleague, “That’s Noyin, and this is Rana who’s doing the driving. Nice to meet you.”
Jamie stared at her hand, deathly afraid to touch it.
“What? Not going to shake my hand?”
Jamie squinted at her face. He noticed a bizarre lotion on her skin which, under the light of the van, rendered it shiny and reflective.
Noyin smiled, revealing a row of gold teeth, “Hey, Anderson.”
Jamie mustered up the courage to say something to Sierra, “What’s that stuff on your face?”
Sierra scratched the goop on her chin, “Oh, this? Nothing for you to worry about.”
Jamie calmed down and settled on the fact that if they wanted him dead, they’d have shot him already.
“Who are you?”
“I told you, my name is Sierra—”
“—I don’t mean your name,” Jamie spat and wiped the tears from his eyes. “Why have you kidnapped me?”
Sierra turned to Noyin for an answer she knew he wouldn’t offer. She tried for a smile and folded her arms.
“Well, you’re not going to shake my hand.”
“No.”
“We haven’t kidnapped you, Jamie. I know it looks like we have, but we haven’t.”
“Where are we going?”
“We can’t tell you,” Sierra said. “It’s for your own safety—”
“—Damn it, you shouldn’t have let him wake up,” Rana bleated from the driver’s seat, “He’s a liability.”
“Be quiet,” Sierra kept her eyes on Jamie’s, “Anderson?”
“What?”
“You’re perfectly safe with us. In fact, you’re much safer with us than you are at school, or at home.”
Jamie pretended to look at his lap and feign an air of self-pity. Little did his captors know that he was checking out the door handle. He moved his fingers across his lap and grabbed the handle, ostensibly for balance as the van rocked back and forth.
“When we get to where we’re going, we’ll tell you everything.”
Jamie shifted across the seat and sidled up to the passenger door.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to go home,” Jamie said. “I’m scared.”
Noyin chuckled, “Aww, bless his little cotton socks. The boy is scared.”
“Stop playing with him,” Rana shouted from the driver’s seat. “Just tell him what’s going on. He’s gonna find out soon enough.”
Jamie’s nostrils twitched. He was on the verge of crying. The scenery whizzed past at great speed. The cars in the other lanes blasted past the window.
Outside the slow lane, the MagStrip housed a number of hovering MagCycles speeding even faster than the van.
“I want to go home. Please take me home.”
“No, Jamie. I’m afraid we can’t do that.”
“I want to go home,” Jamie gripped the door handle with his right hand, but averted Sierra’s attention with his left.
“No, Jamie. Listen—”
CLICK-SCHUNT.
Jamie pushed the door open and jumped out of the car.
“Jesus Christ—” Sierra bolted forward and threw her hands in front of her face, “Jamie.”
WHOOOOSH.
Jamie clutched the door handle, swinging back and forth on the opened door.
“Agggghhhh,” he screamed as the tips of his shoes grated against the road.
Noyin pushed himself out of his seat and reached out to him, “Anderson, take my hand.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Rana looked over her shoulder and gasped, “Oh, for God’s sake.”
She slammed on the brakes.
The van’s tires screeched along the freeway, grinding the van to a sudden halt.
A MagCycle zoomed towards Jamie hanging from the door, “Ahh, no!”
Noyin grabbed Jamie’s hand and pulled him into the van.
The cyclist couldn’t slow down in time.
WHUDDA-WHUDDAAAA-SMASSSHHH.
The front of her MagCycle smashed into the door and whizzed into the air like a fat ninja star.
The cyclist lost control of the bike.
The underside of the cycle slid away from the strip, lost its magnetic connection, and slammed into the ground. The cyclist yelped as she went over the bars and hit the verge.
Scores of cars screeched to a halt behind the van and blared their horns.
“Damn it, Rana,” Sierra returned to her seat, “Drive. Now.”
Noyin pressed his elbow against Jamie’s chest, forcing him into his seat, “Bad move, Anderson.”
“Let go of me,” Jamie screamed.
“He’s hysterical, he’s flipping out,” Rana slammed her foot on the gas and spun the wheels of the van, “Do something.”
Sierra grabbed her stun gun from the vacant seat next to her and held it to Jamie’s forehead, “Anderson?”
“No, no, no, you’re going to kill me—”
“—Shut up.”
He screamed through his tears as he tried to fend off Noyin’s attempts to pin him to his seat. The boy’s efforts were going to be futile. He slumped in his chair and closed his eyes.
“Please, don’t shoot me—”
“—I said shut up,” Sierra lifted the stun gun away from his face and turned to Noyin, “Roll his sleeve up.”
“What?”
“I said roll his sleeve up,” Sierra spat. “We have a flight to catch and I’ll be damned if he kicks up a fuss before we get there.”
“Okay, okay,” Noyin grabbed Jamie’s left arm and rolled the fabric on his shirt along his forearm.
He stared at Jamie’s Individmedia Ink, which blinked and
beeped back at him.
“Someone’s calling,” Noyin said. “Who is it?”
Jamie slowed his breathing to a near-halt, “My mom.”
“Nu-uh, not today,” Sierra pushed the end of the stun gun against the ink on Jamie’s forearm, “Sorry about this Jamie. You’ve given us no option.”
She bit her lip and hooked her index finger around the trigger.
Jamie’s eyes widened with utter terror, “No, no, p-please—”
SCHJUNT-ZWIPP.
The stun connector daggered into his arm and delivered several volts into his arm. He slumped back in his seat and passed out before sliding into Noyin’s lap.
Sierra took a deep breath. She took a moment to look at his face and evaluate her actions.
Jamie began to snore.
“I hate that they’ve made us do this,” she returned the stun gun to the passenger seat and sat back into hers. Noyin didn’t know what to do with the passed-out child on his lap. He looked at Sierra for some reassurance.
She took offense to his crap-eating looks.
“It wasn’t my fault. He tried to escape.”
“Sure. You did what you had to do. Right?”
Sierra wasn’t completely on board with his assessment, but needed to confirm her actions for the sake of her own sanity, “Right.”
Bedfont Air Force Base
West London, United Kingdom
The huge, mesh gate slid across and allowed the van to roll up to the booth beside the barrier.
Rana slowed the van down and rolled down the window, “Hey.”
The security guard stepped out of the booth, and noted the registration plate.
“You’re late.”
“I know, we had a bit of trouble,” Rana nodded at the side of the van and its missing door.
The security guard noticed the young boy snoring in the passenger seat, “Who’s that?”
“None of your business,” Rana said. “We have a scheduled take-off at nine forty-five.”
Sierra and Noyin smiled at the security guard like a pair of busted puppies, “Hi.”
“That’s just weird.”
The security guard took a paper from Rana’s hand and allowed them through, “Whatever. Have a good flight.”
The van crossed the landing strip, passing a dozen stationary aircraft at the edge of the field.
Rana pointed at a jet plane at the end of the runway, “We’re here. Are we waking Anderson up, or keeping him tame?”
Sierra smiled at Jamie’s sleeping, angelic face.
“No, we’ll let him wake up naturally. Let’s get on board,” she turned to Noyin, “Are you okay to carry him?”
He looked down at the kid and felt around his legs and arms, “He’s light enough. We’ll be fine.”
“Good. I don’t want to have to zap him again,” Sierra said as she climbed out of the van, “I’m not sure his puny little body can take much more punishment.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Control Deck
Space Opera Charlie - Level One
Jelly felt calm and at peace. The darkness didn’t disturb her in the slightest. She’d woken from her sleep but had yet to open her eyelids.
Silence.
What a crazy dream, though.
Something about a spaceship going through a vortex, scuppering their chances of getting back home once and for all.
Clink-Clunk.
The tips of her infinity claws hit something just as hard and cold as she was lying on.
She shifted her shoulders around which caused a grating sound right behind her ears.
“Huh?”
Her claws crept up her sides, along jagged sections of unfastened exo-suit.
Something wasn’t right.
A sliver of dulled light sliced across the darkness, revealing a blurred vision of swinging things.
“Uhm, uhm,” she croaked and coughed as the slit across the darkness expanded vertically. A bleary visual rendition of a place she knew reasonably well focused into view.
An oblong object peered from the right-hand side and looked into her face. It began to speak, but the voice was too dull and muffled to be understood. It appeared to be asking a question judging by the tone and brevity of the delivery.
“Whum? Whum-Bwar-Fwuhn?” the voice appeared to ask.
Jelly closed her eyes and shook her head.
Then, she opened her eyelids as wide as possible.
The ceiling whizzed up past her head.
The communications panel tilted into view and waved from side to side.
“Whum?” the voice morphed into crystal clear familiarity, “Whu—are you okay? Jelly?”
“Ugh, my h-head,” she muttered and sat upright on the ground, “Wh-what happened?”
“It’s not good, pet.”
Alex’s voice blasted through her right ear like an intense migraine.
She grabbed her ears and screamed, “Yaaooow. Miew.”
“Oh,” Alex grabbed her shoulders and examined her face, “Sorry, Jelly. How are you feeling?”
She moved her paws away from her head. Her eyes averted to his and then to the remains of the flight deck.
Space Opera Charlie appeared to be dead.
The emergency lights were on, as was the communications panel. Beeps and whirs from the mechanism underscored the intense feeling of unease.
Then, Jelly remembered where she was.
She grabbed Alex’s wrists and yanked him forward, suddenly feeling a mere quarter of the half-cat, half-woman she was used to.
“My babies—”
“—Yes, don’t worry, they’re—”
“—Where are my babies? Take me to my babies.”
Alex adjusted his face mask and offered her his right hand, “Here.”
She slammed her palm into his and rose to her feet. It took her a second or two to adjust to the awkwardly-angled ship.
It sat at a peculiar degree.
Most of the detritus, including shards from the shattered windshield, had slid across to the right of the deck and collected against the wall.
“Ugh, what happened?”
“We don’t know,” Alex stepped back and pointed at a perfectly still holographic encyclopedia suspended in the air, “We’ve asked Manny to run a sit-rep. We know we have oxygen for the time being.”
“Miew,” a tiny voice came from behind Alex’s bent arm. A brown kitten with a white “F” on its forehead.
Alex looked down with her and smiled, “Don’t worry, she’s perfectly fine.”
Jelly yawned. The fur-laden skin on her face stretched back, briefly showing her sharp fangs. Alex gasped - for just a split second, during Jelly’s facial stretch, she looked like a vision of utter hell and destruction.
“Jeez,” Alex said. “Warn me when you’re going to do that.”
She licked her mouth and swallowed, “Why?”
“You look scary when you yawn.”
“It’s not my fault,” she held out her infinity claws and nodded at her daughter in his arms, “Give me her.”
“Sure.”
Alex passed the kitten to her. She slid her right paw over her left and lifted the sleeping kitten up to her face.
“Miew,” it yelped, softly, as Jelly’s cheek pressed against hers.
Alex watched in wonder as mother and daughter shared a moment together. Jelly’s nostrils flared, pushing her whiskers out, as she inhaled her daughter’s scent.
“I love you. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I’ve lost too many people I love, and you’ll never be one of them.”
Alex couldn’t help but smile. The sight was rather touching. He cleared his throat and dared to break the connection.
“What are you going to name her?”
Jelly rubbed her nose up and down her daughter’s face and inspected her paws for signs of damage or defects.
Everything was well in that respect.
Jelly focused her eyes on the kitten’s forehead, “F.”
“
Eff?” Alex repeated with confusion.
Jelly turned to Alex. She still couldn’t see his face properly through his gelatinous mask, “Where are my other babies?”
“We don’t know. Jaycee has your second child, I think. I’m not sure where your youngest is.”
“Take me to him.”
***
Jaycee hadn’t wasted any time since waking up an hour ago after they’d landed. He was furious about not having any answers.
So, he did what any USARIC chief of weapons and armor would do - he ventured into his new spacecraft and located the armory.
On Space Opera Beta, USARIC Weapons & Armory was a modest unit located on the third level. Modest insofar as it took up the entire level.
Close to ten thousand square feet of arsenal.
Jaycee marveled at the set up.
Rows and rows of every USARIC-issued firearm imaginable.
Jaycee stomped forward along the first of twenty-five rows like a kid in a toy shop with an unlimited gift card.
“Holy Moly.”
He didn’t know where to begin. He lifted his left forearm to his face and pushed his thumb across the ink on his wrist, “Tripp, man. Come in.”
“This is Tripp. Jaycee, is that you?”
“Yeah. Charlie’s laid on some serious party tricks, here. Level Three. You gotta see this.”
“See what?” came the response from the pinpricks in Jaycee’s wrist.
“You’re never gonna believe me if I tell you.”
“Oh shi—” the connection dropped out for a few seconds as Tripp spoke.
Jaycee reached the end of the chamber and unhooked a giant shotgun from the hooks. A serious-looking, dark-green shotgun with a tripod mount and dual-end barrels.
“Oh no. No, no.”
Jaycee set the huge device to the ground and took a step back. He inspected the side of the barrel and smiled as he read the inscription.
“K-SPARK II?” Jaycee rubbed his hands together, shaking the sound from his wrist.
“Jaycee?” Tripp blurted, his tone of his voice intimating that he was close to freaking out, “Oh, no. We’re screwed. I can’t believe this.”
“What’s up, my friend?” Jaycee kicked the foot-long lever on the side of the K-SPARK II and armed it.
Star Cat: Killer Instinct Page 4