Star Cat: Killer Instinct
Page 10
“The world wants to know how far down USARIC’s bottom line goes.”
Grace threatened to push the button on her glove and knocked the side of Jamie’s Decapidisc with her knee.
“The consequences of your decision rests on their shoulders as much as it does yours. One hour, Maar Sheck. Do the right thing, and make the right choice. The world is watching.”
The replay ended with a still image of Grace’s bald face and the three distressed children.
“Who saw that?”
“Everyone, Maar,” Crain said. “This is a PR disaster. Shall I arrange for the core operations to at least pause before—”
“—What the hell are you suggesting, McDormand?” Maar jumped to his feet and slammed the table with his fists, “You want me to cave in to the demands of these deranged animals?”
“Sir, we have to do something.”
“Do we?”
“If we don’t, they’ll execute Anderson, Gagarin, and Task. The children of the three finalists from the Star Cat Project.”
Maar screamed in his face and paced around the bunker in a state of rage, “I know who they are, you imbecile.”
Crain looked at the table in bewilderment.
“God, think. Think, think, think,” Maar cleared his throat and looked up at Crain. “Ah. Hang on. Can we stall them? Buy ourselves some time?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“What if we just say ‘yes, okay, you win,’ and do nothing?”
Crain shook his head, “No, they don’t want a response.”
“Don’t they?”
“Not a recorded one. All they want is action. The first instruction that followed was to release all the subjects from the animal compound.”
“Release the subjects? The critters in for testing? What, like, just open the bays and release them out in the wild?”
Crain tugged on his collar and tried to let the heat escape his body, “Yes, I think so.”
“Are the bastards out of their tiny, left-wing minds? Those things can’t escape. Not again. I’ve already lost six madmen trying to get them back the last time an idiotic bunch of snowflakes set them free.”
Crain looked at the Individimedia Ink and frowned, “We have fifty-four minutes to make a decision.”
Maar took a deep breath and looked to Kaoz for a reaction. He didn’t respond. Instead, he kept absolutely still with his visor over his face and gun in his hand.
In Maar’s eyes, Kaoz looked as guilty as hell of conspiracy, “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing, Mr. Sheck.”
“Ugh,” Maar shook his head and sat into his chair, “Well, if you give a man no option, you leave him no choice.”
Crain breathed a sigh of relief, “Oh, thank God. I’ll make the arrangements to pause—”
“—They’ll just have to decapitate the children.”
“What?” Crain blurted, half-choking on his sentence. “We can’t let them do that.”
Maar ran two fingers along his throat, miming a blade cutting off his head, “Yup. DecapiDead.”
“Are you serious?” Crain snapped. “You’re going to let USARIC be responsible for the deaths of three ten-year-old children? Live? On Viddy media, for the world to see?”
“Nu-uh,” Maar chuckled at the ridiculousness of the situation before self-pity sank into the pit of his stomach.
“USARIC aren’t responsible for their deaths. This RAGE outfit, whatever it is, is responsible. It’s our policy never to bow to terrorists. If we start this, who knows what they’ll demand next.”
Maar cleared his throat and dropped into a solemn, and very serious mood.
“And we’re not going to wait another fifty-four minutes to—”
“Fifty one minutes, actually,” Crain choked.
“Okay, fifty one minutes. We’re not going to wait that long to give them a response, either. We’re telling them now.”
“Now?”
“Yes,” Maar adjusted his collar and nodded at the wall, “That screen, can we send a response back?”
“Uh, yes?”
“Good, let’s do it,” Maar licked around his right palm and smeared the saliva along his hair, preparing himself to make contact.
“Kaoz?”
“Yes, sir?”
“I want extra security detail at Cape Claudius. Especially the entry points to the training facility and animal compound.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Have the territorial mercs on standby, including the all-terrain units and air vehicles. Any available units for maximum defense. Do it right now, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
Kaoz turned around and exited the bunker.
Maar looked down and snarled at his own reflection on the tabletop surface.
“Those bastards think they can terrorize me? I’ve been holed up down here for months. Do they think I give one single, solitary rat’s ass about those children? Do they think I won’t find them and tear their guts out with my own, bare hands?”
Maar let out a prolonged roar of anger. An earnest attempt to expunge the fire that had built up inside him.
Crain couldn’t look at the screaming wreck of a man standing before him.
He cursed the day he ever took on the job of representing his client.
CHAPTER NINE
Control Deck
Space Opera Charlie - Level One
Furie lay asleep on the flight deck next to the yellow hyper-thruster lever. Her younger sister, White, as the crew had come to call her, cleaned herself atop the pilot’s seat.
Alex felt around his face mask. The constrictive feeling began to get to him, “Manny?”
The holographic book turned to him, “Yes, Alex?”
“Any update on when I can take this damn mask off? I feel like I’m suffocating in here.”
“I advise you leave it on. High toxicity levels are present on the ship. The original Manuel on Beta reported a substance known as Symphonium.”
Alex moved over to the flight deck and pointed at the two kittens, “I don’t understand. How come it isn’t affecting them?”
“They don’t seem to be affected. My most accurate assertion is that they’ve likely built an immunity to it.”
“Ugh,” Alex shook his head and snapped his fingers, “Manny, bring up the drone feed, please.”
“Certainly.”
Manny flapped its way to the middle of the control deck and projected a medium-sized live feed of the drone.
“Where are we? What do we know?” Alex asked.
“Awaiting reports on precise location. Location unknown. However, the atmosphere levels are similar to Earth. Gravity is the same.”
“Are we home?” Alex raised his eyebrows, entertaining the futile idea that, somehow, the black hole had returned them to Earth.
“No, this is not Earth. The coordinates suggest we are in our solar system. That’s all I know.”
“You’re telling me that there’s a planet that’s identical in most every way to Earth right here in our solar system?”
“I never said we were on a planet, Alex,” Manny continued. “A celestial plane, perhaps. Similar properties to Earth.”
“Great,” Alex huffed sarcastically and lifted his forearm to his face. The Individimedia ink swirled up to his wrist and formed three lines, “That’s all we need. I think Jaycee and Tripp should be informed.”
“Do as you please, Alex. It won’t help us any. Not yet, anyway.”
Alex lifted his Individimedia to his mouth and was about to speak, when Manny shuffled over to him.
“I’d like to remind you of our original remit, Alex Hughes. Our task was to destroy Opera Beta. Three of her crew remain alive and well.”
Alex ignored Manny and spoke into his wrist, “This is Alex. Do you read me?”
The Motary
Space Opera Charlie - Level Three
Tripp and Jaycee approached a large sliding door at the end of Charlie’s Level Three walkway.
Jaycee held out his glove and hit the panel on the wall.
“I don’t understand why you just don’t tell me?” Tripp said.
“Better to show you,” Jaycee hit the panel and opened the door, “You know how Maar and Dimitri and USARIC were complaining about saving money?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll show you how they redistributed their savings. You won’t believe it.”
Jaycee ushered Tripp into a veritable vehicular warehouse. At least fifty feet in height, its position at the back of the ship allowed for a sprawling area that housed several vehicles of all shapes and sizes.
Tripp couldn’t believe his eyes, “Jesus.”
“Yup.”
“Not only is Charlie carrying the latest military firepower, they’re also carrying a fleet of vehicles, too?”
“Seeing is believing, my friend,” Jaycee moved forward to a huge globe-shaped pod with extended claws. He thumped the side, sending echoes around the vast facility, “God knows what some of this stuff is for.”
“If they weren’t going to shoot us dead, they’d crush us to pieces,” Tripp marveled at the motors on display and pointed to another, “What’s that?”
Jaycee squinted at a smaller-sized ship with K-BOLT written on the side of it.
“Not sure. Some sort of mini version of the ship. Probably used for exploration.”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“I’m Weapons and Armory, Tripp. I never got to see motary. Alex probably knows more about this stuff than me.”
“The motary?”
“Yeah,” Jaycee walked to the back of the area, “USARIC’s cheap solution to universal domination. You should see W&A upstairs. Kitted-out in all the latest firepower. It’s madness.”
“They really wanted to kill us, didn’t they?” Tripp said.
Jaycee moved over to a medium-sized glacier white tank on conveyors, “I think this is my favorite, though.”
Tripp’s forearm buzzed to life. His Individimedia flashed on his wrist, “This is Alex. Do you read me?”
“Yes,” Tripp winked at Jaycee and spoke into his arm, “We read you. We’re in The Motary.”
“What?” Alex asked. “What are you doing in there?”
Tripp surveyed his surroundings, impressed, “Just checking it out. We’ve never seen it before.”
“Look, Manny’s sent a drone outside to try and find out where we are.”
“Any update on that?” Tripp asked as he watched Jaycee jump on top of the tank.
“Not yet. Manny advised we take a manned party outside. The atmosphere levels check out, but I still have to wear my mask. Charlie’s been infected by that pink stuff.”
“Yes, keep your mask on. We can go out and find Jelly and see what we can find.”
“How do you plan to do that?” Alex asked.
Jaycee opened the tank lid and placed his right leg inside, “Hey, Alex?”
“Yeah?” his voice came from Tripp’s arm. “Is that you, Jaycee?”
“Yes. We’ll use this tank. Can you start it up for us?”
Five Minutes Later…
Jaycee sat in the tank cabin with a semi-circle of controls in front of him. He slung the headgear hanging from the roof around his shoulders and clamped the cans around his head.
“Okay, we’re in.”
“Good,” Alex’s voice came from the headset as Jaycee pressed them over his ears, “Microphone on? Give me a reading.”
“Testing, testing, one, two, three,” Jaycee rubbed his hands together and went for a red button below the dashboard. “What does this button do?”
“For God’s sake, don’t touch that,” Alex blurted. “It’s the ejector seat. You have absolutely no business pressing that. It’s under the dashboard for a good reason. Do you understand me?”
Jaycee removed his finger from the red button, “Understood.”
“And be careful your big, fat knee doesn’t actually hit it, either,” Alex continued. “For Christ’s sake, we don’t want you blasting your ass to smithereens like an idiot.”
“How are the kittens holding up?” Jaycee said as the tank fired to life, “Are they with you?”
“Nice. A change of subject,” Alex spat. “They’re fine, they’re sleeping. Now pay attention. See the gears in front of you?”
“Yeah,” Jaycee grabbed the giant dual gear stick in both hands.
“Push the main one away to move forward. Very slowly. Always initiative all movements gingerly to get used to their sensitivity.”
“Okay,” Jaycee pushed the gear forward, enabling the conveyors to rumble toward the wall.
“No. Don’t do it now,” Alex barked. “The door isn’t open, yet.”
“Sorry.”
Alex continued, “Tripp? Are you there?”
Tripp climbed into a white cage atop the tank with a mounted turret in front of him, “All good.”
“Good. The turret is three-hundred-and-eighty, which means you have full rotation. You can use both triggers, or just the left and right. Each spends five hundred bullets per minute. The chain runs down to the armory at the back of the tank.”
“Understood.”
“Which means Jaycee must be careful not to back into anything that could break it open,” Alex advised. “If you’re using the turret, which, hopefully, you won’t have to, lay off for every ten seconds to allow for cool down. The spools get very hot.”
“Okay.”
“There is no trip switch on the tank. If you keep your finger on the trigger during overheat, you’ll blow yourself up and probably take half the place with you, as well.”
Tripp released the handles instinctively, “Uh, do you think I should drive and Jaycee handle the weaponry?”
“No,” Alex said. “You’re not using the turret to shoot. You’re using it to inspect. The sight on top records everything it sees.”
Tripp leaned forward and looked down the sight. Red lines appeared on the image of the wall and shot to the bottom right-hand-corner.
“Okay, got it.”
“Good. We’ll use that data to configure a terrain report for Manny. Get some clue as to where we are.”
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Jaycee said, eagerly.
“Hang on, big fella,” Alex said. “Okay, opening the exit for you, now. Standby.”
SHUUUUUURRRRRMMMMMMM.
The back wall lifted upwards with an infuriating slowness. The grind of ceramic-on-metal rolled around the Motary as Jaycee pushed the gears forward.
VROOOOOOOOM.
Six huge rollers careened through the conveyor, shifting the entire unit forward.
“Good luck, gentlemen. Retain comms at all times,” Alex said.
“Thanks, Alex. We will,” Jaycee said. “Let’s do this.”
“Be careful,” Alex quipped. “It looks boring out there,”
***
Jelly held the frame of the battered spaceship door and scanned the scores of hungry wolves howling and barking like dogs at her.
They wanted her to jump down and provide a well-earned meal for them. There probably wasn’t enough of her to go around, or so she thought.
A curious thing to think when faced with certain death. She’d developed the critical thoughts and considerations of a human and found the morbid curiosity fascinating at times.
“Not enough of me to go around, dickheads. No,” she shouted at them and teased the first row of hungry, vicious wolves with her boot.
They ran forward and hopped up on their hind legs, scratching and battering the underside of the ship.
“Wow, vicious,” she clung to the frame for dear life, knowing she had to make a decision - and fast.
SCHTOMP-SCHTOMP-SCHTOMP.
The ship rattled back and forth once again, this time due to Mastazita’s exit from the cockpit.
The light from Saturn
hit the incredible beast, offering Jelly a clear view of his body and face.
A view she’d regret committing to memory.
Mastazita - an ungainly force of nature. Two feet taller than Jelly, his wolf body looked to be extremely agile. It wouldn’t have taken a rocket scientist - fortunately - to figure out that he, or she, or whatever sex it was, was in charge.
And it was headed straight for Jelly’s back.
“God,” Jelly turned to the wolves and scratched her infinity claws around the frame of the door.
“Muh-shtaaaaaa-zee-taaah,” it growled as it stomped ever closer to Jelly with its paws scraping along the walls. Its nose twitched, trying to following Jelly’s scent.
“Please. Send me some help,” Jelly took a deep breath and committed herself to jumping out of the ship.
Just as her left leg moved away, a sound came from the sky.
BZZZZZZZZZZ.
“Huh”?” Jelly looked up to see a white drone with USARIC written on the side of it. “Tripp?” she yelled at the device as it whizzed around and surveyed the area.
“No, not Tripp, you silly cat,” Alex waved his arm across a live 3D image from the drone in the control deck. “It’s me, Alex. You have gotten yourself in a bit of a pickle, haven’t you?”
The view of the drone sank a few feet and flew in front of Jelly’s face. Alex ran his middle finger up from the bottom of the image all the way to the top, heightening the volume.
“Jelly, this is Alex. You can’t stay in there—”
Jelly’s ears flew up as she scanned the whizzing drone.
“—you have to jump,” his voice flew out from the circular drone which hovered a few feet above her head.
“Alex?” Jelly screeched at the drone. “There’s something on the ship. You have to help me.”
“I will, Jelly,” the drone carried Alex’s voice along with it as it zoomed over the heads of the wolves, “I’ll distract them and clear a path.”
HOOWWWWLLLLLLLL.
“Hurry up,” Jelly looked over her shoulder.
Mastazita would be dining on the flesh in her back and neck ten seconds from now.
“He’s coming.”