Alex moved around the audio waveform and analyzed its pattern.
“Hello? This is Space Opera Charlie. Does anyone read me?”
No response.
Alex looked at Manny and waved Jaycee over, “The signal’s weak. How did it hop onto the IMS frequency?”
Manny floated through the image and appeared at Alex’s face, “I don’t know. The main IMS channel has been disabled.”
“Let me try again,” Alex turned to the image and cleared his throat.
Before he spoke, a voice ruptured through the audio waveform.
“Yes, this is node Arr-Ay-Gee-Eee on your frequency. Please reveal your call sign. I repeat, reveal your call sign.”
Alex walked up to the wave. The green hue crept up his face as he revealed the information, “This is Space Opera Charlie. Who is this?”
Jelly looked up and held her babies in her arms, “Who is it, Alex?”
“I don’t know, yet.”
Tripp buckled in the chair and wiped the sweat from his brow, “I-It’s Earth, isn’t it?”
Alex looked over at Tripp and raised his eyebrows, “Are you feeling okay, Captain?”
A shiver ran down Tripp’s spine, “I hurt m-my hand on the turret. It came off.”
“I told you to let it cool down,” Alex returned to the image. “I dunno. Who is this? Is it Earth? No, it can’t be—”
“—Hughes?” asked female voice from within image.
“Alex?” a recognizable male voice followed.
Alex’s face lit up. He recognized both voices. He turned to Jaycee with a huge grin on his face, and then back to the image. “Yes? Is that Siyam?”
“Alex Hughes, this is Noyin Odrassa. You’ve hit RAGE’s SPO. Buddy, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me,” Alex beamed. “Listen, you’ll never believe this. Charlie is fine, but her crew went down. We found Beta and managed to rescue most of them. We’ve crashed somewhere, posted outside Saturn and we can’t get the thrusters up and running.”
Alex realized quickly that the connection had broken.
“—osing connection,” Noyin’s voice buzzed.
“What? Did you hear my last?”
“No.”
The audio dulled, angering Alex.
“Damn it, hello? Can you read me?”
No response.
“Excuse me, Alex?” Manny asked.
“What is it now?”
“The connection is still available, but the signal is weak. I could open up all available channels. If it’s not an issue on their end, it could strengthen the signal?”
“Yes, do that.”
Jaycee rubbed his hands together, “You know these guys, huh?”
“Yeah, they’re my gang. My real gang, I mean.”
“Ah, I see. So, not like Opera Charlie who tried to kill us?”
“Hey, I was undercover. You better get on your knees and worship me, because I saved all your asses—”
BZZZZZ.
The waveform rumbled back to life.
“Hughes, can we go to visual, please?” Noyin asked.
A grin formed across Alex’s face.
“Manny, go visual, please.”
Bip-bip-bip…
“Standby for visual,” she said.
Jelly, Jaycee, Tripp - and the kittens - fell silent as flat, live feed of the RAGE gang replaced the audio wave.
“Can you see me?” Alex asked.
BOOOOM.
Opera Charlie shunted left and right, briefly taking out the lights. The bulbs snapped back to life.
“What was that?” Jaycee asked. “Manny?”
“Something hit the exterior,” she said.
“I’ll go and check on it,” Jaycee ran past Jelly and opened the door, “Alex, I’ll leave the communications stuff to you.”
“Okay.”
Jaycee stomped down the walkway as quietly as he could - which wasn’t very quiet at all.
His boots clomped along the grilles on the ground, “Who’s there?”
No one was there, apparently.
“Hello?”
He turned the corner that lead to the Primary Airlock. Historically, all the bad happenings occurred there, and Jaycee felt it was worth checking.
Jaycee felt a draught on his approach to the hatch.
The window was still shattered and covered in dried blood.
“Hello? Who’s there?”
Still no response.
Just a faint growling from way outside the ship.
CLOMP… CLOMP… CLOMP.
Jaycee heard the footsteps, but they weren’t coming from the airlock.
They were coming from behind.
Jaycee turned around and saw a shadow accompanying the sound of the footsteps.
He reached into his belt and gripped hi Rez-9, “Who’s there?”
Sniff-sniff…
Jaycee pulled the gun out and aimed it down the length of the corridor, “Who’s there?”
A whimper echoed across the walls.
“Come out,” Jaycee demanded. “Or I’ll shoot.”
“I wish you would,” came a husky, feminine voice.
Jaycee squinted at the shadow’s tail.
“Jelly?”
She turned around the corner in a flood of tears, and traipsed towards Jaycee.
“You can shoot me right in the head, if you want to.”
“What happened? Why are you upset?”
Jelly wiped her face. Most of the fur on her cheek came away in her hands, “I’m a mess, Nayall. Look at me.”
“What?”
“They all thought so, too. I could tell by the way they were looking at me.”
“By the way who was looking at you?”
Jelly half-chuckled through her tears. She’d resigned herself to her fate - that of a half-cat, half-woman. A disparate and devilish abortion of science.
“It doesn’t matter. I had to get out of there.”
Jaycee replaced his Rez-9 on his belt buckle, “Where are your kittens?”
“Ah,” she licked her lips and sniffed. “With Alex and Tripp. I just needed to get out of there. I thought I’d come and assist you.”
Jaycee burst out laughing.
“You? Jelly Anderson? Help me? Are you feeling okay?”
“Shut up, I’m good at helping people.”
Jaycee scanned the walls and pointed at the airlock, “It’s those things. They’re trying to get in. The airlock isn’t going to hold them off much longer.”
***
“Miew,” Furie caught the material on his glove and sank her little teeth into them.
Tripp swallowed hard and turned his severed hand up to his face. He kept one eye on Alex, hoping that he wouldn’t turn around from the live feed.
“Connection has dropped, Alex,” Manny said. “I did my best.”
“At least we connected,” Alex sighed and looked at the kittens, “That’s right, we connected. Didn’t we?”
“Miew,” Furie offered.
A fleshy limb burst through Tripp’s busted wrist. He grabbed his arm and shoved it between his legs, “Shhhh.”
“Huh?” Alex turned to find his Captain ostensibly touching a part of him that had no business being touched in polite company.
“What’s wrong, Tripp?”
“Shhhh,” he gasped to himself, knowing Alex could hear him.
“Please don’t shush me, Captain.”
The skin on Tripp’s right arm dripped away from the flesh underneath to reveal the beginnings of a metal talon.
His left arm rumbled like an aggressive food mixer, “Gahhhh.” Quick-thinking, he clutched his left wrist with his right hand to prevent himself from thrashing around.
Alex gasped, “My God, is it that Symphonium stuff?”
“Shhhh,” Tripp fell onto his ass and kicked his feet around.
It caught Alex’s attention.
“Shaa-sha—”
“—Hissssss,” White repeated, extremely unhappy with
Tripp’s presence.
“Tripp?” Alex grabbed Furie in his arms for protection, “What the hell is happening to you? Pull yourself together.”
A torrent of pink saliva burst from Tripp’s mouth as he spoke in a broken inflection, “Shaaaaaa—”
“—No, no, no,” Alex focused on Tripp’s left arm. His right arm jolted back as the fingers on his left cracked open and out. A second fleshy limb bubbled underneath and pushed through the splintered cavity.
Tripp convulsed. His chest pushed into the air and spun his body around.
“K-Kill, k-kill m-me.”
SCHPLATT.
Alex witnessed Tripp’s body slam to the ground. His entire left arm branched out like a fleshy tree. A giant talon broke through what little remained of his arm.
“Oh no, no,” Alex yelped in horror, “He’s turning into one of those—”
“—SHAAAAAANTTTAAAAA,” Tripp’s face cracked apart as a fat, thick limb pulverized his skull in two.
Alex chucked Furie toward the flight deck and screamed at White to take cover, “You, go. Now.”
“Hisssss,” White wasn’t obeying an order. She was too preoccupied with the fleshy Tripp monstrosity convulsing in the corner of the room.
Alex thought on his feet. He needed White to run away.
“Woof,” was his answer.
It worked. White pricked up her ears.
“Raaaar,” Alex stepped forward, scaring the life out of the kitten. She turned around and bolted under the flight deck.
Alex ran over to the door and opened it. He kept an eye on Tripp as a second and third Shanta limb smashed out of his right arm socket, “Manny?”
“Yes, Alex?”
“What’s happening to Healy?”
“He’s turning into one of those things that Opera Beta found.”
“Are they deadly?”
“Yes, very. I’d advise you kill him.”
Alex felt around his belt, but he didn’t have any firearms. Just a giant console and two chairs were the only tools available to dispatch what used to be Tripp.
“No, no, it’s no good,” Alex gripped the door frame and shouted down the walkway, “Guys, can you hear me? Jaycee? Jelly?”
No response.
“Jaycee? Jelly?” Alex shouted once again, hearing the echo roll down the lengthy passage.
“Alex, your two colleagues are at the top of the stairwell. Would you like me to initiate an emergency alarm?”
“Uh, uh,” Alex turned to Tripp’s malformed body just in time to see his jacket burst apart at the seams, “Do it, Manny. Red alert. Now.”
“Understood,” Manny’s holographic book slapped its pages like a bird over to the communications console, “And the kittens?”
“Oh Christ, I forgot about them.”
“Signaling red alert, now.”
The alarm system sprang into action.
All the lights dimmed, quickly replaced by spinning red bulbs on all four walls.
“Occupants and employees of Space Opera Charlie,” Manny announced. “This is a message of warning. This is not a drill. This is not a dramatization—”
Two Minutes Earlier…
“Ugh,” Jelly clutched her chest and pressed her back against the walkway wall, “My heart feels like it’s trying to climb out of my throat.”
Jaycee slid his glove under her head, “Hold your head back and take a few deep breaths.”
“We’re—we’re going to make it home, aren’t we?”
“Yes,” Jaycee lied.
He knew better than anyone that their chances of getting Opera Charlie operational and blasting off to Earth was remote. No one knew if they had the fuel to get back home.
No one knew where they were.
But Jelly bought the fiction. She had no choice.
“My b-babies, Jaycee.”
“Yes, Jelly.”
“They’re s-safe. Aren’t they? Tell me they’re safe.”
“Of course. They’re perfectly safe with Alex and Tripp back at control. No harm will come to them.”
A tear rolled down her cheek as she coughed and groaned. A clump of pink phlegm soaked into her fur as it raced down her chin, “Wh-what’s h-happening to me?”
Jaycee didn’t have an answer. He just stared into her eyes and tried his best. Killing and maiming were his strong suit, and not diplomacy.
“I want to tell you something, Jelly.”
“Wh-what?” She winced in pain as she lifted her head.
“When I was a little boy, all I ever wanted to do was go into space.”
“Ugh,” she spat and lifted her eyeballs to the lights in the stairwell ceiling, “This isn’t going to be a long-ass sob story, is it?”
“Not exactly,” Jaycee continued. “When I was a little boy, all I ever—”
“—Yeah, you s-said that already. Skip to the good bit.”
“Space. Go into space and find new worlds. And occasionally kill some aliens,” Jaycee thumped his exo-suit shoulder pad, right on the USARIC logo. “Those bastards back on Earth gave me the opportunity. But now that I’ve taken that opportunity, I don’t know what to do next.”
“S-So?” Jelly sat up straight and scratched her nose, “What’s that got to do with anything?”
Jaycee smiled and helped her up, “You came along, Jelly. You changed everything. I’m not sure what it is you’ve changed, or what your purpose is, but you’ve managed it so far.”
Jaycee yanked her to her feet and looked at her. Seven feet and five inches of gorgeous half woman, half cat stood before him.
In pain, sure, but standing nevertheless.
“I’m n-not so sure about that, Jaycee.”
Her retort genuinely surprised him.
“What? Why?”
“I’m n-not a good cat. I’m n-not much of a human, either. I’m both, yet I’m neither. A part of me wants to protect everyone, and the other half wants to kill.”
“Huh?”
“When I was a little girl,” Jelly quipped. “My sisters and I were abandoned by our owner. Left in the middle of the freeway for dead. I should have saved them, but I c-couldn’t.”
“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault.”
“Ngggg,” Jelly spluttered and cleared her throat, “I-I could have saved them. They trusted m-me.”
Jaycee frowned, knowing full well that any addition to the conversation would be met with derision.
“Look, we’ve come this far, Jelly. We can’t do anything about the past, but I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure whatever is planned for us in the future is done and finished.”
She smiled at her friend and clutched her jaw. A subtle growl flew up her throat, culminating in a freaky cat-yawn into his face. The momentary visual nightmare of such an action - the sharp teeth, elongated smile, and weird retraction of skin and fur around her eyes took him by surprise.
“Damn, Jelly. You’re scary when you do that.”
Jelly licked her lips and sniffed the tears away, “Sorry.”
“Feeling better?”
“A bit—”
AYY-ROOOOO-GAH.
The alarms sounded off unexpectedly. All the lights in the walkway dimmed, replaced by spinning red lights.
“Occupants and employees of Space Opera Charlie,” Manny’s voice whirled down the stairwell, “This is a message of warning. This is not a drill. This is not a dramatization—”
Jaycee looked up and grabbed Jelly’s hand in his, “Huh?”
“What the hell?”
Alex’s voice could be heard in the distance, “Jelly? Jaycee? Can you hear me?”
“That’s Alex,” Jaycee pulled Jelly forward and ran with her towards the control deck, “Sounds bad.”
“Alex?” Jelly yelled. “We can hear you.”
“Jelly?” came the response, “Guys, listen. We have a situation, here. Whatever you do, do not enter the control deck. I repeat, do not enter the control deck—”
Jaycee’s heels skidded a
long the walkway. He extended his arm and kept Jelly from moving forward.
The room to the control deck door loomed in the distance. The rolling red lights flipped up and down in time to the alarm.
“You there, big man?” Alex’s hurried voice came from Jaycee’s Individimedia Ink on his forearm.
“Yes. We’re by the primary airlock.”
“We got a situation in here, man,” Alex hurried. “Is Jelly with you?”
“Yes, she is,” Jaycee glanced at her heaving chest.
A coronary wasn’t far away for Jelly.
“Miew.”
“Good,” Alex quipped, urgently. “No time to explain. I don’t have any weaponry. I hope you’ve got some serious firepower on you, though.”
“—Huh?” Jaycee yelped into his wrist, “What do you mean serious—”
“—I have to do it, man. I have to protect Jelly’s girls and the control deck. I’m sorry.”
“What do you mean you’re sorry—?”
SCHWUMP — WHOOOOSH.
The door to the control deck opened up and vomited out a chair with a half-Tripp, half-Shanta tied to it. The casters rolled at speed along the walkway, headed for Jaycee and Jelly.
“Oh, oh, shiiii—” Jaycee saw the door slam shut in front of Alex.
“Deal with him, he’s turning,” Alex screamed through Jaycee’s headgear.
“Jelly, move,” Jaycee planted the sole of his boot on her hip and kicked her out of the path of the zooming chair.
WHUMP—THUD!
As Jelly slammed against the wall, the chair clipped the end of her tail.
“Miew.”
Jaycee stepped back and let the chair scream past him, “Is that… Tripp?”
“SHAAAAAAANTAAAAA,” came the croaking, ungodly voice.
The chair whizzed along the ground, towards the airlock.
Tripp’s top half rocked forward and smashed his forehead against the already-broken window on the hatch.
SPRRIISSHHHHHH.
A gust of decompressed air blasted through the shattered glass, lacerating Tripp’s neck.
“Oh… my… God,” Jaycee widened his eyes as he watched his former Captain stumble forward on six of his limbs and shake the head away from the cavity.
“Jelly, uh, be a good girl and take cover in the control deck. I got this one.”
Jaycee unhooked his Rez-9 and took aim at the Shanta.
“What?” she spat and extended her infinity claws, “You think I’m gonna leave you here to deal with that bastard?”
Star Cat The Complete Series Page 86