SPACE SIMULCAST
(Expedition: IMS)
Distance traveled = 245,000 miles
Entity Eliminated = 100%
Course Redirect = Established
Overall: 98%
Result: Pass (Level One)
Tripp, Jamie, Emily, and Wool approached the simulation box, leaving Daryl in the control center. The pistons underneath it settled to the default rest position.
“Be careful with her when she exits,” Tripp said. “We know she hasn’t gone anywhere, but it might come as a bit of a shock to her.”
“Okay.”
The door to the simulation craft slid open. A tiny nose protruded from the side and wiggled around.
“Jelly?” Jamie asked. “It’s okay. It’s me.”
“Meow.”
She pushed her face forward and caught Jamie’s eye. A quick check at her surroundings confirmed she was in a safe environment.
“Meow.”
She hopped down the stairs in her CR suit. Jamie found it strange that the suit looked so cool on the live feed but, in reality, it looked rather daft on her. A tiny cat in an exo-suit. So small, and not especially threatening.
“Can we take the suit off her?” Jamie asked.
“Sure, let me,” Wool crouched to the floor and held her arms out at the cat, “Captain Katz? Disengage the CR suit, please.”
“Okay, Standby,” Daryl’s voice announced.
WHIZZ-CLICK-CLICK.
The armored limbs unfastened and buckled out, releasing Jelly from her constrictions. She lowered her head and slid her face out of the helmet.
Finally, she climbed out of the suit and hit the ground, swishing her tail from side to side. She was happy to be out of the suit that had fogged up with mild condensation.
“Good girl,” Jamie bent down and picked her up in his arms. She purred softly and threw her paws at his face.
“Is that it?” Emily asked Wool, who returned to her feet. “Is this over, now?”
“I think she’s had enough for one day,” Wool smiled and watched as Jelly closed her eyes, purring up a storm in her owner’s arms.
Emily tried her best not to cry. She looked at Jelly and smiled, “I’m so proud of you.”
Tripp reached into the simulator and pulled out a USARIC-branded carry case, “Jamie?”
“Yes, Tripp?”
“We’ll let her rest, now,” he said as he opened the cage. “We need to take her to her quarters at base and have her get used to her surroundings.”
“Okay,” Jamie said. “Do you want me to put her in the cage?”
“Yes, if you would. Thanks.”
Tripp set the cage on the floor and slid the door open. Jamie released Jelly to the floor. She wobbled around for a few steps, and decided she didn’t want to go in the cage.
She turned around and made her way to Jamie. He felt it strange that she hadn’t vocalized her refusal.
“No, girl,” he said, desperately trying to contain his emotion. “It’s time. You have to go with Tripp and Wool and save the universe.”
She slid the side of her face along the top of his hand and purred even harder.
“No, Jelly. Please, go inside. Your new family will take care of you.”
Jelly swiped at Jamie’s hand. How dare he suggest the strangers take her away from him. Her infinity claw caught the webbing between his thumb and index finger.
“Oww, bad girl.”
“Grrr,” Jelly snarled at him and demanded he pick her up.
“Jelly,” he placed his right palm over her head and grabbed the roof of the cage with his left. “Get in.”
“Mwwuuurrr.”
He pushed her back by the head. Her ass slumped into the cage. It was a battle she didn’t stand to win.
Before she knew it, the cage slid shut in front of her face, imprisoning her for good.
“Grrr,” she tried one, final time. She tilted her head and gave Jamie the cutest look of innocence he’d ever seen.
“Please, girl.”
“It’s okay, Jamie,” Wool lifted the handle on the carry case and hoisted it into the air. “She’s in good hands.”
“I hope so.”
“No harm will come to her while I’m around,” Wool twisted the case around and was met by an extremely put-out Jelly facing her behind the cage, “Hey… honey.”
“Honey?” Jamie asked.
Wool fixed her eyes on Jelly’s beautiful face, “Yes. Look at her face and eyes. A perfect orange-brown. She looks like a honey,” Wool turned to Tripp, “I’ll take her to her quarters, now. Get her fed and rested, ready for her big trip.”
“That’s great. Thanks.”
Wool affected a childish wave on Jelly’s behalf, “Bye-bye, Jamie.”
Jelly wasn’t fooled, though. It would be the very last time she and Jamie would ever see each other.
He raised his hand and waved back at her with great reluctance, “Bye, girl.”
“Meow,” Jelly butted her head against the bars on the cage and yawned as wide as she could.
CLINK.
A small object clanged to the floor as Wool carried the case away with her, but no one noticed.
Jamie’s face appeared to zoom over to the right of the cage. For Jelly, it happened in slow motion. The last time she’d see her owner, and she didn’t even have the foresight to savor the final few seconds.
“Come on, let’s go,” Wool made her way out of the facility with Jelly shrieking and whining in her cage.
Jamie wiped a small tear from his cheek. He’d lost her once when he and his mother signed the contract. This bonus event simply prolonged the misery of the loss.
Tripp took pity on the boy.
He crouched down and held him by the shoulders, “Hey, Jamie?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you okay?”
Jamie sniffed and gripped his mother’s hand, “I know she has to go. I know how important she is.”
Tripp smiled and nodded his head at the control center, “If only you knew the truth, Jamie. We spent so long finding the first. We know now that we have the best.”
Daryl waved at them from behind the glass wall of the control center. Wool approached him with Jelly in her cage and placed it on the floor.
“That’s my captain, Jamie. Bonnie, Jaycee, and Wool are my crew members. Jelly’s has the best team members working with her.”
A glimmer of light reflected off the floor and caught Jamie’s attention.
“Huh? What’s that?”
“What’s what?”
Jamie raised his eyes as he approached the object on the floor. A small necklace with an orange telescope pendant attached to it, covered in cold saliva.
“Huh?” Jamie looked up at the window to the control center. Jelly, Wool, and Daryl had moved away, never to be seen again.
“What is that?” Tripp asked.
Jamie closed his eyes and slid the necklace in his shirt pocket, “It’s, uh, nothing.”
Emily held out her hand to her son, “Come on, poppet. I think we should leave Jelly’s new family to get on with it.”
He took her hand and rose to his feet, still shocked by the fact that Jelly had returned the gift.
“Mr. Tripp?” Jamie asked.
“Yes, Jamie?”
“Do you think Jelly is a genius?”
Tripp thought about his reply. Jelly had managed to achieve the near-impossible today. She beat over one-hundred-thousand contestants in the Star Cat Project and, now, proved she was suitable for space travel.
An outcome no one had expected.
“Well, I’ve seen no evidence to the contrary. She’s passed with flying colors. Of course, the real test will be in a couple of weeks when we leave for Saturn.”
“Okay.”
The answer cheered the boy up a bit. He looked at his mother for a reaction, but she hadn’t the heart to look him in the face.
He turned back to Tripp for reassurance.
“But what ha
ppens if she doesn’t want to be a genius when she’s in space?”
“Oh, Jamie,” Tripp chuckled and winked at Emily, who smirked back at him with affection, “I wouldn’t worry about that.”
“Why not?”
“It’s simple,” Tripp finished. “There is no off position on the genius switch.”
From the author - Andrew Mackay
Author notes from Star Cat: Training Day
Hello!
I’m Andrew Mackay, author of Star Cat: Training Day. I hope you enjoyed it. It truly was a labour of love (notice how I spelled ‘labour’, just there? With a ‘U’?)
Doing what I love… writing.
You’ve probably guessed, if you didn’t know already, that I am British. Born and raised. Us Brits have a curious sense of humour and wacky outlook on the world in general. I suppose it took a madman from the butt-end of Hampshire (I.e. “me”) to come up with a silly little tail like Training Day.
As a reader of this universe, you probably fall into one of two categories.
1: You have already started the Star Cat series in earnest and discovered this novella, which I hope acted as a cute little side story for what you already know so far, or
2: You’re totally brand new to the series and are (I hope) sufficiently invigorated to want to start the series.
In any event, it doesn’t matter to me which category you’re in. The beauty of Star Cat: Training Day feeds both my desires to satisfy the fans and newcomers alike.
I’d been dying to write Star Cat: Training Day since finishing War Mage (Book 3 in the series.) One day, seemingly out of the blue, something niggled me about Infinity Claws. It’s very much a book of two halves, the events of which I shan’t spoil in case you haven’t started the series in earnest, yet.
The first half is essentially Jamie putting Jelly through the Star Cat Project - at first the city heats, and then finals. Of course the events don’t play out as you’d expect. The second half is the mission to Saturn with the crew of Opera Beta. So, there I was wondering what was hassling me.
And then I figured it out.
I had to gloss over the preparation for the mission. In other words, the bit between her winning the competition and going into space. I had intended to include a training sequence in Infinity Claws, but it would have slowed the pace right down and belaboured the point, somewhat. So, I took an executive (read; artistic) decision to shoot right past it and get into space. The last thing any reader would have wanted is repetition of the Star Cat Project games.
I’m glad I didn’t include the training sequence in the first book, of course. For pacing reasons above anything else.
Nevertheless, I felt I wanted to tackle some of the important points during the training session. A self-contained story showing Jelly’s temerity and a bit of a bonus for those who miss Jamie. Both books feature a part where Jelly is whisked away, presumably never to be seen by Jamie again. The first time it happens it’s sad and morose. In Training Day, the poor boy’s been through the heartache once already and actually lets her go. This will be important for an upcoming event in the final three books. Yes, I’ve decided since we last met that Star Cat will be six books in its entirety.
If you’re a gamer, you’ll probably recognise a lot of the content in Star Cat: Training Day.
I’ve always been fascinated by space exploration, and the real balance (as the reviews for the first book demonstrate) is between the fantasy and reality. For every nuclear reactor (or some such science fact lol) I was compelled to “get wrong” for the sake of the story, there’s been five times as many plaudits. You can never win, sometimes
I love the idea of a giant maze. If you don’t know a TV show called The Crystal Maze, then you should check it out on YouTube - as that is more or less exactly how I saw Training Day play out. The whole aquatic parameter and IBS system really does exist at Nasa. Of course, in the future NASA has been sold off and broken up, for sale to the highest corporate bidder. But all the things you read in Training Day exist in one form or another, albeit, slightly modified for a cat. Has that ever been done before? I can’t quite believe it hasn’t, but I’m willing to accept I wasn’t the first if someone can direct me to a similar book!
I’ll stake no claim in being an expert in science fiction, or even the military for that matter, but one thing I do know is how to make it fun and zip along at a quick pace. (I think?) Anyway, it satisfies me - which is about as good a shot at success as any loner author can possibly hope to achieve before delivering it to the world.
Once again, and no surprise, even though this is a novella, that Jelly has a very blatant arc. Starting off as a mere house cat, by the end of the story she’s faced her fears and managed to save the day - in theory. Or simulation. I’m glad I was able to revisit some of the characters we’ve said goodbye to already. It’s as if they never really left. Also, as this novella comes out in the mid-point between the first and last three books, it acts as the perfect breakwater between those two halves. I carefully calibrated Training Day to act as thrilling nostalgia for the in-the-know and a strong entry point to the stories for those who are new.
At least, that was my intention. How did I do?
Please get in touch and let me know.
I can see the final three books looming on the horizon. Star Cat 4: Killer Instinct should be out by the end of the month, and books 5 and 6 over the course of the following two months. The end is in sight. Only I know what’s going to happen - and the handful amongst you will have probably guessed the correct trajectory the story is going. Or, at least parts of it, anyway.
I realise just how silly and unbelievable the whole “cat going into space” idea really is, of course. As a former cat owner myself, I know cats don’t do as they’re told. They generally have no loyalty to anyone other than those who feed them, and, essentially, would make pretty pathetic astronauts in the main.
But then again, there’s no fun in that, is there?
All cat owners secretly think their pets are wonderful. Of course they are. That’s the whole point. But some of us dream that our cats might one day be like Jelly Anderson. That maybe there’s a “thing” inside them that proves what we know about them all wrong. And maaaaaybe… they do rule the entire universe.
It’s a cute thought.
Star Cat: Infinity Claws changed my author career. It became a best-selling book pretty much out of the paddock when it was released back in May. I’ve received so many emails (most good, some not so good) about how much they and their families love Jelly Anderson. The detractors obviously haven’t got the point (see above paragraph.) Well, I’m sorry… it’s not going to stop me from writing the strongest material I can possibly produce. Star Cat will continue and finish with a bang.
If you haven’t already, please head on over to that leading online retailer (the name begins with an “A”) and start Star Cat: Infinity Claws.
I hope to see you at the end of that book for more insight into the process of building the story.
And for those of you who have already started the series and are waiting for the next book. Shhh! Don’t give anything away!
Best wishes,
Andrew Mackay,
Hampshire, UK
(August 13, 2018)
***
In Space No One Can Hear You Purr.
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‘Star Cat: Training Day’
Copyright © 2018 Chrome Valley Books
Written by Andrew Mackay
Edited by Ashley Rose Miller
Cover design by Kveather
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (or somewhere in between), events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Acknowledgements:
For K
Also to:
My immediate family
Jennifer Long, Adele Embrey, Mystee Pulcine, Bonie Dale Keck, and Barrie
for their usual awesomeness.
The CVB Gang Members / ARC Street Team - y’all know who y’are.
And all the cats, of course.
Beyond the stars.
Beyond your wildest imagination.
Discover how it all began…
Star Cat: Origins
Young Jamie Anderson’s world is turned upside down by tragedy.
But a new character is about to enter his life and change it forever.
A little cat named Jelly.
USARIC (formerly NASA) is preparing a mission that will change history.
And perhaps even the future.
There’s a contest coming … to find the first cat in space.
Something fantastic is coming…
Star Cat: Origins is the prequel to the groundbreaking sci-fi series.
It all started here…
https://www.subscribepage.com/y5c5i8
Star Cat: Training Day: A Space Opera Fantasy Page 8