“I have too, just not inside a spacesuit,” said Amy. “What am I talking about? I’ve never seen a cat in a spacesuit, period.”
The pair of cats hung the sections of the heavy space suits on hooks along the walls. A low warble sounded and the black cat touched Amy’s shoulder.
“Time to stand up, Miss Armstrong. Gently, now. Watch the low ceiling.”
Still a bit light-headed, Amy used the walls for support as she got to her feet. The black cat wasn’t lying; the room was much smaller than it seemed. Amy had to stoop, and the back of her shoulders pressed against the white ceiling.
The black cat touched a section of wall and a round hatch rolled away with a thunk. A clamor of sound poured into the airlock: the clang of metal on metal, orders shouted from across a room, and the hiss and hammer of hydraulic tools.
Amy squeezed through the hatch after the two cats, and stood to her full height in a long and wide hangar bay. Along the metal bulkhead to her left were several small airlocks like the one she’d just exited, followed by a line of thirty wider hatches. On Amy’s right a throng of cats and dogs in colored overalls and protective goggles bent over metal components or stuck their heads inside large black spheres hanging from yellow repair cranes. On the far end of the wide hangar deck, Amy saw a gray craft being pulled into view by a dog driving an electric cart. The wide wings and long, narrow tail made Amy think of a manta ray.
The black cat touched her hand. “This way, Miss Armstrong.”
Amy walked behind the two cats as they trotted on all fours toward the gray craft in the distance. The hatches on her left were painted with large red numbers and a screen above each hatch displayed a video feed of empty tubes. Amy felt occasional vibrations in the floor as they walked, and saw the large black spheres dart into the tubes and stop. Cats in bubble helmets and flexible red suits emerged from doors in the spheres, pushed into the adjoining airlocks, and began to remove their pressure suits.
Amy and her escorts walked by hatch numbers that grew smaller and smaller. As they passed the single digits, the hatches clicked and hissed open. The final hatch in the line was labeled with a big red one. It rolled to the side and a familiar orange tabby trotted out.
Amy waved at him. “Sunflower!”
The cat saw her and dodged the other pilots leaving the tubes.
“Amy! Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, thanks to these two.”
Sunflower nodded at the pair of cats. “Good job, Lee. Good job, Kira.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
The cats bowed and trotted away, leaving Amy with Sunflower.
“Are you sure you’re feeling fine?” asked the cat. “The Lady was afraid you might die from a pressure blowout or oxygen leak. I’m actually shocked that the plan worked, mainly because Betsy was involved.”
Amy squinted at Sunflower. “Wait a second … How did you rescue me? I was in the middle of a space station slash prison full of creepy lizards slash morons.”
“You weren’t in the middle, luckily. The sauros thought you were extremely dangerous, and the idiots put you in an isolated section away from guards and other criminals. Sauros may be fierce, but they’re also very predictable. We simply scanned the station, cut away the part with you in it, and flew away.”
“Cut away the part with me in it? It’s outer space! I could have died a million different ways!”
Sunflower blinked. “More like a thousand. Decompression, oxygen loss, laser failure, collision with our bombers, reactor failure, accidental overcharge of a laser, more sauro fighters showing up, Betsy playing her music too loud; the list goes on and on.”
“Thanks. I didn’t really want to know.”
“You’re here now and that’s the important thing,” said Sunflower. “When the sauro battle fleet catches up to us we’ll all be dead anyway, but you got to live another five minutes, right?”
“Doesn’t the Lady have a plan?”
“That’s exactly what I said. Come on, let’s see if Betsy is stuck in his cockpit again.”
Amy followed the orange tabby past a line of huge rectangular doors with blue numbers painted on the face to the pair of gray craft. Cats and dogs in rubberized suits swarmed over and under the wings, spraying tanks of white steam onto every surface. The clear bubble of the cockpit slid back, and a dog in a blue spacesuit climbed down a ladder. At the bottom waited a beagle wearing manos tools on his paws. He grabbed the pilot’s bubble helmet and twisted it off to reveal the brown and white head of a Jack Russell terrier.
“Betsy!”
The dog saw Amy and barked happily. After the blue spacesuit was pulled off his body, the terrier raced up to her.
“We did it!”
“Yes,” said Sunflower dryly. “The mission was a success, apart from the fact that you returned in one piece.”
Betsy glanced left and right and hung his head.
“Two pieces, actually,” whispered the dog. “I had an accident. In my space pants.”
“You were supposed to go before we left!”
“I know, I know! Why do you always have to yell?”
“Because it makes me feel better!”
A low-high-low whistle sounded throughout the hanger, and all the pilots and engineering animals froze for a second. Whispers filled the air.
“The Lady!”
“The Lady’s coming.”
“Impossible. How?”
“Move it! Get in line!”
The animals dropped what they were doing and formed two parallel lines in the center of the hangar bay, leaving five meters of space between the rows. The cat and dog pilots made up one side and engineers and repair techs the other.
Amy stood between Sunflower and Betsy. “What was that whistle? Is the Lady coming?”
“Yes,” said Sunflower. “And it’s either really, really bad or really, really good. Those are the only times the Lady visits anyone.”
“I think it’s good!” said Betsy.
“You would, wouldn’t you?”
Amy gently nudged the cat with her bare foot. “That silver disc from the Lady––did you listen to it?”
Sunflower bowed his head and replied in a whisper.
“I did. I don’t think it was the Lady’s fault that Andy disappeared.”
The low-high-low sound whistled once more through the speakers and a wide door swished open opposite the hangar from Betsy’s manta bomber. A pair of tentacled inspectors floated into the room followed by the Lady, her metal spider legs hammering on the hangar floor like a giant typewriter of doom.
The Lady’s wrinkled hands were clasped in front of her as if she were holding a mouse. She wore a long-sleeved blouse of pale blue and a shimmering white robe on her upper torso instead of the striped sweater Amy had last seen her wearing. Her gray braid had been wound into a circle on the top of her head, and a diamond-covered tiara rested on her forehead. The polished obsidian ball of her lower body swiveled and turned with each step of the metal legs.
The Lady stopped in front of Amy and smiled.
“Miss Armstrong. I’m very happy to see you back, safe and sound.”
Amy shrugged. “I’m just glad I didn’t have to spend one more second with those reptiles.”
“I hope they weren’t unpleasant with you.”
“Nah. More like smelly and boring.”
The Lady bowed her head. “An apt description of their race, I’m sorry to say.”
An airlock opened beyond the line of fighter tubes and a pair of sauros tumbled out, squealing and clawing at a half-dozen cats in white spacesuits. The inspectors next to the Lady dashed forward and grabbed the two lizard men in their tentacles, lifting both into the air. One sauro wore a long white coat, like a scientist or doctor. The other looked as if he’d spilled an entire cup of coffee down the front of his blue uniform.
“Welcome to the Dream Tiger,” said the Lady. “To whom do I owe this pleasure?”
Nistra wriggled in the grip of the powerful
tentacles, bits of loose change flying from his pockets and bouncing on the metal hangar deck.
“You can’t treat an officer of the Empire like this, you monster! You’ll pay for this!”
The line of cats and dogs standing proudly at attention winced at the sauro’s remarks, but the Lady waved a wrinkled hand.
“How rude,” she said. “I thought the most powerful beings in the galaxy would be more polite.”
Nistra wrinkled his scaly nose and growled. “Detention Officer First Class Nistra. The spotty-faced poona brain beside me is Recruit Officer Flistra.”
The Lady tilted her head. “Officer Nistra, today is the most important day of your life.”
The sauro bared his teeth. “I will die with honor, Lady! You won’t find me begging, no matter how famously cruel you are.”
“I haven’t saved you from the fragments of your prison station just to execute you! No, you will live today, tomorrow, and the next day. You have many days ahead of you and many grandchildren to whom you may tell this story.”
“He … um, he’s already got grandchildren,” said Flistra in a squeaky voice.
“Great-grandchildren, then,” said the Lady. “For the life of me, I can’t tell how old you sauros are, or even one sauro from the next.”
“Lizardist,” hissed Nistra.
The Lady clapped her hands. “Everyone dismissed! Let Officers Nistra and Flistra go. I will take charge of them.”
“Release them from protective custody?” crackled the metallic voice of the inspector holding Flistra in the air.
“Yes, please.”
The inspectors released their claws and the two sauros fell several feet to the deck. The assembly of cats and dogs wandered back to their stations or out of the hangar.
Amy watched Nistra and Flistra stand up. “I have a bad feeling about this.”
“Please don’t be worried,” said the Lady. “Both are special individuals, and both have a grand part to play in what happens next.”
“Thank you,” said Nistra. “Finally, some respect.”
Amy sighed. “Miss The Lady or whatever, you keep saying weird things like that, like I’m special, this guy is special, that piece of lint is special. If you’d just spill the beans on what’s going on instead of keeping it a big secret, I think we’d all be happier.”
The Lady smiled. “I understand, Amy Armstrong. For now, please follow me.”
“Isn’t a battle fleet coming to blow us out of space or whatever?”
“Not for a few minutes. Sunflower and Betsy, you must also come.”
“Sure!” barked Betsy.
“Yes, my Lady,” said Sunflower quietly.
Nistra growled and spat on the deck. “In the words of the ancient sauropod Napoleon Bonaparte: ‘Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.’ ”
Amy laughed. “Ancient sauropod? Seriously, Godzuki, you need summer school.”
The small party followed the Lady and her inspector bodyguards across the hangar, through a series of wide airlocks, and down a long corridor to a security door. With a touch of the Lady’s wrinkled hand, the bulky steel door split horizontally and rumbled into the floor and ceiling. Amy followed the Lady into the narrow chamber beyond and squealed with surprise.
A vast field of stars glimmered above her head and below her feet, as clear and real as if she’d stepped outside the ship. Every surface from top to bottom––the floor, the curving walls, the bench seats––were almost completely transparent, turning the chamber into a glistening bead of dew on the black, rocky surface of the Lady’s hollowed-out asteroid slash spaceship. The fantastic view, however, was not the sole reason for Amy’s sudden outburst.
“Philip!”
Amy jumped at the teenager and hugged him around the neck.
“Nice to see you, too,” he said, squirming a bit to keep from being strangled. “It’s only been twelve hours. What did those beastly sauros do to you?”
Amy pouted. “Grouchy Gus. I’m just happy to see my favorite English boy.”
“Got a hug for me?” asked a high-pitched voice.
Nick landed on Philip’s shoulder and curtsied in a purple dress. Amy carefully shook the tiny sprite’s hand with her thumb and forefinger.
“What a beautiful dress,” she said.
The blonde sprite grinned and twirled, fluttering her skirt.
“Thank you!”
“Can we get to the point of all this?” snarled Nistra. “Someone in this room has a home world that’s gone missing. Let’s see … it’s me!”
“Kepler Prime will return in eleven point three minutes,” said the Lady. “First I must apologize to Amy for the pain and suffering she has experienced from the sauro prison and my rogue inspector in London.”
Amy shrugged. “I’m fine. The transmat healed my broken bones, and the sauro prison wasn’t even as scary as summer camp.”
“Summer camp?” asked Recruit Flistra. “What is … summer camp?”
Nistra slapped the back of the recruit’s scaly head. “You fool! It’s obviously where they train to resist torture! That’s why we failed to penetrate the psychic defenses of this human.”
The Lady smiled at Amy. “As a physical token of my sincerity, I offer any treasure from the vast warehouses of my ship. Perhaps you would like the Daria-i-noor diamond? The British Crown Jewels? The actual Shroud of Turin?”
Amy laughed and rubbed the fur on Betsy’s head. “Thanks, but I don’t need any of that stuff. I’m just happy to be with my friends again.”
A mournful expression crossed the Lady’s face. “Amy Armstrong, you have changed since you arrived on my ship, changed from a young thief to a young woman. My old eyes are dim and clouded over, but I hope that I have helped steer the ship of your life onto a more positive course, and that you have gained honesty and wisdom. Keep your friends close and you will have a long and cheerful existence.”
“What about everyone back on Earth? What about Lucia? She needs me!”
“As I said before, the possibility for returning is small. I have sacrificed much to help you find a way back, Amy Armstrong. Out of all the billions upon billions of people who have ever lived and died in the galaxy, no one wishes you could go back to your stepmother more than me. I have lived for hundreds of years and traveled to more dimensions than you can imagine. Believe me when I wish for your safe return.”
“That’s a fine sentiment, your ladyship,” said Philip. “But cold comfort to those stranded here.”
The Lady turned and gazed at the vast panorama of stars.
“We’re all stranded one way or another, young Philip. The life of an individual is a silver thread woven throughout the vast tapestry of the universe. I hope that Amy is much smarter than I was and can find a way to hook the strands of our life back where they belong. That was my hope when she came here.”
Amy squinted at her. “Our life? What are you talking about?”
“Sorry for interrupting your tea party,” said Nistra. “But nobody seems to be paying attention to the giant missing planet in the room!”
Sunflower cleared his throat. “My Lady, we have battle cruisers approaching.”
“Right. I suppose I should speed this up. Nobody likes being late to their own funeral.” The Lady pointed above her head. “What’s up there?”
“The universe,” said Amy.
“Outer space,” said Philip.
“Your finger,” said Betsy.
Sunflower laughed. “Idiots! It’s the White Star. The Lady’s personal cutter.”
The entire group peered up through the dome to a long and narrow craft docked to the side of the asteroid. Mottled silver and gray, the tapering nose and wide engines at the rear made the craft appear strikingly similar to a barracuda, although one that was a hundred meters long, twenty meters high, and happened to swim in space.
“That’s impossible!” said Amy. “White Star was the name of my first cat, and I called the second one––”
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“Dream Tiger, of course,” said the Lady.
Amy clenched her teeth and pointed at her. “I don’t believe it! This whole thing has all been a dream. First Lucia’s voice in the computer, and now the names of my pets!”
“Whether you believe it’s imagined or reality, you must keep going,” said the Lady. “What we think about any situation in life is less important than actually what we do about it.”
“Great speech. What imagined situation are you going to tell us about now, Miss Lady All-In-My-Head?”
“Amy, please don’t fall into that trap again,” said Philip. “There is nothing imaginary or false about anything that’s happened.”
“I understand how confused you must feel,” said the Lady quietly. “The White Star was my first ship. It’s where I grew into a woman, saw the galaxy for the first time, and traveled through dimensions. The important ‘thing’ I’m going to do is give it to you.”
“Give it to me?”
“Many pardons, your ladyship,” said Philip. “But you’re supposed to be hundreds of years old. By any sort of calculation, that would make it a useless old relic.”
The Lady smiled. “Old relics are never useless.”
“But the human is right, my Lady,” said Sunflower. “Everyone knows the White Star is just an old, dusty museum. It was shut down during the building of the Dream Tiger and hasn’t been used since!”
“That part is correct,” said the Lady. “The ship’s power core was transferred to the Dream Tiger and she lay dormant for many years. In the last day, however, my crew has reactivated her and stocked the ship with supplies. She’s a self-repairing mechanical organism older than you can imagine, from a parallel dimension where cats, dogs, sprites, and sauros lived in peace and harmony.”
“Katmando,” whispered Sunflower, Betsy, and Nick simultaneously.
“Trust me, the White Star will be cruising Orion’s arm long after the galaxy has forgotten about all of us. She was constructed in a dimension where the level of scientific cooperation between the species allowed them to develop the first transmat drive; although ironically, the success of transmatting the entire ship meant they could never return. The vessel belonged to the very first Lady and has been passed down through the ages.”
The Girl Who Stole A Planet (Amy Armstrong Book 1) Page 24