Cygnus Arrives: Humanity Returns Home (Cygnus Space Opera Book 3)

by Craig Martelle

  ***

  “No! No, no, no, no, no!” Allard cried as the Hillcat kittens tried to sharpen their claws on one of the tree trunks, effectively shredding the soft bark. “Shoo, you nasty little beasts!”

  Beauchene ran toward them with a hose and sent a stream into the orange ruffians.

  The ‘cats scattered, yowling. Beauchene felt bad instantly because the kittens were so small, looking like little more than drowned rats. Dry, they were fluffier than the average ‘cat. The bigger kitten lounged casually to the side, watching his soaked litter-mates try to lick themselves dry.

  “I like you,” Allard told the ‘cat. “You don’t get into trouble like this bunch.”

  ‘Thank you, gentle soul,’ the kitten replied in a dainty thought voice, directly into Allard’s mind.

  “Hey, you talk!” Allard exclaimed. Beauchene looked confused. “He talks.”

  Allard pointed at the large gray kitten.

  ‘Of course I talk. I think I’ll adopt you both, but you need to understand the conditions,’ the kitten said in a business-like tone.

  ‘Anything you want. This is rather marvelous, don’t you think, Beauchene?’ Allard asked, switching to the mindlink.

  ‘It is indeed, but I would be cautious about promising a ‘cat anything it wants. We don’t have a great record of success with them,’ Beauchene replied carefully.

  ‘Nothing to fear, my friends. The main condition is that if I’m ever in danger, you must come save me. I shall endeavor to do the same in case you are aggrieved,’ the kitten pronounced.

  ‘Aggrieved? Who talks like that? You’re still nursing,’ Beauchene stated.

  ‘It is one of life’s trials, but it won’t be too long before I grow to be something more substantive. I hear that we have steak on board? I simply cannot wait to dig these sharp fangs into some of that. I expect it’s not fresh, though. Pity,’ the big gray kitten lamented.

  Allard and Beauchene looked at each other, their Rabbit noses twitching as they contemplated the small creature before them who seemed unnaturally well-educated and mature.

  ‘All ‘cats have the knowledge of those who have gone before. Most choose not to dwell on it, but I revel in it. Hillcats’ have such a fascinating history. And yes, now that we are paired, I can see in your minds. Okay, I am kidding. I could see in your minds before, and that’s why I decided to let you love me. I hesitate to use the word worship, but it may come to that. I am a ‘cat after all, and you are not. You can call me Clarkston, which isn’t my real name, of course, but you don’t get to know that until the time is right.’

  ‘I really don’t know about this,’ Beauchene said slowly, emphasizing the word ‘really.’

  “Oh well,” Allard said, shrugging his small shoulders. “Come along, Clarkston, and we’ll give you a proper tour of our domain, the garden deck, and see if there is a niche you want to carve from it for yourself.”

  To Wit, ‘Cats

  Captain Rand and Commander Daksha stepped through the hatch, instantly greeted by the higher humidity and bright lights of the garden deck. The flora greeted them warmly as Rand warily looked around, expecting laser fire or some other advanced weaponry used in inter-species warfare.

  Rand found the quiet unnerving, but Daksha, having gotten a good night’s rest finally, was refreshed and more welcoming of what he saw as opposed to worrying about what was unseen or expecting the worst.

  “It is nice to enjoy nature,” Daksha said, blinking slowly and swimming casually between the plants. “If only there were some beetles to snack on.”

  Rand could never tell when the Tortoid was kidding as he deadpanned through this vocalization device. The human didn’t respond.

  They caught sight of the ‘cats lounging in various nooks and crannies. The Rabbits were nowhere to be seen. Rand and Daksha continued their circumnavigation of the deck until they were stopped by two orange kittens, who stood with tails erect, challenging the interlopers.

  ‘Which one do you want?’ one ‘cat asked. The captain and commander heard the ‘cats speaking in their minds.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said the second small voice. Rand couldn’t tell which one was talking. ‘I guess I’ll take the tall one. Imagine what I’ll be able to see from way up there!’

  ‘I guess that leaves me with Boxy,’ the other voice replied.

  ‘Boxy? I expect you’re referring to me, but I’m the Third Master of the Tortoise Consortium and no one calls me Boxy,’ Daksha replied firmly over the mindlink.

  ‘Sucks to be you, dude. Yours has some mouth on him.’ The first voice sounded surprised.

  ‘Wow. Just wow. I’m going to have to work on him, that’s for sure. How old are you, Boxy?’ the second kitten asked. Rand still couldn’t tell which one was which.

  ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever met such an insolent rodent. And why are you wet?’ Daksha asked.

  ‘Those stuck-up caretakers don’t understand what growing kittens go through. Maybe you can help them understand our needs better as I don’t count on that gray troll to do it for us,’ the first kitten replied.

  “Which one are you?” Rand asked out loud.

  The first kitten turned and glared at the tall human. ‘Really? You can’t tell us apart yet? You can call me Nathan. Now pick me up and let me see what the world looks like from way up there.’

  Rand reached down and scooped up two pounds of orange Hillcat kitten. The first thing Nathan did after being put on the captain’s shoulder was rub his face on the side of the man’s head.

  “You stink,” Rand blurted. Daksha would have laughed, but he wasn’t sure that he was in a better position than the captain.

  ‘You don’t smell so hot, either, human,’ Nathan retorted. ‘Let’s find those fuzzytails and set them right.’

  ‘Come down here where I can jump up, Boxy,’ the second ‘cat requested.

  Daksha visibly sighed, a difficult act for a Tortoid, but he floated toward the deck where the kitten took two steps and leapt atop the Tortoid’s shell, using his needle-sharp claws to hold himself steady. Daksha floated back to head level. The four of them continued along the walkway until they found the Rabbits, who were fully engrossed in showing the large gray kitten the finer points of a perfect tomato plant.

  ‘Let ‘em have it, Captain!’ Nathan encouraged.

  “You two are doing a great job with the garden deck. We are never wanting for fresh vegetables. Thank you both.” Captain Rand bowed and Nathan fought a losing battle against the ship’s spin and his human’s change in position. He flailed wildly as he fell, but the captain caught him smoothly before he hit the ground.

  Rand cradled the small bundle to his chest, petting him absentmindedly while watching the Rabbits move from the tomato plant to a pepper plant nearby.

  ‘Are you comfortable up there, whoever you are?’ Daksha asked, having almost forgotten that he had a rider.

  ‘What? Oh, yes, yes. I’m not proud of it, mind you, but it is what I’ve been called,’ the ‘cat started. ‘Promise not to laugh. I’m Billy Joe Jim Bob.’

  Daksha couldn’t imagine laughing at someone’s name, but he heard Rand snicker. The Tortoid craned his neck to look at the captain, who turned sharply away to study an uninteresting plant.

  ‘Billy Joe Jim Bob it is,’ Daksha stated. He swam ahead to complete the circuit of the garden deck and turned to the exit hatch. Rand was right behind him and they left the garden deck, ascended the one flight of stairs, and headed for the bridge.

  When the hatch opened and Rand and Daksha entered, Pace nodded, then did a double-take, pointing at the ‘cats without saying a word.

  “Somebody put a box of kittens in the corridor. They’re giving them away for free,” Rand said without hesitation, then gasped as a ‘cat claw dug deeply into the back of his human hand.

  ***

  “It’s been twenty-four hours and absolutely nothing besides normal cosmic noise, Captain. Request permission to employ active systems,” Chirit said through th
e vocalization device hanging around his feathered neck.

  “Let us move closer. We’ll run her up to ten gee actual for thirty-minute sprints,” Rand told the Hawkoid, nodding slowly as he looked at the screen that told him the very same thing. “Give us a couple days and then we’ll spin up the broadcast, focusing your beams on the habitable planet.”

  “Will do. Can we stand down while we transit, put the systems into automatic mode while we get some rest? We’ve been working some long shifts, if you know what I mean.”

  “Certainly, and thanks,” the captain answered without looking up, continuing to browse the information on the screens before him. “What do you think, Commander?”

  Daksha hovered nearby, absorbing the information through his neural implant. He saw a system that no one would give a second thought to. A habitable planet that kept to itself, no emissions of any sort, across any spectrum, including the ones that Graham had given them.

  “I think we move closer. It is entirely possible that the colonists have foregone space travel in its entirety and are living fruitful lives planet-side. We will see when we get there, won’t we, Cain?”

  “We don’t have any other choice. We’ll continue to run space drills with Starsgard in case they have an attack system of some sort, but I feel better for the ship knowing that there aren’t any spacecraft out there,” Cain said, biting the inside of his lip. He screwed his face up and frowned. “Then again, Concord broadcast a signal, but they didn’t have any ships that we could detect either.”

  Rand shook his head at the way Cain talked himself in a circle, returning to a state of concern.

  “Jolly?” the captain asked.

  “I agree fully with the analysis of our magnificent sensor operators and that the prudent course of action is to move farther into the gravity well toward the fourth planet. I expect we’ll be enlightened when we get closer. Cain will have his Marines ready to go, won’t you, Major?” Jolly suggested.

  “Of course. If we can squeeze in some more heavy gee training, that would put us in peak shape. We are at one hundred percent effectiveness. Bull is back to full duty. No other bumps or scrapes of note,” Cain reported.

  Rand thought for a moment before speaking, steepling his fingers as he leaned on the conference table. The others sat attentively. Hillcats were milling about, disinterested in the conversations. The four orange kittens got into a scrum under the table. Cain leaned down and scolded them, getting his nose scratched for his efforts.

  ‘Brutus!’ he yelled in his thought voice as he held a finger on his wound to get it to stop bleeding.

  “Jolly, if we accelerated at three point five actual, it would feel like one point seven five in the ship. If we maintain that level of acceleration for two hours, what would our trajectory and timing look like?”

  Jolly displayed the information on the side bulkhead screen. “If we accelerate one hour out of every three, we should arrive in less than twelve days, assuming a full power slow down, otherwise, it’ll be closer to twenty days. If we increase to ten gees actual for the hours that the Marines aren’t training, then we’ll arrive in less than ten days.”

  “That’s the plan, Jolly. Ten gees outside of training hours. Acceleration couches one hour out of every three for eighteen hours per day until we need to slow down.”

  Rand stood. Cain gave him the thumbs up.

  “I’ll inform my people. We’ll use the stairwell and hangar deck for training.” Cain licked his finger and ran it over the razor thin blood line on his nose. It stung, but he cleaned the last of the blood off. “Which one of you got me?”

  Cain leaned under the table, scowling as the kittens had found their people--two Wolfoids, a Tortoid, and a tall, thin human. Brutus was nowhere to be seen.

  Daksha floated near the top of the table where his ‘cat BJ could easily climb aboard. Rand scooped his up on the way out the hatch, cradling him in the crook of his replacement arm. Stinky and Stalker nodded to let Cain know that they’d make the notifications to the Marines. They nodded as they left. Their two ‘cats ran after them, their short legs hammering away at the deck as they struggled to keep up with the swift Wolfoids.

  Cain remained at the table after everyone had gone. Brutus climbed to the top and sprawled, stretching out as much as his small body could.

  A grinning Jolly appeared on the screen. “Penny for your thoughts, Major Cain.”

  “What do you think we’re going to find down there, Jolly?” Cain asked.

  “I have a number of possibilities calculated as best I could from the variables. Would you like to hear what they are?”

  “Sure.”

  “The most likely scenario is that the colonists dismantled their ship and are living in a near feudal society on the planet. Natural disasters fill the next three spots which would have negatively impacted technology and population numbers. There are a couple scenarios where a civil war has occurred. The most likely of these is based on Cygnus VII’s own history. Technology destroyed itself, but a certain segment of the population survived. The least likely scenario is that there is no one left.”

  Jolly stood serenely, having told Cain nothing that he hadn’t already thought about. The big question remained unanswered and would probably remain unknown until they made contact with the people, assuming someone had a working radio and if not, then they’d find out in a face-to-face visit.

  That was the scenario that tied Cain’s stomach in knots. He thought back to their first landing on Concordia, where they had to kill people wholesale and run for their lives.

  This time, he had his Marines. This time, that first meeting would be done from a position of strength. He wouldn’t let them take advantage with a smile and kind words.

  “And you’ll help me, won’t you, little buddy? I expect you’ll want to go, assuming we go, even if only to get away from your offspring,” Cain suggested.

  ‘The miscreants have infested all aspects of my life. They run the ship. They run the Marines, and they run the garden. I’m at a loss as to where they gained such ambition. That mother of theirs…’ Brutus let it hang.

  Hillcats mated for life. By fighting for Mixial, he fought to be her husband, although he thought it was going to be a one-time good deal, like the Golden Warrior’s production with the domestic cats in that seaside village so long ago. This was different.

  ‘You made your choice, big man,’ Cain said unsympathetically.

  ‘What about you?’ the ‘cat responded sarcastically.

  “That hits low, Brutus, a bullseye but low. Let’s go check the weapons locker. See what we have. Jolly? Do you think we need any special weapons for heavy gee? Will our stuff work okay?” Cain stood and turned toward the corridor. “And I hope to hell that we don’t have to use any of it, but if they make us, we’ll bring the thunder and lightning and make them regret their poor life choices.”

  Dead

  “Systems are actively painting the space around Heimdall,” Chirit said clinically as if making a log entry. “At this time, we have found no evidence of a ship or any other man-made satellites in orbit. No signals of any sort are emanating from the planet. My conclusion is that there has been a technological setback of some sort and modern technology is nowhere in use, similar to the status of Cygnus VII one hundred, fifty years ago, although we still had a colony ship and satellites in orbit. I have no data regarding whether intelligent life exists on Heimdall.”

  Captain Rand rotated his chair to look at Commander Daksha. Maintenance had rigged a small fabric cover for the Tortoid’s shell, with a padded area on top in which the kitten was now nestled. Rand’s kitten was curled up on his human’s lap, sleeping. Both ‘cats wore collars with access bracelets so they could move about the ship and get to the areas they needed access to, like the bridge, quarters, and most importantly, the garden deck.

  The bridge crew studiously avoided looking at the newcomers to the bridge since both the captain and the commander wore long faces as if they had been cond
emned to purgatory.

  The snark of the young ‘cats was wearing them down. They were pulling double duty trying to run the ship and teach the kittens manners.

  ‘Cats weren’t very accommodating in admitting their shortcomings and then even more reluctant about changing their ways. The commander and the captain were hell-bent on seeing the youngsters grow up to be well-respected ‘cats.

  Rand had learned to hold the ‘cat in his human hand, petting it with his artificial limb in case it attacked him. The manufactured hand was far more resistant to the ‘cat’s claws and even with the worst scratches, the med lab could fix it in no time flat.

  The commander nodded slowly to the captain. It was time to let Heimdall know that Cygnus had arrived.

  “Ship-wide communication please, Jolly,” Rand said as he spun his chair back toward the main screen. “Take us into orbit, Lieutenant Pace. Major Cain, please ensure the ship’s defenses are manned and ready.” Cain responded with a thumbs up.

  “Board shows green. All systems ready,” Pickles reported.

  Daksha continued his notification to the crew. “We will begin broadcasting our welcome message momentarily. Ensign Tandry, please transmit our message on all known comm frequencies.”

  There was a flurry of activity around the ship. Pace made slight adjustments to the flight profile. Tandry punched execute on a program that would cycle through transmissions across a broad spectrum of frequencies. They even sent one version in Morse code over high frequency bands.