Hal Colebatch - Man-Kzin Wars – XIII

The crisp holographic portrait of Trimunvir Jibunoh appeared standing next to him. Horror spread across her perfectly rendered face. “Ceezarr! What happened? Has there been a coup?”

“Of a sort, Triumvir, my son, Healer-of-Hunters and Daneel Guthlac are taking control of Shadow’s Chariot and plan to rescue the smashed warship. We can no longer ignore the problem.”

“This is terrible!” She looked away as if absently listening to an aide, then turned back to Ceezarr. “Why are your ears flapping like a giddy old fool?”

“Because, Galia, my wayward kitten has finally become a grown kzintosh.”

Shadow’s Chariot

Healer hastily spritzed artificial epidermis on his shredded arm as they made their way toward the great plaza where Shadow’s Chariot had been reverently parked. Dan didn’t speak. He simply processed all the primal sensations he had just bathed in.

They entered the flat, ovoid vehicle as kzinti and human tourists gaped in horror at their sacrilege.

“If it was this easy to jump into the ship and take it, why did we bother confronting your father?” Dan finally mustered.

“That would have been disrespectful.”

“But maiming him wasn’t?”

“No.”

Shadow’s Chariot had a small command bridge consisting of a plush, crescent-shaped couch hugging an intricate command console clearly designed for massive paws.

“I know why you’re so focused on this warship,” Dan said finally, plugging his data tablet into the barge’s control panel. All information on the warship immediately downloaded into the antique ship’s navigational computer. New charts and figures appeared on the surrounding screens.

“Do you?” Healer played at the controls and the long-atrophied gravity motors hummed to life.

“Yeah, you’re lonely.” Now that Dan had said it, he felt the waves of loneliness languorously rolling off his companion.

“Kzinti don’t require the complex social structures of primates.”

“Still, at your age you should already have a couple mates and a few kittens running around.”

The museum artifact that had lain dormant for a century achieved escape velocity in impressive defiance of inertia. Tight laser communiqués were pouring in from all over Angel’s Tome, particularly from Harp. They ignored them.

“I could say the same for you.”

“I do alright. I work at a university, have a dangerous Raoneer accent and drive a sexy car.”

A new red line had appeared on all the displays of the solar system, this one cutting a straight path directly toward the other wandering line of the warship.

“Really, the accent?” Healer’s ears flicked like the elongated thoracic ribs of the small gliding pangolins found all over the indigo canopies of Angel’s Tome.

“The females love it when I turn my S’s into Z’s and roll my R’s.”

“To be honest, since deceit is apparently physiologically impossible for me, I’m finding it difficult to find a compatible mate. They smell uncomfortably familiar to me.”

“That’s because they are,” Dan said, but noticed that Healer’s ears stopped flicking. He knew he had touched a sore spot. “Look, it isn’t a problem for other kzintosh. It’s got to be mental with you. I think because of your medical training, you know that genetically all kzinti on Sheathclaws are closely related, so it’s become a thing for you.”

“Possibly,” he said, scratching the tan fur on his chin. “Why did we stop being friends, Dan? I believe kzinti are better off with humans calling them out on their quirks.”

“You grew up too fast. You were out picking off wombadons while I was still picking my nose.”

“Perhaps there’s a harem of foreign kzinretti on that ship waiting to be rescued.”

“You know females aren’t allowed on warships.”

“Unless there’s an Admiral aboard.” Healer dialed up four scarlet meal bricks and demolished them in two gulps. “Hungry?”

“Yes, but I’d rather have a medium-rare steak and a glass of wine.”

Healer and Dan stopped talking a hundred kilometers away from the derelict, their radar bounced back a significant ping. They toggled the screens to video view. The blast-smeared, crimson ship looked like the jagged disc of a crab’s discarded carapace.

Shadow’s Chariot warily approached the drifting ghost ship and matched speeds with it. It was so immense that it could easily swallow their barge whole. A series of blackened commas and dots were emblazoned on its side.

“What is that, the ship’s name? What does it say?”

Healer looked at it for a moment and said, “I have no idea. My written Heroes’ Tongue is horrible. My instruments confirm that there are no life signs. Although, some basic system is still running because I can detect an active power flow.”

“Yeah, I’m not picking up any emotional activity at all.” He felt Healer’s deep disappointment and added, “But I wouldn’t if they were frozen. The good news is that the long-range communications antenna has been destroyed. The bad news is that all that mysterious machinery that seems to be part of their FTL also looks damaged.”

“Look there.” Healer highlighted the area on the screen. “That gash on the starboard side, that’s what killed it. If we can seal it, we can repressurize the whole upper deck and get access to the bridge.”

“Alright, I’m releasing a repair robot now.” Dan typed the instructions into his tablet. A fat robot the size of a pregnant wombadon jetted out from the underbelly of Chariot and proceeded to work on the fissure in a blur of quick and numerous articulate manipulators.

“I’m going to take us in. We can land in the hanger bay and simply walk to the bridge without excursion suits.”

“Is that wise?”

“Perhaps not, but I want to inspect the ship first before I tow it any closer to Sheathclaws.”

Healer sent ancient override codes from Shadow’s Chariot archives until one managed to coax the hanger bay doors open, then they deliberately burrowed into the wrecked craft, like a scavenger digging into a rotting carcass. The Chariot touched down in the cavernous boat deck amid rows of smaller, long dead fighters.

The repair robot finished spraying the gash with epoxy and Healer and Dan waited impatiently for the warship’s resurrected life support systems to slowly refill the chamber with atmosphere.

Righteous Manslaughter

“We have air outside,” Healer reported at last and grabbed a supply pack. “Let’s go. We can move behind the wave of life support activation.”

Dan grabbed a beam gun. It was manufactured for big dexterous paws, but he’d hunted with them extensively in his teens.

“You don’t think any frozen passengers we thaw might find the weapon a bit provocative?”

“Well, I was going to have claws and fangs genetically implanted, but I don’t think I could pull off the look.”

“Point taken.”

It took an arduous hour of trekking through murky, labyrinthine corridors and service tubes. The corpses of kzinti warriors, contorted by explosive decompression, were scattered everywhere. Healer stopped here and there, taking DNA samples from the bodies showing the least amount of cellular damage from space.

“The bridge should be through here. It’ll take a minute for the atmosphere to build up, then-”

A detonation of emotions shook Dan. He bashed the back of his head on the floor repeatedly and his limbs flailed about wildly. He vaguely felt Healer restrain him before he thrashed himself to death. With great effort, Dan pulled himself together and croaked, “There are kzinti here. Alive! It’s like they just sprang into existence, radiating rage, confusion and terror.”