Эндрю Маккей: Star Cat: War Mage

“I can see that,” Wool slid her detached nail onto the end of her thumb and joined her, “Stay there, honey. By your bed.”

“Mommy, I’m scared.”

Wool saw the edge of Pink Symphony rock up and down through Medix’s window, “I know. We’re all scared,”

SCHTOMP-SCHTOMP…

The ground thundered beneath Wool’s feet. She spun around and shouted at Jelly, “Honey, grab hold of the bed.”

“Miew,” Jelly did as instructed and coiled her tail around the metal head rest, “Mommy, I d-don’t want to die.”

Wool moved to the door and rolled her left sleeve up fer forearm. She ran her thumb along her Individimedia ink and roared into her wrist, “Tripp? Anyone? Does anybody read me—”

KER-WUMP!

Another blast across the ground sent Wool to her knees. She rolled across the floor and grabbed Jelly’s bed with her right hand, keeping her left forearm against her face.

“I don’t know where you are, but we could use some help up here.”

The lack of response caused Wool and Jelly to tremble with fear as they clutched onto the bed for dear life.

Wool’s legs launched into the air as the ground thumped harder and harder.

Just then, a blast of pure white light flooded the entirety of the room.

“My G-God…” Wool’s pupils dilated as she witnessed the horizon blast towards the window, “We’re g-going to…”

Jelly took a final look at the picture of Jamie on the wall. She gripped the side of her bed to prevent herself from flying off, “I want to go home.”

She buried her head in her pillow and squealed. The ferocious shaking became unmanageable. The bed’s casters rocked from side to side.

“If anyone can hear me, we’re trapped inside Medix,” Wool yelled into her wrist as her feet darted to the ceiling. Her entire body fell upwards, pulling her right hand away from the bed frame.

A low-pitched hum shot around the room. Angelic in nature, and with an underlying sense of anger.

“Honey. Hold tight—”

Jelly threw her arm under the bedside rail and squeezed her eyes shut.

Wool’s voice ground slowed to a crashing halt, “Don’t… let… go …”

Her last utterance echoed around the room.

The white light bleached through the window and turned the room into a miasma of heavenly wonder.

Jelly felt her nose twitch but couldn’t see anything. Her eyes were shut.

The eerie silence didn’t help matters.

A horizontal sliver of light crept against her eyeballs as she came to. The Medix interior appeared on its side with the beds stuck to the wall.

A blurred vision of a woman peered into the horizontal line with her hands outstretched. Her voice was muffled, “Are you okay, honey?”

Her thumbs pressed Jelly’s ears back, enabling a clarity in her voice, “You look like you’ve hurt yourself, honey.”

Jelly shook her head and tried to throw away the disorientation.

It took a few tries.

The beds on the wall crept back to the ground. Such was Jelly’s discombobulation; she’d been lying sideways. The confusion slowly melted away and gave rise to the fact that she’d been knocked unconscious.

“Where am I?” Jelly muttered.

FLUMP.

Jaycee dropped Baldron’s carcass onto a bed behind Jelly. The noise made her jump to her feet in fright.

“Right, let’s see if we can’t make some use of this ex-talking junkyard,” Jaycee twisted Baldron’s left hand away from his wrist. It screwed around and came free.

Jelly hopped onto her bed and licked her lips, “What’s he doing?”

Jaycee looked up and brushed away the protruding wires from his own forearm.

“Spare parts, pet.”

“What?”

“Yeah. Anybody need any?” Jaycee placed the removed hand’s wrist at the large screw joint at the end of his forearm. It spun around and locked into place, “Bingo.”

He admired his new appendage and squeezed the mechanical fingers in and out.

Wool looked away in disgust, “No, thank you. That wouldn’t be any use to me.”

“Are you sure , Wool?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

He lifted Baldron’s severed head away from the neck and pointed at the cheek-bone, “I can fillet some skin to cover your scratch if you like?”

“I said no,” Wool strained her vocal chords in protest, “Now, just drop it.”

“What’s all this shouting?” Manuel fluttered into the room, followed by Tripp, “Is there something seriously amiss?”

Jaycee waved at Tripp with his new hand, “Hey, Healy.”

“Hey.”

“Like my new toy?”

Tripp approached the bed and analyzed the new hand. It seemed slightly smaller than normal, “Ha. Is that Baldron’s?”

“Yeah.”

“Bit small, isn’t it?”

“Pfft, better than no hand at all,” Jaycee pointed at Baldron’s face, “We can fix you up with a new cheekbone. Won’t take me a few minutes to solder it on?”

Tripp felt his facial cavity and closed his eyes. Since waking up from the event, he’d forgotten – much like Jaycee, and the others – that he wasn’t human.

“It never gets easier.”

Tripp ran his fingertips through the hole at the side of his face. The tops of the bottom row of his teeth pressed into the fleshy part of his fingers, “But I might take you up on the offer.”

“Just let me know when.”

Bonnie and Tor walked in and spotted Jelly and Wool by the first bed.

“Thank God, you’re okay,” Bonnie looked from Jelly to Jaycee and clocked Baldron’s corpse on the bed, “Spare parts? A regular junkyard sale, isn’t it?”

“You know it,” Jaycee smirked and pushed the body onto its side by the shoulder, “We can get you that new battery you need.”

“Ugh. Maybe, maybe not,” Bonnie stroked Jelly’s hair and sniggered at Baldron’s frozen face of fear, “Thank God I don’t need a new brain.”

Everyone sniggered to themselves.

“What?” Bonnie protested.

“Nothing,” Tripp snapped his fingers and waved Manuel over, “Okay, listen up. Manuel has some information on what’s just happened.”

The holographic book opened up and landed three-quarters of the way through its tome, “The giant tree thing that we thought was going to kill us turned out to have bought us some time. It was trying to save us, by all accounts.”

“Save us?” Jaycee snorted, “From what? A tumble-drier death?”

“It threw us to the other side of Pink Symphony. Away from the Shanta. Bought us some time.”

“We could have been killed, Crash landing like that.”

“Well, it was either that or be outnumbered,” Manuel said. He projected an image of three suns floating together, “Pink Symphony has a heavenly body headed toward it. As you can see here, the three suns converged. It’s going to wipe everything out in an instant.”

The three suns melded together to form a solitary ball of white light.

“By my calculations, I figure we have around twelve Earth hours until it strikes.”

Jelly hopped off the bed and made for the hologram, “I want it.”

“No, Jelly,” Manuel swung his pages around and whipped the projection up against the ceiling, “It’s not a toy.”

“Miew,” she whined, knowing it was too far away to catch.

Tripp turned to Manuel, “You said something a while ago about one month here equals a period of time back on Earth?”

“That’s correct. One hour here equals one month on Earth.”

“How long have we been here?”

“A little over twenty hours.”

Bonnie ducked her head, “Ugh. Two years?”

“Almost, yes.”

Tripp folded his arms, “So, you’re saying we have to wait for twelve more hours until we’re scorched to death?”