Эндрю Маккей - Star Cat - War Mage

“How did you take the news?”

Tripp stopped and pointed at his ghastly facial wound, “Does this answer your questions?”

Bonnie smirked and shook her head, “Yeah. I know the feeling.”

“You don’t know jack about how I feel,” Tripp pushed past her and continued down the walkway, “Keep your patronizing to yourself.”

“Actually, Tripp, I do know how you feel.”

The ship fired to life as Bonnie caught up to him. She held the wall as the corridor rotated a few degrees like a tumbling bottle of soda.

“What was that?”

Tripp looked at the ceiling just as the lights snapped on.

“We’re moving. Manuel must have gotten the thrusters to work.”

“Hey, guys. Botanix and its new guests are taken care of,” Jaycee arrived at the pair and thumped his fists against the wall, “There’s life in the old girl, yet.”

“Jaycee?” Tripp asked. “What’s the state of Botanix?”

“I’d say it’s in a terrible state. She’s taken a second dumb bomb. Only this one was deliberate, unlike Baldron’s.”

“Yeah, for now .”

“Well, I’m glad I wasn’t in there when the damned thing went off, that’s all I’ll say.”

Tripp made his way to the Medix entrance, “Let’s get the hell out of this godforsaken pink piece of crap.”

Bonnie clapped her hands together three times, “Amen to that.”

Tripp rolled his shoulders. The whirring connectors and bolts in his face shot through his ears, serving as an unwanted reminder of his current state.

“Let’s get to Medix. Make sure Wool and Jelly are okay.”

“And Tor?” Bonnie asked

Tripp palmed the panel on the wall, forcing the Medix door open, “Hopefully she didn’t spend any of her nine lives kicking his ass to kingdom come.”

Wool ar-Ban stared at her reflection in the window. Way down below, the virus-like array of Shanta scurried across the sand looking for something to kill. She averted her gaze back to the reflection of her face.

Three fresh cat scratches glowed on her cheek.

She’d only recently come-to, temporarily forgetting about her Androgyne nature. The scratch marks served as a stark reminder that she wasn’t human. Lifting her earlobe back with her knuckle revealed the Manning/Synapse logo.

Yet another reminder.

She closed her eyes and sobbed. Feeling sorry for herself wasn’t an action she was used to. She knew that most every day of her life there must have been a point when she discovered she was an Androgyne Series Three unit. Every day since her inception she would have accepted it and gone back to sleep.

Or get knocked out by someone, forcing her to shut down.

Each time she’d wake up with the knowledge of her true self erased.

Still, the pervading sense of being abnormal upset her for the umpteenth-thousandth time in her life. The revelation never got easier.

If anything it got a damned sight worse.

“I hate myself,” Wool brushed the tears away from her eyes. She focused on her reflection and saw something she despised staring back at her, “I hate you,” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Wool’s fists tightened with fury. She scanned the room for something to strike. Her radio was the first victim presenting itself to her, sitting on the desk like an antiquated idiot laughing at her dismay.

“Bastard,” Wool scooped it in her hand and threw it at the window. It bounced off the plastic and slammed against the floor, setting off a music track she usually found comfort in; Cats in the Cradle by Ugly Kid Joe from the late twentieth century.

The song reminded her of her childhood. Nothing specific, but just a soundtrack of happier times.

The twang of the opening guitar resembled a bunch of meowing cats. She couldn’t be bothered to bend over and stop it, and so shifted the device across the floor with her boot.

The song continued to play its first verse as she moved to the window and held out her palm. Her reflection did exactly the same.

“It was all lies,” she said to herself, “But they’re my lies.”

All considerations of life and childhood vanished the moment she looked past her teary reflection.

In the distance, a humongous black tree hulked its root and frame out of the sparkling ocean.

SCHTOMP… SCHTOMP… SCHTOMP.

It slammed its limb-like branches to the shore and waded out of the water.

She raised her eyes with anxiety, “My God. What is that?”

The room rocked around each time the tree slammed one of its twelve limbs onto the sand. The surrounding Shanta shifted out of its path. The tree’s front four branches extended across the sand and out of view of the window. It seemed to be going for Opera Beta’s back-end.

CLANG!

Medix shifted around with every stomp it took – a none-too-subtle indication that the tree had made contact with the vessel.

“Gah,” Wool stumbled back and grabbed the frame of Jelly’s bed.

She kept her gaze trained on the window. The three suns in the sky bubbled and formed together like an amalgamated ball of pink liquid paint. The rings around it spun faster and faster in all directions like a furious gyroscope.

“What the hell is going on?”

Pink Symphony’s horizon wobbled around as the intensity of the room’s shaking grew, “We’re moving?”

Wool clutched the metal rim of the bed for balance.

The radio slid along the floor. If the casters on each bed weren’t locked into place they’d have rolled around and knocked into each other like mad bumper cars at a fairground.

“We are moving,” Wool clutched her chest and caught her breath, “Thank God.”

SWISH.

An enraged Jelly ran into the room on all fours and made an instinctive bee line for Wool, “Mommy.”

“Jelly,” Wool hopped onto the bed and opened out her arms, “Where have you been?”

The floor shuddered around causing Jelly to slip off track, “Miew.”

An exhausted Tor ran into the room and attempted to catch his breath, “Where are you… you little—”

The shuddering floor pushed him onto his ass.

“Oooph.”

“—Hisss,” Jelly clung to the bed frame. Wool caught her under her arms. She set her down on her lap and shot Tor a look of thunder, “What are you doing?”

“She tried to run away from me,” Tor complained and caught his breath.

“Look at her,” Wool turned to the hassled Jelly, “Her heart is racing a mile-a-minute. What did you do to her?”

Tor climbed to his feet and tried to keep his balance. Unable to look at the girl, he turned to the window, “I didn’t do any— Whoa!”

He caught sight of the sand dunes lowering through the window.

“Are we… moving ?”

“Yes, did the commotion not give it away?” Wool stroked Jelly’s fine orange hair in an attempt to calm her down, “Seems the thrusters are working, now.”

“We’re getting out of here,” Tor placed his palms on the plastic window and felt a wave of relief roll down his spine, “Thank God.”

“Miew,” Jelly wriggled for freedom in Wool’s arms. She kicked her legs out and exposed her belly.

“It’s okay, honey. We’re going back home.”

A glowing pink orb buried beneath Jelly’s stomach fur caught Wool’s attention.

“ You’re going to be a mommy, yourself.”

Tor looked at the three suns form a blinding ball of pink and white. The rings continued to spin.

“What’s going on up there? In the sky?”

“I don’t know, Wool kept her eyes trained on Jelly’s belly. The pink orb slid around and pushed the fur aside. It bubbled up and formed two circular edges which tried to break apart.