Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Would you like to hear a joke? Its not one meant to be spoken, really, so it loses something in the telling. But here we go anyway:

Trying to manipulate late anthropocene era orbital technology with paws.

Did you laugh? I did. Of course I did. My options are to laugh, or to wail, and the second one takes up more energy than I have on offer right now. I would have to take *several* naps. And while the naps where you just flop in the sunlight coming through the windows are *way* better out here, they dont have the same relaxation quality.

Its all the alarms, I think. Every two minutes, an alarm. And I know I shouldnt turn them off. Which is why Im here, now, trying to get an extension arm to properly grasp a micrometeorite and pull it back into the foundry for processing. Because it has material that were low on, and I *acknowledge* that the alarms are important. I am very smart, and that is why I own a space station.

It is not the only reason I own a space station. I do not I do not like to think about the other reasons I own a space station.

Instead, I focus where I am supposed to. I can focus *exceptionally* well when I need to, and not even improperly designed controls can stop me forever. It takes three more tries, but I do eventually get the stupid rock into the foundry. I allow myself a moment to sigh, and close my eyes, which is *like* a nap, only useless. I also allow myself a single victory meow.

Lets talk about space stations really quick.

When humans designed space stations, they designed them to do all sorts of things. This one is designed for one thing in particular, but it is *very* good at it. Depending on the era that the station was built in, its going to have a certain level of sustainability, durability, automation, and most importantly, comfort.

This one was designed during the peak of the Oceanic Anarchy, one of the many golden ages of humanity. The Ays, as they called themselves, built a station that could keep going basically forever, as long as it had a single mind capable of basic problem solving on board. They were big on that; making tools to solve problems, not create more problems. The station has a ton of self-repair and maintenance features, half of which I havent even found yet.

There is no documentation. A lot of space stations have user manuals. This one doesnt! It was destroyed when the Oceanic Anarchy was conquered by Troi France, though they never got around to shooting down the station. Then they fell to the Succession Wars, and any record that the station existed got lost for a while.

Pause on my musings - this is not a pun - to check on the foundry. Good news! Weve got another artificial rock; probably a spy sat of some kind. Now, though, its a great source of pre-processed tungsten, aluminum, and silicon. Actually processing those is hard, when you arent on planet and lack the entropy dump of a multi-zettatonne ball of iron to funnel impacts and heat into.

I double check my resupply notes. The station has an exceptional AR setup, which it took a *very* long time to train to understand me. But now that it does, I can offload unimportant memories that arent about breakfast onto the computer until I need them. Check complete, I give the order to one of the thankfully automated systems, and a big chunk of the tungsten is marked to be moved to processing. We are low on grade-three groundstrikers.

Unpause musings. You know what this station isnt designed for? I ask this as I bound off walls to rocket myself toward my destination with practiced movements. Soon, Ill be back in one of the areas where the gravity plates are, but for now, I am a tiny and fierce rocket, and the emphasis there is on the tiny part.

Space stations are made for humans. Humans are, all things considered, both large and inelegant. I miss having any around. I will not think on that. I have both work to do and lunch to eat. I must keep my graceful form fueled.

I will now list things, in no particular order, that space stations are not built for. Are you ready? Here we go.Updated from novelbIn.(c)om

Cats.

That is it. That is the extent of my list. I am a student of the real, I operate only with evidence and data that I have come to trust, or have gathered myself. There is nothing else on this station that is not designed to be on this station. Therefore, I have determined, that stations were not designed with myself in mind.

Here is a common misconception about the cat. There is, and has been for roughly twenty thousand years, a belief among the human minds of the world, that cats are aloof. Are lazy. Are judgemental, finicky, overly proud, or otherwise vaguely arrogant.

All of this is probably true. But none of those cats had spent four hundred years learning painstaking lessons on orbital infrastructure operation.

Time, as it ever does, erodes all tendencies. Erodes everything, except for memory. And me. Nothing erodes me. I am, as I have been for centuries, untouched by time. The only force that contains my grandeur in stable orbit is the hard vacuum outside, and the fire of reentry.

*They* can cry out. Because someone *is* listening.

Before I begin my sprint to the command module I need to reach, I swat the bell again. Once, twice, three times. I hear you. I want to scream. Hold on.

The comms oficers seat I leap out of spins frantically in my wake. If there were papers on the desk, they would be blown backward by the gale in the wake of my sprint. But there arent, and I have no other dramatic trappings to show how fast I can move. So instead, believe me when I say that I move *fast* when I want to. I need to slip through two low- or zero-G areas to get where I need to be, where Ive already decided I will render aid from. If I am fast enough, lucky enough, I will be in time. I spin off the ceiling in a rough flip as I hit the gravity again, using the plates to build more momentum instead of losing any. The last corner, through a hatch I never close anymore, is a bound off a curved wall hanging that I have convinced the cleaning nanos is art, so they will not remove it.

Then I am in the cradle. The one, *one* part of the space station I had painstakingly tailored for myself. I lay back, and molded cushioning supports my insufficient spine. The station obeys my yowling demands for information, pulling up scanner feeds and statistical readouts in AR form. My paws find the controls I need, and I go to work.

The emergence event is in what used to be Australia. Scanners did not find it, as it occurred underground, but now that we have a spot to sweep, the exact location is easy to find. There are humans still down there, and the eagle eyes of the stations many, *many* ground-pointed detection systems shows the smoke and blood and gunfire in both full color, and a cold tactical map.

And there is actking-kapitan Jude. In a trench at the front line, covered in mud and barely hanging on. He is clutching the ancient comms stick like a warding stone, and at this angle, I can read the hopeless prayers on his lips. Even through the fear and blood around him, he fires his rifle relentlessly into the swarm approaching. Some kind of insect thing this time. I know its a human thing to feel your hair going grey, but I swear the white on my boot patterns gets longer every time I go through this.

No time. Be morose later. Paw out, flick switch, select option. Somewhere, in the bowels of the station, an auto-loader slots a tool into place. Another flick selects a secondary tool, which arms and sings a hymn as it comes to life, deck plates vibrating as the void batteries are discharged into reality.

Paw on the joystick. I trace a line on the map, double check, then confirm the firing sequence while I am already setting up the next run. My orbit has me in the firing basket for forty eight more seconds. I must make this quick. I queue up two more passes, not even bothering to check the computers execution; it will be correct, it always is. I have my own task - targeting.

Emergence points defy causal data. Inorganic minds cannot perceive them properly. It is why the space station takes so much in terms of objective readings and data points, but it cannot be set to autokill the breaches. It simply cannot find the things, no matter how much evidence points to them.

I look at visual charts, breach-creation migration patterns, and a weather map. I find it in six seconds. My paw pulls the trigger, and I feel a satisfying secondary shock as my chosen tool launches.

By this point, the void ray has cleaved through several thousand of the bug things, which I take a satisfaction in. The kapitan thinks the world is ending around him, and in a way, hes right.

Two seconds later, the grade-three groundstriker slams into the ground above the target. Then through the ground. Then roughly two miles past the target, leaving behind a trail of molten rock and vaporized exogalactic phenomena. And then, Im out of the firing basket. Win or lose, theyre on their own for another three hours at least.

I allow myself to relax back into the cradle with a huff of breath. I think I forgot to breathe on the run here, again. I order the station to show me the time, and mewl out on reflex in consternation. Theres no way I have enough time for a decent nap now. And I never nap in the cradle. Its wrong.

Crawling out back into the stations hallway, I make my way toward the galley. A snack sounds good now. Ive got chores in thirty minutes, and then our orbit my orbit takes me over the Haze. Almost always at least one problem there, and were overstocked on splatter rounds anyway.

Its always like this. But this time well, Im not supposed to check. I tell myself every time not to check. But I check anyway. And this time, the kid lived. The humans lived. Maybe theyre not the good guys, maybe theres more complex forces at play, maybe I should be impartial and not meddle. I dont know, Im a space station owner, not a political science major. Yet. Havent finished those books yet.

But the kid lived.

So I strut a little bit as I head to get a snack.

My name is Lily ad-Alice. First, and only, member of the species Felis Astra. Honorary human, self-imposed conscript in a very long war.

I own a space station. I am smarter than I should be. I am very old. I keep an eye on things up here.

Youve met me at a strange time in my life.