Chapter 40

Chapter 40

I am on a table of some kind. Or, maybe not a table. I am not supposed to be on tables, but I have been put here, so it cannot be a table.

It is metal, and smooth, and also warm and alive. It is a strange not-table.

Also I cannot move. Am I not supposed to be able to move? Maybe I am just very tired? No, no. I am awake. I think.

-I am not awake-

I am awake, and cannot move. Something is wrapped around my legs. My paws are tied together. Some kind of flexible snake thing, the sort I always see my mom and the other one working with.

And the others, too, before they went away. Humans and their cords. Maybe they thought they were snacks.

-They didnt go anywhere-This chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.com

Oh, mom is here. I can see here if I stretch myself up in a curve on my side. I meow at her as loudly as I can, to let her know I cannot move. She will help.

Let her go, Gunther. Alice says in a voice that contains the cold cruelty of a knife. Or I will fucking end you. Shes holding one of those dangerous things, the things the humans are always nervous around.

-Shes holding a gun-

Not a chance, Al. Gunther replies. I twist to see if I can see him, and I can! Hes on a table, too. Why are we allowed on tables today?

His table is in the middle of the room, kind of. I guess mine is too. The room is too big for me to understand the whole thing. Id need to see all of it, and sniff the corners, before I could know how big it is. But its big! Bigger than the house. Bigger than the shuttle, absolutely. Not bigger than outside.

I miss outside.

It doesnt work, Gun. Alice says with her angry voice. Get off the platform, and we can get out of here. It doesnt it wont work.

You dont know that. Gunther says. I yowl helplessly at him, trying to get his attention. He twitches toward me, and I see he has a danger toy too. Hes pointing it at my mom. What am I supposed to do? Give up? Just die? You know whats waiting for us if we leave without results.

Then we dont leave! Mom yells, and I scream with her. Just stop! Turn it off!

Youre not gonna kill me over a fucking cat. I dont care if you gave it your bondname. The bad man says.

Mom ripples like shes about to pounce. Turn it off.

Gunther moves.

I jerk awake before the gunshots.

I am greeted, in waking from my lived nightmare, by a cacophony. Turn it off! Lily! Awoooooo! Someone is yelling in a voice I dont recognize, someone is yelling in Ennos voice, a dog - probably my dog, if I analyze this carefully - is howling, and there is a middle pitch klaxon going off.

I make a noise - or attempt to - that would get everyone to shut up. It doesnt work. I think I just yawn?

I am so tired. I hadnt slept in days. Theres been nonstop problems for at least thirty hours. And for all of those hours, Ive been troubleshooting the surface and local space. Often by shooting troubles.

Dont judge me. I must make small jokes or I will scream.

On the way - which is the *long way*, since I doubt my new human can fit through the vents - I keep myself amused by catching up on incoming reports, and assigning what I can to the stations systems remotely.

We have a huge amount of plutonium in one of the hazardous material hoppers. Did I pillage a breeder reactor? Where did this come from?

Whatever. I queue up production of five nuclear stack chargers, which should minorly improve our power situation and will last a century before I have to do anything about it again, even if they wont be done being fabricated for months. The rest of the plutonium can just sit there. Ominously?

Eventually, after roughly one million years too long to spend on a walk, we come to the comms station. I sheepishly duck under the piece of technically-wall-art that I installed here a few decades back to make bounding around the corner easier, and head to the particular space where the alarm is pointing to. Behind me, the new girl hisses in a breath of air as she sees the equipment.

Months and months of getting used to having a voice, having AI companions, having a dog that can manipulate things better than I can, and Im still constantly being frustrated with having paws. It takes me two tries to bat the activation switch before the woman I rescued last week leans over and flicks it.

I want to glare at her, but I dont. Because what I really want is to glare at the evolutionary pressures that led to me not having opposable thumbs.

The alarm goes quiet as the transmission is acknowledged.

Receiving. I say simply into the communicator. I used to use a bell, and sometimes still do for certain people. But theres something satisfying about actually speaking to someone like this.

A strained voice, mostly human probably but with rapid popping clicks woven into the words, replies. They speak in a language I dont know, and only say a couple sentences before they stop.

Then, ten seconds later, the exact same message repeats.

Ennos I start to say.

My friend preempts my question. Distress call. They confirm, a tiny distortion in their words as I realize theyre speaking in two languages at once for the benefit of our guest. Automated. I cant translate just based off that.

Its a common format. I sigh. Name of ship or speaker, nature of disaster, coordinates.

Wide band, off an echo beacon. We have no way to find them. Ennos informs me sadly.

Not that I didnt already know.

Guilt twists inside me as I process the thought that I dont need to feel bad about falling asleep during this alarm. The speaker lived or died without my intervention, and wouldnt have had help from me either way.

More often than I would like, there is nothing I can do about the problems I see.

Im supposed to be the guardian of the solar system, but I cant even find a single person calling for help if they arent on the easy target of a planet.

I jump off the desk, and head for the door, the automated message starting to repeat again behind me.

Turn that off. I command my new comms officer in an exhausted voice. Well talk tomorrow.

Behind me, after only a moments hesitation, there is a click, and silence.

For the first time in days, the noise in my life is reduced to the tap of claws on metal deck plate. The chaos quells. The problems are gone for now.

Tomorrow, I will have more work to do. A dangerous factory unit. A conversation with a reclusive outsider. Restocking, rearming, repairing.

Today, I can stop. I sit in the galley, and am served warm soup, and I lap at it until I am sated, and I fall asleep.

I dream of after the gunshots.