Killer Kittens from Outer Space- Chapter Twenty Four

A slightly longer chapter today. I'm trying to find a good balance for content length vs number of chapter releases, so let me know if you prefer the longer format.

Enjoy!

Jel

“…the bites or stings of which could prove fatal if left untreated.” The liaison officer droned over the shuttle’s intercom. “General antivenin is available and can be administered by a military doctor, but as with anything, prevention is the best cure. It is strongly recommended that you watch where you step while traveling over uneven ground or through vegetated areas, and if you are the victim of such a creature, to limit your movement as much as possible and await assistance. It is also recommended that you remain within the two-minute response time zones that have been outlined on your maps.”

“Geez, from the way they talk about this place, you’d think it was a desolate hellscape,” Skara muttered under her breath as the shuttle began its descent into the thermosphere of the planet below. “Surely it can’t be that bad.”

While they’d already been given several comprehensive orientation lectures on Ervamir’s status and potential threats, the region-specific warnings had made their landing site sound like a death trap, even despite the apparent peacefulness of the green zone.

Peering through the viewport, Jel frowned at the slate grey sea of roiling clouds that blanketed their landing site. “Somehow I doubt we’ll need sunblocker today at least.”

“Check-ins are to be performed twice per day, within an hour after sunrise and again within an hour after sunset, unless you are registered as being on-base.” the officer continued. “This is a condition of your stay, and should you fail to check-in, an emergency signal will be broadcast to your device. Should you remain unresponsive, you will be considered MIA, and a team will be dispatched for your retrieval.”

As the officer spoke, the ship began to shudder around them, the inertial dampeners on their seats whirring as they took on the g-forces from re-entry. Jel stifled a groan as the viewport became shrouded in a bright orange cone of superheated plasma; landing had always been his least favorite part of a flight. At least this time it meant being back on solid ground after such a long stint in space.

The uncomfortable dipping and swaying of the seats might have kept the worst of the bumps and scrapes at bay, but there was still more than one pale face on board. Sure enough, an acrid smell soon began to creep its way into Jel’s nostrils, and he blanched further.

“There’s always one,” Skara remarked drily, as she fished for the respirators above their heads. Strapping one to her face, she passed the other across to Jel, who accepted it gratefully. Clean air filled his nostrils, and he sighed in relief. “We’re coming in pretty quick,” she observed, glancing out the window at the thin film of bright orange light. “Must be a tight window after all. Just hang in there dear.”

Jel closed his eyes for the remainder of the flight, trying his best to ignore the shaking and rattling of the ship’s frame around him until at last he felt the nose of the craft pull upwards as they bled off speed. When he opened his eyes again they were skipping overtop an indigo-blue carpet of stormclouds, and the pilot’s voice came back over the radio.

“Sorry for the rough approach ladies,” she said, and Jel rolled his eyes internally. “I’m working on a timeframe here. We’re approximately two minutes out from our landing site, so please sit tight, relax, and enjoy the view of absolutely nothing being visible out of any of the windows. We’ll be making an instrument-assisted landing this morning, so I fully intend to do the same. This is the part of the flight where I would usually welcome you to your destination, but I think that might be in poor taste here, so instead, on behalf of the Imperium, I wish you all a productive visit.” The audio cut off and Jel closed his eyes again.

The landing itself was smooth despite the weather, and couldn’t have come soon enough. When the shuttle finally touched down and the engine cut off, Jel was among the first to stand, shucking his harness and unstrapping his bag from the floor at his feet. Several minutes later, he was standing at the edge of the shuttle ramp, a wild wind battening his ears down against his head and the splash of water droplets deflecting up off the concrete to splatter against his ankles.

He took a deep breath. The humidity made it feel like drawing air through a damp cloth, and the sharp tickle of chemical propellant from the jets stung at his nose, but it put a smile on his face anyway. After spending so long with a ceiling above his head, it felt good to stand beneath the sky again, even one closed up by stormclouds. Planetside at last. He took his first step onto Ervamiran soil, and the solid ground beneath his feet made him smile, even as he was forced to brace himself against the wind.

He'd opted for an all-weather outfit after reading reports on this part of the human’s homeworld; a breathable blouse beneath a long coat that trailed down to his knees and synth-leather waterproof leggings. The addition of the PRESS vest and shielding on top of all that was an eyesore that he would be ridding himself of at the first available opportunity. He’d already fabricated a sash that would far better suit his wardrobe, and he had a feeling that the presence of kinetic armor would be a sore point with the locals. He was here to make friends, and that meant extending a modicum of trust.

He still hadn’t told Skara about that particular plan of his, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

After a brisk walk across the tarmac, the huddle of journalists flooded into the consulate like a damp tidal wave of fur, skin, and scale. Once the pair secured themselves some free space out of the rain, Jel dug into his pack for a towel, then took a look around.

The lobby was spacious and bare, a void surrounded by shielded glass and occupied only by a wide desk in the center, behind which a kespan official was speaking into a communicator at her shoulder. As Jel finished wiping the rain from his ears and handed the towel off to Skara, the woman wrapped up her call, looked over at the gaggle of media, then approached.

“Welcome,” she said with a slight bow. “I’m sure that after such a long trip many of you will be itching to get to work. We just have a few bits of housekeeping to get out of the way first. Once you’ve all signed in, I can escort you to your berths, where you’ll be spending your nights. I am told,” she raised an eyebrow, “that a curfew does not apply to journalists in this area of the planet. I would urge you all to return before sunset regardless. Aside from the obvious safety concerns, it will save you from needing to check in twice a day. Once you’ve all scanned into the system, we can proceed to the dorms.”

A few minutes later, Jel was setting his bag down alongside Skara’s in the corner of a tiny private room. He didn’t dare complain; the other journalists were sleeping four to a room, and they’d likely only be using the space to sleep anyway. He took some time to arrange his meager wardrobe and hang what he could in the cramped corner cupboard when a knock came at the door.

“Enter,” his wife called, straightening up, and the door opened to reveal the official from the front desk.

“I have a message from orbit for one Jelakka Mar’miar,” she inclined her head politely.

“You’ve found him,” Jel answered from over Skara’s shoulder.

“I’ve been told to let you know that Specialist…” she checked her communicator, “…Cardoso will be arriving on an early flight, and that the Admiralty has scheduled your interview for tomorrow morning at ten o’clock local time.”

“Perfect,” Jel nodded, considering, then turned to Skara, “If I hurry, I can have a piece done by the end of tomorrow and out on the next shuttle after that. I might have a headline after all.” He peered outside through the only window in the room. “It’s just a shame about the storm. I was hoping to get out tonight and meet some locals.”

“Oh, that should blow over in the next hour or so,” the officer piped up from the door as she went to leave. “The weather here is particularly temperamental. We should have clear skies by mid-afternoon.”

Sure enough, as though the goddesses themselves had willed it, the clouds soon began to dissipate and Jel wasted no time throwing all his essential equipment into a carry bag and making for the door.

Skara, though, was having none of it.

“Where, by all that is good and holy do you think you’re going without this?” she asked, hoisting up the heavy PRESS vest from where he’d dumped it on the bed.

“I’ve got a better one,” he nodded down at the tasteful black ribbon blazoned across his chest. “The lettering is still clear, so I don’t see the problem.”

“The problem is that I don’t want my husband getting stabbed or shot,” Skara scowled at him. “I’m not letting you go out without the kinetic shielding, dear.”

“You’re not letting me?” Jel raised an eyebrow, and Skara hesitated.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “Just like you know the others would have me strung up by the tail if I let you walk around without protection.”

“But I do have protection,” he smiled brightly, and Skara’s ears drooped as he beamed at her. “I have my big, strong, beautiful wife with me.”

“What you have is a death wish,” she rallied, but Jel caught the way she flushed, ever so slightly at the praise. “And that’s beside the point. I can’t stop a bullet Jelli.” She held up the vest and gave it a little shake so that the shield pack on the back jostled slightly. “This can.”

“I need to speak to the humans on their level,” Jel tried to explain. “I can’t do that if—”

“You’re not on their level though, Jel,” she folded her arms, and Jel sighed, preparing for a war of attrition. “They’ve been through hell. And people who go through something like that are unpredictable. There is no way in a million years that I’m letting you leave her without that vest. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”

---

“I can’t believe you’re not wearing the vest.”

“Well, the only way you were going to stop me from leaving without it would be to tie me up in our room,” Jel replied as they made their way out to the front of the compound. “Which, by the way, I am only partially against, depending on what happens after that.”

“Shut up,” Skara huffed. “Ah, here we are.”

As they rounded the corner of the building, a row of sleek black vehicles came into view, the four-wheeled overland ones the humans called ‘cars’. Skara clicked a button on the black fob she’d been given by the front desk and the lights on the closest one flashed yellow. “I’m assuming that’s ours then,” she said, and after a moment of trying to figure out the door handles—manual doors, they hoisted themselves into the two front seats, Skara taking the wheel.

“You’re sure you can pilot one of these?” Jel asked, staring at the instrument cluster with some apprehension. “That officer was kind of hesitant…”

“I clocked fifty hours in the simulator on the ship ride over,” Skara assured him as she turned the key. “These human vehicles aren’t too unlike our own you know. I’ll take it easy anyway. Now,” she stared down at the center console with a frown. “What does that lever do, I wonder?”

---

“Protect us in our hunts, oh Goddesses, and in the quiet times between, for we are your claws in the night,” Jel prayed as their carriage lurched into the intersection and a series of beeps and challenges sounded from behind them.

A car whizzed past their driver-side window, and Skara’s knuckles turned an even more pale shade of white as she clutched at the wheel, her face locked on the road and a bead of sweat rolling down her neck.

“They’re mental, they’re completely insane,” she muttered as another stream of vehicles sped past, honking their dissatisfaction at her apparently slow pace. “Don’t they know they’re piloting multi-ton death machines?”

They’d been on the road for nearly ten minutes now, and the only discernable thing Jel could have recalled about the human city was that it was flat. The buildings didn’t seem to go above two or three storeys tall, and everything, everything was connected by a warren of gridlike roads filled with vehicles. All of his attention beyond that had been on the immediate pressing concern of survival.

“Steady as she goes love,” Jel’s every muscle pulled taught in abject terror as the lane narrowed to barely a third again the width of their vehicle. “We’re not in a rush, we just want to arrive in one pie— oh sweet mothers of mercy!” A huge vehicle pulling a rectangular container ten or more times the size of their carriage came barreling past them with an enormous rumbling, and Jel shrunk into his seat. “There’s so many of them. Does everyone on this planet own one?”

“We’re okay, it’s okay,” Skara breathed out shakily. “I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

---

“I am so sorry—”

“Sorry?!” “How’s sorry gonna fix me bleedin' car? Not like you bald alien fucks’ve got insurance!”

“I’m sure the consulate can—”

“Oh fark roidoff!” the irate male gesticulated with both hands and Skara shrunk a little more in on herself as their translator chips failed to decipher the exact words that were coming their way. The message was pretty clear. “You farkin wrinkly karnts’ve gone and buggad up me ride after all else? Nah,” he shook a finger at her, and Jel cringed in sympathetic guilt as Skara tucked her tail. “It was badn’uff before but it’s farkin personal now. Farkin dogshit karnts.”

He stood for a moment, enraged, his hands twitching, then spat and turned away. “Go on then, piss off! I ain’t getting meself shot just cos you fucks can’t drive to save shit.” He waved his hand one last time, spittle flying from his lips as he clambered back into his battered vehicle and turned the key. “Say hello to farkin dashcam Australia karnts!” he yelled, then sped off, the engine screaming like a rusted gate as he disappeared around the next corner in a plume of smoking rubber.

Skara climbed slowly back into the driver’s seat, her lip trembling, and Jel looked across at her in concern. He raised a hand to rub at her shoulder.

“Don’t,” she snapped and then laid her head against the rim of the steering wheel. “No words. Just give me a second.” They sat in silence for a moment, cars continuing to pass by where they were stopped on the side of the road. After a minute, she sighed and raised her head. “Okay.”

“It was only a little ding…” Jel tried, but she held up a hand.

“Nope, not talking about it,” she said, as she started the car again. “Let’s just find somewhere to eat and forget this ever happened.”

---

“Any day now sweetheart!”

“Come on, my granny can drive faster than you!”

“Learn how to use a roundabout ya’ dumb bitch!”

Skara’s eyebrow twitched as she took the final turn into the shopping strip. The heavy tinting on the windows of the car concealed their alien nature from most of the irate humans, but it didn’t stop the yelling. It seemed they were particularly savage even to each other when it came to piloting their cursed vehicles.

“Maybe we can look at getting ourselves a driver,” he suggested, and Skara’s gaze snapped to him with a blank unreadable expression. “Or… not?”

She stared at him for a few more seconds, and just as he was beginning to become concerned, she closed her eyes and breathed out slowly. “Let’s just find some food,” she said.

They drew attention from the moment they left the car. Some humans turned on their heels immediately, walking in the opposite direction and disappearing from sight hurriedly. Others were more discreet, stopping to stare through shop windows instead of approaching, or walking into stores they’d previously shown no sign of interest in. Not one came any nearer once their presence had been noticed.

We expected this, he reminded himself, even as something bitter curdled in his stomach. We’re the face of the invader, don’t take it personally.

Fortunately, they didn’t need to walk far before a delicious scent washed over them. They both stopped in their tracks, looking at each other with wide eyes.

“I think that’s…” Jel sniffed the air again, his whiskers twitching.

“Meat,” Skara confirmed, life returning to her eyes. “And it smells good, too.”

They followed the tantalizing scent some thirty meters before they found themselves standing outside a small shop with bright orange and red signage outside.

Charlie’s Charcoal Chicken? Whatever that was, it smelled fantastic. Nodding to one another, they entered, Skara holding aside a curtain of strange plastic streamers that hung in the door.

They were greeted with wide eyes, several patrons shuffling back against the wall or casting longing glances at the exit behind Jel’s back. Behind a large counter at the back of the store, an enormous man looked up from what looked to be a roasted bird of some description. The rich smell of slightly charred meat and spice tickled at their noses.

Nobody said a word. For a few seconds, no one in the store even moved. Then the man opened his mouth.

“Fuck me dead, a gay alien,” he said, and Jel blinked.

What?