Are We On Mars?

Chapter Twenty-Four

All is still on Catmint 9. Not the peaceful kind of still. A certain apprehension is causing a brittle frostiness to bloom among the crew—something is about to happen, but none of them know exactly what.

Lionshine opened her eyes slightly and unstrapped the cords holding her down as the tail-held communicator commenced an intermittent series of beeping. Muttering a slur of grogginess-affected words, she pressed the 'receive' button and waited for the message to come through. Dread clawed at her insides.

"Good morning." 

Lionshine flinched—even the hastily spoken greeting had a bite to it. What does this message entail? she wondered, ears flattened. Captain Astro sounds dissatisfied.

"Lionshine, as the captain of Catmint 9, you should know the responsibility and duties you bear. Disciplining your crew is one of them."

They're not kits! The golden-furred she-cat thought vehemently.

"I'll have you know that I am extremely disappointed in the very obviously false excuse one of your crew members supplied when I sent Mr. Fluffle Pants to investigate the reason why the ship is delayed and you nearly strayed off course. Do explain to me exactly how a penguin is able to survive floating in space and why the spaceship wanted to 'nurse it back to health'?"

"What in the blimmin' universe is he talking about?!" Lionshine exploded right after the beep indicating the end of the message sounded. "No cat would ever do that on my ship! How ludicrous!"

Angrily, she pushed the 'reply' button and calmed herself down before mewing, "Sorry, Captain Astro. I have no idea what you're talking about. Absolutely no idea."

It was mere moments before another message came through. Lionshine swallowed and listened to the rebuttal.

"What do you mean, you have no idea what I'm talking about? Are you saying that a penguin is physically capable of—" the voice broke off and continued more calmly after a moment—"Lionshine. I apologise... perhaps your friend meant an injured alien penguin of sorts and inviting it into the spaceship for a little nursed it back to health. I know Pebblepounce has already reported back about discovering extraterrestrial life, so that does seem a very valid answer. I apologise."

Lionshine shook her head in disbelief. What was all this nonsense? Hurriedly she spoke a reply.

"No, no, you have it all wrong. Our, ah, engineers were setting up solar panels on our ship when one of their jet packets, ah, sent both of them hurtling into space. We had to go and retrieve them. And one of my crew accidentally broke a solar panel, so we had to get that fixed and certainly couldn't while the ship wasn't stationary." Her paw shakily reached the 'send' button.

"How ridiculous!"

The pilot she-cat nearly rolled her eyes, but her expression worsened as the message went on.

"Now, that is the worst excuse I've heard in a while now. Greenface is the highest-scoring applicant we've had for, well, ever! How can he not know how to work a simple jet pack? And none of your crew, I'd like to believe, would be incompetent enough to break something like a solar panel. And I thought the designer of the ship had it made with solar panels already."

"Captain, the solar panels weren't built because the architect lost the design sketches and recovered as much as he can—he missed out the solar panels." 

But Lionshine knew it was useless. Captain Astro obviously now thought that she was the liar, and now her reputation and her position was in jeopardy. Wait till I find the mouse-brain that told that Fluffles cat the preposterous penguin excuse!

Sniffing, the golden-furred pilot stomped out of the room.

In the control room.

Greenface felt the gravity level rising—internally and externally. Attempting to push away the incline to vomit, he pulled the leftmost joystick and hastily shoved a few buttons with his hind paws. Trying... to... land... with a lurching stomach he tried to reach the last button, gaze sweeping the screen above him as he did so. 

Pawsteps indicated the arrival of another cat; one that hopefully knew how to pilot. Greenface's peripheral vision picked up the golden outline of Lionshine and he jumped off, mouth full of vomit as he dashed to the bathroom. His gaze briefly met Lionshine's. She'd know what to do.

The golden-furred she-cat immediately leapt onto the control panel and commenced the exercise of supervising the already-programmed landing. Mouse dung! We're already delayed—we can't risk landing again, she realised, and piloted the ship as it rose again. The speed nearly reached maximum as Lionshine flew through Jupiter's stormy atmosphere, swerving asteroids.

"Look out!" it was Shadepelt's voice, and it suddenly occurred to Lionshine that she was probably the culprit of telling Captain Astro that they'd run into a space penguin. Yet, the golden cat's gaze was fixed on the screen as she twisted the steering wheel, very narrowly avoiding an asteroid that would have blown them up. 

It didn't matter that Lionshine's reputation was at risk—Shadepelt had saved the whole crew again.

Written by Arty! 🐈