Cats of War Excerpt #1

On impulse, she crouched down and held out her hands to the cats. The male ignored her hand and went straight for her knee. He rubbed his triangular-shaped face against her. She stroked his damp fur. The female cat licked her outstretched fingers.

For no reason she could name, tears threatened, and she wanted to gather the cats in her arms. She reluctantly stood and stepped back. She dimmed the lights further, then locked the door behind her.

In the lab, she put a drying mat on the shelf, then put Oran Mòr on top of it and left the cabinet open. “I’ll check you tomorrow,” she told it. If cats could be sentient, so could bots.

No emergency trouble reports meant she could close up the lab, so she returned the gravcart and walked back to her cell. Worry tried to hurry her feet, but she walked sedately, then closed and locked the door behind her, just like any other evening.

The bed looked inviting, but first, she had to look after the cats. Their presence was warm and comforting in her mind, even if she couldn’t see them. She used the wallcomp to turn up the lights and darken her only window.

The female oozed out from under the bed, followed by the male.

Now that she saw them in better light, she didn’t know what she was looking at. Wide, cat- like heads and ears, with narrower muzzles, and nose flaps. Mottled dark fur with a faint rosette pattern, and folded, bat-style wings with fine downy fur. No orange stripe on the female’s wing, so that must have been a trick of the light. Their front paws had sharp-looking claws and opposable toes. Their tails were long and ovoid.

We are cats. That was the female.

We were made for war, thought the male.

Food? asked the female.

Ferra didn’t know what to do with cats designed for war, since the Central Galactic Concordance government had kept the peace across the galaxy for the last two centuries, but she could do something about food.

Reaching up to the top shelf of her closet, she retrieved the mealpack she’d stashed there two days ago. She triggered the heater and put it on a narrow counter that served as the cell’s desk and table to warm.

She gratefully sat on the bed and pulled off her clammy shoes and tossed them onto the drying mat by the door. “Do you have names?”

The female’s tale twitched. Yes.

Ferra laughed. The cat was just like some AIs Ferra had known, unhelpfully literal and disdainful of imprecise questions. Ferra tried again, this time forming the words in her mind and projecting them to the female cat. What is your name?

My call sign is Novo Seventeen Alpha.

I am Bozlurian Four Delta, volunteered the male.

“I’ll just call you Novo and Boz, if you don’t mind.”

 

 

Military Subcaptain Kedron Tauceti counts the days until he can leave the rare metals factory and his current duty station as the liaison to the galactic government’s Criminal Restitution and Indenture Obligation system. The post was protection—and punishment—for exposing a theft ring during his previous assignment. He's more than ready to get his career back on track on a new base halfway across the galaxy, even if it means leaving behind the one person who makes him want to stay. Not that he's told her, because technically, he's her warden.

 

Former financial specialist and current indenturee Ferra Barray, hiding from her past, only has three months to go on her restitution sentence. She's lucked into a tech repair job. If she keeps her head down, she'll soon be free to figure out her future. Unfortunately, the local shark behind every illegal scheme in the facility wants her to steal for him, and she's running out of excuses. And now the heroically handsome Tauceti, who she hoped could help, is transferring out.

 

Everything changes when Ferra discovers two genetically modified cats. Saving them takes incredible risks. She doesn't know what she'll do if she can't convince Tauceti to rescue the cats and keep them until she's free to come for them.

 

But when trouble erupts at the factory, it might just be the cats who save them.

 

Find out what happens in this exciting standalone novella from Carol Van Natta's award-winning Central Galactic Concordance space opera series.

 

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NOTE TO READERS: Cats of War debuted in the limited edition Embrace the Passion: Pets in Space 3 anthology. It has been edited for clarity, but is substantially unchanged from the original. If you already have the anthology, you don't need to buy this story again, unless you like your books standalone or want to support your friendly author. For fans of the Central Galactic Concordance series, the events in Cats of War take place after Jumper’s Hope, but are not part of the ongoing big damn story arc.