《Kitty Cat Kill Sat》Chapter 028
Advertisement
Of all the things I expected to hear today and be excited about, “Your bloodwork came back.” was not one of them. Mostly because I had forgotten how long the medical analyzer could take on some things.
Sometimes, I think the machine is calibrated to go slower so that whatever people installed it didn’t get freaked out by how rapidly technology had outpaced their frail meat brains. I… have a lot of free time to think things, sometimes. Look, it’s been years since I’ve had proactive projects to work on, don’t judge me.
I’m in the middle of trying to figure out why a repair drone isn’t sealing a breach in the deck. I’ve got one of those really uncomfortable hard light rebreathers on, just in case there actually is an atmosphere leak here, but it seems like it’s just a regular hole between two decks. I’ve tried giving the drone explicit commands, I’ve tried giving the broad command through the station maintenance authority, and I’ve tried doing it myself. That last part did not go well, because I can’t figure out what button to push to turn off the gravity here, and I am far too cat to lift the six hundred kilo enhanced metal plate into place to activate the clamps and weld it down properly.
So I’m back to trying to diagnose errors in code that is honestly really far beyond me. Most of the stuff on this station I can reprogram pretty easily, especially now that I can narrate instead of typing. What used to take a year now takes a day or two. It’s nice! But sometimes you get stuff like this weird drone, which I *think* is from an Ado Iroquois reclamation team, where the code was produced by so many layers of machine learning that it’s almost organic.
To be clear, by ‘almost organic’, I don’t mean it’s a living person. I mean it’s a heuristic mess that doesn’t make a lot of sense, and pretty much only works by random chance. But it works enough that I can leave it alone and let it do its thing.
“Okay, let’s try again.” I lazily mewl out. “Assess and repair the designated area.” I flag the damaged hull section and file the request both manually, and through the station’s command structure.
Almost right away, I get a return code of ‘job assessed, work finished’.
I crane my neck back to look upward, feeling the bones creak uncomfortably as I strain to look at the ceiling.
Nope. Hole’s still there.
So, the process goes, I make a couple edits to the code, and try again. And again, and again, and again.
It’s been a long day.
It’s not even a high priority hole. I don’t honestly *care* if the courtship chamber on deck N2 is roughly connected to the lateral hallway on deck 19. I don’t *use* either of these. No one does. But it’s the principle of the thing; someone put holes in my home and I’d like it looking nice in case I ever have guests.
Still, when Ennos interrupts me, I jump at the chance.
“Lily, I have-“
“Yes! Thank you!” I yowl, scrambling backward and nearly slicing my paw open on the exposed circuit board in the back of the repair bot. “I’ll take it!”
Ennos pauses. “Do you even know… no, nevermind. I’m glad your repairs of our home continue apace.”
“Oh, uh. Yes.” I nod energetically, bobbing my whole body to agree. Yup. Actual repairs happening, right here. “How’s the grid doing?” I try to tangent away.
Advertisement
My AI friend practically snarls at that, and I know I’ve got a good distraction for the future. “This station’s digital landscape is a shambles. Overloads have claimed a number of connecting nodes, and reestablishing those links to other segments will take time, and physical interaction. I am making progress, but it is frustrating, and I am trying to not bother you unless I actually know which button to push.” Ennos says. “On the sharper side, I seem to have been cut off from a few of the more worrying specters wandering around in here. So that’s nice.”
“I’m glad to hear you’ve gotten more cavalier about impending death.” I joke as I close the ‘repair’ drone back up with my forepaws, and start making a wandering line toward a nap spot. It’s time for a break or something.
“Death? What?” A note of terror reenters Ennos’ voice. “I thought you said they were harmless!”
“What? Uh… yes! Absolutely! I’m just kidding!” I scramble to undo my blunder. “They’re just misunderstood, and shy! I’m sure!”
“Lily, I’m going to need you to install a new proton reactor to power the firewall I’m going to design.”
“I’ll consider it.” I concede graciously. This is probably my fault, anyway. “Also, what did you come down here for originally?”
One of the weird quirks Ennos has is that they will pause to ‘check’ things like this. I *know* they don’t need to. It’s just an affectation. But they seem to like it, and it does give a more casual feeling, so I don’t complain. “Oh, your bloodwork came back from the medlab. You aren’t allergic to any-“
I am already moving. Coiled muscles propel me, reflexes humming as I fling myself down the hall. I know the exact route I need to take; the station is huge, but my mental map of it is perfect in one regard. I know exactly where the galley is, and where I can see just how badly the station’s personnel file has been ruining my life for the last *several hundred years*.
Ennos’ voice trails behind me. I don’t think even the sharply intelligent unshackled AI was expecting just how fast I can move when motivated.
They catch up a minute later, spinning words out of the walls to sound like normal conversation to my ears. “-thing. Though there was a note about you having some kind of residual radiation damage, and-“
I take a corner sharply, leaving Ennos sighing behind me.
“Lily, you can’t keep-“
I am up an access shaft, scrambling up the ladder that I have wrapped thick cloth around the rungs of so my claws can dig in properly.
Food. Potentially, maybe not. But *food*! If the galley doesn’t think I’m allergic to everything that isn’t beige nutrient paste, maybe it will make me *actual fucking food*! All I have to do is make it to the galley, and-
A klaxon sounds. It’s one I’m familiar with; something is on a collision course with the station.
Okay. This is fine. I divert course, heading toward the magweb control station. Normally I’d just use the grapples, but they’re four decks up and I don’t feel like climbing and I *still* haven’t figured out how to reenable the lift shafts yet.
The thing about to hit us was a lump of melted plastic moving at plus a hundred miles an hour relative. The plastic itself I feed into a recycler, which will slowly use vacuum difference to grind it down to something I can later use in manufacturing. What’s really interesting is the chemical that was melting the plastic, even in the depths of space still doing its work; slowly but surely. I carefully have that isolated and moved to an organics analyzer for… analysis.
Advertisement
Look, sometimes the tools just do what they say they do. Don’t judge me.
There’s also a problem with the recycler unit not actually having any kind of logistics connection to the fabricators or manufactories, and that’s just a pain, but whatever, I don’t need a lot of plastic for what I do *anyway*. Either way, I’ll deal with that *later*, because right now, it is time to try my paws at lunch.
My detour didn’t actually take me farther away from the galley by raw distance, but unfortunately, I can’t actually tunnel through solid metal unless I’m starting at the metallurgical tunneler, so I’m stuck taking the long way.
I don’t know if I say this often enough, but I love my home.
This station is a winding maze of halls and doors, and while I’ve only recently gained access to a good two thirds of them, all these familiar spaces are still so comforting to me. I feel *safe* here, wrapped in warm metal arms in this spinning metal habitat so far above the sky. Every little cut and scrape I can see from this latest round of damage just makes me love it more; all that, and it still kept me safe. Still kept the ghosts away long enough for me to do my part.
And now, with more and more of it opening up to me, the future here seems so bright. So full of ideas and options. And, I would like to remind everyone as I step onto an access shaft gravplate and launch myself straight ‘up’, full of *food*.
Naturally, I am only a couple hundred feet from the galley when Glitter calls me.
“Excuse me, Lily.” The ever proper AI greets me with a pair of camera drones that perform what I can only describe as a formal bow. “You seem busy, so I regret that I require some of your time.”
The majority of me is glad that Glitter is up and running again. Glad that she’s undeterred about engaging with the world. I am less glad that she’s still really ritualistic in her behavior sometimes, and also that she is now keeping me from my lunch, but I’m not gonna be the one to discourage her.
“Sure, what’s up?” I meow, trying not to let the rapid flicking of my tail give away my impatience.
“I have been studying the surface cities, now that I have a better vantage point, and some free time with my repairs complete.” Glitter explains. “And I have noticed one, which I wished to ask you about. I cannot find anything on your public grid about it.”
“Oh, our grid is all messed up right now.” I explain, passing on what Ennos told me earlier. “Do you have coordinates?” She does, and I pull up what sensor records I can access from here in my AR, looking over the area.
It’s a fairly small spot, all things considered. About fifty square miles in a strip along the eastern edge of one of the islands in the Atlantic Archipelago. It takes me a little while to try to sort out why Glitter is focused on it, and eventually, I *don’t* sort it out and just ask instead.
“Pull up the heat signatures, if you can.” Glitter says. “I wish I could share more simply. Heat, life signs, perhaps power draw or signal maps would also help?”
I have all of those. I layer them while I consider getting some kind of big five mile long hardwired cable to plug Glitter’s grid into ours. “Okay. So what am I… oh.” The city, under these lenses, is instantly obvious.
Nothing organic living here. Unshielded power lines that are way too well laid out, regimented trace signals in the air, massive imbalances in construction analysis. I’ve seen this kind of thing before, and luckily, Glitter caught this infection before it spread beyond its current size.
“Cityseed.” I grumble. “Guess I didn’t get the last of them after all.” I hiss slightly as I remember my last fight with one of these. The cityseeds were one of the few ground based threats that could actually *fire back* sometimes. Not enough to do anything, but enough that they were real threats and not just stationary targets. I mean, they *were* stationary targets, but not *just* that.
“You know it to be an enemy?” Glitter sounds almost sad, through the drones.
“Sorta, yeah.” I meow in exhaustion. “They’re like a less granular gray goo problem. They just consume and spread. I’m not even sure *why*, all I know is that they seem to be able to pop up anywhere.”
“But why a city?” Glitter asks. “Is it building for anyone?”
“Not that I know.” I answer grumpily. “I don’t even know if they’re full AI. They’ve never answered me when I tried to talk. Though, granted, there wasn’t a whole lot I could *say* at the time.”
Glitter’s drones hover around each other in an idle orbit while she composes her reply. Ennos does strategic pauses; Glitter does political word work. “Would you be offended if I attempted to speak with it?” Glitter asks me. “I do not mean to disparage your diplomatic ability…”
“Oh, disparage away.” I stroll under the drones, trying to contain myself from sprinting off as I answer. “I’m still new at talking! Say hi, make a friend! Let me know if they launch anything at us!” I take a corner, her drones lagging behind as Glitter turns her digital mind to the task she was most interested in. “Please don’t get too attached.” I whisper, mostly to myself. “Just in case.”
The cityseeds I’ve known were… I’m not going to say ‘evil’. I don’t think they were alive enough to be evil. But they were toward the start of my era of guardianship, and before I flattened their cities and bombed out the roots, they had cut the world’s population in half.
Part of me, the part that’s always angry, wants to just launch something dangerous and overwhelming at the surface target, and write it off. But the rest of me, the part that’s been making friends, and maybe doesn’t have to be so angry all the time, wants to see where Glitter can take this.
I pull up an AR display with a constant map to the closest gun station though. Just in case.
I am almost right outside the galley when Ennos interrupts me to tell me that there’s signs of weapons fire on the surface of the primary moon.
I am so tired. I just wanted lunch.
The moon is far away. And it might be a local issue anyway. From what I understand, the undercities and their republics war with each other constantly, and there isn’t much I can do to stop them from where I am. But maybe there should be some kind of break from that on the surface.
I give the okay, and Ennos deploys some of our drone fleet, taking command for this one. And then, with that out of the way, I *finally* hop up onto a chair to be served lunch.
No allergies, no problems, just one hungry cat. The grid is connected here, the galley knows I can eat anything. Just give me *anything*. Please.
My meal arrives.
Ration.
Ration in the shape of a caduceus. Cute.
Well. At least I know now that it wasn’t the allergies. And that the galley has a sense of humor.
“Lily…” one of Ennos’ camera drones floats nearby. “I’m sorry…” Their voice sounds worried about me.
“Ah, it’s fine.” My ears flick back as I lick at the back of one of my paws before hopping my forepaws up onto the table to eat. “Nice design on the snake. Good scale work, galley.” I say out loud to the possibly haunted, possibly non-sentient machinery.
“You’re taking this gracefully.” Glitter’s smooth voice joins Ennos from her own drone. “We were worried for you.”
I try to make a derisive noise, but it doesn’t work too well when my mouth is full and I end up spraying ration crumbs onto my plate. “I’ve been eating, and complaining about, this stuff for centuries.” I say. “One more week or two for the strawberries to come in is *nothing*.” I scarf down the rest of the ration, and use my paw to wipe away what’s left on my muzzle.
Then I take some time to check on the garden. The greenery is starting to come in; tiny sprouts and little leaves poking up through nanoenhanced dirt. The room smells like growth and life. It’s beautiful.
I sit and watch a cucumber vine grow for maybe a little too long, trying to convince myself that eating the greenery isn’t worth it. My thoughts are eventually broken by another alarm sounding, jolting me out of my meditative fantasy about what actual fruits and vegetables will taste like. I could have waited out the entire duration in here, but no. Something had to interrupt me.
The updates flow in from the station and Ennos as I am updated on what’s gone wrong. There’s a missile from some ancient war headed our way from above the elliptical, stealth systems having failed to solar radiation and its fifty year orbit finally bringing it too close to an actual target for safety.
I swear I’m not mad about the ration thing.
It had nothing to do with why I fired so many different point defense guns at the missile.
Advertisement
Candii's Quest
Candii, a rocking gal in the world's greatest band, The Non-Traditional Key Gullz, has to jam her way through the magical Land of Rock and defeat evil wizard Morgana Malevolent in order to recover her pet unicorns' magic and restore her ranch. It won't be easy especially when the Band finds out that in the Land of Rock evil isn't so easily understood! Candii's Quest is a musical novel that instructs you to play music during certain parts of each chapter. Rock out to 24 famous songs spanning from the 70's until today that set the tone and excitement for each action sequence. Candii will be rolling in the deep as she travels the boulevard of broken dreams. It'll be a bittersweet symphony as she holds out for a hero only to learn that it is her all along. "Don't stop me now", she'll cry! Convenient playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnz2KoZ3Ix7Fo7_H_HozwABqk7u2EXhr_ CreditsPublished by: CHOU! BooksAuthor: Daniel ChouEditor: Marci ChouCover artist: Tina Frost Hello, everyone!This is the author, DrDan. I'm excited to bring you the first complete literary work I ever created, Candii's Quest. It's more than a novel, it's a rock ballad! I've written a lot since this book, which I completed in 2017, and I thought it was time to release it into the wild for free! If my adventure and style (which has changed A LOT) interest you, then visit my Ko-fi page (click the TIP button) to find out what else I'm working on and when it'll be shared here.Also, please rate, favorite, and comment! I'll be forever grateful, you wonderful person!Thanks!
8 197{The Dragon Within} (Completed)
Meeting his fate at the hands of seven great heroes, the wicked drake now stands in Death's hall. Met with the Grim Reaper itself. Defeated and its pride broken, the drake doesn’t beg or grovel, it simply awaits judgement. It waits for the God of the afterlife to send it on its way, to either the heights of bliss and peace or where it knew it would be sent. The depths of agony and torture, the halls of Tartarus, the father of monsters. Grim looked up from its oaken desk and down at the creature that would have otherwise, if grown wiser and older, matched the reaper itself in power. Its faceless guise, hidden by a black hood and whirling shadows, it briefly stared at the drake. “You are unfit for the sky yet also too fit for the abyss,” Grim spoke, its voice a cracking whisper. “Your time came too soon, the actions you have taken will lead your world to ruin…Be reborn, pitiful serpent. Yet remember what you have done, see what your actions have made that realm into. Let me show you, how your greed and gluttony have warped such a wonderful place and time.” Grim raised its black-feathered pen towards the beast “Be reborn, as the weak pitiful creature you should have been born as. Take this both as a punishment and…a learning experience. For failure, can be the best teacher.” The drake took a step back, hoping to escape this cruel fate. Yet none escaped Death, less so its embodiment. Screaming shadows engulfed his form, ripping away at his body and shape. Fangs of darkness sinking deep into his draconic flesh, warping it, changing him into something else… Opening his eyes, the wicked drake felt none of its power, none of its magic and none of its might. As it stood at the edge of a cliff, looking down upon a ruined valley of rot and miasma. It glanced down at itself, seeing none of its sturdy scales or sharp claws. The drake had been reborn... As a Human. Will also be posting on CreativeNovels found here; CrN Where chapters will be posted earlier than RRL.
8 88Diaries of a Fighter
What does it take to be the best MMA fighter in the world?For Nik Torsten, it takes an adventure into the dark and occasionally bizarre world of Japanese fighting organizations. It takes a journey through love, hate, brutality, otherworldly beings and heartbreakingly hard decisions. Not much is clear, except for one thing: The life of a fighter is never easy.But then again, nothing worth fighting for is ever easy.
8 176Realm of the Stars Volume II: The Endangered Crown
The second volume of a space fantasy trilogy inspired by the Arthurian mythos! Sequel to The Unclaimed Crown. Artakane ast Carann has been crowned queen of the Dozen Stars - but not all are eager to accept her reign. The young queen must now learn to lead as enemies threaten the kingdom's tenuous peace. Pakorus ast Orlanes is the son of the kingdom's former regent. Determined to prove his worth, he pursues his own investigation of the assassins who murdered the previous queen - and what he discovers, together with an unlikely ally, will shake the galaxy. Darius ast Sakran is the greatest swordsman in the Dozen Stars, but when his father allies with a group of rebellious nobles and their secretive backer, he will find himself forced to choose between loyalty to his family and to his conscience. Latharna Dhenloc is an orphan without a past, raised by a mysterious guardian - and she is a brilliantly gifted warrior. When chance brings her to the court of the Dozen Stars, her path will cross with the queen's, and she will find herself catapulted into a world of danger, excitement... and love... When the Kingdom is shattered by civil war, it may be left for these four to save it - and if they fail, a tyranny that once held all humanity in its grip may be poised to rise once again...
8 62Les animaux
8 190When the heroine becomes paranoid (Quick Wear) [GL] [MTL]
When the heroine becomes paranoid (Quick Wear)--Warm the new recruit is assigned tasks by the main system. She needs to play the role of a female supporting role or a cannon fodder villain in each world, complete the main task, and become a stepping stone for the male and female protagonists to the peak of success and the great harmony of life.One hundred tasks, after completion, still maintain the original intention, want to retire, plan to use the points to exchange for a relaxed world to enjoy the old age.However, due to the sudden OOC of the female protagonists in several of the quest worlds, their attributes changed greatly, and the main line of the world was forcibly changed, and they did not go into great harmony with the male protagonists, which led to the collapse of the main line of the quest world, and all Warm points were frozen.The wealth of the family is so impoverished that it is nothing more than that.In this regard, the method given by the system is to let Warm go to the collapsed world and reduce the blackening value of the heroine.-----------------------Collapse of the world 1: The popular queen and the president of Duojin: In your eyes, I am someone who wants to marry into a wealthy family?Collapsing World 2: Gao Leng, Paranoid Academic God and Arrogant and Domineering School Master: You treat me well, are you sympathizing with me?Collapsing World 3: The richest man in the capital and the Merry Prince: You just can't live without a man?Collapsing World 4: Demon disciple and Xianmen master: Master, I hurt so much, do you really have the heart to kill me?...etc(World Hopping) ( Quick Transmigration) (Quick Wear)Tsundere, Almighty, Suffocating VS The Birth of the Awakened (Paranoid Crying Bag)Protagonist: Warm/Warmth/Wen Nuan X Heroine from different world are the same person-----------------------RAW LINK: http://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=5879756-----------------------ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO THE AUTHOR
8 87