Cats in Space and Other Places by Bill Fawcett (the first e reader txt) 📕

my arrival. I take it you've got the data. I'm to share the rest of my briefing when we're under way."

She was polite, but firm, about her eagerness to get on with what could only be a difficult assignment. And I liked that attitude in her. With an exceedingly graceful movement, she eased into the left-hand seat, and latched the safety harness, her amazing "hands" (they weren't really "paws"—Khalia have "paws"—for the "fingers" on her hands had evolved to digit status, with less webbing between them for better gripping) curving over the armrests. The end of her thickly furred tail twitched idly as the appendage jutted out beyond the back of the cushioned seat. I watched it in fascination. I'd never appreciated how eloquent such a tenable extremity could be.

Nevertheless, duty called and I alerted the Bridge to our readiness. We received an instant departure okay, and I released the pressure grapples of the airlock, gave the starboard repellers a little jolt and swung carefully away from the Gormenghast.

I enjoy piloting the Ocelot. She's a sweet ship, handles like a dream, can turn her thirty meters on her tail if she has to, and has, though not many believe me. I remind them that she's a Mark 18, the very latest off the Fleet's Research & Development Mother Ship. Well, five years galactic standard ago. But I oversee all maintenance myself and she's in prime condition, save for the normal space wear and tear and the tip of one fin caught by a Khalian bolt the second year I commanded her when Het and I ran a pirate blockade in FCD 122/785.

Of course, she's light on armament, can't waste maneuverability and speed on shielding, and I've only the four plasma cannons, bow and stem, and swivellers port and starboard. I'd rather rely on speed and zip: the ship's a fast minx and I'm a bloody good driver. I can say that because I've proved it. Five g.s. years in commission and still going.

I pumped us up to speed and the Fleet was fast disappearing into the blackness of space, only the slight halo of light where they were still firing to clear lanes through the damned dust and that quickly dispersed. Those telltale emissions which could prove very dangerous. That is, if the Khalia were looking our way. Space is big and the convoy was slowing to move cautiously through a congested globular ASD cluster to make our ultimate orbit about ASD 836/934. Everywhere in this young cluster there was dust which was a navigational hazard despite its small to minuscule size.

The reason the Fleet was convoying such an unwieldy number of ships through this sector of space, adjacent to that known to be controlled by Khalia, was to reinforce the sizeable and valuable mining colony on Persuasion 836/934: and strengthen the defenses of two nearby Alliance planets; the water world of Persepolis, whose oceans teemed with edible marine forms chockful of valuable protein for both humanoid and the weasellike Khalia, and the fabulous woods of Poinsettia which were more splendid and versatile in their uses than teak, mahogany or redwood. In the ASD Sector the Khalia had only three planets, none valuable except as stepping stones so that a takeover of the richer Alliance-held worlds had a high probability factor which the Alliance was determined to reduce by the reinforcement of troops and material in this convoy. Or, once again the great offensive strike planned for Target, the main Khalian base in Alliance space, would have to be set back.

As the tremendous entry speed was reduced, the convoy was, of course, vulnerable to any Khalian marauders during the six months that maneuver took. FTL is the fastest way to travel: it's the slowing down that takes so much time. (You got one, you got the other. You live with it.) So Alliance High Command had created a few diversions in Sectors BRE, BSF, attacks on two rather important Khalian-held planets and had thrown great Fleet strength into the repulsing maneuver at KSD: a strategy which was evidently working to judge by the lack of visible traces of Khalian force hereabouts. In FTL, you have obscurity—Alliance or Khalian. But in normal space, the emissions of your drive make ever-expanding "cones" which are detectable. The large number of ships included in our convoy increased the detection factor—to any spaceship crossing the "cone" trail. "Cones" were, fortunately, not detectable from a planetary source, but the plasma bursts were—that is, if Bethesda had the right equipment.

If we could be spared any further unforeseen incidents, the convoy had a good chance of relieving Persuasion and the other worlds before the piratic Weasels could summon strike elements to the ASD area.

I had never actually been near a Khalian. Maybe my decorative brawn had. I intended to ask her as soon as I had locked us on course. Ghra's tail tip continued to twitch, just slightly, as we reached the Ocelot's cruising speed. I had now programmed in the data needed to reach Bethesda, and to re-enter normal space at three planetary orbits away from it, on the dark side. I checked my calculations and then, warning Ghra, activated the FTL drive and we were off!

Ghra released the safety belt and stretched, her tail sticking straight out behind her. Good thing she couldn't see me gawping at it. Scoutships with a good pilot like me, and I'm not immodest to say so, could utilize the FTL drive between systems, where the Fleet, if it wanted to keep its many vessels together in some form of order, could not.

"If you'll put what is now the spaceport area of Bethesda on the screen, Bil, I'll brief you," she said, leaning forward to the terminal. I screened the relevant map. She extended one claw, using it to show me the landing site. "We're to go in north of the spaceport, low, where they won't be looking for anything. Just here, there're a lot of canyons and ravines. And a