Star Kitten (26 page)

As he had watched the video "Your Safety on
Star Pussy" Kscheeech most certainly grasped how big of a challenge
this would be. Star Pussy Police were far more than just security
guards in a cushy job. These were well-trained riot police... with
military backgrounds in most cases. They had regular fitness
training it claimed, and were located throughout the facility
strategically so that response to disturbances could be both swift
and decisive.

Because of that, a small attack would be
pointless, thought Kscheeech. If the SP Police responded, they'd be
in force. And if there was to be a battle, Naustie troops would
become completely engaged in full combat; with little chance to
focus on rounding up captured females, at least until the SP Police
were completely defeated or destroyed. This is how Kscheeech saw it
anyway. Snout didn’t agree… he just thought they were “nothing more
than bouncers in a whorehouse.” Nevertheless, Snout gave a big
snort and muttered to Kscheeech, “Tall order, this plan.” Snout was
more of a fan of hitting quick, grabbing loot, rounding up
captives, and getting out fast….

Kscheeech did some more calculations after
meeting with Admiral Snout. His casualty estimates were starting to
look ominous: There were five main Environs, he’d learned from one
of the videos he'd watched the day before. If each Environ had
about 300 police patrolling and monitoring it, plus fifty to 100
police patrolling each of the docks and maybe another 100 working
around the shuttle vehicle routes…? That could mean nearly 3000
police to have to fight for control of the space station.

And besides that, what
about the deluge of people clogging the walkways and actually
engaging with each other inside the venues and attractions? This
could be a very, very difficult attack. Star Pussy had the capacity
for up to 10,000 guests at any given time. Maybe the Admiral was
right. Maybe a full takeover
was
too tall of an order….

Later that week,
Kscheeech
held his staff
meeting with the different Brigade Commanders and their ship
captains via a ship to ship short range communication signal. In
deep space, this signal was too weak of a transmission to be
detected at long range by Star Fleet but it was sufficient for the
nearby ships to be able to communicate with each other while they
were far from any shipping lanes. Eventually the signals would
bounce off something in space and arrive on some Star Fleet
computer appearing as nothing but gibberish, because it was in
code. But this static-laden garble could be triangulated back to
its origin within a few days of its original transmission, and Star
Fleet could possibly know something was coming their way out of
deep space. That's why the Nausties had to be so
careful.

Of course, once they got near shipping
lanes, all communications between crafts would be forbidden. This
had always been Naustie practice when attacking in squadrons.
Strict instructions and timetables. Orders followed specifically.
All bodies of slain comrades had to be accounted for and returned
to the extraction point or port of exit. No communication between
ground units and the orbiting pirate fleet, so no recorded
transmissions. It made all Naustie attacks impossible to identify
as to their origin. There were not even dead bodies left behind of
the raiders themselves.

All these brigade leaders attending the
conference call with Kscheeech had already been promoted to GENERAL
by the Tribal Confederation. It sort of made all of them recognize
that however they distinguished themselves in the upcoming mission,
it would have some bearing on their future prospects for being made
Commanding General of the Naustie Army. There hadn't been one since
Hicks had ridden with Perry up that ramp during the final assault
on the Terminal headquarters. But if war ever came; most likely one
of these eight creatures would be chosen.

For the meeting Kscheeech sat in the ship's
conference room. He watched a wall with a giant video monitor which
showed an animated display map of Star Pussy. The map was actually
a fifteen second video which he'd excerpted from a commercial about
luxury vacation packages on the Star Pussy Channel. He’d recorded
it onto a loop which played out over and over again while he
conducted the meeting.

When he spoke in Galactic during the
meeting, it translated into the Naustie Ship2Ship code for
transmission, then his words would appear on the screens inside the
conference rooms of all nine other craft hurtling through space
together. When they replied or asked questions, he'd see pop-up
boxes along the side of his giant room video monitor display and be
able to move his laser pointer over to select a box and address
their question verbally. The computer would again translate his
spoken Galactic into code and transmit it to everyone.

In this first meeting
though, things didn’t go very well for Kscheeech. The Brigadier
Generals... well four of them anyway... objected to the scope and
far too aggressive objectives of his plan. Certainly three of the
generals merely nodded in agreement, wanting apparently to toe the
line. Wanting to seem loyal. For example, the brigade commander of
the unit assigned to
Anarchy
… a Pumalar named Bengal…
just sat patiently through the meeting and purred softly in a deep
rumble. No emotion. Just waiting for the chance to order his troops
into battle.

But these four dissenters from other ships
expressed their concerns almost immediately. “And what about Star
Pussy sending out a distress call?” one General asked onscreen.
“That should be no problem,” Kscheeech replied back to him
promptly.

Slarts back on New Australia had developed
an amazing jamming device using captured existing technologies from
Earth freighters. The device basically flooded star fleet with fake
distress calls and pointless inter-space banter which confused the
network and made it difficult to discern between what was actually
real and what was really fake. This would buy them time before Star
Fleet triangulated the origin of the message and responded with a
patrol squadron just to check things out. It would take several
days to calculate this and respond to the scene in force.

Kscheeech boldly estimated that it would
take two days to capture the entire facility, but if they
eliminated all police quickly, they could have a fully secured
space station filled with people to sort through and take whichever
ones they wanted. Tactical planning was to be delegated to the
Brigadier Generals themselves, he added. And that's when the
arguments came popping up onscreen. Before he had even opened the
floor for questions, they were already chiming in!

“Too ambitious” the first one said. “Too
risky” another one of them said. A third said, "This is too much."
And the fourth? He just replied "Fuck it, this is crazy." Kscheeech
hissed out a little chuckle at that last reaction, and actually had
to suppress his laughter for fear of being detected by the
computer. The drawback, one of the generals alerted everyone to,
was a valid one indeed. This was a space station, not an
oxygen-rich breathe-able planet. “In space you can't make
mistakes,” said one message. They had to land, dock, deploy troops,
and capture additional docking stations. They had to eliminate
trained riot police, drive toward some headquarters at the very
middle of the wagon wheel; and then Kscheeech wanted them to secure
the capital command complex at the center of the space station? No,
this was indeed too much.

Basically the whole meeting turned into a
fiasco at one point, with Brigadier Generals lighting up the screen
with so many rebuttals and objections that it began to degenerate
into chaos. They even argued with themselves and hurled insults at
each other. Kscheeech had to actually stop the meeting just to let
things cool down. He clicked on a “pause meeting” button on the
ship’s computer screen; and soon a very large typed message came
across the video display at the center, saying MEETING RECESSED FOR
15 EARTH MINUTES.

The screen froze; as message pop-up windows
continued to be displayed with comments like, “I’ll get my men
killed,” and “How the fuck are we gonna get all the way across this
thing in a day, fighting the whole way across it?” That particular
message was from General Vladimir “The Impaler” of the Arian
Knights, and he was just the type of general to speak that way.
Ambitious and determined this former Russian mobster was. Basically
second in command of the Arian Knights during the final assault on
the terminal two years before. He knew only two ways to rise to
power; and one was to try and keep his best men alive; always
surrounding himself with them in combat.

But he had a very good point. Just one
pitched battle in that shuttle vehicle tube, or near the Employee
Dormitories, and a whole Brigade could be pinned down for hours.
And all this… just to capture a couple thousand females? For the
Arian Knights, who were all homosexual, women were only needed for
cooking and cleaning. They were for trading the pretty ones for
valuable supplies and putting the rest to work; that’s all. There
was no honor, no desperate fight for survival in this upcoming
battle. They weren’t starving for food or seeking to overthrow an
evil oppressor, after all.

Kscheeech sighed, sat back, and thought
about it for a little while. General Bengal seated down at the end
of the conference table chuckled to himself, muttering about the
vociferous debate earlier. Snout heard him and snorted humorously
as well. Neither spoke. They knew to just leave Kscheeech alone
with his thoughts. He’d come up with something. They didn’t doubt
it. And it didn’t take long either.

Kscheeech glanced up suddenly at the screen,
then he began staring with an intrigued look at the section called
“Pumalar Environ”. He remembered a video he’d watched earlier
during the journey. A saved program about a particular Pumalar… a
female named Felina. She was an Empath, it said… mysteriously
talented beings who could anticipate male thoughts. They were
legendarily skilled at the sensual arts as well. Trained to be a
submissive, completely adaptable mate to any male they were paired
with. That’s what the documentary video said. Of course he’d never
actually met one, but Kscheeech remembered them from his earlier
days as a pirate. Virtually impossible to acquire, but usually
consorts to wealthy businessmen, noblemen, conquering Chieftains,
superstar athletes…. Suddenly it gave Kscheeech an idea. It glowed
like a light bulb in his little lizard brain. He looked over at
Snout and Bengal sitting down the table and grinned….

Kscheeech looked at the map again. There was
a docking station right near the Pumalar Environ… and the Roman
Empire venue was a mere half mile away from it as well. They’d only
need to capture one more docking station after the false flag ruse
got the first freighter safely docked. They’d form a bridgehead to
block police reinforcements from one direction; while rampaging
toward the Earth Environ in the other direction. One Brigade could
pull off the whole thing, really. But if a second warship landed
after that initial dock was secured; that would put over two
thousand battle-ready warriors on Star Pussy with superior weapons.
All the Star Pussy Police could do would be to contain the attack
in those two sectors.

Kscheeech told Admiral Snout of his
thoughts. Snout chuckled and snorted, “That’s what procedure would
dictate too, wouldn’t it?” They were police after all. They’d treat
it like a riot; because that’s what they were trained to do. Losses
of territory meant little. Losses of valuables meant nothing. Their
own losses meant everything to them. And the losses of customers
would be devastating. The only real disaster would be for the
entire station to fall; and everyone held hostage. That would ruin
business for the resort and customers would be terrified of ever
going there. Then they’d be out of business completely. All they
would want was for the pirates to take what they wanted; and leave.
Containing the attack to a small section of the station would
suffice for them. They had no ability to carry out a
counter-attack… just be glad to see the pirates leave. “Not to
mention the fact that they’re not expecting us in the first place,”
added Snout with a loud grunt.

General Bengal agreed. That truly was the
answer. Kscheeech reopened the transmission channel and awaited all
the confused agitated and angry Brigadier Generals and Captains to
sign back in to the meeting. While they returned, he switched the
video temporarily to a clip from another “documentary” on Pumalar
Empaths, which concluded with an interview with “Felina, the Star
Kitten”. As the participants returned to the meeting, and started
signing back in, Kscheeech sent message after message explaining
his revisions to the battle plan.

He kept the video going in
the background—with sound; and let the generals and captains all
see what was actually awaiting them
on
this galactic pleasure palace
called Star Pussy. “Empaths… sexual fantasy goddesses from the
mystical ancient culture of planet Pumalar,” said a sexy human male
voice. Cat-like humanoids, some over six feet tall… cavorted and
undulated in front of the camera. Sexy soft jazz music played in
the background. Male beings from various different species sat with
them at tables or lounged on beds of pillows while the Empath sat
or lay with them in the video. Cat eyes were riveted to those of
their partner’s, nodding seductively with understanding. The deep
sexy narrator voice continued, “Imagine the most perfect lover in
the Galaxy… who steps right out of your deepest most intimate
fantasies and becomes reality right before your eyes. Whatever
you’re thinking, the Empath… she already knows. And baby… you best
believe… she understands.”