Star Kitten (58 page)

They’d do
whatever it took, of course. They’d do it just because Nicky told
them to and they’d do it to find their loved ones. They’d do it
because of Felina, who was right there alongside them working every
day in the dust until her fur was so filthy she was practically
unrecognizable. But most of all, they’d do it for themselves and
their stubborn pride in being Nausties. Besides, even if they did
get really tired or frustrated… even if they worked all day just to
find nothing more than a pile of dead Earther bodies… they’d
soldier on anyway, just because they had yet another inspiration.
Some days they kept on toiling away because of the “Star
Baby”.

Yes, Star Baby was
the great motivator. Adamant about finding her father Solomon, she
followed the work crews around and joined in with the Spleef
detection units who sniffed through rubble and debris looking for
bodies—either live or dead. “Da-da find… Da-da find,” she’d just
keep saying; encouraging them and urging them on day after day. It
became welcome relief for exhausted tunnelers and diggers. Tough,
hardened, and haggard Porkos… or dusty, filthy, exhausted Spleefs
would force a tired smile and reassure her constantly, “Yes Star
Baby… we find your Da-da. Don’t worry. We find him.” She demanded
it after all, and no one was going to disappoint her.

Even the
thought that they might never find Solomon or his staff anywhere…
even the thought that—God forbid—they might find him dead? They
just wouldn’t believe in such a thing. Star Baby was right after
all. They just had to believe he was alive and they’d find him. It
was like that for everyone else searching for a loved one down
there too. Hope was all they had—and as long as there were more
tunnels and caverns to search, they just had to keep on believing.
Nevertheless, the searches usually yielded nothing. Occasionally
there’d be a cavern they could open up; hoping in vain that the
Naustie army had tunneled up this far and into it. But alas, they’d
find no one alive. No matter, though. They just went right back to
work and kept tunneling deeper into the mine network; through
cave-in after cave-in.

Then finally one day it happened
. Porko units were interrupted from their
drilling by Spleefs who ran up to their vehicles waving madly. The
Spleefs said they smelled something! The Porkos turned off their
vehicles and waited for several minutes while diminutive little
Spleef detection units ambled over rocks and debris to sniff the
rubble. They listened too. Humans working in the unit also came
forward to listen through the pile of rocks to hear any noises
coming from the other side. That’s when a human female yelled out,
“Oh my God… Here!!!” A crowd of Spleefs and Humans descended on the
area, and with wildly waving hands and arms, the Earth woman hissed
at them to keep quiet. A faint scratching sound was heard… it was
coming from the other side!

Within a few hours,
Zorg ship crewmen, Pumalar females, and humans working with bare
hands and claws, carefully dug and ferried away stone after stone;
then bucket after bucket of dirt, until they punched a hole through
the top of a fifty foot high cave-in pile. Miraculously all their
toils had finally paid off! On the other side were thousands and
thousands of emaciated, and dehydrated Naustie warriors. The army
had finally been found!

After this big success, the word spread all the way back to
the new Naustie headquarters inside the
Chengshi
. Survivors were being brought to the surface! The
celebration was incredible. Cheers and screams. Crying and singing.
Children running about yelling “Pa-pa… Pa-pa!” Kscheeech himself
flung his breather unit with excitement and roared with pride like
some prehistoric dinosaur. They’d actually done it! They’d found
the Naustie army!

Onboard
the
Chengshi
,
Warthog
, and
other ships now landed on the surface, hospitals were thrown
together inside their loading bays; and canopies were constructed
to protect the wounded starving troops as they were brought up from
below and ferried to the waiting ships. And there, of course was
Nicky Ciancio (hair perfect as always) running the show. “Yeh…
jusss keep the freakin’ sun off uh them, ah’ight? Dey been tru
enufff ah-reddy!” yelled Nicky as the first thousand or so
survivors were carted up from the destroyed terminal loading bay. A
massive elevator system had by now been constructed using wenches
and pullies which lifted platforms full of gallant warriors to the
surface; then lowered fresh supplies and reinforcements for work
teams below. It was a long trek back up to the surface, yes, but
the thrill of rescuing someone’s husband, father, or brother, was
motivation enough to get thousands of hard-working volunteers ready
and willing to get the job done speedily.

And there was even more good news!
There were still more Nausties further down
below in the mines
, some of the surviving warriors said. Star Baby herself, with
her mother in tow, darted through the crowds of grateful warriors
awaiting evacuation from the caved-in tunnel. The sweet little girl
asked warrior after warrior, “See Da-da? See Da-da?” And warrior
after warrior would gently assure her, “Yes, Star Baby. Da-da back
there,” then gesture for her to look further down the tunnel.
Felina would of course follow up with each warrior and clarify,
“Just how much further down, brave one?” What Felina gradually
found out from them was that Solomon and his team had joined
another small unit of troops and made their way through an access
tunnel to detonate the charges; then they’d planned (they told
General Vlad) on merely fleeing for their lives before the
detonation led to an eruption of the volcano.

Felina came upon a big Pumalar who was terribly wounded but
quite alert. “You should be proud, Princess,” the big cat stated
solemnly to Felina, “…it was an honorable mission.” He was a
Pumalar from the Cave Lions, who remembered her vividly. He spoke
in a low voice, almost right up next to her face, but safely out of
earshot from Star Baby, who was carrying around a child-size
canteen half full of water and greeting warrior after delighted
warrior with, “Wa-wa? Deenk Wa-wa?” Felina’s heart sank. The
Pumalar’s words made it sound like it might have been a suicide
mission! However one of the big cat’s badly injured human comrades
nearby interjected with, “Actually, Princess… the detonation did
not set off the eruption immediately (
cough
). He had plenty of time, I think.” Other warriors
lying on the ground nearby agreed with him. They confirmed that the
eruption of the volcano developed over the next several hours after
the blast but it did not really explode violently until
later.

“
How much
later… I mean how long you think he might have had?” she asked the
human warrior, who was gashed and scarred from God knows how many
battles; but also was burned horribly along his arm and both of his
legs. She doubted he’d live very long with burns like that (not
unless he got to a surgeon immediately). The human rolled his eyes
and gasped in reaction to some shooting pain that was wrenching his
body in agony. “Plenty of time, Princess," he croaked, "…he had a
detonation team with him which set timers on the explosive charges…
plus they had their escape route all planned out… even had that
little Slart with him who knows so damn much about
volcanoes.”

The injured
man suddenly winced again with pain. His comrade next to him gently
offered him a canteen of water, but he waved him off. The brave man
knew there was no use wasting precious water on him. He knew he was
dying anyway. Felina didn’t need to trouble the poor suffering man
any further. She just bent down, kissed his forehead and placed her
paw on his shoulder. Then she stroked his cheek and purred softly,
as the man drifted off into unconsciousness.

Felina just knew in her heart Solomon had planned everything
to the finest detail. He was
not
on a suicide mission, no. His placement of the explosive
charges was designed to explode only the cavern floor. The tunnel
he was using to get under the cavern was right above the magma
chamber, she remembered him telling her. He and Cuttlefish must
have set the charges to explode in twenty minutes, or maybe even
their maximum thirty. This would have enabled them to get at least
several miles away if they were using a mine vehicle. Possibly
more. And if the eruption had not occurred until several hours
later then Solomon and his staff could have been walled up and
secured safely long before it went off. Besides, knowing Slarts
like Cuttlefish, they must have provisioned their protective hiding
place quite well to try and live through the eruptions for as long
as the tremors lasted.

As the human
warrior breathed his last breath and his mates said their goodbyes
to him, Felina stood up and thanked them all for their information,
wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her paw. Then she
turned to Star Baby with a warm motherly smile saying, “Okay now my
daughter… let’s go find Da-da!”

For the next
several days, Felina and a team of Porko tunnelers with Spleef
detection units, tunneled and traveled deeper and deeper into the
devastated mine. More troops were found as they descended; and
steaming lava flows had to be dodged constantly. Eventually
thousands more warriors were discovered, passed out exhausted from
their breathers running out of water to operate; or nursing battle
wounds. Vlad the Impaler was found too! But he was in woefully bad
shape and had to be evacuated immediately. His troops insisted—even
those who were more seriously injured—that he go first. He’d led
them to victory; after all! And best of all, he’d kept most all of
them alive to see this day. To all these brave defenders of the
planet, Vlad was truly THEIR personal hero.

Another
grueling week passed. Star Baby was in tow at all times, adored by
the Spleefs and Porkos in their rescue team; and at her mother’s
side almost constantly. Even when she wasn’t, there were always
nine or ten workers keeping an eye on her. She was their mascot!
She motivated them and inspired them constantly. She could sleep
for hours, regardless of the noise going on, then she’d spring to
life with an adorable yawn only to run about the worksite playfully
urging the workers on. It just broke some of their hearts to think
about it; so they just kept putting it out of their minds, but
every day that passed the chances of finding Solomon’s team alive
were getting slimmer and slimmer.

Then another
question was raised… just why would they have stayed put in the
first place? Solomon would not have WAITED for a rescue effort,
would he? And, he would never have abandoned his team to survive on
their own if they could not keep up with him. That’s what Felina
and the rest of the tunnelers began theorizing. True, Solomon would
have tried to escape and take his team with him. But which
direction would they go? How would they get out? Once that question
was answered, the rest was beginning to become clear. One of the
Porkos suggested it; and soon everyone on the crew agreed: Likely
Solomon and his team would have tried exiting the mine the same way
the refugees went! And they likely traveled that direction for as
far as they possibly could before their water and food would have
run out.

So
that became the strategy for Felina’s rescue team. With all the
rest of the Naustie army rescued or accounted for; she turned her
team’s attention to again finding the route by which her fellow
refugees had escaped the planet.
It took little time to retrace it
.

For another agonizingly long day they travelled, knowing and
believing in their hearts that THIS must be the way Solomon and his
team had gone. And then finally after nearly twenty three more
hours of frustration,
they found them
. Bodies slumped over rocks. Bodies lying face-down on the
floor of the cave. Bodies seated on the tunnel floor with their
backs against large rocks or mine vehicles. The Slarts among them?
Some had clearly been dead for days, including the great
Architeuthis. The wise spiritual leader and father of the rebellion
had apparently spent his last desperate moments gasping for air
from his dried out breather unit. Sad and respectful Nausties
silently lifted him into an empty dump hauler to return him to the
surface for a hero's funeral.

A
human was found, the
former Chinese mobster named Bui Hoang Oh who worked on
Solomon’s team. Spleefs went to work on him immediately trying to
resuscitate him; and this lifted Felina's spirits seeing a human
had survived this long. Then they found the body of Cuttlefish.
He’d finally collapsed on the floor when he’d run out of enough
oxygen too. It looked like they’d all had one last meal together,
then camped together in this spot while they drifted off to sleep
and slowly suffocated. The Slarts probably died off first; and then
when Bui also passed out, someone from the group apparently tried
to drive out on his own. Spleefs in Felina’s unit noticed the
tracks; and everyone not tending to the few survivors, hopped into
one of the dump haulers and began speeding down the tunnel. It had
to have been Solomon!

In
another couple hours they found him, passed out in the driver’s
seat and slumped over the wheel, head resting on his arms. And he
was
alive
!

Springing into
action, Felina and the rest of the team pulled Solomon’s giant body
out of his electric hauler and laid him on the tunnel floor. He'd
driven until the battery finally lost all its charge, then he'd
obviously lost conciousness. Felina stood by frozen in terror while
Spleefs went to work on him. She wanted to cry… wanted to weep. But
she didn’t want to startle her child too, so she kept it all in.
She didn’t know how to pray, like Solomon often did, so she just
muttered to herself what she thought Solomon would have
said: