Star Cat: Killer Instinct Read online

  Contents

  Chrome Valley Books

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Acknowledgements

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Chrome Valley

  United Kingdom

  (Nine Years Ago)

  No one knew the old man’s name.

  No one cared to know it.

  He seldom left his house, but today he had to. A goal had to be achieved - and quickly.

  He clutched a cardboard box in his arms as he crossed the main freeway that separated Chrome Valley’s east and west side.

  Crossing all six lanes was a perilous endeavor.

  Still, he managed to do it, narrowly avoiding the speeding cars and the two MagStrips - flat, magnetic paths that ran on either side of the ‘slow lanes’ in each direction for Magnetic Levitation Cycles to travel on.

  He put one foot in front of the other slowly, seeming to care little about whether he was struck by the traffic or not.

  An oncoming driver had to swerve into the middle lane. Thank God no one occupied it or else the two vehicles might have collided.

  This very thought flew through the man’s head.

  It made him smile, and then peek inside the cardboard box.

  The traffic drowned out the squeals and meows coming from under the flap. A lot of the commotion inside the four walls escaped through three pricks at the top of the box.

  “Shh,” the man said.

  He lifted his head, closed his eyes and stepped right into the traffic.

  Several car horns blared around the light breeze as he continued forward.

  The driver of a white SUV slammed his brakes and horn at the same time. The man expected the bumper to crush his legs, after which one of two things might happen.

  One, the rest of his body would follow and crumple to the ground. The blunt force trauma would crush every bone in his body and kill him instantly - trampled to death under its wheels, or…

  Two, the hood of the SUV would launch him into the air. Perhaps his right elbow and arm would shatter, but at least it would cause the requisite amount of damage.

  As it happened, neither of these eventualities occurred.

  The car skidded to a halt to within an inch of the man’s knees. The driver rolled his window down and screamed a colorful array of obscenities as the man moved through the final lane to Chrome Valley’s east side, near the cemetery.

  “Oi, mate,” the driver yelled. “What the hell do you think you’re—”

  He stopped speaking when the man opened his eyes and stared him out.

  A wave of anxiety fell across the driver’s face, “Jesus Christ, mate. Are you okay?”

  No response.

  The man staring at the driver was withered and old. No wonder he was slow to walk. He could barely keep the cardboard box held in his arms.

  The box shuffled as the two men stared at each other for a response.

  Finally, the driver got the creeps so bad he decided to back his SUV into the angry traffic jam that had formed behind him.

  “Okay, okay. Never mind.”

  The old man walked over the MagStrip, his heels clunking against the shiny metal, before traversing the verge that led to Waddling Gate Cemetery.

  But he didn’t make it that far. That wasn’t the point of having left the house.

  As the cars whizzed in all directions at ridiculous speeds, the man surveyed the area and took in a lungful of fresh, Chrome Valley air.

  “I had no choice,” he whispered in his withered, old voice, “Please forgive me.”

  He crouched to his knees and set the cardboard box on the verge, a few inches from the MagStrip.

  SCHWIP. SCHWIP.

  The man lifted the flaps of the box out and, for a brief moment, avoided having to look inside. He turned his head around and clocked the tiny conker tree at the corner of the cemetery, hoping above hope that he himself would end up in those grounds sooner rather than later.

  Three tiny kittens clawed at the side of the opened box in an attempt to jump out.

  The box was too big for that, though. For them.

  “Miew.”

  A brown kitten squealed at the top of her tiny lungs. Her orange eyes grew at the towering man looking away from her.

  Attention, damn it. Attention.

  “Miew.”

  The man caved in and looked inside the cardboard box. He stared at the brown-orange kitten and suppressed the urge to cry.

  “I’m sorry, Brownie. I thought I could do it, but I can’t.”

  Brownie tilted her head and displayed the sort of look that might melt butter - a gorgeous light-brown face, beautiful orange eyes, and a shiny coat to die for.

  “I’m sorry, girl.”

  She lifted her head up as the man stood to his knees. To the kitten, he seemed to grow a thousand feet tall in the space of three seconds.

  “Miew,” Brownie squealed after him.

  The man wouldn’t be returning, though. Instead, he walked down the road that snaked around to the cemetery, and out of view - forever.

  Brownie pawed the box and kicked her little legs up the side, but it was no use - she was too small to get out.

  The thunderous roar of speeding vehicles and gas fumes antagonized her to no end.

  Her heart began to pump quicker than she’d ever experienced until now.

  She felt her chest contract and squeeze her lungs and heart.

  Brownie released her paws from the cardboard and hit the deck, ass-first. She nearly injured her tail in the process, but she possessed a strange kind of instinct that might protect her from danger.

  As she climbed back to her four paws, she caught sight of her siblings cowering in each of the far corners.

  The youngest had a darker coat than Brownie, and sported a white stripe across her head.

  The “middle” sibling was the same color as Brownie, only she had a pink nose.

  The pair were frightened, and ever-so-slightly smaller than their big sister.

  “Meow,” the brown-orange kitten squealed at them.

  Proof that tone and delivery is everything, any human being watching the event unfold might have interpreted the kitten’s cries as ‘we gotta get out of here.’

  Escape wasn’t preferable, but a necessity.

  Brownie crept to the end of the box and focused her eyes on the vast section of cardboard between her two siblings.

  “Miew,” she dug her hind paws into the soft, brown surface.

  Her two front paws crept forward as she arched her back and wiggled her jet black nose, ready to launch.

  “Miew,” she warned the others to let her through. She flapped her tail and felt her survival instinct fire up.

  BOLT.

  Brownie darted across the box and tucked her chin to her chest.

  BWAAMM.

  She flew into the side of the box head-first. Her shoulders crashed into the side soon after. The impact forced the oppo
site end to tilt up.

  For the briefest of seconds, the edge she’d hit folded over enough for her to see where they were.

  A dangerous playground full of death machines speeding in all directions.

  Her two siblings slid up the side of the cardboard box, but weren’t strong - or able - enough to escape.

  All three of them slid back to the floor as the cardboard box returned to its original position.

  What the three kittens couldn’t have known was that the box had moved a few inches toward the road itself.

  The only clue they had were of those darned horns and engines being louder.

  Brownie snaked around the middle of the middle of the box in a bid to find another way out.

  Then, she stopped and lifted her ears.

  Something was about to happen. Brownie couldn’t quite put her paw on what it was, in both a literal and figurative sense, anyway.

  Wharm-wharm-wharm.

  A peculiar noise grew louder and louder.

  Brownie sprang into action without hesitation. She raced toward her two, frightened siblings and held out her paws with the intention of covering their bodies.

  But, before she reached them…

  WHUDDA-WHUDDA-WHUDDA-SMASH.

  The sky swung from above and disappeared under the box.

  The gravity in the box slid up the wall, taking all three kitten with them, and then—

  FLING.

  The three of them flew out of the box completely.

  A MagCycle whirred to a halt, hovering over the magnetic plate.

  The driver flipped the hypervisor up her face and eyed the battered box, “My God. I hit something.”

  She removed her white helmet, stepped away from her MagCycle, and saw a small shower of kittens - three of them - land paws-first on the road.

  NEEAAAWW.

  Several cars tore around the three kittens, blaring their horns.

  “Oh, Jesus Christ,” the woman ran up the length of the magnetic track and held her hands out at the approaching cars. None of them could care less if they hit any of the fluffy obstacles directly in front of them.

  “No. Stop,” she screamed.

  “Miew,” the youngest of the three kittens shrieked from the fast lane.

  The woman ran to the edge of the three lanes. Crossing any of them was a very dangerous prospect, “Oh, God. No.”

  NEEEAAAWWW.

  Brownie hopped out of the fast lane and into the path of an oncoming car. It clipped the end of her tail, shaving a few strands of brown fur into the air.

  “Miew,” she wailed and focused on the cyclist’s face.

  “Don’t move,” the woman shouted over the speeding cars. “Stay where you are, I’ll rescue you.”

  Brownie turned around to see her youngest sibling with the white stripe across her head frozen solid in the fast lane.

  “Maaoooww,” she ordered and lifted her paw.

  The tiny kitten couldn’t move.

  WHOOSH-NEEAAAWWW.

  Brownie closed her eyes and turned away. She didn’t want to witness the impact, and waited for what felt like an eternity for the soul-crushing sound.

  Brownie opened her eyes to find her sister had avoided the impending crash.

  No sign of any carnage - the white bundle of fluff had disappeared, presumably escaped a million miles away from the road.

  “Miew,” Brownie called out for her, to no avail.

  The cyclist kept an eye on a gap in the traffic, “Hey, kitten. Wait, wait.”

  Brownie turned around and saw her middle sibling hit the central verge and nestle between the railings for safety.

  “Okay, there’s a gap coming,” the cyclist yelled as the final car darted whooshed past her face.

  “Okay, now. Run. Come to me.”

  Brownie turned to the kitten with the pink nose safely between the railings in the central road reservation.

  “Meow,” Brownie yelled at her to come out and run with her to safety.

  Pink Nose still wouldn’t move.

  “Grrr,” Brownie snarled.

  Instead of running to the safety of the cyclist, she darted in the opposite direction and jumped against the central reservation railings.

  Her claws slung over the top rail, forcing her to swing under the metal and land beside her sister.

  Pink Nose patted Brownie’s face with her paw, “Meow.”

  “Miew,” Brownie slapped her sister on the side of the face and pushed her onto her side.

  Pink Nose growled and flipped to her feet, ready to smack ten bells of hell out of her sister.

  Brownie lowered herself to her haunches and bushed her tail, ready to fight.

  The woman yelled at the pair from the MagStrip. “What are you doing? Now’s not the time for fighting.”

  Pink Nose trundled forward, never tearing her eyes away from Brownie’s.

  “Miew.”

  Pink Nose swiped at her older sister and missed. She bounced forward and under the railing by accident.

  NEEEAAAWWWW.

  “Meow,” Brownie grabbed Pink Nose’s behind and yanked her out of the path of a speeding car.

  “My God. These kittens are insane,” the cyclist muttered as she spotted a large gap in cars coming their way, “Get over here, now.”

  Brownie screeched in Pink Nose’s face, forcing her paws to quake with fear. She slid her head under the railing and kept an eye out for the woman’s instructions.

  “Okay,” the cyclist said, trying to time the approaching gap.

  ZOOM-SWISH-SWISH.

  “Okay. In three, two, one—”

  The last of the cars sped past Brownie’s nose as she dug her paws into the cement.

  “Now.”

  “Meow,” Brownie nudged Pink Nose’s behind.

  Both of them tore across the freeway.

  SWISH-ZIPP-NEEAAAWWW.

  Brownie and Pink Nose ran apart, ducking and diving the last of the cars scorching across the three lanes.

  “There’s a gap. Go, go, go,” the cyclist yelled and pointed at the MagStrip, “Here, now.”

  Brownie bolted forwards and launched herself into the air.

  A car appeared out of nowhere doing more than seventy miles-an-hour. It clipped Brownie’s haunches and tossed her around in the air.

  SLAMMM.

  Brownie landed on the magnetic cycle strip, paws first. Her maternal instinct kicked as she spun around and looked for her sister.

  Pink Nose was stranded in the middle lane with cars zooming on either side.

  “Miew.”

  Brownie stepped forward and shrieked at Pink Nose to stay absolutely still.

  “No, don’t go near the road,” the woman bent down and scooped Brownie into her left arm, “It’s dangerous. Don’t worry, she’ll make it.”

  “Miew,” Brownie threw her paws in front of her face in a futile attempt to rescue her sister.

  The siblings locked eyes for what would turn out to be the final time.

  Pink Nose wailed as an oncoming car rocketed toward her.

  “Mwaaaah,” Brownie tensed in the woman’s arms. The shuddering in her limbs and chest wouldn’t abate, “Miew-miew-miew.”

  The cyclist shifted Brownie into her right arm. The woman’s Individimedia ink on her left forearm came into view.

  “Hello? I need help, quick.”

  NEEEAAAWWW-ZOOM-ZOOM-SWISH.

  Brownie twisted around in the woman’s arms to see the cars whizz past her stranded sister.

  “Miew.”

  She dug her claws into the woman’s right arm and pushed her head forward. Her eyes widened as an oncoming Mack Truck blared its horn, about to take her sister out of the game forever.

  It all happened so slowly.

  Pink Nose was there one second, and gone the next.

  Brownie’s tongue hung from her opened mouth in shock.

  The traffic noises bleached out to nothingness and everything went quiet.

  Brownie was alone, now, and she
knew it. Her eyes followed the side of the Mack Truck as it shot off into the distance - with a tiny, pink-nosed kitten clinging to its back bumper.

  “Maaaoooowww,” Brownie hollered after her sister, who clung to the back of the truck for dear life, and out of her life forever.

  The cyclist screamed into her Individimedia, “Are you on your way?”

  “Yes, we’re the white van on the road by Waddling Gate,” came a male voice through the pin pricks in the cyclist’s wrist, “Can you meet us there in thirty seconds?”

  “Sure.”

  The cyclist swallowed hard and consoled Brownie as best she could, “I’m sorry. There wasn’t anything we could do.”

  “Miew.”

  Brownie tucked her head into the crook of the woman’s elbow, trying to fight anything and everything she could find.

  “Hey, hey,” the woman protested. “Be careful with my suit.”

  “Miew,” Brownie sunk her teeth into it and tried to play with the woman.

  “You’ve had a busy day. My God, you were so lucky to not get hit,” the cyclist said.

  She stared at her MagCycle hovering over the magnetic lane.

  SCREEEEECH.

  A white van’s tires kicked up dust as they locked into the brake position.

  The cyclist cradled Brownie and ran across the verge, headed for the van.

  “Don’t worry. I’ve called for some help.”

  Big, black lettering on the side of the white van read:

  P.A.A.C.

  People Against Animal Cruelty

  A tall, good-looking man with blue hair jumped out of the passenger side and spotted the cyclist approaching the van.

  “Hey, are you the girl who called?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “My name is Handax Skill. What did you find?”

  “The animal rescue team? Thank God,” she said, indicating a terrified Brownie in her arms. “I found this one, but the other two—”

  “—How many altogether?” the man with the blue hair asked as he took Brownie from the woman, “Let me look at her.”

  The woman sniffed and choked up, “There were three. But the other two didn’t make it.”

  Handax expected the bad news. Instead of joining in the guilt, he focused his attention on Brownie’s face. In particular, her eyes.