The space station Gate Solution Heart had three ship’s cats, genetically modified creatures with short, tight hair that rarely shed, prehensile tails, iron stomachs, and the ability to maneuver in zero-gravity. The bloody-minded predatory instinct they’d inherited was unchanged, all the human crew swore, which other sentients took with their species’ equivalent of a handful of salt.
Crew Ali Elliott, originally from England, had engaged in that argument a few times himself. He hadn’t ever won, but the memories–and faint scars on his right hand–from a particularly vicious moggy from his childhood, a tabby-striped tiny terror his mother had doted on named Miss Kitty–kept him trying.
The ship’s cats–Uncle, Story, and Hall–at least, had been bred and trained to not attack the crew, instead hunting and killing the various small vermin that snuck onto the station despite the many protocols designed to prevent such infestations.
As Ali climbed–and then descended when he crossed a change in center of gravity–a ladder, he saw his favorite of the cats, Uncle, a marmalade tabby with extravagant swirls and piercing purple eyes, engaged in hunting a greenish bug.
Her tail thrashed from side to side as her butt ratcheted upwards bit by bit, and then the feline launched, her trajectory perfectly intersecting the bug’s hops. Her jaws snapped shut with a crackling crunch.
“Good job, girl,” Ali said, recognizing the greenish bug as a kind that ate wire coatings.
Uncle merped at him, still chomping merrily away.
Ali left her to her snack, heading on to the docking bay where he’d been summoned for repairs. Ship in distress, he’d been told.
That was underselling the problem.
The ship’s crew had hauled out several large pieces of machinery, leaving gaping holes in their transport’s innards, and were working frantically on repairs. Crustacean-like pincers clacked at each other in terse communication, in between yanking at smoking wires and tossing screws and bolts to the floor.
Ali hurried forward. “What’s wrong? How can I help?”
One of the crew with several gems imbedded in their carapace turned towards him, clacking.
His translator offered. “The situation is on control. We will to [untranslatable] and–”
“Excuse me, but this doesn’t look under control,” Ali interrupted. “I need you–”
Sparks cascaded from an open portion of the ship, and with a soft whump, flames sprang up to dance at the edges of the hole.
Flames on a space station were almost as bad as it got. Alarms blared, lights flashed, and machinery whirred.
Story, a gray and white tom, had been watching the chaos from atop a nearby crate, and he leapt down, stalking towards the ship.
“Dang it, cat.” Ali chased after the animal, who raced nimbly ahead, pouncing on a furry multi-legged creature about the size of Ali’s boot, which had just emerged from a different, not currently ablaze, gap.
The ship’s cat swatted at the brown-and-yellow vermin, leapt, and landed front feet first on its back, with a snap audible above the hubbub.
Story sniffed the creature, gagged, and raked at the floor with his front feet, trying to bury the bug.
Anything a ship’s cat wouldn’t eat was definitely toxic to most life forms. Best to get rid of the remains.
Despite the damage dealt to it, the rat-bug twitched, then twitched again, the second movement purposeful.
Not as dead as Ali had hoped.
Getting his shoe under the repulsive thing, he scooped the vermin on top of the reinforced toe, then with a flick, he threw it into the towering blaze.
Burning biomat already smelled unpleasant, but the vermin released a stink so foul Ali’s air filters triggered automatically. But at least the creature withered and curled up, so Ali watched a moment to be sure it was dead, then went to see what was taking the fire suppression team so long.
As he passed Story, he scratched the cat on the head. “Well done. We did *not* want that on the station.”