“Friends”
by Writer345
Chapter Two — The Incident at Thompson’s Farm.
As the Sheriff had suspected, things didn’t quieten down when night fell. Rachel’s radio crackled with overlapping reports before she’d even finished her coffee. ”Sheriff, you seein’ this?” Deputy Nolan’s voice cut through the static. “West of town, near the old quarry... whole damn sky’s lit up like a carnival.”
Across the town square, at the diner, plates rattled as Ma Barker’s display of antique teacups trembled in their saucers. The jukebox stuttered, then died with a sigh and the electronic till froze in mid-transaction.
Outside, the horizon pulsed. Not with the familiar strobe of heat lightning, but with deliberate, rhythmic flashes, amber one moment, turquoise the next, as if the heavens themselves were bickering. Rachel’s boot heels clicked rapid-time against the smooth asphalt of the town square, her revolver already unsnapped. The desert air hummed, thick with the scent reminiscent of burnt rosemary.
By the time she hit Main Street, half the town had spilled onto porches, necks craned upward. A confused mutt howled at the mesa that overlooked the town, the sound of canine paws could be heard scrabbling on the boardwalk almost as if the planks were hot or electrified. Above them, the lights resolved into geometric formations: triangles darting between shimmering discs, their movements too precise for aircraft, too fluid for drones.
Deputy Kaywaykla materialized beside her, his imive face lit eerie blue by the spectacle. “They look like they’re trying to impress us.” He said quietly.
Then a noise like a thunderclap ripped the night, but it didn’t sound quite right... it was too metallic. The town shuddered. Then came silence silence.
From the darkness beyond the streetlights, a child’s laughter echoed; it sounded like Mari-belle’s, though Rachel knew she’d sent her home with her mom. The sheriff’s grip on her revolver tightened. The laughter melted into a purr.
Some of the streetlights exploded in a cascade of violet sparks. In the sudden dark, amber eyes gleamed from every shadow.
Rachel drew her .44. “Show yourselves!”
The ensuing rasping chuckle wasn’t human: not even near... But it seemed to come from everywhere.
“Ssuch a noissy big monkey.” The honeyed voice from her mind earlier cooed aloud now. “We’ll have to fix that.” It purred “And that will be ssuch fun.”
This was followed by another deep silence.
Overhead, the lights died away, not with the flicker of dying embers, but it was as if someone had snatched them from existence. One moment, the sky was alive with impossible geometries and alien hues; the next, empty. The transition wasn’t gradual: it was a flipped switch, a breath held. Rachel’s ears rang with the absence of sound, the hum, also, had ended as abruptly as it had begun.
She holstered her revolver, the leather creaking in the sudden quiet. The townsfolk stood frozen, their faces upturned... waiting. But nothing returned. The night was just a night again: stars, heat, the occasional chirrup of a cricket. Even the mutt had stopped howling, sniffing at the air as if trying to catch scent of something that was no longer there.
Rachel exhaled sharply through her nose and marched into the Sheriff’s Office. Inside, Deputy Vernon sat at the desk, his grizzled hands moving methodically between the switchboard and the logbook. He looked up as she entered, his expression unreadable but steady, like a lighthouse in a storm. Phones rang, concerned citizens spoke, but his calm never wavered.
“Steve,” Rachel said, leaning on the desk, “get on the horn to the nearest air base. Find out if they’re running exercises out here tonight and if they’re not, ask if their radar’s catching any of what we’ve been seeing.”
Vernon nodded, already reaching for the radio. “You thinkin’ military, Sheriff?”
“I’m thinkin’ I don’t know what the hell that was.” She rubbed her temples, the ghost of that honeyed voice still lingering in her skull like a bad hangover. “But I’ve got a lot o’ frightened people so if it’s Uncle Sam playin’ with new toys, I want answers.“
Outside, the first whispers started, townsfolk clustering in hushed groups, pointing at the mesa where the lights had vanished. Rachel watched through the window as Deputy Kaywaykla moved among the shadows in an alley, his sharp eyes scanning the ground. He crouched suddenly, fingers brushing the dirt. When he stood, his face was grim.
Rachel didn’t need him to say it. The tracks weren’t human.
And whatever had left them wasn’t done with Wide-Awake yet.
Rachel poured herself a coffee from the big thermos that Ma Barker had sent over earlier as they still had no water. She sipped it and grimaced it was old, stewed, bitter, but more importantly it was hot.
Deputy Waya Kaywaykla came in as she was scanning the log. His issue stetson discarded as too cumbersome, instead his long black hair, normally secured into a ponytail, was free. He was controlling it with a red bandanna wrapped around his head. From the neck up he no longer looked like a copper, instead, as he turned his high-cheeked bronzed face towards Rachel she realized that it was a face that she had seen in countless old western films... It was a face that seemed to be staring at her from Arizona’s history.
It was also a face that was unreadable: a bad sign. Rachel knew that when an Apache tracker went blank, you were in deep shit. “What’d you find?” she asked, pushing the log aside.
His fingers traced an invisible shape in the air. “Prints. Wider than they were long. No heels.”
Rachel chewed her lip. “Sounds like they were tippy-toeing. Or running.”
The deputy nodded once. “Boots of some kind. But not human.” His calloused thumb brushed his palm, demonstrating. “Even when they stood still: no weight shift, no heel press. Just... flat. By the depth, whatever made them only weight about a hundred to a hundred and twenty pounds each.”
Rachel studied him; the tightness around his eyes, the way his nostrils flared slightly, like he was still scenting whatever had left those marks. “You followed the trail?”
“Four sets,” he confirmed. “Ten yards due west. Then...” His hand sliced downward: “...gone. Like they stepped off the earth.”
Outside, a motorbike roared past, making the Sheriff flinch. Rachel’s coffee had gone cold, the sludge at the bottom like tar. She stood abruptly, her chair screeching. “Show me.”
The prints were faint: shallow ovals pressed into the dust, perfectly symmetrical. No scuff marks, no drag. The trail just stopped, as if whatever made them had been plucked straight upward.
Kaywaykla crouched, pointing to the last print. “Here.” The dust was disturbed where the next one should have been should have been but there was no print.
Rachel squinted at the empty air above it. The hairs on her neck prickled.
Steve Vernon stuck his head out of the front door. “Hey Sheriff! report from Deputy Nolan. She’s at the Thompson place: his whole damn corn field’s...”
A sound like rending metal drowned him out.
Kaywaykla was already running. Rachel sprinted after him, her .44 bouncing against her hip.
Over the mesa, the sky seemed to peel open like a wound once more. Only this time, it screamed.
Rachel skidded to a halt beside Kaywaykla, both panting as the air itself vibrated with a deep, resonant howl: not from any throat, but as if the fabric of reality was tearing. Above them, the stars blinked out in a perfect circle as something vast and metallic descended, blotting out the night. Its surface rippled like liquid mercury, reflecting the town’s lights in grotesque distortion.
Inside the office Deputy Nolan’s voice crackled over the radio: “Corn’s standing straight up, Steve. Like... like it’s reaching for that goddamn thing.”
Rachel’s fingers dug into Kaywaykla’s forearm. “Get everyone indoors.” She ordered, voice steady despite the adrenaline singing in her veins. “Now!”
The White Mountain Apache didn’t move. His gaze was locked on the hovering mass, his lips moving silently: a prayer or a curse, the Sheriff couldn’t tell. Then his eyes widened. “Rachel... Look.”
A beam of lilac light lanced down from the ship’s underbelly, lancing towards Thompson’s farm. Deputy Nolan was still on the radio describing exactly what she was seeing to a grim looking Deputy Vernon... Suddenly she stopped in mid-sentence leaving just a crackling noise.
Then Nolan’s voice came back on after a few seconds, only it was echoing now... She sounded as if she was in an empty room “What the fuck?... Where am I?... Who the hell are you?” Then silence: Deputy Nolan was gone.
Vernon’s fingers trembled as he adjusted the radio settings, static hissing in response. The radio crackled back to life, but it wasn’t Nolan. A voice, rich and amused, purred through the speakers, the honeyed tone was the same as Rachel had felt in her skull earlier. She walked into the building just in time to hear something that chilled her. ”Your deputy is quite ssafe, Sheriff but she is ssuch a sspirited monkey. But resst assured, we’ll look after her... She is exactly what we have come for.”
Rachel snarled, slamming her palm onto the desk. “You son of a...”
The voice laughed, a sound like water tinkling over rocks. ”Sson? I hardly think sso! But don’t worry, feisty girl, we’ll be coming for you quite sssoon.”
The radio died with a final, mocking pop.
Outside, the hovering mass pulsed once, turquoise this time. before folding in on itself like retro-origami. The night swallowed it whole. No sound. No wind. Just gone.
Kaywaykla exhaled sharply. “Cat-people.”
Rachel’s hand, hovered over he holstered revolver as she asked. “Who?”
The Apache tracker pointed east, where the mesa’s silhouette hid the stars. “Something ancient that we know of...” His voice died away but Rachael was glad he didn’t say anything else.
“Waya,” Rachael said quietly, “you feel up to scouting round the Thompson spread?”
Still stone-faced, the Apache nodded and reached for his stetson. He glanced around the room. “I’ll take Colón Montanez with me, he can speak to the Thompsons while I look around, we need to know just what the hell happened over there.”
“Wrong,” Rachel snapped, not cruel, but urgent, as she tapped her keyring against the filing cabinet. The jingle and clatter of metal sounded absurdly normal in that moment. “We’re going. All three of us. Right now.” She jerked her chin toward the door where Vernon stood gripping the radio knob like he might tear it off. Montanez was standing watching.
“Colón, you’re driving.” The Sheriff said, attempting to sound cheerful.
Kaywaykla hesitated just long enough for Rachel’s jaw to tighten. His nostrils flared: not protest, but quiet acknowledgment of the risk. A warrior didn’t need backup unless things had gone sideways.
Which they pretty much had.
Rachel didn’t wait for agreement. She was already striding toward the cruiser parked diagonally across Main Street, its driver-side door still hanging open where she’d abandoned it minutes before. The engine idled, patient and oblivious. The charger light pulsed red on the dash, a detail that ed in some distant corner of her mind as she flung herself into the enger seat with a grunt.
Montanez slid behind the wheel without comment, his knuckles bloodless on the steering column. Kaywaykla folded his lean frame into the backseat, the leather creaking as he braced one hand against the roof. The cruiser smelled of gun oil, sweat, and the faint metallic tang of blood from some long-forgotten perp transport: an olfactory reminder that this vehicle had seen worse.
Rachel buckled in with a sharp click. “Go.”
Siren blaring... red and blue lights flashing, Montanez floored it. They were out of town in minutes and then the tires spat gravel as they fishtailed onto County Road 14, the mesquite blurring into streaked shadows outside the windows. Rachel thumbed her radio to life. “Dispatch: lock down the school, the diner, everywhere. Anyone outside gets hauled indoors. An’ someone Melanie an’ tell her I ain’t gonna be home anytime soon.“
Ahead, the Thompson farm’s silhouette reared against the sky... except the barn roof was wrong... twisted. Rachel’s gut tightened as they skidded onto the drive leading to the Thompson place. Cornstalks stood rigid in perfect rows, leaves frozen mid-tremble. The air smelled burnt, like overheated circuitry.
Kaywaykla had been moving around in the back seat for a few minutes. Suddenly he spoke, his voice terse. “Pull up here and let me out.”
Montanez braked sharply. As he did so what it was that slipped out of the back seat didn’t look like a cop; his stetson, boots and shirt were gone. This was an Apache warrior: bare-chested, badge pinned to his belt, moccasins on his feet, his face painted with two streaks of red ocher beneath each eye. The determined expression made Rachel think of historical pictures and shudder.
“Hey, be careful out there, Waya,” Rachel said.
Expression blank, the deputy nodded once, fingers brushing the handle of something strapped to his belt, something Rachel pretended not to see, before melting into the darkness between the corn rows with terrifying silence.
Montanez exhaled sharply as he rolled the cruiser forward again, knuckles bone-white on the steering wheel. “Was that a tomahawk in his belt?”
“I don’t know,” Rachel lied smoothly, adjusting her holster. “I was careful not to look.”
The Thompson farm loomed ahead, its barn roof peeled outward like the petals of a grotesque metal flower. Dust swirled in unnatural patterns, drifting against the wind. Rachel’s throat tightened: deputy or warrior, Kaywaykla shouldn’t be out there alone.
Montanez killed the engine thirty yards from the farmhouse which was in darkness. The silence was worse than the humming had been... thick, expectant. Rachel’s fingers flexed near her revolver as a shadow moved behind one of the broken windows.
Something pale flickered between the cornstalks. Too short for a person. Too fast.
Rachel’s pulse hammered in her temples. The radio crackled, static, then a wet, choking sound that might have been speech before cutting out entirely.
Montanez gasped. “Sheriff...”
The corn whispered...
Not with wind...
With footsteps...
Too many to count...
That was Rachel’s first thought as she glanced around. The farmhouse door was open slightly, and through the gap she could see Alec Thompson, the farmer’s son, clutching a shotgun, his knuckles white. Deputy Nolan’s cruiser sat abandoned near the barn, its headlights still on, illuminating the shredded remains of what looked like several cornstalks fused together into a grotesque ladder. There was no blood. No footprints. Just the lingering scent of ozone and something cloyingly sweet: just like Rachel imagined rotting peaches would smell.
“Are we being watched?” Montanez whispered, hand twitching near his sidearm.
Rachel didn’t need to scan the shadows to know the answer. “There’s somebody over by the corner of the house,” she murmured, “and two in the doorway of the barn. Keep your eye on the barn.” She swung her Maglite up, the beam slicing through the unnatural stillness until it landed on the gaunt face of Jesse Thompson The farmer blinked against the light, his eyes wild, but not scared. Resigned. Like a man who’d already seen the devil and knew he couldn’t outrun him.
Jesse raised a trembling hand, pointing past them. Rachel spun, her beam catching movement, swift, low, wrong, as something darted between the corn rows. Too fast for a person. Too fluid in its movements. Behind her, Montanez sucked in a sharp breath. “Christ, Sheriff, what was that?“
Before she could answer, the cruiser’s radio erupted with static, then a voice, Deputy Nolan’s, garbled and distant: “...don’t look at their hands...!” The transmission cut off, replaced by a sound like fabric tearing. Then silence.
Jesse sank to his knees. “They took my wife and daughter.” He rasped. “Just... plucked them up like they was ears of corn.”
Rachel’s throat tightened. She’d known the Thompsons’ kid: ten years old, freckled, always waving at her cruiser when she ed the bus stop. Her grip on the Maglite wavered. Then the barn doors creaked wider.
Something stepped out. Shorter than a person. Glowing faintly purple. Not quite human.
Not even close. Oh the proportions were similar. Two arms... Two legs... Body... Head. But human beings didn’t have fur... Didn’t have long tails... Didn’t have two pointy ears atop their heads...
Montanez’s pistol cleared its holster with a metallic shick. Rachel didn’t stop him. Because the thing in the barn doorway was smiling in exactly the same way as a cat smiled.
The shotgun blast hit center of the creature’s body. The pellets flared yellow-amber before vanishing with tiny pops. Montanez’ fired his pistol but the effect was the same. The creature’s smile widened.
Rachel’s gut twisted. She raised her hand sharply as a way of declaring cease fire: just as the being stepped fully into the light. Its suit wasn’t fabric: it rippled like liquid metal clinging to every curve of its feline yet sensual feminine form. The tail lashed once.
“Well now,” Rachel drawled, thumb resting on her revolver’s hammer, “reckon we’re past the shootin’ part of this conversation.”
The creature’s ears twitched. Its voice, when it spoke, was velvet-wrapped steel. ”Ssuch quaint aggression.” The words seemed to form directly in Rachel’s skull, bying her ears entirely. “We came for the female oness. But you... interesst uss... in other wayss.”
Behind her, Alec racked another shell. Rachel didn’t turn. “Alec? You pull that trigger again, I’ll arrest you for stupidity.”
Montanez exhaled sharply. The creature’s nostrils flared as she sniffed them.
Rachel suddenly realized that she was getting aroused by the creature and could feel wetness beginning to inconveniently leak. “Where’s my deputy?” she demanded gruffly in an attempt to play down this inconvenient reaction.
The tail flicked. ”She iss ssafe. Quite ssafe.” But it was in spoken words this time.
Rachel stepped forward. “I’m Sheriff Rachel Detwhiler, it’s my job to keep the folks hereabouts safe... Now, do you mind telling me just who you are?”
As Rachel stared at the creature, she saw its pupils expanding and contracting with eerie precision. The thing had claws: long, curved ones which extended from furred fingers. She didn’t lower her revolver.
It began by making a long drawn out noise. “Rowlll! Ssexy monkey lady... I can ssmell your arousssal.” The cat creature purred.
“That ain’t a name.” Rachel snapped.
The cat-lady’s lips peeled back, revealing needle-like teeth. ”You may call me... Ssstha’rel.” The name slithered between Rachel’s ears like smoke. “And you, dear Ssheriff, are exactly the sspecimen we sseek.”
Montanez shifted, boots crunching gravel. “What the hell does that mean?”
Ssstha’rel ignored him, amber eyes locked on Rachel. ”Sstrong. Dominant. Yet nurturing.” Her muzzle wrinkled into an approximation of a smile. “Monkey femaless fascinate uss. So many flavorss.”
Rachel’s grip on her pistol tightened as she said. “Release Nolan. Now.”
A ripple ed through the alien’s fur, silver-gold under the cruiser’s headlights. ”She ressisted converssion. Delightfully... sspirited... Ssuch fun to play with.” The tail coiled upward, tip twitching. “But we shall gentle her.”
Heat flooded Rachel’s veins. She stepped forward, deliberately crowding the creature’s space. “Try it. See what happens.”
The cat-lady’s nostrils flared as she inhaled Rachel’s scent. ”Oh, we shall.” Then, fast as a striking rattler, her clawed hand shot out, brushing Rachel’s cheekbone. The seemed to burn yet was cold.
Rachel jerked back but too late. Her vision swam. The barn... Montanez... The cornfield... everything seemed to warp and was replaced by towering obsidian spires under a violet sky. Alien faces, feline and grinning, swarmed at the edges of her sight. A voice... No! Voices... ed together into a beguiling chorus that seemed to be attempting to seduce her “Come with uss, alpha. uss. Thiss will be your new home.”
Then the vision shattered. Rachel gasped, knees buckling. Montanez caught her elbow as she swayed. “You okay, Sheriff?”
The cat-lady licked her paws, pupils blown wide. ”Ssoon.” She purred. “Sso very ssoon.”
Suddenly the cat-woman shimmered, dissolving into a myriad of points of light and within seconds was gone.
Rachel shook her head to clear it and muttered. “A transporter! How very Star Trek.”
Montanez, a Physics Major back in his college days suddenly darted forward to examine the spot where the alien had stood... “That’s impossible, Sheriff, totally impossible!” He waved his hands through the air where the creature had been as if expecting to find some hidden mechanism.
“Yeh?” Rachel chuckled. “Perhaps you should’a told her that before she transported!“
Jesse Thompson stepped forward, his face drawn. “That’s exactly what happened to my wife and daughter.” He said.. “Just... poof. Gone. And your deputy: she was runnin’ toward the house when them lights wrapped around her like a damn spiderweb.”
Montanez spun, scanning the cornfield with frantic intensity. “Where the hell’s that damned Apache when we need him?”
Rachel’s hand shot out, gripping his shoulder hard enough to make him wince. “Watch your mouth, Deputy. Kaywaykla ain’t no fool.” She released him with a shove. “He’ll stay hidden till he can actually do somethin’ useful. Right now? He’s our eyes out there in the dark where we can’t see squat.”
A twig snapped somewhere beyond the cruiser’s headlights. Rachel’s revolver cleared leather before she’d fully ed moving. The corn whispered again, closer this time. Something moved between the stalks with unnatural fluidity.
Montanez’s breath caught in his throat. “Sheriff...”
“I see it.” The words tasted like copper. Her thumb eased the hammer back.
The corn parted then the scene became surreal as the stalks mutated into hands with translucent, shimmering fingers that were elongated to grotesque proportions. They reached for Rachel’s face...
She felt her stomach lurch...
...and suddenly she was bathed in points of shimmering light: lilac... purple... violet... mauve. She felt her skin tighten until it was stretched too thin over her bones. Confusion enveloped her, and for a second or two she felt as if she was in two places at once... The yard outside the Thompson farmhouse and somewhere... else... somewhere enclosed that looked like like a sci-fi film set. Only it wasn’t a set: not if the cat-house stench was anything to go by.
Wet fur...
Burned metal...
Cat pee...
Ozone...
The light was yellowish but dim, pooling around a console that looked half-melted into organic curves. A figure stood beside it: another cat-thing, smaller than Ssstha’rel: her fur mottled like a tabby’s. Female, unmistakably, if the swell of the iridescent bodysuit meant anything.
Very female. Rachel thought. She sniffed the air, detected something musky and felt her stomach lurch and her pussy twitch. Suddenly she realized she was juicing up down below once more.
This ain’t right. She thought and shook her head to clear it. Suddenly she snarled, her revolver already in her hand as she leveled it at the creature’s chest. “Send me back!“
The tabby’s ears flattened. Her pupils dilated: black swallowing amber, as a series of chirps escaped her throat. The sound prickled against Rachel’s scalp like static.
The console emitted a wet, clicking noise. Behind Rachel, something or someone moved.
She spun around and recognized a face covered in silver-gold fur. “Ssstha’rel!” She snarled.
“Hello Rach-ell, darling.” The Cat-woman said mockingly.
Rachel trained her revolver on Ssstha’rel’s smirking muzzle, even as the metallic tang of panic flooded her mouth. A bead of sweat trickled down her temple, tracing the line of her jaw before vanishing into her collar. The gun felt heavy... useless even... but she held it steady. “You’ve bin tresin’,” she growled. “And kidnappin’. The last one’s a hangin’ offense where I come from.”
Ssstha’rel’s tail flicked, amused. Her golden fur rippled like wheat in a breeze; or at least that not covered by her figure-hugging silver suite did. ”Your petty lawss do not apply to ssuperior beingss like uss.”
Suddenly she gestured lazily towards the shadows away to one side. Suddenly lights flared revealing Deputy Nolan and Jenny Thompson. Both of whom were naked and and locked in each other’s arms... Slowly very slowly, their bodies moved against each other and they kissed.
“Ssee how content they are? They lack your... resisstance.” Ssstha’rel said in her husky, sexy voice. A voice that made Rachel’s pussy spasm.
Siobhan Nolan and Jenny Thompson didn’t seem to be aware of anything other than each other as they made love not ten feet away.
“What’ve you done to ’em?” Rachel demanded, dreading the answer.
“Nothing bad!” The cat-woman declared... Her words drawn out into a sensuous caress “We’ve jusst helped them by removing the ssilly inhibitionss from their mindss. We also cured them of a disease that you don’t ssuffer from, Rach-ell.”
“Cured them?” The Sheriff demanded.”What from?”
“Hetero-sssexuality!” Ssstha’rel hissed as she leaned forward, her long tongue licking slowly across her thin, dark lips and pink triangular nose.
Then, over in another corner Rachel spotted little Ariel Thompson, Jenny’s ten year old daughter, her blue cotton dress with its daisies was stark contrast to the high-tech surroundings. The child was seated in a recliner, a pair of headphones covering her ears as she watched a video screen showing pictures of cat-women going about normal, every day activities. She also seemed oblivious to everything going on around her.
Thank God for that! The Sheriff thought.
The sight curdled Rachel’s stomach. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She snarled as she attempted to use the sight of Nolan and Jenny Thompson in a vain attempt to make herself angry. She looked away immediately for the sight of them was turning her on even more... Which was not something she needed right now!
Suddenly the tabby at the console trilled something urgent. Ssstha’rel’s ears twitched. ”Ah. Your mate ssearchess for you.”
A hologram flickered to life above the console showing Melanie’s Jeep fishtailing down County Road fourteen, Mari-belle’s pale face pressed to the window.
“ Rowl!...” Ssstha’rel said, her voice a mocking purr. “Issn’t that touching?”
Rachel’s finger tightened on the trigger.
The cat-woman’s whiskers quivered. ”Futile! But by all meanss please entertain uss with your useless primitive weapon.”
Rachel snapped and the shot echoed like a thunderclap in the confined space. The bullet struck Ssstha’rel in the center of her chest and was stopped in a burst of yellow and orange lights. The Sheriff lowered her pistol but did not return it to its holster.
Behind Rachel, Siobhan giggled. The sound was wrong: too high and too liquid.
Ssstha’rel licked her muzzle again; then she cocked her head over towards the pair of lovers ”I know that you long to them sso sshall we discuss your... reeducation? It will begin as ssoon as we have transported my other two crew-s up from that appalling hovel from which we rescued you four cuties.”
Rachel opened her mouth to say something but froze. Something was forming on the pad in the middle of the room. There was a brief pause then two shapes appeared inside a cloud of lilac sparkles and purple fire-fly lights. The right hand one was recognizable as a cat-woman but the left hand figure was bulkier and taller somehow. The air suddenly smelled of burnt cinnamon and ozone. The first shape resolved into another feline female: smaller than Ssstha’rel, with orange-striped fur and a rifle-like device strapped across her chest. But it was the second figure that surprised Rachel... There was another cat-woman, alright, but towering over her and holding her securely was Waya Kaywaykla.
The figure by the console recovered first and reached for something like a tube... The Apache moved like lightning, throwing the cat-woman aside, kicking her in the head while spinning away in the opposite direction, dodging the beam of purple light that the tabby blasted at him. She was fast, unnaturally fast, but the Deputy was faster, his muscles coiled like springs, every movement honed by the generations of warriors before him. He yelled a war-whoop that echoed off the curved walls, a sound so primal it made the cats’ ears flatten in reflex. Their split second of hesitation was all he needed. His tomahawk spun through the air in a flash of polished steel that embedded itself in the tabby’s skull with a sickening wet thud.
Rachel recovered just as Ssstha’rel lunged, claws extended. She spun her revolver in one smooth motion, the weight of the .44 magnum solid in her grip, and clubbed the silver-gold cat-woman beneath the ear with the pistol grip. There was a sickening crunch of cartilage and bone, and Ssstha’rel went down like a felled tree, her tail lashing once before going still. The air reeked of singed fur and something coppery: blood, but not human.
Kaywaykla moved again, almost too fast for Rachel to see in the dim light: in one fluid movement, he crossed the gap between himself and the orange-striped cat-woman. He grabbed her, claws appeared, but she froze when she felt the knife against her throat. His blade, sharpened to a whisper’s edge, pressed just deep enough to draw a thin line of orange blood. The cat-woman’s pupils dilated into vertical slits, her fur bristling along her spine. “Move,” Kaywaykla murmured, his breath steady against her twitching ear, “and I’ll spill more than your pride.”
To Rachel’s eye, the Alien looked terrified.
Kaywaykla’s blade didn’t waver. The orange-striped cat-woman’s nostrils flared once as her amber eyes darted between the tomahawk buried in her crew mate’s skull and the unconscious heap of her alpha. Her tail lashed twice, then stilled. Rachel saw the moment surrender clicked in that alien’s brain: ears flattening, claws retracting and head bowed.