The cat heaved and spluttered tearing the rip in her inner-suit apart. “Traaah… Traaah…”
“What’s going on, girl?” Wool watched Jelly tumble around on her side, clawing at her inner-suit. She wanted out of it as quickly as possible.
Haloo screamed through her tears and grabbed her lips in each hand. “Gnaawww…”
“Jesus Christ…” Tripp held Wool back as the woman lifted her lip over her nose, coughing a plume of pink gas across the sand. “Gwaaar…”
“Haloo!” Wool squealed, unable to watch.
“Treeh…” Jelly tore chunks of her inner-suit away with her claws in a feisty fit of anger. “Treep… Trep…”
Haloo’s shoulders hulked several inches above the ground. Her head and her body below the abdomen hung, suspended, as her inner-suit broke away.
“My G-God,” Tripp pushed Wool back. “Get back, get back. We need to get out of here.”
Suddenly, a classical tune emitted from the tree in the middle of the ocean, catching their attention.
It billowed at an increasingly high volume – enough to fill the air. Four, simple chords, twice repeated.
Da-da-da-dum. Da… da… da… dum.
“What the hell?” Tripp shouted over the gale and the music.
“The tree is singing?” Wool snapped, not knowing which way to turn. “What’s going on—”
Jelly squealed and shredded the last section of her suit. She sprang to her feet and exercised her infinity claws, wrenching them in and out.
She launched into the air and took two swipes at Haloo’s levitating body as it rose toward the sky. Her titanium claw caught the woman’s left ear, tearing the skin.
“Waaah!” Jelly screamed in a furious rage, unable to jump higher as Haloo’s body tilted to a halt twenty feet in the air.
“Oh, Jesus,” Tripp quipped. “Let’s get back to Beta, right now.”
“Jelly,” Wool let out an ambitious, final call of hope that Jelly would return with them.
It fell on deaf, furry ears.
Jelly thudded to the floor, pushing grains of sand away from her. She howled at Wool, terrifying her.
“No, no, no,” Wool threw Tripp’s hand from her forearm. “I’m not leaving her here—”
Jelly roared, negating the desire to be rescued. She’d grown a few inches, more resembling an orange panther than the common, domesticated cat.
Her growl was near adolescent in nature. Even her face had matured.
Jelly Anderson was… evolving.
Tripp and Wool’s attention was caught by a rumbling, buzzing noise shooting from the violent pinkish purple sky.
Haloo’s chest broke apart and emitted a pink beam of light into the heavens. The back of her head hung down, pushing her chest upwards. It was as if her heart and soul tried to escape from her body.
“Take me,” she screamed with a disconcertingly calm manner, “Take me home.”
The pink beam blasting from her body thickened and ruptured, seeming to imitate the launch of a spacecraft.
Her knees broke, flinging her legs behind her ass. The back of her head recoiled under the small of her back, snapping her body in two, shattering the bone.
Then, the beam carried her body into the sky and crashed to a close into an electric storm of thunder with the clouds.
Jelly shrieked at the light show and ran toward the ocean in a fit of anger.
Tripp and Wool didn’t stick around to watch the unnatural event. They bolted across the sand, backtracking across their original footsteps.
The sand turned from hard ground to scattered mud. Next to them, rows of blackened plants and tiled walls.
The fluorescent lighting in Botanix crept along the floor.
“The door, quick!” Tripp pulled Wool along and darted for the opened door. As they gained on the rectangular structure, Tripp covered her from behind pushed her through the door to Botanix.
“Tripp,” Jaycee lifted his shotgun and aimed it at the door, “What the hell’s going on out there?”
“It’s a long story,” Tripp spat as he ran through and thumped his fist against the panel on the wall.
SCHUNT.
The door slid shut, cutting Opera Beta off from whatever that place was beyond the door.
Tripp caught his breath and coughed up a storm. Wool paced around, trying not to emote. She held her chest, hoping her heart wouldn’t grow limbs, climb up her throat and jump out of her mouth, “I feel sick.”
“What happened out there?” Jaycee stomped his foot to the floor and thumped Tor on the back for some semblance of satisfaction. “Where’s Anderson?”
“No time to explain,” Tripp turned to the door and hit the glass, making damn sure nothing could get in – or out. He spun around and pushed past Tor. “You.”
“Me?” Tor asked.
“Yes, you,” he said, pushing Tor forward by the shoulders. “We need to get Manuel back online right now. Let’s go. Come on.”
“Okay, okay.”
Wool chased after Tripp as he stormed off, “Where are we going?”
“The flight deck. It’s time for some answers.”
Jaycee kicked Tor along the corridor and showed him his glove. He delighted in threatening to activate his Decapidisc, “Speaking of answers, can you tell me what happened out there?”
For the first time in his career, Tripp felt that his crew might not believe his next statement.
“The dumb bomb Baldron threw into Botanix before we passed out?”
“Yeah?”
“It blew a hole open on the far wall and opened us up into a whole world of trouble.”
“What trouble?” Tor tried.
Jaycee hit him on the back of the head. “Hey, idiot, I’m asking the questions here, okay? You’re the convict who gets to shut up. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Good,” Jaycee spat. “What trouble, Tripp?”
Wool knew her captain wasn’t in the mood for explaining as they turned the corner and made their way to the control deck.
“We’ve landed on another planet. Haloo said it was called Pink Symphony. Then, she, uh, died again.”
“Died again?”
Tor started to sniff. “I’m s-scared.”
“Shut up, Russian scum,” Jaycee shouted in his ear, “Say one more word and you’re dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
Jaycee, at the end of his tether, thumped the man on the back of the head to underscore his point. “And stop apologizing.”
“I’m sor—”
“—Something strange happened to Jelly,” Wool interjected, saving Tor from himself, “She went on the attack. She didn’t want to come back with us. It was like she turned bad or something.”
“Enough,” Tripp entered the control deck. He pointed at Tor and then at the communications panel. “You, over here.”
“Come on, sweetheart,” Jaycee pushed Tor against the chair in front of the console. “Let’s get to work.”
Tripp scratched behind his ear and evaluated his orders before speaking them. “Okay, call up Manuel. He said something about us not being on Opera Beta. At first I thought he was mad, but he might have been onto something.”
“How can we trust him?” Tor asked.
An instant pang of irony stretching across Tripp’s face, “That’s rich coming from you.”
“Look,” Tor thumped the console in a fit of despair. “I’m just as scared—”
“—Do not speak back to me, okay? I am your captain—”
“—No,” Tor screamed into Tripp’s face, determined to have his say. As soon as he realized that his wish was granted, he calmed down a touch and sat into the chair.