Jelly moved her right foot forward and planted the sole of her foot on the ground. She held out her arms for balance and stepped forward.
Then, she remembered she had her tail. She swished it around and evened her body weight out, relaxing into position.
“Now, the other leg,” Bonnie demonstrated by lifting her left boot next to her right.
Jelly let out cat-like whimper as she shifted her weight forward. Her right foot rocked sideways as she struggle to balance.
It needed to be done. Wool and Bonnie watched with great intensity.
“Miew…” she quipped with fear.
“Try, honey.”
Her mouth quivered as she moved her right leg forward. She lost her balance quite out of the blue and fell paws-first to the ground. The bed rocked back and forth on its casters.
Jelly started sobbing on the floor.
Wool raced over to pick Jelly up under her arms, “Okay, that’s more than enough fun for today, I think.”
“Oh dear,” Bonnie sighed. “Looks like we’re gonna have to practice this a bit more, huh?
Wool laid Jelly out on the bed and fluffed the pillow, “Bonnie, I need to perform an enhanced MRI. Can you give us about half an hour? “
“Sure,” Bonnie made for the door and blew Jelly a kiss, “Good luck!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Level Four,” the elevator called out as the cage stopped at the outer doors, “Weapons and Armory. Have a nice day.”
“Open the damn doors,” Jaycee yelled at the ceiling, clutching his severed left hand. He kicked the cage in a fit of fury.
His boot connected with the Perspex panel, effectively scaring the doors open.
Jaycee stormed onto the sprawling metal gantry that led to Weapons & Armory. A ruthless determination to rectify what had happened swept through his body.
The clanging from his stomping boots echoed across the ground as he spoke into his radio mic.
“Tripp, this is Jaycee. Broadcasting on a secure frequency. Do you read me?”
A burst of static came through his ear piece. The device belonged to his helmet which he’d long since been discarded.
“Tripp, do you read—”
“—Jaycee?” Tripp’s voice crept into his ear, “Yes, this is Tripp. I read you.”
“Tripp?”
“Yes, go ahead. Are you done with Engine and Payload, yet? I guess you must be if we’re able to communi—”
“—Tripp, listen up,” Jaycee jogged along the gantry at speed, “We need to find Baldron and Tor right now. Have you seen them?”
“No, I’ve just got out of Medix. Why, what’s the issue? Where are you?”
“Heading for Weapons and Armory.”
“What?” his voice indicated confusion, “Why?”
“I’m gonna tool up and kill them both.”
“What did they do?”
Jaycee arrived at the door and slammed the palm of his severed hand against the open panel. The door slid open and allowed him in.
“Jaycee? Talk to me?”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“What happened?”
“They tried to kill me.”
“But you have the compliance device. Weren’t they afraid you’d use it?”
“It’s a trap, man. They brought me down to E&P so one of those creature things could attack me. Baldron ran off with my glove. He’s got the Decapidisc detonator.”
Jaycee arrived at the first weapons bay and kicked the door open in a furious rage.
“Tor’s on the control deck,” Tripp said. “Baldron must be headed there right now.”
Jaycee lifted a fresh K-SPARK shotgun from the holster on the wall and strapped it around his shoulders, “I’m tooling up, now, Tripp. Are you carrying?
“I’ve got my standard issue on me.”
“It might not be enough,” Jaycee grabbed two Rez-9s from the wall and slotted a fresh magazine into each one with extreme deftness, “Don’t go there without me, you’re outnumbered two-to-one.”
“Jaycee, listen. I can’t let them loose on the deck. God knows what they’ll get up to with all the core commands and Manuel at their disposal.
“Do not go into control alone,” Jaycee grunted into his mouth piece as he pulled open the second bay, “They probably think I’m dead. If so, who do you think is next on their hit list?”
An array of grenades and assorted explosive weapons and attachments glinted in the bay’s strip lights.
“How long are you going to be?” Tripp asked.
Jaycee swiped a handful of dumb bombs and planted his boot on the lip of the shelf, “Dunno, maybe a couple minutes.”
“Jaycee, listen. Something else has happened. Something bizarre. To do with Anderson.”
The side section of Jaycee’s thigh sprung open, providing a compartment to store four red dumb bombs and four black smart bombs.
“Anderson? What about her?”
He dropped the grenades inside and thumped the compartment shut with the side of his fist.
“I’ll tell you when we meet. You’re not going to believe me. Can you get to control in ninety seconds?” Tripp asked through the static.
“Sure thing,” Jaycee reached into the bay and unfastened a yellow claymore from its housing. “Stay out of sight.”
“Will do.”
Jaycee lifted the claymore up in front of his face and pulled it apart like an accordion. Three additional claymores hung together across a wire, “Make sure it’s just you. No one else.”
“Sure, just you and me.”
“At the corner by the door,” Satisfied, Jaycee collapsed the claymores together and clipped them to his belt. He looked at the first weapons bay and saw a second K-SPARK shining back at him.
He had an idea.
“I’m bringing another shotgun with me, this one’s floor mountable. Doubles up as a turret. Go to the deck, I’m on my way.”
Jaycee wrenched the heavy artillery unit from the bay in his right hand.
“See you in ninety,” Tripp said.
Jaycee gripped the barrel and cocked it in his strong, right hand, “Stay safe till I get there.”
Baldron stood at the flight deck, looking at the controls. He’d placed Jaycee’s glove next to the yellow thruster lever. He looked at the view of Pink Symphony through the windscreen and felt the lip of his Decapidisc. His fate, until now, had been in the hands of someone who despised him. Someone who could have taken his life at the push of a button – one which Baldron was now in control of.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, “One down, three to go.”
“Three?” Tor looked over from the communications panel, “Oh, right. Yeah. Including that stupid cat.”
Manuel hung still six feet in the air. His pages paused and flickering in mid-flip.
“How’s Manuel?”
Tor followed a small white line creeping across Manuel’s paused page, “Flushing to disk. Thirty more seconds and we’re in business.”
Baldron turned to the glorious, opulent pink sky looming beyond the shield. The three suns closed together, the harshness of their beams subdued by a series of pallid, milky clouds.
“A century and a half ago we put the first dog in space. I still don’t know why we bothered.”
Tor ran his fingers along the surface of his Decapidisc, “Because we could, comrade.”
“I just hope Dimitri is okay. Those idiot Yanks have a habit of executing first and asking questions later. They have a history of it.”
Baldron turned around and looked at Manuel’s holograph. It shimmied around and attempted to speak.
“Remember, Viktor. We may be the bad guys in the eyes of those on Earth. But we had no choice. The others died and we survived. We cracked the code,” Baldron pointed at the window, “Now, we have the answer.”