Kitty Cat Kill Sat: A Feline Space Adventure

by Argus .

The ration dispenser is on a strict schedule. It dispenses exactly as many rations as a crew member needs, exactly at their appointed times. My appointed times are “constantly.” My needs are “all of it, please.” I am a growing girl. I should not be denied snacks.

The medlab also has no user manual, safety shutoff, or other health and safety measures that you probably ought to have around machinery that can regrow limbs by accident. How do I know that? Good question! No further questions!

In general, I would highly recommend being a cat. I have a lot of comparative data on how humans move, due to a few years spent learning vacuum suit design, and while y’all have the eternal advantage of thumbs, it comes at a cost of maneuverability. I may be small, but I can get around even this fairly massive space station a lot faster than any human could. Mostly because I have the reflexes to respond to the alternate gravity zones, or because I’m small enough to take access tunnels meant for repair droids. Also, fur. Fur is just comfortable. I realize that my list of reasons to be a cat isn’t that long. It mostly exists to console myself that I don’t have thumbs or a voice. But those aren’t actually the biggest drawback.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “Lily, why not just drag the cell over and attach a safe airlock to it?” You fool. You utter buffoon. Attach an isolation cell? We’ve been over this. Only an idiot or a cat that didn’t know they weren’t supposed to do that would, in fact, do that. The last time, I lost onion flavor. I cannot risk losing something more valuable, like the air filters. Or worse, my bed.

To explain this plan, we’re going to need to go on a tangent. “Wait,” you say, no longer so foolish that you think you can talk to me, but still reflexively talking to yourself, “Lily, you just started. Is it really time for a tangent?” You fool. You lack vision. It is always time for tangents.

I cannot. I just mewling can’t.

I had recovered, obviously. I mean, look at me now; I’m the picture of stable mental health.

The quiet days are gone. Maybe I miss them. But the quiet days don’t tend to have friends. So maybe I don’t miss them too much. Not this time, at least.

It’s worth explaining, probably, that AIs aren’t like programs. The station uses a simulated intelligence, which is a term that came into common use to describe a program that is smart enough to feel real but basically wouldn’t do anything if left unattended.

Taking care of the people on the world below me felt satisfying. But working to help my friends felt a lot more personal.

The solution to that problem, then, obviously, was highly specialized ammunition. “Don’t you use highly specialized ammunition as a solution to a lot of problems?” you ask. Yes. Because at a certain point of specialization, ammunition can do anything, and about eighty percent of my tools are guns, so I work with what I’ve got. Get off my tail. Sheesh.

Station! Tell me how to properly install a six-hundred-year-old fusion reactor! This will be important in six and a half minutes!

Some of you might be wondering: Lily, what do you need a speaker for? Also, why not just dismantle one of the ones on the station that it obviously has since you complain about alarms all the time? Those some of you can just shut up. I’m trying to monologue here.

Also, the station speakers aren’t real speakers. Most of the alarms and stuff use calculated resonance from the station’s VI. It’s basically hypertuning the vibrations of the void batteries and projecting them through the walls. Which is creepy now that I say it. Creepy in an “engineers scare me” kind of way. Not, like, a spiritual kind of way. Because the station is not haunted.

“Lily.” The voice belongs to a human woman in her midtwenties. She has golden fur cut short along her head and is standing with her upper paws on her hips, in that funny way that humans stand on their back paws all the time. “Her name is Lily,” she is saying. That is me! I am Lily! I preen slightly, to show off to the other human. I am a very smart cat. I know plenty of cats that do not have names, because they are not smart enough!

The complex half-computer, half-grenade I had been working on has a molten metal hole clean through it. Whoops.

I keep getting notifications in my AR display that the station itself is sending. They’re on a part of the grid that the new AI can’t even see, and they’re clearly meant for whoever is acting command staff. All of them are alerts that someone is working on taboo technologies, which is pretty voiding rich coming from people that built an orbiting death ray. And then kept adding more orbiting death rays. And then at some point, they clearly had the thought of “Do you think this is enough death rays?” “No,” their friend and/or boss would say. “Well, maybe. Can we make the death rays … bigger?” “What if,” their subordinate/mad engineering intern asks, “we power the death rays with the wrath of the sun?” “Good call,” the boss must have said. “You’re promoted. To head of the death ray division.”

A week ago, I didn’t find a new tunnel. I found a sealed bay door at the bottom of a grav shaft toward the planet-facing point of a wing of the station. It didn’t look like it was actually meant to be entered normally, and it was covered in both written and AR display notes about engineering procedures. I took a look anyway. It’s a death ray. I feel like that should have been obvious, given the buildup.

“I wish to address the insanity of what you just said,” Ennos informs me succinctly. “But I must go now. One of my processes has found something I have been tracking in the station’s grid. I will return my attention later. This is how you politely inform someone that you plan to ignore them for several hours. Please take notes.” Oh good! My new friend has a sense of humor! I have decided this is good. Because the alternative is that I will go insane. Well, more insane than the AI already assumes.

Glitter is a good storyteller; it sounds thrilling, even if they were just watching. Their commentary on firing solutions they conveniently thought up, in case they needed them, almost makes me laugh.

If you’re wondering at this point when the alarm is going to sound, I have bad news for you. It started four paragraphs ago, and I’ve been hoping that if I ignore it, it might turn out to be something minor that will go away.