I was born on a planet called Reach. I don't remember much of it, only the cave den my mother kept us in while we were young. I remember the sunlight that shown through the entrance each morning, I remember hearing the birds. I never saw them, though. Mom never let us out of the den. Sure, she went out, but she always came back with food for herself, which meant milk for us.
Our days passed slowly and were event-less. My oldest brother, Badger, ventured out as far as the den entrance before Mom caught him and carried him back in.
"You must never go out there," she scolded. "Any of you. The outside world is dangerous, it's not meant for kittens your age."
I understood her warning, but that only made me want to see beyond the den walls even more. I was a month old when I got my first glimpse of it.
When I turned five months old, something on Reach changed. The ground rumbled and shook, dirt fell onto our heads. The sky darkened and took on a green hue. We heard bangs that sounded like thunder, roars we didn't think were human, pops that sounded like breaking branches. We saw dirt explosions in the distance, and strange purple shapes float through the sky. Large, gray shapes went after them, sending out shots of light that hurt the purple shapes. My siblings and I didn't understand what was going on, but something told me Mom did.
I could tell something was seriously wrong when she came home one day. She was doing her best to keep her fur flat, but her eyes and scent betrayed her fear.
"Mom, what's going on?" My brother, Badger, shouldered his way through us to the front of the den. "What are all those shapes and noises? Is that supposed to happen?"
"No," Mom said, looking out of the entrance toward the explosions of blue and yellow light. "None of this is supposed to be happening." A massive explosion rocked the ground, making us stumble, and a huge purple shape plunged nose first into the dirt. We heard yelling from two different sides, one human, and another we couldn't figure out.
She turned to us, starting to take on a wild-eyed look. "We need to move. Now!" She herded us out of the den as fast as our short legs would allow her.
"Where are we going, Mom?" Wasp, my second oldest brother, asked.
She paused for a moment I didn't think any of us had to spare and looked around. Her ears pricked and her eyes widened as though she had just remembered something. "The ship-breaking yards…" I somehow heard her words over the explosions that rang out over the valley.
"The ship-breaking yards," she repeated, to us this time. "We must get to the ship-breaking yards."
"Where's that?" Wasp asked.
"Aszod," my mother said, ushering us forward. "If we leave now, we can get there in time. There's a small flying ship waiting for some important passengers. If we can get there before they get on, we can escape the planet with them. But we must hurry!" She scooped me up against my will by my scruff and bolted, my three siblings following as fast as they could. We ran towards the woods, a large shaded place with too many trees for me to count. But as we plunged into the undergrowth and the cover of the brush, an explosion went off close to us, too close for comfort.
We were thrown sideways, my mother losing her grip on me. I went skidding across the dirt and lay dazed for a moment before I was able to register what had happened. I felt nothing but fear, wondering if my family had been killed in the blast, and as I tried to stand and run, Mom's teeth closed around my scruff again. Badger and Wasp ran beside her, and the white blob on her back told me that my only sister, Lark, was riding on her back.
But the further we ran, the more explosions went off, and the more Wasp fell behind. I could sense that Mom was becoming desperate, struggling to keep us all together. She couldn't carry Wasp, and we were running out of time.
More and more dirt flew as we made our way at a painfully slow pace, all to allow Wasp to keep up with us. At this rate, we would never make it to safety.
We were thrown again as another explosion rocked the ground. Mom dropped me again, though Lark remained on her back. Badger and Wasp fell over themselves as they tumbled from the explosion site. It was hard to keep track of everything that was going on, between Mom's frantic yelling and the deafening blasts.
She tried to gather us together one more time, me in her teeth again. She started forward again, carefully, as another explosion went off more than a hundred paw steps from us. She jumped and turned, but I could sense she was lost. She was desperate, scared, and blinded from the dirt and debris. We were lost.
Then, as another blast sounded, a black shape galloped out of the dust. It was another cat, bigger than Mom. He had eyes as orange as the moon, coal black fur and stripes the color of the night sky. From the way he kept looking over his shoulder at the wrecked forest, I could tell he was scared.
"Allvin!" Mom dropped me at her paws to address the new cat. She pushed her face against his. "Thank goodness you're here!"
He only nodded, and quickly looked us over. "Are they yours?" He was asking about me and my siblings.
Mom nodded frantically. "Yes. Yes. I'm trying to get the ship yard. We need to leave."
Allvin nodded again, though he seemed to be hiding his surprise, as though he had no idea we even existed. "I'll help you." He hoisted Badger onto his back and took Wasp in his mouth.
Mom took me in her teeth again, and made sure Lark was still safe on her back. And then we were off, bolting through flying dirt and plants. Allvin's dark pelt made it easy to keep track of him as we went.
I didn't know how long we had been running; I only knew that we were desperate to get to our final destination. We heard pops ring out all around us when we entered opened ground. Voices we couldn't understand called out to each other, some smooth and steady and other rough and choppy. I didn't know where the voices were coming from until we rounded the corner of a decimated stone building. A group of straight-standing two legged figures were firing shots at a group of hunched over two legged figures. The hunched figures were covered in some kind of hard, shiny cover. The straighter figures were covered in something darker and wore round shells on their heads. I didn't know what they were, and I didn't want to stick around long enough to find out.
We quickly made our way past and away from the fight. There was no reason for us to stay.
The sky had turned as orange as Allvin's eyes when we finally arrived at what my mother called the Aszod ship-breaking yard. There was more fighting between the straight standing creatures and the hunched over ones. The straight-standing creatures were different than the last ones. This time, they wore colorful covering instead of the dark green covering. There were only two of them, one sitting at a massive gray tube that let out blinding bursts of light. Smoke from downed purple shapes burned my eyes and nose, but I didn't complain. My eyes and nose had been bothering me since we had left the den.
Mom and Allvin stopped. They dropped me and Wasp and surveyed the scene.
Allvin shook his head. "There's no Pelican, and there's too many enemies," he hissed. "We'll never get off this rock before it's gone."
"Don't say that, Allvin!" Mom scolded. "We'll make it. We just need to wait for the right time…" She crouched over me and stayed still while the fight continued below us.
Allvin sighed doubtfully, but crouched down over Wasp and remained silent.
We watched as the straight standing creature at the tube brought down two more purple shapes, and the one on the ground took down multiple hunch-backed creatures. It was strange to watch, two sets of unknown creatures fight for unknown reasons. I watched them carefully, taking in every step, every movement, every twist and turn of the ground fighters. There was something graceful about the way they danced around each other, however bloody it might have been. Something fascinated me in the way they moved, as though each one knew what the other was going to do. I wanted to know what that was like, to dance a fight, to move as quickly and easily as those creatures did.
Watching them made me forget the real issue at hand, and I was almost disappointed when the fight-dance was over. Mom jolted me up by my scruff, and as I watched a lean gray shape fly down to the ground, I realized that was our ticket to safety. Once we were on that ship, we would be okay.
"Allvin, what is that?" Badger pointed with his paw to something beyond the little gray ship. I followed his paw and felt my heart skip a beat or two. Beyond the little gray ship was an even bigger ship, this one longer and thicker and covered in lights of yellow and red. There was something scrawled across the side of the ship in white, in thin white markings that meant nothing to my eyes.
"I don't know, son," Allvin said through a mouthful of Wasp's black and yellow fur. He looked just as mesmerized by the new ship as Badger and I were.
"We need to move," Mom interjected, bounding ahead of Allvin. "Quickly!"
I swung and bounced in Mom's grip, banging into her chest with every running step she took. She led us down to the platform and made a beeline for the little gray ship, only to stop frozen a few grown cat-lengths away.
"Oh no."
Standing at the back of the little ship were two of the straight-standing creatures: one with the colored armor and another, shorter one dressed in gray. They were blocking the entrance. There was no way to get in unseen.
Allvin slowed to a trot and stopped beside us. His black ears flattened against his head and his tail lashed. He didn't like the situation anymore than Mom did.
"Now what?"
Mom inhaled heavily. "I'll have to play nice."
"What?" Allvin hissed as Mom walked over to the two creatures, me still in her mouth and Lark still on her back. "Are you crazy? Get back here! You don't know what they'll do!"
Mom ignored him and kept walking. I could tell she was nervous from the way her breath came out against my fur and the way she walked. It was stiff, but she forced herself forward. She only stopped when she was a kitten-length from the humans. She dropped me at her paws and pushed me underneath her, same with Lark. Then she meowed.
The two creatures stopped making their noises. I couldn't tell what their reactions were from where I was underneath Mom, but I could hear the silence that held them.
Mom meowed again, this time turning her head back toward Allvin, Badger, and Wasp. She turned her head back to the creatures with another meow.
The one in gray, I could tell it was him because his voice was clearer than the other one, said something to her in his language—I could tell by his scent that he was male—and stepped aside. Mom chirped her thanks and used her tail to usher me and my sister forward underneath her. She didn't want to get us noticed.
The minute we were on the little gray ship she took me back in her mouth and cantered to the end corner. She dropped me there and let Lark out from underneath her. "Stay here and wait for your brothers." She turned and walked out into the isle far enough to watch for Allvin and our brothers.
It wasn't long before the black cat came in and handed off Badger and Wasp to Mom, who nosed them into the corner with me and Lark.
"Thank you, Allvin," she said, touching her cheek to his.
Allving returned the gesture. "I would have done that any time you asked." He pulled back, glanced at us and looked back at Mom. "I need to go now," he said. He sounded anxious.
"No, Allvin, please!" Mom begged. "Stay with us. You'll be safe."
"No." Allvin's eyes were still soft, but serious. "I can't do that. I need to make sure my own cats get off this rock in one piece. I'm sorry." He turned and dodged the tall creature in gray and jumped off the ship. He didn't leave right away, though. He turned and lingered for a moment, watching as the ship began to leave the platform.
Mom sighed. "Good-bye, Allvin."
Allvin blinked at her, his eyes regretful and his voice choked. "Good-bye, Reef."
