Note: Eek, I forgot to note that chances are good this series of vignettes will skip around in time! I've added that to the note on the first piece and will delete this note from this piece when the third vignette goes up (whenever that is). Thank you for your understanding!

Out of Dust

Tailed

In the centuries following the forgotten fall, Panthera would assume mythical status among the cats. With time, she would be remembered not as a slave of Mumm-Ra or a queen of Thundera, but as a goddess. Those cats with tails worshiped her as protector; her emblem was the shield and her standard black, and on her altar did those most devoutly in need make sacrifices of meat, blood, and lastly salt, ever precious.

How came it that Panthera should be remembered and Leo not? Those were bleak years after the fall and what records Thundera kept in those times of starvation and war would be lost in bleaker years yet to come. It was her tail, perhaps. Thundera would know but three other sovereigns with tails. For those cats relegated to the lowest of the feline castes, Panthera would be like unto a god.

Of course, in her life Panthera knew only one god, Mumm-Ra the ever living. On his altar did she make sacrifice. For him did she bleed. She gave up her flesh to Mumm-Ra. She gave up her blood. She gave up her life.

Then she took it back.

—

Panthera was dozing when the shared console chirped. She started awake and, disoriented by a view of the room with which she was unfamiliar, she was motionless until she remembered that Scratch had traded bunks with her for the day.

"It's against regs," Panthera had protested. She'd been woozy with painkillers then.

"I don't give a rat about regs," Scratch had snapped. "You want to crack your ribs again? You want me to crack your ribs?"

Even drugged, her ribs aching as if someone had scored them with a knife, Panthera outweighed Scratch by three hundred pounds. "You couldn't possibly."

Scratch had touched Panthera's face. Her hand was warm, the fur coarse. Scratch was only an alley cat, but she was an alley cat without a tail. The suggestion of her claws on Panthera's cheek was an unexpected intimacy, like the memory of her elder sister's paw on her brow.

"Just go to sleep," Scratch said.

Lulled by memories of her litter, Panthera had weakened.

The console chirped again, that high-high-low three note song that meant an incoming message for Panthera.

Mindful of her bandaged ribs, she eased upright and swung her legs off the bunk. A little pressure in her side tightened and then eased. The nanites had nearly finished their work. She'd be shitting tiny metal corpses later, but at least her ribs would be as they'd been before that lizard had thunked her in the ribcage.

The console again. Panthera stared at it. Her tail flipped once, twice. She stilled it. High-high-low. Another three iterations and the floor chief would send a guard to check on her. The squad leader had granted her a day of medical leave, which meant she would be expected to be alert within her shared quarters.

She stood carefully, more for the lowness of the top bunk than her nearly healed ribs. Few cats had Panthera's height; it was why she slept on top and Scratch below. Panthera blinked. The painkillers had gone—they never gave much and that rarely—but her vision had spotted. She steadied. No more spots, no additional disturbance of vision.

Had she struck her head? She didn't recall having hit it, but that, too, could be attributed to a head injury. Her stomach knotted. A substantial head injury would put her out of commission regardless of recovery or her years of service.

Another high-high-low chirp. Panthera crossed to the console. Stooping, she pressed her eye to the small scanner. Her back argued against it; so did her ribs. As the laser scoped her retina out, Panthera thought: Wouldn't it make more sense to in some way analyze the smell of a cat, which was unique and impossible to replicate?

The console trilled, and Panthera jerked upright. Identity Confirmed: Coryi Third Litter First Born: Female. Her heart deafened. The screen cleared, then an alert flashed upon it. One message received: an encrypted summons.

Panthera stared at the screen. A moment before she had thought her heart would leap into her throat; now, she thought it dead. As if from a remote distance she saw her claw rise and tap the screen. The system began slowly working to decrypt the first of five layers of encryption. Her gut was roiling.

It was not the first mutinous thought she'd had of late, to wonder why not smell instead of the shape of her retina and the color of her iris. That was perhaps the least mutinous of her thoughts. She had heard tell that Mumm-Ra, may his days be unnumbered and his wisdom unquestioned, even permitted some few cats advise him. Certainly none of them were so low as Panthera, born of the fertile, tailed underclass suited only for service in the vast armies of their lord emperor. They were lions, no doubt, and tigers: tailless, their litters managed by Mumm-Ra and few besides that they might devote their life to his adulation.

The console showed that the first security encryption had been deciphered; it began work on the next. Panthera's legs were numb, but she did not sit. The chair was too low for her; her knees would jut.

She touched her ribs. Another cat must have noted her hesitation.

The riot had been quickly contained; three emergency airlocks were closed, cutting off paths the lizards might have taken. Panthera had deployed with her squad to the fourth hall. Most of the lizards had been unarmed. Four carried simple tools: a crowbar, a pipe. They were unskilled, without organization. The four that bore arms had grouped together.

Panthera had taken three of the four armed lizards out with ease, but the fourth had struck her once in the ribs, hard with a pipe she'd thought hollow but which proved to be solid. She'd felt that thickness as two of her ribs snapped and a third bent. She grabbed the pipe, her claws screaming across the metal. The lizard said, "Colluder!" and Panthera tore the pipe from his weak hands, spun it around, and beat him full across the scaled face with it.

The adrenaline began to seep out of her. In its absence, pain exploded up her side and into her chest. Blood poured out the lizard's broken snout. She'd smashed it all to one side. Bits of jagged tooth sprayed from his mouth. Riot protocol held that all unnoted insurgents were to be immediately executed. This was how she had been trained.

The lizard spat blood and broken tooth. His legs jerked; an arm splayed out, seeking. One eye had closed. The other, blood vessels popped within so it showed red and swollen, rolled. In that, she saw a dark glimmer that was the outline of her shoulders. The guard uniform covered the face, but she saw her face in the lizard's eye.

She brought the pipe down against his unseeing eye. The lizard stilled. His leg, knee bent, gently fell to the side. Something hot and vicious swelled in Panthera's throat and upon her tongue. It made her want to claw off her mask and then her face beneath it. There was blood on her gloved hands, blood on her mask. When she breathed, her ribs screamed.

"Well done," Scratch had called to her.

Panthera had said, "Of course."

The console began work on the third layer. An acrid taste had risen out of Panthera's stomach. She had followed protocol, hadn't she? She had executed her service. Her reflection stared back at her from the screen. Mumm-Ra's personal ship utilized holotech, but the lesser ships made do with lesser tech. Another mutinous thought.

She had hesitated. She had hesitated, and she had been seen hesitating. It had been but a moment to her. Perhaps it had been longer. What use to their emperor was a guard who would not guard? They would strip her of her mask, her shield, her baton and her gun. If she'd been of a higher class, they would strip her of her life as well, but her lord Mumm-Ra always had need of more lesser cats to fill his armies and keep the other animals in line.

The thoughts bred. Mutiny bred within her as she would soon breed. If she'd no other use to her lord, she'd a womb at least. Seven litters in seven years was the ideal. If she'd luck, she'd seven years with her first litter before they culled her. Panthera had had five years with her own mother.

The console chimed. The last two layers had been decrypted. Summons flashed at her.

Panthera clicked the word with one claw. The screen darkened and then lit again. Dully, she read the brief message.

The room was quiet, so very quiet that the sudden, forceful rushing of her blood sounded like a sort of distant roar in her ears. The beating of her heart was such that her chest pinched with it; even the lingering ache in her ribs faded before it.

Panthera lifted her hand to the screen. Her claws hovered in the air before it. She did not tremble; her hand was still. She tapped her claw to a single line, maximizing it.

—transfer to the flagship of our sovereign lord Mumm-Ra, the Ever Living, and integrate into the personal guard of our sovereign lord, Mumm-Ra, the Ever Living—

She minimized it and zoomed in on another line:

—recognition of your loyalty to our sovereign lord Mumm-Ra, the Ever Living, and your continued demonstration of such in efforts to quell sub-species riots—

Panthera returned to the summons and read it again. The words did not change. The sentences did not rearrange. She had been summoned to the lord Mumm-Ra's personal ship to serve in his private guard. They did not wish her to breed. They had not seen the passing treason in her face. How could they? She had worn a mask. She had ever worn a mask. She would remain a guard. She had purpose, still.

Panthera fumbled for the chair and dropped into it. Her knees, rising, banged into the desk. She was not so starry-eyed at the prospect of a promotion, and that was what it was to serve her lord directly even if her title did not change, that the pain did not give her cause to swear.

The door opened as Panthera snarled, "Rut!"

"Who's rutting?" asked Scratch. She lingered in the door, her ears cocked forward in interest. "Did you forget your suppression pills? That's transfer material."

"I've been transferred," Panthera blurted.

Scratch's face changed. Her features flattened; her ears went back. She stepped into the room that the door might close automatically, and when it had done, she palmed the lock beside it.

She said, "Panthera—" and reached for Panthera's hand. They had not held hands before. They had never done so. The white fur on the back of Scratch's hand was spackled with brown and black spots.

"Not to the breeding facilities," Panthera said. She was looking down at Scratch's hand. "I've been transferred to our lord's personal guard."

The room was quiet again. After a moment, Scratch withdrew her hand. There was a frenetic relief building in Panthera, and the touch of Scratch's fingers on her wrist had been so strange she forgot it in the force of her own gratitude. Panthera looked into Scratch's face, but Scratch looked away. She needed Scratch to understand. Scratch must understand.

"Scratch," she said urgently, "they promoted me. I'm going to serve our lord Mumm-Ra. This is such an honor!"

"It is," said Scratch. Her voice was cool; her voice had never been cool. "I'm glad for you. You would have never fit in with the breeders."

"Scratch," said Panthera. Her own voice chilled. She leaned forward, sniffing. Scratch smelled—hunted. "What is it?"

"Leave off it, tailed," Scratch snapped.

Panthera pulled back. She felt the weight of her own tail, flicking where it had curled beneath the chair. She stilled it again.

Scratch would not look at her.

"You've never called me tailed before," said Panthera. She said it curtly. The word hurt in her throat. It was true, of course; she couldn't deny it. She'd a tail and Scratch had not. Most of the guards had tails. Scratch had not. Panthera had never asked why Scratch had chosen the guards. She wondered then if Scratch had not chosen after all. Dread tightened in Panthera's gut.

"Something's wrong," said Panthera. "What is it?"

"I've been transferred, too," said Scratch. The feeling had bled out of her. "I'm to report to the breeding vessel at the end of the month."

"Scratch!"

Panthera rose.

"Stay down, tailed!" Scratch snarled.

Panthera did not stay down. She rose to her full height; she towered over Scratch.

"You can't," said Panthera.

"Five of our cohort have already transferred," Scratch told her, as though Panthera did not recall. As though Panthera had not seen her own face beside theirs. "I'm older than all of you by two years."

Panthera reached to touch Scratch's shoulder. Scratch was lean, tall for an alley cat but still lean. Her shoulder would be bony.

Scratch stepped away from Panthera.

"It is my honor to serve our lord Mumm-Ra," said Scratch.

She stared defiantly up at Panthera. Her eyes were narrow, her ears flattened, her thin mouth tight. The console clicked to indicate it had gone into hibernation mode. The weight of the air in the room was such that Panthera thought it might be difficult to breathe, but it was no more difficult than usual.

What could she do? What could any of them do?

"It is our honor to serve our lord Mumm-Ra," said Panthera. The words were hollow in her mouth. They were all she knew to say.

In the evening two guards confiscated Scratch's suppression pills. In the morning, Panthera departed on a shuttle for their lord's flagship. A summons from their lord was not to be delayed, for Mumm-Ra was the empire and his will law, and they were all of them born to serve the empire.