Chapter 7 – Mittens
To say Mittens was nervous would be a major understatement; she just flat out could not think she was so scared. Her tail would not dislodge it's self from under her legs and her ears almost disappeared behind her head. "Mittens, are you ok?" Bolt asked as she spaced out. Shaking her head Mittens responded, "Huh? Yah, I'm fine Bolt just …" "Nervous?" he asked knowing the feeling all too well. "Terrified." She admitted. "Just take a deep breath and relax, you'll do fine." Bolt reassured her smiling with confidence. Breathing in through her nose Mittens took a deep cleansing breath and let it out slowly, easing some of her worries but not all. "Look an air vent. Mittens could use that to get around. I'm pretty sure that they all know we're here now so we'd better get moving." Rhino said. "Good idea." Bolt said to the hamster, and then he turned to Mittens, "Take the air vent and try to find the security controls. I don't want any alarms going off when we destroy the canon." "Ok Bolt, I'll try." She said before leaping up and using her metal claws to tare open the air vent and crawl in. Crawling through the air vents was only slightly as scary as the mission itself, seeing as she didn't have Bolt there for comfort. Using her memories, she pictured Bolt right next to her, remembering the feel of his fur against hers as they cuddled together on Penny's bed. This helped to ease her nerves a little. "I wish there was a way to at least talk to him. Maybe then I would at least feel better about him not being here." She whispered to herself. Searching each outlet she could find she began searching for the security controls, first she looked in and found the men's' locker room, as well as something she never wanted to see again. "That is going to stay with me for years isn't it?" she asked herself wide eyed and embarrassed. Continuing on she found the women's locker room and a few talking Nutrosian girls. She could only see their hair one long haired and blond the other short and white, but heard every word they said, "So you were really assigned to the security room?" the blond asked. "Yup, and it's not fun at all. I wish the console would at least freeze up just to give us something to do." The white haired one answered. "You think my job is fun? I just got assigned to the Captain's side today. He's going to turn me into a freaking concubine." The blond argued. "Sucks huh?" the other agreed. Mittens felt really bad for them, hearing how much of an awful person the Captain was, she felt she had to do something to help. Remembering the first girl they saw when arriving, she realized that the Neutrosians just might understand Animal Talk and not even know it. Putting her muzzle close enough to the grate of the vent she whispered, "I heard the TIP was used recently to go the planet called Earth by someone. I don't know about you two but I'm going to use it to get out of here for good." Hiding herself behind the vents walls, the girls looked around for the mysterious voice, "Did you hear that?" the blond asked. "Sure did, if that information is true, I'm going for it." The white haired girl said before quickly slipping into a large purple tunic and brown belt. "Wait for me." the Blond said after she finally slipped into a light blue tunic. 'That's my good deed for the day.' Mittens thought to herself.
The other rooms held nothing, and it was another twenty minutes before she found what she was looking for. The security room was a large circular room with a giant semi-circle of screens and keyboards. The monitors stacked at least five high and spanned half the room in numbers too high for her to count. Stations were set up with the length of seven screens to each station and at each of the stations were board Nutrosians. Looking at each screen she was able to find the canon area and what security measures were in place. Lasers, alarms and electrical doors all in place to keep people out, and she needed to let Bolt and Rhino in. Ideas went screaming through her head, all great ways to get the security down but only one made any sense at all, the idea the girl in the locker room gave her. Thinking cold, she remembered the frigid temperatures of a winter night. Snow pilling up around her and freezing everything it touched. Silently she jumped down to the floor, snuck up to the computers and slowly pulled out her Ice Claws and carefully pressed them into the side of the computer. The entire console began freezing up rapidly and ice began forming on everything. Sparking as the ice froze and shattered the circuitry, the computer itself began to fail as the ice covered the entire thing from end to end. Each Nutraosian was baffled as there station literally froze up right in front of them and could only watch helplessly as the computer shut down and all security measures were disabled almost all at once. With the lights out Mittens tried for the vent again, silently creeping along in the dark until one of the Nutrosians stepped on her tail. She let out an ear piercing yowl and every pair of eyes turned to her as she ran for the vent. "That's an earth animal." someone said. Apparently Nutrosians can see in the dark like cats can. Jumping as high as she could Mittens reached out for the wall extracting her stone claws for grip, she was snatched out of the air by the hands of a Nutrosian wearing a white lab coat. His wrinkles suggested he was old, very old and balding with a light colored hair and mustache. His yellow eyes shined in the dark as he looked at her. "This I believe is called a cat." He said. Laughing he eyed her like a fine piece of meat and said, "A perfect subject for my experiments." Now officially scared out of her wits, Mittens did the only thing she found logical, she screamed, "BOLT! HELP ME!"
End Chapter 7
