8

Meanwhile, Cheetara was busy being disoriented. "What in the name of Thundera!" She looked around at the bleak gray street she had suddenly appeared over, and looked up at the dull, dark orange sky. "Snarf?"

"Whoa!" A second later, she saw the Snarf high above, struggling to get control of his vehicle. He finally righted it and soared down next to Cheetara. "What happened?"

"I don't know, Snarf, let's land over there in that alley." The pair landed and got off of the craft. "I'm not sure what happened," she said. "All I remember is we were fighting those Mutants at the Berbil Village." She looked up at the sky. "And I get the terrible feeling we are not even on Third Earth anymore. The sky never does this."

"Oooo, snarf, snarf, this is no good." He looked around. They were in an unattractive alleyway, with a full trash bin and two brick walls. "Any ideas where we are?"

Cheetara shook her head. "No. Let's go out and take a look though." The cheetah led Snarf out of the alley and into the streets. The orange sky was the darkest orange she had ever seen in a sky, nothing like on Thundera. There the sky was sometimes orange, but it was a bright orange that reminded Cheetara of Third Earth's sunsets. This was an oppressive color that almost seemed to sap one's energy; dull, and dark. She suspected it was almost night to boot, and hot.

"Uhhh, Cheetara?" Snarf's voice sounded wavery and thin.

Cheetara snapped out of her reverie and looked up. Her heart sank, and she felt a chill make its way down her spine, while at the same time her head was hot with dread. A group of about twenty of the planet's citizens had gathered from the buildings, some slinking curiously out, but most had an expression of hate and hostility. "Mutants!"

One jackal snarled. He looked smaller even than Jackalman, and as Cheetara looked, they all looked smaller, somehow out of proportion, as if this planet were on a scale of three-fourths to one to the normal Plundaar. Perhaps another planet housed similar species? One that they had never heard of? No sudden moves, she decided, don't make any threatening gestures. "We are not here to cause trouble," she said slowly, wondering if they even spoke Basic at all. "We came here by accident. What is this place?"

The jackal that had snarled at her stepped forward. He was a full three inches shorter than the Thunderian. "A Thunderian!" he said with a mixture of wonder and anger. "On Plundaar!" He spoke with a strange accent, strange even for a Mutant.

Well so much for that theory. The crowd was looking unpleasant, and Snarf cowered against his companion. "Oh, this isn't good at all, snarf, snarf." But why did they all look so small? The jackal continued. He was apparently in too much awe at the moment to make a move against the cheetah and the Snarf.

"And a Snarf! Cobran, I thought that there were no more Snarfs left! I thought they were all massacred in the last wars with New Thundera!"

New Thundera? Cheetara was astounded by the phrase the jackal had used: New Thundera! "Thundera is no more," she said, narrowing her eyes.

The jackal looked at her as if she were a moron. "I said New Thundera, cat. Are you as stupid as you look?" Well at least that's normal, Cheetara thought. Mutants never were too bright.

Or polite, for that matter.

The reptile, some kind of snake, shook his head. "Don't look at me. I've not even seen a Thunderian for years."

Cheetara's mind was reeling. A suspicious was dawning on her, a suspicion that was totally impossible, but here it was in front of her.

"Well it doesn't matter," the jackal said, his eyes narrowing. "This Thunderian is here, and Thunderians aren't allowed on Plundaar."

Okay, now things were getting ugly. Cheetara sensed what the jackal was going to do a split second before he whipped out a long switchblade-like knife out of his belt and lunged for her. Cheetara grabbed Snarf and took off, at top cheetah speed, running down the street of an impossible Plundaar. How many years into the future? Centuries? Millennia? Long enough for a New Thundera to be established or found, or perhaps for Third Earth to be renamed? Long enough for the Mutants to evolve into a smaller race, and for there to be another series of wars between her people and Plundaar? And worst of all, for the Snarf race to be obliterated!

There was a babble of shouts as Snarf and Cheetara made their escape. The Mutants were already after them, though they had no chance catching her. One had called the authorities, and had a manhunt...or rather a cathunt out for Cheetara and the Snarf.

Cheetara stopped to catch her breath in another smelly alleyway. She didn't know what the Mutants could possibly eat for their meals to make their garbage so much ranker than that of most other species she'd ever come across, but it sure was fetid. She wrinkled her nose.

"Where are we, Cheetara?!" Snarf wailed as she put him down. He began to pace agitatedly.

"Shh! I don't know Snarf," she replied in a low voice, and stood upright, running a nervous hand through her spotted mane and looked around. The street seemed deserted of most people. Of course from what she had seen so far, she thought that most of the normal, unarmed citizens, even being Mutants, probably did not venture out of their houses after dark. Or maybe there was a curfew. Or hell maybe no one lived here, she thought; there was no way to tell. Most of the buildings were boarded up, with rotted wood or metal planks over the windows and doors. "Obviously this is Plundaar, but not like any Plundaar I remember."

"Have you ever even been to Plundaar, Cheetara?" Snarf asked.

Cheetara hesitated, then nodded, siting on an old wooden crate in the alley. They had escaped their pursuers for the moment, and she needed to rest, anyway."Yes."

Intrigued, Snarf stopped his pacing to listen. And besides, anything she knew could help them!

"During the wars on Thundera, there was a young man of the armies. He was one of the few that were not of the four main species that fought, he was a wolf Mutant. I was seventeen, he eighteen, and he never killed doishonorably."

There was a snort from Snarf at that.

But Cheetara shook her head. "He didn't. I watched him for a long time, since I had never seen a wolf before from Plundaar, and he would never kill a downed opponent. I heard him speaking to some of his fellows about not liking to kill dishonorably. They ridiculed him for it." Cheetara's voice took on a distant quality, almost talking to herself and forgetting her small companion. "That angered me. I had met only a handful of people from Plundaar that knew honor, and all they could do was ridicule him and walk away"

She chuckled a bit, then went on. "My parents would have killed me if they knew what I did, but I walked up to where he kept his camp, not far from the farm that my parents kept." She laughed at Snarf's surprised look. "No, I am not of noble birth. I am of pure cheetah birth, but my parents owned a chintan vegetable farm. I earned my title in the ThunderCats not long after by training hard and proving that I could uphold the Code of Thundera. But I met with him. He did not strike at an unarmed girl, and we talked. It was not long before I fell in love with him."

"You fell in love with a Mutant?" Snarf's voice was incredulous as he sat up on a wooden crate. "I bet your parents weren't too happy with that."

Cheetara also sat. "No. My father was furious to the point of keeping me confined to the house. He nearly took his belt to me, although I was far too old to be spanked. My mother calmed him down while I stormed out of the house, angry at his prejudice."

Cheetara lapsed into silence, and Snarf asked, "So what happened?" Listening to Cheetara's tales of her days before being a ThunderCats could almost make him forget where he was.

She laughed a little. "When I turned eighteen, he took me to Plundaar. We had seen each other many times, and since he had seen my home world, I wanted to see his. He was through with his time in the armies, and I knew that he loved me as much as I loved him, so he brought me there."

Snarf frowned, noticing that Cheetara was on the verge of tears. "Did something happen?"

Cheetara growled, tears beginning to burn at her eyes. "Yes. It was only three days before his former superiors found out. Apparently there was a law about taking a Thunderian as a mate on Plundaar. I was banned from the planet, and he was tried and executed for treason." She wiped her eyes.

"Awww..." Snarf was not sure what to say, and put a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, snarf, snarf."

Cheetara sighed and stood, shaking her head, and dashing the memories from her mind. "Thanks, Snarf, but I took far too much time talking about that. We're in a dangerous situation, we must find out how to get out of this miserable place." She took a moment to calm her mind, to clear it of its anger and sorrow; those could only hinder them now.

"Yeah! And back home." Snarf rose again on his tail. "Any ideas?"

Cheetara shook he head. "Not a one. We can't walk freely, since that jackal said our kind is not allowed here. We will have to be careful. Let's stick to the alleyways."

"You got it." Keeping to the shadows of the deepening night, the two companions skulked the streets. They had no idea what they were looking for, but they knew they could not stay there.

Part 7

Part 9

Table of Contents
ThunderCat Stories Page
Main Page