By the way, if you know of any amazing beta-readers, I would appreciate it if you told me some preferences. There is nothing worse than bad beta-readers. I do not mean that personally to any of you.
Cathigans were really quite a sight to behold. The nickname humans gave them really did fit their profile; they greatly resembled cats. Their bodies were covered from head to toe in dark brown, short-length "fur" that was a bit prickly and scratchy, unpleasant to the touch. Their ears were short, pointy stubs on the sides of their heads and piercing gold eyes that seemed to glow when you looked straight at them. The Cats' nails were sharp and curved slightly, but their cold, metal guards prevented them from hurting their own kind unnecessarily and aimlessly. This rule, of course, did not apply to humans.
At least, that's what the captain-commander said to her. The bit about the rule not applying to humans and that you should be extremely careful if you are meeting in a diplomatic manner, if that ever does happen. Her daddy always said that the captain-commander says a lot of things, sometimes things he doesn't really need to mention. He said that the captain-commander needed to work on encouragement. He would always end a speech explaining the worst possible solution and then say, "Good luck and have a pleasurable rest of the day."
One small girl in the corner farthest away from the door shivered and tugged her beige colored legs closer to her body, golden-brown eyes closing tightly. Blonde hair tumbled from a cap as blue as the afternoon sky, and onto the shoulders of a dress equally blue. It was as if a can was dipped into the wide open blue and stole a bit of the sky itself, giving up its lustrous color just for the sake of the beauty it could make on everyday items. But the dress was rumpled and its white sleeves were stained with debris black soot from the explosion that killed her escorts. The little girl's eyes snapped opened at the horrible memory full of painful screams and burnt corpses lying on the ground in front of her as the Cathigans dragged her away, holding on tightly to her hair until they reached their own commanding officer, where she was bound and thrown on the floor of the transport waiting at the rendezvous. She wished she was with her daddy in the warm, cozy library, and her uncle with that sausage sort of scent that was always following him around. She wished she was with all those nice people on the ship, but they weren't coming back, and it was all her fault.
A click and the sound of moving metal snapped the small girl's head up, her eyes fearfully watching the door across the room as it slowly and noisily opened up, and on the other side was the commanding Cathigan officer, smiling a chilling grin as his intimidating eyes bore into her own frightened ones. As he swaggered into the room, the little girl cringed and pressed herself harder and harder against the bitter, frosty wall as he drew nearer and nearer, until his face was only inches in front of hers.
"Frightened, pathetic Alterian? I do apologize for the harsh behavior and most menacing impression my soldiers showed you." His breath smelled of blood and meat, suggesting he most likely came here straight from dinner. He reached out to touch her face, but the girl hastily struck it aside, now shivering from both cold and fear. She understood the Cathigan language. Her father and uncle had hired tutors to teach her, and the girl had picked it up faster than anyone could expect. She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut again, a memory slowly emerging from the darkness in her mind.
"Remember, angel," a man sat on his knees to look her straight in the face, a pipe in the palm of his left hand. "If you ever run into any Cathigans, though unseemly as it is, never portray that you know their language. There are plenty of ways to use a girl like you. And…" the man picked up a knitted winter hat from the floor beside him and stuck it firmly on her head so that it covered her ears. "While you are away from home, never, ever, let someone take off this hat. You can not take it off either, understand?"
The little girl gulped loudly. 'That's right. Daddy told me to never, ever speak to the aliens. I shouldn't speak to them, but I'm so scared, Daddy. Please save me!' The Cathigan laughed, patting the hand she had swept away.
"Feisty little Alterian girl! I can't blame you worthless being for feeling fear. Thank that hair of yours. The Lord Hungar likes these colors, so will live to be his pet, if you please him. That's all you dirty Alterians are good for, being brainless pets!" The brawny Cathigan officer cackled thunderously and exited the room, slamming the door shut behind him, but even that couldn't drown his laughter.
The little girl stared at the metal door for a long time before she broke down and cried. 'Someone save me. Someone save me! PLEASE DADDY, SAVE ME!'
"Ha ha! This base has been officially infiltrated!" A young woman stated triumphantly, hands on her hips. You couldn't exactly see her face through the helmet she wore, but the suit fit neatly on her body and that was enough. She stood in front of her companion and a Cathigan corpse lying dead, obviously, on the hard, steel floor just in front of an open, steel door. In fact, the whole base seemed to be made out of gleaming metal inside and out. The two's view of the outside shell from their position in the shadows pretty much screamed that. Strangely enough, it was unnaturally clean on the inside, except for the occasional blood stains from who knows what, but that was to be expected. The woman tapped her helmet where should be tapping her cranium if the helmet wasn't on in the first place. "All it takes is a little brains."
"What brains? All we did was shoot some random Cat that had coincidently walked out of a door that just happened to open at the right time. There was no way you saw that coming." Her partner shot at her, nudging the limp body with his foot, slamming his foot on the bronze shoulder guard, denting it slightly and, as he feared, also his poor foot. He grimaced and cursed softly at the jolts of pain running up his leg.
"Don't be stupid, Trinity. It definitely was all according my secret 'already-laid-out' plan. The great Naomi has thought of everything."
Trinity snorted. "Did you think of what could happen once they start missing this guy here?" Trinity questioned, returning his recently fired gun to its place on his belt and changing his viewer to clear mode. The door suddenly shut, startling Trinity and making him jump.
"Yosh, let's go! We still have a lot of ground to cover!" Naomi's voice came through the speaker after a long moment of silence, clearly trying to avoid answering the question. Trinity rolled his eyes.
"Geez, Naomi, and you say that I'm…"
"I'm leaving you behind, Trinity!" Naomi said hastily, disappearing around the corner and entering the next steel hallway.
"Listen when people are talking to you!" Trinity called and raced after her, his pace quickening to catch up to his partner, the footstep's echoes bouncing off the walls in all different directions. Before disappearing around the corner like his companion did, Trinity's green eyes glanced back at the Cat corpse briefly. 'I hope that wasn't anybody important around here.'
Broad, muscular arms stretched as golden eyes gleamed ravenously at the dripping meat in front of them. Large hands gripped the bone of an animal that lived as a hind race on the home planet as simply food for the superior beings. Piercing teeth tore through the flesh, the blood dribbling down his furry chin and onto the cold floor. The cold was nothing, and this temperature was actually preferred. The thick coat protected him and his kind from freezing in the frosty air, though if it dropped any lower it would be labeled as dangerous. Even the superior beings would find it…uncomfortable, but it was better than the outrageous, burning temperature of this forsaken area.
Anger of the Feared Hungar finished everything off the steel plate in such speed that would leave a cheetah frozen in shock. The plate crashed on the ground and would have broken if it wasn't for its tough material make-up. It was made from the same substance as this base, hisbase, for he was the commander over it all. No one here would dare defy him, ridicule him, or show any disrespect. It was a pleasing power, the power over a creature's thoughts. Casually licking the remains of his dinner of his hands, that thought flickered in his mind like a small fire you couldn't ignore and his eyes shifted across the room, his room, his den. Pausing, Anger of the Feared Hungar slowly rose from his chair and strode across his den in such a manner as if he were king, which he thought of himself highly as.
Anger of the Feared Hungar placed his hand on a pad inserted into the wall and waited while it read the Cathigan gene inside him and the door swiftly slid open. The guard forever standing as still as possible stood to the right, the face emotionless and aware. As his superior exited, the guard turned his body to face his lord and saluted in the Cathigan fashion, unsheathed claws on the right hand poised directly over the heart and a slight bow added as a signal of respect.
"My lord."
"Where is Fear?" The guard straightened back up before answering.
"The captain has not yet arrived, lord." Anger of the Feared Hungar growled in frustration and impatience and pawed the air angrily.
"How long will the blasted fool keep me waiting? He should have arrived long ago. This act of disobedience will not go unpunished." He swung around and walked back inside, "Inform me immediately when you see him." He managed to demand just before the doors closed. The guard saluted to the door and returned to his position.
"This is the fifth door we broke down and we still aren't seeing any Cats!" Naomi tapped her foot on the ground once, arms folded haughtily. Trinity smiled nervously.
"Why do the get the impression that you're disappointed, Naomi?"
"Where the heck are they?" She smacked the melting tool held in her left hand, called the "AE 100", on the palm of the other hand hard. The "AE 100" was a funky looking object, sort of reminding one of a one-scoop ice cream cone with a large candle sticking out of the top. It could melt through practically everything, and it was the tool the two intruders used to weaken and break down the steel door. Naomi glared at what seemed to be a storage room filled with sealed metal crates and sighed disappointedly. "Maybe they're all out for lunch."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Trinity asked, thinking to himself that it was strange enough that every single member of the enemy was taking a break…at the same time, not knowing Naomi was thinking the same thing. When she didn't reply, he continued. "Besides, is this really the time to be looking for Cats?"
"Who said I was?!" She snapped, her body moving with the same questioned fury that was mixing with her words as she strode out the door. Trinity held his hands up defensively.
"Nobody at all! What I meant was…well…" Naomi glared suspiciously at Trinity before marching away.
"Come on, Trinity. We have to find that girl!"
"You're telling me that?" He whispered softly.
"What?"
"Nothing. You're right, let's hurry." He was impatient to get out of here as soon as possible and get this mission over with. He really hated this place and the suspenseful feeling it gave off. They already wasted fifteen minutes just destroying random doors to random rooms, the reason, naturally, was unknown to Trinity. He was only following a girl. "What goes on in a woman's brain will never be comprehended by the male mind," were the words spoken from the mouth from who Trinity believed at this moment to be an extremely wise person.
On the helmet's visor, Trinity opened the map of the base once again and roughly guessed where they were. Eyes following a series of hallways, he found a path relatively simple to follow. "Naomi?" the young woman grunted in reply. "After this next turn, take two lefts and there should be a door to another antechamber we need to destroy."
"Yeah, yeah, fine. I got ya." Trinity smiled crookedly.
'Still grumpy, it seems.'
Following Trinity's instructions and getting lost once or twice, the two crept closer to the first half of their missions end, melting and breaking down one door after another until they stood before the last door preventing them to go any further. Trinity closed the map file. Behind this door was the corridor holding the prison of the Cat's captive, and the melting thing was out of juice. Naomi pocketed the dead tool and reached out, banging noisily on the door's surface, gun already in hand.
"If they don't have guards at least posted here, then people 'round here are idiots." Trinity merely shrugged and raised his own gun to the door.
'If there isn't,' he thought, 'then we're gonna have to blast it to pieces. The noise would have to alert somebody, and that would eventually alert everybody in this forsaken place. Then there's a good chance we'd die…viciously. It would be great if they didn't have to blow it up. It would be just great if the door would just open…'
The door slid open. Trinity blinked in surprise at the two Cathigan guards staring straight back. He honestly didn't expect there to be anybody here, considering the emptiness they've encountered so far, and he probably imagined that the Cats didn't exactly expect anything not Cathigan to be standing in front of them. Before anyone else reacted, Naomi shot them and raced through the entrance while Trinity still stood in a daze.
"Trinity, get your rear in gear! We've got less than twenty seconds before our way out is automatically shut!" Naomi's command snapped Trinity back to reality.
"Oh…right," he said, slightly embarrassed, and ran after her shooting a Cat of his own.