Chapter 6

Slate

Forty of them drifted.
Drifted aimlessly in the icy void of space,
unable to halt or advance their progress, all they could do is wait. Wait and ache for revenge. Sure they did not kill Slate the gray leader of the Cat outlaws, the Outcats. Who it was whispered had eaten his own father and took his own mother and sister.

Slate and his followers, who alone, by his own strength and cunning survived outside the traditional Cat society. Who lived on the fringes of Cat City, and who was always one step ahead of the royal guard. Until finally when he would wait until the political system within the monarchy would feed upon itself until it had weakened it to such a point, that he and his handful of followers would attempt a civil uprising.

Many Cat men and innocent Cat women and Cat children were lost during these great battles. Slate the clever strategist, and the bold powerful
warrior/leader almost pushed the rival religious sects to the very walls of their cities until the Great Truce was called.

Not since before recorded cat history had the Red hat followers and the Blue hat followers consorted to do anything that wasn't in direct contrast to each other. Even though their cultures, religion, beliefs and ancestry all
came from the same single source.
Frankenstein. The holy mother.

Finally after many losses of life and property the leaders of both factions called a truce, and a cease fire was declared.
For the first time in several hundred years the Red Hats and the Blue Hats had the single thing which would allow themselves to put aside their differences, and work together as one, a single force with a single goal.

They shared a common enemy.
There is nothing greater for pulling together a factional society than
the need for each side to hate somebody else. Or at least hate someone else until they're totally wiped out with the aid of their newfound compadres.
Of course this alliance is usually as lasting as the duration of the common enemy when they are finally vanquished, then and only then, could
the two groups get back to the main course, which was the killing of
those who were just your allies. Such are Humanoids.
And the Cat race was no different.

Now that Slate and his surviving followers had been cast adrift, they could only remember the promise Slate made to them and all the hated other Cat's.

"By the ghost of the Holy mother herself Frankenstein, I swear that before I leave this physical plane that I will have my revenge on you."
His large arm pointer out over the crowd of military and onlookers.
You will all pay for this with your lives. I will not be defeated by the likes of you or anyone."

As he was yelling this tirade his followers were forced back into a transport vehicle, which was soon closed and welded shut. Slates face was pressed against the viewport while his jailers backed away, to a point that only Slates superior eyes could make out distinctions.
A door slid down between the pod and the jailers, and even as intelligent and strong Slate and his followers were they couldn't even begin to envision what they were about to be subjected to. He couldn't see it at first, he heard it. Or possibly felt it.

A yawning abyss drawing their cage little by little away from
the door which was so recently erected. Soon the cold started to seep into
the energy less pod, and again they moved.
Until finally it happened.

The entire contraption that contained the forty some odd prisoners was sliding towards the great open doors leading to "Beyond the walls" and instant death. As the pod finally rolled Slate kept his superior grip, well... superior, and was still glued to the window, while his companions screeched and rolled in terror.

Slate saw what no one else from his race saw. It was his greatest moment and he was right. He and his race were aboard a giant ark, traveling
through space on the way to Fusha.
And he had been cast out.

As the temperature quickly dropped something abruptly halted their tumbling. The sound of bone crunching noises filled the darkness
within the vessel, as the passengers slammed against the pods' walls.
Something from the great ark snagged their pod and held then steady,
though partially mutilated and frozen.

Slate had not moved, he too was frozen, his open cat green eyes fixed on the porthole he was cast out of. Slate's stare was vigil, and in the end, which was roughly a half a million years later, his vigilance paid off, and his wish granted.
The simple tether, which fortune granted held his pathetic handful in, not dead and not alive, finally let them go. Released them from their bondage, and set them free, free of the past and all the tortures they prevailed over. But it was to late, the damage had already been done. And only one thought was frozen in his mind.
Revenge.

Inside the craft as frozen freight, Slate and his followers remained. Motionless for hundreds of millennium. Slate himself frozen, his face pressed to the outer port window, a crude leer practically forever on his face as the pod floated through the deep dark unrelenting void that is space. Until they were discovered.

Caught in the gravitational field of a planet their tiny frozen ship was
warming up and the contents of this frozen Cat taste treats was unthawing at a rate which awakened the Cat's from their frozen slumber. To Slate's surprise as far as he could tell he was staring out the widow of his prison into deep space, which he understood, but started doubting his mental facilities when he thought he saw a hairless ape in a bubble staring back at him.
From outside.