Day 8
#10 of Days
Hold on, more coming. I was busy over the holiday :)
I woke feeling more relaxed than I had, well, in about a week. Karen was curled against me and the lynx was behind me, her kittens snuggled at the small of my back, between us.
The first thing that I noticed about my immediate surroundings was that the plane sounded a bit different to usual, I twitched my ears around trying to discern what was wrong, "The engine on one side sounds wrong..." I wondered out loud.
Trying to be careful not to wake my 'bedmates' I managed to get up and saw Karen snuggle back into the warmth of the big cats.
I padded to the cockpit, opened the door and a new smell was the first thing that hit me, 'big predator' my foxy self supplied.
"How's the condition going Harry?"
The pilot turned a slightly hairier than usual face to me and grinned, showing me that his eye teeth were starting to lengthen. "Not bad boss, but this is the least of our problems." He gestured to a set of flashing red lights on the console, "Number two engine has been spitting out more fuel than it should be, I have cut thrust on it to one quarter but its using more fuel than they both would under normal conditions. But that is just the bad news, you want the 'worse news'?"
"Yeah, might as well make the start of today complete." And I grinned at him, making sure he knew that it wasn't the messenger I blamed.
"With the higher fuel usage we are not going to make it to LAX and by the time the extra usage was noticeable we were too far from Sydney to turn back."
"So what are we going to do?" I asked.
"How do you like Japan?" He supplied, rhetorically.
I laughed, "Well my tour of Europe has expanded a little, America, Egypt and now Asia."
"What about Asia?" Karen said sleepily, coming up behind me silently and putting one arm around me.
"Oh its all the rage." Harry said, encouragingly.
"Yeah, America looked like being too cold, so." I glanced at the pilots map he had pulled out, red marker showing our current flight-plan, "How about Osaka?? I hear the foods good..."
Karen glanced at the red-lit console, "Something up with the bird?"
Harry explained the problem to her.
"Not your problem, been missing a bit of regular maintenance lately I am guessing." She said, resting a paw on his shoulder.
"Anything we should do prior to set down?" I asked.
"Well, you could make us up some packs for when we arrive, also get Karen to show you how to handle one of the pistols." The wolf-man advised.
"Aye aye captain!" I replied with a grin and turned smartly, picking Karen up, to have her wrap her legs around my waist with a laugh, and marched back, past the passenger area to where supplies were kept.
"Ok rides over." I told Karen, touching our muzzles together, I lowered her back to her feet.
"So three packs, protein meals a preference, I mean, we haven't seemed to change our diet, but Harry could, and we may need to prop up our new mother wit-" The party in question was right beside Karen, and made a soft mewling sound pressing her head against the fox-girls leg.
"Speak of the devil..." I said, giving her head a pat. "Hrm, what are we to call you?"
I crouched down so we much closer to eye level, and she mrowed to me.
"Ahh, yes that could do, but you don't think it sounds a little silly?" I said solemnly back to the feline.
We continued this, and I started putting up names for her, she would mrow or swat at me as to her preference, "... what about Starlight, I think that-", She seemed to like that, she started purring and pushing her head against me. "So, Starlight it is then.".
"Are you two done, believe it or not there is actually work to do!" Karen said, mock scorn dripping off her words.
"A name is an important thing, isn't that right Star?" The big cat mrowed in agreement to me.
"Argg, stop that, just get to work." She exclaimed, exasperated.
I took a pack and started filling it with the items Karen had already begun to put in the two she had, "... tinned ham, salt, rice... where's the rice?" I was looking around when I felt the small sack of rice bump into my hand, I grasped it and said "Thanks." without looking, then it hit me that Karen was on the other side of me, still packing her bags from the three even piles of goods she had amassed. I spun back to look at my whiskered assistant. "How did you..." The big cat just mrowed to me again. I shrugged and got back to work, it went quickly, with occasional assistance.
"Right then, that's sorted, now, have you ever seen a movie where they handle guns?" Karen asked me, leading me back to the weapon cabinet.
"Uh..." My hand shot down to my groin and I grinned at her, "Yup, it appears so!"
She chuckled and said, "Well, forget anything you saw, it was likely all wrong. First rule is, do not ever point the thing at a target you do not wish to kill. Second rule..." She began, I paid attention, I knew if I didn't all I would get is a knife again, and the thought of being in a potentially hostile area with just a knife, that I didn't really know how to use, was not one I wanted to have turn into reality.
"You all sorted?" Harry's voice came from the cabin speaker.
"Yeah, I don't know if he will hit a target, but he likely won't kill us now." Karen called back to the intercom.
"Close enough, we will be touching down in about twelve minutes, it may be a bit bumpy, I am not sure if the fuel will last that far, we are on fumes right now."
"Ok, just get us down in one piece and I will get you a... shit, the beer!" I suddenly called with the sinking feeling that I would have to abandon my newly won stash.
"Ha ha." the pilot replied dryly. "Well, this bit is going to take some work, so I will talk to you in, uh, about thirteen minutes I guess." He finished.
I turned to the cats, Star was just finishing up nursing the kittens, "Right, we gotta get ready for a rough landing, Star, will you be ok? Just dig your claws into this seat here and hold on tight." I told her, patting a chair. Then made toward the kittens, picking them up and turned one over to Karen, "You know those ads from the traffic police saying you shouldn't hold on to children in the car, well, that's the best I can come up with..."
"Yeah, I got nothing else either." Karen supported my proposition, cuddling the, now sleepy, kitten to her, strapping into the seat. I followed suit.
Looking out the window, I noticed the ground getting closer and closer when all of a sudden a loud bang sounded from the side of the plane of the faulty engine only just preceded pilot's yell of "FUCK!", even through the heavy cabin door was evidence this was not going well.
The only way to explain the landing is the ground hit the plane, hard. Trying to say the plane hit the ground, well, that I didn't want to think about, the other way around sounded less deadly.
I held tight to the kitten in my arms, who was at that time exercising its right to use its claws when frightened.
After much jolting around the plane eventually came to a stop and the pilot exploded out of the cabin, "Ok, we are moving fast, the right wings in flames and their spreading to the rear of the plane."
I punched the release on my straps, holding the scared kitten with one arm I helped Karen up with hers, Star disengaged herself from the now-ruined seat and padded toward the opening door.
We grabbed a pack, a gun, a knife and a WHO badge each and jumped down from the plane, it wasn't anywhere near as far as it should have been.
Turning I made sure Starlight had made it down with one of her kittens in her mouth, Karen followed with another, Harry passed down our packs and followed himself, tossing something back into the plane.
We had fashioned a little pouch each for the two kittens, so they could rest. The packs were heavy, but we managed.
We walked a few hundred meters down the road when a loud explosion rang out behind us. "What the?" I said, turning.
Harry said, "Emergency procedure for dumping a WHO aircraft that has potentially infectious material on board." He tossed the little detonator from his hand to the side of the road. "Not like the old bird was fit to fly again without some major work anyhow, shame though, was a nice plane."
"So where are we Harry?" I asked, "Wasn't this supposed to be Osaka airport?"
"Things were going to go down to the wire, so I found the straightest bit of road I could, besides, any plane crash you can walk away from is technically a 'landing'".
We all laughed at that and moved on northwards.
While we were fine eating our lunch while on foot, dinner would be another matter. We picked a camp for the night, and lay down our packs. Preparing our meal over the little camp-stove took a short while, just as we were removing the warmed cans from the heat the bushes behind us rattled and Star returned, carrying a pair of dead rabbits in her jaws. She deposited them at my feet and looked at me as if to say, "Well, I did my part, now its up to you."
Crouching low I ran my paw over her head, "Thanks Star, these will go down well.". I took them and, and hung them up. Gulping down my meal of corned beef and assorted vegetables, I turned back to my task, taking out my knife, began to skin the rabbits. Finally something from my time growing up on a farm was paying off.
"You seem to know your way around that Dave." Harry said, but it wasn't my skinning and cleaning of the rabbits he was watching, he saw the bloody entrails hit the ground and despite himself I could see him drooling at the sight.
Chuckling I ran my paw through the entrails, picking out the heart, kidneys and liver, separating them with the knife I tossed them into one of the now empty cans. "Think that will help mate?" I asked him, handing him the gory little cup.
"I, uh, shit that smells good..." Was all the pilot got out before he found himself up-ending the cup into his mouth, almost involuntarily, chewing a few times and gulping them down. "Wow, that tasted even better than it smelled. Thanks, I think."
"It's cool man, I get feelings like that too, I think part of the DNA-deal is that we get a little more animal inside our head than we would have as humans. Don't think its a bad thing really, just-" I stated.
"Different" He finished for me.
"Yeah, definitely different all right. So, have you noticed anything about Star, I mean she seems a bit, I don't know, a bit smarter than even a cat has any right to be. She was passing me items from the stacks as we packed our bags, exactly in the order Karen was." I asked the pilot.
"Yeah, I swear she saw me eyeing off those goats earlier and when my stomach grumbled tonight was when she disappeared to hunt. Maybe this bug does affect animals in some way, maybe only if they have human contact when they themselves are carrying the virus." He postulated.
"Could be." I replied, just as the object of our ruminations padded over to us, having seen her kittens fed and cleaned for the night. "Hey Star, thanks for the extra meat." I told her, and she seemed to acknowledge the praise. Nosing at the can that had held the offal that Harry had consumed and then looked at him purposefully, making a questioning mewling sound.
"Yeah it was great thanks Star, really hit the spot." The guy said honestly to the cat, and leaned forward to pet her.
"Ok, you got first watch David, wake me at about one am and we can switch. If something happens, don't yell, just shake me awake." He said, laying down and pulling the cover over himself.
I got up, noticed Star nuzzle the man a few more times, making sure her 'extra large kitten' was snug, and as I walked off she padded with me.
The uneventful night wore on, and when one am rolled around, I woke Harry and set about trying to get some sleep myself, I noticed Star pace back to the spot we had been with the man, she might have ended up sleeping most of the night beside us anyway, but a cat sleeping is still a very hard thing to surprise.
I lay down, wondering what the next few days might bring briefly before sleep took me.