Jethro 8 Snippet 6

 Most likely the last snippet before the book publishes:

Chapter 6

 

Kathy's World

 

Shanti and Lil Red were met at the spaceport by Rah and Lil White. They exchanged cheek rubs and embraces and then went about chasing the men folk who had come to carry the luggage.

"Just our luck Red went shopping," Lil White's husband groused good naturedly. Red pretended to try to kick him but he was out of reach.

"Love you too, sis," he teased mockingly. She shook a fist at him.

"So, which way is Jethro coming?" White asked as she looked at them.

"Ah …"

A bear stepped over the diminutive cat and kept moving. Red shook her head. "Talk about a low bridge."

"You're telling me! That was a kilt too and he needs to wash his undies!" White growled, loud enough for her voice to pitch across the concourse.

The bear turned back and looked at her while other people around him sidled away slightly.

Red snickered. The bear looked ready to argue but he saw Rah in her planetary constable uniform and thought better of it and let the embarrassment drop.

Shanti shook her head at the byplay. "Always taking swings above your weight class I see," she said.

"Always," White agreed with a snort and ear flick. "And quit stalling."

"I wasn't stalling; you changed the subject," Shanti said as they waited for their luggage. "To be honest, I don't know."

"Well, if they did a jump from where they ended up to Nuevo Madrid, they'd shave months off the journey."

"And risk themselves on an unexplored route? I'll wait just fine. I've waited this long," Shanti said with an ear flick. White looked at her searchingly and then nodded once. She reached out and patted her friend with a gentle hand.

"There are two routes. The southern one is fourteen jumps but has two long ones in it. The northern one loops up and back as it dances around Horath." She grimaced at the reminder. "It's two jumps longer but they could move faster. It all depends on who is driving."

"Ah."

"The military wants them back, so they'll figure it out," Red said with an ear flick. "Not that they are getting many of them back anytime soon. Jethro said he's taking a lot of his accumulated time off." She looked up with a wicked grin to Shanti. "I understand they have time to get reacquainted."

"Which means we'll have to make ourselves scarce," White chuffed in amusement.

Shanti's eyes lowered in embarrassment.

"That's okay. We'll figure something out. I have been away for a while; you can show me all the changes. Did they build a theme park yet?"

"No, nothing like on Antigua. But there are ski resorts and other places. Plenty of places to camp and there are carnivals that travel around," White answered as the luggage arrived.

 >>*<<

Shanti found out as they waited for the luggage that they had arrived a week to ten days ahead of Jethro. That was good. It would give her some time to settle in, but it was bad in that she was supposed to report into her job in two weeks from her landing. She’d have little time to spend with him before she had to get back to work. She resented that a little, but it was what it was, there was no changing it now.

The two cats had been woken up from stasis in orbit on the ship and then yawned as they were hustled out to the waiting shuttle. Despite the jostling from the turbulence, Red had curled up and nodded right off again.

There was news on the video screen, one part to get them up to speed and one part to distract them from the ride down. She knew she’d have to absorb it eventually but wasn’t really listening to it with her full attention. She used her implants to check her email … did she get email through the ansible? Probably official correspondence and short messages on occasion from Jethro or the family if they paid for it but anything else had to go by courier or not at all.

When they got to the luggage area, she noted Lil White was wearing a shawl. Red hugged her, nearly knocking her sister over in her exuberance. “What’s with the granny look?” she asked at arm’s length a moment later.

“I am a grandmother. Besides, I’m cold,” White complained as she hugged herself. She was a short-furred cat like her sister so the cold got to her quickly.

Red blinked and then nodded. She looked a little sad though and stroked her sister. White leaned into her, as much for comfort as for additional shared warmth.

They had to wait on the luggage arriving and then sort it out with the other passengers. Once they had everything, they had to haul it out to the curb and then find a way to get it into the van along with themselves.

There was so much luggage that in the end they had to strap some of it to the roof rack. They had to go around the loop to keep from getting a ticket while they went and found rope and straps to buy from the local shop. Shanti almost broke down and tried to find a service to have it all delivered to the house. She hadn’t anticipated the last-minute addition of her FBI wardrobe and gear would become such a complication.

Once the van was loaded, they crammed into the vehicle. White and her husband Brandon sat in the front passenger seat. They rode home and initially admired the sights as the sun set. Rah and Red sat in the back with Shanti as Rah’s mate drove. He willingly brought them through a fast-food drive thru to allow them to get takeout and then continued their journey.

>>*<<

Jethro 8 Snippet 5

 

Chapter 5

 

SG3R211-94 Sigma Sector Capital

 

Suqi noted her family was in transit so there was a natural delay on emails. That sucked. It was coming to an end though; they would be hitting their homeworld soon.

On her next ground-side leave, she had four days off because it was a holiday weekend. She wished Hurranna was around, but the cat had been stuck in a training exercise and her carrier was on the other side of the star system for the holiday. That sucked.

The star system had been pirate controlled until it had been liberated. When the Federation had come in, the massive habitats had been restored and additional space stations built. There was even a dedicated ONI station called Delphi.

The natives had consolidated on a moon colony that had massive domes on it. Inside it didn’t look at all like you were indoors. The designers had done their best to make it as large and impressive as possible. It was helped with the fact that the moon had an ocean, near 1G gravitational field, and a molten core which spun and generated its own magnetic field. There were some talks among the natives about possibly terraforming the moon into a habitat like her homeworld Kathy’s World.

She ended up getting dragged to a recently opened theme park by a group of Marines, one was Blainey, an old friend from boot. She hadn’t interacted with “The B Blainey” much in boot but apparently Blainey fondly remembered her however, the “cat.”

Blainey was a husky human woman, not a heavy worlder, but she definitely worked out. She had a chiseled face and had a reputation of being in bar fights. She had been masted twice and nearly lost a stripe after one altercation. Her nose was just a little out of position due to a couple lucky hits.

They got through the lines to get in relatively quickly. They traveled in their civies, and she thought everything was fine. There were an inordinate amount of humans in the group, but the planetary population had been hit by the plagues as well as pirate genocidal hunts for years before it was liberated by the Federation.

One of the first rides they got on was a Ferris wheel. It was giant and hollow core. It was driven by massive wheels on the ground. The hollow center allowed two roller coaster tracks to pass through it. The passengers on the Ferris wheel rode in cars that moved in and out as the wheel rotated.

When they went up, she found out it was timed so the cars would tip and then rush towards a coaster just as it came through the hollow and then the car would swing up and away in the nick of time. It was a scary experience but exciting and fun once she realized it had all been carefully engineered for the fright experience.

The second pass, the rush and tip of the car were expected. The roller coaster was on its way back and that track corkscrewed in a wild maneuver.

“We are so going to try that coaster next,” Blainey gushed girlishly.

Suqi sighed internally but nodded.

 >>*<<

Hurranna had some idle time since it was a holiday weekend. She hated that they were stuck on the other side of the star system, but she wouldn’t have missed the flight time with the training operation for anything in the galaxy.

She couldn’t get actual time with Deja, so a video conference was the next best thing. They were doing it under the pretense of debriefing after the previous exercise. The talk quickly shifted to Jethro and Ox’s survival though.

“To have survived that,” Deja said as he shook his bullet-shaped head. As a selkie, he could cut through the water or space with incredible ease.

“Yeah. I bet if they’d had you along, they would have been back in half the time,” Hurranna said.

“Maybe,” Deja said thoughtfully. He still had a chip on his shoulder about being dragged into a helm position. Fortunately, the Federation navy now had plenty of people like him who could do it now.

“No ifs, ands, or maybes about it,” Hurranna said with a snort and ear flick.

“Maybe,” Deja said again and then wiggled his whiskers as the lynx shot him a reproving look. “Like I said, maybe. Too many variables,” he said with a slight shrug.

She cocked her head but let that one go.

“Heard anything from them?” Deja asked.

“I got the email from Jethro. Short and sweet and to the point, a thanks and yup, still kicking,” she said. They both looked at each other in amusement. “Ox … nothing. Then again, word is he is in terrible shape.”

Deja nodded and looked concerned. “I thought they had AI and nanites and stuff to keep them alive?” he asked.

“Yeah, I heard the same thing. It is probably why they are alive,” Hurranna said. Deja looked at her and then nodded slowly.

Jethro 8 Snippet 4

 Sitrep: So, Rea sent me back the manuscript this morning. I just got through the edits (while Ember was asleep on one arm, lol) and shot it off to Goodlifeguide.

So, clock is ticking down to when we go live and publish. :)

On to the snippet!

Chapter 4

 

Antigua

 

A week after finals concluded Shy came to Cleo with a problem. Cleo had the same problem, and she contacted her brothers who were scratching their heads on what to do.

She gathered them at a park picnic site and sipped her drink as they finally showed up. As usual Baggy was the last one in.

“So, what are we going to do?” Shy asked.

“About?” Baggy drawled.

“The University is shutting down for the summer semester. They canceled all in-person courses; everything else is online.”

“So?” Baggy asked. He was down to the one course and another he had to repeat because he’d gotten dinged for poor attendance. It wasn’t his fault; he’d overslept too many times because he’d been up gaming.

“So, they are shutting the dorms down too,” Cleo said firmly.

“Um …,” he blinked.

Cleo rolled her eyes to the other siblings. “Check your email,” she sighed.

“Um …”

“I got it too. My floor’s dorm monitor said we don’t have to go home but we can’t stay here,” Ruabelk said, clearly aggrieved. “This sucks!”

“Yeah,” Baggy said as he accessed his email. His eyes widened. “They can’t do this!” he complained. He looked up.

“Found the email I take it?” Cleo asked mildly.

“Yeah! And it’s not fair! And so what if I’m below the minimum and my grades suck! I still need a place to stay!”

“Ah, huh. So, that game career thing isn’t working out for you? And what do you mean minimum?” Cleo asked.

“Ah …,” he scowled. “Okay, so I overslept a few times,” he grumbled.

“Uh huh,” she said as she eyed him. “Mom’s going to love you for that one,” she said.

His eyes went back but then he perked up. “She’s not here,” he said defiantly.

“Right. Which is a problem. Unless you don’t mind living on the street?” Cleo asked.

“Crap.”

“We can’t get into a frat until the fall when they take in new applicants,” Shy said. They turned to her. “I checked. I was looking for options.”

“Oh,” Ruabelk said with then sighed. “Most of the kids on my floor are either going back to family or going on trips. I thought about that but …,” he waved a hand, “no money.”

“Yeah. Once we’re out of class, the money dries up,” Cleo said.

“What?” Baggy demanded. “No money? Since when?” he demanded.

“The scholarship is for one year. We have one semester left. We can only draw on it for stuff for school and food.”

Bagheera scowled.

“No school and the money gets suspended.”

“Guess it’s time to find a job?” Shy asked. “I also checked in with Zuhura; she can’t take in any of us since she lives on a restricted base.”

“Frack,” Ruabelk said. “I was about to suggest her.”

Shy shook her head. “She’s got a small apartment anyway. It’d get a bit crowded with four us on her love seat.”

“Crap,” Ruabelk muttered. “Crap, crap, crappity crap.”

“Yeah.”

“What about … the house?” Bagheera asked.

“What about it?” Cleo asked as she eyed him.

“I don’t know, go and get it back?” he suggested weakly.

“And how do we do that?” Cleo asked in exasperation. “Go knock on the door and tell the nice family now renting it that, sorry, we need to throw you out because we used to live here?” she asked.

Bagheera’s ears went flat.

“That doesn’t cover how we’re going to live either,” Shy said.

“What about mom’s car?” Ruabelk asked hopefully.

“She sold it.”

“Ah, forgot that,” he mumbled.

Bagheera looked disgusted. He’d been saddled with mass transit and absolutely hated it. He had hoped to get the car. Now that scheme was ruined too.

There was a long drawn-out silence. It was finally broken when Cleo hit bottom with her straw and began to suck air through her straw noisily. She shook the drink making the ice clink and then set it aside.

“Yeah, going with mom on that trip is more and more appealing. Pity we didn’t while we had the chance,” Cleo sighed.

“We couldn’t. We had finals,” Shy said.

“Well, we’ve got four days to figure out a miracle.”

“A miracle?” Bagheera demanded. “Can’t we get an extension to stay in the dorms?”

“Maybe for a little while. But we would have to find something. As I see it, we’d need a shit ton of money to rent an apartment together. Down payment, all that,” Cleo said.

“Okay, look into that. Maybe we can do it together?” Ruabelk asked as he perked up.

“Ah, first we need the money, plus a proof of income. That means a job we’re each working,” Shy said.

“Start with the money,” Cleo said. “How do we get it? And rental history? I remember mom talking to the leasing company about finding the right people. We don’t have a history.”

“Ah … I think we need to talk to Zuhura. See what she can think of,” Shy said slowly. The others reluctantly nodded.

>>*<<

Jethro 8 Snippet 3

On to Chapter 3:

Chapter 3

 

Antigua

 

Shanti McClintock found out that it would take 8 months for the courier to pick its way around the western reaches of the sector and get back to the capital. It would take 3 months for the ship to get them to Kathy’s World so she let the cubs enjoy their first semester in college.

They were going to travel in stasis in military shipping. She was firm about them going, though she had to work on a couple of the cubs who put up a fuss. Some of them were refusing to commit to going. That bothered her. They were all in college at the Antigua University. Bagheera was struggling though.

She shot an email off to Lil White and her husband to alert them that they were all coming, but didn’t have a hard ETA. She would follow that up later.

She was looking forward to the trip.

 >>*<<

“Rebuilding the Cadre got a shot in the arm,” Warrant Morris said with a grin as he looked at the numbers. “We just got the better part of a platoon, or will when we get them back here and sorted out.”

“I know,” General Lyon said with a thoughtful nod.

“The final butcher’s bill will have some impact. I do admit getting the veterans back will be great,” Mars stated.

“I know,” the general said again.

“We’ll have to bring them up to speed with the Cadre 3.0 program,” Mars stated. “They’ll need updating.”

“We’ll have time for that. How are they medically?” General Lyon asked as he looked to Rear Admiral Nara Thornby, the naval officer in command of the medics in the Cadre program.

“Bad. Some worse off than others like Ox and Jethro,” Nara said as she consulted her notes. She had made a few based on what the medics had sent from TFP.

“That bad?”

“Yes. They will need extensive time to recover. Their suits are all compromised; they had to strip them for parts. Their AI have downgraded a lot. That is a problem. They tapped out their bodies for nanites and nutrition. Some didn’t eat or drink for months.”

General Lyon winced as some around the table sucked in a shocked breath.

“How is that even possible?” Lieutenant Feathersnake asked.

“They existed on willpower, their implants, and rotating in and out of stasis,” Nara said. “From the sound of it, a lot of will power.”

“I bet.”

“Ox is the hardest hit. A few of the Cadre went into stasis immediately and were only woken to donate nanites to help with the ship maintenance. They aren’t that bad. But all of them are going to need trauma and psychological counseling. Not just for grief over the friends they lost, but also for the time they lost too,” Nara stressed. “The galaxy kept moving while they drifted. Some of them got left behind. I know two of them are going to have additional grief issues since some of their family died when they were in stasis.”

The General nodded sagely.

“The good news about their armor is that it is now ripe for the Cadre 3.0 upgrade,” Willow said. She was clearly excited to meet some of the legends of the Cadre. “When they get here I mean.” She frowned. “Can’t we send them updates? You know, some packages to help them along while they are in transit?” she asked plaintively, turning to the admiral.

Nara frowned thoughtfully. After a moment she shrugged. “There is only so much we can do to heal their bodies. They need time, proper nutrition, physical therapy to get back into shape, and time for their minds to heal.”

The general noted the emphasis on time and nodded.

“Warrant McClintock made it clear he is going to be taking an extensive leave to be with his family,” Mars said. Commander Enki had passed that tip on to him.

“Understandable. Understandable for all of them and all leaves are approved,” the general stated. “We can get them checked out as they settle in.”

Nara nodded and made a note.

“So, no hit in the arm when they get back?” Morris asked, clearly disappointed.

“No, it’s going to take a while. But I’m for one glad they are back at all,” the general said finally before moving on to the next item of business.

>>*<<

Zuhura McClintock was still coming to grips with her father’s survival. The entire Cadre was excited and all smiles about the survival of an entire platoon of legends. Her father had seemingly done the impossible… again.

She had visited with her mom and helped her to arrange the trip to Kathy’s World. But Shanti had mentioned some stiffening resistance from some of the cubs. She wondered if her mother could let them go and be adults yet or if she was going to put her foot down.

She hoped for their sake that they went and met their father to get to know him, and vice versa. But she knew that they would never make up the time lost.

>>*<<

Lil Red was the most excited of all of the cats to see Jethro. Shanti was amused by her excitement. She had always shared a special relationship with Jethro, one that Shanti had come to accept.

“It is going to be like old times!” Red said, jumping from the back of the couch to the table and then back.

Shanti chuffed and shook her head. Shy got into the act and chased Red, making her scamper with delight and her old youthful exuberance.

>>*<<

Cleopatra wasn’t certain what to make of her father’s miraculous survival and upcoming return. She was reluctant to go to Kathy’s World. Her mother was leaning on them hard now that the date of departure was coming closer.

She had wrapped herself up in the University initially. But she hadn’t liked the culture and some of her professors. She hadn’t liked being in the student dorms, they’d been hell. No privacy, the smells had made her gag… she shook her head in annoyance.

She knew that Shy had a similar experience with her freshman year. They had dropped classes to the minimum and were regrouping. The university refused to let them bunk together. They had gotten hints that an extended sabbatical might help them prioritize their futures.

She hated being pressured. But she did like the idea of an adventure to their mother’s homeworld, it could be fun but her entire life, her friends were all on Antigua. She had finals coming up. She needed to focus on that. Things might change between then and now.

>>*<<