Copyright © 2008 R. S. Pyne
All rights reserved, Wild Child Publishing.
The third in command changed the subject by tripping over a cleaner droid that had stalled when the power down started. Her captain listened to her as she swore fluently in a language dead for five centuries. He knew that Lyssa Alegnae-Ryll and the spirit that moved into her mind three years ago were a single entity. A considerate tenant, it made few demands on its host. It also allowed her a second share of any salvage money under the Articles; the twenty second century equivalent of a charter followed by the pirates of old Earth.
Other captains might challenge the interpretation, but Brenhin Righa of the Raven had his own reasons to ignore the one uniform, one pay out rule. For one thing, he would be out of pocket, if he still had a need to wear clothes.
Any cat can look at a captain as the old corsair rhyme said, but Righa simply had to stand next to a mirror. Every inch of his lithe body still retained memories of its human “other”, the shadow form that now no longer existed. It had walked the corridors of the Raven on two legs and survived countless battles with its badly designed, harmless teeth and no claws to speak of. The transition came without warning, a blessing from a stowaway with the face of an ancient Earth Goddess and a strange sense of humor.
He thanked Her now, recalling the flow of energy at his rebirth as a higher life form. The feline credo of self-belief asserted itself from the very beginning and his crew accepted the change as if it had always been so. His voice remained as the only vestige of his former life and he always enjoyed meeting new crew to see their reaction.
If only cats had the full human spectrum of color vision, life would be perfect.
He would happily trade one of his nine lives for that and consider it a small price to pay. That and the occasional hairball; he added under his breath in case anyone heard him. Lighting arrangements in the cramped, comfortless bridge now consisted of glow paint and a backup system consisting of several jars of Lupan Bright Beetles. The deep silence continued, brittle and all too easy to break