Thanks to the hydroponic farms and their crops, these refugees lived in peace until we brought the Commonwealth Customs Office at their door. It was Ali’s next apprehension that I reassured the best I could: “Beeks’ observed a military probe fly over the energetic vault a few hours ago. The asteroid cluster is dense enough to hide in. But it’s only a matter of time before they see through the subterfuge.”

  Ali let out a laugh of exhaustion. “Give me a break! They’re that mad at us?”

  “Ali Mary Angel Koviràn,” I replied, articulating with care each syllable of her first and last names. “You ejected their captain by the Kitty’s airlock.”

  She stammered out inaudible excuses that turned into justifications far too quickly: “—and I don’t like uniforms. And I hate when corrupted goons steal my precious FIDs. Wait a minute—screw you, furry ball! Your gaslighting butt was the one controlling the airlock! You spaced her!”

  Slightly unimportant detail. We could debate until dinner; it didn’t change the fact that the Interceptor and its corrupt crew were craving for revenge.

  “We gotta focus on basic fixes before luring them away as quickly as possible with the ship. Even going back to UCB territory or reaching a Techno-moon if we must,” concluded Ali, her gaze back on the miniature constellations of our host, shaped like a dove. In the Costcan slave-dialect, Yaan-ze meant Columbia.

  “We’ll find a way. Let’s check on the Kitty first.”

  Seconds later, we met Beek-sun at the barn’s entrance. The one-armed teenager reassured us about the repair progress. The Swallow would be functional within a few days as they had plenty of pieces to spare. The main technical problem concerned the cooler’s synthesis—the Blue, which they didn’t have in stock.

  He also hoped the Interceptor had turned back, but the presence of the Customs officers overhead didn’t upset him all that much. “We’ve been hunted for half of our existence,” he explained, brushing his copper hair. “That doesn’t change anything in our daily life.”

  “I’ve been through this,” said Ali. “And I know the need to stay hidden without simpletons blowing up our cover…”

  Beek-sun tapped her shoulder with his only valid hand and reassured her: “The village doesn’t see you as troublemakers at all.”

  “But—”

  “Let’s get dinner instead. Today’s a very special day!”

  A friend of the mutant, who lived on the other side of the lake and happened to be passing through the hamlet, joined us as we made our way back to their home to celebrate a long-forgotten Thanksgiving. He had brought some succulent mollusks with shimmering cobalt chitin.

  Besides being a rather talented mechanic, Beek-sun turned out to be a true gun fanatic. His personal collection, which he showed us after the pecan pie, consisted of dozens of pieces stolen during his travels around Jupiter. I reckon the sight of this young John Rambo, waving a baseball bat with an ammunition belt as his only clothing and a rusty heavy machine gun clipped at his stump, was quite awesome.

  Yet, I preferred the company of Yaan-ze. Receiving strokes and hugs all day long greatly surpassed the testosterone demonstrations of the other two hooligans. I didn’t know why, but everything was put in perspective with Yaan-ze. How nice it was to take a nap on her belly while she listened to “heavy metal music” or further loud noises on her record player. Maybe I felt more like a cat and less like a bounty hunter. Humans couldn’t be all that bad, after all.

  “Why were you running from the Commonwealth, anyway?” she asked me as we both read books in the gallery while Ali slept upstairs. “Aren’t you some kind of private cops?”

  “Bad decisions were made,” I simply answered.

  Yaan-ze folded her glasses and put them on the table by the cold teapot. “Hum. Do they know about her?”

  I paused, before closing a profane English translation of Germinal. “What do you mean?”

  “Ali. She’s kinda special, right?” Smart kid. “Healing her was easy, particularly when you don’t need to. Even her tattoo grew back.”

  “That’s because it’s printed using a strange alloy.”

  “And embroidered with her self-regenerating cells and muscles. Incredible. I recognized the symbol on it. The strange Japanese sigil. From the factory we all escaped five years ago.”

  “I beg your pardon. The factory… was a Monsutā’s factory?” My heart stopped. I realized I said too much.

  Yaan-ze pondered. “Big Bad M? Rings a bell. I read a few articles about Pr. Noboru Monsutā in old newspapers in the barn. But nah. Our plant was more of a refurbishing hub than a real factory back then when we were brought from Costcoland. All I know is that it was Chinese owned. Not Japanese. And under water. I remember a lot of water. Which is weird, there is not much water around Jupiter.”

  Chinese-owned? Could have been the plant which supplied the Emporium’s second-hand bioweapons. The Maiden would be thrilled to hear about that. If only she hadn’t disappeared.

  “Does this place still exist?” I asked.

  Yaan-ze shrugged. “Why wouldn’t it?” She returned to her book. I didn’t want to push it.

  “Lee! Yann-ze!” Beek-sun showed up by the stairs of the house. “Come!”

  “My dear boy, as you may notice, I’m still paralyzed and—”

  “You have to see this!” he pursued as I was carried to the barn.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. The Kitty was brand new! Because the Swallows were old UN ships, it was nearly impossible to find matching spare parts in most space highway garages. But here, on this tiny rock lost in the middle of nowhere, mutant kids restored my most precious belonging back to her former post-war glory.

  “So?” asked Beek-sun, opening out the repaired airlock’s door. “What do you—are you crying?”

  I couldn’t hold my tears, but I had to save face in front of those dirty humans: “The fresh paint is tickling my snoot.”

  “This morning, Yaan-ze insisted on keeping this one but the coral paint is the toxic Euro-made formula. Loaded with lead,” Beek-sun explained. “We can swap with the American blue—could be badass!”

  “Don’t you dare remove the pink coating!” his sister intervened.

  “Thi—this one is fine,” I mumbled. The coral paint was the Kitty’s soul. Not even our dad dared to change it.

  “Sure! You’re the boss, tomcat!” Beek-sun concluded, putting back on his protective mask.

  On the following evening, as the last load of Blue was synthesizing in the garage, Ali and I rested by the still radioactive lake. We listened to Yaan-ze playing on her roll-up silicone piano. A light mist embraced the orange sand shores. The bank, tinged red by tiny ripples from fluctuations in the reactor cycles.

  “Tell me Yaan-ze,” said Ali, properly cleaning Beeks-sun’s rusty machine gun. “Are you the youngest? I haven’t seen any children in the village.”

  “That’s because mutants can’t breed,” replied the teenager. “Chemical castration ordered by our masters in the corpo-kingdom. And the reactor’s radiation isn’t helping either.”

  “But what will become of the colony?”

  Yaan-ze then had an explanation that broke our hearts: “Nothing. But it doesn’t matter. Our life expectancy is succinct anyway. I could close my eyes on a shiny afternoon and never wake up…”

  “Whether some mercenaries or the Customs come to kill us tonight or tomorrow for a reward won’t make any difference to us. We’re free and happy! It might as well end this way,” said Beek-sun, who joined us after spending an hour washing his hand because of the fresh paint. He passed a slice of pumpkin pie he brought from the kitchen to Ali who, against all odds, refused.

  To be honest, I didn’t have an appetite either. Darwin be damned. Why do all the humans I could stand are doomed to die so quickly?

  “Stop talking about that, Beek! You’re spoiling the atmosphere!” Yaan-ze intervened before rolling up her musical instrument. “Come, Lee! Let’s finish our books, shall we? I also found an old collection of vinyl records in a big box cart!”

  Box cart! I love box carts!

  Yet there was something in this pastoral interlude that called Yggdrasil to mind—and I found no comfort in the thought.

  As always, my cat’s sixth sense was right. Despite the village’s best efforts, the Kitty wasn’t fully ready in time. On the fifth day, the menacing Falcon Interceptor entered the artificial environment. Its turbines tore off roofs and plantations on the outskirts of the hamlet.

  Yaan-ze, with whom I had gone to filter water from the ice well, quickly brought me back inside. My partner arrived shortly afterwards, telling us that Beek-sun disappeared to fetch some weapons from his storeroom.

  “They can’t know you’re here,” Yaan-ze said, covering up the deafening noise making the walls vibrate. “We’ll try to keep them away.” Her brother had returned with several of his friends. He had only been able to grab a simple revolver and his baseball bat. “I’m sure we can negotiate like we did the last time scavengers came,” Yaan-ze argued. “Hide here and trust us.” The teenager stroked my cheek and winked at me. I could only stay there, still immobilized in this velvet cushion.

  Ali immediately took me upstairs where Yaan-ze’s room was. My nose glued to the round window, we watched the scene. I’ve never been so scared in my entire life. And I didn’t even know why… unless, maybe… I really liked Yaan-ze.

  “An NCO we’ve never seen with half a dozen grunts,” Ali counted. “There must be at least that many inside the ship.”

  “Their Falcon looks badly damaged,” I remarked. “The communication system is barely holding up, the reactor’s running dry and their main machine guns are definitely out of action…”

  “Yeah. The crew, though…”

  All wore a personal armored red suit and a war rifle. These lobsters thought they were real soldiers. Nervousness moved up a rung when the tribe gathered around the ship. Each Customs officer held the mutant he was facing at gunpoint.

  Yaan-ze intervened. The commander approached her. While keeping her older brother away from her with a bayonet, this fake soldier caressed the teenage girl’s cheekbone. Her disgusting smile turned my stomach and Ali noticed it.

  “She told us to trust her,” she said despite the stress I felt in her voice. “We—”

  A shot rang out. The mutants were promptly repelled with a salvo fired at their feet. Beek-sun was jostled by a Jovian officer and kicked in the nose with a rifle butt.

  Yaan-ze was on the ground! Motionless!

  “Ali! Quick!” I cried.

  My partner bolted down the stairs. But when we were back outside, the ship crossed the dome’s ethereal border.

  “Too late!” Ali said.

  “They understood that you were in the colony!” One of his friends informed us. “Knowing you to be dangerous, they asked us to go looking for you to hand you over… and she refused.”

  Beek-sun crouched on the floor, fondling his sister’s hair. His face turned towards the firmament, cursing the stars. His warm tears fell into the sand. Where the blood hadn’t yet flowed, they dyed it red.

  “They killed her…” I meowed.

  “Everything’s going to be ok…” Beek-sun sobbed before grabbing my legs then holding me tight. It was the first time he’d ever done that. The need for a hug, though, was mutual.

  “I’m sorry,” Ali apologized, taking the words out of my mouth.

  Behind Beek-sun, a group delicately carried home the body of the young mutant.

  “What did I tell you yesterday? It doesn’t—” Beek-sun started before cutting off with another sob, he gathered himself before resuming: “It doesn’t matter. Yaan-ze died here, under this beautiful dome, defending her friends! Isn’t that nobler than perishing from a lymphoma in a nickel vat? Isn’t that the best she could do?”

  “We’ll help you get rid of these scumbags,” my copilot swore.

  Beek-sun refused with a wave of his hand. “No. From what I understand, they don’t know your identity. Take the opportunity to leave or you will be poached too for the rest of your life!”

  To hell with humans’ pride in this system!

  “Is the Kitty functional enough?” my partner asked curtly.

  Beek-sun put me on the ground before answering: “Affirmative! In much better condition than the smoking wreck of these guys…”

  “So, let’s get these rascals away from here,” she said. “It won’t be easy, but it’s a fight we can win, unlike a shoot-out in the middle of the village. It’s our fault. Gotta fix it.”

  “Then it’s a farewell I guess…” Beek-sun noted, hugging us.

  Back in the house, I said goodbye to Yaan-ze. It was hard but I owed her that.

  Two hours later, Ali and I were aboard the Kitty.

  “The reactor’s gradient looks good. The fresh welds will hold until Jupiter if we don’t do anything wrong or idiotic,” I said as the control computer gave its assessment of the system.

  “We go for it,” Ali answered while calibrating the railgun’s power supply. The wound at her neck had reopened despite Yaan-ze’s stitches. Yet my copilot didn’t care. “Fly close enough to their fucking ship when we see them. They’ll have to chase us. And if necessary, we’ll zigzag through the cluster to lose them.”

  “What if they require backup?”

  Grief fell silent; hate learned how to speak. All I got for an answer was the railgun arming tap.

  We left the electromagnetic dome and its artificial atmosphere. It was really a remarkable job. On the other side, the exiles’ asylum mimicked a simple crater. But we didn’t have time to be ecstatic. The control computer quickly alerted us to an enemy’s presence on the main monitor.

  “Take the bait,” Ali prayed. “Come on! You’re here for us, ain’tcha?”

  We swerved towards the Interceptor to shake it, and it immediately ignited its turbines. Shortly after, the Kitty slalomed between two drifting celestial bodies before diving straight over its target. The Swallow flew like never before. Everything seemed so smooth. Beek-sun clearly resurrected her.

  “I’m going back to send them a 40mm squirt and quickly dust off!” I said. “It will be for Yaan-ze.”

  I looked up at the ceiling. The constellation of the dove I brought shone above the front cockpit windows. In a squeak, the two machine guns of the Kitty armed their ammo belts.

  “Keep the ammo!” Ali shouted from her post. “They’re gone!”

  “What? How come?”

  “Watch your six! They’re heading back towards the crater!”

  The instruments confirmed the enemy ship’s new position. “Scums!” I cried out. “Why are they letting us leave?”

  “Wanna bet? Their little risky vendetta no longer interests them,” said my partner through her mic. “This band of psycho-murderers found an easier target to bully and earn corpo-freebies for it!”

  That meant, despite our escape, Beek-sun and his tribe were once again in danger.

  An explosion prevented me from answering. The Kitty had been clipped beneath the hold. But it wasn’t a shell hit. It was a floating mine! Radar and IR detection were ineffective for such small bodies. The Interceptor had left us surprise gifts all over the perimeter. “I can see another one just below us! Ali? We will be toast if I keep moving! We’re trapped here!” These tricksters thought we would take advantage of this to flee and run straight into their explosive charges.

  Ali had turned back. She boldly climbed to the cockpit from the Swallow firing post. “What should we do?” she asked, looking for mines through the windows.

  I glanced at the celestial pebbles upon my head. “They killed Yaan-ze.”

  My partner smiled. She came by my pilot’s chair and kissed me on the forehead. She knew I was sad; an emotion I would never imagine feeling for a human—well. Except for her.

  “The Interceptors have reflective plates at the front but a light shield at the rear around the main turbines. Is that right?” she pursued, going back to the gunnery station.

  “They’re birds of prey. Not designed to be hunted,” I replied. “The Kitty is undetectable to their equipment, which gives us the element of surprise.”

  “Excellent! Let’s fry those mother—sorry! Language.”

  “Motherfuckers!”

  “Lee!”

  Fuming with rage, I made a loop, brushing against some mines without activating them. The swallow was chasing the falcon. In a heartbeat, our ship plummeted towards the illusory veil the steel bird of prey just passed through it. A few rockets had broken off from its wings in the attack position.

  “Fire in the hole!” Ali shouted as we entered the atmosphere.

  Enemy torpedoes destroyed a farmhouse, but this was their last damage. Our railgun and machine-gun fire blew up half of the Interceptor’s turbines and it stalled. As we passed over it, it braked suddenly and hovered.

  “They’re landing!” I shouted to my partner.

  She was back at my side in the cockpit, her jetpack from Yggdrasil in her arms: “Imma jump. Take it out before it pulls off.”

  “You’re wigging out, Ali! I’m not sure if this old equipment works,” I mumbled. I heard the airlock alarm as this lunatic leaped out for the most carefree glide in our history.

  Anyway, she gave me instructions. Well… it was just some friendly advice. I was the captain, and I didn’t take orders, let alone from a human XO. Regardless, it didn’t matter! I had a mission to fulfill. And it included the two things I liked most in the world besides eating: flying and slaughtering homo sapiens.

  I quickly engaged a spin that stretched my vertebrae and removed any residual pain. I felt the blood rising to my ears and my guts weighing down on my stomach which hadn’t finished its morning crumpets.

  The Interceptor had unloaded its thugs and was again in visual contact just below. I fired a salvo, but the 40 were unable to pierce the hull.

  I couldn’t stop my course and stalled towards the lake. The pilot appeared to be smart enough to let me conclude my maneuver and rushed behind me. We were in the same configuration as two days before, but this time I was alone. And as an alarm rang, the control computer warned me that my beautiful Swallow was being locked. “Well… that’s not reassuring!” I shouted to myself. A countdown had appeared on the left CRT screen. A Ludgren warhead has been launched from the Interceptor. This meant a death sentence. Even worse; it would chip my beautiful Kitty’s coating off. I couldn’t allow that! I had to dodge at the last second.