On Little Cat Feet – 02 (Crossroads)

“WHAT THE F-” shouted McIlheny, who was bringing up the rear, as the door closed behind them like nothing was wrong. Zach, leading the group, wheeled and shushed him. “Keep your voices down! We don’t know where the thing is,” he hissed at the others.

The Arboretum aboard the USS Sausalito was normally a quiet, tranquil place, where one could escape the hustle and bustle aboard the ship and get a moment’s respite among nature from around the galaxy. Now, shrouded in fog and damp, steamy heat, the stillness in the air felt eerie and oppressive. The crewmates proceeded cautiously down the path, phasers at the ready in case something large and orange suddenly lunged at them from the dense foliage that surrounded them. As they crept along, they were visually scanning for anything unusual that might show the presence at some point of the creature Khanda had described: a broken branch here, a shred of fabric from a Starfleet uniform there, occasionally what might be a footprint on the dirt path.

Eventually they came to a T-shaped intersection, and Zach raised a hand to halt the team. “Mac, take Jonesy and go left. Cowboy, you’re with me.”

McIlheny nodded and patted Robin on the shoulder. “Let’s go, lass,” he whispered, “I’ve an office down this way. We can check the computer for signs of big orange monsters.”

“That’s reassuring,” Robin semi-sarcastically whispered in reply. “Why didn’t you say anything about this office?”

“I forgot. What can I say, I’m old and I’ve slept since then.”

Zach rolled his eyes. “Let us know if anything shows up on your displays then, can you do that, Mac?”

“Aye, Commander,” grinned McIlheny, and he quickly steered Robin down the left side of the intersection, muttering to her, “Got a temper, that one, don’t he?”

Shaking his head after them, Zach turned to Andy. “Right, let’s go.”

Taking the right side of the path, the two men moved slowly and carefully, keeping their eyes open for anything that seemed strange or broken or just plain wrong. Which, unfortunately, was most everything; even the signs directing visitors to different sections of the Arboretum looked wrong, half-obscured in the dim, misty light. “We should go back and explore these side paths,” Andy suggested, his voice low and flat. “It could be down one of them.”

“I know. We’ll check them out on the way back to the entrance-” Zach froze, holding up his hand to stop Andy. One of the signs was broken and askew, splinters scattered on the path along with leaves and twigs. “Look at this, though.” He gently plucked a tuft of fluff off a branch at about eye level to the tall XO and held it out to Andy. It was orange.

“Yikes.”

Zach nodded. “At least we know it went this way. Keep your eyes open,” he said, starting off again.

Meanwhile, McIlheny and Robin moved quickly down their own side of the path, looking nervously around them. Abruptly Robin broke the silence, her voice a murmur. “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.”

McIlheny jumped slightly and glowered at her. “What kind of nonsense is that?”

“It’s from an old movie. They’re walking down a path through the woods like we are, looking out for monsters, and the girl says, ‘Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!’ like there’s lions and tigers and bears hiding in the woods that are gonna jump out and eat them. And they kinda start skipping down the path, sing-song like, going ‘Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!’ until a lion jumps out of the woods and threatens them. Except he’s a scaredy cat and starts crying when the girl shouts at him.”

“Not a chance we’ll run into a scaredy-cat monster,” growled McIlheny. “Lions and tigers and bears.”

“Oh my,” finished Robin.

They finally reached the office that the arborist kept in the Arboretum; thankfully it was in one piece. Evidently whatever it was hadn’t come down this way. “Right, lass, here we are. Have a seat and let’s start going over the scans of the paths and such.” McIlheny pushed a few buttons, and the images on the various screens started going rapidly backwards. “We’ll go back an hour or so, then start lookin’ for any funny business.”

“Roger, Mac.”

On the other side of the Arboretum, Zach and Andy’s task was becoming easier, as the number of broken branches, debris, and now tracks they were encountering increased the deeper they went. Coming across something of a flurry of tracks in the dirt, Zach stopped and knelt down to examine them. “I’m no tracker, but that looks like a standard-issue boot.”

“Khanda?” asked Andy. “Think it was him?”

“Yeah, most likely. And this…” Reaching out with a finger, the XO traced the outline of one of the other tracks. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear that’s a paw print.”

Andy’s eyes went wide. “Captain Mruuras? Or… something else?”

A blood-curdling yowl startled both men; out of the trees a long, clawed arm and hand lashed out and would have slashed Zach’s face open if he hadn’t been kneeling on the ground. Yelling, Andy aimed his phaser at the spot in the trees and fired as the arm rapidly retreated. “Did I get it? I don’t think I got it,” he gasped, terrified. “Did you see it?”

Zach stood, pointing his phaser in the same direction. “No, but it’s in there somewhere!” he said, diving into the trees. Silence, then the sound of phaser fire fell flat in the dead, mist-shrouded air.

In the office, Robin was getting bored. Until…

“Wait, stopstopstop! What’s that?” She started tabbing the recording forward slowly until she saw Khanda appear on screen. Suddenly a huge creature charged at him, slashing his uniform open with long, sharp claws; dropping the tea mug, Khanda fell, then scrambled to his feet and ran, with the creature in hot pursuit. Robin stopped the playback on the image of the huge whatever-it-was. As McIlheny rushed over, Robin pointed at the screen. “There it is.”

Pushing up his glasses, McIlheny studied the creature on the screen. “That’s over by the Caitian section – look, there’s the sign.”

Robin stared. “The Captain…”

McIlheny straightened and tapped his comm link. “Zach, lad, Mac here. You’re not going to believe this… It’s a Kzinti.”

Zach’s voice, ragged and panting, responded.

“I know…”

(to be continued)