The cat from another world

"Out, marines!"

The voice from the speaker was clear and terse. We threw the door open and leaped out, checking the perimeter but not expecting to see anything -- and we didn't. Lister and I scanned the tree line nearby while the rest moved up the hill toward a rocky outcrop to set up camp. Our mission: set up a base camp for the exploration party that would arrive a week from now. Not a mission I was excited about. Not only did we have to haul our asses all the way to a planet three weeks away from civilization, we weren't even tasked with anything fun.

"It's an important mission." they said. "You're laying the ground work for important research." they said.

Well, if it was so damned important, why couldn't the researchers set up their own camp? Why couldn't they wait a week, at least, so we could catch the live feeds from the Omega Series finals? And why send us anyway -- why did they need a squad of fully trained space marines to make a base camp? This little planet wasn't even inhabited. Just plants and animals, introduced after the planet had been terraformed. Part of the colonization project, they told us. Building stepping stones, for mankind to spread out among the stars. Yeah, great. Nothing built yet, not even a building where we could wash or relax. Apparently, this was only the third expedition to set foot here.

"Hey, Beck! C'mere, gimme a hand with this crate!" I heard Kudry yell from the drop ship.

"Yeah, yeah..." I replied and made my way back down the slope.

"What are you so pissy about today?" she asked as we were hauling the supply crate up the hill. She had picked up on my mood earlier, but not bothered mentioning it until now.

"Well, for one thing, I'm missing out on the finals..."

"Yeah, well, you can watch 'em later."

"Sure, after everyone's told me the result. Secondly, we're told to build a camp, which is so exciting..."

"So you got an easy gig, what's the problem?"

"... thirdly, breakfast this morning sucked, and the commander's cat pissed on my gear just before we left..."

"So that's what that smell is. I thought it was just your usual stink getting worse."

"Yeah, yeah..."

"Damn, that's funky."

"... and also, we're babysitting that... what did Cap call it?"

"Xenobiologist."

"Yeah, the professor lady. On a mission that anybody could... I mean, why send marines to do builders' work?"

"Well, you said it. It's the professor lady."

"What about her?"

"Apparently, she's a cousin or daughter of a general or somebody. Someone high up. Insisted she have an escort."

"Yeah, protection detail, I get it. But what's there to protect her from? Rock soldiers? Gun-sprouting trees?"

"Will the two of you shut up?" Moreau interrupted. "I've just finished setting up the network, now get that stuff over here so I can connect with HQ."

Kudry and I put the crate down and opened it so that Moreau could get the equipment he needed. Then we went back down to the drop ship, where Lister and Williams were unloading more stuff for us to carry. It was times like these that I longed for our visits to the more gravity-heavy environments. At least then they'd equip us with machinery so we didn't have to walk all up and down the place. This place had a gravity about 0.8 that of Earth, but the atmosphere was a bit thinner, so work felt harder. Given that the camp we had to build was going to house two dozen people, we had quite a lot to set up. Lightweight buildings were to be constructed, equipment set up inside them ... There were only six of us for the time being, so it took all day getting it to where it needed to be just for us to be able to sleep under a roof.

That evening, after many hours of hard, tedious work, we finally got some proper chow. We had managed to erect the general superstructure of the would-be building, and lit up the heater so that we could get a proper hot meal. My mood improved a bit after finding out that 'the professor lady' was actually a pretty decent cook.

"This is pretty good -- what is it?" I asked.

"You do not want to know. And thanks." she replied and smiled as we dug into our bowls of whatever it was.

We engaged in a bit of small talk until Moreau brought up the professor's mission.

"So, you didn't want to wait for the others, professor... er ... Sorry, I forgot, what was your name again?"

"Gupta. Sai Gupta."

"Right. You had to come here early?"

"There is something in particular I would like to study."

The professor spoke eloquently, enunciating her words clearly, unlike us grunts.

"Something that's about to leave the planet or something?" Kudry joined in.

"No." Gupta replied calmly. "It is an animal. Or to be precise: the behavior of an animal."

"What kind?"

"Panthraxi."

"Panth..."

"Panthraxi."

"What are they?"

"A species of cat. Hm... Sadly, during our last expedition we were not able to get any good images of them... something I hope to remedy, by the way ..." The professor picked up her tablet and started bringing up some data. "However ... they are similar to an animal called 'lion', a giant cat that went extinct on Earth a few thousand years ago." she said and brought up some pictures for us to look at.

"Woah..." Kudry said, widening her eyes.

We all took a look at the images of the impressive animals. Some of them showed the big cats in captivity, next to some people, giving us the scale of its size.

"How big?" Kudry asked the professor.

"Oh, easily as long as we are tall, and weighing about twice as much. Big differences between males and females, though. Enormous muscles, could throw you clear across the room. Anyway, big predator ... a machine for hunting and killing ... dominating the African savanna for millennia ... Sadly, no match for modern human weapons. The panthraxi are a bit smaller, not much."

She brought up more pictures of a a similar animal, but with a darker color

"This is a 'panther' -- also extinct."

We looked over those images too, but I didn't see much of a difference apart from the color They were just gigantic cat-looking things, bigger than any of the tame ones I had seen -- including that fur ball our commander had insisted on taking aboard our cruiser before we set out.

"Imagine that taking a piss on your uniform, Beck!" Kudry said, causing laughter around the table.

"They can't be related, can they? Part of the terraforming procedure, using animals from Earth to populate the new planets?" Moreau asked, being the educated one among us.

"Well, they are, of course, but how close is the relation we do not know. This planet was terraformed quite some time ago, before the interplanetary war, and records are scarce. In any case they would have been genetically altered before they were introduced, so they will probably be quite different from the domesticated cats remaining on Earth."

"Alien cats!" Lister joked, making faces while the professor went on.

"Yes." Gupta agreed. "A separate species now, certainly. I am keen to see how large the differences between them and their ancestors have grown."

"They're ... dangerous, I take it?" Kudry asked rhetorically.

"Normally, yes. Very. We needed to be very careful during our last visit, which is why we hardly managed to get a look at them. They have claws and fangs with which to capture and kill their prey..."

"You said "normally"...?"

"Oh yes, they are not a threat to us right now. According to my research, this is their mating season, so they have other things on their minds. Fortunately, it will also make them easier to study, since they become less eager to hunt everything in sight."

Growing a bit bored with the discussion, I decided to turn in. We hadn't been able to build the racks yet, so we slept on mats on the ground. The professor sat up a while longer, talking to Kudry and Williams -- a veritable ladies' night. The guys all went off to sleep.

Over breakfast, Kudry was still talking about it.

"You should've stayed up a bit longer last night. The professor was just getting to the interesting parts."

"What was that?" I said, still a bit moody.

"The sex talk, man! The cats, remember? She seems to think that these kitties got this insane sex drive when they're in heat. Don't seem to care about eating, hunting or anything -- they just wanna fuck."

"Sounds cool."

"Yeah, they've got this cool mating call -- sounds like ... 'Mwaau... mwauu' and ..."

"Err... don't make them come over here, I'd rather not be shredded so soon after breakfast."

"... when they're in heat, they'll do almost anything to get laid, with pretty much anything."

"I know how they feel. I haven't gotten laid in months."

"Hey, I'll fuck you." Kudry shrugged casually. As she left the table, she added: "Just gotta get back to base and get that stench of cat piss washed off you first."

"Yeah, yeah..." I replied, dejectedly.

Kudry was actually pretty good in the sack -- we had done it a couple of times in the past to blow off steam. Patrolling through empty space in a Humboldt cruiser could get real boring at times, not to mention lonely. Seeing as around half the crew and a third of the marines were female, casual sexual encounters did happen fairly frequently. For me, though, it had been a while. I really could use some pussy right now ... maybe that was the real reason I was feeling so annoyed.

Or it could be the smell. She hadn't needed to remind me; it had gone from my mind for a while but once I started thinking about it, my nose once again picked it up. Damn, it stank. Seriously, why did that cat suddenly feel the urge to pee all over my stuff? Problem was, we didn't really have an ample supply of water nearby. Enough to drink, sure, but not to clean my otherwise serviceable uniform. That was one of the things we had to start mapping out: finding a water source nearby and getting ready to support a team of engineers building a pipeline to it. It would be needed if this place was going to grow into a small city within the next few years.

"Ready?" Moreau asked, having prepared his backpack for a hike.

"One sec." I replied, not yet having all my gear ready.

"You take Kudry and the professor, I will go down the hill with Lister, looking for that underground river the intel told us about." he continued, then turning to Williams: "You stay here, as we discussed earlier, yes? Get those provisions ready for later? And stay in touch with HQ, remember."

Williams gave a thumbs up without taking her eyes off the screen in front of her.

"Why is the professor coming, again?" I protested. "I thought we were just looking for water today."

"There are some small caves she says she wants to see on that hill where you're going. Apparently, there is a chance of finding some of those cats. There probably won't be any, this close to us ... but you may find some springs up there."

He turned to Lister and headed off, eager to get going. Unlike me, being stuck with babysitting duty. Eventually, though, I joined Kudry for our walk up the hill with professor Gupta.

After about half an hour, we reached a rocky outcrop near a steep wall. The ground seemed moist, as if there had been a small stream running here recently, so there might indeed be some springs up in these mountainous areas. We followed what seemed like a small depression in the ground upwards along the mountain wall, until we reached one of the caves the professor was interested in.

"Let us go in!" she said, eagerly, but was stopped by Kudry's firm hand grabbing her backpack.

"Hold up. We go first, you stay here." she said, pulling her sidearm just in case.

She didn't seem to need it. The cave we entered was wide, not too deep, and didn't contain anything threatening. No hostile creatures, no huge cats. I could hear the professor's disappointment when she spoke. Kudry and I, though, were relieved.

Not only that, we also found a spring a bit further in, by the back wall. Not a huge one, but there was water dripping down from the ceiling, into a small pool. That probably meant there was a source above us somewhere.

"We'll look for that later. Now let's have a break here, away from the sun." I suggested, getting a nod from Kudry while the professor kept focusing on the chance of finding traces of the animals. Gupta started looking around the cave for possible prints or animal dung, while Kudry and I set up our little cooker over by the pool. A few minutes later, we had a ration block ready. We got our trays ready and divided it up, and were just heading back to the entrance of the cave when we heard an unsettling noise.

"Woawwwvvvv..."

"What was that?" Kudry froze.

There was a short cry from the professor, followed by a thud near the entrance. Before we knew what was going on, Kudry was also thrown to the ground, food trays flying all over the place.

"Woah!" I exclaimed as I looked over to where the women had been standing. Standing at the cave entrance was the silhouette of a huge beast leaning over the body of the professor.

"Moaaawwww..."

"Shit! Beck, shoot it!" Kudry yelled, grasping her arm in a manner clearly showing it had been injured.

"No..." Gupta moaned, apparently alive. "We are... on its territory..."

"Shoot... shoot..." Kudry kept whispering between clenched teeth, clearly getting more and more distracted by her injury.

For some reason, I didn't draw my weapon. The big cat moved slowly towards me, head down, eyes fixed on me, but I still didn't draw. My senses were on high alert, heart thumping, adrenaline shooting through my bloodstream. I should have been panicking, but my mind was actually completely focused. I had a clear feeling that this thing was quicker than anything I could imagine -- making sudden moves just didn't seem like a good idea. I also noticed that since it was moving towards me and I was slowly backing away, I was effectively drawing it away from the others. A crazy idea popped into my head.

"Kudry." I said calmly, so as not to upset the feline. "Get the professor. Take her back to camp. Now."

"What... are you crazy...?"

"Do it now, while it's focused on me. Heeere, kitty, kitty... Mwaau... meoww... c'mere..."

The cat kept its gaze on me while moving sideways, taking its time getting closer. I felt like it was measuring me up, trying to assess if I were a threat. I definitely didn't want to provoke it.

"Beck, you're gonna get... I'm not..." she stumbled to her feet. Her arm was in bad shape. The cat turned its head towards her, I tried to keep its attention.

"Don't argue. Here, kitty... meoow... mwaauu... Go now, get her back to the camp."

"But..."

"That's an order, marine!" I said in a calm, clear voice. Kudry and I were the same rank, but technically, I was senior. In any case, she knew I was right. We had orders to protect the professor. Kudry managed to get to her and help Gupta on her feet, but there was no way she could come back and help me without endangering the professor in the process. Having thought about it for a few seconds and coming to the same conclusion I had, she grudgingly moved out of the cave.

"We'll come back for you." she simply said before slipping out.

The cat looked back towards them for a few seconds as they moved, while I kept trying to keep its attention.

"Here, here, look here ... maaooww..."

"Wahh..." it hissed at me, but didn't seem too aggressive. Its tail flickered back and forth. Maybe I could get my gun out of my holster if I moved slowly... maybe I could sneak around in a circle and make my way to the entrance without making it angry... Gupta had said something about being on its turf -- maybe it just wanted me out of here?

"There you go, nice kitty..."

It came closer. I started to get really nervous. How close could I let it get before I had to try defending myself? I really didn't want to risk provoking it, but at the same time I felt like I was approaching a point of no return.

"Mwaaaooooo..." it cried. A long, high-pitched sound. Still coming towards me, slowly, but surely. I was approaching the back wall, running out of options. I was still trying to move along the wall towards the entrance, but it was really beginning to cut me off. It was just a couple of feet away now, giving me a real look at its size. While still on all fours, its head was about the height of my chest. Damn, this thing was huge. I peeked down at its paws, getting a good look at its long claws in the process. Those things could literally tear me to pieces ... but it still hadn't attacked me, giving me hope that my tactic was in fact working.

As it came up to me, it started sniffing my clothes. At first I thought it might be trying to figure out if I could be eaten, but then I remembered what my uniform really smelled of...

"Ah... you smell that, don't you... Yeah, I got peed on..."

"Mooooaaw..."

"Yeah, I know, it smells bad ... or I guess to you it doesn't ..." I kept talking calmly while still trying to move along the wall. The cat wasn't having it, though. It came up to me and made me freeze as it lifted its paw and nudged me. Woah it was strong. That was just a little nudge and it pushed me right up against the wall.

"So you don't want me to go that way, huh...? Can I go the other way, maybe? No..?"

The cat started moving back and forth, leaning its heavy body onto me and pushing me into the wall. It felt like it was trying to crush me. As it passed for the third time, I started pushing back.

"Okay, you have to stop doing that..."

"Mwaaaaoooooww..."

I took at step away from the wall and started moving. The cat let me move, but kept moving around me in tight circles, stroking itself against me as I stepped forward towards the middle of the cave. As it passed, my hands moved through its dark, glistening fur. It felt soft and moist, quite a nice feeling. Without realizing it, I started petting and stroking at its body while it moved against me. It really started to look like one of the normal house cats I had been around before ... except this one was about fifty times the size and could kill me if it wanted to. It didn't seem to want to, though. It just kept meowing and purring, stroking itself against me. Maybe it was the smell that calmed it... maybe it thought I was another cat... maybe...

"Mwaauuuu...."

The cat turned around and backed up against me. It actually pushed against my body, while at the same time lowering its head and chest towards the ground.

"What are you..."

"Mwaauuuuuu...."

"Oh..."

It suddenly dawned on me. It was a female. It was in heat. I was stinking of a male cat's urine. This wasn't aggression. It was ... mating behavior

"Right... That's a different kind of situation to be in." I exclaimed, realizing that although my life might not be in as imminent a danger as I had thought, I had no idea how to get out of this one. The cat clearly wasn't going to let me go any time soon, but at least the immediate threat had gone. Or so I thought.

As I was taking my time trying to figure out what to do, the cat got more aggressive. It kept wandering around me, pushing and nudging, not stopping until I started pushing back. Once I did, it would turn its back to me and flicker its tail back and forth while it showed me its backside. As it moved aside its powerful tail, I could see its anus right underneath its base. Further down... another opening. A slit, somewhat pinkish, between two powerful, furry hind legs. I guessed: the pussycat's ... pussy.

When I tried moving away, it would immediately return to pushing and stroking itself up against me, not allowing me to leave. After repeating this several times, it also started pawing at me. The claws ripped my clothing as if they were made of paper, making me swallow nervously.

"Look, don't claw at me, okay..?" I said, pushing it away quite firmly.