The Future That Never Was--KITTY KITTY by Quentin Raffoux

Author:Quentin Raffoux
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Space Pickle

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#22 WRATH OF THE CLOUD RAIDER

Mercury and Venus had been nicknamed the “Planets of Hell” because of their proximity to our star. Of course, establishing sustainable colonies there appeared to be impossible. Yet, the humans being as pragmatic as they are, decided a while ago to turn them into factory-worlds; building foundries, robotic production lines and storage platforms of insane dimensions on their searing surface. After decades of outrageous exploitation, the two Inner Planets turned into nothing more than enslaved worlds disfigured by highly artificial canyons similar to deep scars, and horizon-breaking synthetic rings. Made of metal, the latter displayed millions of thin panels which semiconductors collected the solar storms’ fury. Their purpose? To feed in energy—alongside geothermal power—the mega-factories and the few highly polluted cloud-cities.

Earth possessed an analogous ring, but served a different goal. Under Jimmy Carter’s presidency, the Technocratic Government had engaged in the recolonization of the Blue Planet. For that, the mess WW3 made had to be clean up and the high level of radiation taken care of to rebuild the entire atmosphere.

Years of research and engineering led to a gigantic technical wonder, wide as a starscraper, to be assembled in orbit. In addition to being financially draining, it never worked the way intended. Yet, being honest, it was still a pity to see it being pulverized by a burning ship.

“Wolverines!” A messy sloppy joe in hand, Ali savored her victory at the rail gun while lining up her obscure references to Patrick Swayze’s filmography.

Meanwhile, I painfully straightened the Kitty’s course to avoid hitting head-on one of the ring’s voltage converters. Despite my efforts, the right wing still grazed the flap of a large cylinder that crackled in the starry night.

“Don’t get too complacent!” I huffed as the temperature inside the cockpit reached 50 °C. “There are probably others around!”

“Man, I’m slammin’!” my partner exclaimed while joining me in the cabin to jump on her seat. Droplets of sweat flew from her long dirty hair. “How’s the others doing?”

A forced vertical loop brought my sapiens back against her copilot seat. Chilled, she grabbed a hazardous soda brick drawn by the violent deceleration. Once our flight trajectory stabilized, she turned on the Blaupunkt with a nudge, and the audiocassette crackled.

“We’re cooking without air-conditioning! Those weird drones had to ambush us at the worst moment!” I resumed, panting.

“Didn’t stop us from frying them,” Ali bragged. Her feet dancing on the dashboard, she bite her ship-made burger. “Ouch!”

“You okay?”

She massaged her stomach. “Feeling crampy again. But, whatever! The High Score is ours.”

“Do you think you’re in Space Invaders?” I couldn’t change my partner. And, trust me, I had contacted tech support many times. “Besides, I believe our time in the arcade irrevocably belongs to the past. Like our bounty hunting career, and everything else for that matter! We probably just attacked the Lunar forces!”

“Counterattack!” she corrected me, picking ground beef and onions from her hair.

It was true. The Kitty and Nora had laid hands on safe conduct and we were supposed to land on the Moon with Braun and the DIA.

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