She
lay on her side in bed, her cheek resting on the upper portion of her right
arm as the first rays of Third Earth's dawn glowed through the lace curtains
of her window.From this position,
she watched the broad orange back of her bedmate move lightly to the rythm
of his breathing.
Tygra
was not constructed like the males of Cheetah Clan.They
were lank and tall, with graceful movements and eloquent speech.They
were a race of poet warriors, artists in both life and love.Tygra
was broad shouldered and large, designed for power.His
keen intellect was imminently sensible, with no space in it for artistic
endeavor.
She
had taken him into her bed and her body yestereve, and she had moaned and
writhed and cried out in all the right places during the act.It
was a performance, to her mind, so tranparent that she was forced to question
the tiger's "keen intellect" for not seeing through it.Either
that, or he had not cared she derived no pleasure from their lovemaking.
She
chose to doubt his mind; she did not believe she could bear it if it were
the latter.
Cheetara
slipped from the bed quietly, leaving the tiger to rest.She
took her clothing and equipment to the washroom and dressed there.She
slid quietly out of the chamber and out of the Cat's Lair.It
was barely a mile from their doorstep to the edge of the desert.She
strolled along slowly, struggling to keep her mind on her exercises, and
off thoughts of...other things.
She
came to the region where the vegetation began to thin, the earth to become
harder and dryer.The summer sun
beat harshly down, warming her body.She
stood silently, eyes closed, gathering herself, then began an easy, loping
jog, letting her blood flow, her pulse gradually rise.She
proceeded thus for about ten minutes, moving further into the wasteland
where Mumm-Ra's pyramid lay.There
she stopped, turning away from the rising sun.She
stood for a moment, finding her focus, and began to run.
Forty
miles per hour.Her enlarged heart
began to beat more slowly, but with greater force, allowing the maximum
cargo of oxygen to be absorbed at her lungs and delivered to her muscles.
She
remembered the sound of him groaning into her ear as he'd spilled his seed
within her.She felt the tips of
his fangs penetrate her shoulder, not deeply, just enough to break the
skin, to draw blood.He hadn't asked
her to receive his mark, had just assumed she would. Damn him.
She
remembered Panthro, at work on the Thundertank as she'd walked through
the vehicle bay on her way to the front entrance.He
was not as direct or forceful as Tygra, his clumsy advances mainly taking
the form of favors: hers was the first water hookup, the first room equipped
with electric lights.All the while,
she'd told herself she wasn't using him, that his gifts were his responsibilty,
not her own.
He'
d seen the mark; she'd seen the hurt in his eyes.He'd
turned his attention back to the 'tank, slamming the tools around loudly,
as unable to vocalize his pain as he was his desire.
She
knew she'd been lying to herself.She
was the only breeding-age female among them, Wilykit being still two years
away from sexual maturity.How long
would it be before they were killing each other over her?Or
would they want to pass her from bed to bed like a borrowed pillow?How
much of her dignity and pride would she have to surrender to keep peace
among them?
Fifty
miles per hour.A clear nictating
membrane slid reflexively across the surface of her eyes, preventing both
injury and vision-obscuring tears.
She
had always wanted children, from the time she had been one herself.Thundercat
races could not cross-breed, the genetics of each subspecies were too specific.She
would never know the joy of feeling her cubs growing in her belly, the
pride of delivering her offspring to her mate for their naming.
She
been walking through the lair at night, once again unable to sleep.As
she'd passed by the hall leading to the kittens' chamber, she'd heard muffled
cries.There in the hall stood Wilykit,
framed in silver moonlight from the window, leaning heavily against the
wall.Her face was buried in her
hands; her small shoulders shook.
Cheetara
had reached for those shoulders, had tried to gather the grieving kitten
to her.But Kit had pulled away,
striking at her hands, screaming "Don't touch me!You're
not my mother!I hate you, I hate
you!"The kitten had turned and raced
down the hallway to her room, slamming the door behind her.
Cheetara
had returnedto her own room then,
and wept for hours.
Seventy
miles per hour.Glucogen stored in
her liver was converted to simple glucose, delivered and burned at an incomprehensible
rate.The oxygen load was supplemented
by the alien nanotechnology that flowed with the blood in her veins, Jaga's
Gift of the Red Eyes.
She
was standing on the bridge of the ship at his side.The
aged Lord Defender of Thundera took no notice of her, his unwavering gaze
locked on the spectacle outside the viewport.His
stony face remained impassive as his homeworld and everything he'd dedicated
his life to preserving was annihlated by the traitorous earth.
She
looked up at the tall Puma, this hero, this living legend who, alongside
Lord Claudis, had broken the Mutant stranglehold on the Thundercats.Veteran
of a thouand battles, hero of a hundred campaigns, his name was a by-word
among his people, spoken with awe and reverence.
Now
he stood and watched as everything he loved was consumed, first by the
exploding world they fled, then by the Mutant armada waiting in ambush.She
watched the tears that flowed down his regal face, and realized then that
no amount of struggle, no effort, no trial is ever so completely successful
that all progress could not be swept away by cruel, mindless, merciless
chance.
Ninety
miles per hour.
The
Lair's computer system was finally operable.She'd
taken on the task of transferring the records from their vessel to the
new system.As the data scrolled
along on it's way to electronic cold storage, she'd sat lazily by the monitor,
watching the text on the screen with half an eye.
Ninety-One
miles per hour.
Any
other Thundercat might have missed it completely, but a Cheetah's nervous
system functioned differently, more reflexively.A phrase sprang out of
the blur of characters, lodging in her conciousness like a vision seen
during a thunderstorm, illuminated and burned into the retina by the flash
of lightning.She struck the keys,
halting the passage of data, then scanned backwards up the screen.After
a moment, she found what she was looking for.
Ninety-two
miles per hour.
"Secondary
Long-Range Navigational System" it said.She
read down the list of instructions, uncomprehending, then read it again.After
the third reading, she began to understand.
Ninety-three
miles per hour.
The
escape ship had possessed a backup system to the one destroyed in the Mutant
assault.
Ninety-four
miles per hour.
Jaga
did not have to die piloting them most of the way to Third Earth.
Ninety-five
miles per hour.
He'd chosen
to.
Ninety-six
miles per hour.It was not exhaution
that would stop her; Cheetah endurance was legendary.Rather,
it was heat, building up in her body faster than she could disperse it.Just
over two miles at top speed, a limit she'd already crossed.Now,
each additional second, every step more, increased the odds that when she
did
stop, her temperature would spiral out of control, sending her into shock
and heat stroke.Brain damage.Death.
And
there it was again, in the back of her mind, that voice that urged her
not
to
stop, to keep running until her blood boiled in her veins, her nervous
system failed, and her body fell across the desert in a spray of blood,
torn flesh and broken bone...
Ninety-seven
miles per hour.
Her
people were dead...
Ninety-eight
miles per hour.
Her
world was dead...
Ninety-nine
miles...
And
then she was slowing, stopping, dropping to her knees in the desert sands,
her breath burning her throat as she drew and expelled it in great sobbing
gasps.
But
when the gasping stopped, the sobbing continued for a long, long time.
Continued...
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