He was not sure how long he had slept. The room, their den, was still lit and Patty was still on top of him, although he was now on his side. As soon as he stirred, she got up lazily, shifting just enough to stay on top. He glanced over to Rerra, who was awake and looking at her pad.

"Morning, Patty."

The kitten got up and stretched as only cats could. "Up already?"

He slowly sat up, allowing Patty to climb down gracefully. "Thank you, little guardian."

"I'm not little," she exclaimed.

"Oh, mighty Patty has reached her final size already."

"Not fair." Her tail went left and right, but she did not know how to reply.

"No, not fair. Honestly, I have no idea how tall a three-year-old is." He smiled. "I guess you're not short at all."

"I'm taller than Janet," and pointed to another kitten, closer to the other cats. So they made peace again.

He stood up fully, stretching and using it to glance around inconspicuously. The other kittens were no longer beside Rerra but sat around Eli. Tab and the other two young adults were also close by. Kit was not there, probably washing dishes. Only the clanmother was sleeping.

"Rerra," she said in a low voice and put his hand on her strong shoulder.

She twitched, from ears through her shoulders to the tail, and her fur rose. Only then did she notice him and relax. "Sorry, sleepy human. We had net for a few moments and I got some old messages. Nothing recent though, the data dump for the planet was newer."

"We should leave as soon as the clanmother wakes up. We take up half the room, you see how they are crowding in the other half."

"I'm here!" came from down below. Damn cat ears, Patty had heard everything.

"Patty, please go over to Eli for a moment. We want to have a grown-up talk."

Rerra had found the right words. Patty twisted her muzzle. "I'll be back!" But then she ran with great leaps to join the other kittens as if she had just been away for a moment.

"So what's on?"

"It seems that every Samul has gone into hiding. And there has been no further broadcast from Yala or any of the other members of the Torragh tribe. You know, the Ketcher who started this. And no recent fights."

"So you think it's safe outside?"

She shrugged. "As safe as it could be with failing life support and no authority."

"Everyone is lying low?"

"I think everyone important has left and now no one wants to be responsible for the mess. There are rumours aplenty, people complaining about no water or even no circulation. Too many, and that was days-old news."

"And you want to fix all that?"

She shrugged. "No, of course not. But maybe I can help. My shipyard authorisation may be good for something."

He shook his head. "So what next?"

"I can restore the cooling of the fusion core at the Ketcher clinic. Let's go there, maybe that can convince them."

"I thought Ketcher started this."

"They did. But it seems they lost too. Maybe fighting inside the Ketcher tribes."

"I don't like it."

She blew out. "Of course not. But you see those kittens? They could all die at the next failure. Space is always trying to kill you until you fight back."

He had never looked at it that way. He liked being in space, even though he had almost died from empty oxygen tanks, leaking seals or broken coils. "But there's maintenance."

"Nobody did any maintenance. Or why the neighbouring sector has been without power for days? All high-tier Samul escaped with the shuttles, and the lower tiers are surely hiding. And very few outside Samul worked for maintenance. The station needs the AIs who can tell anyone how to do maintenance. I learned it from them too. There are backups for sure. All I need is a terminal and maybe even my authorisation is enough. Or there are some workers from flight control or maintenance cooperating with Ketcher. And at least one master key should be with Ketcher. I have messaged my three coworkers who were still alive back then. But without net, no chance to find them."

"So?"

"I'll go to Ketcher, the clinic is only one level down. You wait here until"

"No, I won't. No way!"

"But you are a male and"

"I'm not a stupid weak male." Every ear and most heads turned to him. He bowed, then whispered again. "Come on, I bought the guns. Also, I cannot stay here!" He made a wide arm movement to the others who continued whatever they had done before his outburst.

Rerra sighed, but then smiled. "Maybe that can be to our advantage. Males and kittens first." She tucked her pad into her belt and stood too, took his hand and walked over to Eli.

"We're leaving for the Ketcher clinic."

Eli jumped to her paws, the kittens flying off her thighs and gathered around them. "No, don't leave," Patty protested already.

He looked down. "The clanmother asked me to leave soon. You are young, but to adult cats, a male like me can be very, very, er"

"Dichturbing," Eli came to his rescue. "And there wach fighting."

"So stay. Don't die!" The kitten tried her cutest face. Which was indeed very hard to resist.

He sighed and then did a crooked smile. "I will not die. No fighting for a while. And I have a gun." That was a mistake.

"Show" "A gun!" "I want to see, too." Now all the kittens were pleading. He looked at Eli who shrugged. Rerra opened another pocket of her utility belt and took out one gun. It was again so tiny in her furry hand. He took it from her and showed it to them. "It is a krati-gun, you will sleep when hit."

"A tranquillizer gun," Rerra corrected him, painfully reminding him of his lacking Standard vocabulary.

"If Marik gets a gun, then I can get one too!" Patty stood on her paw-tips.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

That statement told him a lot more about the status of male cats, and probably about their image of humans too.

But it was Rerra who rejected her first. "No Patty. When it is safe, we come back and then you can go with us."

"But kitten and males first!" an older kitten remarked.

"Julia is right, if a male can go out then I can go out too."

He was not sure how to fix this. "I am human. The rules are different for humans."

"Unfair!" Now all kittens complained.

He looked at Eli who seemed to enjoy his struggle with the kitten. But then she nodded. "No cat would kill a kitten or a male," she conceded. "But there are monchterch out there who might kill anything."

"But I guarded him when he slept. Unfair." There was another unspoken thing here. He briefly wondered, how much cultural misunderstanding just had happened without him noticing. But not for long, he was distracted by Patty who went down on all fours and ran a circle through the room and then left to the lobby. Likely sulking in the kitchen or the changing room, given what hatchlings would do on Fallerian.

Eli sighed. "Che ich right though. Uchually, we would guard malech or kittench if unchave."

"Eli, I understand but I am not a cat. In Fallerian we do not care if male or female. Only for, er, kittens." He took a deep breath. "And I apologize for all the trouble that I caused by coming here."

Eli nodded to the clanmother. "Pleache, it ich her to thank and apologiche."

"Then let me thank you for the food, that was your doing. This was one of the best meals that I had in my life."

"Then chtay for lunch." She got up, and with her also Kit and Tab rose, all of them with their ears flat on their heads and tails waving wildly. "We'll be in the kitchen."

Rerra put a hand on her shoulder and handed Eli the inhalator.

Eli inhaled without hesitation and passed it on to Kit. She shook her head that her mane was flying. "With or without, any chpechial requestch?"

"No everything so was nice."

She looked at him like he was a hopeless kitten but then nodded and went to the kitchen.

* * *

Patty had wrapped herself around his neck, her front paws dangling to the left and her tail and hind paws to the right. The warmth of the kitten was welcomed, even though he was not freezing thanks to the hoody. He just wished for slightly less screaming colours than fluorescent pink with glow-in-the-dark green spots. At least, no one could overlook him. So he hoped, that the protection of males and kittens extended also to humans.

Rerra fumbled at a screw in a rusty steel panel in the staircase. They watched her from the landing also to warn her should someone approach. Suddenly, Rerra roared, then took a deep breath, her muscles bulged and she ripped the entire steel panel off. He got goosebumps. As she tore off the panel, the head of the last screw was sheared off and ricocheted from the wall behind them. The gun he bought seemed pretty useless with Rerra.

Now the right arm of the muscular cat vanished in the hole where the panel had been. She cursed again and pushed with her other hand against the side of the frame. "Come turn!" Then a creaking sound was heard and she smiled.

"Fusion core cooling inlet is open." She stood again upright and dried her dirty hand. Her smile was wide while she shook her head. "But the main returns are just warm. Before, they were too hot to touch. Let's go!"

It was just the next landing, level 2. But it was also where the bloody trail exited the staircase, together with a thinner trail coming from below. "This is all old blood," Patty said, surprise in her tiny voice.

"We are going to the clinic," Rerra said, "If I were hurt, I would go there too."

That satisfied the kitten but not him. The trails were old and dry, but still. One must be very badly injured to leave such bloody trails. Hopefully, that clinic was not a graveyard. Moreover, the thick steel door which sealed each level to the staircase as an emergency hatch was bent, the locking bolts on the frames all torn off. Something that would require a lot more force than bending a 3 mm steel plating. There were also scorch marks on the door and the blood was all over then landing before the door with signs of heavy fighting.

In the corridor, tools were scattered on the floor and there were much more scorch marks than on the staircase side. A crowbar was lying there too. So they had tried to open the door from the corridor. But there was less blood, and the trail went straight spinwards through the wide corridor. He doubted again the decision to have allowed Patty to come with them. "Have you ever been here?" he asked his kitten neck-warmer.

"Oh yes, for She-Cubs."

Rerra laughed a moment so heavily that she had to stop. "You mean checkups, dear." Tears were running over her face. “Little she cub,” she wheezed.

Patty's tail beating on his shoulder was her only answer.

Finally, Rerra moved on, following the blood trail to a heart-shaped entrance. Glass shards were lying around from the former second half of the glass sliding doors. Now an uprighted desk served as the second half of the door. A very tall and tired cat in a pink labcoat looked at them through the still-intact half of the glass door. "What is your emergency?" she stated holding a long surgical knife.

"I come to see if I can help to fix the systems."

The cat behind the door craned her neck to have a better look at him through the door. "That is a human male with a kitten?" She did not wait for an answer, instead the door slid open. While they entered, four new cats came running, each with a knife and each with the same fur pattern as the cat that had come with Rerra to Fallerian. But only one of them wore a labcoat, the other three skimpy leather bras and loincloths. More fitting a cave than a clinic on a space station.

The reception cat and the four newcomers surrounded them. But he was surprisingly calm. Despite being taller and at least three of them clad like ancient amazon warriors from the human comics that Llanaploß had obtained for him once, he was not worried. Not because of his gun; the cats in labcoats looked like they had only fought with budget cuts and the three amazons mostly with their leather bras. Despite towering the labcoat cats, each of the amazons tried to be just a little further to the back than her neighbours. And they looked like cloned, all with the same height and identical fur patterns. Although, he certainly had no eye for finer details of fur patterns.

"Name and tribe," the new labcoat demanded.

"Rerra from Petra." Rerra just bowed the tiniest bit.

"Wait," said one of the amazons, "I think, I remember you." All heads turned to her. She took up the large pad from the entrance desk. "Yes, 107 days ago, skin mod, paid by the Ketcher council."

The other cats all stepped back a little and straightened. "Was it new or old council?" the labcoat asked with a much friendlier tone.

"Honestly, I do not know. But probably new. It was for a mission I flew for Fiyul from Ketcher, the clanmother was on that ship. Transporting the alien modder?"

The labcoat's tails fluffed out, and the amazons looked confused. "This is not to be discussed in public," hissed the labcoat from the entrance.

"Anyway, I just came back from Fallerian. Got strange news from the planet. The station silent, a sector without power, life support on base fallback systems. I had to enter via the shipyard. Well, I worked there."

"She restored her ship herself," he added, turning their heads. But only for a moment.

"Kora, Yna, stay with her." The labcoat leader left with two of the amazons into the barely lit depth of the clinic.

The cat from the entrance had picked up the clinic pad and was studying the entry. "You do not look like that Rerra at all," and turned the pad. He silently agreed, the Rerra in that picture had long fluffy fur in the same pattern as all the cats here. He wondered if it would feel nicer ...

"Yes, but the Kolani ran me through their modder again," she said and lifted her leg and with her opposable toes, took her pad from a belt pocket. "Here, scan the ID."

Even without knowing the fine nuances of cat expressions, the two cats were stunned. They stared at the foot-claws which held her pad in a pose that would be impossible for him. And to them too, apparently.

The remaining labcoat finally scanned her pad but did not even look at the result, still following Rerra's foot with opposable claws when she put the pad back into her belt and then stood again normally.

"Are there more mods?"

"Yes, but this is getting quite personal."

"Sorry for asking, Ketcher values the patient's privacy." That sentence came automatically from better days. The labcoat shook her head. "Sorry, again. I am Yna of Grotan from Ketcher."

"Rerra of Codeson from Petra. This is Marik Llanadross from Fallerian, the planet, I mean."

"I am Patty of Codeson from Petra," shouted Patty in her cute kitten voice. Everybody smiled, the knives were put away.

"Can I put you down?" he asked hopefully.

"No, I can better guard you up here," Patty said while the cats finally acknowledged his presence and moved closer.

"I am Kora of Ulta from Ketcher," the amazon suddenly whispered. She did not expect him to look at her directly and stepped further back.

"Suppressant anyone?" Rerra held up her inhalator.

Both cats shook their heads. "37 males here, maybe all the males of the station. Your human does not make any difference."

The human got a little angry, being discussed like a piece of furniture. But before he could say something, Rerra put her hand on his back and changed the topic. "When you looked up my record, the net was working?"

"Only the private clinic network. No connection to the outside. All fried when they tried to restore the power at the very beginning."

"While waiting, can I go and check the power connection? It is in the second stairwell."

"That's in the dark sector. Kora, go with her."

"I am going too," he stated, annoyed from being constantly ignored.

"Yes, he can help, he is a skilled technician too." He could hug Rerra for this.

Yna shook her head. "No, you stay here. No kittens go into the dark sector. And in 0387 the night cycle ends, so be back by then."