Oshgomshee and the Princess Syleen: A Novel

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© Copyright 2011 MAX HOBBY.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Printed in the United States of America.

ISBN: 978-1-4269-5958-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4269-5959-2 (e)

Trafford rev. 02/22/2011

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Contents

Forward

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter 5

Chapter Six

Chaper Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

THE PRINCESS SYLEEN

&

COLONEL OSHGOMSHEE

_____________________

THE CAT PEOPLE

by

MAX HOBBY

_________________

His book is dedicated

to the loving memory of

Elaine M Beilke,

my friend and lover.

_________________

FORWARD

From his pits of dispar, degradation,

disgust, distrust, and desperation,

he would be the Phoenix that would

rise to save a monarchy,

the crown, a family, and a Princess.

She was the catalyst for his

avenging, his aspiration,

his anger, and his arrival.

She was the petit being

that would be ruler by his

hand and claw, tooth and sword.

Truth, trust and dignity would be

his new mantra as he held sway over

the minions and the masses.

CHAPTER ONE

Phsstt.

The tiny bubbles of carbonation spoke their own language to the room as they escaped from the can.

Pop a top, Baby…

I sang to myself as I finished stripping for a shower and a cold one. Hot shower. Cold brew! I usually set the can on the window ledge and then nursed my drink as I showered. Naked, but for my glasses and dog tags, I strolled across the small apartment and into the closet-sized bathroom. Someday, I’d move up to a better level of living, but for now, this would have to do. The basics: a small frig, rice cooker, coffee maker, cutting board, and an abbreviated assortment of utensils, dishes and cups.

Less than six months had passed since the Army sawbones and shrinks had decided I was burned out, blown out, and now, thrown out. A medical, Section Eight, down and dirty, gone, discharged. They kept telling me that they were only dreams, not the real stuff, but I knew better. Every time I got in the shower, the body snatchers came for me. Well, maybe it wasn’t the body snatchers, cause it was my mind that was going on trips. I was thrown into somebody else’s body and mind and them they’d go out to lunch and leave me with the store. The dreams kept coming back, the missions kept getting weirder and weirder, and…

Hell, I wasn’t complaining. It was cheaper than booze and I don’t think I ever did drugs, like speed or acid, not even grass. The sixties got by me completely before I knew it. At first they told me it was combat fatigue. That’s cool. Sent me back into the field to get some more gooks, then there was the South American connection, Panama and the next smoldering bed of political intrigue in the Middle East. If it was dirty and the extraction or survival expectations weren’t great, weren’t even good, I got the nod. Lets get real. I was expendable, along with my team. Problem was, we kept coming back. We were the proverbial, bad nickle.

Oh, I’m not saying we were immortal by any means. I lost more than my share of pals, comrades, buddies, chums, and good friends. It just finally reached a place where I repressed the pain. I buried the hurt until the next mission, then I was their worst nightmare, tenfold. I was the rabid dog Old Yeller never got to be. I had a license to do havoc, mayhem and total annihilation. They say I was beginning to like it, to enjoy it. Hell, what’s not to like? Pay backs and winning was what it was all about. I had a cat’s luck, but figured I was close to that ninth life.

Then, one too many behind the lines, need to know, expendable missions. Ten of us had gone into a Middle-Eastern, oil rich, sand flea infested, camel dung smelling country and come out as the walking dead. Fire fight the first night, gas attack the second day, germ agents several days later, and much later, starvation ferociously snapping at our heels.

Lady Luck, Bitch or a really ugly whore had finally shown up in the form of an airfield with some choppers and a dozen fighters and light bombers. We’d been within marching distance of the place for several days, but the napalm and concussion bombs they’d lobbed on us had driven the team underground and deep into a cave. In search of a water source, we’d found the back door from our abode, such as it was, and then Sam returned with the word of a base just over a sand dune or two.

Could always count on Sam. Send him for a six pack and he’d come home with a case. The man was a born soldier. You knew you could sleep soundly and safely when he was on watch. They’ll have to send in three grunts to fill his boots and then it might not be enough. He could smell land mines , never mind the weather or the terrain. If Sam said they were there, we always let the captive go first to prove it. So far, he was ten for ten.

Sick, lame and lazy had been the slang for an infirmary visit a lifetime ago in the early days of my career. Now it was the living, the dying and the dead that made their way to the nearest bird. One of our own. Well not really, anymore. You see, with the constant flux and changing political parties in power at home, Uncle gives away, allows purchases, loans, and occasionally, abandons equipment in countries that can change policy with a coup, over night.

So, pay backs can come in many forms. We were still trying to figure how to blow all the birds when a jeep started toward us from the far side of the airbase. Well, it was a lot more than a dusty airstrip, but you get the idea. Hell, it was a couple miles of asphalt and concrete and boo-coo tons of steel and sheet metal, courtesy no doubt, of our tax payers’ bucks.

Jackson, get everyone… wounded, dying, and dead… into the chopper. Sam an’ I’ll wack the other birds and then we’ll try to blow the fighters and bombers up as we leave. I assume that you can still rock an’ roll on that door gun.

Y’all bet your sweet white ass, Chief. Jackson had a way with words. Bring ‘em Rag Heads on! This Black Panther ‘ll tear ‘em a new one!

Jackson was another, kick ass, take no names, killer. Has a tee-shirt that says, ‘Kill ‘em all an let God sort ‘em out!’ He was pure poison in the field, and sweet chocolate, vanilla and cream on the home time. We’d crossed paths over the years and he was the biggest, ugliest, meanest, black man I’d ever met. He was a fan of Bill Cosby and color. His color didn’t bother him. He’d told me more jokes about colored people than I could remember and was always setting me up for problems with some fellow black troop that didn’t know we’d shared the same booze bottles, women and blood.

He had a pint of mine running ‘round in his veins from a war wound back in seventy three. In the field, a medic needed blood and they couldn’t get to us. I told them we were the same proof so we did an in field modification on Jackson. Course he may have leaked it out over the past few years, what with the two or three more purple hearts. Yep, we’re blood brothers of the purest kind.

He had a wife and little girl. Jackson and ‘Baby Girl’ had more or less adopted me. When little Felicia was born, I was blessed with the honor of being her godfather. What a cruel thing to do to a cute little girl. We were out of country when ‘Baby Girl’ and Felicia died in a car crash. The captain made a decision. We didn’t learn of it until a week or two after the fact. The mission was too important to have us distracted. They busted Jackson down to a private and he got sixteen months’ of stockade time. The captain got lucky. He lived. Heard he got out and changed his name. Think he believed his days were numbered. He likely still has nightmares of Jackson’s reactions to learning they had not told him of his family’s death.

It doesn’t take a surgeon to hack up the wiring harness on a chopper and put it out of service for a while. The fixed wings were a different story. We wanted them dead, burned to the ground, blown apart.

In minutes, Sam and I were back and in the cockpit. Jackson had done a limited pre-flight and the power plant was already turning over. I was a believer in a proper warm up of turbine engines, the hydraulics and a full pre-flight check list. Safety and longer life through caution. The muzzle flash of a weapon from the oncoming jeep said there wasn’t apt to be time. The wasp buzz of a bullet passing by my head confirmed that we should have been in the air and gone, ten or fifteen minutes ago. This was one Sea Stallion that was going airborne cold, no checks, just some serious vulgar profanity as I slammed the throttle to full burn.

Jackson, everyone strapped in? We’re out of here.

Go, Chief. You be wastin’ time you be waitin’ on us back here! Jackson yelled over the intercom.

In a cat’s eye! We gone, Baby Cakes! I replied.

ull power to the props, live fire from the belly door gunner, a few rockets toward the jets, and we raced across the asphalt toward the grounded air force. The jeep and its occupants had been the first targets of Jackson’s lethal sting. We did as much damage as possible, but limited it to one pass.

Ace, ain’t gonna be enough fuel to get us home in this crate.

Hell Sam, you wanna live forever? We’ll do the mission and then see where we are. Get on the horn to Papa and tell him to get his hounds out looking for us. That Eye in the Sky should already have us in their sights.

Oh, they had us in their sights and the pick up or dust off already mapped out. The medics and sawbones were already on standby. Come to think of it, that had gotten to be our theme song. Perhaps, the only time we were sane was out here. When we came home, we let the crazies out of the box. Kept wanting to meet the gal they talked about named Pandora, but that’s another story. Was likely they had a team of insurgents standing by to come gets us, but as it turned out, that wasn’t the game tonight. We’d make it past the blue line and then be shark food.

Ace! We’re outta’ fuel! Can you get ‘er to the surface before she drops?

They’ll probably pull my rating and my wings if I don’t get this junk to the carrier. Ah Hell!

Tough luck, Chief. Sam said it so straight faced.

The power plant coughed and tried to come back to life, coughed again and died.

Shit! I hissed. These things are supposed to float down, auto rotate, but the Marines got ‘em ‘cause they don’t. They drop like a plug nickle!

And drop it did. The wounded and sick didn’t stand a chance, strapped in. Loose, they’d be washed out or thrown out. Well, we couldn’t be too distant from shore. Maybe we’d be in shallow, even knee deep water, with luck. No such luck! From some nightmare, deep-sea hole the sharks came to us, their fins breaking the surface.

Jackson, Sam and I made it into the inflatable raft. Jackson, however, died of loss of blood, a bullet wound he’d taken earlier, and then a nasty gash when we hit the water. I cursed him for leaking all my hundred proof out and shoved gauze into the holes best I could to stop the bleeding. They later told me I held a gun on the medic and told him to pump a gallon of high test into Sam, but he was too far gone from the start. Somebody wacked me from behind and that was the end of that argument. Sam and I made it to the medical room on the Navy chase ship. I made them put Sam in the same room with me so I could make sure they were taking care of him. Saying I didn’t trust them would be, well, true. Three days later, Sam would succumb to some form of germ he’d contracted days before. That only left the debriefing teams with me.

Imagine a biology class with only one frog to dissect. They all wanted a piece of me. Sleep, rest, food, whatever needs I had, didn’t always fit into their program. If I got to my cot to sleep, they’d as likely as not wake me within a few hours. Sleep depravation works like a hallucinatory drug. Well, that’s what I wanted to believe. The stuff I started telling them had us all a mite worried. They were sure I was nuts and I was sure I wasn’t, but how did I explain my wild mood swings, the stories I’d told them and the feeling that I wasn’t really me! Was it all a dream? Maybe? I had crying jags, screaming fits and when I woke up in a straight jacket, they told me it was for my own safety. Hell, if it was for anyone’s safety, it was theirs. I knew they’d wiped out my team. The voices kept telling me so!

Purr, Pussy Cat.

Sorry. Sometimes I digress a mite. It happens now and then. They called it flashbacks. I called it truth.

The phone rang as I headed to the bathroom. Beer to my lips, naked and ready for a shower, I really didn’t want to answer it. I figured it was the guys letting me know they were coming over to pick me up to go to group. Couple of self appointed old farts that had made it a point to see to it that I got to group, everyday.

Let the machine get it. I said it to the room at large.

When had I started talking to myself, and out loud at that? Squatting down, I sipped at my beer and waited for the caller to leave his, or her, message.

Beep… Uglako jobalboa ratunshe li…

Shit! There I go talking to the empty room again.

What was this? Someone trying to mess with me? Maybe I had flipped! No, it was just the answering machine that was messed up. But this call was incoming, not a replay. Where had I heard that voice before? Showers were getting to be scary. One of these days I was going to go in and not come back! The mind snatchers were going to get me. Not a problem, cause I was beginning to look forward to going home. I’d been here long enough. If the night sky had been so I could see the stars I’d have looked for one to claim, but light pollution blew that hope.

Standing up, I headed for the shower. Opening the door, I stopped long enough to grab a new bar of soap and some shampoo, then set them, my glasses and the beer can on the window ledge. That reminds me. I used to have 20/20 vision before that untimely splash down. I really don’t like having these coke bottles perched on my nose. Bitch… bitch… snivel… snivel!

After adjusting the shower spray, I lathered up and scrubbed my funky body. I’d been a starch and spit shine troop, always had a high and tight hair cut and a clean shave, not even a mustache. Screw ‘em! I hadn’t shaved or gotten a hair cut since the start of my hospitalization in Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego. They said it was depression. Lot they knew! Then too, the stay in the VA Mental Hygiene Ward at La Jolla had been a bit of a power struggle. Well, today I’d shave! I’d get a hair cut before we made group. Should blow a few minds!

Pop a top… got a tiger by the tail… I mixed lyrics and tunes. I could call it singing, but I’m sure the folks next-door likely thought otherwise. Lot they knew! The hot water felt great. I’d take a leisurely shower. The flea bag landlord paid for the hot water. Besides, I could justify lots of extra scrubbing on my privates as I gently lathered myself.

Suddenly it occurred to me. I’d not had sex in way too long. I’d not even had any really sexy thoughts, and the little I’d had, had gone on to something else besides the normal, active Y chromosomes and male testosterone of ‘wham bamm, thank you ma’am.’

A quick check confirmed I still had the Jewels hanging below the Tool, but even now I was thinking on past the fleeting idea of sex. I’d make a mental note to ask the shrink at the VA today in group. She would have an answer, even if it was only, ‘What do you think, Ace?’

Turning off the shower, I reached for my towel and started drying my face and hair. I hate water in my eyes. I go with braille until my face is dry. Besides, the mirrors are usually fogged and I can’t see till my glasses clear. In the mean time, I can listen to the voices purring and check out the trip the mind snatchers have slammed me into.

CHAPTER TWO

The mind snatching thieves were at it again! I was in his head, or I was dreaming and this whole thing was a bad trip from some acid someone dropped in my drink that had a twenty to thirty-year delay. It had become second nature to me, and really, it was cool. I’d mind the store while he bugged out to part’s unknown. A couple of times I had been plucked away while I was in group and they jumped me about being not serious about my work. Lot they knew! A bunch of them were practicing better living by pharmaceutical and chemical modification, a few hung out with my buddies Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker, Bud, and Miller. Bottoms up and don’t Bogart it.

My head and hair felt different. Maybe I should have spent the money on a dream catcher. I rinsed off, planning to look at myself in the mirror. Taking the towel from about my head, I rubbed the mirror to remove the fog and condensation. I turned to the shelf for my glasses. They weren’t there, nor was the shelf. Damn, my beer was gone too! My vision was 20/20 again, just like it had been before the crash. Turning back to the mirror, I leaned forward to see myself. Oh hell, the hair and my head were different! They weren’t mine. The eyes and the face, wow! What a trip the snatchers had done this time. Think they screwed up cause I could see, feel and I was betting I could hear, taste and smell too. Cat’s! The biggest damn tabby cat I’d ever seen was staring back at me from the mirror. The eyes were yellow slits and the hair was a full mane with large tufts on the ears. Gone were my shaggy beard, my long hair and the familiar face.

20/20 vision, a face that could send chills up one’s back, a lion’s mane, and fangs. Surprise, disbelief and shock partially described my feelings. I’d even bet I had better than 20/20 vision. Whipping the towel up to the mirror once more, I wiped it clear of fog and condensation, again. Staring back at me were eyes that weren’t mine, the face wasn’t mine, all were borrowed. Hell, the body, the bath, everything was borrowed. Grabbing the counter top for support, I leaned close and asked the ugly, sinister, semblance of a face in the mirror just what was going on. It, he, or I, just smiled back! What a kisser, a maw of pearly whites. This feline had some real canines!

The entire wall was mirrors and starting to clear as a result of my having turned the shower off. I could see my body. Well, the one that I was using right now. For now, I’d think of it as mine. If I’d had the option of picking it, I’d surely have asked for some changes. From the proximity of the ceiling and the height of the door frame, I concluded I was above average size, tall. Maybe, quite tall. Opening a drawer, I selected a tool that looked like a straight razor, lathered my face and started on the cheeks. It was time to get back into the spit and polish, high and tight cut, clean shaved, bad ass of yesteryear. Just who was this masked man? Just who was I? Cat’s! This was one super mouser. I wished I could remember the tune and the words to the Mighty Mouse cartoon of my adolescence.

As I studied the new me, a knock sounded at the door. Great! This was just a dream and I was going to wake up. I ignored the knock and continued to evaluate my new physique as I did another swipe with the razor. I did a bit of reflection on this new state of affairs and my past dreams. I get naked, take a shower and arrive somewhere, in someone else’s shower, and someone else’s body. I can hear, or sense, their thoughts and sensations, but they seem to be oblivious to me. I have no control over them. Later, after they go to sleep, I return to my body and finish my shower. Okay guys, we’re not on the right sheet of music today. Let’s keep it on a tune I know.

Again, and this time more aggressively, the knock at the door has become a pounding. Wrapping myself in the towel, I stepped to the bathroom door and open it.

Kay-ah-to? You knocked? My inquiry seemed natural to me.

My host, body and mind, are surprised by my words. What I assume to be the mate is surprised as well. And me? Hell yes! I spoke a tongue I’d not known until now and I knew what I was saying. Shouldn’t I know if this is my mate as well? Ah, now it comes to me. We were at a party last night and she brought me home. Then she spoke in an agitated tone:

I told you to be gone by the time I got home! What are you doing here?

The old stand by of past excuses should work.

Forgive me, but I seem to have over indulged last night. I don’t remember you instructing me to do anything, and… well, I just don’t remember. Would you be so generous as to brief me on who, what, why? You get the drift?

She tells me she rented my services, then didn’t have time to return me to the service before she had to go out this morning. Then:

I programed you to guard the apartment till mid-mourning, then to return to the service, securing the apartment on your way out.

Programed? I reply. I beg your indulgence, please explain, programed. I seem to have some major lapse in memory, knowledge, understanding. What were my services and where is the service I’m to return to?

Oh, I had ideas of what she’d retained me for but the host seemed to be almost shocked at my brazen visualization of her naked, and much more. And what was this programed stuff. Baby this isn’t some battery powered monkey with symbols pounding his stuff here! This is the real thing!

Don’t try to play dumb with me!

Then she proceeded to tell me I seemed a bit too slow last night, but she’d had a few slow surrogates before. Low batteries, or a weak circuit board, but not quite the same personality. Seems my function was to safeguard her on the trip from Stilltress on her flight home.

Ah yes. I’m a body guard, an android of sorts? I offered.

No wonder the host’s mind had been surprised by my thoughts and actions, or our actions. We had eaten, drank and showered like a human and now I was thinking of various other activities and getting a ‘no we don’t’ input from my other half. Suddenly it dawned on me that I may have been here, in this host earlier, or perhaps he’d gone haywire and that was how I got invited. Hate to think it was me that went haywire. Baling wire and I had been well acquainted during my highschool days and my old Ford, fix or repair daily, junky clunker.

He remembered eating, drinking and undressing this morning and thinking a shower would be interesting. He didn’t remember anything of the time passage since he left the party she had been at. I mentally queried him on what kind of food and drinks he had the night before. None, only conversation with several men who had shown an interest in him and his charge. She had stated she had no interest in them. That they were the reason she had procured him.

Suddenly, my host’s mind seemed to have made an unconscious leap in its thinking. Swear words followed by an apology. Maybe this cat isn’t all that bad after all. Kinda gives new meaning to the term ‘cool cat.’ Now he understood the reason for his actions. The trio had used a strobe laser light to reprogram him while she was dancing with the Prince of Star Port Five.

We shuddered as he realized he was reprogrammed to kill the Prince and make it look as if she had done it. Now I wanted to know, ‘have we killed him, yet, or when is it to happen?’

‘She has a dinner date with the Prince tonight and then they will go for a flight to his moon!’

‘Okay, pal, you let me run the show. We’ll not kill him and we’ll maybe get a reward, or at least a new set of batteries!’

He didn’t see the humor in my quip, but seemed to like the idea of having someone else in charge. We just might make a great team. The Ace was flying by the seat of his… his furry butt, again.

Miss, forgive me, please. What is your name, or how do you wish me to address you?

You will address me as Princess Syleen, or Princess. Furthermore…

He dropped to one knee and bowered his head to her. Got to have a talk with this cat! We can’t be both at the controls, cause there’s gonna be a train wreck if we try. And this talking out of turn! Oh no. Let the ole Chief do the ad-libbing fellow. So the dummy speaks anyway.

Forgive me Princess for my malfunction and lapses. I have, I think, been tampered with by the three men you alerted me to last night. With all due respect, they tried to reprogram me, thus the shower and some other changes in my behavior, and, forgive me my attire, my sampling of your cuisine…

He paused and I was shocked at his next thoughts and words.

I should be de-programed and renovated.

Oh no buddy, we’re not ready for the junk farm! I continued for him:

But then it could be dangerous for you and the Prince to not have me with you at your beck and call. That trio plans his demise and hopes to leave you as the logical suspect. When it comes to dirty business, I’m the King of Spades!

She backed away from us, her eyes blazing with anger. Her body was trembling with rage and we were the obvious source and about to be the recipient of any outbursts. We stood and did the first thing that we both agreed on. Snapping to attention, arms to our side, head up, eyes straight ahead, feet together, chest puffed out, our stomach sucked in, we stood there in all our naked glory. Unfortunately, the bath towel wrapped about us did the natural thing. It dropped to the floor! Bare to the fuzz on our body, we spoke:

Princess, we are at your disposal, in complete readiness to give of our life to serve and protect. We did not wish to have miss-spoken or caused you pain, only that we wanted you to be aware, to understand…

She had momentarily smiled, then whirled around, her back to us.

Cover yourself, slave. How dare you disrobe yourself before me like that!

I looked down and was pleased by the view that met my eyes. We were all male. My host informed me that to go naked was normal, but to have disrobed in her presence was the problem. That, and the fact that we were mildly aroused. Retrieving the wrap, we planed to head for the stack of clothing my host had left in the other room. How to get to it, how to get past her as she stood in the way was our next problem. I longed to touch her as she stood, proud and haunting, but again my host panicked at the thought. It would mean termination, and a half dozen other visions of torture. Termination as in death, not fired from the job!

With your permission, Princess, we’ll get dressed and await your orders.

Are you covered? she inquired.

Yes, my Princess.

She turned and took a second look at us, perhaps noting our efforts to shave for the first time.

What have you done to your face? she demanded as she stepped toward us.

Earlier I had taken a few swipes with a sharp tool. It was for use on the nails, or claws, my other half told me. It had sufficed to work as a version of the old straight razor.

We were shaving. It’s a practice we’ve been considering for some time. Shall we finish before we dress?

The Princess reached toward our face, but could not have touched it, our heights being quite different. We leaned down in recognition of her reach to touch our cheek. First the shaven one and then the one with peach fuzz, fur and whiskers on it.

I like it. You will shave the other one.

It was not a question or a comment, but a command.

Yes, Princess.

With a complete change of attitude, she hiked her hip onto the vanity top, then curled her legs up under herself, obviously planning to sit and watch us shave the rest of our face. Her child like interest prompted some questions on my part.

Princess, if I may ask, with all due respect, what is your maturity space?

Again my host had furnished me with the words and conveyed their meanings for me to engage in conversation. For example, the ages break down of infant, child, youth, adolescent, premating, mating age, mated, and beyond that was not applicable. He suspected her to be premating to mating age, then recanted the premating and suggested mating age. Somewhere in her early twenties being my take on his explanation.

I was of mating age two turns past. A turn is equivalent to 18 months of earth time. My parents have restricted me, wanting a suitable mate, and also for my two older brothers to mate before me. I am in no rush.

Looking into the mirror, I scrutinized my face and continued to scrape at the thick fur that covered our checks. I found that I had decided to like it. My new face, that is. It was strong, had high cheek bones, a large square jaw and a smile that came often. The teeth were another matter though. They looked quite ferocious! Decidedly vicious! The lips were only now and then noticeable before I shaved the short hairs away from them. I left a moustache and side burns, oiled the mane, then I ran my fingers over the tufts of my tall pointed ears and slicked them down as well. Nope. We liked them with their tufts. With a wash cloth, I removed the oil and let the ear tufts dry to their bushy look again. Scanning the rest of my body, I took a small amount of oil and rubbed the light, sweet scent into my palms and then on to the soles of my feet.

What is your name slave?

He answered, again not waiting for my lead.

My designation, Princess, is: S, slash, thirty-eight, subcontract forty seven, two eighty nine.

I continued, hoping to save the day, and our proverbial butts:

But you may call us Kent Wood, King of Spades.

Where is your kingdom, Kentwood, King of Spades? She slurred the Kent Wood together.

In another universe, in another galaxy.

We were meshing more as I felt his internal smile at being a King from some faraway kingdom. We flexed our fingers and unsheathed the most lethal looking sets of claws I’d ever seen. As soon as we started to scrape them with the make shift razor, the Princess reached