Gngr took a quick moment to lick at an itchy spot before adjusting his ship's trajectory to better angle them for approach to the space station where their cargo was expected.

"Damn louse!" He growled and dug into his fur with his front teeth to get at the tiny pest currently biting his flesh. He felt it pop and sucked slightly to get it off the hair before swallowing it.

"Space tick?" Lung, co-pilot and co-owner of their dump of a ship, swung into his seat and took the controls.

"Must have picked it up on Telarus 7." While Gngr lapped at the tender spot where the tick had gotten him, he could sense his co-pilot's burgeoning smile. "Don't even start!"

The fur on Gngr's nape stood up slightly, so Lung lifted his hands, palms out and feigned an innocent expression. "Didn't say nothin'!"

"Well, you were thinking awfully loud about your warning about that cantina."

"Huh! Who'd have thunk I could think loud." Lung chortled and tweaked the ship's thrusters.

Gngr adjusted in his seat which allowed him to flick Lung in the face with his tail.

"Hey, no fair!"

"Ain't my fault your species doesn't have a tail. You could always spring for a prosthetic."

Lung slowly shook his head. "Not with the cost of settling on Ghoutan. I won't even be getting a new spacesuit for another two years, and Mara just told me she's pregnant again!"

Gngr gave the sneezing snort that passed for laughter among his race. "You sure you aren't Feliness? You and Mara breed as fast as we do."

"It's just baby number six! It's not like we have multiple babies every time we get knocked up like you all do." Lung narrowed his in teasing mockery. "And to think that a thousand years ago you could have been my pet."

One of Gngr's ears flattened back. "There's no way, man. I'm sure we cats probably had all you humans around our furry paws, doing our bidding and feeding us fish whenever we wanted!"

Lung guffawed. "You wish! Speaking of fish, Mara has been asking for you to come around and visit. She's got a new recipe she wants you to try."

Gngr coughed and hacked like he was moving a furball. "Sorry, Lung, I'd never say it to her, but you know us cats are very particular about our food. Mara ..."

"Tries hard?" the co-pilot supplied, which had them both rolling into peals of their own variety of laughter.

Once they'd finally calmed enough to speak, Gngr shook his head and twitched his ears. "I couldn't anyway, it's my mom's birthday. If the whole litter isn't there for it, she reaches through our coms and bats us around."

"No way I'm getting between a Feliness mom and her brood," Lung said. He nodded at their destination rapidly growing in their field of vision. "Let's send a comm to the space station for our approach."

Several days later Gngr gripped the controls to keep himself from jumping up and prowling back and forth in the three steps the tiny cockpit allowed. The larger details of the grey and green surface of his home planet Moewr were becoming more and more discernible. Within minutes he'd be able to make out the lakes and the largest rivers.

The small ship felt hugely empty without Lung there. Most Feliness were solitary creatures, but Gngr had become acclimated to having his good-natured co-pilot around.

Something he could never admit to his brethren on Meowr. They'd accuse him of being domesticated.

That tendency - and the inability of a Feliness to resist a cat toy - remained the Achilles heel of his species. Over a millennium ago, some long dead corporation had been playing around with new technology they'd acquired from civilizations more advanced than they were and genetically engineered the Feliness species. While they'd managed to make a human-sized cat that could talk, some inherent cat-aspects were never ironed out.

In order to prevent their planet, Meowr, from being overrun by Feliness, the ancients had created a custom to select who would be allowed to breed one litter. Just before reaching maturity, all kittens passed through a gauntlet made up of laser pointers, balls, and the ultimate test: catnip. Only those few kittens who made it through were allowed to procreate with the theory they would be producing stronger cats.

But alas, a millenia later and still no Feliness was deemed suitable for military service. All the enemy had to do was toss a catnip-laced ball and the troops were sitting ducks.

Although it was very hard for fertile Feliness to sneak off Meowr, some didn't agree with the age-old custom and fled to freely reproduce elsewhere...until the 'elsewhere' was quickly overrun by Feliness. Also like their ancestors, the kittens quickly reached maturity and began to have their own litters. At that point, exponential multiplication took over the Meowr police were usually called in to take matters into their own paws.

Any fixed Feliness, like Gngr, who chose to emigrate from the home planet was welcome to. Many did a booming trade as vermin control and were welcome to work pretty much anywhere they wanted to – or could stomach to work, in some cases.

The one thing most wouldn't do was take a job as domestic servants. Since kittenhood it was drilled into their heads that Feliness were too fiercely independent for that. Gngr had read the history on it. He understood that the first Feliness adopted that attitude to separate themselves from the pets they originally were, but he wasn't sure if he still believed it. Wasn't 'pet' one of their most loving terms of endearment?

'How much have we really evolved?' was always a good topic of discussion around the cat bowl during his infrequent visits home.

Gngr gave a low growl in his throat as he brought the ship down to his home city. It wasn't unusual for him to be greeted on planet approach by an AI, but planet-side, a Feliness was always on post to guide in ships. This time the airwaves had been silent.

The skies were empty though, and from his higher vantage point he could see the cat towers and gargantuan trees that grew everywhere between the cat towers and usually teemed with Feliness relaxing on the branches or hammocks were bare as well.

"Where is every cat?" Gngr popped one claw and scratched the top of his head.

A flash of movement caught his eye, and he jerked the ship to the side in pursuit.

The unknown Feliness running down the street didn't even turn when Gngr almost parked on top of his head. Just kept running like there was a Canine on his tail.

Gngr's paws barely made a sound as he ran down the ramp. He dropped to all fours to gain maximum speed and quickly caught up with the fleeing stranger, making the loud growling sound that was a greeting to an unknown Feliness.

The older Tom jumped and turned at the sound of Gngr's voice, throwing his armful of carefully wrapped packages in the air as he did. His hackles raised, he dropped to all fours and hissed menacingly.

Gngr stood on his hind legs and held up his front paws in peace. "Whoa, there old Tom, I'm no threat."

The Tom looked at least 108 cat years old, but it was how gaunt and ungroomed he appeared which made Gngr feel he could take him in a fight. But he didn't want to.

He's probably worried I'll steal those packages of food from him, Gngr thought.

Tension weighted the air, broken only when the elder relaxed and began to collect his packages, one eye still carefully watching Gngr. With everything in arms once again, the stranger turned without a word and raced away.

"Wait! Where is everyone?" Gngr called and ran after him. A piece of paper fluttered unnoticed from the stranger's grasp and fell to the dirt street. "Hey, you dropped something!"

Gngr snatched up the page and read it as he ran. 

"Dogs? Hey, why do you have a recipe for dog food?" Gngr called out, and the Tom skidded to a halt. He turned, ears flat back and tail swishing dangerously.

He could guess the lumpy packages the stranger carried were the ingredients for his dog food. He'd seen a lot of crazy stuff in his travels, but a Feliness willingly making and eating canine food? That was pushing it.

"No time for gourmet. Just quick, high energy grub." The Tom snatched the paper from Gngr's paw and made to turn away, but Gngr grabbed his shoulder to stop him.

"Where is everyone?" Gngr asked again.

The Tom's pupils went from slitted to dilated in a microsecond. In a trancelike tone, he responded, "They're at...The Ball."

"The what?"

The stranger began to purr loudly. "The Ball. It's all that matters now."

"And where exactly is this ball?" Gngr asked. His tail twitched in annoyance, but he managed to stop his ears from moving. He needed answers, and he didn't want to show any signs of aggression and get into a standoff with the only Feliness around. "Can you show me?"

With a slow nod, the Tom turned to leave. "It's good you have a spacesuit on. You'll need it to visit The Ball."

"Uh huh," Gngr answered, the small hairs in his hackles raising.

"Come! I'll show you now!" The stranger haphazardly threw his packages on the ground and grabbed Gngr's paw to pull him down the street to a waiting FelMobi speeder that hovered where it had been parked.

"Get on!" The Tom called. Gngr just had time to jump on the back and feel the gravity seat grab him before the engine revved, sending them shooting skyward. "There's a transport about to leave. If we're fast, we can catch it!"

Although Gngr tried asking questions about the mysterious ball, the stranger would only answer "Just wait."

The FelMobi speeder was a new model and got them to the transport platform within the hour. This was usually a restricted area, reserved for those who maintained the satellites and the space station that orbited Meowr where visitors were greeted before being allowed planet-side. Gngr had worked there as a pilot shuttling cats up and down before he decided to buy his own ship.

Where the platform was normally teeming with workers, now it was completely deserted.

When the old Tom dragged Gngr inside the ship, he didn't stop to strap them in, but instead ran up the aisle and burst into the cockpit where a solitary pilot sat prepping for takeoff.

The pilot turned and snapped by way of greeting, "Did you get the food?"

"I brought a new cat. He hasn't seen The Ball yet." The Tom's voice took on the dreamy quality again, and Gngr saw both his and the pilot's pupils dilate.

"Yes, it's more important to get back to The Ball. Who cares if we don't eat for a few more days?"

Gngr narrowed his eyes and took a closer look at the two. The pilot looked as gaunt and ungroomed as the Tom. Whatever this thing was, it held a powerful sway if it could make Feliness skip food.

"Let's go!" the pilot shouted and hit the thrusters. The transport shot from its dock. Gngr tumbled back into a tangled heap of paws and tails with the Tom.

Gngr extracted himself and hooked his nails into the carpet to crawl forward to the co-pilot's seat to take the second set of controls. "Where is your co-pilot? These ships aren't meant to be flown by one cat."

"He's at-"

"The Ball," Gngr finished with him.

"What in Heat's name are you up to?" Gngr cried when the pilot hit the autopilot command and left the cockpit as soon as they'd cleared the atmosphere.

Knowing the ship was going to safely dock, Gngr followed him down the aisle and to the upper observation deck reserved for special visitors being ferried down to the planet's surface.

Both the old Tom and pilot had their faces plastered to the giant windows at the front of the room. Their paws were pressed against the glass and tails twitched spasmodically. The room was filled with the low growls Feliness made that prefaced an attack.

"What the Heat?" Gngr repeated and strode forward...only to stop when he got his first glimpse of a giant silver sphere that was a thousand meters off the side of the space station.

From this distance it appeared completely unblemished. Just a smooth matt surface that didn't reflect any light from the thousands of craft that hovered around it. It hung motionless in space with the ungiven promise of motion.

And the ungiven promise of pursuit.

Gngr's paws twitched in anticipation of knocking it as soon as it moved.

A low whining growl rose from Gngr's throat as he joined the others at the window. His claws clicked faintly as he laid his paws on the glass and stared out. His hind legs tensed in readiness.

Oh, yes. There was no need for food.

There was The Ball.

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