fiction – Page 4 – Pain In The Bud

Buddy Rages At Klingons For Interrupting Nap Time

Can Captain Buddy of the USS Fowl Play outsmart the Klingons once again to save his crew and salvage his nap?

USS FOWL PLAY, NCC-2014A — Captain Buddy emerged from the turbolift, batting at the wrinkles in his uniform with his paws in a fruitless attempt to look more presentable.

“Not that it matters with these nap-interrupting brutes,” he sighed. “On screen!”

The helm officer tapped a sequence into his console and an image of a scowling Klingon materialized on the ship’s view screen, replacing the view of space and the sleek Klingon Warbird that had decloaked in front of the USS Fowl Play.

“Gruthnok vupar! This is the warship Dra’akkthar of the mighty Klingon empire!” the face on the view screen snarled. “Power down your pitiful excuse for a ship and prepare to be boarded!”

Captain Buddy smiled.

“Good to see you too, Captain Hrakhuul,” he said. “How are the wife and the kids?”

Hrakhuul snorted derisively.

“Only a fool jests during the hour of his doom!” the Klingon spat. “Have you no honor?”

Captain Buddy scratched his chin fur, pretending to consider the question.

“None,” he said, “but I do have a bone to pick with you. You woke me up during nap time. Again. Not cool, Hrakhuul. Not cool.”

Captain Buddy, commanding officer of the Federation starship USS Fowl Play, Galaxy class registration NCC-2014A

Hrakhuul growled.

“Your species is insolent, lazy and takes ten naps a day!”

“Why, thank you, Captain Hrakhuul! And may I say, you’re looking particularly savage today.”

“This is your last warning, Federation cat! Power down your shields and weapons or be destroyed!”

Captain Buddy yawned.

“I think I’ll have my crew serve me turkey sandwiches instead. Yeah. Turkey over obliteration, no brainer.”

This enraged the Klingon. “Prepare to taste your own blood at the tip of my ancestral bat’leth, feline fool!”

Buddy collapsed into his captain’s chair and kicked his feet up.

“Can we just skip this and get to the part where I outsmart you and go back to my nap?”

Hrakhuul cackled maniacally.

“So your fate is sealed, then. You shall fall before the might of the Klingon Emp…”

Captain Buddy cut him off.

“I wouldn’t be so confident if I were you. This is a..an, uh…” He turned to Lieutenant Pawson, the tactical officer, whispering: “What kind of ship is this again?”

“A Galaxy class, sir. Same as the flagship.”

“A Galactic class starship!” Buddy said confidently, projecting the calm of a seasoned captain. “And we have, like, uh…”

“Sixteen phaser banks and two photon torpedo launchers, sir,” Pawson whispered helpfully.

“Lasers! Like 27 of them! And torp…er, missiles and stuff! Very powerful missiles. They make yuge explosions!”

Behind him, operations Lt. Commander Cleo hid her face in her paws.

Schemeowtics for the USS Fowl Play, Captain Buddy’s awesome starship.

“Enough of your meaningless babble,” Captain Hrakhuul barked. “Prepare to die!”

Captain Buddy’s eyes went wide with shock.

“Oh no! We have a warp core breach! Abandon all decks and get to your escape pods!”

Captain Hrakhuul snarled, fear in his eyes.

“What?!?” If you think I will fall for this again, you tribble with a tail…”

“Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you, Hrakkie,” he said. “You’re in the blast radius.”

Captain Buddy made a cut-off motion to the helmsman and the screen returned to its default view of a placid star field.

The bridge crew erupted into applause.

“The Klingon ship is backing up, full reverse thrusters, sir!”

Buddy cleared his throat.

“Fire a few of those proton missile things to create an explosion, then hit the gas, warp nine!”

The Captain yawned into the back of his paw as he walked toward the turbolift.

“I am returning to my nap,” he told his crew before the lift doors closed, “and anyone who interrupts me will be thrown out of an airlock!”

Buddy Issues Sanctions Against Human In Diplomatic Row Over Meal Variety

Dissatisfied with the limited variety of flavors and textures in his regular meal rotation, Buddy the Cat unveiled a sweeping new sanctions package designed to force his human to do better.

NEW YORK — Angry over his servant’s failure to broaden his selection of regular meals, Buddy the Cat announced new sanctions on Saturday aimed at forcing the uncooperative human to comply.

“President Buddy feels he’s been patient and magnanimous in dealing with his human’s shortcomings, but even a saint’s patience has limits,” Buddy’s spokesman told reporters. “This new sanctions package clearly communicates President Buddy’s disappointment and ensures swift compliance.”

The sanctions include prohibitive measures against sleep duration and quality, with Buddy promising to yowl at regular intervals and to wake his human by slapping him in the face every morning.

In addition, affection will be cut by 50 percent, increasing to 75 percent within two weeks if there is no improvement in the variety of flavors and textures of wet food served to Buddy.

“Buddy has made it clear that he expects more than a simple rotation of turkey, chicken and salmon pate,” the feline’s spokesman said. “He wants chunky tuna, he wants beef, he wants shredded duck served in gravy.”

President Buddy had threatened to pull his ambassadors and enact legislation declaring all shoes, sneakers and boots as legal litter boxes if the cheese sharing protocol was not observed. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The latest round of sanctions follows the Buddesian Diplomatic Crisis of 2023, when Buddy threatened to begin using his Big Buddy’s shoes, boots and sneakers as litter boxes in retaliation for the latter failing to “equitably share cheese as per article IV, sub-clause C of the gastronomic distribution protocol.”

All-out war was avoided when both parties agreed that Little Buddy’s share of Gouda, American, provolone and other cheeses, excluding ricotta, feta and mozzarella, would be increased by 15 percent.

‘The Sexiest Beast Of Them All’: Buddy The Cat Joins OnlyFans!

Health authorities said thousands of female cats around the world fainted when they heard the news that Buddy the Cat is launching his very own OnlyFans.

After resisting calls from his admirers for years, Buddy the Cat has finally joined OnlyFans.

“It’s a dream come true,” said Nala, 5, a Burmese who describes herself as “Buddy’s biggest fan.”

Other felines posted celebratory messages online after the news broke, with most expressing an intent to subscribe to Buddy’s OnlyFans “no matter how much he charges.”

“A dollar a month, ten bucks a month, a hundred bucks a month, it doesn’t matter. It’s worth it,” said Penny, a puma who said she has posters of Buddy in her enclosure at a wildlife sanctuary. “Buddy is the sexiest beast of them all.”

Buddy the Cat, a gray tabby cat, being handsome. — A sizzling snap of Buddy being sizzling for his new OnlyFans site.

Buddy’s new OnlyFans site promises “sizzling snaps of Buddy napping,” “hot photos of him yawning and stretching,” and regular videos of the mercurial tabby being handsome.

“Finally, my fans can get more Buddy without having to read that stupid blog my human writes,” Buddy wrote in his announcement. “It’s full of ridiculous slander, vile lies and claims that I’m wimpy when everyone knows I’m, like, brave and stuff.”

As of Friday, the new site featured a handful of clearly photoshopped images of the gray tabby with bulging muscles as he lifted weights, and a poorly produced video depicting the diminutive feline “ambushing” a stuffed alligator, with the sounds of a jaguar dubbed into the footage.

“Just catching me some lunch!” Buddy captioned the clip. “Us apex predators don’t eat from a can, we hunt our own meals.”

A gray tabby cat sits in a cardboard box. — Buddy the Cat poses in a box, striking a handsome pose as he gazes yonder.

There was no sign that questions about the veracity of the images bothered the egotistical feline’s admirers.

“OMG ADORBZ!” commenter princess2017 wrote.

“My handsome little prince!” wrote another poster, LioNeSS, who also added several heart and turkey emojis.

Soon after Buddy’s OnlyFans launch, it was announced that Smudge, his arch-nemesis, signed a deal to create a show about his life for Netflix. Titled “Smudge: New York’s Most Heroic Cat,” the series will “follow Smudge as he fights for truth and justice against the evil Dubby the Cat, a chubby gray tabby with an inflated ego.”

FBI: Felines Behind Mysterious Drones Spotted In Night Sky

Some observers believe the drone sightings are merely the first stage in an all-out feline takeover of the US. So far, cats have remained mum on their motivations, preferring instead to sow panic among Americans.

WASHINGTON –The caller was breathing heavily and speaking in rapid-fire sentences as if he had only moments to get the words out over the air.

“I’m telling you, Art, it’s the cats — the cats are piloting these drones!” the caller told Coast to Coast AM radio host Art Bell shortly after 1 am ET on Friday.

“Hold on, hold on,” Bell said theatrically. “You’re saying this has nothing to do with aliens or the government?”

The caller sighed.

“The cats may very well be in league with aliens, but I’m telling you, felines are behind…oh God! They’re here!”

The radio broadcast crackled with distorted hissing and yowling, punctuated by the caller’s pleas for mercy.

“Caller? West of the Rockies, are you there?”

The caller screamed a final time and the line went dead.

“Wow,” Bell told his audience of several million overnight listeners. “There you have it, folks. You be the judge, but that sounded like the real deal to me. Cats are piloting the mysterious drones!”

For weeks, Americans have been asking for answers about swarms of suspicious drones operating above homes, businesses, military bases and government buildings at night.

After rampant speculation that the drones could belong to rogue states, or could be part of some secret government flight test, the FBI confirmed Friday that felines are behind the frequent sightings.

Drone at night — A drone flies above a farm and ranch as the sun fades. Drones have been spotted circling chicken and turkey coops, as well as fish markets.

Biden administration officials confirmed to several media outlets that intelligence supported the theory that cats — not Iranians, Russians or some secret Pentagon operation — are operating the drone swarms that have been lighting up the night sky in states like New Jersey and Maryland for several weeks, befuddling local and state officials.

“At first we thought the idea was absurd,” said a high-ranking official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Then we received reports of drone swarms circling several meat-packing plants, a Chewy distribution center in Trenton, and two PetSmarts in northern New Jersey.”

So far, the felines’ motivation remains shrouded in mystery, but experts on the small, furry animals ventured guesses on what may have motivated their sudden interest in aviation and airspace.

“No one’s claimed responsibility, so we’re left to speculate,” said Norah Grayer, a feline behaviorist with NYU’s Gummitch School of Veterinary Science. “But it may be that felines, as a whole, have decided the meow is insufficient for getting their demands across. Humans have become adept at tuning out those vocalizations, so this may be the next step in an attention arms race, so to speak.”

Noted cat expert Jefferson Nebula offered a different explanation.

“Cats are notoriously subject to FOMO, which is one reason why they can’t abide closed doors,” he said. “If someone managed to convince them that we humans were holding out on them, and there are entire worlds of yums we keep for ourselves, well, that would spark the wrath of these otherwise friendly little guys.”

Cat with drone — Felines have mastered control over aerial drones despite their lack of thumbs.

For his part, Bell consulted with Michio Kaku, the physicist and science communicator who has been a regular presence on Coast to Coast.

“We physicists have been saying for decades that cats are much more intelligent than we give them credit for,” Kaku said. “This could be retribution for the Schroedinger’s cat thought experiment, or felids may be looking to surpass humanity’s understanding of 11-dimensional hyperspace.”

“Professor, we’ve spoken quite a bit about the Kardashev scale [of civilization progress] in the past,” Bell said. “If we separated human and feline societies, where would we each fall on the scale? Humans are about a zero point seven, are we not?”

“That’s right,” Kaku said. “We physicists believe humanity is on the cusp of a Type I civilization, with things like the internet as a Type I telecommunications system and fusion power on the horizon. However, if you break it down and cats were separated into their own civilization, cats could plausibly already be a Type I civilization.”

“They’re ahead of us?”

“That’s right,” Kaku said. “We physicists believe cats can tap directly into primordial energies and have mastered quantum teleportation. In Star Trek, the Federation is a Type II civilization, and the Caitians — a species of alien cats — are part of the Federation. Yet it’s widely understood that the only reason the Caitians haven’t conquered entire swaths of the galaxy, like the Borg and the Klingons, is because of their strict adherence to their napping schedule and their inherent laziness. These drone swarms may be a signal that real-life cats are fed up enough to disturb their napping schedules, in which case we should all be terrified.”

Header image of drone light show credit Wikimedia Commons

London Under Siege As Pro-Palmerston Forces Seek To Overthrow Larry The Cat

The battle between the UK’s most prominent felines could upend the political order and engulf the realm in chaos!

LONDON — Larry the Cat patrolled his familiar route through Downing Street, nodding at the fully armored soldiers and security professionals who lined the narrow passage as if to say “Alright, then!”

The UK’s most beloved feline and de facto head of state felt it was important to personally inspect the defenses and raise the morale of his men as more reports arrived of intense fighting on the edges of the city, where Larry loyalists clashed with supporters of Palmerston, the former chief mouser at Whitehall and Larry’s longtime nemesis.

Larry vs Palmerston — Palmerston, left, and Larry, right, during one of their epic battles while Palmerston was still top cat at Whitehall.

The British public were told Palmerston “retired” in 2020 to enjoy a more leisurely life at his countryside estate, putting an end to the intense skirmishes between himself and No. 10’s chief mouser.

But it appears Palmerston’s “retirement” was but a ruse, and the calculating tuxedo has spent the past four years laying the foundations for a coup aimed at deposing Larry.

“This has come as quite a shock to us all, obviously,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters. “Larry’s primacy was always viewed as ironclad. He’s outlasted five prime ministers and will remain here long after I’m booted out of the job. A challenge to his rule is unthinkable, and we will not allow this vile Palmerston-led rebellion to endanger our nation!”

A diplomatic party led by Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg was dispatched to the Palmerstonian camp to discuss a cessation of hostilities, but the former MP was sent back tied to a donkey and smelling powerfully of feline urine.

FCO_Chief_Mouser_Palmerston — Palmerston during his Whitehall days. The tuxedo was the highest ranking feline in the UK’s foreign office.

Analysts called the rebellion the most serious threat to the UK’s political stability in centuries, warning of potential uprisings of Palmerston sympathiers in Wales and Scotland.

“As loved as Larry is, he’s come to be seen as an insider, comfortably ensconced in the halls of power,” said Nigel Bancroft, a political columnist with the Times. “Palmerston has reinvented himself as a populist fighting for the interests of the common man. That rebranding, so to speak, has allowed him to gain favor with working class citizens.”

“But make no mistake,” he added, “Palmerston is ruthless.”

The Palmerstonian loyalists delivered a letter with a list of demands to No. 10 Downing St., beginning with the voluntary resignation of Larry and his banishment to the Isle of Man.

They also warned Starmer to banish his two family cats from No. 10, clearing the way for Palmerston to assume power unchallenged.

Despite leading an uprising, Palmerston was making inroads with the public

“That Larry, he’s an okay bloke,” said Alastair Hughes of Gravesend. “But Palmerston is a cat of the people. He gets us. He’s the kind of lad you can have a pint with, know what I mean?”