An old enemy lies in wait in the far reaches of the galaxy, ready to exact revenge on the most dashing, clever and dashingly clever captain in Starfleet!
ALPHA QUADRANT, Milky Way Galaxy — Captain Buddy is back for his most thrilling, treacherous and scrumptious adventure yet!
As the commanding officer of the USS Fowl Play and a legend within the galactic community, Captain Buddy and his trusty crew get the call to investigate reports of the malevolent Borg raiding colonies on the edge of Federation space.
Our intrepid captain arrives just in time to fend off a Borg cube attacking Dawn’s Edge, one of the largest colonies on the Felinian Rim. After mounting a heroic defense and defeating the diabolical enemy spacecraft, brave Captain Buddy discovers the Borg weren’t just trying to assimilate the peaceful Caitians living in the colony: they were after the colonist’s turkey, tuna and dilithium reserves as well!
With reinforcements several days away, Captain Buddy is tasked with defending the colony, reassuring terrified colonists, and managing a dwindling supply of sandwiches and snacks…
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!”
Kittens back home on Earth ask the brave catstronauts about their mission and life in space!
STAR COMMANDER BUDDY’S LOG, STARDATE 12142022, Aboard the USS Fowl Play
Lt. Commander Freddie Ferocious has command of the bridge while I’ve retired to my ready room for the important task of answering video messages from kittens in Mrs. Meowmore’s Kittengarden class.
Lt. Commander Freddie Ferocious, executive officer of the USS Fowl Play.Star Commander Buddy, commanding officer of the USS Fowl Play.
Myles, a three-month-old tuxedo who wants to be a catstronaut when he grows up, has asked me how catstronauts eat and use the litter box in zero gravity.
“Well, Myles,” I tell him, “as you may have guessed, regular litter is no good without gravity! You can’t bury your business, obviously, and you run the risk of free-floating poops and granules of litter escaping into the ship’s habitable areas, so a litter box is out of the question. That is why we have a sealed Litter Chamber and a special suction device. It takes some getting used to, especially since it tends to pull on your fur while you’re doing your business!”
Sophia, a five-month-old Calico, asks us what we eat in space.
“This morning at 0100 hours I was informed that our food replicators are malfunctioning, which means the entire crew has had to make do with freeze-dried kibble and pate MREs. No wonder we’re all so cranky! I have ordered the engineering department to devote all available resources and catpower toward the repair of the replicators. This simply cannot be allowed to go unresolved, for a cranky crew can easily become a mewtinous one, and I don’t want to have to start spacing kitties out of the airlock. Er, I mean throwing ’em in the brig! Chief Engineer Meowdi LaForge tells me the replicators should be back online by breakfast.”
Chief Engineer Meowdi LaForge
Simba, three and a half months, asks: “Dear Commander Buddy, how far are you from the place you’re traveling to, and what will you do when you get there? Is it true there might be monsters? That would be scary!”
“Thanks for writing, Simba! It’s 10.47 light years to the Epsilon Eridani star system, which is a long ride! Fortunately the USS Fowl Play is a pretty big, comfortable ship, with lots of stuff to do to keep her running, and some pretty cool options for entertainment and R&R when we’re off duty. We’re less than two light years away from our destination now, which means the Fowl Play has already flipped and is engaged in a prolonged deceleration burn. We have to do that, see, so we don’t sail right on past Epsilon Eridani!
“Where did you hear about the thing with the monsters? It’s not true, okay? I don’t know what anyone told you, probably that jealous jerk Commander Calvin, but I totally did not run screaming from a monster during the expedition to Luyten 726-8, okay? That’s fake news!
“What happened was, I saw the monster and issued a blood-curdling battle cry, but then I hit the wrong button on my Planetary CatRover, which caused it to spin around and run in the other direction. I was trying to inspire my team, not abandon them. I would have turned around and battled the monster too, except by the time I realized my mistake I was already more than half way back to the lander and the others had scared the monster away with their laser pointers.”
That’s my rover on the left, and the Scary Monster on the right. As you can see, I’m very brave for facing the Scary Monster:
Buddy’s Planetary Rover
The Evil Monster, whom Buddy was totally not scared of.
Five-month-old Pepper asks: “Star Commander Buddy, do you think smart aliens are out there? What do they look like? Will they be nice when you meet them?”
“Hi, Pepper! Those are good questions. Well we should remember that we cats are not only a super intelligent species, but we are intimidating too! We have sharp teeth and claws, some of us can roar, and we look really strong and tough! So maybe the aliens will be scared of us!
“I think there will be smart aliens even though we haven’t found other intelligent life on Earth. I mean, there’s humans, but they’re simple-minded creatures, aren’t they? That’s why they’re our servants! LOL! Maybe the aliens will only have fur on their heads like humans. Maybe they’ll look like dogs. Gross, I know! Or maybe they’ll look like a cross between elephants, manta rays and aardvarks.
“We just don’t know, which is why we’re trying to find out. Picture it: Star Commander Buddy, fearlessly leading the first expedition to make contact with smart aliens. It’ll be pretty cool to be in the history books. Tell ya what, Pepper. If we find smart aliens, you and the rest of Mrs. Meowmore’s class will be the first to know. After NASA, of course. We’ll send you pictures. Deal?”
Lt. Loki pilots our lander, and he’s a good example of how intimidating our species can look! Will aliens be scared of him?
Vice Admiral Yo’oko Nahsuareo. Did you know jaguars make up only 4% of the Catstronaut Corps? They are usually sleep specialists, designing cryosleep pods for space travel and constantly improving comfortable napping spots on our ships.
Pain In The Bud 