Chapter 51: The Kidnapping of Hell’s Kittens

....................................................................................................................................................................
about a hundred years later
in a Dyson Sphere Named Valhalla

Some days it doesn't pay to chew through the leather straps.

No...I take that back. If we hadn't chewed through the straps, or rather, cut through the bag, we'd probably be getting tortured right now by the frost demons. Instead I’m drifting down from orbit onto an unknown planet...but I'm alive,surely that's an improvement. Unfortunately there’s not much telling about my brother. But yeah..chewing through the straps was a good idea, but this week has been ALL Mondays.

Sensei, my brother, and I were to be personality imprinted onto Eisa and then she was going to show us some of the really neat-o stuff that her father Loki was doing. After that we were going to the park and we were going to have cookies and milk, and perhaps ice cream....maybe even stinky food. The demons ruined all that....and probably killed my brother.

I AM just a touch bitter. Damn frost demons.

I recall the beginning of this mess very well. My brother and I had just finished receiving the last data dump prior to the personality imprinting. Eisa had gone to a gurl thing, no kittens allowed. Sensei and I were feeling the urge to unwind. Data dumps do that...they make us antsy...our brains itched....all those new petabytes of data in our heads, both the organic part and the cybernetic parts, ...burned . It takes awhile for the new data to settle in and assimilate. We always feel the need to kill something in the meantime. We normally run the Ragnarok simulator instead of actually killing something, it’s less messy. A class II level 3 simulator run typically works all the kinks out.

My brother and I make a point to run the simulator or the combat obstacle course every chance we get. Every time Eisa is someplace we cannot be with her we log time on one or the other. Not only are we supposed to teach Loki’s daughter and be her companion and chew toy if need be we are also her first line of defense and bodyguard. We two chew toys can fight back...We’re lethal seven ways from Sunday and come from Hell’s kitchen with a complete set of sensors and full set of tacti-cool. Upgrades are frequent and free. It says so...right there in the fine print on the label, right there where I ought to have a belly button.

You touch me and I’ll claw you.

We also know everything. All the information in creation is in our onboard memory diamond data banks. That comes in handy when answering a precocious god-gurls incessant questions. But it’s what we’re made for, that and to cuddle...and to protect her life with our own.

Sensei and I had finished donning our battle-rattle and had selected a pleasing assortment of weapons. We felt like very well dressed gargoyles.. Unfortunately we were insufficiently paranoid. When we hopped outside the door of our kennel they gassed us. We’d grown complacent and had accepted that our home grounds were safe.

They weren't.

Luckily we were wearing our battle rattle. Oxygen deprivation in our bloodstreams due to the gas effects was sensed and immediately the nostril filters were activated. We no longer inhaled the sleepy gas...a bare whiff was all we got. A bare whiff turned out to be plenty as it put us down and out of commission. I couldn't move a muscle and my thinking was affected as was Sensei's. We’re normally cross telepathic. I usually know what he’s thinking, and vice versa. That saves a lot of time when in combat or other tense situations. Not so now...between the two of us we couldn't even put together a plan to order pizza. We could NOT plan an effective counter move....which might have been the idea behind the gas.

We were still 'aware'. We could see, hear and we knew what was going on. We just couldn't think. Something big grabbed us and we were stuffed into a sack. Now we were was caught. We were trapped like a flies in amber. Even so, through the bag, I could faintly hear someone say.

"Aketay itway otay uttleshay umbernay 12...icklyquay...etha uttleshay iftslay inway entay inutesmay. Utpay itway inway aybay oneway..."

Which my implants translated to:

"Take them to shuttle number 12...quickly...the shuttle lifts in ten minutes. Put them in bay one..."

So...we’d been kidnapped. Damn Chicken Thieves.

Earlier in the week I’d overheard Frig, Freyja, Nanna and even some of the Valkyries gossiping. Their main topic of discussion was how some chicken thieves had moved back into the neighborhood.

I distinctly recall one of the Valkyrie, Brynhildr, I think it was, saying

“Effter zee ess keecking zeey receeefed a vheele-a beck frum Thur, Oodeen und zee buys yuoo’d theenk zeey’d hefe-a sense-a inuoogh tu steer cleer frum zeese-a perts”

( After the ass kicking they received a while back from Thor, Odin and the boys... you’d think they’d have sense enough to steer clear from these parts”.)

Guess not. We’d been Cat-napped by a bunch of chicken stealing frost demons. What a drag.

My mind knew this. It still processed information. I just didn't care. Nothing mattered to me. Whatever drug had been in that gas was potent and it was taking my blood nanites much, much too long to neutralize the stuff, a very ominous bit of information. My ‘give-a-shit’ was totally off line. I just didn’t care, the same thing with Sensei. After a time of being carried along we were tossed, like a bag of kitty litter, into a corner and I heard the door shut.

Shortly thereafter I felt vibration...the shuttle was going to lift.

About that time the effects of the gas wore off. As quickly as it had affected me it stopped. The drug in the gas must have been extremely 'smart' for it to fend off my blood nannies for this long ...it seemed that everything was back to normal. Like a light being switched on my ‘give-a-shit’ came back online. Sensei also.

Once again the fact that we were wearing battle-rattle came to our rescue. It had tools and as I mentioned, it had weapons. In minutes we'd cut ourselves out of the bag. We had symbolically 'gnawed through the straps. We rushed to the door. It was shut. Not a problem. Sensei and I were a trained team. I bent over and he flutter bounced off my back I then stood up straight with my hands high above my head...he landed, one foot in each of my palms. He was then, barely, high enough to reach the the door latch. After a bit he managed to turn it.. The idiot chicken thieves had left the door unlocked. He and I dropped to the floor where we’d have some traction and managed to pushed the door open...just enough to get through. We were out of the store room in a flash and flutter-galloped and leaped down the corridor toward the cockpit.

Hell’s kittens were on the assault.

My worse fears were confirmed...this WAS a chicken thief shuttle. There was a frost demons at the pilot station. We were too late...we were being ejected from our new home, Valhalla, one of the specialized Dyson Spheres of the Aesir. In minutes we'd attain sufficient separation distance to warp through to who knows where, nowhere good for sure and certain. We were already doomed.

Doomed perhaps but we were hell-kittens. We had a reputation to live up to...or die for. We deployed weapons. The door opened at my command and we charged thru it...weapons blazing.

About that time the shuttle launched.....and we lurched. This did NOT help my aim at all. I accidentally shot the frost demons in the head. I’d been aiming at center of body mass. In fact I blew his head mostly off....exploding bullets will do that, in sufficient number even if they are micro caliber.

Oh dear.

The ship was on full automatic right now anyway, so a pilot wasn’t all that necessary. We were still going to the programmed destination, pilot or no pilot. Unless we did something really quick we were going to be entertaining the young frost demons with our entrail colors. Never let yourself be captured they say and NEVER let them turn you over to the Females and the Children...or their research reverse-engineers.

Our only chance was to prevent warp drive activation. I aimed my slug thrower, as did Sensei, at the Trans-Dimensional Selector Mechanism and opened fire. I shot many times. Sensei did likewise. We actually engaged in an almost orgasmic paroxysm of wildly uncontrolled over exuberant shooting. A large number of things other than the selector mechanism was hit and hit repeatedly. The pilot for example. He just kept drawing my fire, dunno what it was about him.. I took great joy in making sausage out of that chicken thief. There were many explosions...many things broke.

We didn't care. We wanted maximum chaos and total destruction. We kept shooting. We got the sucker....No more TDSM. The shuttle wasn't going anywhere. Shortly Asgard traffic control would notice something wrong and come get us. We were saved.

We warped.

Well Nelfheilm !

I guess we didn't shoot it up ENOUGH. Dammitall anyway. We only had so many bullets. We flutter-hopped-galloped out of the control section and charged back toward the rear of the shuttle. We stopped at the first airlock that we came to. An intra-universal warp should have put us at the top of an atmosphere at approximately zero relative velocity. That’s the way those things work. Soon the chicken thief shuttle would do one of two things, it would warp again, inter-universally, or land on the planet below. For this moment though it was stationary in relation to the planet.

I hit the airlock ‘open’ door and dove thru it immediately. It opened partially....and closed right back. I made it through barely. Sensei was a mite slow. I swear I heard the “thump’ when he hit the door from the inside. I was in free fall on the way to the planet below. I rolled over on my back and watched the chicken thief shuttle. I was praying to the whole Aesir pantheon and that of the Vanir as well. I even beseeched the Jotnar. I figured it’d couldn’t hurt.

It didn’t help either. Sensei never jumped. The chicken thief ship warped again.

Sensei was gone.

I rolled over, face down to the planet, and for the first time since I’d been kidnapped I relaxed. I enjoyed free fall. I am a baby hellcat and while wearing BattleRattle I have wings and I can fly. It matters not that I was many miles high. Come to think of I was MANY miles high. This was an odd planet, this Mesa. Odd that I knew it’s name. More oddness come to mind as I fell through it’s upper atmosphere. Having an augmented memory is handy like that.
I was a bit chilly but other than that it was restful. I also made a tiny target. The fact that I had almost no metal and no active electronics was better yet. I was built to be invisible to any sensor known to the Aesir including the mark one eyeball... it’d take a upgraded eyeball to see me if I didn’t want to be seen.



Trap

At Dinner one night in Valhalla Frigg once more upsets Odin’s meal.

“Pa...it seems those chicken thieves are back. This time they stole two of Eisa’s kittens. “Frigg mentioned to Odin one night as she served him a heaping platter of venison.

Odin carved a piece from the venison steak and committed....”Eisa? I don’t rightly recall her. “...he bit into the meat and chewed contentedly. Frigg was a marvelous cook.

“Pa...you should be ashamed. I’ll swear...you can’t even remember the names of your own kin. Eisa is one of Loki’s daughters...she got those kittens from Hel.”. said Frigg as she poured some mead into Odin’s drinking horn...

“Ah yes...I do recall...Hell’s kittens.” Odin drank some mead and frowned slightly then sat back in his chair in contemplation. He took another drink , swallowed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“You know...I don’t think I feel the urge to rescue those chicken thieves.”

Frigga grinned but said in mock disappointment...”but think of poor Eisa..what will she do without her....eh....kittens.”

Odin grinned and said “They stole the kittens...upon their heads be it. In fact, I’m going to speak to Tyr and have him release the kittens eddicts. Loki’s daughter is she? Perhaps I’ll give here a pair of Gram’s puppies.”

Frigga looked shocked for an instant then grim. She knew better than to say anything when himself was in such a mood. She felt a little sorry for the chicken thieves.

For Loki she felt not one whit of remorse.

---

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