Concerned Catgirl Noises

02: Welcome to Elysium

Gwen piloted the Laika, flicking multiple warning light switches as the ship shuddered out of FTL.

It wasn’t anything too concerning that any professional pilot would be concerned with. Just things like the Greyhound model stellar drive overheating. Why was it overheating? Well, one reason was the poor thing was clearly on its last legs and had gone from a low growl to the gasping, stuttering rumble of a rabid animal in machine terms. Alternatively, it might have been the coolant they’d bought had been adulterated with way too much regular water without added chemicals that made it not instantly boil off.

Just little things like that.

Oh, and the check engine light was on. Gwen was ignoring that too.

It was all together enough to make Gwen feel as if her hair was going to fall out because piloting a space craft was not supposed to have any of these problems as they should have been eliminated in port. But technical school hadn’t exactly taught her she’d be dealing with a junk ship that seemed to actively be tearing itself apart at the seams bit by bit. Or that she’d be using third and fourth hand parts.

It was enough to stress a girl out. “Zenn! We got anymore of those cream bars?” she yelled to the back of the ship, hoping for a little pick me up.

“Mrrrph?” Zenn mumbled around a mouthful of food as she made her way to the front of the ship. “Narf?”

Gwen sighed, letting her head fall against the pilot’s console briefly. She just wanted a snack.

Unfortunately, they were about out. The only thing left to eat would be the bland Synthtein™ bars all ships stocked up on in case of being left drifting. They’d keep you alive, but sweet stars above they sucked.

“Welp, good news, we should be arriving in the Elysium system to stock up on food and… everything,” Gwen said. “Brochure said it had lots of beaches, green valleys, forests, and everything you’d want in a vacation world.” She trailed off dreamily.

“Well, I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” Zenn laughed. “Lotta worlds say they’re a ‘vacation world’ to attract customers and investors, but only a small area is actually set up.”

“Oh…” was all Gwen could say as a small spark of hope died. That would explain why the sensors seem to reported a surprising lack of water in the world and arid environments.

The ship shuddered as they finally entered atmosphere. The ship vibrated as something violently detached itself from the ship. It probably wasn’t needed.

Gwen managed to bring the ship down to a small ‘landing’ zone outside the city capital of Woop Woop. Weird name, but okay, Gwen thought.

Small ships like the Laika could be brought down to a world’s gravity well. Definitely wouldn’t work for the bigger freighters and definitely not big warships like the one her mama served in. The equation for mass of a ship that could fly into and out of a gravity well varied and depended on a lot of factors like the anti-grav system, planet size, but fortunately they fell well below it.

Why? Because parking in a random field was cheap while a proper dock in a space station typically cost daily rent.

Said field was by the Betterballs Scrapyard on the city outskirts.

“Oi! Fackin cunt! Ye gotta pay up if ye wanna park there!” the ticket bot called out to them, holding out a payment terminal.

Gwen stared out at the hovering bot that’d parked itself outside the ship’s cockpit and sighed. Rude, but Mother Capitalism never stopped. The bastard.

She unbuckled herself from the pilot controls and stepped out of the ship. The first thing that hit her was the wave of heat. It was like almost like walking into an oven, almost, and her skin almost immediately began to sweat. The next thing?

That annoying fucking bot shoving a payment terminal at her.

“I got you, hold a bloody second, geeze,” Gwen grouched, snatching the payment terminal to link her wrist-comp up and pay the fee.

“Thanks for choosing Betterballs scrapyard, fucko! Be back by sundown or the ship’s scrap!” the bot responded with a cheerful wave. Looking closer, it became evident the thing had multiple patched bullet holes.

“At least the parking fee is dirty cheap,” Gwen grumbled.

She’d seen a few other ships landing, but most seemed to be on further off and in states of salvaging, hulls and frameworks standing like skeletons of metal beasts in the sun.

The only real difference between those ships and the Laika were a few patch jobs. The poor thing needed a complete overhaul, but there were probably parts they could get in the scrapyard for that. But first…

Gwen leaned back in the ship. “Zenn! Come on, I’m craving real food and there’s restaurant in the city,” she shouted.

“Wohooo!” Zenn zoomed out to meet her. “Real food! Let’s gooooo!”

With that, they rented an automated taxi and made their way into the city.

~~~~

The difference between Woop-Woop city proper and the outskirts was night and day.

For one, there seemed to be some sort of city wide climate control that made the entire place feel pleasant to walk around in, almost like her homeworld, Neko Prime. This? This looked like the brochure she’d read on the data terminal.

There was even a river running through the city leading into a small sea bordering the city’s east side where she saw yachts with actual sails sailing by on the way in. The buildings themselves? Towering, white and reds of the Deep Dig Galactic corporation, the city’s patron company, all leading to a single skyscraper at the city’s heart.

But that didn’t concern Gwen so much as the food.

Synthtein™ bars, particularly the ones they’d stocked up on, had a vaguely tuna taste that was okay but otherwise pretty bland. It’d unfortunately been their primary food on the voyage here, with other food supplementing them with other flavors, but as Zenn had demonstrated, they’d about run out. The cream bars had been the last things Gwen considered snack worthy.

The place Gwen scoped out was called Georgina’s Cafe. Other places, like “The Queen’s Reprieve” looked way out of their price range. This cafe, though, was small, but tactful, stonework, even, with an inviting atmosphere welcoming the mostly doggirl patrons in.

“This place, looks a little high class…” Zenn noted. “You sure this place is cheaper than that franchise a ways back?”

Gwen brought up reviews. “Well, the reviews say this place is affordable and has five star reviews?” she mused. “I wanna give it a try. Besides, can you smell it? It’s so good, my mouth’s watering.”

“Yeah, fancy places usually have premium food Gwen,” Zenn sighed, allowing them to be taken in by a dog-girl butler that had them seated by a window.

A menu was brought out and Gwen could admit she was a little starstruck. It all looked so good she had trouble picking anything.

“Butter fee for the complimentary bread,” Zenn mentioned darkly. “Seriously? What is this, a movie theater?”

Gwen blinked, finally looking past the food and looking more in depth. “That, that can’t be right, can it? Butter’s super cheap…” she said.

She read closer, past the vibrant food descriptions, and into the tiny, almost illegible fees listed in the bottom corner of the menu.

Fees for all patrons are counted per person.

Table setting fee

Butter fee

Water fountain ambiance fee

Music fee

Candle lighting fee

All of it came together to make a price, before any food was ordered, that’d be ten times what Gwen would expect to pay back home.

Gwen’s heart nearly fell out when she saw a doggirl butler smartly walking with a electro-lighter in one hand and butter dish in the other. Her eyes shot to the unlit candle.

“Zenn. We need to go. Now!”

“No shit!” Zenn replied, standing and taking Gwenn by the hand. “Let’s get outta here. Ain’t no place that charges a butter fee gonna get my credits.”

They practically fled the place, running past the surprised doggirl butler but to the snickering of the other patrons. They knew.

“Ugh, now I’m just hungry and fudging depressed,” Gwen said, catching their breath on a park bench after they’d run a bit, just to be sure. “What the heck was that? I’ve never seen prices that bad…”

“It’s pretty common in Dogfolk places to have a clear divide between ‘Pedigrees’ as they call it. Basically, if you ain’t rich folk from a long generation of rich folk, with basically the same gene code, you’re a lower class citizen. Wasting money on shit like that is part of how they flex on the ‘poors’ as they call people like us.”

“Ugh. Sounds awful. You spend much time around them? I know Mama fought them in the last war, but I was on Neko Prime until the latest wave pushing into the Inner Rim, so…” Gwen trailed off staring.

“I fought them, in four separate battles, on their most populated worlds,” Zenn remarked. “Trying to stabilize a planet and police it after the war ended was always pretty futile, because the Rich Dogfolk thought that they could bribe the Catfolk into looking the other way when they were murdering young kittens, or the disabled. Suffice to say, that never went over well.”

Gwen felt a little sick at even the light description. Her mama never went into too much detail about the occupation after the battles, granted, because she was in space, but…

“Fudge,” Gwen said, finally.

“Yeah, it gets worse, but I don’t really think it’s a good idea to talk about that in public,” Zenn commented.

“You’d certainly be right about that,” a strangely accented catboy with a strange toothed hat claimed, walking over to them with a bowl of noddles in each hand from the nearby vendor, and four meat skewers. “But it ain’t all bad at least… Come on then, let’s get ya something to eat!”

~~~~

AN:

HiddenMaster: Poor Gwen, all sheltered and catgirl-y.

But yeah, she’s booksmart as fuck. Definitely smarter than I am irl, but she has some street learning to do. Fortunately, Zenn had her back here. Probably would have been forced to sign a debt contract to work off that single meal if Zenn hadn’t been there, and, well, there’s ways of extending that contract with even more hidden fees…

Kitsu: Catt gonna Catt. And Rare Catboy gonna Rare Catboy them.

Thankfully, he’s not a creep. Just a bit of a troll. As you’ll see when it’s pointed out just what he brings them for food lol.

Suffice to say… the world is a death world in and of itself. So this is going to be funny.

Anyways, links!

Kitsu’s Foxxo Shrine: https://aikoakiyoshi.carrd.co/

HiddenMaster’s Archive: https://hiddenmasterarchive.carrd.co/

We have published work! Kitsu and HiddenMaster got the first arc of A Kitsune’s Ascent Published!

https://books2read.com/u/mqYYY1

You can also check out HiddenMaster’s original story, Catgirl Isekai Gone Wrong, here!

https://books2read.com/u/mZzzGy