In Outer Space No One Can Hear You Meow

Not sure why I signed up to be the first cat to make it past Saturn but we didn't even slingshot past the Moon before regret prickled my hackles. Let me clarify by saying "signed" is a strong word. (Also, "saying.") As any 12-year-old could tell you, my ability to agree or disagree is simply conjecture based on the latest neural projection technology, an interpretive science, needless to say. Or, "project." 

Anywho, whether I technically agreed or whether my longtime human companion did all that legal mumbo jumbo in lieu of my toe beans, here we both are. She's in charge of this ginormous whatsamagig blasting us between those improbable gaps of instant death that separate the planets. No way I'd want to go outside in possibly zero Kelvin conditions. I mean, it's no fun without any birds or squirrels out there and meanwhile, I've got everything a pampered feline could need inside this rotating hull. Things like genetically modified food engineered to look and behave like Earth mice, a newfangled litter-disintegrating machine, plus a scratching post with low-gravity harness. Fun for floofies!

Now if only my human could stop moaning over the First Officer. 

I'd better describe the First Officer, right? Okay, she's warm in all the right places with a suitable lap and supple fingers for petting but there's something off that I just can't put my paw on. Whatever it is, she makes my fur explode when the captain lets her into our sleeping quarters. The first few times, I think they found me amusing—my old school hisses and snarls as I danced around the intruder with kaleidoscopic rage. After I lashed out with untrimmed claw power, however, they started going to her pod instead. Which worries me. I can't protect my human if she's out of scratching range.

But about the First Officer. She's an attractive member of her species as best as I can tell. The main way I know this, unfortunately, is I've seen her getting handsy with one of the dudes down in Food Services, a med tech, two comms specialists and half a dozen security officers, consecutively and sometimes not. Look, I'm as into polyamory as the next cat but my feline-enhanced neural sense tells me this is more than mere mating. 

So how can I get my captain to wake up and smell the synthetic coffee? 

The more I watch that officer and her clowder slinking around, checking consoles, exchanging packages, the more I wonder whether this is not about fornication at all. But if not copulation, what in tarnation could it be?

Sorry, I'm grumpy today. Had to doze alone in the captain's bed last sleep cycle and I hate dozing alone. I need to find a way to get her back so we can snuggle again in our cubicle, her gentle snores harmonizing with my purry rumbles—

Wait. Is that? Yes, it's that darn First Officer sidling into the airlock. Since she's not suited up, she's probably meeting one of her admirers. Now's my chance if I can only remember the code! Jump up to the seat. Press screen. Access code, access code...ah, yes...1234. No, just kidding. It's PaSsWoRd. No, still just kidding. It's $j@M5&&&2L9bp. Of course.

By the time the First Officer spots the countdown warning, it's already too late. When she looks up from the console she's been jiggering with, I offer my best unblinking stare right into her widening eyes. She might have said NOOOOOOOOOOOO but even kittens understand you can't hear anything through airlock glass. Then, before she can consider her next move, I make mine. Pressing my right front paw onto the activate panel, I release the external door lock. Hey, what do you know?  Those toe beans came in handy after all.

From my perch above the console, I watch the decompressed First Officer spin away into outer space, far from my captain's arms, curvy lap never to return. I leap down and bop along the metal alloy hall to our quarters, tail flouncing high and dreams of interplanetary catnip toys dancing in my fluffy head. Who knows? Maybe I'll not only get to be the first cat past Saturn, maybe I'll also get to be the first cat First Officer on the snuggliest journey to the farthest, most deadly reaches of the Solar System.