Cat and Monster.

<snip>
“Any chance I could have a go at flying the Starbug when we get out into space?” Cass asked Jay as they approached the access door to the flight deck “You know: Where there's nothing to hit? I've never tried it before...”
“Yeah, I don't see why not” Jay shrugged as he hauled the door open, his nanosuit's enhanced strength helping him achieve the otherwise difficult job with relative ease
“Oh” Cass frowned, catching sight of what lay in the hangar beyond
Jay straightened and turned, following her gaze
“Ah” he said
<end snip>

“What…” demanded Seymour “What is it?”
“Davie…” Jay said “Would you mind awfully stepping over here with you’re big gun a mo….”
Davie nodded and stepped forward.
“What is going on?” Seymour asked again. “I demand to know!” he barged between Phi and White Wolf and shoved Cass to one side to see what was happening.
In the hangar bay, was an enormous monster, almost as tall as the entire 5-deck height hangar itself. It’s skin light brown, and densely armoured. It was munching on a starbug in the centre of the room.
Davie took aim with his weapon, which he’d loaded with a handful of coins he’d swiped from Seymours pocket.
Davie let out a burst of fire, 1, 2, 20 pennycent coins being propelled from the gun, all bouncing off. Not even the larger 50 pennycent coin, with it’s six sides could penetrate the monsters armour.
Jay, having taking a fresh rifle from Davies back was also letting rip with bursts of fire but nothing was happening.
All that happened was that the creature now turned his attention to the group of humans and one hamster in the doorway.
It turned toward them, and started to move in their direction, slowly at first, but it soon began to pick up an incredible speed. Powering toward them as though it weighed nothing. Jay looked past it, from what he could see, only one Starbug was fit to fly – right at the other end of the shuttle bay, behind the creature.
“Everyone….head for that bug! Don’t stop for anything…”
“But it EATS Starbugs!” Seymour cried
“Yeah, but we can try to fry it with the engines!”
“And if that doesn’t work?”
“It’ll get blasted into space when we open the bay doors…..now MOVE!”
The group did as directed, and ran as fast as they could toward the starbug, keeping as much space, and obstacles between them and the monster as they could. Running around behind the parked, derelict shuttles that were so numerous Stanley ducked as the chassis of a Blue Midget was tossed upward by the creature just inches from him.
“MOVE!” Jay yelled looking back, as he reached the hatch to the bug. Everyone piled in, and once they were all safely inside Jay followed and sealed the hatch, dashing through to the cockpit were Davie sat in the pilots seat.
“Out” Jay said simply
“but I can fly!”
“I guarantee you I’m better, move!”
"No! I'm a good pilot!"
"Jones, I outclassed everyone on this ship in the pilots seat before I died, I've clocked up 600 years of flying time since then...now MOVE!"
Jay literally hoisted Davie out of the seat one-handed, thanks to the extra strength provided by the nano-suit, and strapped himself in.
The shuttle lurched violently. The creature and latched itself onto the rear of it and scratching at the hull.
Jay fired the engines, they stalled at first, having not been fired in 3,000 millenia. The second time he tried it they kicked in, and bathed the creature in a white-hot stream of flame. The creature let go, and the Starbug began to move forward at speed, but the monster was only dazed, and gave chase.
“Eet’s gaining!” Gomez said checking a read out, “Move faster!”
“We’re at full throttle!” Jay snapped back
Up ahead the bay doors were still sealed. Without Holly, there was no way to open them. Jay opened fire with the Starbugs cannons and blasted the doors open.
“Eet’s still following us!” Gomez barked
“You gotta be kidding me!” Jay remarked “Even with decompression? HOW?”
The Starbug threw itself out of the doors, but the creature leapt after them, and grabbed onto the bugs rear landing legs.
“How in the hell can it survive in a vacuum?” Jay said as he sent the bug into a spin to try to shake the creature, which continued to hold on tightly.
Jay took the bug into a dive, and began to fly along the outer hull of the Blue Dwarf, mere feet from it, every proximity alarm was sounding, deliberately smashing the creature into the many structures that protruded from it. The creature let go, and rolled vioilently along the hull.
Jay pulled up sharply and away from the hull. And started to turn to make a pass at the creature, hoping to use the cannons to kill it, but the monster did something entirely unexpected.

It unfolded two large wings and began to fly. It began to chase the starbug once again.
Jay pulled away quickly, and headed for the planet at full speed, hoping that creature might burn up in the atmosphere, but it continued to pursue even during re-entry.
“Jay..” Said Cass “I think it’s attracted to the engine heat….”
“Why?”
“Well…it eats space ships right? But it chose to chase us rather than eat the big blue? It’s not giving out any heat we are!”
“Well then…” Jay said “Let me show you how we deal with heat-seekers….”
And with that, he cut the engines.
In the planets gravity, the shuttle began to plummet, quickly, down toward the surface throwing anyone who wasn’t strapped in into the celing.. The creature quickly lost interest and soared overhead. As soon as it had safely passed. Jay kicked the engines back in and gave chase. The monster turned, and flew back toward them as it picked up the engine heat, and Jay opened fire at the creatures flimsy looking wings.
Each shot punctured the wings a little bit more, but the creature kept coming and with it’s mouth open wide looked like it would swallow the shuttle whole, until one last shot damaged the wings just enough that it couldn’t maintain flight and mere inches from the nose of the shuttle the creature began to fall several thousand feet to the surface below.
“Theres no way eet could have survived that!” Gomez said.
“I’d hope not..” said Jay “But just to be sure…how about I land on the other side of the planet….”

<tag!>