Mousecatcher

<Snip>
“Huh. Keep your hair on” Holly bobbed on the screen “We’ve had someone come out of stasis; a guy called Brett Bishop”
“The chef?” Jay asked
“Yeah, that’s the guy”
“Cool” Cass nodded “We could do with someone like him” she met Jay’s eye and raised her eyebrows “Want to go pick him up, or shall I just dispatch a MED to escort him onto a Starbug and then we can ship him over on autopilot?”
<end snip>
Jay paused a moment, glanced over at the bar, the beach and the giant neon sign of the Casino in the distance.
“Hate to leave this place” he said “But, I’ll go over and pick him up. He’s just come out of stasis, he’ll be confused no doubt. A friendly face will be more welcome that an empty shuttle. Coming?”
“Are you kidding?” Cass replied “I’ve got a tan to top up…”
With that she slinked off toward the beach, Jay stopping for a moment to watch the movement of her ass as she did so, before breaking his stare and heading for the shuttle hangar.
A little while later the Starbug was thundering out of the resort.
It was the first time Jay found himself alone in a shuttle for some time, so he took advantage of the lack of passengers to ‘stretch his legs’, he sent the shuttle into a steep dive toward the nearest planetoid, hurtling downward to the surface without so much as the lightest touch on the brakes. At the very last moment he pulled up, and dragged the Starbugs landing legs through the surface of the vast ocean that covered the entire planetoid, kicking up a slipstream of saltwater behind the green craft.
He pulled up again, still at full throttle and barrel rolled through cloud after cloud, before breaking out of the atmosphere, heading toward the Blue Dwarf which he looped around several times along it’s length before flying as low as he dared along the full length of it’s dorsal hull. Finally, he looped back round and landed gracefully in the shuttle bay.
“Hol” he asked as he stepped off the gangplank. “Where’s the new guy?”
“Promenade” Holly replied “He’s mingling with the rodents”
Jay checked his weapons – he’d learned that it wasn’t a good idea to roam the ship unarmed these days – and headed toward the promenade.
<snip>
“Don’t move.” He heard a voice chitter behind him and felt a rather sharp object nudge him in his back.
“Smeg.”
<end snip>
“Turn around” the voice said, and Brett obliged, as he came to face the Ferret however, the rodent was struck in the forehead by a flying object and flopped to the ground.
Brett looked in the direction it had come from, to see Jay, weapon raised, standing on the upper level.
“Run!” he yelled down to the startled chef, and pointing toward the stairs to the mezzanine on which he stood.
“There’s more coming!”
Jay was only firing stun-rounds – the rodents had never been hostile up until now – but that was enough to drive the hunger-crazed vermin into a rage.
The promenade was filled with manic squeaks and whistles as Hamsters, Gerbils, Mice, Rats, Ferrets, Degu’s and Guinea Pigs stampeded along the deck after Brett, while bats divebombed from the air. Jay dispensed with several with more stun-rounds but it wasn’t long before his weapon clicked.
Honestly he was just thankful he couldn’t see the rabbits that were inevitably amongst the horde. He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow as he imagined the vicious face of one of the long-eared MONSTERS.
Jay pushed the thought to the back of his mind, he could panic later.
But come on….human sized Rabbits. There was a reason he avoided some parts of the promenade these days….
He’d barely even realised the Brett had caught up to him during his time in the grip of fear itself.
“What now?” the chef asked.
“Now…” Jay said “We leg it…”
The pair pelted down the corridor, the vermin close behind.
“HOW CAN YOU BE THIS HUNGRY?!” Jay yelled back to the lead Ferret. “Don’t you guys eat wood and cardboard…and your own shit?”
“That is a racist stereotype!” replied the Ferret. “But yes. That’s a good point…sorry about the confusion!”
With that, the rodents stopped chasing after the two men, turned, and ran back to the Promenade.
Jay turned to Brett and extended his hand. “Jay Chrysler” he introduced himself. “Fancy a holiday?”
<tag Brett – sorry if this messed with your plans for part 2, I saw an opportunity to post and actually had time to write so dived in – feel free to post a back-post if you had something else in mind>