Word Count: 2,103
 Rating: PG.
 Category: Humour.
 Story Status: Complete.
 Summary: Kittens on the loose!

WARNING: More cuteness ahead!

 Written for Tipper's Poem Challenge.

Author's Notes: I wasn't going to write a sequel to Intergalactic Cats, but...

I noticed a few stories written in response to a poem challenge by Tipper and I thought, sounds like an interesting idea, so I got out my beloved and most favourite (and falling to pieces) poem book (one I've had since I was eight, and was the first book I ever bought with my very own money!).  I thought maybe an angst-ridden poem?  Or perhaps one based on a particular war poem that is in the book?  But no, I read a certain poem and a plot bunny jumped up and down and insisted I write a sequel to Intergalactic Cats!!!  Oh well, hope you like it.  Poem at the end.

Beta:  Thank you to Jayne Perry for the beta-reading.


Intergalactic Cats: The Wanderers
By Leesa Perrie

1: Settling In

Rodney had taken on responsibility for the kittens, although he shared them with other people.  After all, there had been many involved in keeping them alive, and then in the campaign to keep them on Atlantis, and although he wanted them all to himself, he didn’t want to end up with a campaign against himself from the many kitten admirers in the city.

So, they slept with him most nights, except when he was off world or pulling an all-nighter, in which case he had plenty of kitten-sitters to choose from.  And during the day, there were always people who were off duty and willing to entertain the cute balls of fluff, that were rapidly growing into young hellions.  Spoilt.  They were totally spoilt, and Rodney knew he was the worst of the spoilers, though he’d never admit it to anyone.

The kittens had most of Atlantis wrapped around their far too cute little paws.

Except for the few who were allergic, of course.  And because of allergies, everyone who kitten-sat had to ensure they wore clothes that were fur-free when in public.  This usually meant leaving a set of clothes or two with a friend, and changing into them after the kittens had gone.  Or in Rodney’s case, commandeering an extra room to keep his non-kitten-contaminated items in.

So far, it was working out just fine.  Carson hadn’t suffered any watering eyes or sneezing fits, as had none of the other allergic Atlanteans, and the kittens were getting plenty of love and attention.

There had even been a room set up, one with a balcony that had been carefully caged in by the engineers, for the kittens to play in.  Lots of toys, lots of places to climb and to hide, and a caged in balcony for fresh air, and to watch the occasional bird or whale pass by.

They slept on top of the tables in the room, and in the chairs, and on the climbing frames, and in any hidden corners they could find.  They also slept on what could be called a window-ledge, but was in fact a high shelf set in front of the window so that they could look out on days when the balcony doors were closed..  

At nearly ten weeks old, they were growing up quickly.  Full of fun and mischief.  Extroverts and spoilt brats, with the curiosity that cats were famed for.

2: The First Escape

There was a music room in Atlantis.  The expedition had discovered it in their first year, and many had jumped on the chance to learn to play Ancient, and Athosian, instruments.  After contact with Earth was re-established, many Earth instruments appeared, and there were several bands of varying sorts that met and played mainly for the fun of it, though Elizabeth encouraged a few ‘concerts’ to boost morale from time to time as well.

When the kittens were ten weeks old, almost to the day, they disappeared from their playroom.  No one could figure out how they had escaped, and in the end it was assumed that someone must have been careless and left the door open, as the room was kitten proof.

A frantic search found them in the music room, fast asleep on the Ancient equivalent of a piano.

They were returned to their playroom, but every so often after that a certain physicist used to smuggle them down to the music room, and they would lie on the piano-like instrument and listen to him play.  No one was ever around to hear or see it, which was exactly what he wanted.  The kittens seemed to find it soothing.  And if he did too, well, he was keeping that to himself.  

3: The Second Escape

Major Lorne had spent the night escorting Dr Corrigan on an anthropological excursion to one of their friendly trading partners, whose world was out of sync with Atlantis’ day and night cycle.  In other words, their day time coincided with Atlantis’ night time.

So, exhausted from being up all night, not to mention being bored out of his mind, he gratefully fell into his bed in the early hours of the morning and slept solidly until the early hours of the afternoon, when he surfaced slowly.

He opened his eyes, wondering why he felt like something was lying in the middle of his stomach, not yet awake enough to react, and looked groggily down at the black kitten snuggled up and asleep on him.  

Huh?  Awareness returned quickly then, and he noticed a grey kitten snuggled up next to his leg, on the edge of his bed.  He groaned.  Midnight and Stardust had done it again, it seemed.

Slowly levering himself up and ignoring the indignant cries of Midnight, as she was disturbed from her nice warm and soft human, and the annoyed look Stardust threw his way as he disturbed her as well, he headed into the bathroom to take care of pressing business, and then threw on some clothes.

Over his comm he could hear the frantic search for the missing kittens, and wearily responded, letting the searchers know where they were, and that no, he had no idea how they had gotten into his room.  He had gone to sleep in a kitten-free environment, and awoken to a kitten-infested bed.

Someone came to collect them, and he was able to have a shower and get on with his, thankfully, kitten-free day.

4: The Third Escape

Sheppard had a shoe drawer.  Okay, most people just shoved their shoes and boots onto the floor, or in a closet, but he had a shoe drawer.  It was tall enough for his boots to fit, and it meant they weren’t lying around for him to trip over, and his closet was full of other, more important things, like the surfboard he’d managed to get smuggled in.  Well, okay, not so much smuggled…but anyway, it took up a lot of his closet space, so his boots and shoes went into the drawer instead.

That morning he had been in a rush, and hadn’t shut the drawer properly after grabbing his boots.  Not unusual, and, hey, who was around to notice or care anyway?  

After a hard day off world, trying to find a way to release McKay from the tribe who had taken him hostage on planet ‘McKay-is-our-god-and-we’re-not-letting-him-leave’.  One look at McKay’s magic box, aka a life signs detector, and he was immediately deified.  Only a god could detect people in such a manner, it would seem.  Well, at least to the primitive, make that the crazy primitive people of that world, who were probably all drugged or something anyway.   

When Sheppard tried to show that others could also use the life signs detector, he was immediately vilified as the ‘evil trickster’.  Which just proved their craziness.  Who would think that McKay was a god but that he was evil? After all, he was much better looking than McKay, and had the hair to prove it.

It hadn’t been fun moment in his life, having pointy spears shoved towards him.

Fortunately, Teyla used her formidable negotiating skills to suggest that they remove the ‘evil trickster’ from their midst, and then Elizabeth had sent the Daedalus, which fortunately was on its way back from Earth at the time, and was actually in the neighbourhood of said planet, and had Hermiod beam Rodney onboard.

Which no doubt added to the natives’ belief, but at least Rodney was safe.  

That planet was now locked from the dialling computer, permanently.

He sighed, removing his boots, and opening his drawer.  And stopped.

In the drawer, lying over one of his gym shoes, was a black short haired kitten, fast asleep.  Just peeking out of one of his spare boots, was the fluff of a long haired grey kitten.  He sighed again, activating his comm.

“McKay.”

“What?” came the disgruntled, and exhausted sounding voice of the recently un-deified, and much ribbed, astrophysicist.

“Missing something?  Like, maybe, a couple of kittens?”

“Kittens?”

“Yes, McKay, as in Midnight and Stardust, who are happily sleeping in my quarters right now.  Any idea how they got here?”

“Oh great.  How did the little ruffians get out this time?” There was a sigh.  “I’ll come and get them.” 

“Thanks.”

5: The Final Escape

Elizabeth returned to her quarters part way through her day to change her top, which she had managed to spill coffee on.  Cold coffee, fortunately.

As she entered her room, she realised that she must have left the closet door open this morning.  It had surprised her to find that most rooms had a small room opening off them, but she supposed even Ancients needed closets.  And a few ingeniously made and secured clothes rails and shelves later, these small rooms became walk in closets for everyone.  One of the luxuries that Atlantis had to offer, and much appreciated by all.

She walked into the closet and sighed at the cardboard box on the floor.  Really, she had to get round to sorting out a better place to store some of the clothes that she had been given by various trading partners as gifts.  Getting rid of them, though tempting in many cases, just wasn’t an option.  There might come a time when she needed to go to one of these worlds on a diplomatic mission, and wearing her gift might be culturally required so as not to cause offence.  Even if they were… garish… uncomfortable… or just plain weird.

Picking out a new top to wear she accidentally kicked the cardboard box, causing an upset mew to be heard.  Startled, Elizabeth dropped her top, and then shook her head at herself.  Bending down, she looked inside, and sure enough, there were two sleepy, and somewhat irritated, looking kittens inside.

She sat back on her heels, watching as they fell back to sleep, and then went to find Rodney.  He could remove them back to their playroom, and this time the room was going to be checked out completely.  Every little crack and crevice was to be investigated.  The kittens were getting out somehow, and it needed to be stopped.

So far, nothing bad had happened, but letting them roam freely was a danger to Atlantis, as well as to themselves.  Who knew what mischief they could cause?

6:  Kitten Proofing the Kitten Proof Room

They had worked out quite quickly how the kittens were getting into people’s rooms.  The air vents in Major Lorne’s, Colonel Sheppard’s and Dr Weir’s rooms, and in the music room, were loose, and there was clear evidence of where the kittens had pushed their way through.  

But how they were getting out of their playroom was another thing altogether.  The air vents were secure and intact.

After four successful escape attempts, Rodney and his team of kitten-sitters were determined to find and block the escape route.  Scouring the room again held no clues, so Rodney had several cameras and sensors fitted, to try and catch the escapees in the act.

For three days, Midnight and Stardust behaved perfectly.  They sat on laps to be petted, they played with their toys, and they slept.  Innocent and sweet, Rodney was sure they were lulling people into a false sense of security.  Sneaky, scheming little tykes that they were.

On the fourth day, the kittens turned up outside the infirmary, sending Carson into a sneezing fit.  They were hurriedly captured and returned to their room, and the video tapes were checked, and people were amazed at the intelligence shown.

Close to the door was a low climbing frame.  Midnight climbed onto the top of it, but she was still too low down to reach out and touch the door control above.  So then Stardust climbed up and stood on top of Midnight, who stretched her body up as far as it would go, allowing Stardust to get high enough to stretch up and push the door control, opening the door.  The kittens then jumped down and ran quickly through the door before it closed.

Incredible, but true.

A quick removal of said climbing frame to another part of the room soon fixed the kittens’ escape attempts.  Well, until the Houdini twins found another way to get out, that is.

The poem that inspired this story:

Cats
By Eleanor Farjeon

Cats sleep
Anywhere,
Any table,
Any chair,
Top of piano,
Window-ledge,
In the middle,
On the edge,
Open drawer,
Empty shoe,
Anybody's
Lap will do,
Fitted in a
Cardboard box,
In the cupboard
With your frocks -
Anywhere!
They don't care!
Cats sleep
Anywhere.

Author's Notes: The escape is based on fact, honest.  I read in a book (The Coach House Cats by Marilyn Edwards, the fourth of her books about her cats) about a couple who had a dog and a cat who were getting into the bedroom at night, even though said couple closed the door to.  Eventually the culprits were caught in the act.  The cat sat on the dog’s head and pulled down the door handle, whilst the dog pushed the door open with its head, and voila, they were in!  

The moral of the story is:  never underestimate your cute, conniving little cat.

Midnight    Stardust
Photos from a Royalty-free site.

The End


Part Three


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