Cat in the Noise

The maintenance panel spat static with the sound that brings to mind a cat hacking up a hairball. Easter’s grease-blackened fingers froze on the coolant valve she was just tightening. Glanced at the screen as it resolved. Not into words. Into pixelated white noise, looping back on itself in a sickeningly familiar pulse.

“Orren,” her voice was like a hammer hitting an anvil. “Get over here. Now.”

He was across the cramped engineering bay in seconds, didn’t even ask what was wrong the moment he saw the pixels dancing on the screen. His knuckles went white where they gripped the edge of the console. “The… the signal?”

“Black Cat,” Easter confirmed, her gaze never leaving the screen. Her scar, a pale slash down her left cheek, was a vivid reminder of last Black Cat incident, barely year ago. “Bloody thing’s back.”

The screen flickered for moment regaining its usual form, then pulsed in static again. Sharper, tighter. Like a clenched fist. Not a request. A warning.

Deep in the ship’s guts, something huge and metallic slammed. The sound wasn’t just heard; it was felt as physical jolt travelling up through the deck plates, rattling tools in their racks, vibrating in their teeth. Dust motes danced violently in sudden crimson glare of emergency light.

Orren flinched. “Pressure door. Section…Seven?”

“Secondary cargo bay,” Easter corrected, already moving. She snatched a heavy-duty wrench from a wall clamp. “If that’s sealed, it means the bay’s compromised. Or about to be.” She didn’t waste time explaining what ‘compromised’ meant out here. Hull breach. Atmospheric venting. Things that usually meant quick but messy death.

The red light bathed everything. It made Orren look like he was already bleeding out. Made the grease on Easter’s suit look like fresh gore. The air smelled suddenly of hot metal and ozone, adding to the usual bouquet of recycled sweat, air and hydraulic fluid. Eau de Omen.

“Protocol dictates,” Orren started, his voice strained to a pitch that, any higher, only dogs would hear, “we initiate full system diagnostic cascade. Prioritize life support pathways. Alert Command...”

“Bugger protocol,” Easter cut him off, shoving a portable scanner into his chest. “They won’t answer in time. That Cat only shows up when the wheels are already coming off, Orren. It’s not a warning bell. It’s the death rattle.” She pointed the wrench towards a narrow access hatch, low on the bulkhead. “Secondary Cargo Bay access. Through there. Now.”

“But the manual—”

She gave him a look. “Well, when the manual grows hands and starts turning wrenches, I’ll listen to it.” she snapped. “That door slammed for a reason. Something made it slam. Either the bay’s holed, or something nasty crawled inside and triggered it. Either way, we need eyes. Your eyes are better than the fried circus out here.” She jerked her head towards the flickering, white noise haunted panel.

Orren swallowed, the sound came loud in the sudden quiet after her outburst. He looked at the scanner, then at the small, dark hatch. It looked like the mouth of a trap.

“You want me to crawl in there? Past the slammed pressure door?” He looked at Easter with puppy eyes. “What if it’s… breached and I open the hatch from inside...?”

Easter met Orren’s gaze. Her eyes, usually hard as rivets, held a flicker of the weight of too many bad probabilities. “Then we’ll know pretty damn fast, won’t we?” Lights flickered along with ominous signal on screen and almost instantly somewhere aft, something groaned—metal on metal, deep and ugly. Adrenaline shoved hearts into their throats.

Easter gave him a nudge towards the hatch, not gentle. “Move your arse, Logistics. Time’s not a luxury we’ve got. That Cat’s laughing at us already.” She gestured again at the jagged lines on the screen, pulsing like a malevolent heartbeat. “And I hate being laughed at.” Orren crouched, awkward, his knees protesting. He eyed the hatch like it led to hell and this was quite possible right now. Orren’s collar was dark with sweat already when he swung his legs through and vanished up to his waist, arms pushing at the edge. A cold spike ran down Easter’s spine watching his head disappear in darkness too. Right on cue, the lights flickered with nasty, sizzling sound. Something somewhere flexed, the kind of sound you only heard before things fried for good. She risked a glance at the maintenance panel. The Black Cat signal was still there, twitching, almost playful. Bastard.

“If it stinks of overcooked wiring or you feel wind, you shout. Loud as you can. I’ll pull you out by the ankles if I have to.” She calls into the shaft, voice bouncing off the walls chasing small glare of his scanner as it moved along with Orren. The scanner whined to life, spilling a faint blue glow over blistered insulation and the knot of old cabling while he checked the wall and the hatch ahead.

“I see… debris. Rubbish. No smoke. No obvious breach.”

“Keep going,” Easter said. She wedged herself by the hatch, close enough to grab him if it all went sideways. The emergency light still pulsed behind them, painting every bolt and rivet in demonic hue, but the Cat seemed to calm down. All the noises reduced to lazy purr of ventilator still pumping stale air.

Orren’s voice echoed back, muffled. “Bulkhead’s untouched. Door’s sealed tight. I can’t see what triggered it—wait.” A scrape, followed by a sharp inhale. “There’s a cable hanging loose in here. Insulation’s worn clean off. It’s been kissing the wall—there’s charring on the surface. Looks like it’s been sparking.”

Easter’s stomach dropped. “Atmospheric sensor line?”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “If this thing’s been sparking every time the ship flexes, the system would read fluctuations as a drop in the bay pressure. Over and over.”

“Orren, pull back.” Her voice came out harder than she meant, then softened. “If the atmos sensor’s shorting, the system’s slamming doors because it thinks we’re venting air. That’s all it takes.”

He shuffled backward—legs first, then bum, then the rest of him—face pale and wide eyed. “So it’s… just a fault? Not sabotage?”

Easter shrugged, but her shoulder protested, pulled long time ago. She sighed dramatically feeling almost like that hunk of junk she tried to keep flyable. “Old ship. Old wiring. Sometimes the universe doesn’t need help to make a mess.” She jerked her chin at the hatch. “Next time I’m sending the kid from Electrical. You’re built for spreadsheets, not crawlspaces.”

Orren glanced up, managing to look wounded and relieved at the same time. “I’m expendable, then?”

“Not today.” She hauled him upright. “We reset the sensor, check every bloody seal from here to main storage, and make sure nothing else is ready to fry itself. That cat’s not leaving on its own. And neither are we unless we outstubborn it.”

He straightened, dust streaking his shirt, still clutching the scanner like a lifeline. “We should… log a report,” he said, trying to sound with authority and missing it by a mile.

Easter snorted. “Sure. File it under ‘cat-shaped arse ache’. I’ll sign it myself.” Then, quieter, just for him: “Good work, logistics. You’re still breathing. That’s top marks, far as I’m concerned.”

She handed him a spare wrench, as if daring him to argue. He didn’t. Together, they turned their backs on the pulsing signal, trudging deeper into the guts of the ship, this time armed with headtorches, proper tools and confidence. The Black Cat waited—always did. But Easter and Orren would keep moving. That was the whole trick: keep moving and never let anyone see you flinch. It wasn’t about beating the Cat of Bad Luck. It was outlasting it.