The Angel Cat Collection

By Rigel Ailur, Azure Avians, Reid Alan and Kris Katzen

At home regardless of where: on an intergalactic Core Ship in the 35th century, in the White House or on a megayacht 21st century, or in a hacienda in the 16th. Always defending their turf and helping their family—feline or otherwise. Sometimes magical; sometimes messing with magic. Sometimes magnificently mundane.

Always perpetual mischief makers!

Twelve stories collected in one volume:
>In the middle of the night she woke up in her burning apartment--luckily, not alone.
>When a two-tailed cat appeared in the neighborhood, only Alex paid any attention to her. Then she had kittens, and Alex was determined to get the bunch of them off the street and to safety.
>To the casual observer, sisters Zuiko and Akira Oshiro apparently run the AKZ dojo. But the karatekas who study there know the true ruler of the domain: Ninja. When troubles beset one of the blackbelts, the fearless feline intervenes to help find a solution.
>Don't mess with a family of marines, least of all with the General. Especially when that general is a calico who knows how to show who's boss.
>Doña Mercedes Vasquez enjoys and also appreciates the affection and protection of powerful--human and inhuman--friends. So powerful that when burglars think she's alone and break into her hacienda one night, she believes the intruders have far more to fear than she.
>No run-of-the-mill wizard, Sian prides herself on her comprehensive knowledge and fastidious skill, hence her association with the kingdom's ruling family. Then her cat Ersiboo drinks the invisibility potion the princess is waiting for . . .
>One little cat and one humongous yacht equal infinite hiding places. Naturally, Morta decides to explore while her mom's off the ship--after leaving her in the care of two sitters. Can they find her before Mom returns? More importantly, before she gets hurt, or worse.
>Ruffian lives up to her name. She is a pirate, after all, and not to be trifled with. She guards their base on land while the crew is aboard ship, and woe to anyone who tries to invade their house.
>Aryn takes good care of her human. Dru had given her her wings, after all, but Aryn would have liked her anyway. Dru does her best to help people, and creates a great deal of trouble for a bunch of nasty people at the same time.
>Queen Kitten and her human, Juan, are allowed to visit the Oval Office so he can film her settling in to her new home. His mom the President gave her permission this one time. But things never go as planned . . .
>One of the many scientists involved with designing the intergalactic fleet of ships, all Kaelin needs to do is give speeches at the gathering. If only she had the slightest clue what to say. Fortunately, her silver tabby Adhara knows just how to help.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bluetrix Books
• Release date: Jul 6, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463644751

Book preview

Angel Cats

At home regardless of where: on an intergalactic Core Ship in the 35th century, in the White House or on a megayacht 21st century, or in a hacienda in the 16th.

Always defending their turf and helping their family—feline or otherwise. Sometimes magical; sometimes messing with magic. Sometimes magnificently mundane.

Always perpetual mischief makers!

Edited by JESS BARRY

Bluetrix Books

The Angel Cat Collection

Rigel Ailur, Reid Alan, Azure Avians, Jess Barry, Kris Katzen

Published by Bluetrix Books

© 2018 by Ailur, Alan, Avians, Barry, Katzen

© 2018 cover photos and design by Jess Barry

Copyrighted material. All rights reserved. Please do not reproduce in part or in whole without the express prior written consent of the author.

All characters and events in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

Table of Contents

Playful Angel

by Kris Katzen

Mysterious Angel

by Rigel Ailur

Mischievous Angel

by Reid Alan

Ninja Angel

by Jess Barry

Regal Angel

by Azure Avians

Stealth Angel

by Reid Alan

Ferocious AngelFerocious Angel

by Rigel Ailur

Vanishing Angel

by Azure Avians

Guardian Angel

by Jess Barry

Avenging Angel

by Reid Alan

Shy Angel

by Kris Katzen

Catastropheby Jess Barry

Playful Angel

Personal Log, date Z1313>13913 (January 13, 5276):

A historic party of intergalactic proportions. Those don’t come along every day, or even every millennium. The already-building excitement spiked today, almost tangible. I swear the air is vibrating. Exploration left the galaxy—temporarily. The galaxy it seems like we just arrived at. Hard to believe we got here one-hundred-fifty years ago. The final Core Ship—the three hundredth—will arrive in a couple months. We and the other two-hundred-ninety-eight ships are racing to welcome them.

Kaelin T’Karr tapped the edge of the glass table to end the video recording but couldn’t wipe the grin from her face. Without even thinking, she automatically dimmed the lights a level now that she’d finished the log. She needed them on full for the video, or the actual color of her azure skin and midnight hair changed to grays or purples for the complexion and black for the hair.

She leaned back in the red egg-shaped chair, sinking into the white velvet-covered cushions. Even the impending speeches looming before her couldn’t dampen her spirits in anticipation of the rendezvous literally centuries in the making.

She still had time, she reminded herself, gazing absently past Adhara’s furry flat scarlet pillow on the table, and around the room with its two sofas and an additional chair and table. The deliberately sparse furnishings left her plenty of space to practice her kata.

When other pressing matters didn’t demand her attention, like now.

Over a month before the gathering.

Plenty of time. But only if she began getting the job done. She pondered for a few moments. Maybe doing a few kata would help her clear her mind, then focus.

Or not. She touched another switch on the silver edge of the table and a keyboard materialized in front of her, along with the holographic display above it.

She really needed to get the job done.

Kaelin didn’t want to embarrass herself by standing with nothing to say before an audience of renowned scientists and explorers.

Far more important, though, than avoiding her own mortification, her failure would reflect on everyone in the crew, particularly on Captain Tamlin Anillan. She had no intention of letting down the founder and driving force behind the entire Anillan Project.

She could bear looking like a fool. Certainly it had happened in the past, however rarely.

But she refused to let anyone else’s reputations suffer. Her colleagues—her friends dating back centuries—might forgive her. No doubt would forgive her, in fact. She wouldn’t forgive herself.

She saw the motion out of the corner of her eye even as the gray feline projectile launched herself into the air. The short-furred cat landed deftly on Kaelin’s shoulder, burrowed under her dark blue hair, insinuating herself between her neck and the back of the chair, and began nibbling Kaelin’s ear.

"And where have you been?" Kaelin laughed and reached up to stroke her. Normally the cat ‘assisted’ with the log recordings. Kaelin estimated that Adhara had appeared in seventy-five percent of the log entries since she’d come to her as a tiny kitten five years ago. Maybe eighty percent.

She also easily made the mischief of two, so Kaelin would have gone searching for her before long, had she not appeared.

Are you going to help me write my speech? Kaelin preferred typing over dictation—when little paws weren’t padding across the keyboard. Or should I say ‘speeches’?

All she needed was inspiration.

On cue, Adhara squeezed against the back of the chair and walked across her back to the other shoulder so she could work on the other ear.

Kaelin couldn’t help chuckling again. I think, she reached up and grabbed the feline, pulling her around in front of her and cradling her in her arms, "that I’m supposed to stop procrastinating. So what brilliant ideas do you have? Hmmm?"

One of the hazards of crewing the very first Core Ship: subsequent crews clamoring for their presence. Everyone wanted her and the other members of Exploration’s original command staff to speak.

Some of the staff couldn’t. They’d moved on to their own ships. Pukue, Callen Emris, Jjjkk Surleelt, had taken command of scout ships when Exploration arrived in the new galaxy. Now they captained science vessels, their thousand-person crews ten times that of the smaller scouting vessels.

The rest of them, not just her but the others still on board, would make the rounds of all three hundred Core ships. Fifty speeches each. Two-hundred-ninety-nine after subtracting Exploration, so only forty-nine for Tamlin; captain’s prerogative.

By choice not a captain, Kaelin remained third in command. She loved her job and her ship and couldn’t begin to envision herself anywhere else. Exploration suited her just fine and provided plenty of challenges. Such as this one.

Fifty.

She had a month to figure out what to say on fifty different ships.

‘Diverse’ didn’t begin to describe her audiences. They ran the gamut of an entire galaxy of life—even while only scratching the surface of the nearly unimaginable variety of lifeforms throughout the whole Milky Way.

Adhara squirmed to return to her shoulder-top perch, so Kaelin gave her a boost back up. Adhara hunkered down in her spot, but didn’t fool Kaelin for even a nanosecond. Her tail kept twitching.

Sure enough, after just a few moments, Adhara twisted around to pounce on her own tail. She unbalanced in the process and tumbled onto Kaelin’s lap without giving up her pursuit.

Clutching the nefarious tail firmly in both front paws, Adhara switched between grooming and attacking it, purrs and growls alternating correspondingly.

Adhara rolled off her lap and twisted in mid-air to land lightly, all four furry feet planting squarely in the plush red carpeting. Tail temporarily forgotten, she stood poised and stock-still for a moment, then tilted her head as if hearing something that Kaelin couldn’t.

After a few beats, the ferocious feline sprang into action, leaping forward at top speed and racing pell mell around the apartment: living room, down the hall through the bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, the tiny hall with an office/sitting room situated on either side of it, then back to the main living area.

The gray flash zoomed through the living quarters decorated in reds, with accents of silver and white. Kaelin liked the clean white of the walls, with minimal furniture and decorations that accentuated the airy, open space of the quarters. A few brilliantly-colored weavings from her homeworld Nauroll adorned the walls, as did some poster-sized photos from her husband’s clan ship.

Inordinately loud, the feline streak’s tiny padded feet echoed as they pounded across the bare bathroom floor, but made much less noise in the rest of the carpeted apartment.

The inimitable, intractable feline inevitably followed her own path. She zoomed around the apartment in pursuit of some prey visible only to her.

Mad dash concluded, she prowled the perimeter of the living room once, then sauntered over, jumped nimbly onto the table, and planted herself on top of the keyboard. She leaned forward and