An Echo of the Pride

By James Thomae

My name is Dillon Tykye, and one look at me will tell you that I am not human. I am a lion, a very large cat. I have a mane and a tail and teeth like a chain saw. I have yellow eyes with vertical irises like all cats have. My hands are humanoid, as are my feet, but the rest of me is feline. I have retractable claws on my fingers and toes, and when deployed, they are about three inches long and very sharp. I am heavily built and very fast. I have the face of a lion with whiskers and all, and I have a pink nose and fur all over my face, but I walk upright and wear shoes most of the time.

My second in command is Lyara, a female of my kind. We both wear clothes like most humanoid people, but there the resemblance ends. I have a black mane and a black end on my tail. My hue is the color of a lion, as is Lyaras. My woman and I have been together since we were cubs on the planet Kato in the Andromeda galaxy. Lyara is five feet seven inches tall and about two inches shorter than me. She is lithesome and lean and is the most beautiful lioness. She is everything I could want in a mate and is a hunter second to none.

There is another member of the crew, and she takes some explaining. She is my pet black cat, Myra, who sort of adopted me some time ago. She is an android cat and does what I tell her to do. She can get into places that I cant get into, and what she sees I see. The other member of the crew is a bird person by the name of Hawk. He is as fast as lightning with a gun and never misses, and he is a computer whiz.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524512965

James Thomae

James Thomae is a seventy-seven-year-old man, and this is his fifth novel. He has had numerous poems published in the book At Water’s Edge, the International Library of Poetry. He has spent time on an Indian reservation and makes Native American drums. He went to Southern Illinois University, where he met his beloved wife, Jeanie. Together they traveled most of the western states and now live in Alton, Illinois, with his cats, Kato and Shadow.

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AN ECHO OF THE PRIDE

James Thomae

Copyright © 2016 by James Thomae.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016910390

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-1298-9

                Softcover        978-1-5245-1297-2

                eBook             978-1-5245-1296-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/24/2016

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

CHAPTER 1

We sat and enjoyed our drinks and listened to the music in the tavern.

Two pirates walked in and went to the bar. I could tell they were pirates by the way they were dressed, silk pants, silk shirt, with lace at the cuffs and throat, plus a gun on their belt.

They didn’t do anything at first, then they suddenly turned and fired in our direction. Hawk, my sidekick, drew and fired so fast, I couldn’t believe it. Lyara, my mate, fired at the same time. I would be hard pressed to say which one drew faster. It didn’t matter, the men were dead before they hit the floor.

* * *

I guess I should tell you who I am. My name Is Dillon Tykye and one look at me will tell you that I am not human. I am a lion, a very large cat. I have a mane and a tail and teeth like a chain saw. I have yellow eyes with a vertical iris like all cats. My hands are humanoid, as are my feet, but the rest of me is feline. I have retractable claws on my fingers and toes, when deployed, they are about three inches long, and very sharp. I am heavily built and very fast. I have the face of a lion with whiskers and all. I have a pink nose and fur all over my face. I walk upright and wear shoes, most of the time.

My second in command, is Lyara, a female of my kind. We both wear clothes like most humanoid people, but there the resemblance ends. I have a black mane and a black end on my tail, my hue is the color of a lion, as is Lyara’s. My woman and I have been together since we were cubs on the planet Kato in the Andromeda galaxy. Lyara is five feet seven inches tall and about two inches shorter than me. She is lithesome and lean and a most beautiful lioness, she is everything I could want in a mate and is a hunter, second to none. As with all lions, the woman is the hunter and the man is the provider of the pride. She generally wears a tunic cut rather short and boots to the knees.

There is another member of the crew and she takes some explaining.

She is my pet black cat Myra, who sort of adopted me some time ago. She is an android cat and does what I tell her to do. She can get into places that I can’t get into and what she sees, I see. I was on Cyclone-3 and she was underfoot all the time, as I said, she adopted me. She is a perfect spy, and I have used her more than once. She was created as all androids are created on Cyclone-3, they put the DNA fluid in a mold and then put in catalyst and the next time you look you have an android. She was grown five years ago and she adopted me some time after that. She is my buddy and I feed her cat food and give her water twice a day. She gets under my feet and things like that but she is not a problem.

My ship is unique in that it has wings, sort of, near the back and it is painted like a bird of prey. It is dark brown on top and lighter colored on the bottom and goes like a bat out of hell. There isn’t much in the galaxy that can outrun it. It is called the Kytil, which is a small bird of prey in my language. It uses light to drive it through space at incredible speeds. It also has five Pulse Cannons in the nose and smaller versions of them in the sides, for close shooting. It is six hundred feet long and the wings are eight hundred feet wide. It has a food maker and an atmosphere maker and an on board brain that keeps track of where you are in space. The brain can be a real pain in the ass when he wants to be. He does what you ask him to do but bitches about it most of the time. His name is Koyak, and he is a second generation brain, from the planet Kylosian. They make the best brains in the universe.

I am an investigator for the Galactic Police Force, also an investigator for the Police Spell Casting Force. The first one is self explanatory, but the last one takes a little explaining.

There are people in the universe who can bewitch someone, so the police force do what they can to stop them, if they can. One of the things Lyara can do is stop the spells in their tracks, if caught soon enough. Most of the time, it is just a matter of time.

The other member of the Police Force is Hawk, my sidekick. He is a bird person with feathers all over his body and a beak and eyes like the bird he is named for. He can’t fly, but he is as fast a shot, as anybody I have ever seen. He is from the planet Avana, and is a close neighbor of my planet. A bird is not the type of animal a lion would pick, but he is so trigger happy, no one else would take him as a partner. He is a computer genius, and can get information from that box no one else can. When he joined me, we made a pact, he would not shoot everybody and I would not bitch at him, if he shot someone in defense. He likes my ship and feels right at home in it.

* * *

The problem is, I had a spell put on me and, well you have to see it to understand it. My skin is the color of baby shit brown, with lumps all over it, and it is wet. I watched as Lyara hit the keys on her computer, and hoped she could find the spell, that was cast on me. Hawk and Lyara were very good at finding the spell involved, and if a cure could be found.

I didn’t know that I had too many arms, but until I put up my hand, I found I had six arms and three eyes.

I said, I’ll kill that S. O. B., if I ever catch him.

I knew who did it, it was Kaad-Dalphin, a mean warlock, that loved to play tricks on unsuspecting people. We had contacted him and told him to stop putting spells on people, but I didn’t think he would do a spell on me. The more I thought about it the madder I got.

Lyara said, You should not have turned your back on him.

I leaned against the wall and it left a patch of brown slime on the wall.

Lyara said, I’ll clean it up later. Don’t lean against the wall.

I looked down at my body and swore under my breath. I was ugly, and it was just as Kaad-Dalphin had intended. My feet were about two feet long and flat footed. My legs were about a foot long, and bow legged. I was about seven feet tall, with no hair any ware on my body. My beautiful black main was gone, it was my pride and joy.

‘Well I have good news and some bad news," Hawk said.

I said, Give it all too me.

He said, Well first, he put a shape shifter spell on you, while it looks bad, it could be worse. Second is, it will ware off in about six days.

There is a department in the Police Force that can stop spells. We have a group of people from planets that can do the spells, and so the warlock’s don’t want to make them mad. Most of the time they leave us alone. It is iffy at best when we are called, because we don’t know what we will run into. One Warlock was as bad as can be and did a lot of mischief until he got stopped. Hawk called the Spell Casting Force, described me and they said they would try to handle it. They said it would take some research to find the spell and see if it could be undone. They said to be patient and let them do their job and find the spell and see if there is any way to undo it. Lyara is one of the few beings that can do certain spells. I rely on her to undo some of the spells we encounter. It may be, because she is female, they seem to be better at removing spells then males.

* * *

Kaad-Dalphin sat at his desk and was very pleased with himself. He was an Adollphin, a short person with a large head, two arms, two legs and a bad attitude. He was more or less humanoid, but he had spent most of his life learning spells, and casting them on unsuspecting people. He had put a spell on me and I didn’t know it at the time. It wasn’t until a day later that the effect began to show. He had used a very bad spell that made me look like a six armed slug with wet warts all over my body. For a person proud of the way he looks, it is devastating. Kaad-Dalphin laughed, when he thought of the effect the spell had on me. He got his other magical materials, and set about casting a reinforcing spell, just to keep the spell from being removed. It will take an hour to do the spell but it will take longer to remove it.

* * *

Six days later, the first spell wore off, but I remained the same, sort of. I just changed color.

Lyara came to the bridge and said, I think I found a stronger spell to defeat the bewitching you have on you.

I can do this one all by myself. She laid the materials on the desk. There was a bell, a knife and a wand. She unfolded a piece of paper and read what it said on the paper. The spell was very straight forward in its makeup. She held the bell in one hand and the wand in the other. She said the words very strongly and I could tell I was changing at once. There was a flash of light and I was once again my old self. One head, two arms, two legs and one regular body. She hugged me and purred.

I don’t care what they say, I will kill that S. O. B., when I catch him.

The Police Force went to Kaad-Dalphin’s house and arrested him. He was put in jail and the Spell Casting department placed a spell on him so he couldn’t use magic to get out. They bewitched him to stop him from putting any spells on anyone else. I didn’t get to kill that S. 0. B., but I would get another chance. He couldn’t stay in jail for the rest of his life.

CHAPTER 2

There is a law that gives the android makers the right to kill the androids they make, if they are not what they want.

The planet of Citadel makes androids and like any endeavor there are problems. The people of that planet are consumed with a feeling of holier than thou attitude that they could do no wrong. True, the process was expensive, but did that give them the right to kill someone.

The communicator turned on and the commander was there. Hello Dillon and Lyara too, are you up for another job, or should I give it to the janitor?

No I guess we can handle one.

Your job is to get the law around Citadel changed and, save one they are trying to kill. The law is dicey at best but try to get it changed with out getting killed in the meantime. The way the law reads now, they can kill any android whenever they want to. G. P. F., out.

Lyara said, Why do they think they can kill any one they feel like, whenever they feel like it?

I said, I don’t know. What does the law say?

Hawk said, It is iffy to say the least, Citadel wants it to stay the same, but all the planets around them want it changed. It gives them the right to kill anyone, at any time, at any place, no questions asked.

I said, "It doesn’t make them do anything to change the process.

Anyone that comes out different for any reason is killed so the process doesn’t have to be changed."

Lyara said, Sounds like a win, win situation.