Once inside the ship, Shadow made a beeline to her room. She did not want to be around anyone. She wondered why the Shadow Cat Warriors hated her so much. She thought, “I’ve never done anything to them.” What was obvious to Shadow is she was scared. She knew Captain Cattitude would not hand her over to the SCW’s. She also felt guilty that the entire crew was in danger because of her. It was too much for her. She curled up in a ball and started to cry-meow. Suzie heard Shadow cry-meowing and immediately went to Shadow’s room. “Shadow, honey, this is not your fault, and we are not handing you over to the Shadow Cat Warriors so they can kill you. Pull yourself together if you can. We need you to be present. Captain Cattitude is holding a meeting in a half-hour to plan our counter-attack,” said Suzie. “We need you to be there and to be present. Can you do that for the crew?” said Suzie. Shadow wiped her tears away and said, “Yes.”…

Peter was monitoring space for transmissions from the Shadow Cat Warriors. He was scared when he heard the following message: “We know you are on Planet X. It’s only a matter of time that we find you. We offer you two hours to turn over Shadow to us. She is a threat to Catmoonians. She is an obliviation. Hiding her is only hurting you. The time starts ticking now,” said the Shadow Cat Warrior leader, and then the transmission ended abruptly. Peter knew he needed to warn the girls that they are in danger of being outside. He ran to the ship’s hatch that led to outside. Luckily, the girls were not far from the ship. He came across Suzie and told her what he just heard. Suzie responded immediately, “Girls, time to head back to the ship. P{ease finish what you are doing and come back with us to the ship,” said Suzie. Shadow and Phoebe looked at each other. Somehow they knew they were not safe anymore. They gathered up the food bags and ran to Suzie and Peter. The four of them ran back to the ship. The hatch closed safely behind them. Shadow was visibly shaken. “I’m afraid Shadow the Shadow Cat Warriors know where we are. They have given us two hours to turn you into them or face the consequences. And we know what that is,” said Peter. “We must plan our counter-attack,” he continued…

Suzie, Shadow, and Phoebe headed toward the storage room to gather up bags to put the food in. Before they ventured outside, Peter gave them cloaking devices to wear so the Shadow Cat Warriors could not detect their heat patterns, “Okay, we are ready to venture outside. Girls stay close to me. We don’t know what awaits us on Planet X. Our goal is to gather as much food as possible. Don’t eat anything until I analyze the potential food source. It could be poisonous to us”, said Suzie. Shadow and Phoebe nodded their heads with a yes to signify they understood. The three of them headed to the hatch that led to the outside. The hatch opened slowly. The air felt fresh on their faces. In their view were purple, blue, and red-colored vegetation. Multifaceted colored flowers were blooming everywhere. Trees with golden trunks and pixilated leaves spread throughout the valley floor. As they stepped onto the planet’s surface, all four girls’ hearts raced with excitement and fear of the unknown. “Oooh, how beautiful,” said Pheobe in awe of the sight in front of her and around her. Shadow shed a tear. The planet’s beauty was overwhelming to her. “Okay, girls, let’s go about what was assigned to us. I’ll first test the vegetation and see if it is safe for us to consume. If it is, you two will start to harvest it. We are running low on food, so it’s essential we complete these tasks as safely and promptly we can do them. Suzie stepped over to the red, purple, and yellow-colored flowers and picked one. She placed the flower into a round box with an overhead display existed on the box. On top of the shelf, she punched some keys on the keypad. Immediately, the box seemed to come alive as it analyzed the flower put into it. Within a few moments, the plant was analyzed. “It’s good. We can eat this plant,” said a giddy Suzie. “Shadow and Phoebe, please harvest as much as you can. It’s a good source of protein and vitamins,” said Suzie…

“Crew please meet at the briefing room at 0900,” came over the Suzie’s voice over the ship’s loudspeakers. Shadow and Phoebe looked at each other, a hint of fear shown on their furry faces. “Do you think the Shadow Cat Warriors have found us?” said Phoebe her voice cracking a bit. “I guess we won’t know until we go to the briefing room. Let’s try to be positive that it is good news,” replied Shadow. Both Shadow and Phoebe threw on some clothes and made their way to the briefing room. They ran into Peter along the way. “How are you doing girls,” said Peter. “Good,” said Shadow and Phoebe in unison. The only hint that they were not being honest was the crack in Phoebe’s voice. “We are going to be fine. We are prepared to fight thanks to the POD training,” said Peter.

Upon entering the briefing room, Suzie told everyone to take a seat and said Captain Cattitude had important and urgent news to report. “Thank you everyone for being so prompt. The Shadow Cat Warrior ship is in orbit of Planet X. It will only be a matter of time before they send search parties to find us. It imperative they do not get a hold of Shadow. Shadow is the key to Catoonians future. The ship’s cloaking should keep us safe for a couple of days. In the meantime, we need to venture outside and gather food. Suzie will help us to determine which vegetation can be eaten and which cannot. Since Planet X is similar to Earth’s atmosphere, we can safely venture outside without suits. Suzie will lead the food gathering. Shadow and Phoebe you will be with Suzie. Peter will stay here and survey the land,” said Captain Cattitude.

Suzie awoke early. She had a deep sleep, but her body hurt like she had done an intense workout. She went to the ship’s communication room. She was looking for communications from the Shadow Cat Warrior’s ship. She found none, but she discovered the SCW’s ship was orbiting Planet X when she checked the radar. The hair on her skin stood on end. She was scared and shocked they had found the planet so fast. She made her way to Captain Cattitude’s headquarters. She found Captain Cattitude was already awake. “Captain Cattitude, I have disturbing news to tell you. The Shadow Cat Warriors ship is in Planet X’s orbit. It is only a matter of time before they are on the planet. Let’s hope the spaceship’s cloaking works,” said Suzie. “This is disturbing. We knew their ship was faster and better equipped for battle, but I had no idea it was this fast,” said Captain Cattitude. “We must call a meeting to inform the crew that battle is on the horizon,” said Captain Cattitude. “Yes, of course, I’ll get on that right away,” said Suzie…

Shadow and the rest of the crew felt as if they had run a marathon – their muscles ached and they were extremely tired but they all knew how to fight now after entering the POD room. Captain Cattitude greeted the crew. “Thank you for enduring the POD experience. “You all will feel tired and have muscle aches. It will feel as if you have been indeed fighting for you life. You now will know how to face combat and perform it. I suggest all of you go lay down and take a nap. The POD experience can be exhausting,” said Captain Cattitude. With that everyone dispersed and headed to their beds.

As soon as everyone laid their heads on their pillows, they feel into a deep sleep. And then the dreams came. Shadow dreamed she was in a fight and using her newly learned Karate skills to take down her opponent. Phoebe dreamed she was in combat and using all her defensive training, she took down the enemy. Suzie dreamed she was going over the attack plan and using all her skills, she led the team to victory. Peter dreamed he was a spy that had infiltrated the enemy and sabotaged them.

In the morning, everyone woke up feeling refreshed and ready to fight the Shadow Cat Warriors.

Everyone dispersed from the meeting and headed to where the pod rooms were located. Shadow and Phoebe were the first one’s to the pods. they both stepped into their pod room. Inside was a seat and Head Over Display and a headset to put on. Shadow sat in the seat. Immediately, the HUD came to life. A Catmoonian came on the screen and started giving instructions on how to use the headset and attach the electrodes to her body. .After the instructional video, Shadow put on the headset. She felt her body become electric and her fur stood up. On the HUD, a video started playing video instructions on Karate flashed on her screen, and she felt as if her body was performing the karate.. It was done in a flash. Phoebe put on her headset and attached the electrodes and a video started playing combat instructions on defensive fighting methods. Like Shadow, Phoebe felt her fur become energized and her muscles to feel hot. More information appeared on the screen, one after another in rapid accession. The pod session was over within an hour. Everyone felt tired and their muscles hurt as if they had actually done the fighting….

Shadow looked through the ship’s window in wonderment.  Before her lay lush golden leafed trees. Purple vegetation covered the ground with a sparkling of long-stemmed flowers that were spotted in various colors.  If Shadow didn’t know any better, she thought she had just dropped acid.  Phoebe looked out the same window and tears came to her eyes. .She was in such awe over the beauty she saw. 

“Ship crew, we have an important meeting taking place in ten minutes.  Please make your way to the ship’s briefing  room.  All are required to attend,” said Suzie over the loudspeaker.

Captain Cattitude sat at the front of the long table in the briefing room.  He stood up and said,  “As you realize, we have landed on Planet X.  Don’t let  its beauty fool you.  We do not know what is out there. It may be an unsafe environment. We still need to worry about the Shadow Cat Warriors finding us and attacking.  Our priority is to keep Shadow safe at all costs. For now, I have cloaked the ship, so it can not be seen with radar.  The work we have ahead of us will be hard. We need to prepare for an attack and be prepared to fight back.  I have set up media hypno ppds for each and everyone of us to view.  It will teach us how to be combative for an attack.  Once the pod training is complete, your body and mind will automatically know how to defend the ship and protect Shadow,” said Captain Cattidue.

There was a deep silence in the room.  The realization they were not safe yet had kicked in.Phoebe standing close to Shadow reached over and held shadow’s paw tight. She was scared as well as Shadow and everyone could tell. “This is not time for fear to immobilize us. We must all do our best to face the fear and fight if necessary.  Remember, Shadow needs to be protected at all costs.  You may have to kill a Shadow Cat Warrior.  This will be hard, but it must be done if Shadow and the ship is in danger.  Please do you best to put your fear away. And fight as if your own life is in danger because it is.  The SCW’s will be fighting to kill,” said Suzie. 

“The meeting is over.  Please use your media pod immediately.  We need to be in fighting shape ASAP.  The SCW’s were on our tail before we used the catwarp.  We can’t know if they are out there now as I speak.                  

After showing the Captain Cattitude and Suzie where Captain Cattitude was to insert the code in the ship’s navigation system as Peter was unable to code in Catmoonian, Peter and Captain Cattitude ran to the ship’s main navigation system’s main frame. Captain Cattitude pushed a a button on the wall and a translucent screen and keyboard appeared. Captain Cattitude began to insert the code into the navigation system’s main drive. He crossed his fingers, hoping this would overclock the navigation system and give it move speed to escape the imminent attack of by the Shadow Cat Warriors(SCW). Thirty minutes remained before they were to turn over Shadow to the SCW’s

Captain Cattitude finished with inserting the code into the navigation system and rebooted the system. Now, we will either die or catwarp at hyper speed to the landing location where they could more easily hide. The system rebooted. Captain Cattitude and Peter went to the front on the ship. Captain Cattitude pushed the button for Catwarp drive, The ship began to shake. “”Great, thought Peter, “We are going to blow up.” Slowly the shaking stopped and the ship then took off in a split second. Before they knew it they were on the planet ‘s surface and in the location they had wanted. “Now, to hide the ship,” said Captain Cattitude….

After spending hours looking at the ship’s Catwarp schematics, Peter thought he saw a possible solution to speeding up the drive. He reported his findings to the group. “We have just a few hours before the Shadow Cat Warriors will follow through with their threat and blow up our ship. I think I have found a way to overclock the Catwarp drive to get us to our preferred landing spot on Planet X. I just need to place in code into the system,” said Peter. “Here’s the problem, I don’t know how to code in Catmoonian,” said Peter. “No problem,,” said Captain Cattitude, “I can do the coding,” concluded Captain Cattitude. “Well, let’s end this meeting now so you and I can discuss how to translate my knowledge of coding to Catmoonian coding.

Captain Cattitude and Peter met in the Captain’s chambers to discuss what Peter was trying to do. Captain Cattitude understood him completely. Captain Cattitude immediately began the coding process to overclock the Catwarp’s chip. It took him less than an hour to complete the code. “Now, let’s load this up to the Catwarp’s server and pray it works,”, said Peter…