Mau had finally caught up with me over the Sea of Japan. Violet blasts goaded my ship, driving me toward landfall, away from water so he could wreck Raya’s golden ship over dry ground to recover her Pearl. It was grim satisfaction to think that the Pearl was safe with Dr. Mina, and Raya would find a way to save Rose.

Radar revealed a black coastline looming up without a single light burning for hundreds of miles in either direction. What was this place? Within seconds, we crossed the shoreline, rising into a rugged world of spiny bluffs and sharp rock pinnacles reaching up from the eerie darkness to rip us to shreds.

Hoping to lose the other ship, I veered left through a high pass that slashed the mountain ridge. The pass opened into a narrow valley cradling a thin river. The only light in this strange still landscape was a ribbon of silvery moonlight reflecting off the water.

Veering left, up a blind canyon, my hope was to lose Mau in the maze of eroded gullies before he could shoot me down. As he flew past, there was a slim chance I could rush out and T-bone his ship into the rocks. If he survived, I’d hold him hostage in exchange for my friend’s life.

Instead of passing close by, Mau’s ship made a sweeping curve out over the valley. As the destroyer hovered, waiting for me to make a move, there was a flash on the ground, followed by a twisting spiral of smoke tracing the flight of a conventional surface to air missile.

Mau’s saucer returned fire, blasting an intense violet ray that blew the missile out of the sky with a detonation that echoed and re-echoed from the surrounding hills.

Immediately the night exploded with a barrage of artillery fire, rockets, cannons, even machine guns stuttering from dozens of hidden places in the mountain crags. Mau’s destroyer went dark, but its deadly rays continued to pick off rockets one by one with a shattering roar.

Although Mau’s destroyer was invisible, the violet rays it fired back stood out in the night like a neon sign on the Vegas Strip, attracting a deadly hail of exploding metal back onto itself.

This time both of us were the targets. It was time to run.

Chased by a pack of surface-to-air missiles like the angry hounds of hell, we retreated up over the Sea of Japan. In a short time, the rockets ran out of fuel and fell harmlessly into the sea.

Once more, purple rays screeched along the skin of my ship. Mau was trying to force me back toward land thinking to recover Raya’s Pearl. I was just as determined to lead him out over the ocean, convinced he wouldn’t shoot down Raya’s ship over deep water.

Intercepting Mau’s radio signal might have revealed his plans, but Mau’s radio was silent. The airwaves were becoming jammed with noise, as if a powerful storm was rising up suddenly in the night, although there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

We left the Sea of Japan behind, pursuing a south-easterly heading out across the vast Pacific Ocean. Mau never stopped shooting his violet rays, but they appeared to lose their power. I wondered if he’d taken a hit over that mysterious dark country.

Over the moonlit ocean, a lonely coral atoll came into view. A thin ragged crescent edged with long sandy beaches, it’s wide lagoon was scarred by a deep crater. I sensed warnings from spirits of the plants, birds, and fish, of the terrible things people had done to the creatures of this island long ago. Much later I found out this was Bikini Atoll, where people had blown up 23 atom bombs to see what they would do. Even now, the palm trees growing in neat rows, produce radioactive coconuts.

I circled the island, hoping Mau would land, but his ship looped around behind me. He dogged me with weak violet rays, fortunately no more dangerous than a laser pointer. I let him chase me past the island, out over the miles of endless water, hoping he would finally crash into the sea so I could swoop down and make him give MeMe back to us.

As we flew on and on over the waves, shimmering bands of unusual light blazing with color, appeared along the northern and southern horizons. Out of the east, roared a wild wind, tearing the waves into clouds of spray. Soon, bolts of lightning forked across the sky overhead, followed by claps of thunder that rattled my teeth. The compass was going crazy, making the ship unstable. This must be Mau’s invasion.

An alert from the emergency com-link indicated an incoming distress signal. Tunning it in through the static interference, I heard none other than Mau’s alto voice screaming out a Mayday transmission from his ship.

“Requesting immediate extraction from Baker Island. Ship disabled. Bailing out with the crew. A massive solar flare has erupted on Earth’s sun, releasing a plasma storm that will directly impact Earth and its moon. Take immediate action. Move all troop transports to safe cover in deep space. Activate lepton shields on all circuits.”

If this wasn’t Mau’s invasion, what was it? The video had said that a solar flare could fry both androids and cats like me, at least if we were unprotected out in space. The flare was supposed to come in two waves, first a magnetic storm, after which, a day or so later deadly clouds of subatomic particles would engulf everything in their way. If Mau had taken MeMe prisoner out in space with his fleet, she’d be in grave danger. I had to follow those parachutes and corner Mau when he landed on Baker Island.

I’d heard of Baker Island from a TV show about Amelia Earhart. She was the famous pilot who vanished, along with her navigator Fred Noonan, in the Pacific Ocean. It happened in this same month of July, way back in 1937 as they were trying to reach Howland Island, on their second attempt to circumnavigate the globe. It is believed their radio navigation failed, and the plane kept on going until it ran out of gas.

Howland and Baker are tiny coral atolls 43 miles apart, almost 700 miles from their nearest neighbor. Hard to spot, even in daytime among cloud shadows on the surface of the sea, this would be a lonely spot to be shipwrecked.

Over the emergency channel, I heard Mau arguing with his two officers, Aloo and Krrip. The ships out in space were already having trouble getting their Zarcleron engines to start.

“It’s not my fault,” Mau insisted. “It was that Earth cat who kidnapped the Egyptian princess disguised as a Bengal cat. If those Earth cats hadn’t made us chase after them, we wouldn’t have been hit by rockets. You two should have warned the fleet in time.”

Cat logic.

My monitor showed Mau and his two crew members, who he called Krrip and Aloo, putting on their parachutes. As I banked north toward Baker to lie in wait, I heard Mau saying to his officers, “This invasion has been so difficult for all of us, being shot at by savage Earth people, chasing a stray cat who stole one of our ships. What a night!”

“Visiting planet Earth has been more dangerous than...” Mau chuckled ruefully, “...just a silly thing I heard from that crippled cat aboard our ship. It went something like, ‘What’s more dangerous than a room full of cats and a rocking chair?’ ”

Mau’s officers looked at him with murder in their eyes, as they bailed out without waiting for the punch line.

Spin drift streaked across the waves in the howling wind as three small orange parachutes opened under Mau’s ship and were swiftly carried away in the storm. But there was no reason now to pursue them, because I was certain now, MeMe hadn’t been taken to Mau’s fleet out in space. She was still aboard his ship.

Flashes of lightning glinted off Mau’s copper ship beneath a blazing aurora of colors streaking overhead. Spiraling and out of control, it splashed hard into the raging sea. Hammering down, with a flick of my tail, I screamed in pursuit, on a beam of muon energy.

Mau’s crippled destroyer rolled in the waves, its nose buried deep into the water with the open rear hatchway topmost.

Mau had finally caught up with me over the Sea of Japan. Violet blasts goaded my ship, driving me toward landfall, away from water so he could wreck Raya’s golden ship over dry ground to recover her Pearl. It was grim satisfaction to think that the Pearl was safe with Dr. Mina, and Raya would find a way to save Rose.

Radar revealed a black coastline looming up without a single light burning for hundreds of miles in either direction. What was this place? Within seconds, we crossed the shoreline, rising into a rugged world of spiny bluffs and sharp rock pinnacles reaching up from the eerie darkness to rip us to shreds.

Hoping to lose the other ship, I veered left through a high pass that slashed the mountain ridge. The pass opened into a narrow valley cradling a thin river. The only light in this strange still landscape was a ribbon of silvery moonlight reflecting off the water.

Veering left, up a blind canyon, my hope was to lose Mau in the maze of eroded gullies before he could shoot me down. As he flew past, there was a slim chance I could rush out and T-bone his ship into the rocks. If he survived, I’d hold him hostage in exchange for my friend’s life.

Instead of passing close by, Mau’s ship made a sweeping curve out over the valley. As the destroyer hovered, waiting for me to make a move, there was a flash on the ground, followed by a twisting spiral of smoke tracing the flight of a conventional surface to air missile.

Mau’s saucer returned fire, blasting an intense violet ray that blew the missile out of the sky with a detonation that echoed and re-echoed from the surrounding hills.

Immediately the night exploded with a barrage of artillery fire, rockets, cannons, even machine guns stuttering from dozens of hidden places in the mountain crags. Mau’s destroyer went dark, but its deadly rays continued to pick off rockets one by one with a shattering roar.

Although Mau’s destroyer was invisible, the violet rays it fired back stood out in the night like a neon sign on the Vegas Strip, attracting a deadly hail of exploding metal back onto itself.

This time both of us were the targets. It was time to run.

Chased by a pack of surface-to-air missiles like the angry hounds of hell, we retreated up over the Sea of Japan. In a short time, the rockets ran out of fuel and fell harmlessly into the sea.

Once more, purple rays screeched along the skin of my ship. Mau was trying to force me back toward land thinking to recover Raya’s Pearl. I was just as determined to lead him out over the ocean, convinced he wouldn’t shoot down Raya’s ship over deep water.

Intercepting Mau’s radio signal might have revealed his plans, but Mau’s radio was silent. The airwaves were becoming jammed with noise, as if a powerful storm was rising up suddenly in the night, although there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

We left the Sea of Japan behind, pursuing a south-easterly heading out across the vast Pacific Ocean. Mau never stopped shooting his violet rays, but they appeared to lose their power. I wondered if he’d taken a hit over that mysterious dark country.

Over the moonlit ocean, a lonely coral atoll came into view. A thin ragged crescent edged with long sandy beaches, it’s wide lagoon was scarred by a deep crater. I sensed warnings from spirits of the plants, birds, and fish, of the terrible things people had done to the creatures of this island long ago. Much later I found out this was Bikini Atoll, where people had blown up 23 atom bombs to see what they would do. Even now, the palm trees growing in neat rows, produce radioactive coconuts.

I circled the island, hoping Mau would land, but his ship looped around behind me. He dogged me with weak violet rays, fortunately no more dangerous than a laser pointer. I let him chase me past the island, out over the miles of endless water, hoping he would finally crash into the sea so I could swoop down and make him give MeMe back to us.

As we flew on and on over the waves, shimmering bands of unusual light blazing with color, appeared along the northern and southern horizons. Out of the east, roared a wild wind, tearing the waves into clouds of spray. Soon, bolts of lightning forked across the sky overhead, followed by claps of thunder that rattled my teeth. The compass was going crazy, making the ship unstable. This must be Mau’s invasion.

An alert from the emergency com-link indicated an incoming distress signal. Tunning it in through the static interference, I heard none other than Mau’s alto voice screaming out a Mayday transmission from his ship.

“Requesting immediate extraction from Baker Island. Ship disabled. Bailing out with the crew. A massive solar flare has erupted on Earth’s sun, releasing a plasma storm that will directly impact Earth and its moon. Take immediate action. Move all troop transports to safe cover in deep space. Activate lepton shields on all circuits.”

If this wasn’t Mau’s invasion, what was it? The video had said that a solar flare could fry both androids and cats like me, at least if we were unprotected out in space. The flare was supposed to come in two waves, first a magnetic storm, after which, a day or so later deadly clouds of subatomic particles would engulf everything in their way. If Mau had taken MeMe prisoner out in space with his fleet, she’d be in grave danger. I had to follow those parachutes and corner Mau when he landed on Baker Island.

I’d heard of Baker Island from a TV show about Amelia Earhart. She was the famous pilot who vanished, along with her navigator Fred Noonan, in the Pacific Ocean. It happened in this same month of July, way back in 1937 as they were trying to reach Howland Island, on their second attempt to circumnavigate the globe. It is believed their radio navigation failed, and the plane kept on going until it ran out of gas.

Howland and Baker are tiny coral atolls 43 miles apart, almost 700 miles from their nearest neighbor. Hard to spot, even in daytime among cloud shadows on the surface of the sea, this would be a lonely spot to be shipwrecked.

Over the emergency channel, I heard Mau arguing with his two officers, Aloo and Krrip. The ships out in space were already having trouble getting their Zarcleron engines to start.

“It’s not my fault,” Mau insisted. “It was that Earth cat who kidnapped the Egyptian princess disguised as a Bengal cat. If those Earth cats hadn’t made us chase after them, we wouldn’t have been hit by rockets. You two should have warned the fleet in time.”

Cat logic.

My monitor showed Mau and his two crew members, who he called Krrip and Aloo, putting on their parachutes. As I banked north toward Baker to lie in wait, I heard Mau saying to his officers, “This invasion has been so difficult for all of us, being shot at by savage Earth people, chasing a stray cat who stole one of our ships. What a night!”

“Visiting planet Earth has been more dangerous than...” Mau chuckled ruefully, “...just a silly thing I heard from that crippled cat aboard our ship. It went something like, ‘What’s more dangerous than a room full of cats and a rocking chair?’ ”

Mau’s officers looked at him with murder in their eyes, as they bailed out without waiting for the punch line.

Spin drift streaked across the waves in the howling wind as three small orange parachutes opened under Mau’s ship and were swiftly carried away in the storm. But there was no reason now to pursue them, because I was certain now, MeMe hadn’t been taken to Mau’s fleet out in space. She was still aboard his ship.

Flashes of lightning glinted off Mau’s copper ship beneath a blazing aurora of colors streaking overhead. Spiraling and out of control, it splashed hard into the raging sea. Hammering down, with a flick of my tail, I screamed in pursuit, on a beam of muon energy.

Mau’s crippled destroyer rolled in the waves, its nose buried deep into the water with the open rear hatchway topmost.

Grabbing the steps by their edges, I pulled myself up, paw over paw, like a kid swinging on monkey bars, to the opening at the top. Looking through to the other side of the stairway, into what had once been the upper deck, the deck floor dropped straight down into a dark pool of death. It was a trap with no way out

Screaming down into the flood of dark water, I called desperately, “MeMe, it’s Ridley. Can you hear me?”

The only reply was the empty sound of splashing water and the hollow boom of the waves outside pounding against the rolling ship.

Flashes of lightning, reflecting up from the main cabin, revealed a line of compartment doors circling around what had been the curved outside wall of the upper deck. Doors arched over my head, around the sides, and down under the water, where I hoped MeMe wasn’t trapped.

There was a panel to my left extending at an angle from the wall. Leaping onto its flat surface, I managed to balance without sliding off as the saucer tried to pitch me off. Exploring in the dark with my paws, trying to feel for some way to spring open the nearest door, the terrible thought crossed my mind that it might be impossible to open any of the doors in this ship without electric power.

They always said you were good at opening doors, Ridley. All right, open this one. Lets see what you’re made of.

Pushing didn’t work, it wouldn’t budge.

Not that way Ridley, push sideways toward the ceiling. Up is to the left, the saucer is nose down.

A sudden roll of the ship sent me sliding along the panel with nothing to grab onto. Think of something quick, Ridley, I told myself. The next roll of the ship is going to pitch you into that water below and you’ll drown. The walls are slick as polished steel, you’ll never get out alive.

Drumbeat waves crashing against the ship’s sides echoed my fear.

You’ll never get out, you’ll never get out.

There must be a way to open these doors, I reasoned. Artificial intelligence should have provided a simple workaround for times when the power didn’t work. Feeling all around the door for some latch or button, a big wave boomed into the side of the ship sending my slippery feet over the edge. With another boom, the ship tossed the other way throwing me back against the door panel.

Must be the seventh wave, I thought, murmuring thanks to the Goddess Bast, protectress of little cats, for staying up late to keep an eye on us. The ship lurched again, knocking me off balance. I made a desperate grab in the dark for anything to hold onto. One claw stuck in a recessed latch. Desperately trying to keep from sliding off again, I pulled, and with a click, the door popped open.

Screaming inside for my friend, the only answer back was a hollow echo. The compartment was empty.

Releasing another latch above me, a heap of cat dishes poured out on my head, along with a shower of loose kibble hissing down into the water below. Picking a kibble nugget off the bridge of my nose, the taste was unmistakably American.

The kibble our guys gave to the space cats; this is Sona’s ship!

When I popped open the next door, a heavy box knocked me off the shelf into the water below.

KER-SPLASH!

While my head was under water, I heard a slow metallic tap-tap-tap from somewhere deep inside the ship.

Diving under the water, my paws explored along the ring of submerged doors, feeling desperately for a catch. When the first latch popped and the door swished open, a great bubble of air rushed out, along with computer tablets, a few bottles, and two cushions that bobbed past me up to the surface.

Swimming underwater to the next compartment door, my claws pulled another latch releasing a great bubble of air as the door slowly opened.

On the surface, gasping for air, my head bumped one of the tablets. Grabbing it with my teeth, I rapped on the bulkhead over and over.

Bang, bang, bang.

“Don’t give up hope. Try to hang on ‘till I find you!” I shouted in vain, knowing no one could hear my cries under all that water.

Desperately pleading to the Goddess Bast, I cried out, “She only wanted to be friends. Please don’t let her die!” I whispered, “Neko, Neko. If only I could see you one more time,” because I was sure neither of us would ever get out alive.

The next door was almost nine cat-lengths underwater. Without weights, I had to feel for the door handles to pull myself down. Lungs bursting, I searched wildly, but couldn’t find a latch. About to give in to the desperate burning in my chest.

For a wild panicky moment all sense of up and down was lost. A blanket floated out, tangling my legs like the fetters of death. My chest was burning for air. All I wanted was to open my mouth and breathe in, breathe in anything, even water.

A kicking struggling thing rushed out in a bubble of air. A claw brushed my face and swam away. The blackness popped into sudden white light the way I’ve heard it sometimes happens when you give up and drown.

Gentle paws quickly pushed me back up. Breaking the surface with deep grateful breaths of air, I felt someone guide my paw to a hand-hold.

I heard MeMe’s breathless voice. “You bit my tail again, Ridley, and you pulled me out — I’m sorry I bit your paw — I didn’t know it was you — I never gave up hope you’d come for me.”

She pressed her face next to mine.

I hugged the little cat with tears of joy, but my paw was fine and I’d never found the release to unlock her door. There was someone else inside this ship. Did Mau have another prisoner trapped in here with us?

Diving down into black water, searching, swimming down, again and again, I could never live with myself if I hadn’t done everything I could to help another cat who might be trapped inside this death ship. But among the litter of cushions, blankets, bags, computer tablets, food packages, all the junk you’d find inside a flying saucer, there was no one else. MeMe and I had to finally admit we were alone.

“Come on, Ridley. Let’s get out of this awful place and go home,”

“We have a problem, MeMe. The outside hatch is too high for us to reach. We’re trapped.”

As we treaded water MeMe touched my paw. “We can get out through the airlock, Ridley if we can find it.”

The air lock again! Ever since Sunday night, I’d been inside it over and over in my worst nightmares. Swallowing my fear, I told her, “Put your paws around my neck, MeMe. We’ll swim for it together.”

The ship had taken on so much water, we had no trouble crossing back into the main cabin. MeMe couldn’t swim well, because she became disoriented easily. So, with the little cat clinging to my neck, we paddled across the cabin to find the air lock door.

Outside the main hatch above our heads, flashes of lightning froze each moment into a frightening freeze-frame. Everything in the cabin that hadn’t been fastened down was bobbing in the swirling water.

Pushing through the floating debris, we reached the other wall, but the airlock door was already submerged, flooded and useless as an escape. The only other way out was through the main hatchway, which was out of reach above our heads.

With every wave, a shower poured in through the hatch, until a torrent flooded in and the ship finally settled. Although the main hatchway was now within our grasp, waves of seawater forced us back inside. We were drowning, unable to swim out.

Once again, I felt paws drawing me up.

Pulling MeMe with me, we cleared the hatch, swimming up toward the light above. Beneath our feet, the ship made its final descent, silently sinking 898 feet to the bottom of the ocean.

Breaking the surface, a raging spray of salt water stung our noses, roaring wind deafened our ears, tossing waves filled our mouths, but we were finally free.

MeMe cried out, “Look up there Ridley! There’s another ship! And it’s made out of gold!”

The sky had cleared with the coming dawn. Brilliant orange light from the rising sun glinted off Raya’s saucer, hovering exactly where I’d left it. Only now, the tide had receded as the Earth turned, and the Pacific Ocean rotated away from the moon. With Raya’s ship anchored exactly 898 feet above the ocean floor, freedom was still out of our reach.

As each wave crested, I dove underwater, rushing up under MeMe’s feet, trying in vain to boost her high enough to grab the safety bar under the hatch, but it was too far above us to reach.

As we looked up helplessly, so close to safety, yet so far away, a familiar voice said, “Here, Ridley, try this.”

A purple gravity cushion bumped my head.

“Neko!” MeMe cried out. “How did you find us?”