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I’m glad to be with the corporal and our commander again. No sign of over half of Crew 52 though. I hope Sgt. Licorice is okay. I have an old Earthian model computer system, but no communication equipment to get into contact with HQ. We really need to convince them to set up an e-mail account or something.
—Private 1st Class Kerfuffle out!

Chapter Sixteen: Cheeseburger Cooks Better than Spork

When I woke up in the morning I could detect the faint scent of something cooking and hear the sizzle of a pan, well the food in the pan that is. The pan itself didn’t sizzle because it wasn’t intended to be eaten or changed in composition.
More importantly though, this didn’t sound like Cedric’s cooking and didn’t have the smoke and growling of Spork. Intriguing. I rolled from my luxurious box bed and stretched, arching my tail in a crescent and stretching my impressive jaws in a yawn. Phase A of morning ritual complete. I padded out to see what was up.
My hypothesis was confirmed correct. Cedric was not green and had never possessed tentacles, likewise Spork was not short. Spork also didn’t dress up like a fast food server to cook breakfast and it cooked mostly cat food, not tasty looking stuff.
“Cheeseburger, you cook?”
“Decently.” It replied with a slight smile. “Good morning, Lieutenant.”
“Morning.” I yawned and flopped down at the table.
Next to arrive was Cedric. His initial look was distain but it soon faded to something more okay looking.
“What are you doing?”
“Cooking breakfast, Sir. A crew needs to eat.”
“Smells good.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
Cheeseburger resumed its work.
Neither I nor Cedric were morning creatures. As a matter of fact we were quite content to sit there without saying a word. The window he had been so concerned about the night before had been repaired—sort of. It looked more like it had been pieced back together with heavy duty glue. The glue was semi transparent, but you could still see several fractures. Cheeseburger had likely done this to help secure our base.
A lot of the other crew units weren’t with us at the moment. Cloudy loved food, but its absence wasn’t surprising with how timid it was—especially around Spork.
I began dozing a bit while I waited, only to be awoken by Spork’s voice shortly after.
“What’s the progress on communication?”
“Not much, I’m afraid.” Cheeseburger flipped whatever was in the pan.
“Why aren’t you working on it now then?”
“Crew needs a good breakfast to start the day.”
Spork growled but didn’t argue it.
“You should talk to Kerfuffle. Maybe the two of you can get something worthwhile figured out.”
“Gladly, Corporal.”
The sizzle of whatever Cheeseburger was cooking was the only sound for quite awhile. Spork was picking at the corners of its skin near the scar on its arm. Cedric was sipping at the dirt-water mixture he called coffee and me, well I was listening to them all I guess.
Cloudy aside, we were also missing Hearts and Kerfuffle. Our Qahrburboxis wasn’t around either, but it usually took care of itself, being some kind of vegetarian species apparently. Cactus ate a different kind of food, as did Plant, so they also hadn’t come along either.
My thoughts were mirrored by Spork who moments later asked, “Where’s Kerfuffle?”
I shrugged. Cedric did nothing.
Spork scrunched up its face and scowled. About that time Kerfuffle appeared at the kitchen entry way with a frown. The feathers on its head and tail were all in disarray. It flattened some of them and tried to do the same to its tail fluff with a foot.
“Good morning Princess Fluffle.” Spork grumbled.
Kerfuffle gave a sloppy salute and carried on.
“Really?” Spork scoffed. “Why even bother?”
“I’m tiiired.” Kerfuffle flopped down at the table, burying its head between its arms. “I had to work late.”
“What? Didn’t get enough beauty sleep?” Spork reached over and plucked a feather from Kerfuffle’s head. The tropical ‘deviv yelped—its fluff spiking out every direction.
“This may be news to you, furball, but…WE’RE NOT HERE ON VACATION.”
Kerfuffle flinched and frowned more as it rubbed its head.
“Sorry…”
Spork growled.
“Corporal.” Kerfuffle sighed and looked away.
Probably a smart move.
“I still like Licorice better.”
A less smart move.
Spork rose from the table and all at once Kerfuffle seemed to realize the detrimental error it had made. Its ears flopped down in an instant and it grabbed its tail to shove in its mouth; I’m not sure if that was its natural reaction or if it was due to the fact that when it and Spork got into a fight they usually ended with Spork stuffing its tail in its mouth. Either way, Kerfuffle had done so before mewing a quiet apology and claiming it hadn’t meant it.
It had of course. Everyone knew that. The term teacher’s pet could’ve easily applied to it.
Within a couple brief moments, Kerfuffle and Spork alike had darted off into the other room, accompanied by much crashing and shouting. Cedric took a nervous sip from his glass, and then his mouth arched into a small frown.
“Don’t worry.” I reassured. “They’ll work it out.”
“I was more concerned about the room.”
“Oh.”
Cheeseburger had finished cooking by then and turned off the stove. In one paw it held a delicious plate of…stuff. I wasn’t sure what it was. Looked like meat and some other stuff that was composed of different colors. Either way, it looked better than anything Cedric ever made so I was assuming it would be good.
“Lieutenant.” It declared as it brought it over to me.
I shoveled some of the food stuff off of the plate onto my own with a paw. For some reason that made Cheeseburger frown slightly, but it said nothing and moved on, using a spatula to divide up the remainder onto the other plates.
It was roughly around this time when Cedric became far livelier than he was most any other day. In fact, perhaps more-so than I had ever seen him. He not only gave an oddly choked sounding shout, but he leaped from his chair—or well sort of tripped over it. He still caught himself before falling. I was just about to ask him what had gotten in his fur when the problem revealed itself.
“Oh hey, Cloudy. Nice of you to join us.”
The dark gray Qwuedeviv was sitting knelt on the floor beside Cedric’s chair, its rather large mouth wide and gaping, no doubt searching for a tasty treat—like breakfast, not so much Cedric like he seemed to think. I think even Cloudy had the smarts to notice that Cedric did not look very appetizing.
It gave a friendly wave, mouth curling into a drooling, jagged smile then it slurped all the food off one of the plates and disappeared again.
Spork and Kerfuffle were still making a whole bunch of noise. I flicked an ear and attempted to sniff my meal—that wasn’t extra easy because we have an awful sense of smell.
“Commander?”
“Yeah Cheeseburger?”
“Perhaps you should check on them.”
“Spork’s fine.”
“I meant more for Kerfuffle’s well being.”
“Oh. Right.”
I slid my chair back and scooted off of it. They weren’t very far away so it didn’t take long to get there. First things first though, I observed the scene. The scene was as follows. Spork was currently on the far side of the sofa, dragging Kerfuffle across by its tail. Kerfuffle was clinging to the other side of the sofa, via claws which were seemingly tearing said sofa open and spilling its contents forth. Hmm…Cedric had mentioned something about not ruining the house hadn’t he? Oops. Probably should’ve passed that memo along earlier.
“Spork can you not kill Kerfuffle?”
Cheeseburger stepped up beside me. “Yes, it will make working with it later most difficult.” It held out a plate of food. “Besides, breakfast is ready.”
Spork cast a quick glare at Kerfuffle who was hanging on for its life, still failing…and then the food. It gave an annoyed hiss, walked around the side of the sofa, still holding said tail and tapped Kerfuffle’s head. Kerfuffle glanced up, but didn’t move. After realizing Spork was not going to heavily damage its skull, it sighed, folded its ears back and reached out with one paw to take its tail, and then shoved its fluffiness into its mouth and clamped down. Spork snickered about this and accompanied us to the kitchen, swishing its tail about victoriously; as if Kerfuffle had ever had a chance to begin with. None of us made any mention of this though.
The important thing was no one would be ending anyone’s life before breakfast. I returned to my meal, placed my paws on either side of the plate and began gulping down the unidentified food. It was good, had a lot of flavor to it. Maybe that’s why I didn’t notice until it was too late that I had chomped the plate in half too. I didn’t eat it, but I definitely broke it.
No one else had this problem when they finished off theirs, not even Spork. This probably went to prove two things. One, that I was stronger than Spork and two, my plate was defective. I chose not to blame anyone for the defective plate though and rather placed it in the trash.
There was no further mention of the plate of brokenness.
I began the process of giving my paw a thorough washing, with my tongue. The others were still eating, but that was not particularly interesting to me. Kerfuffle and Cheeseburger would be working later, Spork would be doing whatever a Spork does, Cloudy would likely be hiding and the other two—Tentacles and Hearts, they’d either show up or they wouldn’t. It was of no real consequence to me.
They were probably around somewhere, and it wasn’t my job to have to know where every crew unit was and tag along every second. They needed to take care of themselves from time to time and—my ears perked up as I meowed, a rumbly “brreowr” to be exact. Cedric had walked by.
I decided to follow him for a change of pace; sometimes my crew could become overwhelming. He didn’t say anything right away, not until we had gone outside. At this point he stated he was retrieving the daily paper. I am not sure why they delivered paper to his house every day, I hadn’t seen him use paper for a whole lot, but I let him carry on with the pointless ritual.

* * *

Kerfuffle leaned over towards Cheeseburger who had been working to construct…something. I wasn’t sure of its exact purpose. We had sacrificed Cedric’s toaster and a few other odds and ends of appliances for it though.
Cheeseburger said that the Earth appliances were not nearly as efficient as ours and so it was taking quite a few to make this…thing. It was supposed to be a makeshift communication link back home, but it definitely didn’t look like any of the tech I was used to. They had a bunch of stuff wired through a flat screen TV and a whole jumble of wires and bent metal that they had arranged in some fashion.
Cheeseburger seemed to understand its purpose but I wasn’t so sure. I personally didn’t think it would work, but that was just me.
Spork had been checking in off and on. It didn’t seem interested in the overall project, but definitely the hopeful completion.
“Is it done yet?”
“Sorry, Smiley,” Kerfuffle mewed, “not yet.”
“Well why not? Isn’t it your job?”
“This isn’t exactly something they teach you in school I’m afraid.”
“We’ll make do.” Cheeseburger added, “No better time than the present to learn.”
Kerfuffle’s ears twitched and it blinked.
“I prefer learning without the corporal breathing down my neck.” It muttered.
“Why’s it matter? You normally have Licorice breathing down it.”
Kerfuffle’s fur fluffed up in every direction as it turned around. Spork had decided to check in at the worst of times of course.
“H….ha….”
Spork’s tail flicked as it stared, arms crossed. “Just get back to work.”
“O-of course Corporal, Sir!” Kerfuffle saluted. “Sorry Corporal, Sir!”
Spork shook its head, stepped around the two to take another look and then left the room again. We let them work in peace for awhile. I really wasn’t that interested in what they were up to, but Spork didn’t bother me if I sat in there and acted interested, thus the whole elaborate plot.
Later that evening we were supposed to have a meeting about their progress, but judging how things were currently going, I didn’t think they’d have much to report.
“Is this even possible, you guys?”
Kerfuffle looked to me and then to Cheeseburger. Cheeseburger had the same unwavering stare it always did. Granted that was because we couldn’t see its eyes.
“Honestly I don’t really know.” Kerfuffle spoke up. It tended to hate gaps of silence where as Cheeseburger didn’t care. “But really, it’s Cheeseburger who’s handling most of the mechanics of it. That’s not really my specialty.”
“It’s not mine either.” Cheeseburger noted as it connected a couple thin wires. “But that isn’t what the corporal is interested in hearing. Between the two of us, we should be able to figure something out. After all, we can’t just sit here and do nothing.”
Kerfuffle sighed, its tropical, fluffy ears becoming all ruffled. “This isn’t what they teach us in school.”
“Life isn’t as simple as school.” Cheeseburger remarked. It was kind of hard to believe the two were roughly the same age, give or take a few years. They acted so different. “Besides, just think. If the Humans have developed all the communication they possess currently, then we, with superior knowledge, should be able to make it even better.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Go back to researching online. The more we know the better chance we have.”
Kerfuffle sighed, but did as it was asked. Meanwhile I tried to remember all that had gone on prior to launch. I had been playing with Loan Shark. Well, it hadn’t exactly been a two sided game, but it was a game none the less.
I had taken something from it and had been running around. Dr. Leech had come up to me saying I was supposed to go to Earth to do…something. Realized I had kind of forgotten to retrieve that paperwork before I had self-destructed the drop pod. Probably would have been more beneficial had I remembered that before.
What were my orders? Getting back in contact with HQ seemed like a good idea then maybe I could ask about…why else would we be here though? And how was it my fault we all got separated? Any of them could have mentioned it. That was, unless I had failed to mention it to them, which I might have. Normally a copy of our orders is sent with us, where had they been?
The presence of something…strange…beside me distracted my attention. I looked over and saw Cloudy. It didn’t usually show up so that was kind of a surprise.
“Uh.” I’ll admit it wasn’t my most intelligent remark ever, but it was a remark and well it had already been said.
It shook its head, eye disguise flickering away briefly.
“Cloudy knows not this.”
“Huh?”
It sighed then began speaking in another native dialect we often used.
Cloudy usually feels more comfortable using it than some of the others we communicate with, and especially over the limited amount we know of Earthian languages. For the sake of not confusing anyone though, and making this make more sense, I will use my superior translating skills to translate what it was saying.
“I don’t know about this mission.”
“Ah.”
“Normally that would be something in the field of information I’d have, wouldn’t it?”
I meowed and nodded. Cloudy worked with information security. All of what that entailed I honestly wasn’t sure. I’d never worked with it much personally, but I did know information was generally involved. So it stood to reason that this information might have been given to it likewise had things been processed in a proper fashion.
We were quiet. Cloudy didn’t seem to want to accuse me like everyone else. I could appreciate that, given what I had to deal with from the others, namely Spork.
I gave it a half smile as I thought about what it had mentioned, but I just couldn’t make sense of it.