As Mac was giving the Carrie and Tamara instructions that I had told him, he stopped. “Wait,” he said, “how is Steve?” “He is out completely, I think,” said Carrie, “but he is alive, he is breathing. But we could not carry him with us, and we do not want to leave him either.” “Okay, do you two have guns?” he asked. “Sky gave us guns and made sure they were ready to use before she left here,” replied Carrie, “but neither of us has ever used a gun, not even held a gun, before.”

Her voice was shaking now. “Hey, stay calm girl,” said Mac gently, “you two can do this, just listen to me and do what I say, okay?” “Okay,” they both said together. The phone was on speaker so they could both hear. “Now, you hold that gun nice a solid, with both hands,” he said, “remember, you use both hands. Then arms straight out, elbows locked in position.

Then aim at whoever comes through that door and use one finger to pull the trigger, and hold it. Do not release your finger off the trigger, just hold it until you run out of bullets. Got all that?” “Yes,” they both said together, “we will do the best we can.” “Good girls,” he said, “you will do just fine, I am on my way back too.” Hearing Mac say he was coming back made the girls relax a bit more.

Mac was hoping that Brandish would come by himself, but it was always possible that one or two men would come with him. Just as Mac was about to leave he noticed something in the room. Dynamite! Plus a bomb with a timer on it. “Nice of Brandish to leave this for me,” he said to himself. He placed the bomb and dynamite close to the fuel tank, set the timer and ran fast and over the side he went!

While all this was going on, the gunfight on shore was raging fiercely. My team was not only outnumbered, but the enemy had assault rifles to use, we did not. Then the early crew had now caught up to the action and circled behind the team and began shooting. “Get behind them cats,” said Sky. Then she fell, bleeding from her shoulder. Bridgette saw her fall and ran over to her, shooting as she went.

She hit the man that had shot Sky and now the cats began their attack from behind the Brandish crew. They began to fall one by one, not knowing what was going on or who was after them. But the cats ran out of their steel balls. They did not bring rubber balls this time, they wanted the room for more steel balls. Now they had to fight the old fashioned way, which they did to great effect.

They picked out men and jumped on their backs, scratching vigorously. That caused the men to scream and stand up, making them easy targets for our team. The ones that were still left at least. Most of our team lay on the ground by this time. Ralph and one of his friends made their way back to the chopper, but only Ralph made it all the way.

He was soon in the air. This was the same chopper he had used to rescue Kristina, Storm and I on that little island months ago. It has grenade launchers on it and he was soon shooting grenades at the Brandish crew. When the cats heard the chop chop coming they ran back to Sky for safety. The grenades caused the remaining Brandish crew to head back to the yacht, but as they got closer to the yacht, it suddenly exploded into a massive fireball.

Meanwhile, back at the hotel, everyone staying there were locked in their rooms in terror because of what was happening. Suddenly there was a small explosion and our door burst open. The girls did as Mac told them and the two men that came in were quickly killed. But Brandish was not one of them. He came in after the shooting stopped.

“Well, well, look what we have here,” he said when he saw the girls, “looks like I cannot trust either one of you. I am sure after a few months in the chamber you will be much more willing to behave, providing you survive that long.” Before Sky had left, she got the guns out of the backpack that Ralph had brought. When she looked inside for the guns, she had smiled and left the backpack on the desk.

Suddenly two balls of fur rolled out and “Thwick! Thwick!” Brandish groaned and fell against the wall. Then “Thwick! Thwick!” and Brandish again groaned and fell to the floor, dead. Back to Sky, “I sure hope that Steve and the girls are okay,” she said to herself. “Soon we will see the fury of the cat!”

Sky looked around to see who said that, but no one was there, Bridgette had gone to check on Crystal. “I’m hearing things now,” Sky said again. Back in our room, Mac came running in and looked around. Tamara and Carrie each had a kitten. “I see you met my little friends,” he said smiling. “They got Brandish!” said Tamara, “I would never have believed it!”

To Be Continued.

©2023 Steve McLeod.