Volume one

# ASTROMONO

---

## CHAPTER 1: Day 37

Space never slept.

Astro knew that better than anyone. He had spent thirty-seven days alone at the helm of the *Amateratsu-1*, an exploration vessel that had traveled farther than any human mission -- or nearly human mission -- had ever gone before. Thirty-seven days since that mysterious structure had opened in the void like an unlocked door, swallowing the entire ship whole and spitting it out into an unknown corner of the galaxy.

Astro was a chimpanzee.

Not just any chimpanzee, of course. He was a genetically altered chimpanzee, engineered to be more intelligent than nature would ever have allowed. His creators had given him the intellect needed to lead a space mission without relying on anyone, to make difficult decisions light-years away from any command center. They had prepared him for the impossible.

And yet, sometimes he looked out at the stars through the cockpit window and thought about bananas.

*Nonsense*, he told himself. *Focus.*

On board, seven crew members slept in suspended animation, connected to virtual reality systems where their minds trained while their bodies rested in the controlled cold of the cryogenic chambers. Seven dreamers who trusted him. Seven lives that depended on his decisions.

The new mission was to trace the origin of a faint radio signal coming from a nearby asteroid cluster. Nothing alarming, according to the instruments. Probably cosmic interference, electromagnetic residue from some metallic rock. Probably.

Astro was not the kind to settle for "probably."

He adjusted the strap on the captain's seat -- built for a human figure, always a little too big for him -- and set course for the cluster.

---

## CHAPTER 2: The Asteroid

The asteroid was majestic. Imposing.

Astro observed it from the cockpit with wide eyes, his hands still over the controls for the first time in days. The rock was enormous, its grey, jagged surface covered in craters that told stories of millions of years of silent collisions. Around it floated a belt of smaller stones, like a scattered family.

The computer data showed everything within normal parameters. Temperature, mineral composition, gravitational field. Nothing out of place.

And yet, the signal was still there. Faint, persistent, like someone whispering in a dark room.

Astro made his decision. He docked the scout ship -- a smaller unit, designed for maneuvering in tight spaces -- and detached from the *Amateratsu-1*. If there was something among those rocks, he would find it.

The scout ship glided between the asteroids like a fish through coral, and Astro steered with an expert hand, reading space with the same instinct his species had developed for reading the jungle.

Then he saw it.

He stepped out of the cockpit because his eyes couldn't believe what the screens were showing him. He needed to see it with his own eyes, helmet sealed and open space all around him.

An alien ship.

There was no other way to describe it. The angles were wrong, the geometry defied every engineering manual ever written, the materials reflected light in a way no known earthly or manufactured metal could. It was ancient, or at least the wear on its surface suggested as much. But it was still transmitting that signal. That whisper.

And inside it, something was moving.

---

## CHAPTER 3: Mitens

The creature resting inside the alien ship had feline features.

It was, to put it plainly, a cat. A bipedal cat, with striped fur and enormous eyes that snapped open the moment Astro slipped through the access hatch. For an instant, the two stared at each other in silence: the chimpanzee still wearing his helmet, the cat with its fur on end and an expression that mixed fright with disbelief.

The alien opened its mouth and spoke.

Astro didn't understand a single word, but he immediately activated the bracelet on his wrist. The artificial intelligence built into the device was programmed to analyze and translate every known language on Earth. There was no guarantee it would work with an alien language, but the AI was adaptive, capable of learning new patterns in real time.

For a few seconds, the bracelet processed. Then, in a synthetic and somewhat robotic voice, it offered an approximate translation:

*"Listen... I need help... some pirates... took the space station... my friends... they're in danger..."*

The cat -- who turned out to be called Cadet Mitens -- had woken up terrified, yes. But upon seeing that Astro was not of his race, that he was something completely different from anything he had ever known, the fear had given way to a kind of desperate relief. Any help was better than none.

They spent hours talking, with Astro's bracelet working nonstop to build a bridge between their languages. Mitens explained his situation in fragments, gesturing with his four-fingered hands, drawing maps in the air.

A space station. A group of pirates who had taken it by force. Mitens's fellow crew members, trapped inside. And him, the only one who had managed to escape in this battered ship, transmitting a distress signal in the hope that someone -- anyone -- would hear it.

Astro listened to everything in silence. Then he asked, through the bracelet:

"Do you have a plan?"

Mitens smiled. It was a feline smile, full of fangs, but an honest one.

"I have half a plan," he replied. "I need the other half."

Astro thought about his seven sleeping companions, about the original mission, about the *Amateratsu-1*'s protocols. Then he thought about what it meant to find a distress signal in space and act as if it didn't exist.

He didn't hesitate long.

"Tell me," he said.

And that was how a chimpanzee and a space cat became friends.

---

## CHAPTER 4: A Plan for Two

The scout ship was small for two, but Mitens and Astro made it work. The cat spread a holographic device over the central console that projected a schematic of the space station: corridors, chambers, access points.

"The plan is simple," said Mitens, with that smile again. "You'll take this proton cannon. It has two shots. One to immobilize the pirate ship when it comes out, another in reserve. Once the ship is paralyzed, I go back to the station from behind, retake the command bridge, and send an S.O.S. to High Command. They'll come for us."

Astro studied the weapon. It was strange, lighter than he expected, with a design that followed no earthly engineering logic whatsoever. But his hands held it naturally.

"What if two ships come out?" he asked.

"They only have one," Mitens replied. "I saw it when I escaped."

"What if the S.O.S. doesn't get through?"

"It will."

"Are you sure?"

The cat looked at him steadily.

"No," he admitted. "But it's what we've got."

Astro nodded. He was smart enough to know that in space, as in the jungle, perfect plans didn't exist. There were only decisions, and their consequences.

They separated the ships. Astro positioned himself among the asteroids, the proton cannon ready, his eyes fixed on the station that was beginning to appear in the distance. It was an imposing structure, of steel and light, with fresh battle marks across its outer hull.

Mitens disappeared into the darkness.

---

## CHAPTER 5: The Impact

Astro waited.

Space was absolute silence. There was no wind, no sound, nothing but the stars and his own breathing inside the helmet. He waited with the patience that only those who have learned to be patient out of necessity truly possess.

The pirate ship shot out of the station like a bullet.

Astro fired.

The first proton round struck the enemy ship's rear engine with a precision that would have surprised any human gunner. The ship spun out of control, spitting sparks into the void.

But something went wrong.

The recoil of the shot -- which the weapon's alien technology had failed to compensate for properly -- jolted the scout ship violently. Astro heard the sound no astronaut ever wants to hear: the groan of a compromised hull.

"Impact!" he said aloud, though there was no one to hear him. "Hull is compromised. We're stranded."

From the back of the ship, Mitens appeared with his eyes wide as moons.

"WE'RE GOING TO DIE!!!" the cat wailed.

"We are not going to die," said Astro, with a calm that surprised even himself. "We still have one shot."

Mitens grabbed the console.

"What good is one shot if we can't move?"

"This."

Astro aimed the cannon at the pirate ship, which was still spinning out of control but beginning to stabilize. Second shot. Perfect.

The enemy ship went completely still, drifting like a broken toy in the void.

"Now," said Astro, setting down the weapon, "I need to send an S.O.S. to High Command."

He found the scout ship's communications console. The impact had damaged it, but not destroyed it. Astro's fingers moved quickly across the controls, adapting to the unfamiliar technology with a fluency that surprised even him.

"Yes! The console still works!"

The distress message shot out into space. Astro didn't know if it would arrive. He didn't know if anyone would hear it, or if they would in time. But it was what they had.

"Done," he said. "Now we hold on."

Mitens looked at him. Then, very slowly, he nodded.

---

## CHAPTER 6: The Pirate Chief

The message reached its destination.

But it wasn't the only one who received it.

On the bridge of the space station, a pirate wearing a communications helmet jerked his head up.

"Boss! Someone on the station is sending an S.O.S.!"

The pirate chief turned slowly.

He was also a feline creature, but where Mitens was young and soft-featured, this being was the complete opposite: enormous, with silver, bristling fur and yellow eyes that glowed like two dying suns. He wore ornate armor and held in his hand a command staff that had seen too many battles.

He said nothing for a moment. He just stared.

Then, as if something inside him had made a terrible decision, he roared:

"You -- get that ship running again! Tiger, Whitey, with me! We're taking the bridge back!"

He paused in the doorway. His voice dropped, going soft, almost intimate, which made it all the more terrifying:

"No one is taking my treasure from me."

---

## CHAPTER 7: The Fold

What appeared next in the fabric of space had no simple name.

From the damaged ship, Mitens was the first to see it: a distortion in the spacetime continuum, a curvature of light that should not have existed.

"Is that... a fold ahead of us?" he asked, in a small voice.

Astro looked. His eyes, trained to read instruments and data, took a second to process what he was seeing.

A fold. A junction between two points in spacetime, an open door between two places in the universe that could be separated by thousands of light-years. The same technology that had carried the *Amateratsu-1* to this corner of the galaxy, thirty-seven days ago.

From that fold, a ship emerged.

It was not a pirate vessel. It was a battle cruiser, enormous and formidable, with markings of authority engraved across its hull. The answer to the S.O.S.

"The message reached its destination," said Astro, quietly.

And inside the ship, with a half-broken hull and an empty proton cannon and a trembling space cat at his side, Astro felt something he hadn't expected to feel.

Relief.

---

## CHAPTER 8: The End and the Beginning

What followed was swift.

The battle cruiser deployed troops into the station. The pirate chief, surrounded by his lieutenants Tiger and Whitey, refused to surrender. "Never," he said, with the strange dignity of those who have built their entire lives around a single obsession. His followers, more pragmatic, gave themselves up in a matter of seconds.

The chief was captured all the same.

The dream he had fought so hard to protect ended among the ruins of a reclaimed space station.

Then came the calm.

Mitens found Astro on the bridge of the repaired ship -- the cruiser's technicians had worked through the night -- and offered his hand. Four fingers, a universal gesture.

"We did it, Astro! Thank you!"

The chimpanzee shook that hand. He nodded.

Captain Kit, commander of the battle cruiser, was more formal. He was a middle-aged cat with grey fur and eyes that had seen too many things to be easily surprised. But when Astro told him everything -- the signal, the asteroid, the alien ship, the proton cannon, the broken hull -- something in those eyes shifted.

"Thank you, Astro," said Captain Kit. "I, Captain Kit, hereby present you with the Medal of Valor. And my entire crew will do everything in their power to get you back home."

Astro held the medal in his hand. It was small, metallic, warm from the captain's touch. He looked at it for a long moment.

Back home.

The *Amateratsu-1* was waiting for him, with its seven sleeping crew members, its original mission unfinished, all its mysteries still unsolved. The structure that had brought them here was still out there, somewhere in the galaxy. Space was still infinite and incomprehensible.

But tonight, in this remote corner of the universe, a chimpanzee and a space cat had saved a station, defeated a band of pirates, and proven that in space, as anywhere else, the most unexpected friendships are the ones that matter most.

Astro put on the medal.

And looked out the cockpit window at the stars.

There was so much still to discover.

---

*END OF VOLUME 1*

---

*Astromono is a story by Willy Quiroga.*