Bombay 72 - Doomworld /idgames database frontend

Title:	Bombay 72
Filename:	combos/bombay72.zip
Size:	319.9 KB
Date:	12/20/02
Author:	Martin Howe
Description:	Ever wanted to take a Baron or Revenant on in a fist (paw) fight on equal terms? Bombay72 recasts the player as a cat patterned after the Bombay incorporating some attributes of the sentient panther-like cat "Couerl" featured in A E van Vogt's short story "Black Destroyer" which later became Chapter 1 of "Voyage of the Space Beagle". Sratch, tear or swipe the enemy, throw flaming balls of fire at them and invoke feline deities Bast and Sekhmet to aid you in wreaking fire and death upon the demons of DOOM!
Credits:	ID Software (www.idsoftware.com) for DOOM, of course A E van Vogt (RIP) for nightmaring up Coeurl TiC (The Innocent Crew) for issuing the TicFlame patch for general use Loads of other people for issuing collections of WAV files and such Jon Trotter of TrotKatz for introducing me to the Bombay cat breed http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/garden/603/homepage/homepagex.html Simon Brooks of Loddon, Norfolk for playtesting and suggestions Olivier Montanuy for DeuSF, DeuTex, WinTex, etc Greg Lewis for DeHackEd Anyone who can tell me how to _pronounce_ "Coeurl" :-) Bill Neisius for DMGRAPH Sanjay Vijendran (s.vijendran@ic.ac.uk) for the original Starwars DOOM FORCE patch - it gave me a clearer idea of how the Curse of Bast might work in practice. Jon (again) & friends, the Bombay Breed Club and all of the cat fanatics and enthusiasts around the world who are developing, showing and generally promoting the Bombay and the other Asian breeds. Kim Ghobrial (http://www.kimghob.com/bescat) who is one of the most well-known US breeders of GCCF-standard Burmese and Asian cats.
Base:	New from scratch
Build time:	Thirty days or so
Editor(s) used:	WinTex, PhotoStudio, PaintShopPro, DeHackEd, Windows XP (R) Sound Recorder.
Bugs:	The troopers and chaingunners share the same sound as the pistol and may sound a little weird, as if they are using nonstandard guns. I have not decided whether or not to keep this. If you want normal versions of these, use WinTex to remove the DSPISTOL lump from BOMBAY72.WAD; however, if you do this, the Burmese Glare of Death will have an all-too familiar and decidedly un-cat-like sound!
Rating:	(13 votes) Log in at the Doomworld forums to comment.

Download mirrors:

/idgames protocol:

idgames://11782

Reviews:

Anonymous	I LOVE THE PROLOUGE! BTW, what were the "things" you were referring to?	x
Anonymous	I feel like I've been assaulted by a '96 dehacked wad that was bad even for its own time. God knows what that translates out to in 2002. Besides, cats suck and are for furries.	x
Anonymous	This wad is for furfags that like to get their asses pounded by four Barons of Hell and nine Hellknights at once.	x
Anonymous	Useless. What should this be good for??????? -- 0/5	x
Anonymous	FUCKING HELL! this was bad	x
Anonymous	"Ever wanted to take a Baron or Revenant on in a fist (paw) fight on equal terms?" The answer of course is NO. I thought that maybe this would have new levels revolving around being a cat or something, but instead it's just a stupid weapons replacement. My weapons have all been replaced by a paw? Wow, that's just incredible, thanks. I love how it includes another DEH to play ALIENS-TC with this monstrosity. God knows I was yearning to kill aliens as a giant cat.	x

View bombay72.txt

============================================================================
Archive Maintainer      : Please place in "combos" subdirectory
Update to               : bombay72.zip and bombay72.txt
                          THIS IS A NEWER VERSION THAN THE ONE I UPLOADED
			  EARLIER IN THE WEEK ON 17TH DECEMBER 2002.
Advanced engine needed  : Boom compliant
Primary purpose         : Single play, no levels included
============================================================================
Title                   : Bombay 72
Filename                : Bombay72.wad
Release date (original) : 30th November 1997, V0.7.20
Release date (current)  : 21st December 2002, V0.9.85
Author                  : Martin Howe
Email Address           : martinhowe@myprivacy.ca
Other Files By Author   : Playwad a SP wad-launcher from my web site, which
			  is being rebuilt and is temporarily unavailable.
Misc. Author Info       : DOOMer since 1993; Webmaster, Committee Member and
			  Kitten List holder for the Bombay and Asian Self
			  Breed Club (www.bombaybreedclub.org), which is
			  itself affiliated to the GCCF (www.gccfcats.org).
Description             : Ever wanted to take a Baron or Revenant on in a
			  fist (paw) fight on equal terms? Bombay72 recasts
			  the player as a cat patterned after the Bombay
			  incorporating some attributes of the sentient
			  panther-like cat "Couerl" featured in A E van
			  Vogt's short story "Black Destroyer" which later
			  became Chapter 1 of "Voyage of the Space Beagle".
			  Sratch, tear or swipe the enemy, throw flaming
			  balls of fire at them and invoke feline deities
			  Bast and Sekhmet to aid you in wreaking fire and
			  death upon the demons of DOOM!
Revision summary	: This version of BOMBAY72 features, amongst other
			  things, a vastly improved Curse of Bast. Thunder
			  rolls and the demons are struck down by lightning!
			  There are also better "swinging arm" graphics that
			  do not appear to float in mid-air when firing the
			  rocket launcher of flamethrower. Better graphics
			  and sounds for the flamethrower in this version.
Dedication:		  Bombay72 is dedicated to Jason Keble who rashly
			  told me that it couldn't be done <<evil grin>>
			  and to "Crazy" Toffee (b13/09/91, d09/07/95), my
			  mother's Bombay-like black cat whose gory crusade
			  to de-mouse the neighborhood gave me the idea in
			  the first place! (Imagine seeing the guts of a
			  dead mouse on the doorstep every other morning, or
			  walking across the front garden over a mass of
			  feathers strewn across the lawn whilst hearing a
			  rhythmic  *crunch*  *crunch*  *crunch*  emanating
			  from under the tree, and you'll get the idea :-)
Additional Credits to   : ID Software (www.idsoftware.com)
			    for DOOM, of course
			  A E van Vogt (RIP)
			    for nightmaring up Coeurl
			  TiC (The Innocent Crew)
			    for issuing the TicFlame patch for general use
                          Loads of other people
                            for issuing collections of WAV files and such
			  Jon Trotter of TrotKatz
			    for introducing me to the Bombay cat breed
			    http://www.fortunecity.com/greenfield/garden/603/homepage/homepagex.html
			  Simon Brooks of Loddon, Norfolk
			    for playtesting and suggestions
			  Olivier Montanuy
			    for DeuSF, DeuTex, WinTex, etc
			  Greg Lewis
			    for DeHackEd
			  Anyone
			    who can tell me how to _pronounce_ "Coeurl" :-)
			  Bill Neisius
			    for DMGRAPH
			  Sanjay Vijendran (s.vijendran@ic.ac.uk)
			    for the original Starwars DOOM FORCE patch - it
			    gave me a clearer idea of how the Curse of Bast
			    might work in practice.
			  Jon (again) & friends, the Bombay Breed Club and
			    all of the cat fanatics and enthusiasts around
			    the world who are developing, showing and
			    generally promoting the Bombay and the other
			    Asian breeds.
			  Kim Ghobrial (http://www.kimghob.com/bescat)
			    who is one of the most well-known US breeders of
			    GCCF-standard Burmese and Asian cats.
============================================================================

* What is included *

New levels              : None
Sounds                  : Yes
Music                   : No
Graphics                : Yes
Dehacked/BEX Patch      : Yes (BEX in WAD, DEH supplied for non-Boom ports)
Demos                   : No
Other                   : Patch to run this with Aliens-TC
Other files required    : None

* Play Information *

Game                    : DOOM and DOOM2 (including Final Doom)
Map #                   : None (should work on any)
Single Player           : Designed for
Cooperative 2-4 Player  : No (needs graphics - wanna help?)
Deathmatch 2-4 Player   : No (needs graphics - wanna help?)
Other game styles       : Not sure (player gfx/sfx/deh replacement)
Difficulty Settings     : N/A

* How to Install and Use *

Due to the illegality of distributing copyrighted id Software sounds and
graphics, they must be taken from your Doom2 IWAD or else the default ones
in BOMBAY72.WAD must be used. If you can live with the default ones or you
do not have a legal copy of Doom2 or Final Doom (i.e., you are only using
Doom or Ultimate Doom), just copy BOMBAY72.BIN to BOMBAY72.WAD and that's
it. If you have Doom2 or Final Doom then run the batch file install.bat and
follow the instructions it gives you to create the file BOMBAY72.WAD. The
resulting file can then be used with all four DOOMs including Ultimate Doom.

To USE this PWAD, you don't need a batch file or anything, just -file it as
you would any other PWAD or use your favourite WAD launcher program. Note
that however you run it, a Boom-compliant source port is required. I have
personally found that ZDoom 1.23b33 gives better results than PRBoom 2.2.0.

* Construction *

Base                    : New from scratch
Build Time              : Thirty days or so
Editor(s) used          : WinTex, PhotoStudio, PaintShopPro, DeHackEd,
                          Windows XP (R) Sound Recorder.
Known Bugs              : The troopers and chaingunners share the same sound
			  as the pistol and may sound a little weird, as if
			  they are using nonstandard guns. I have not
			  decided whether or not to keep this. If you want
			  normal versions of these, use WinTex to remove the
			  DSPISTOL lump from BOMBAY72.WAD; however, if you
			  do this, the Burmese Glare of Death will have an
			  all-too familiar and decidedly un-cat-like sound!
May Not Run With...     : Any non-Boom-compliant source port. This will
                          NOT run with the orignal id executables. It
			  was tested with ZDoom 1.23b33 and PRBoom 2.2.0.

* Copyright / Permissions *

Authors MAY use the contents of this file as a base for modification or
reuse provided that you e-mail me a copy and give me the right to use parts
of your work in future releases of Bombay72 (though I will always discuss
it with you before doing so). Permissions have been obtained from original
authors for any of their resources modified or included in this file.

You MAY (and are encouraged to) distribute and use BOMBAY72, provided:

(1) This entire collection of files is distributed UNMODIFIED,
	preferably in the original ZIP file in which it should have come. I
	have received permission from the original authors of any modified
	or included content in this file to allow further distribution.
    (2) The distribution is on a non-commercial basis; you may put Bombay72
        on FTP sites or CD or other media as part of a collection for which
        you are charging a fee as long as you understand that the fee is for
        the collecting and (if applicable) the media, *not* for Bombay72.
    (3) You accept that as with all free systems provided free of charge for
        like-minded people, Bombay 72 is NOT guaranteed to work completely or
        correctly although it is likely to do so; thus it is a condition of
        use that you accept that as with most such products, you use it at
	your own risk. Bombay 72 is **NOT** designed to be fault-tolerant!
    (4) Any legal disputes over Bombay72 or any part of it, including these
        terms and conditions, shall be governed by the Laws of England;
        furthermore, you do not have permission to use Bombay72 in any
        jurisdiction whose laws modify or limit these conditions unless you
        VOLUNTARILY accept these conditions as if under the Laws of England.

BOMBAY72 is property and copyright [(c) March 1997, December 2002] of Martin
Howe (martinhowe@myprivacy.ca); you are licensed to use it but do not own it.

I assume that Coeurl and other characters in "Voyage of the Space Beagle"
and "Black Destroyer" are copyright of A E van Vogt; as for BOMBAY72, that
must be considered only as a homage to the originals.

All the DOOM characters are copyright of ID Software.

All other characters and indicia hinted at or otherwise mentioned for humour
or satire are copyright/trademark/property (as applicable) of their owners,
hereby acknowledged.

The story is my own original work. While it has some elements in common with
"Jurassic Park" and "Alien Resurrection", I first wrote it in 1997 and in
fact I first read the idea of using DNA to bring back the dead with total
memory recall in "Time is the Traitor", a short story written in 1953 by
Alfred Bester. As with many SF ideas, it may have been done before then.

* Where to get the file that this text file describes *

The Usual: ftp://archives.3dgamers.com/pub/idgames/ and mirrors
Web sites: My own, when I have finished rebuilding it.

* Additional files you may want *

1) There's no "Voyage of the Space Beagle - the Total Conversion" as yet but
   with INVADE1.WAD (which is worth having anyway) by Andy Chen and Claude
   Martins, Bombay72 somewhat resembles the short story.
   ftp://3darchives.in-span.net/pub/idgames/levels/doom/g-i/invade1.zip

2) The demon-infested levels of AMANDA.WAD and AMANDA2.WAD (sorry, I don't
   have credits for those) are great for hand-to-paw combat. Beware though,
   Amanda whoever she is, is a VERY nasty person: you will get killed OFTEN!

* History *

Bombay72 started out as an idea for a generic player-as-cat simulation which
was inspired by Toffee's gory delivery of a dead mouse's guts or head on the
front doorstep every other day or so. I wondered what it might be like to BE
a cat, and realised DOOM was one way to find out.

Jason realised, as did I, that a normal domestic cat simulation was too tame
for DOOM, but I thought there MUST be SOME way of making it work; then I
remembered Coeurl and thought "Now _that's_ an idea."

I had originally planned a four episode WAD comprising different styles of
feline existence: domestic, jungle, VOtSB-TC and even Phoenix! (Cats catch
birds don't they? And replacing Lost Souls and Cacodemons with creatures
from my ALL TIME favourite arcade game would have been great to do). Still,
all that is WAY too ambitious for my first WAD, so for now, enjoy Bombay72
with your favourite WADS and let me know of any suggestions you may have.

* Frequently Asked Questions *

Q: Why is it called Bombay72?
A: My mother had a cat called Toffee who was the result of an accidental
   mating between a GCCF standard Brown (Sable) Burmese cat and a black
   mongrel. This combination was used by US and later UK cat breeders to
   create a "Black Burmese" cat as an all-black cat is quite difficult if
   not impossible to breed in most subspecies of cat. Toffee was so like a
   real Bombay that you couldn't tell the difference until very close up and
   his antics inspired me to design this DOOM conversion. The "72" is the
   official GCCF breed number of the Bombay breed, hence "Bombay 72". There
   are other colours of Bombay now - blue, chocolate, lilac and such. If you
   want to know more, visit the Bombay and Asian Self Breed Club web site on
   www.bombaybreedclub.org.

Q: Why have you designed Bombay72?
A: I often wondered what it would be like to be a cat; I have always admired
   cats for their quiet ruthless efficiency, their strength, grace and beauty
   and their ability to rise above all the stupidity that goes on around them.
   These characteristics come from their (mostly) solitary nature. It occured
   to me that these characteristics would show up well in single-player DOOM
   and so I wanted to see what it was like - and Bombay72 is the result!

Q: Will Bombay72 work with the various Doom hacks/ports?
   Only those that can load a DeHackEd patch from within a WAD file and that
   understand BOOM string definitions inside a DeHackEd patch. No other Boom
   specific features are used. Tested with ZDoom 1.23b33 and PRBoom 2.2.0.

Q: What are you: A psycho? A crack-head? A nutcase?
A: No. No. Probably :-)

* Change Log *

V0.9.80 17-DEC-2002
   Much cleaner and less silly-sounding player death sounds.

V0.9.75 16-DEC-2002
   Vastly improved Curse of Bast.
   Thunder rolls and the demons are struck down by lightning!

V0.9.70 15-DEC-2002
   Fixed goddess name bug; while "Bastet" is a legitemate use for the name
   of the goddess, "Bast" is more normally used in conversational speech.

Replaced the telekinetic tentacle killing (chaingun) with the Burmese 
   Glare of Death to put a true "Bombay" spin on it.

Put the BEX patch in the WAD (a Boom-compliant port is now required).

Dropped original id EXE compatibility (obsolete).

V0.9.22 17-MAY-1998
   Feline difficulty level strings (thanks to J. P. Morris)

Status face damage levels. (These graphics suck; I am a computer
   technologist, not an artist, so if anyone wants to have a go
   and replace them, feel free to try as long as I get a copy!)

Two bonus items. No automated install for these as yet, but
   most DOOMers should be able to use them.

(1)    A .BEX version of the .DEH patch for BOOM users. Two
          minor improvements over the .DEH version. See inside 
          the file for details.

(2)    A special version of the .DEH file called B72ATC.DEH
          This is a hack that will allow you to run Bombay72 
          with Aliens-TC. See the file B72Atc.txt for details.

V0.7.21, 07-DEC-97
   Fixed bugs in install program vis-a-vis TNT & Plutonia
   Put in autodetection of DOOM game.

V0.7.20, 30-NOV-97
   Preview Release

* Weapons *

1 = single paw/berserk paw (was fist)
 2 = slashing paws (was pistol, actually chainsaw)
 3 = super punch (was double-barrelled Shotgun)
 4 = the Burmese Glare of Death (was chaingun)
 5 = flaming balls of phosphorous (was rockets)
 6 = the magic power of throwing flames, bestowed by Sekhmet (was plasma)
 7 = the Curse of Bast (was BFG9000)

1) You start out with a normal swipe of the paw and with slashing paws.

2) All chainsaws are redefined as Berserk Packs since it is now pointless to
    have other chainsaws, and since there isn't a way to issue other weapons
    as standard at the start of a game, this seems like a good compromise.

3) For the punch to work, you need to be using a truly compliant source
    port that behaves as iD's "dual-mode" DOOM executables -- that is, can
    be DOOM or DOOM2 according to which IWAD file is found. The punch works
    by redefining shotguns as super-shotguns and since these weapons are
    usually at close-quarters, the effect looks really cool. The downside,
    from a realism point of view, is that the punch always sounds and works
    at a distance.

4) Inspired, more-or-less by the book, the Burmese Glare of Death puts a
    true "Bombay" spin on it - the GCCF standard Burmese (breed no. 27, from
    which the Bombay, breed No. 72, is derived) has a wide-eared face and
    slightly oriental eyes, giving it an almost vampire-bat like appearance.
    This has been referred to as "The Gloriously evil look of the Burmese"
    and is especially noticable given their ability to emit a deep-chested
    growl like that of a dog.

5) The cat "Coeurl" fed on phosphorous, coincidentally referred to as "id"
    by A E van Vogt; thus he throws flaming balls of phosphorus extracted
    from rockets and other ammo.

6) If the cat finds the staff that Sekhmet is usually portrayed as holding,
    it gives him the magic power to throw flames at the demons from his paws.

7) Bast is often portrayed as a domestic cat with a collar; putting on the
    collar bestows the power to curse the demons and strike them down dead.

* To Do *

Other environment conversions, particularly in the TEXT section.

Better rationalisation of health. You cannot change the player's hit points
in DeHackEd, so I have resorted to using excessive health. The exact balance
needs improving, as the game is too easy right now.

Bombay 72 urgently needs DeathMatch graphics, better status face graphics
and, in fact, better graphics all round. I have almost no manual dexterity
(except with a BFG:-) and would be quite willing to dedicate BIG credits in
the readme file to anyone who is willing to contribute these for Bombay72.

If you can help and are interested or have general suggestions, e-mail me
on martinhowe@myprivacy.ca.

* Prologue *

Run! Run! Run, in the choking heat of the summer of 1995; run, mad like lots
of small pets twisted by the heat that year; run, across the field from Temple
Way, past the Church footpath; run, fasterandfaster, acrossthefieldsof
Kent, downtocross theSandwich-Dealroad; move, acrosstheroadandseethebright
lightsoftheapproachingcarheadingstraighttowardsmyheadand -

THUNK! Toffee woke with a start; where the *** HELL ***? This wasn't the happy
hunting ground, he saw no mice; in fact he saw nothing at all, but he could
SMELL; SMELL the <<people>> nearby; SMELL the formica tones of the flat slab
on which he lay; SMELL the <<disinfectant>> all over the place, just like at
the <<vet>>'s -- but something was wrong. This was not the <<vet>>'s.

Words cameintohishead inasharpunabatingflowoverwheliminglyfasttobeginwith --
"what's a <<word>>?", thought Toffee; "why am I not <<dead>>?"; "why can I
hear these <<words>> as if I where human"; "why is <<first person>> <<I>>
<<uppercased>>" and, "<<dammit>>, whatever that means, where * AM * I?".

Carefully, Toffee opened his eyes and scanned the room. Immediately, he
noticed that his head was *way* too high off the slab for his body, which in
turn felt larger than it should be and he could HEAR; HEAR the breathing of
the two humans in the room; HEAR the two humans just outside the <<door>> and
HEAR the machines quietly whirring away. The humans in the room were dressed
in the white smocks that he knew identified them as <<scientists>> to other
humans, while the ones outside smelt of grease, rough cloth, and metal; they
were <<soldiers>> he felt, and the implements that they carried he knew to
be <<guns>>, but again, the <<guns>> - they glowed and Toffee realised that
he could see the <<guns>> through the door. Even though he couldn't see the
soldiers, he could see the guns, or rather the <<magazines>>...they pulsated
to his senses with a lustful throbbing glow, as if containing --

One of the scientists interrupted his reverie:

"Y'know I'm still not sure about raiding the remains of a housing estate
looking for dead cats, Josef; I mean, what has a domestic kitty got in common
with that - that *thing* they found out there?"

"Oh c'm on, Adolf", replied the other one, "the dissassociated molecules of
that animal just wouldn't bond with a lion or leopard; biologically it was
more like a pussycat than a panther."

"Huh. It was more like us than anything; thank Gieger their attempts at space
flight failed or we'd really be up the creek."

Toffee realised that Josef regarded him as really a nice pussycat with a the
body of a (well, sort of a) panther, whereas Adolf distrusted him, and must
have been responsible for the light electric (?) field that surrounded the
table. Maybe that was just a precaution, but then his sweeping eyes caught the
plaque on the other side of the room...and his heart leapt with horror!

There, on the plaque, were the words:

Union Aerospace Corporation

Even with the small amount of knowledge given to him via the <<thing>>'s
partial telepathy, oddly imparted to him, he knew that the name on that
plaque was, to all decent humans, synonymous for unspeakable ** EVIL **.

Even as he realised the horrors that had been done to him to rebuild him in
this state, he realised all the more that he was HUNGRY. The nearest human's
body was by now *glowing*, as his senses became more acute, with that warmth
that spoke of food; he wondered whether --

And he could stand it no longer: with a massive effort comprising most of what
strength he had left, he frowned hard, the weird strands above his ears waving
slowly as he tried to worm his way through the force-field around the table.
Adolf stared first in fright, then in horror as he realised what was happening
and opened his mouth to shout - but Toffee was through and with one massive
blow from his left paw, he SPLATTERED JOSEF'S HEAD TO A SPRAYING MUSH OF BLOOD
AND BONE FRAGMENTS! "What's <<DSSLOP>>?", thought Toffee idly, as he punctured
Adolf's right lung with 2 inches of steel-hard claw and ripped off his head.

Even as the soldiers heard the screams and were moving to open the door,
Toffee swarmed through the bodies of the scientists, rendering their carcasses
for the bright yellow fever locked up in the chemicals of their flesh. He felt
invigourated now and turned, and as Pte Gerry I Joe turned into the room,
he saw this **thing**, part cat, part obscenity coming at him at 100 meters
per second; CRUNCH! - his head was swallowed whole and as his lifeless
body fell to the ground ["Who is this, Mack Bolam?", thought Toffee], the
pussycat/horror clawed Sgt. Jane Doe's face clean off, grabbing as he did
the magazine of the rifle she held, tearing it open for the goodies inside.

As he fed with gusto on the two soldiers he had just killed (not forgetting
the other gun magazine) he became aware of a noise filling the compound -
"wee-arrgh! wee-arrgh! wee-arrgh! wee...".

"What?" thought Toffee, and then he understood that the alarm was sounding.
He sprinted off down the corridor, the vison of the map-reading lessons
the soldiers had been to recently still in his head; they had used this place
as an initial training stint and he knew that somewhere, there was a way out
of here. As he approached room #426 he had the vague feeling that he was
not the only experiment that had gone wrong in the last few hours. The
door was continually being punctured by fingers, slim, dark and deadly; and
just as he got there, the door gave way and some <<things>> ran out at him;
they were all teeth and mouths, eight feet tall, terrifying, deadly and -

THWACK! Toffee slammed the nearest one over by its head with his left paw, and
as he did so grabbed with his right what appeared to be a second mouth and
SPLUTCH! -- PULLED IT CLEAN OUT OF ITS SOCKET!! In a flowing move, he bit open
its chest cavity, tore its tail off, snapped its forearms in half and, after
throttling its neck (to make sure it was really dead), he turned to the other
one advancing on him - AND RAKED ITS SKULL OPEN, clawing at the brains inside
for the glowing substance therein. As he tried to lap up the nutrient-laden
liquid that had spilled from the animals' bodies before it ate its way through
the armoured, anodised floor, he became aware of smaller things that scuttled
around; as he turned into the room one turned, charging up at his face and -

<<DESSERT!>> The human word came unbidden into his head and he whipped out
his right forepaw, sliced its legs and tail off and scooped the little thing
entire into his mouth. "Hey these are GREAT!", he thought as he felt the
crunchy bit in the middle give way, "and you don't even have to catch them!"
Maybe UAC weren't so bad after all.

Toffee stopped; like most cats, he knew when he had had enough food and in any
case, he could hear soldiers running to the scene. Looking up at the walls he
saw grilles across what were obviously ventilation ducts; he ripped one off
the wall and jumped up into it. The humans were so *stupid* to have things set
out like this, he thought idly as he crawled towards the spaceport area; it
was as if there was a <<law>> requiring every military establishment in the
21st century and beyond to provide air ducts for the use of prowling monsters
to kill people, evade detection and generally cause havoc.

He pushed open a maintenance hatch in a quiet corner of a room and gingerly
walked out to the airstrip loading bay. As a squad of security guards came
around the corner, he looked for cover and dived into the nearest unguarded
undercarriage bay, which belonged to a ship marked "Bound For Phobos".

He heard soldiers boarding the ship and because they were so fired up for
their mission, he could catch fragments of their thoughts.

"What are we going for, eh? Kick some alien butt, I'll be bound!"

"These aliens are from Hell itself, so they say; well we'll GIVE 'em hell
 and fry their asses good and proper"

"Hey, did you know, that the Cult of Yesterday's Egypt has a temple on Mars?
 My wife is fed up with the Romero's Witnesses and anyway, I can't talk
 backwards for Toffee - what, oh sorry, I mean toffee (why did I say that?);
 anyway she turned to all these old new-age pagan gods, y'know worshipping
 cats and mummifying their dead. They say the've even got the collar of the
 cat goddess herself down there."

"Psst!"

"Yeah, that's her, or 'Bast', or 'Bastet' or 'Phast'; and then of course
 there's supposed to be a statue of Seckmet with the actual staff she used,
 right in their museum for-"

"What?! No you idiot, 'psst', as in BE QUIET, SOLDIER!"

"(ulp) Yessir!"

Toffee turned his ears to the flight deck:

"Well, pilot", said the captain, "we can't land at the CYE facility, it
 looks all shot up; the enemy must've been here before us."

"Yeah, but that's weird sir; sensors indicate the temple's been looted; all
 the security systems down there are going wild. What the hell do aliens
 from another dimension want with ancient relics of pagan worship? Do they
 believe the artifacts give magic power to whoever possesses them?"

"Probably; or else they want something to remind them of home. Anyhow, I bet
 those new-agers probably asked the UAC science facility to open up a
 gateway to heaven and some dopehead pen-pusher dialled the wrong number!"

Eventually, the ship landed near the UAC facility and the soldiers made their
way towards the compound. One soldier (as luck would have it the one whose
wife belonged to the CYE) was ordered to stay behind and secure the perimeter,
while the others went inside.

As the hours wore on the soldier and Toffee, who was hiding in the long grass
behind him, could hear all kinds of noises and screams and then: silence. The
soldier knew his buddies must have been well and truly fragged and in a heroic
gesture, started to walk towards the -

Crack! Toffee knocked him down, but not too hard; this human's feelings were
quite clear; he liked cats and anyway, had joined up to defend his country
and his world against its enemies, not to "play at soldiers". The young man
didn't deserve to die alone wading knee-deep in the dead; and besides, what
could he do against these foul demons armed with only pistol and fist?

Anyway, besides threatening to destroy the world, end life as it was known,
kill the humans and enslave the other animals -- these vile aliens had
*dared* to steal the Holy Flame-Staff of Sekhmet and the Sacred Collar of
Bast -- and for that alone, thought Toffee as he trotted into the hangar...

THEY MUST *** DIE ***!

Martin Howe
martinhowe@myprivacy.ca
17th December 2002

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