An Ancient ship was found floating in space. The ship appeared to date from the 22nd Century (by the old calendar). It appeared the ship was on some kind of colonization mission. A collision with some space object had severely damaged the ship and causing the life support system to fail.
The ship contained a large cryogenically cooled storage compartment containing 100 human and 10 house cat embryos(the destination planet was overrun by mutant rodents) which were to be implanted into artificial wombs at the end of the journey . This system was severely damaged,
After hundreds of years the system suddenly re-activated, sent out a distress call and incubated the a few surviving embryos. When rescue finally arrived 9 years later They found only a young Crowder and four of the house cats alive.
Crowder and the offspring of those 4 cats fly together thorugh space looking for shiny objects which they treat like toys.