Jupiter Fleet 1: Werewolves Don't Purr (19 page)

“Yeah, unfortunate,” thought Leona—and the thought-amplifier broadcast her comment. Beside her, Mary sniffled.

“What?” came from Will. A breathless snarl hung in the air as he turned toward his daughter.

“Dad, you can’t
speak
—with your mouth. You’ll have to take great care, if you hug Mom, not to break her bones! You’ll be very emotional and have to try hard not to be overtaken by your moods.”

Will stood still and looked at his wife and daughter for a moment. His ears and tail drooped. Mary walked over to him and gave him a big hug. Her grey hair against his chest contrasted sharply with his long rusty-red werewolf fur.

“We’ll make it work,” Mary said bravely.

Will’s ears pricked upward again.

Leona walked over to her dad and joined the family hug. Then she patted him on the shoulder and tipped her head toward the other med-table.

“I have to check on Thor,” she said, and walked to the other side of the chamber.

Leona clamped down on her emotions hard, and exerted all her control to avoid broadcasting her sadness. Her throat had a painful lump in it that made it difficult to swallow. (
Oh, Daddy, Daddy, you’ll never be the person that you were. I don’t even know if you’ll still be wise like before.
) She blinked rapidly to keep the tears that were starting from spilling onto her cheeks.

At least he wasn’t
dead
, and at least Thor wasn’t
dead
, and considering what she had learned from the ship’s computer about the
rach
and
aarach
waste disposal system, that was a victory. Plus, without Thor’s and the COBRA team’s battle prowess, they wouldn’t any of them be alive right now.

Leona looked at the auto-doc table where Thor lay. After all her time using the ship’s computer, she found that she could actually decipher the tell-tales on the med-table’s lighted panel.

Hmm, injuries healed, body temperature and vascular system at werewolf normal, brain happily dreaming…heh!
Who knew if he was dreaming of life at home on Earth or some werewolf chase dream? Or a food dream.

Leona turned toward Mary and Will. “Mom, how about if you show Dad the kibble auto-feeder? He’s bound to be pretty hungry by now.”

“Right,” answered her mother. “And then, I guess I have to bring you up-to-date, dear, about the nasty aliens, and these friendly werewolves in that other room—they are converted humans and they are
on our side
—and how Thor has been defending us.”

Leona noticed that Vihaan accompanied Will and Mary, so he could intervene if Will got over-emotional about any topic. Good precaution, you didn’t want your beloved parent tearing anyone to pieces accidentally. She cleared her throat and turned back to the auto-doc.

According to the med-table interface, Thor could be woken up any time now. Leona pressed the button that would cycle the auto-doc into its “pre-waking” state.

The sound of werewolf feet approaching made her raise her eyes from the panel. It was Commander Gupta.

“Leona,” thought the commander, using the
specific
private mode of telepathy, “we need Thor back in action if the medical apparatus says that he is ready.”

“The battle. Of course,” she replied, in the same mode. “It’s been bothering me that our door is open and the Supes could take away our air any time.”

“Oh, not to worry, madam, my team has repaired the door enough that it can be airtight again. Difficult to open and close, though, but I suppose that could be viewed as a benefit.”

“Um. Yeah. It’s not like we have another room available to us with medical facilities.”

Gupta motioned toward the med table, his ears pricked forward.

“The table is in the process of waking him up already, Commander. He’ll be with us any moment now.”

The auto-doc gave a chirrup similar to the one when Will was awakened. The silvery half-circle tube slid back silently, except for a slight whoosh as the air inside met the air of the chamber.

“Hey, honey,” thought Thor sleepily, “I guess the fishing trip with the kids was a dream, huh?”

“Sorry, my dude, the only fish up here is kibble.”

“I was dreaming of the time we went to the cabin and Sarah and Will made that pirate raft and caught those fish that we fried up for supper.”

Thor woke up some more and realized that he was telepathically broadcasting to the chamber. Leona raised her eyes and saw that all the werewolves were wagging their tails in enjoyment of the “fishing with the kids” images Thor had been sending to everyone in line of sight.

Leona’s heart melted with love for her werewolf-man.

“Yeah, our little pirates sure were sweet in those days.”

Leona stroked the fur at Thor’s jaw, then kissed him gently on one of his ears. A thumping sound on the auto-doc cabinet alerted her to the tail-wagging that Commander Gupta was doing beside her, and Leona blushed slightly and cleared her throat.

“Well, up and at ’em, sweetie,” she said in a more businesslike tone, pulling Thor up by his arm.

Thor sat up and swiveled his neck and shoulders with the air of a man checking his car’s fuel gauge. Evidently the result was satisfactory. Except when he looked down at his chest, where he now had salt-and-pepper colored fur, showing where his injuries had been. Commander Gupta nodded at Thor; he also now had salt-and-pepper fur where
he
had been shot.

“Leona and Thor, we have to go and create a diversion that the Alpha wolf needs.”

“Sorry for taking so much time,” thought Thor, rising to his feet.

“Part of the hazards of war, my friend,” replied Gupta.

Almost everyone made ready for return to the battle. Commander Gupta detailed the reclaimed wolf, Axel Chin, to stay with the noncombatants and educate Will in his new capabilities as a werewolf. So that Axel and Will could communicate with Mary and Rebecca, the thought-amplifier was left in operation.

The rest of the team, including Leona, Ashley, and Thor, headed out of the lab, and picked up weapons for everyone out of the remaining cache next door. Gupta sent a constable over with some pump-action shotguns for Axel and Will, plus more ammunition for Mary’s shotgun. Then the door to the conversion lab (now also a Med Bay) was welded shut again.

“Time to create some havoc,” thought Thor.

“Yes. ‘Cry havoc! Let slip the dogs of war!’” laughed Leona. Now that Thor was back out of Med Bay, she felt an irrepressible bubble of happiness. She shifted her weapon, her lips quirking upward in a devil-may-care smile.

“We
are
the dogs of war,” replied Thor, grinning.

The thirty-five werewolves took point. They each carried .95-caliber rifles, .45-caliber pistols, and also a third weapon—short shotguns or .50-caliber pistols being the most popular. Some of them also carried Earth grenades that they had found in the stored weapons cache. The commander warned them about using the grenades close to the outer hull.

The team headed to the main corridor of Deck Five, and then put on their thought-helmets. They entered the main hallway and started to shoot with the .95-calibers both fore and aft. They hit a number of unsuspecting Supes in the opening volley. The rifle fire was only directed in areas that had long, straight travel distances where there was little chance of the ricochets bouncing back to the group.

Ashley felt bad about opening up the weapons without warning, until she remembered all the people she knew who had been killed on the orders of the Supes. She gritted her teeth as she thought of all the carnage on Earth—and just as bad!—all the people that the Supes had converted into werewolves on their vessels, so that their human memories were extinguished.

Some of the Supes tried to organize a counterattack. However, Commander Gupta saw what was happening and directed some rifle fire at the attacking group. In seconds, all the aliens were killed or dying.

Chaos and confusion abounded. Leona, the only one without a thought-helmet on, was monitoring a communications console. She heard the numerous requests for reinforcements coming from the Supes in the nearby portions of the deck. She was satisfied with the results of their raid, because the attackers stated in the Supe reports numbered in the hundreds.

Leona turned to the COBRA commander with a fierce grin and yelled to Gupta to get her message across over the din of the battle.

“We have their attention. It’s time to go.”

On Gupta’s signal, the team all ran to the stairways and headed for Deck Eight. They were leapfrogging decks, moving quickly to avoid the troops that were now being deployed to the area they had just left.

When she was on the ship’s console on Deck Five, Leona had looked for an empty room on Deck Eight with a communications console that was still functional. She had taken a moment and rented the room, so the ship would not detect an intruder in it. She hoped that this would allow her more time to help direct the battle.

Gupta started their team running toward that room as fast as possible.

In the werewolf social system, the wolves had two names: the first was a designation the Masters gave them, and the second name was their ranking on board the ship. Alpha obviously was the Number One wolf; the Number Two wolf was called, not surprisingly, “Two.”

But having heard that there were “human” werewolves called Gupta and Arjun, one wolf had asserted unusual individualism. Before taking the name Yellow Fang, he was known as Six.

Werewolves Two and Three were sitting with about two thousand of Alpha wolf’s rebel troops, waiting for the signal that Leona was going to send them. They were discussing the names they should take for themselves rather than being called Two and Three.

“I think I’d like to be called Thor,” thought Three.

“You can’t be called Thor, that is the name of Leona’s wolf. Can you think of any original names?” thought Two.

Three was about to argue the point when they got a message from Leona via the ship’s system.

“OK, we are on Deck Eight and I’m monitoring the comm channels. Begin the assault on Decks Twelve and Thirteen.”

“It is time to fight the Masters’ wolves! First section, follow me,” thought Two to the two thousand werewolves, “and the second section, follow Three.”

Three thought to Two, “See you on Deck Fifteen.”

“Remember to keep your wolves broadcasting as loud as they can that we’re headed to Deck Thirty-five to capture the engine section.”

Three did not reply. He just nodded and waved his wolves to follow him up the stairs.

After the attack on Deck Six, every Master on the ship was now armed. When Two’s wolves fanned out on Deck Twelve, there were Masters shooting from every direction.

Two had nine hundred wolves following him, organized in groups of six. They were all instructed to keep an eye on each other to make sure that a Master couldn’t seize control. The plan was that if a member was seized by an
intrusive
attack, they would not fight that wolf. Instead, they would broadcast to the group that a member had been seized and Masters in that area would be killed wholesale. The hope was that this would keep the wolves from fighting each other.

Two felt a Master trying to take control of his mind. He snarled and charged in the direction of the Master, but was not able to get there before he lost control of himself. Fortunately for Two, his group also felt the
intrusive
attack. While that Master was busy controlling Two, the other five werewolves were able to spot the location of the attacker. The group overwhelmed the Master quickly and freed Two from his control.

On Deck Thirteen, Three suddenly met with disaster. He was leading when his group crested the top of the stairs. A group of Masters was waiting for them. The group mind-blasted Three and his werewolves, and caused about twenty of the rebel wolves to be completely stunned. As the wolves were standing there in a trance, blocking the staircase, the Masters started firing and killed all twenty stunned wolves, plus another ten that were stuck in the stairwell.

Four had been in Three’s group bringing up the rear. He saw what was happening and ordered his wolves to retreat. He ran as fast as he could to another stairway nearby. All his remaining wolves followed him up the staircase. The Masters had an auto-cannon on the staircase, but it was able to kill only three wolves before it was overrun. Four turned it off, and started looking for the Masters who had just ambushed his wolf friends.