Jupiter Fleet 1: Werewolves Don't Purr (24 page)

Isamu did not hesitate. He immediately drew his
kitana
and sliced off the arm of the Supe just as he was about to activate the ship’s drive. The arm thunked down on the console, spurting blood. In passing, Isamu noted that the skin was not bare as he had supposed, but was covered with minuscule green down, not even feathers, really.

As a safety precaution, the ship’s drive could not be activated telepathically, so the Supe tried taking control of Isamu and forcing
him
to press the button. Isamu, with the last bit of control he was able to muster, drove his
kitana
through the chest of the Supe.

Everyone was looking at Isamu as he turned to Hiroshi.

“Could you please tell everyone why I just did that?”

His eyes wide, Hiroshi looked at all the people on the Command Deck, who were standing ready to fight if necessary.

“That pilot had plotted a course that would have caused this vessel to collide with that other spaceship. We would have all been killed, on both ships.”

“How do you know that?” thought Thor. He looked at Ashley for translation, but Hiroshi and Isamu had already “heard” him.

“I have been practicing on the pilot simulations for almost eight months now. It’s part of how my grandfather and I planned on stealing a shuttle. I have been practicing with both the shuttle and main ship’s navigation,” said Hiroshi.

“So you can fly this thing?” asked Ashley.

“Not only can I fly this thing, but I can also operate the weapon systems. The combat simulations were my favorite part.”

“That’s probably true for every twenty-year-old male,” said Ashley with a smile.

“Uh, actually I’m twenty-one,” said Hiroshi, blushing.

“Why would he do such a thing?” thought Thor, his ears back.

“The Supe?” responded Hiroshi. “I think I know why. He was broadcasting his thoughts just before he was killed. He was thinking of the shame for his clan—not only losing this ship, but causing a ship from another clan to be lost. He thought it was better that both ships be lost to an accident, rather than bring shame upon his clan for generations.”

“They used to have such thoughts in Japan, too, before Meiji,” said Isamu thoughtfully.

“Ashley, check to see if that means the Supes did not send a distress signal,” thought Thor.

Ashley spent a few minutes checking the ship’s communications log and turned to Thor. “I think we’re in luck. They did not register a distress signal. They did ask the other ship for assistance with an unruly Alpha transition.”

“It certainly was unruly,” thought Commander Gupta, grinning wolfishly.

“The Alpha wolf and his team are on the shuttle, readied for transport to the other ship. What do you want to do, Leona?” said Ashley.

Hiroshi interrupted, keeping Leona from answering. “I can pilot the shuttle from here. I can also move our ship closer, say, within five hundred meters, so that if anything goes wrong, it will be harder for the other ship to train its guns on the shuttle.”

Thor thought about it for a moment, considering distances and angles.

Leona peeked at his thoughts and then spoke to Hiroshi. “Show me with your mind how you would do all this.”

Hiroshi promptly sent her telepathic images of how he would accomplish those things. Thor smiled as Leona shared it with him.

“OK, Hiroshi, like Captain Picard would say…let’s do that,” thought Thor, his tail wagging and his ears pricked forward.

“You mean, make it—”

“No!” said Leona. “I might live on a spaceship, but I don’t have to talk like I’m in a space opera!”

Hiroshi seemed to handle the Thor-and-Leona team without too much confusion, but Isamu seemed to be going cross-eyed.

Hiroshi settled down to work, at first doing nothing but staring at the navigation console. About two minutes later he pressed the activate button. The ship began to move into position so that its Shuttle Bay lined up with that of the other ship. The shuttle could be seen for only a second as it traveled between the two ships.

Ashley did a small dance step, and Commander Gupta’s tail wagged back and forth slowly.

“Excellent work, Hiroshi, I could not have done it better—or at all!”

Ashley gave Hiroshi a smile and a wave that made him blush bright red, then she turned to her communications console.

“Alpha, your shuttle is on course. It will be landing at the other Shuttle Deck in twenty seconds. We have sent the message indicating that the Alpha of the
Hijan
is returning with a prize. We also told them that the ‘problem’ had been dealt with, and that payment would be on the next shuttle.”

“The problem?” asked the Alpha wolf.

“With our Alpha transition.”

“That is excellent, Ashley. What kind of reception are we going to be expecting?” asked the Alpha.

“Nothing but the
Hijan
Alpha’s honor guard—about fifteen wolves. They will be expecting you to proceed directly to the
Hijan
’s Command Deck upon your arrival.”

“They won’t be ‘expecting’
this
,” replied the Alpha, laughing.

CHAPTER 8

Admiral

November 14, 2038, 9:00 a.m.

“How long were you the Alpha of your ship?” the Alpha of the
Hijan
thought to the taller, older werewolf.

“I was Alpha for about seven hundred ship years. We were at near light-speed for fourteen of those ship years so you can add one hundred forty standard years to that figure.”

The Alpha wolf thought back to the day when he officially became the Alpha, so many years before ever meeting the humans, and this present rebellion. At that time he was the Number Three wolf and the Number Two was a horrible wolf—a slacker and a bully, abusing his subordinates beyond the natural dominance customs of the werewolves. He was a much better fighter than Two was, and they both knew it. That meant that due to Two’s insecurity,
he
was always being beaten for the slightest infraction.

One day, he had had enough, and when Two started hitting him, he fought back. It was not a long fight; he had torn out Two’s throat with several powerful slashes within a minute.

As he stood there over Two’s body, the then Alpha wolf came along. He was furious; he had been Two’s friend ever since they first became wolves. He
(
Three) started trying to give an explanation, but the Alpha didn’t care, and attacked him over top of Two’s body.

The Alpha had been as cruel to Three as the deceased Two had been. When the Alpha attacked, all of Three’s rage and fury was released. The Alpha meant to crush him nearly to death slowly, like he had done so many times in the past with other wolves that had displeased him. It wasn’t just showing “who was boss”—it was torture pure and simple.

The Alpha grabbed him, and as he did, Three climbed—using his claws—right up the Alpha’s chest. Three then sank his front claws into the Alpha’s neck, flipped himself onto the Alpha’s back, and dug in with his hind claws.

The Alpha roared and tried to shake him off. When that did not work, the Alpha rammed Three against the wall with all his strength. Three managed to hold on and then bit deep into the back of the Alpha’s neck. The Alpha commanded the nearby werewolves to get Three off his back. No one moved. This had plainly become an Alpha transition fight, and interference was not tolerated by the pack.

Three felt a wave of relief and satisfaction when he heard the Alpha’s neck snap. The word quickly spread to the other wolves and there was much celebrating. Only after the other wolves started to congratulate him on being the Alpha did he realize what he had done. He had killed the two werewolves above him in rank, within minutes of each other—and now
he
was the new Alpha wolf.

The Ship Master had contacted him at that time and boomed his approval. “You killed the Alpha and his Number Two before you ever had the Alpha transformation. It seems we may now have an Alpha worthy of the name.”

The next sixty days were a complete blur. The Masters took him to a metamorphosis chamber to convert him into an Alpha wolf.

The Masters normally converted a wolf that they wanted to be an Alpha (usually the Number Two wolf), before the old Alpha was dead. Then they would let the new Alpha and the old Alpha battle it out. This would keep the Alpha wolves on their toes. Sometimes the old Alpha wolf and the new Alpha Two would coexist for a time in uneasy harness together.

The metamorphosis chamber would make a new Alpha wolf larger, stronger, and capable of higher telepathic power—and also give him most of his memories back. Getting the memories back was the cruelest stroke of all. Some of the transformed Alphas went insane, remembering their old lives and what happened as soon as they were converted to a werewolf. They remembered their brute first meal as a wolf, eating their own family or other innocents. But it was necessary (so the Masters decreed) in order for the Alpha wolves to be more than just teeth and claws. They had to think; they had to lead.

The Alpha wolf blinked again at that horrific memory. His score against the Masters was not settled yet!

The soft bump of the shuttle craft landing brought him out of his reverie. The shuttle transported Leona, the Alpha of the
Hijan
, the Alpha wolf, and five hundred werewolves.

It occurred to the seven-hundred-ship-years-old wolf that he could not be called Alpha wolf as a Ship Master anymore. Having his new (younger) ship’s Alpha on the
Hijan
—he shook his head—two Alpha names would cause a great deal of confusion. He remembered that he was once the admiral of a space fleet, but he could not remember his former name. He turned to his new ship’s Alpha.

“I am going to call myself Admiral from now on.”

“Admiral who?” said Leona, overhearing the thought.

“I do not remember my name, just the rank I held.”

“Not Ship Master?” asked the Alpha of the
Hijan
.

“No, that is the Masters’ title. I never want to be called by one of their titles ever again.”

“Very well, Admiral it is,” said Leona.

They exited onto the
Hijan
and Admiral met with the honor guard. Most of Commander Gupta’s commandos had come along on the shuttle. The wolves split into three teams, with Leona, Admiral, and the
Hijan
’s Alpha, plus one hundred wolves, in one team. Two of the commandos were each in charge of two hundred-wolf units. The first unit moved out quickly and secured the Shuttle Bay.

All the werewolves except the commandos were from Admiral’s ship. They did not want to take any chances that one of the wolves following the
Hijan
’s Alpha might warn the Masters of the ship. These were wolves that Admiral knew he could trust.

Leona went to the nearest ship’s computer system console and set to work creating an identity for herself using a dead Supe’s hand like she had done before. The grisly task took about fifteen minutes, and then she said, “I’m in.”

“What is the status of the ship?” thought Admiral to her privately.

“It is exactly as your Alpha here said it was. There’s a minimum complement of werewolves, almost all of which are on board the
Space Dog
. There are very few slaves on board the
Hijan
—I guess they’re counting on picking more up on Earth. There’s very little cargo—except for Supes, the ship is basically empty. You’re clear to move all the way to the Command Deck. I will stay here and open its door for you. Once you have secured the Command Deck, I will join you up there with some of my commando wolf buddies.”

Admiral wagged his tail slowly back and forth a couple of times. His wolves and the
Hijan
Alpha wolf relaxed slightly, taking this as a sign that their mission was on track.

As they headed for the elevator to the Command Deck, Admiral growled softly as he thought about the fact that after more than seven hundred ship years, he still could not open a door by himself.

When the Supes made the wolves, they had established a brain wave pattern that was recognized by all the ships’ computers as “wolf.” Similarly, the Alphas were recognizable to the computers by
their
brain wave patterns. The werewolves could not open any doors that had not been specifically set up for wolf access. If they needed to get into a room, they either used a
telos
permission or the Supes opened the door for them. The only exceptions were areas such as the prison barracks and cell doors. Similarly, the wolves’ brain wave patterns prevented them from accessing the ships’ computer systems or any of the drive systems and other controls.

When slaves were created, all their memories were wiped, similar to the werewolves. However, unlike the wolves, all their aggression and individuality was also destroyed. Slaves for the most part would not do anything that they were not told to do. So they had to be told when to eat and when to sleep and when to perform their simple duties. Some of them were allowed to keep particular skills like cleaning or cooking.

Occasionally, there would be a specific individual whose skills were such that they could not be tampered with in this fashion without losing the valuable expertise. One such was the sword-master Isamu. But the Supes in general considered those slaves to be very dangerous and this practice was not accepted on most ships.