Jupiter Fleet 1: Werewolves Don't Purr (27 page)

Thor was at the front of the group waiting to charge left. They were expecting heavy resistance, but when the door opened, they saw a sight they were not expecting. Thor found himself looking in the navel of a werewolf even larger than Admiral. He was huge, and pure white in color. He had a red explosive collar around his neck. Behind the white Alpha (which he surely was) stood hundreds of other werewolves who also wore red explosive collars. The white-furred werewolf blocked most of the entrance with his bulk. He was standing completely still.

“Where is your Alpha?” the huge white werewolf boomed.

“He is at the other air lock,” thought Thor.

“Is it true that the Master of the ship is a werewolf?”

“Yes, he is the former Alpha wolf of that ship that passed by here.”

“Ah, yes, I know him.”

“He wants to be called Admiral now,” thought Thor.

“Ask him to come and talk with me,” commanded the white wolf.

Thor walked over to a communications console and found the big “inter-ship for werewolves” button.

“Admiral, there’s a very big white werewolf here that wants to talk to you.”

“Very well,” answered Admiral. “I will be there soon.”

Thor stood there for ten minutes waiting for Admiral to arrive, wondering whether or how he could fight this huge werewolf—and have any hope of survival.

Admiral arrived and approached the large white wolf with flattened ears but a slowly wagging tail.

“Alpha Twelve-nineteen, my old friend, what are you doing here?”

“I was made Alpha wolf of the station—it was quite an honor. But then there was news of the wolf uprising on your ship, and the Masters decided that none of the werewolves could be trusted. So they slapped these red collars on us, to ensure our
loyalty
.”

“They have no honor,” thought Admiral.

Thor could feel the eyes of the assembled red-collar wolves staring at him and his fighters.

“I am supposed to fight you in one-on-one combat for command of this space station. It is to be a fight to the death, unless one of us concedes, after being beaten. If you accept this challenge, I will give you the first blow,” said the station’s Alpha.

Admiral did not say anything. He responded to the challenge by walking up and hitting the white-furred Alpha with all his might. The Alpha fell to the deck and did not move.

Admiral was more than a little confused by this. He had in the past seen the station’s Alpha take harder blows than this without flinching.

Admiral pounced on the white-furred Alpha and grabbed him by the throat to deliver a death squeeze. Alpha 1219 looked Admiral in the eyes and did not fight back. As soon as the station’s Alpha passed out from lack of air, Admiral stopped squeezing his windpipe. He checked his opponent and the white-furred wolf was still alive.

Admiral stood and another werewolf walked up to him.

“I am Two. I am acting on the instructions from my Alpha, should he lose the fight. I and the other wolves of this space station now surrender to you.”

With that, the station’s Number Two, and the rest the werewolves, all sat down on the deck plates of the Docking Bay.

Admiral turned to Thor.

“I don’t think that is the outcome the Masters had in mind. Quickly, before they realize what is going on, charge.”

There was no more waiting: Thor and fifteen hundred free werewolves charged into the decks of the space station.

Mary joined Leona in the room where they had started their new life in space. She walked up and gave her daughter a heartfelt hug.

“How’s it going, dear?” Mary asked.

She mentally kicked herself because of the question. Thor was still a werewolf, and she had heard he was on another ship that was growing more distant by the second.

“Oh, I’ve just been learning some more about the ship and its systems,” Leona said. (She totally skipped over all the battles that had been waged.) “How’s it going with you, Mom?”

“Well, after you left, I had a very interesting time watching your father working with Axel Chin, the reclaimed wolf.” Mary’s tone was a little ironic, but a series of emotions flitted across her face. “Axel was a very nice werewolf, and he showed your dad all kinds of stuff about his new situation. And
that
was a real eye-opener, I’ll tell you!”

Leona’s gaze strayed into the brightly lit chamber where Thor had lain unconscious under the medical care of an auto-doc table, while she was decks away, fighting for her life.

“What did he show Dad?”

“All kinds of things: how fast the werewolves can run, how high they leap, how to fight with those really sharp fangs and claws. Your dad took to it like a duck to water, and he was having
fun.
His arthritis was all gone and he was like a high school senior again.”

“Yeah, if they aren’t your enemy, and are well fed, the werewolves are OK guys,” Leona said with a crooked smile.

“Leona, I have a serious matter to discuss with you. It’s the reason I wanted to talk with you here, with the privacy barrier in place.”

“What is that, Mom?”

“I want to become a werewolf so I can be with your father,” Mary said.

CHAPTER 9

The Station

November 14, 2038, 1:25 p.m.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

Rode the six hundred.

“The Charge of the Light Brigade” was stuck in Thor’s mind. Their own charge had faltered; the entire front line of werewolves that had been charging was now dead on the deck plates of the station. Thor had been at one side of the group and had escaped death “by that much.” He heard the brief high-pitched whine that preceded an auto-cannon turret blast, and he dodged right. It missed him.

Other werewolves were advancing to fill the breach left by the dead. Thor looked back and telepathically sent all the wolves the sound of the high-pitched whine that preceded the laser-cannon firing. He hoped that would save some lives.

Thor was almost on top of the first auto-turret. He leaped over it, reached up to a control panel, and turned the mechanism off. He then ran along the line of auto-turrets, turning them off as he went, while dodging fire from still-operating auto-turrets.

The charging wolves caught up to him and passed by, attacking the second line of turrets. Thor turned off the last turret in the first line and rejoined the charge.

Some of the wolves had reached the second line of turrets. They were copying Thor’s tactic and turning off the mechanisms. Even so, a lot of wolves died, and Thor was trying to avoid stepping on all the bodies as he moved quickly past.

Thor rallied the troops and continued the charge. The turrets were silent but every Master on the station was armed. They had set themselves up behind defensive positions and were firing rapidly. Thor directed groups of werewolves to charge each of the defensive positions.

Some of the Masters tried mind-blasts on the werewolves charging them. The
intrusive
mental attacks left those wolves stunned; however, other wolves coming in behind them rapidly overtook the positions anyway.

Other Masters seized control of werewolves and tried to make them fight for the defense. Thor had instructed the werewolves to ignore the seized wolves and go after the Masters controlling them. The seized wolves could only inflict a nonlethal amount of damage before the Masters controlling them would be killed.

Thor stepped around a bulkhead corner and heard the whine of an auto-turret. Almost too late, he ducked back around the corner, but the auto-turret managed to catch him in one leg. It left a large hole in his leg and blew out a big chunk of what used to be his femur.

“That’s gonna hurt in the morning,” thought Thor.

A Master ran past him trying to escape from another defensive position that had been overrun. Thor ripped him in the legs with his claws and finished the Master off after he fell.

Thor then grabbed the blaster that the Master had dropped and threw it as hard as he could at the auto-cannon. The blaster hit the capacitor area of the turret and both exploded. The explosion killed some Masters that were crouching behind a barricade next to the turret.

Thor telepathically signaled some werewolves to come over to him.

“Take those blasters that are over there.” Thor pointed to the recently killed Masters.

“But Thor, you know we can’t use those, they need to be coded,” thought Arjun, who had been stranded with Thor.

“I know werewolves can’t fire them, but their batteries blow up if you throw them hard enough.”

“I like it! Wolves, pick up the blasters from the positions we overran. Throw them as hard as you can at the bulkheads near the Masters’ positions,” relayed Arjun.

Arjun ran over, took one of the blasters and threw it a bulkhead near a Master barricade. It hit handle first and exploded. The blast killed two of the Masters outright and stunned three more. The werewolves were upon them in an instant and swiftly shredded the hated slave-masters with their claws.

More explosions could be heard occurring up and down the corridors of the space station. These were accompanied by the screaming of the dying Masters. None of the Masters surrendered. They fought like they were possessed by demons until none of them were left.

Arjun walked back to where Thor still lay on the deck and looked down at him. Thor realized the explosion had hurt him more than he thought.

“You look terrible, old sport,” thought the COBRA adept. A background image of soccer injuries followed the observation.

Thor realized that he was wounded in more places than just his leg. Now that the battle seemed to be won, he had time to notice these little things.

“You know, Thor, I seem to be making a habit of carrying your poor broken body back to the healing centers.”

Thor was going to make a snappy reply to Arjun when the pain set in and he passed out.

It was Ashley’s intent to help with the wounded werewolves. However, when she saw how many dead wolves there were and how much blood was everywhere, she decided instead to take on the job of removing the red collars from the necks of the station wolves.

The station’s white-furred Alpha wolf was there with her, making sure his wolves behaved themselves. However, Ashley was happy that there were also two wolves she knew plus a dozen human fighters keeping her company.

With the help of some of her human companions, she had removed the collars off about fifty wolves. The procedure required a dainty maneuver with a nonconducting work glove that was beyond the skill of a werewolf’s paw-like hands.

The next wolf eyed Ashley with a cunning grin. “There’s a tasty treat, and she’s coming toward me. I can get out of this collar and have lunch at the same time.”

Ashley turned to her assistants and gave a thumbs-down. The other humans went on alert, touching their weapons reflexively.

“Give this wolf a miss. I don’t like what he is thinking,” she said in a flat tone.

The wolf had a surprised look on his face, so Ashley addressed him directly.

“Not too bright, are you? I couldn’t do this job if I wasn’t telepathic.”

The werewolf was rising up from the bench to confront Ashley. Captain O’Neil knocked him down by hitting the wolf on the back of the head with his rifle butt.

“Relax, dumbass, you’ll live longer that way,” said O’Neil.

The werewolf spun around and was about to attack O’Neil with fang and claw, when O’Neil put his rifle right up to the wolf’s face.

“I said, relax!”

“O’Neil, he doesn’t understand you,” said Ashley.

“I think he understands the pointy end of a rifle just fine.”

The station’s Alpha walked up behind O’Neil. The immense white-furred Alpha wolf (even taller than Admiral!) picked him up with one paw. The aggressive station wolf started to stand up and the Alpha punted him about forty feet. The wolf hit the ground and tried to rise up, but then collapsed, unconscious.