Jupiter Fleet 1: Werewolves Don't Purr (39 page)

After fifteen minutes Leona stepped in and patted Sarah’s shoulder.

“Give your dad a break, sweetie.”

Suddenly, alarms and a verbal and telepathic warning sounded through the two ships. It was Hiroshi.

“Everybody brace for impact!”

The pressure doors all over the ship started closing. Most people in the hallways grabbed something to hold on to in case of loss of gravity.

Leona started toward an elevator, but then thought better of it. She went into a nearby room where she thought she would find a communication console. She looked around, seeing nothing.

“Mom, I found a communication thingy over here,” Sarah shouted, from the other side of the room.

“Good girl!” Leona said.

“I didn’t even tell her I was looking for one,” she thought privately to Thor, who was standing by her shoulder.

“Everyone, take a seat and hold on tight,” Leona said to her family.

Leona went over to the communications console and, first grabbing on to a handhold, said, “Hiroshi, report.”

“They shot an asteroid at us. I didn’t pick it up until it was almost too late. It just missed us. It killed a shuttle, though. Not sure who was in it.”

“They…the Supes?”

“Yes.”

“We’re a very small target to shoot an asteroid at. Are you sure we were the target?” thought Thor.

“Yes, Hiroshi, check the trajectory to Earth,” said Leona.

“OK, wait one.”

Leona waited for what seemed a long time.

“Oh no! The asteroid is headed for Earth, at least as an estimate. It is traveling at two hundred kilometers per second. If it hits Earth, there will be nothing left of the planet. The only good news is that hitting the shuttle altered the asteroid’s trajectory a little. I don’t know if it will still collide, or where on the Earth it will hit.”

“How long is it until it arrives at Earth?”

“The computer is showing six-point-nine-four days.”

“Can we catch it?”

“We can’t, but the
Semper Fi
can.”

“Hiroshi, contact O’Neil and get together the best pilots from both ships. Get on board the
Semper Fi
and find a way to change the course of that thing,” said Leona.

“I am going to need the shuttles and all the wolves you can spare,” said Hiroshi.

“Fine, have all wolves report to the
Semper Fi
on the double.”

Leona closed the connection with Hiroshi. She turned to Thor.

“I’m afraid that means you too, my love. You are the best engineering wolf we have. If anyone can save Earth, it is you.”

Thor already knew he had to go—he’d just started trying to think of how to tell Leona.

“Mom, I’m going too. I hosted a two-day working seminar on deflecting an inbound asteroid during last year’s astrophysics course. I never imagined that I would be on a ship that would be possibly trying to do this.”

Leona stood there trying to be brave—and watched her mom, dad, husband, and daughter run out of the room to board the
Semper Fi.

On board the
Semper Fi
, Hiroshi took control of the pilot seat. The Russian pilot, Oleg, took the navigator position. Ashley turned on the ship’s internal thought-amplifier to allow everyone on the Command Deck to talk with each other.

O’Neil gave the command, and the
Semper Fi
undocked from the
Space Dog
. They were already moving faster than the asteroid, but they were going in the wrong direction.

Hiroshi decided to use the
Space Dog
as a slingshot to turn
Semper Fi
around without losing too much velocity. The benefit to the
Space Dog
was that all the velocity the
Semper Fi
lost was her gain, speeding the damaged vessel toward Jupiter Station.

The two ships were about twenty thousand kilometers from each other when Hiroshi began his maneuver. He turned the gravity drives on full in both ships so that they started to fall toward each other.

O’Neil was watching the
Space Dog
get closer very rapidly. Just when O’Neil thought they were going to collide, Hiroshi put the drives on full. Hiroshi executed a pre-programmed maneuver that he had input previously. The
Semper Fi
swung around the
Space Dog
and that flung both ships in opposite directions. Hiroshi released control of the
Space Dog
, and continued to run the main drive unit of the
Semper Fi
on full to allow them to overtake the asteroid as soon as possible.

O’Neil realized he was not breathing, so he took a deep breath, just like the rest of the Command Deck crew. Except, that is, for Hiroshi, who had a big grin on his face.

“That’ll wake you up,” Thor said through the thought-amplifier. He turned toward Hiroshi. “What is the light transit time between here and Earth?” Thor asked him.

“Seven and a half minutes, depending on where you are transmitting.”

“Have we got a projected impact area?” asked O’Neil.

“It will impact the Gulf of Mexico just south of New Orleans,” said Oleg.

“O’Neil, can I call the president?” asked Thor.

“Ah, sure, no problem,” said O’Neil, raising an eyebrow.

Ashley sent a message to the shuttle that they had left on Earth with Gupta, and fifteen minutes later the shuttle pilot advised Ashley that the president of the United States was in the White House Situation Room. Ashley arranged to have Thor’s message sent directly there.

“Mr. President, an alien ship has launched an asteroid toward Earth. Forces of the Jupiter Fleet are pursuing the asteroid. If we are unable to stop it, it will impact the Earth near New Orleans in less than seven days. I am a werewolf now, but I used to be a citizen of the United States of America. I am going to do everything that I can to stop this destruction from happening. I also happen to be married to Leona Stevenson, who you are persecuting. I just want you to think about that as I save your worthless ass. Thor Stevenson, out.”

O’Neil looked at Thor, deadpan. “You know, I voted for him.”

“Would you do that again?”

O’Neil thought about it and made a face. “No.”

“OK, then, we seem to agree.”

“Yes, we do. I think I will up the ante. Ashley, please send that message to every news outlet on the planet,” said O’Neil. “Enough with hiding the bad news—we’re going to let people know what is going on,” O’Neil continued. “This is not going to be like the deadly surprise of the Big Dark back in 2022. Let’s give the people as much notice as possible. Maybe some of them will live through this.”

Ashley retransmitted Thor’s message, with O’Neil’s “enough with hiding the bad news” remarks added on.

Oleg had a peculiar look on his face. It looked like…pride.

“So what can we do to stop this thing?” asked Ashley.

Sarah cleared her throat, and everyone looked at her.

“Stopping it is going to depend to the composition of the asteroid. Is it solid, or is it a flying rock pile? What is it made of? Also”—Sarah grimaced—“unfortunately it’s not possible to stop it. All we can do is change its course slightly to maybe skip off the atmosphere and miss destroying Earth,” she said.

“You heard the lady, Hiroshi. Let’s get
Semper Fi
close enough to study that rock.”

“Sarah and I are going to the observation area to get a better look at this on the telescopes. Aim the radar systems at the asteroid and set them to full power. I will see if the radio telescope’s mass density sensors can give us some clues about its composition. If we shoot a laser at it, then the main telescope’s gas spectrometer will also be useful,” thought Thor.

“What will the gas spectrometer do?” asked O’Neil.

“When the laser hits the asteroid, it will turn the area that it hits into plasma gas for a moment. The spectrometer will then be able to detect what kind of elements are in the gas,” thought Thor.

Thor and Sarah hurried down to the observation area. Thor arranged the telescope and Sarah set up the spectrometer. It was difficult for her because it was telepathically controlled; she was still getting the hang of that. Sarah’s conception of the task was fuzzy because of the unfamiliar Supe equipment. Fortunately, the ship’s computer liked her human brain and followed her intention even though she didn’t know the proper commands.

When father and daughter were ready, they told the Command Deck to fire a one-second laser blast at full power. The laser fired and there was a large, unexpected explosion on the rear of the asteroid. After being blinded for a moment by looking at the screen, Thor had the telescope focus in as close as possible to inspect the asteroid.

“Command Deck, this is Thor.”

The console had a repeat function that played Thor’s thought-amplified message so that Sarah could hear it.

“Go, Thor,
Semper Fi
actual online.”

“That was impressive, O’Neil—you sounded just like a real navy guy in the movies.”

“You liked that, did you? What did you want?”

“That asteroid is covered in nuclear mines. If we get too close, it will blow up.”

“That sounds like a good thing.”

“Not really. While most of the smaller particles will burn up, the rest will become like a large shotgun blast. That would hit Earth with multiple impacts instead of just one. It would also make it impossible for us to change the course of the object to miss the Earth altogether. Of course, the part that would really suck for
us
is that we would probably be destroyed by those nukes going off.”

“Right, no blowing up the nukes, got it. So how are we going to change the course of the asteroid?”

“I don’t know yet. By the way, if we are successful this asteroid will be circling the solar system for centuries. We should name it.”

“Well, it’s threatening to blow up the planet and it could explode at any moment—let’s call it Leona,” said O’Neil.

“Ha! She’d kill me, but yeah, Leona it is,” thought Thor.

Sarah chortled, covered her mouth, and then silently gasped with laughter, looking with big eyes at her dad just like she used to when she was little.

“The asteroid Leona!” she laughed.

The real Leona was standing on the Battle Bridge of the
Space Dog
. The Battle Bridge was in the most heavily defended section at the center of the ship. The exact location was a secret known only to other clan ships. That kept other ships from doing what she had done to the Supe ship near the moon.

Darn that Supe, anyway, for blowing up his own ship! What a coward, couldn’t stand to be taken prisoner
, Leona sneered. Of course, the Supe was judging the Jupiter Fleet by the Supes’ own customs about captives.

Leona was waiting for the new pilot and navigator to report for duty. They were late and it was not a good start. Before he had departed, she had asked Hiroshi to send the best student pilot and best student navigator to the Battle Bridge. They were supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago. Leona started pacing.

“What a crappy, crappy day!” she griped.

Leona had abandoned the Command Deck in favor of the Battle Bridge in case of any more surprises from the Supes. A noise made Leona look up, and she saw Gunny enter the Battle Bridge.

“Oh, good, you’re here. Please evacuate and lock down the Command Deck. I think that we could get attacked by the same ship that launched the asteroid. I’d like you to get set up in case they try to board us,” Leona said. “And we’re without
any
of our werewolves—except my three bodyguards.”

“Yes, Captain,” said the gunny.

He went over to the console and activated the comm system with both voice and telepathic functions.

“All personnel, all personnel, we are sounding general quarters, general quarters—prepare to repel boarders. Lock down and evacuate the Command Deck. All nonessential personnel should move to airtight quarters and arm themselves.”

Gunny turned to Leona, looking serious.

“Don’t forget to put someone in Observation to visually look for the enemy ship. I will get my teams together and in their suits.”

Gunny had modified some pressure suits that the Supes had used, changing them into combat/ EVA suits that humans could wear. He had the suits covered in a highly reflective metallic foil that deflected some of the energy from incoming laser beams. The rest of the energy that penetrated the reflective coating would be absorbed by the second layer as it boiled off. The trouble was that the suits could not withstand two strikes in the same area.