by JS Rowan
“All right,” she said. “But no screaming unless I tell you to, all right?”
Ashley went back into the system and started looking for ways to isolate the lab from the rest of the ship. Fortunately, she found a protocol to do just that. In the event of an invasion by a hostile force, the lab and residential areas could be isolated in order to allow the werewolves to do the fighting in the hallways, without endangering the Supes in their quarters.
She also found a note that said the “lab” was actually the brightly lit chamber and the office part with the desk was really the living quarters of the Supe that Leona had been impersonating. Yay! There were bathing facilities, and more beds and chairs! But there was no time for that now.
Ashley contacted Commander Gupta. “Sir, I’m isolating this lab, so the Ship Master will not be able to communicate with me. I…I can’t leave Will and Thor and Mary behind. Please come and rescue us as soon as you can.”
“I understand. We will come and get you, Ashley.”
The four werewolves with Ashley had just finished moving everything from the adjacent rooms into the lab when they heard a group of werewolves moving quickly along the corridor. Ashley waved everybody inside, and willed the door to close. Well, it was too late to get the constables out, after all. She hoped the commander wouldn’t be too upset with her.
Ashley enacted the isolation protocol, which gave the room its own energy, food, light, water, and air. It also caused a pair of blast doors to close over the normal doors. Ashley wasn’t done yet—she asked the werewolves to take a large hull breach repair patch and weld that to the blast doors to strengthen them.
Mary came over to the quarters part of the lab, shotgun in her hands, and sat on one end of the desk. Rebecca screwed up her courage and sat down timidly behind Will’s conversion table, near Constable Vihaan. The werewolf foursome armed themselves with the weapons from the other rooms and stood on either side of the welded blast door. With all precautions taken that she could think of, Ashley fell into the chair, her hands and legs shaking.
“Come and get us, Commander,” she said in a small voice.
Inside cell block 15 to 28 on Deck Three, it was sheer pandemonium. All the cells had been opened by the reluctantly cooperating guard wolf. The human captives started coming out of the cells, along with all the werewolves that had been locked away with the Alpha wolf. The Alpha had restrained his followers from menacing the other captives.
The Alpha took a hundred of his best telepaths and positioned them throughout the vast crowd of humans. When the Alpha felt the captain of the guard wolves starting to do a scan of the area, he let out a huge roar that terrorized the humans. The mental screams of nearly eighteen thousand humans were picked up by the Alpha’s telepaths and broadcast to the guard captain.
“Was that necessary?” asked Leona. A fierce headache had started up behind her forehead.
“It is important to put the guard captain in the right frame of mind. He now thinks he is attempting a rescue, and has no idea what is waiting for him on the other side of the door,” replied the Alpha.
The extreme vigor of the Alpha wolf’s telepathic “voice” made Leona feel like she was facing a gale-force wind.
More than eight hundred of the Alpha’s wolves waited to rush the wide door.
After the gravity went off, the mental screams of many of the humans became even louder. It was almost more than Leona could bear with her newly acquired telepathic sensitivities.
The group of eight hundred and more wolves positioned themselves along the walls so that they could propel themselves through the wide door once it opened. Meanwhile, the Alpha went to a control panel and managed to turn out all the lights in the chamber. Being in a pitch-black chamber with thousands of people, in the midst of all those wolves, and without gravity, was a horrifying experience. The tumult of physical screams and the crying of the children assaulted the ears, too. The air stank of unwashed bodies, terror, and werewolf.
The door opened and the guard captain peered into the dark chamber. He was floating with approximately a hundred of his wolves, when more than eight hundred furry missiles with claws and teeth attacked. The wolves propelled themselves from their perches on the walls, going through the door in groups of three. All three wolves in each group were aiming themselves at one guard wolf. The effect was like a machine gun spray of furry bullets.
Each of the guard wolves was hit by numerous flying wolves. The high-velocity attack coupled with the lack of gravity meant that the guard wolves suddenly weren’t there anymore. Swiftly, they were all pinned against the nearest bulkhead. Any wolf that continued to put up a fight was torn apart. The only one not attacked was the guard captain.
The Alpha floated through the door relatively slowly compared to the flying attack of his wolves. The guard captain was petrified with fear at seeing the Alpha free. The Alpha came up to the guard captain and grabbed him by the throat.
“Tell the Ship Master that the hull breach is sealed. Do not attempt to relay any other information,” thought the Alpha. His deep bass growls added emphasis to the command.
The guard captain did as he was instructed, and a few moments later the sealed blast doors throughout the ship opened. The Alpha looked at the guard captain, eye to eye. Since the Alpha wolf was twenty feet tall, the experience for the guard captain was not pleasant.
“I am the Alpha. Who do you serve?”
“I serve you, Alpha,” replied the guard captain.
“Very good. Tell the remainder of your wolves to stand down.”
The guard captain complied and the remaining guard wolves relaxed. The Alpha wolf released his hold on the guard captain’s throat and let him float freely in the microgravity.
“Captain, form up all your wolves from the other cell blocks as well.”
When the guard werewolves were formed up in ranks—holding the conveniently located bars and knobs that studded the walls and ceiling of the barracks—there were over thirteen hundred of them. The Alpha addressed them formally.
“Wolves, you know me. I was the Alpha of this ship long before any of the current Masters were even born. The Master that I swore allegiance to has been dead for more than six hundred ship years. I continued to serve his heirs, until they decided that I was too powerful, too strong, and too good at leading wolves. So they chose to remove me, and nine hundred eighty-three of your brethren. They removed me—not by open combat, but by using poison—because they were afraid to face me. Well, today they will face me, for today I take back the ship. Wolves: are you with me?”
A cacophony of howls filled the room with agreement.
“Then follow me into battle, and kill every Master you find. But give our fellow werewolves the chance to join us. I am the Alpha: who do you serve?”
“We serve you, Alpha!” was the telepathic roar that returned, as well as verbal howling and barking.
Leona drew a shuddering breath. All those werewolves were now…allies?
The Alpha wolf then moved to the nearest bulkhead. He propelled himself down the hallway at incredible speed. The Alpha had incorrectly assumed that the gravity was out on the entire deck. Shortly after passing by the now opened bulkhead doors, the Alpha realized his mistake. He crashed onto the deck, rolling as his momentum carried him another twenty yards down the hallway. He finally stopped, with one paw sticking up in the air, his head wedged against the wall, and his tail twitching spasmodically.
All the wolves within view stopped and tried not to look as the disheveled Alpha picked himself up off the floor. Leona, however, could not stop herself. She broke into laughter, whooping so hard that she could not control her limbs. It was too much for the poor werewolves, who began laughing too. The Alpha at first started to get angry. Then, seeing the humor of the situation, he started to laugh as well, with a very deep barking sound.
Commander Gupta had received a shot of XN. That, combined with his natural werewolf healing ability, left him feeling pretty good, even afte
r just having been shot and clawed. The wolf that attended to him had been trained as a combat medic with COBRA. He was able to dig out the slug, so the wound was already starting to scab over.
When the commander heard the howling in the hallway, he decided to stick his head out and take a quick look. He looked out just in time to see the Alpha wolf crash and lie, twitching, on the deck plates. He decided to go and talk with Leona.
Meanwhile, Leona was guided by a werewolf over to the bulkhead where the Alpha had crashed. When the gravity had quit, the Alpha had assigned a werewolf to assist her. It was a good thing he had done that, or Leona was quite sure she would have cracked her skull on one of the bulkheads.
The tricky part for Leona was transitioning from zero gravity to normal ship gravity within the space of a couple of feet. She was concentrating so hard on it that she didn’t notice the COBRA commander’s arrival at first.
“Wow, glad to be on solid ground again,” Leona thought to the werewolf helping her. “Thanks.”
The werewolf registered surprise, then started wagging his tail. Leona caught a wisp of thought from the wolf, about the Masters never thanking anyone, ever.
Looking up, Leona saw Gupta. “Commander, it’s good to see you. What’s happening with the rest of our people? I haven’t heard from Thor or Ashley in some time.”
“I very much regret to tell you that Thor was seriously injured, just as you were going in to talk with the Alpha. He is in the care of a medic table. Ashley decided to stay with Thor when the Mind-Breakers’ werewolves approached the area. She has barricaded herself, your parents, her sister, Thor, and several of our werewolves in the lab. She has requested assistance from us as soon as we are able.”
As they were talking, the Alpha wolf gathered up his troops and started moving out of the prison sector. He left the captain of the guard and a handful of guard wolves to help defend the humans should the need arise. The human captives milled around the now open doors, reassured that the doors were open, but mainly too afraid of the werewolves to exit from the cell block without an escort.
Captain O’Neil walked up to Leona and Commander Gupta. Leona turned to him. Her brow crinkled. Evidently he had negotiated the tricky zone between zero and regular gravity without assistance. She felt a little envious, but then shrugged off the feeling.
“Captain, this is Commander Gupta of an Indian commando unit called COBRA. He can understand everything you say, but you will not be able to hear him, since he talks telepathically. The commander has some presents for you, Captain, and then we will need some of your men to help us with a rescue mission.”
The three of them walked over to the room that Gupta and his wolves had fortified and turned into a weapons storage locker. O’Neil looked at all the crates and whistled. Then he turned to Leona, his eyebrows raised.
“How did you get all these weapons without raising an alarm?”
“I bought them, masquerading as one of the Supes.”
“Supes?”
“Oh, that’s a slang name for them that we invented. The aliens call themselves the ‘Masters,’ and the Indian commandos call them ‘Mind-Breakers,’ but Thor and I named them ‘Think They’re Superior’ and shortened that to ‘Supes.’”
“Huh!” responded Captain O’Neil. Leona could see him chewing over what those names implied.
“Anyway, the commander and his werewolf commandos moved all the weapons down here, on twenty or so of some electric carts that seem to be all over the ship,” said Leona.
Leona left the captain and the commander looking through the boxes. She supposed that they would probably communicate with hand signals.
After detailing a bunch of the marines to keep order among the humans, the gunnery sergeant joined them. His little girl was following, but remained in the hallway in the care of a woman that Leona had not seen before. During their meeting, the woman must have been hidden among the thousands of people crowded in the cell with the marines.
Leona went to a console and restored lighting to the cell blocks. She told the system to display the map for this level. Leona saw that mostly low-status Supes lived in this section. They were, however, near the residence of the section chief for this area of the ship. He was fourth in line to command the ship.
Leona called the marine captain over. “We need to secure this level, which is Deck Three, and get the people out of the cells. Can you round up as many fighters as we have weapons, and put them to work?”
Captain O’Neil just looked at the gunnery sergeant and quirked an eyebrow.
“Way ahead of you, ma’am,” said the gunny. “Before the show started, I had the men go and scout everyone wearing a uniform and also anyone in civvies that volunteered. Turns out, we have about eleven hundred experienced combat troops. They come from all over the globe, but most of them speak English just fine. They all agreed to follow the good captain here.”
Leona sighed with relief. “We’ve got six hundred sixty ninety-five-caliber rifles, four hundred fifty-caliber handguns, and another five hundred fifty nine-millimeter pistols. There’s a good quantity of ammunition for them,” she said.
Then she was distracted by Commander Gupta as he telepathically talked to her, and held up her hand as if for a mobile phone call. Captain O’Neil nodded to show that he understood that Leona was listening to a mental communication.
“Commander Gupta cautions you that your men should be very careful before shooting any weapons on board the ship,” she said to the captain. “The ricochets can be deadly. His second-in-command shot the commander once, and himself at least twice.”
“Roger, ma’am,” said the captain, smiling slightly and taking note of the bloodstains in Gupta’s fur, “we will instruct the troops to be most careful prior to engaging with firearms.”
The gunnery sergeant nodded.
“The commander also says that any of the Mind-Breakers—the Supes—you come across should be considered very dangerous. They can make you shoot yourself, or your companions.”
“What about those helmets we saw on some of those werewolves? Are they battle armour?”
“No, Captain, they limit telepathic ability. And, they would make you telepathically ‘invisible’ to the Supes, and also defend you from their telepathic attacks. But you would not be able to communicate with me or Ashley Murray if we tried to hail you through the ship’s system.”
“My men don’t know how to communicate telepathically anyway. And not shooting each other while under the power of those alien monsters? Best protection we can manage at the moment. If we can have them, those helmets will be a bit big, but I’m sure the gunnery sergeant can figure that out. Isn’t that right, Gunny?”
“Yes, sir!”
“I think that will work just fine,” thought Gupta to Leona.
“OK, that should work. How long before you can get your men squared away?”
“We’ll be ready to move in twenty minutes. Gunny, you take fifty troops and secure this area, protect the civilians and dependents.”
Gunny came to attention briefly and then hurried away to order the troops to their various tasks.
Captain O’Neil peeked over Leona’s shoulder at the deck map. “I’ll take the rest of the troops and, divided into three main groups, we will move up these three hallways—here, here, and here.” He tapped the display with a finger to show the routes they would take. “It’s gonna take us awhile to get this done. If I read this map correctly, based on the width of this corridor here by the barracks, this deck is a kilometer long and almost half a klick wide. Even with the cells behind us, that still leaves about six hundred fifty meters left to sweep.”
Leona nodded, and then she pointed to a spot on the map. “You see this elevator, Captain?”
“Yeah, looks to be on the far side of Deck Three.”
“When we get there, I’m going to need some troops to join our werewolves, here, in a rescue mission of our people. They are trapped not too far from this elevator, six decks up.”
“Ask the commander, how many troops will he need?”
The commander had heard the question and answered Leona immediately without her having to relay.
“Thirty men should be enough. More, and we will just be tripping over each other.”
Leona relayed this to the captain, and just after she finished doing that she felt a wave of despair wash over her. She felt a crushing depression weighing her down, making her feel so very, very tired. She looked at the faces around her. All the humans looked distressed, but the werewolves were just looking curious and confused. A marine over by the .95-caliber rifles picked one up, loaded it, and then calmly shot himself in the chest. The round killed him and the marines standing right behind him. It bounced off the bulkhead and stopped when it hit a wolf over by the door.
Leona was stunned by the suicide. Then the realization hit her and she shook herself. “We are under an empathic attack. What you’re feeling is not real!”
Captain O’Neil shook his head as if to clear it. “Where are those helmets?” he yelled.
Commander Gupta touched Leona on the arm in sympathy. “We do not seem to be affected by the feelings that the Mind-Breaker is sending by empathy. I’m directing my commandos to stop this attack.”
The COBRA werewolves left the room quickly, and a short time later—which felt like a very long time to Leona—there was a birdlike scream down the corridor. The feeling of utter doom lifted from her mind and heart.
“That was…that was intense,” said Leona, taking a deep breath. “It was also informative.”
“What do you mean?” asked Captain O’Neil.
“Apparently, empathic attacks don’t need to be line of sight, unlike the intrusive telepathic attacks. So if those despicable Supes can’t see us and make us kill each other, they can still make us kill ourselves from despair.”
“I’ll have my men put on as many of those helmets as we can find!” said O’Neil.