by JS Rowan
“Leona, the other vessel has just fired on our radar probe. It has been destroyed,” said Hiroshi.
“They have started active radar,” thought Commander Gupta. He had one red-furred ear back, though the other still pointed forward.
“Have they detected us?” asked Leona.
“No, they have not pointed it our way yet. I am just receiving radar returns from what is left of the radar array,” thought Gupta.
“I think they discovered that was a decoy,” said Leona.
“I have pinpointed the origin of their radar signal. It is a shuttle that is near the moon,” thought Gupta.
Gunnery Sergeant Ray Masters had turned the crew into a cohesive unit. He and Commander Gupta, with the help of Isamu for translation and insight, had drilled everyone on all the possible ship’s motions. Hiroshi had helped to make the Command Deck functions accessible to the werewolves, as far as the system fail-safes would allow. The command team had a task for everyone who wanted to stay on board. They had also been running “general quarters” drills at all times of the day and night. So even the “passengers” who anticipated returning to Earth knew what to do in zero-g.
“Continue on course, and kill the gravity field in case they have some way to detect our gravity well. Sound general quarters,” said Leona.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” said the gunnery sergeant, who was standing behind her.
Leona smiled at the joke the gunny made. Heh! Captain Leona! Then she looked at him and thought, same as Gupta, Gunny was not joking.
“Should I power up main weapons?” asked Hiroshi.
“No, they might have something to detect that too. Let’s just stay quiet a while longer,” said Leona.
“Other than that shuttle, I cannot see any other ships,” thought Gupta.
“That laser blast had to come from somewhere. Replay the video we made from the telescope and see if you can pick up a direction,” said Leona.
Commander Gupta started working on the video. Hiroshi started say something, but then a look of surprise crossed his face.
“I think they are about to fire on us,” he said.
Leona looked at the screen and saw the laser fire. “Damage report, please!”
Commander Gupta was confused for a second while he accessed the system, but then replied. “No damage. They were not firing on us.”
“What?” asked Leona.
“They were firing at an Earth target. USA somewhere, but I could not tell where exactly,” said Hiroshi.
“It is becoming a lot more interesting—the Earth is firing back,” thought Gupta, pricking his ears forward.
Leona looked at the screen. What used to be the shuttle with the radar was now a rapidly expanding cloud of gas and debris.
“The Earth is locking on to us with targeting lasers,” thought Gupta.
“Evasive maneuvers, Hiroshi,” said Leona.
However, Hiroshi was already starting to move the ship in a zigzag course. This, however, necessitated turning on gravity with no notice to the crew and passengers. Leona winced when her butt sank into her chair at three g’s.
“Power up main weapons,” said Leona.
“We’re not going to fire on Earth, are we?” asked Hiroshi plaintively.
“No. But that Supe ship is still out there. You just stick to the driving and I’ll worry about who we are shooting at,” said Leona.
“The Earth is charging a laser system in Hawaii. They are tracking us.”
Firing a laser at a ship moving at three thousand kilometers per second involved guessing where it was going to be. The Space Dog was now at a distance of 4.6 light-seconds away from Earth. This meant that, for the tracking system in Hawaii, it would be a 9.2-second extrapolation. The best bet at that speed was to do a straight line projection and shoot there. Hiroshi was trying to make sure they were not going to be in that spot. It was not an easy thing to do with a ship this big moving that fast.
A 0.5-second laser beam fired at them. It was a clean miss, but was closer than Leona would have thought possible.
“Hiroshi, can you reduce power to our laser system?”
“No, but I can widen the beam so that the same energy covers a much larger area. It would give a similar effect.”
“Fine, do that, and then return fire. Will anyone be hurt?”
“Not unless they are looking right at the beam, or at worst, someone might get a very mild flash burn. At this distance, the widened beam will cover most of the Hawaiian island that fired at us. Why are we doing this?” asked Hiroshi.
“We want to confuse the Supe ship out there with regard to our intentions,” replied Commander Gupta for Leona.
Leona knew there was a risk that the shooters on Earth would take them for an enemy ship too.
“Returning fire now.”
The Space Dog’s unfocused beam fired, and within a half a second another laser fired from Vladivostok, Russia. This one hit the ship.
“How did they return fire so quickly?” asked Leona.
“They didn’t—that was fired at us before we fired at Hawaii,” said Hiroshi.
Isamu, who was in charge of managing the human crew and passengers, was also working the damage control station.
“We have a hull breach on Deck Twenty-nine, right side, near the rear of the ship. The containment doors on that level have closed. There are no reports of casualties, mainly because our people are all staying in their quarters. I have sent repair bots to fix the breach on the inside bulkhead. We will have to wait for my grandson to stop his interesting flying in order to fix it from the outside.”
“Thank you, Isamu. Keep up the interesting evasive tactics, Hiroshi. We are bound to come within range of a few more lasers before we find that other ship,” said Leona.
“Did you notice, Captain? It looks like old Earth has been working on their laser systems. Who knew?” said Gunny.
“Why do you think they are just waiting out there?” thought Frosty to Admiral.
“They could be planning an attack, they could be trying to figure out whose side we are on, they might even have needed a nap. How am I supposed to know?” thought Admiral.
Admiral’s slowly wagging tail belied his words, and Frosty’s ears were pricked forward. The two giant Alpha wolves stood together having a chat on the Command Deck, where no junior wolves were present.
“They are too close to the horizon of Jupiter for us to shoot them. We cannot move closer to them without risking the Victory, or our shuttles, so we sit here and wait,” thought Frosty.
“That was an excellent joke that O’Neil got on you,” thought Admiral.
“I thought so too. That is why I kept the name Frosty. I still had to beat him for it, naturally.”
“Of course. I understand he fought well.”
Frosty just grunted and gave Admiral a don’t-you-go-there look.
“In fact, I was told that he managed to kick you in the head. That is quite a feat, considering that you are three times as tall as he is,” thought Admiral.
“I was bent over at the time.”
“And why were you bending over in the middle of a fight?”
“After Ashley told him what I was going to do, he walked up to me. I was just wondering what he wanted when he did a high leap and kicked me right in the groin.”
Admiral, who had already heard the story, was convulsing with suppressed laughter.
“You are getting old, my friend, to fall for a trick such as that.”
Frosty was growling now, which just added to Admiral’s merriment.
“So when will he be out of Med Bay?” asked Admiral.
“Tomorrow. I decided that in addition to the enhanced bone graphs, we would give him a telepathic boost. It will eliminate the need for a translator.”
“Did you ask him for permission to do that first?”
“No. Why would I do that?”
“These humans seem to consider that kind of thing important. You should tell him first thing whe
n he wakes up, before he gets mad and kicks you in the head—again.”
“Admiral, we have a message incoming from those ships,” thought Ashley.
Admiral had forgotten that she was there while the Alphas were discussing O’Neil. He had been broadcasting, not just communicating with Frosty. He hoped he hadn’t broken one of the human etiquette rules. There seemed to be so many of them.
“What does the message say?”
“It says they know that this ship has been captured by humans. They want to meet with the human in charge of this ship. They say we can avoid a war with their clan. They do not care what we do to the Merkenaucht clan. End of message. Who are the Merkenaucht clan?” thought Ashley.
“They are the clan that used to own these ships. As werewolves, we are not supposed to know or care about the name of the clan we serve, but after seven hundred years you learn things,” thought Admiral.
“He does not know that the ship and station were taken by werewolves. He thinks the humans took them,” thought Frosty.
“That could work to our advantage. Ashley, send that Ship Master a reply message saying he can have his meeting. Give us enough time to get O’Neil up and ready,” instructed Admiral.
Ashley thought about objecting, but stayed silent.
“O’Neil will be in command. Ashley, you will be his second. Make sure you block any telepathic attacks. I will have all the wolves out of sight. Only humans will be apparent to the Masters,” thought Admiral.
Oh, great. O’Neil—in command of me. He’s going to love this, thought Ashley privately.
The Space Dog was weaving and spinning like an NFL running back. However, the Earth-based lasers were finding their marks.
“More lasers firing, from China this time,” said Hiroshi.
“Where did Earth get all these lasers? How come we didn’t know about it?” grouched Leona.
“Perhaps it was to keep the information from the Supes in case humans were captured,” said Gupta. “Throughout history governments have often acted this way.”
“Oh…good point.”
“We are past the worst of it. We will be around to the other side of the moon soon,” said Hiroshi, trying to be helpful.
“I wonder if one of those geniuses down there will see that we are not fighting back, and stop shooting at us,” said Leona.
Just then, a laser struck the Space Dog below the Command Deck.
“I guess not, then,” said Leona.
As they went behind the moon, Hiroshi fired the main engines as retro rockets and slowed the ship down. At full gravity, the ship could accelerate or decelerate at up to one hundred gravities, or 980.665 m/s2, without anyone on the ship turning to red mush on the walls.
Hiroshi had set the deceleration to fifty gravities, so in just over twelve seconds they had slowed to a speed of ten kilometers per second. Then they spotted the enemy ship. It was below them, rising up from the surface. Hiroshi set a course that would take them away from the moon, but keep it between them and the Earth.
The Space Dog looked in worse shape than it was. It had been hit seventeen times and was venting atmosphere. However, all the hits had missed critical areas. Isamu had recorded only one death so far—one of the passengers had been looking out a window at the Earth when it passed by and a laser beam had struck too close.
The other ship approached with its weapons charged. Hiroshi flipped the Space Dog around so that the vessel was facing the enemy ship as it came near them. The Space Dog was pointed backward, with its stern pointing in the direction of travel, which Hiroshi thought was rather cool.
Hiroshi knew that if he tried to bring his weapons to bear, the Supe ship would fire at the Space Dog. He made a few popping sounds with his lips as he considered the situation, then turned to Leona.
“I have a maneuver in mind that is risky, but I have done it many times in simulation. I would like to do it now.”
Having been previously alerted by the Hiroshi Lip, Leona opened up her telepathic sense and read the confidence in the young man.
“Do it,” she said.
The Space Dog was being tracked by the other ship. Hiroshi engaged the gravity systems to maximum. He hit the drive system at maximum as well. They accelerated at maximum for three seconds, and then decelerated just as fast. The enemy ship fired at where they had been and where they were supposed to be. Both shots missed.
The Space Dog’s shots did not miss—Hiroshi had moved them within ten kilometers and fired. The shot hit the enemy’s Command Deck and obliterated it. The Ship Master did not even have a moment to see his doom coming.
Hiroshi aimed the laser-cannons and fired again. That shot put a hole right through the ship, where the alternate command center likely was. No one was going to be driving this ship for a while.
Hiroshi scanned for activity that could present a problem. There!
“Leona, I have detected what looks like some crew members trying to operate the ship cannons from a remote terminal.”
“Stop them now,” said Leona.
Another blast from the Space Dog laser-cannons ended that effort.
Leona contacted the highest-ranking surviving Supe on the enemy ship.
“Do you want to surrender or do you want us to continue blasting holes in your ship?” she thought to him.
In response, the Supe sent the enemy ship’s inventory list to the Space Dog. The ill-gotten gains included a list describing 78,242 human captives that had been taken from Earth and were aboard the ship.
Leona’s brow crinkled. “Why did you send me this? Are you hoping for better treatment? Or are they part of your surrender terms?”
The alien did not respond to her questions except by detonating the main drive of his ship. Leona was horrified as the ship exploded with tremendous force.
Hiroshi was quick to react, but even so, some molten debris still managed to hit the Space Dog. The molten metal opened more hull breaches. It also almost completely destroyed the forward magnetic array. They were not going to be gathering any solar particles to fuel their drive system any time soon.
Isamu relayed the damage reports. Leona drew in a breath, then made a decision.
“Bring us around the moon far enough to make radio contact, but not enough for Earth to fire on us,” said Leona.
After Hiroshi completed that maneuver, Leona directed the Space Dog’s communication system to transmit radio on three aviation emergency frequencies: 121.5 megahertz, 243 megahertz, and 406 megahertz. Leona recorded a message that she hoped would stop the laser fire from the planet.
“Hello, we are from Earth. We have captured an alien vessel. We have used that ship to destroy the vessel that was orbiting Earth. We want to go home. Please stop shooting at us.”
Thor had taken up the duty of operating the Victory’s telescopes. There were three reasons for this: they were very cool and Thor liked toys; they kept him from going back into the Med Bay; and looking at the Space Dog through the telescope made him feel closer to Leona.
In addition to the sixteen-meter telescope that was the main one, the ship had four eight-meter and twelve three-meter telescopes. Thor had three of the eight-meter telescopes aimed at the ships that were close to the Jupiter horizon. One of the eight-meter telescopes was aimed at Earth, and the big telescope was following the Space Dog.
Thor had put the Space Dog’s battle on the main screen. The entire staffs of the Victory and Jupiter Station had stopped to watch the battle. Thor watched as the Earth fired on the Space Dog. However, he lost sight of the Space Dog when it went behind the moon.
Forty-three minutes after the explosion of the enemy ship, the light from the explosion reached Thor. He froze for a moment, his ears drooping.
“Oh, no, did I just lose Leona?” he thought.
Thor was still trying to figure out which ship was which at the time of the explosion when Arjun entered the observatory.
“Was that the Space Dog?” Arjun thought to Thor.
“I don
’t know.” Thor’s tail drooped as well as his ears.
The ship in question moved away from the moon and toward the Earth, slowly by space standards. The Earth started firing the red lasers at the ship.
“I guess that question is answered by the laser fire,” thought Arjun sadly.
“No, it isn’t—not by a mile!” Thor’s ears went back and he bared his fangs slightly. He turned another sensor, the radio-telescope, toward the action. “Look here, the broad spectrum analyzer says that the ship is broadcasting a message.”
He tuned in to one of the frequencies and played it so that he and Arjun could hear the transmission. Thor’s heart skipped a beat when he heard Leona’s beloved voice.
“Repeat, we are a friendly ship. However, I am losing my patience with you idiots. If you keep shooting at me, I will cook your asses seven shades of well-done!”
“That’s my girl,” Thor thought to Arjun, “and she’s alive!”
“And feisty,” replied Arjun.
Thor laughed, his ears moving forward and his tail wagging quickly.
“That she is, my friend. She is feisty, has always been feisty, and, God willing, will always be feisty!”
Arjun wagged his tail in sympathy for Thor’s happiness, then he mentally cleared his throat with a polite, “Ahem. Could you come with me to the Command Deck?” he asked. “I want to do a demonstration.”
Thor looked at the monitor. The Earth lasers had stopped firing at the Space Dog and it looked to be parking in an orbit over Antarctica. Thor concluded that there was nothing to be seen here for a while.
“OK, no problem.”
When they entered the Command Deck, there were ten wolves standing around waiting. Thor recognized some of them as being among the green-collar wolves that he had helped corral that day long ago, when they were on the Space Dog.
Admiral had his ears pricked forward, but seemed a bit skeptical. Thor was struck again by how big the Alpha was compared with the rest of the werewolves on the deck. And the humans in the chairs were tiny in comparison.