by JS Rowan
“Mom, Gupta mentioned volunteers for wolves. Who are we taking for that?” asked Sarah.
“We had an ethics committee look at the question,” said Leona. “The committee itself was formed by people in the Fleet who were or are religious clergy of all represented faiths, some lawyers, and myself, of course, wearing my sociologist hat. I actually only gave oversight, and didn’t participate in the actual discussions.”
Sven, the physician, leaned forward to hear the committee findings.
“Their recommendations were simple. Any human over the age of seventy-five could make the decision to become a werewolf; anyone with a terminal disease that could be cured by becoming a wolf; and anyone who had a severely debilitating disability that could be cured by becoming a wolf. We have, at last count, about one hundred seventy-six thousand requests, and more coming in each day. We are not charging for the conversion, but the new werewolves will owe us ten years paid military service as part of the deal.”
The happy conversation carried on for hours after that. Leona only left after her butt went to sleep, her tongue was too sore to talk, and her brain was too tired for any more telepathy.
Three weeks and a mountain of paperwork later, Thor came into Leona’s office with a wagging tail and a smile on his face. His blue eyes shone in his red-furred face.
“Admiral’s ship has arrived. He is on his way over in a shuttle.”
“I know, I just got off a video conference with him about the Chinese deal.”
“Chinese deal?”
“Oh, right, you were over on the space station doing a structural inspection when that came in. The Chinese government wants us to transport one million people, support equipment, and livestock to Mars, to create a colony there. They have offered a lot of money and future Mars beef to do that.”
“Ah, beef—they do know how to bargain with wolves, don’t they!”
“Yes, they do. Admiral and I approve of that part of the plan. However, Admiral is dead set against their request to have rach used as part of the terraforming process.”
“How do they even know about rach?”
Leona shrugged.
“Why not use rach plants? Wouldn’t they be perfect for Mars?”
“A planet full of rach would mean too great a risk for contamination of Earth—or even any of our ships and stations. The rach on the spaceships are in tightly controlled areas. The only real danger would be if one of the ships were to crash on Earth, but all the ships have a failsafe to kill the rach and aarach if something like that would happen.”
Leona shuddered, and Thor blinked.
“If rach got onto Earth, it would take over the ecosystem. In ten to fifteen years, the only plant on Earth would be rach. Same with aarach—they are voracious. The aarach would eat everything alive that’s not microscopic—including the rach, but it reproduces quickly enough to keep up to the aarach.”
Leona shuddered again at the thought.
“If the ship’s computers sensed that we were entering an atmosphere in an uncontrolled way, a purge would occur, killing everything in all the rach and aarach areas. You would not want to be in there when that happened.”
Ambassador Gupta entered Leona’s office. The trio of Joe, Barry, and John gave him an informal salute.
“You will want to see this; it is about to be official,” thought the ambassador.
Gupta turned on the television and the swearing-in ceremony had just concluded for the new president in Washington, DC.
President Hartley had resigned over the scandal that ensued after the return of the First Lady, and the furor because of his recent erratic behavior. His own party had quietly told him that if necessary they would vote to impeach him.
So the vice president, John Willard, who had been a determined proponent of strong ties with the Jupiter Fleet, was now president.
On the screen, the new chief executive, President Willard, started his speech and talked for about five minutes on topics that Leona couldn’t care less about.
“Is there a reason why I’m listening to this?” asked Leona in a slightly frustrated tone.
“He is going to get to the good part soon,” thought Gupta.
Admiral came into the room, wagging his tail.
“Are we ready to go to the party yet?”
“Party, what party? How come I am always the last one to know about a party?” griped Leona.
“OK, here is the good part,” thought Gupta, his tail wagging quickly.
“As one of my first acts as president of the United States, I hereby recognize the Jupiter Fleet, which includes all the ships, stations, and outposts claimed by the Jupiter wolves and humans, as a separate nation. I call upon Congress to create laws, in cooperation with the United Nations and other international organizations, to govern the creation of new countries on other planets or the moon.”
The new president paused to take a drink of water.
“I also hereby declare an amnesty for all the Americans and other people that are now serving with the Jupiter Fleet. All the former military personnel or other government personnel such as FBI, or NSA and other services, who have decided to stay in the Jupiter Fleet, will be honorably discharged, with any pension earned intact.”
President Willard leaned toward the camera, nodding his head, with a kind expression on his face.
“Furthermore, the United States and the Jupiter Fleet have agreed that, for a one-time tax payment of two hundred million dollars, which Jupiter Fleet has already paid, the United States has settled all tax claims for any US citizen who has elected to become a citizen of the Jupiter Fleet.”
Leona sat straight up in her chair, swallowing a large lump that had appeared in her throat.
“I have also negotiated a status of forces agreement with Jupiter Fleet which will allow us to have US forces in key areas of the solar system. Some people have pointed out that this violates the treaties about not weaponizing space. However, I think most of you will agree, with the recent alien raids, that ship has already sailed.”
The president clearly had more to say, but at that point Ambassador Gupta muted the display.
“What do you think about my last official act as ambassador?”
“I think you did a wonderful job,” said Leona.
“Yes, I think so too,” thought Admiral. “Now let’s go get some of that barbecue beef that Mergnot keeps talking about.”
“Anything more I should know about in that speech?” Leona asked Gupta privately.
“No, it is all domestic politics after that,” he replied.
Leona nodded and allowed all the werewolves to lead her away from her desk work.
When Leona’s group arrived at the Shuttle Bay, Frosty, Mergnot, O’Neil, and Ashley were waiting for them. They entered the shuttle and the rest of Leona’s family were already seated on board.
“This is not suspicious at all! What are you people up to?” asked Leona.
No one said or thought anything she could “hear” and most of them looked away from her. Thor just sat down on a seat and looked at her, grinning hugely. He then pulled her down on a seat beside him and gave her a hug. He reached down into a cloth bag and pulled out a red, white, and blue football jersey.
When Thor gave it to her, she held it up by the shoulders to see the design on it. The T-shirt had a caricature of a wolf, smiling, with its tongue hanging out a little, and it said “Space Dogs Football.” It just happened to be her size, so she smiled.
“OK, I will play along!”
Leona put the shirt on over her clothes without asking Thor any questions. He was clearly disappointed by this. He wanted her to quiz him so he could have the fun of not answering!
Thor and Leona held hands for most of the trip down to Earth.
The shuttle landed after a short but pleasant flight. Leona stood up to get off the shuttle, but Thor just pulled her back down in her seat with a grin.
Everyone else was exiting the shuttle, and Leona tried to look
out the window to see what was going on. The shuttle’s metal heat shields were still up, so that did not work. Thor just grinned at her for making the attempt. Even seated, his tail was wagging furiously, so Leona waited patiently to see what could cause so much fun.
Finally everyone had left the shuttle and it was Leona’s turn. Thor stood up and offered to help Leona out of her seat with his hand. After being pulled down twice she gave him “the look.”
“I don’t think so, bub,” she said, and ignored his help.
Leona stepped out of the shuttle into the bright sunlight. She had a hard time seeing in the bright light at first, and she tried to shade her eyes with a hand.
A brass band started playing. She didn’t recognize the tune, only heard that it was being played badly. Then something about the tune struck her and she realized where she was. It was her home in Texas. She looked at Thor with big eyes.
“What? How?”
“Gupta used a law firm when Hartley’s administration was auctioning off the house and all our stuff. They offered three million dollars for everything. That was way more than the IRS was going to get from the auction, so they took it.”
Leona gave Thor a big hug and a kiss and came away with a mouth full of red fur. She didn’t care. She looked around and saw that, in what used to be her back yard, a giant barbecue rig was parked. The chefs were cooking a huge amount of food; there were hungry wolves and humans in line waiting to be fed.
Then Leona noticed the stadium that had been built in the far back field. It had been made out of steel and aluminum, and there were people still working on it.
“It’s amazing how quickly you can build something like that stadium, when you have access to repair bots to do the fabrication in space.”
Leona knew then that she had been conned about that extra-long “inspection” of the space station that Thor had just finished.
They walked over to the barbecue area and everyone made room for Thor and Leona to come up to the front of the line and get their food. Admiral was right behind them, piling steaks high on his plate.
A country band took the stage after the marching band had left, and unlike what was probably a local school band, the musicians were professionals. They started playing old and new country music to go along with the meal. Leona had to blink away some tears when she recognized one of the tunes as “Daddy’s Hands.”
Thor cocked his ear at the sweet-sounding guitars and harmonica.
“After dinner we are having a football game. It’s the start of a tournament between all the ships’ teams and will take place over this weekend. And I am the quarterback for the Space Dogs,” thought Thor.
He and Leona sat down and munched on the excellent food, having a good laugh over their old college days, when Thor was a football quarterback and Leona was part of the cheerleader squad. Everyone at the party appeared to be having a most enjoyable time.
After a half hour of light conversation and happy eating, Ashley turned to O’Neil and looked into his eyes.
“Would you please just ask me already?”
“What? Ask you what?”
“Oh, please! You have been broadcasting ever since you sat down at the table. It’s distracting. I have ‘heard’ you rehearse it at least twelve times in your mind.”
“But my blocking exercises—”
“Need work,” said Leona.
“You too?” said O’Neil, looking around the table. “You all heard me?”
All the werewolves present were nodding. Thor laughed through O’Neil’s communicator.
“Sorry, dude, I tried to signal you. You were thinking too loud.”
“So just man up, take the ring out of your left-hand pocket, and ask me already,” said Ashley.
O’Neil looked around at the group; Thor found his look of imminent capture amusing.
“OK, then: a good marine knows when to fearlessly charge ahead, so here goes.”
O’Neil got up from his chair. He pulled Ashley’s chair out so that she was facing him. He got down on one knee and held out the ring box.
“Ashley Eleanor Murray, will you do me the great honor of being my wife?”
There was silence for a moment. Ashley started crying, and then she dove into his arms and whispered in his ear, “Yes.”
Leona started to cry too. Thor looked at her quizzically, with one ear up and one down.
“I will never understand this crying when you are happy thing.”
Leona ignored him, like she always did when he was being silly like that. She got up and gave Ashley a big hug.
The “human” werewolves were all grinning and wagging their tails quickly, but the “alien” werewolves mostly wagged their tails more slowly, as onlookers at a human cultural event.
Ashley and O’Neil were still being congratulated by well-wishers when the band stopped playing on the stage. Admiral walked onto the stage and stood there for a moment while Hiroshi adjusted his communicator for simultaneous thought-to-speech translation. The speech was also being televised to all the Fleet. Admiral wagged his tail slowly while the crowd quieted.
“I have just heard that Captain Lance O’Neil and Ashley Murray have become engaged to be married a few minutes ago. Congratulations to both of you. I am sorry that Ashley will not be part of my crew in the future. O’Neil, you owe me big!”
The crowd laughed. The women wiped their eyes of happy tears.
“Now before we get to the football game, which I am told will be televised by a sports network, I have an announcement to make. The captains had their first meeting as a group earlier today. After Leona left the call, we had one more item of business to vote on, and I am pleased to say it was unanimous.”
Admiral smiled widely, showing his fangs good-humoredly.
“We have elected our leader for the next eight to twelve years. Although I know she won’t like the title, Mergnot was most insistent. I want everyone to congratulate Queen Leona Stevenson on her election.”
The gathered crowd cheered, barked, and howled, and Leona stood up. She was speechless—which, as Thor could attest, did not happen often!
Coming soon: Book Two of the Jupiter Fleet series, Too Soon to Mars.
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