Jupiter Fleet 1: Werewolves Don't Purr (10 page)

“Commander, I need you to look at this.” The commander followed her, and the other werewolves returned to their drills.

Across the hall and down in the lab, Leona walked over to the desk and brought up the display that she had configured for transmission to his werewolf brain. After the commander received the telepathic information, Leona looked at him.

“So, Commander, what do you think?”

“I think our chances have just improved considerably,” thought Commander Gupta.

Thor was standing in the hallway, waiting for the return of Constable Chatterjee, when he spotted one of the members of another team. It was Constable Pawar, and he was escorting two green-collar wolves with thought-helmets on them. They were following him eagerly, hoping to get their chance at advancement to leader-wolf.

Suddenly Thor spotted trouble. The security Supe that had stopped him and the commandos when they first met was heading to intercept Constable Pawar and his wolf charges. Thor moved as quickly but casually as possible toward the constable. He wanted to be near the three werewolves when the Supe caught up to them.

Constable Pawar didn’t see Thor coming toward him. His attention was focused on trying not to look directly at the Supe, while keeping track of the alien’s movements.

The Supe broadcast a command: “HALT!”

All the slaves and werewolves in the hallway froze involuntarily, except for the two green-collars. They had not heard the command because they had the thought-helmets on. They stumbled to a halt when they noticed that all the other traffic had stopped. They could not see the Supe behind them, but they dared not turn around and look. They knew better, from harsh experience.

“Let me see your arrest
telos
for these two,” the Supe broadcast to Constable Pawar. All the slaves in the hallway started to depart quickly. The werewolves faded away as well. All of them had dread on their faces.

Constable Pawar pulled the telepathic holograms (the so-called
telos
) from a pouch that was attached to an equipment belt. Leona had made it up, using the authority of her “administration slave” identity. He handed the documents over to the Supe, keeping his eyes focused on his own hands.

The Supe looked at the
telos
for a moment. “This is not right,” thought the alien security official.

The Supe looked at Constable Pawar and invaded his brain. A powerful
intrusive
broadcast from the Supe beat down all resistance that the commando could have tried to make.

“Tell me what is going on with these wolves.”

The constable had no choice all the details that he knew were being transferred to the Supe. The security Supe grasped the magnitude of the plot and inhaled deeply. Thor, standing behind the group, realized that the Supe was a fraction of a second from alerting the whole ship to the plan.

Thor struck the Supe from behind, killing him instantly. Constable Pawar stood there for a moment, stunned by the ferocity of the mental attack that the Supe had subjected him to. Thor mentally yelled at the constable to snap him out of his fog.

“Move it! Get those two wolves into the room and don’t let anyone come out. Tell the commander what has happened.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Constable Pawar.

“I am going to get rid of this body and come to the room, too, if I can.”

The COBRA commando wolf grabbed the two green-collar wolves and forcibly dragged them into the empathic testing room. Thor was slightly relieved that the two had not fought the constable or raised an alarm. Maybe they were as shocked by the Supe’s death as was the constable.

Leona was out of the lab, walking down the hallway. She was clad in a green slave smock similar to what the system had made for the Canadians. Unlike them, she had given herself some stylish green-and-silver sandals, to show her skilled status as a trusted “admin” slave. She hoped that she hadn’t made a mistake with the shoes. She was accompanied by ten werewolves.

In order not to attract attention to themselves, they did not walk as a group. Leona was walking with two werewolves. One werewolf was about thirty feet ahead, and another two were ten feet ahead on the other side of the hallway. A group of three wolves were twenty feet behind, with the remaining two walking by themselves farther back.

“Where are we heading?” asked Axel Chin, one of the recently reclaimed “human” werewolves.

“Our destination is on the other end of the ship, about six decks down,” said Leona. She pitched her voice low to minimize the chance of being overheard.

“How long do you think it will take us?” asked Axel.

“I think it’s about a thirty-minute walk. You guys are all walking at a pace which is about as fast as I can keep up with which I suppose is also known as an average werewolf pace,” said Leona.

Axel grinned a happy dog grin and nodded.

They were heading to holding cells 15 to 28. What was in these cells could make a difference in whether their efforts to take the spaceship would be successful.

Thor had carried the body of the Supe into a blind corridor. He tried to contact Leona telepathically, and he was worried.

“Oh crap, oh crap,” he thought.

Thor wasn’t worried so much for himself, but for the entire operation. If he were caught, it would ruin everything.

“OK, Thor, think! Where can you dump this guy for a few days so his death will look like an accident?”

Thor started running through his mind all the areas that the system had downloaded into his brain. He was coming up empty there just didn’t seem to be any “body-stashing compartments” on the map.

“Oh crap, oh crap!”

Just then, Thor noticed a wolf entering the service corridor where a door was starting to close, about fifteen feet behind him. What caught Thor’s attention was the cargo that the wolf had on his anti-grav pallet. It was a group of liquid gas containers.

Thor waited until the wolf moved off a little, and then ran with the body as fast as he could. He passed a pair of human servants who were walking by. As soon as the green-clad slaves saw the body of the dead Supe, they looked away. Thor thought the less they saw, the less they could be tortured or killed for, if it came to that. Once past Thor, the pair of slaves beat a hasty retreat.

Thor stepped up to the door and tried the panel. The jolt knocked him back across the hall and he dropped the body.

“OK, Thor, what is the next step in your fantastically crappy plan?” Thor moaned.

Thor then thought to try the dead alien’s hand to open the door. He put the hand against the door and willed the door to open. The jolt hit him again, knocking him down.

“I’m getting so frustrated I could scream!” Thor thought.

Just then, Ashley Murray’s thought-voice came to his mind.

“What’s wrong, Thor?”

“Ashley?” replied Thor. “How are you able to contact me? Where is Leona? Er, never mind that, can you locate me?”

“Slow down a little, Thor! I am still learning how this computer system works. Um, I
think
I can locate you.”

Thor waited impatiently for a minute. The fur on his neck rose up at the fear of being discovered with the Supe’s body.

“OK, I found you. Now what?”

“Can you open this door in front of me without leaving a computer record?” Thor realized that his mental “voice” sounded frustrated—and a little testy.

“No, my opening the door for you would definitely leave a computer record. I mean, yes, I could probably open it, but it would probably set off some alarm bells, since the system wants a
telos
number and the name of the Supe that authorized it,” Ashley said.

Thor frantically tried to think of what else to do.

“Thor, I think that door is going to open by itself. Another werewolf has just sent a message that he is finished loading a cargo of liquid helium and compressed methane. He is requesting permission to transport it. The message includes the
telos
number already.”

“Thanks, Ashley! Keep a lookout for any other alerts I need to know about.”

“Alerts? What kind of help do you need?” Even telepathically, Ashley’s Canadian drawl and good humor came through.

Thor grabbed the body and moved sideways along the wall on the same side as the door, in the opposite direction to the route that he hoped the other werewolf would take. The door opened and Thor was preparing to dash inside, when the other werewolf turned and noticed him with the body.

Leona approached the doors to the main cell area. Just outside the cells were the barracks for the wolf guards. The door to the barracks was open, and perhaps as many as three hundred and fifty wolves were lounging around. There were bunks for about five hundred werewolves; however, many of the guard wolves were out on duty amongst all the many prison cells. Leona gave a little shudder. She walked up to the four wolves at the door as if she knew what she was doing.

“My Master wants to purchase some of the humans in cell twenty-six. I am to inspect them. Here is my
telos
.”

She handed the
telos
ticket over to the wolves, but they did not even bother to check it with the system. They just glanced at the plastic card and returned it. She was let in.

Leona and the two werewolves she was walking with were escorted to the door of holding cells 15 to 28. She came up to the door and repeated what she had said at the outer doorway.

“My Master wants to purchase some of the humans in cell twenty-six. I am to inspect them. Here is my
telos
.”

Leona looked at the main door. The eight other wolves that had accompanied her were being shown in. They each had
telos
that said they were assigned to the section for cleaning and repair. The guard wolves were happy that they wouldn’t have to climb around the maintenance passages of the ship. Those were some tight spaces, as was indicated by the work tools many with handle extensions for those hard-to-reach places.

Leona and her two-wolf escort were led into cell 26 by one wolf. The smell of unbathed humans was almost overpowering. The guard wolf was on high alert for any sudden movements by the captives. Leona’s wolves quietly took up positions behind the guard wolf.

The system had said there were 1,432 men, women, and children in this one cell. No one was in restraints, but the solid metal door was three feet thick. There was no escape.