Jupiter Fleet 1: Werewolves Don't Purr (9 page)

When Ashley was done with the clothes Leona showed her how to work the auto-feeders. The wolves already knew how to use those and looked on without interest, except for Thor. It had been a very long thirty hours before Leona had it figured out at first. The Canadians looked like they could use a meal. Leona made food for herself, Thor, and her mom too.

Well, the kibble texture was a turnoff, and the water was just water, but finally putting something into her stomach was wonderful! Mary gave her daughter a big hug before returning to the conversion table and Will.

Leona went to work trying to figure out how to get some of that coffee. Hot, dark, black, wonderful-smelling coffee…hmm. She looked up to find that all the wolves were looking at her.

“Sorry, guys, I’ll try to stop broadcasting my coffee fantasies to you.”

Thor gave a short bark of laughter. His eyes smiled at Leona, and she smiled back.

Thor was finally getting the hang of that
specific transmission
stuff. He wished that he had paid more attention to the ESP work when he was in school with Leona. He had only done it at first so he could get close to this extremely hot coed. She didn’t know it, but he had spent a lot of his time looking at her and not the Zener cards. Still, four years of experiments had changed that ESP center in his brain so that he at least understood how it should
feel
to communicate with one person and not another.

The last three times that he had transmitted to Arjun, Vihaan had not stirred from his spot on the floor. Thor decided to be bad, so he sent an extremely sexy memory (one of the few that had come back to him) to Leona, and watched her start to blush. She glanced around the room, and when she saw that no one else was paying attention to them, she looked at him with a smile.

“You’re doing much better with that.”

Their flirty moment was interrupted by the return of Commander Gupta. He was very agitated.

“I cannot not see how we can break in and get the weapons,” he thought, amplified by the system. “We need them desperately to even up the odds with the Supes and their werewolves.”

“I have good news, Commander,” said Leona. “I have figured out how to purchase coffee.”

“I cannot see how this is good news. I have just told you the weapons are not accessible, and you tell me you have bought coffee?”

“She really likes her coffee,” commented Thor, trying to be helpful but not succeeding.

Leona gave Thor a look and then proceeded to brief Commander Gupta. “In order to buy the coffee, I had to register myself as an administration slave of Mixaucnnhet. Once I was registered, I discovered that I could buy numbered lots from any supply of the things that have been brought on board the ship.”

“That is why you had me transmit the lot numbers to you,” thought the commander.

“Correct. After I had those lot numbers, I bought all the weapons that were in those lots. I also bought some other random stuff so that the system would not isolate that I was purchasing only weapons,” said Leona. “Then I rented a storeroom near here, to move all the items into.”

Thor was smiling his big wolf-dog smile at her. “You are so clever!” he thought.

“Was Mixaucnnhet rich, then, to afford all of that?” asked Arjun.

“He was well-off by their standards, but no, he couldn’t afford
all
of that,” said Leona.

“Then how…?” thought Thor.

“Well, the Supe that owned our COBRA guys was getting tired of feeding them for very little return. He had them up for sale as untrained werewolves with an option for agricultural use as, ahem…feedstock.”

Leona cleared her throat. All the werewolves stood up and started growling, even Thor.

“Hey, guys, settle down! I didn’t like that outcome, so I bought the COBRA lot. Then I reclassified you and your men, Commander, and advertised you for sale as ‘Thinking Converted House Servants’ at a hundred times the price I paid for your lot. I also put Thor up for sale as well.”

“You did what?” Thor asked incredulously.

“Turns out, I sold you all. I have ten days to deliver.”

CHAPTER 4

Werewolves for Sale or Rent

November 6, 2038, 1:24 a.m.

On Board Alien Ship

“I can’t believe you sold me. I’ve only been a wolf for a week and you sold me!” thought Thor. The thought-amplifier picked up his aggrieved emotional tone. “What happened to ‘til death do us part’?”

“More important than even that is, to whom did you sell us?” thought Commander Gupta.

Leona decided to ignore Thor’s complaints and answer the commander. That was hard. She chewed on her lower lip.

“I sold you to a ship that’s orbiting Jupiter. They have a space station being built there. This ship is gathering fuel there for the run to Alpha Centauri.”

“So in ten days you expect us to leave this ship for another Mind-Breaker ship? My men and I will not welcome a life of servitude to the aliens, madam.”

“No, I expect that in ten days we will control this ship,” said Leona.

“Wow, dear, when you plan—you plan big,” thought Thor.

“How do you expect that we can execute a plan to take this vessel?” thought Commander Gupta.

Leona noticed that Thor and all the commando werewolves had their ears pricked forward. The Canadian fighters were also looking very excited.

“I don’t know. I got you the guns, I managed to get you access to most parts of the ship, and I got your meat-stock status removed by buying and selling you. The rest, my dear military commander, is up to you,” said Leona.

Thor sent her a private thought-message of a passionate kiss. Leona blushed, but no one else seemed to have perceived it.

“Actually, I do have an idea that I considered when we were locked up. Can you rent a large room near here with an auto-feeder? Also, I am going to need a very large quantity of thought-helmets,” replied Commander Mukesh Gupta, with an exceedingly wolfish grin.

The next afternoon, Thor and Constable Chatterjee were casually hiding in a side hallway. That is, they were hiding while trying not to
look
like they were hiding. They saw some of their prey approaching, a pair of green-collar werewolves. When the pair were almost at the hallway, Thor stepped out in front of them.

“You two! Who are you attached to, and where are you heading?” he growled.

The appearance of a large command wolf startled the two green-collar wolves. They froze.

Thor bellowed in their minds and growled out loud. “Well, answer me, you misbegotten curs!”

If the green-collar wolves could have paled, they would have. One of them lost control of his bladder and peed on the floor.

“Constable, come over here,” thought Thor.

Constable Chatterjee came from where he had been peeking around the corner.

“Take these two to the holding facility with the others,” thought Thor to the commando. He fixed his gaze on the two wolves, and glowered with menace and bared fangs. “Put these helmets on, and don’t give this other wolf any trouble.”

Thor handed over the thought-helmets and the two wolves could not put them on fast enough.

Two days later Arjun stared intently at a werewolf after Ashley removed his collar. They were using empathy to evoke emotions that would trigger memories. The memories would unlock the werewolf’s humanity, which had been buried in the conversion process.

The process only worked on green-collar wolves. Werewolves that had “graduated” out of their collars were too far gone to be anything resembling human again. They were still excellent fighters, though, and could still be useful—but as werewolves only.

With green-collar wolves, the empathic procedure only worked about 60 percent of the time. So Arjun said nothing to the subject. He blocked any attempt that the werewolf made at verbal telepathic communication. This meant that if the green-collared wolf did not respond to the treatment, there was no risk of the subject reporting this project to the Supes.

As far as the green-collar wolves knew, this was just another of the confusing tests on their way to getting their collars removed. The failed wolves had their collars put back on and were escorted back to where they were found. They were told not to tell any of the other green-collars about the testing, because they might ruin future testing. All the green-collar wolves cooperated, since they wanted to be promoted to leader-wolf someday.

After the latest wolf was rejected, the commander signaled Arjun to talk with him.

“How is the backup plan going?” Commander Gupta said.

“I cannot tell for sure, but I think it will work as planned.”

Commander Gupta walked to another room, where wolves that had started to get their memories back were being moved. The commander and Constable Mistry would help them the rest of the way. They would never fully recover their memories, just like Thor would never recover all of his. However, they would recover their personalities and would no longer be savage beasts fit only for combat.

“All going well, Constable?” he asked Mistry.

“Very well, sir,” replied the constable. Had he been a human in uniform, he would have come to attention, but even in werewolf fur he made a fair approximation of the military courtesy.

Commander Gupta left the room, leaving Constable Mistry working with the recovering wolves. The last room in the series that Leona had procured for them was just down the hall. It was the combat training room—functionally, a dojo. During their year of captivity, the COBRA unarmed combat specialist, Constable Jayaraman, had devised his own form of wolf Bhimaseni. The moves were based on a South Asian martial art that focused on sheer strength, something the werewolves had in abundance.

“Constable Jayaraman, how is it progressing with the new wolves?”

“It could not be better, sir. The wolves are very fast learners of the fighting styles. They are designed for fighting, so this comes naturally. Also, with werewolf endurance, we can work on new techniques for hours. The rapid healing is a plus, because we do not have to hold back much on the strikes. If a wolf is injured, then I need only have him rest for twenty minutes and he is ready to fight again.”

“How many have we trained so far?”

“In the last day we have achieved two werewolves fully trained. But that is because they were already martial arts experts when they were human. I have made both of them instructors now. Another eleven are much better fighters than when they came in here. I would say two more days of training and they will be as good as they can be in this time frame.”

“What about the other twenty-two that we have brought back?”

“They are werewolves so they are already good at fighting, but they may not be much better than the older, tougher ship wolves. They should, however, be able to take the newer, less experienced wolves in an even fight.”

“What about in an uneven fight?”

“Then…they should have some sort of weapon they could use. Otherwise, they will not stand much of a chance.”

Leona stepped into the room. She caught the gaze of the COBRA leader. The two former martial arts instructors, as well as their students, looked at her surreptitiously with wistful expressions on their faces. They had not seen a human female in months.