by JS Rowan
Admiral wagged his tail slowly back and forth a couple of times. His wolves and the Hijan Alpha wolf relaxed slightly, taking this as a sign that their mission was on track.
As they headed for the elevator to the Command Deck, Admiral growled softly as he thought about the fact that after more than seven hundred ship years, he still could not open a door by himself.
When the Supes made the wolves, they had established a brain wave pattern that was recognized by all the ships’ computers as “wolf.” Similarly, the Alphas were recognizable to the computers by their brain wave patterns. The werewolves could not open any doors that had not been specifically set up for wolf access. If they needed to get into a room, they either used a telos permission or the Supes opened the door for them. The only exceptions were areas such as the prison barracks and cell doors. Similarly, the wolves’ brain wave patterns prevented them from accessing the ships’ computer systems or any of the drive systems and other controls.
When slaves were created, all their memories were wiped, similar to the werewolves. However, unlike the wolves, all their aggression and individuality was also destroyed. Slaves for the most part would not do anything that they were not told to do. So they had to be told when to eat and when to sleep and when to perform their simple duties. Some of them were allowed to keep particular skills like cleaning or cooking.
Occasionally, there would be a specific individual whose skills were such that they could not be tampered with in this fashion without losing the valuable expertise. One such was the sword-master Isamu. But the Supes in general considered those slaves to be very dangerous and this practice was not accepted on most ships.
Admiral bared his fangs slightly at the thought. That was, in fact, what had gotten the former Ship Master of the Space Dog killed six months ago. His Supe second-in-command had found out that he had left a medical doctor from Earth with his memories and motivations still intact. However, the second officer had not found out about Isamu, Hiroshi, and one other expert slave.
Admiral remembered with pleasure the battle that had installed Leona as the new Ship Master of the renamed Space Dog. Now fifteen hundred of the Hijan werewolves were being kept busy on Space Dog until he had achieved supremacy over the Hijan; without the humans he would never have had this chance.
The elevator doors opened at Deck Eighty-five. This ship was older than the Space Dog and had had ten more decks added in its last retrofit. The group approached the werewolves and Masters guarding the entrance of the Command Deck.
The Hijan’s Alpha addressed the guards with the assurance of his office. “I am here with a prize for the Ship Master.”
The Master in charge of the guard unit walked up and looked at Admiral very closely. “Why is he still armed?” demanded the Master.
“So I can do this,” Admiral replied.
He pulled out his kitana and with a flash of steel beheaded the Master. The other Masters stood frozen with surprise, and that was the way they died as well.
The werewolves at the entrance took no action themselves, having been warned by their Alpha a second before Admiral acted. The Space Dog wolves and the entrance party made sure the deck was secure.
Leona contacted Admiral from the Shuttle Deck. “I see that you’ve secured the entryway. Please let me know when you want the Command Deck door opened.”
Admiral grinned to hear that beautiful word, please.
He looked at the Hijan’s Alpha and put his ears down. “Remember that you and the wolves must move very quickly. Once the Ship Master realizes what is going on, he will try to seize and control werewolves to make them fight for him. Move in and kill any Masters that you see, without warning.”
“I understand, Admiral,” thought the Hijan Alpha.
“Good. Leona, open the door now.”
The werewolves, led by the Hijan Alpha, ran onto the Command Deck, killing Masters as they went. None of the Masters stood a chance. Most did not even know what hit them before they died. Admiral walked on the deck after the action was over.
“You have done an excellent job, Alpha.”
“Thank you, Ship Mas—ah, Admiral.”
Admiral grinned, baring all his teeth, and, with a few quiet yips, all the other wolves grinned too.
“Leona, we have secured the Command Deck. Please begin moving the reinforcement wolves back to the Hijan so that we can remove the infestation on this ship.”
“Infestation?” Leona asked.
“Yes, the ones you call the Supes,” replied Admiral.
Leona caught up to Admiral on the Command Deck. The corridors of the ship were filling up again with returned Hijan werewolves and also some human fighters.
“Congratulations! You now have a ship of your own. What are you going to call it?”
“The name Hijan means ‘victory’ in your language. Because it was humans that helped me get this ship, I’m going to call it Victory.”
“I like that idea lot,” said Leona.
“Leona, there something I must tell you. Some other species in the past have taken ships from the horde of Masters. They always come and completely wipe out the species that dared to do so,” thought Admiral.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Leona blinked, her stomach seemingly in free-fall.
“It is because I expected that we would all die. I did not think we could take one ship, and now we have two. I wanted to die in battle, not on some forest moon.” Admiral paused, giving his words a chance to sink in, and then continued. “However, I now believe that we have a chance. None of the other species that I have encountered are as adept at using the Supes’ technology—and you humans have just newly encountered it. In fact, the last species that tried to take one of the horde’s ships, a shuttle, was extinguished before they even learned how to operate one of the main vessels.”
“This is terrible news! You’re telling me I might have doomed my entire species!”
“Your species was doomed from moment the Supes’ first ship showed up in your solar system. You humans were either doomed to extinction, or doomed to be livestock.”
Leona glared at Admiral. With her growing telepathic ability, her anger was like a laser beam. With his Alpha telepathic ability, Admiral blocked what he knew she did not realize was actually a telepathic attack.
“Leona, please calm down. Our best allies are time and stealth. No Supe knows that we have taken these ships. Other than the ships that are inbound to the system already, the nearest outpost is what you humans call Proxima Centauri, which is four-point-two-two light-years away. So, if the Supes were to send a distress message today, it would take four-point-two years for the message to get to Proxima Centauri, and the response would take about five years to get back here.”
Leona started to regain some control over her emotions. “How many ships are at Proxima Centauri?”
“I cannot tell you how many ships are there now. I can tell you that six normal-time years ago, when we left Proxima Centauri, there were six Supe ships there.”
“What do you mean by normal-time years?”
Leona’s mouth was dry, and her voice rasped a bit, but Admiral understood her telepathically and did not notice the effect.
“When a ship is traveling close to light-speed, time slows down on board. At the speed that we were traveling to get here, just under light-speed, only six months passed on board the ship. Meanwhile, on your planet, five years went by. The time that passes on a planet is what we call normal-time years—in this case six years, while I only experienced two years of being in orbit and six months of transit.”
“So we need to keep the word from getting out, and get back to Earth and start preparing for war,” said Leona.
“Exactly. To do that, we are going to need to take Jupiter Station. However, first I need you or Ashley to look through the logs of this ship to see if any distress calls went out. Or, if the call went out, did it say anything about losing control of the ship?”
Leona thought about
this for second. Then she accessed a nearby communications console. “Ashley, we need your help over here.”
“Oh, Leona, I’m glad you contacted me! We have a big problem.”
Leona groaned and braced herself for more bad news. “What,” she griped.
“Ah, sorry, Leona, but Hiroshi tells me that we are on a collision course with Jupiter.”
“You mean Jupiter Station?”
“No, I mean Jupiter the planet. That big thing that is occupying most of the sky right in front of us,” said Ashley.
“How is that possible? Don’t the Supes know how to drive their own ships?”
Hiroshi cleared his throat and his voice came over the system. “The ship was on a course to do magnetic atmospheric braking. However, we changed course slightly when we decided to fly in formation with the Hijan. That steeper course, along with the gravity of Jupiter, has us now on a collision course with the upper atmosphere of the planet. We’re moving fast enough that we should just bounce off the atmosphere. I think. However, I don’t think there’ll be much left of the ship if we do that,” said Hiroshi.
“Can’t we just do a course correction?”
“Normally, yes, we could, but it’s a pretty big course correction, and unfortunately one section of our ship still has no gravity. That’s why the Supes took the ship’s drive off-line in the first place. The shearing stresses would tear the ship apart. Another problem is that we have two ships, and I’m only one pilot.”
“Of course there’s another problem, there’s always another problem,” grouched Leona. “Wait! I have an idea. Could you do the course correction if we had no gravity on the Space Dog?”
“Yes, I could do it.” Hiroshi’s voice became thoughtful. “I would have to limit the power of the burn to ten gravities, but that should do the trick.”
“Can you fly the Victory remotely?”
“Um, what’s the Victory?” Ashley’s voice was cautious.
“It’s the new name for the Hijan, but that’s not important right now. Hiroshi, can you fly it?”
“Well.” Hiroshi huffed in a deep breath and then let it hiss out between his teeth while he thought over the problem. Leona found the sound putting her own teeth on edge, and she noticed all the werewolves’ ears twitching.
“The only thing I can do,” said the young Japanese, “is to activate an automatic sequence that will bring the ship back to Jupiter Station.”
Leona turned from the console and briefed Admiral, mind to mind.
“Well, Admiral, if there’s any doubt about what we needed to do before, there is none now. You are going to have to take Jupiter Station,” said Leona.
“It will be done,” replied Admiral.
“Ashley, I need you to come to this ship, now called Victory. You’re the best person to try to train yourself to fly it. Also, bring some of the humans that we have been testing for telepathic ability. And ask those military folks for some pilots. You are going to need to train some of them to help you,” said Leona.
“Really? I was hoping to get back to Earth! But, I guess all the life-and-death stuff has to come first. I’ll get my family and those could-be-telepathic people and pilots, and get over that ship,” said Ashley.
It took Leona almost thirty minutes to get all the people (humans and wolves) she could think of rounded up and into the shuttle. As she was getting settled into her seat in the front of the shuttle she heard a plaintive call from Hiroshi.
“Leona, please hurry.”
It was the fourth time in the last ten minutes he had contacted her, imploring her to hurry.
“I am just settling into my seat now. You can bring the shuttle back to the Space Dog any time.”
Hiroshi maneuvered the Space Dog away from the Victory. He then engaged the auto-navigation program on the Victory. Leona saw the Victory disappear instantly from her view. It had decelerated at two hundred gravities; however, on board Victory they barely felt anything, thanks to the gravity plates.
Jupiter filled Leona’s viewing window. She had had no idea they were this close to the huge gas giant. The shuttle swung quickly into the Shuttle Bay and landed almost instantaneously, with a thump.
Leona and the rest of the passengers were starting to get to their feet in the shuttle when Hiroshi turned off the gravity for the ship. Leona was planning to make her way to the docking tube when Hiroshi contacted her.
“Leona, I think you and everyone else should stay on your shuttle. You can strap in there—this is going to get rough.”
“What about all the people on the Space Dog?”
“I have had a message playing on the ship’s audio system for people to strap themselves in where possible. There are going to be a lot of broken bones, but hopefully no one will get killed. People have spread out all over the ship in Supes’ quarters that are designed with systems for emergencies like this. I’ve also been telling people to secure any loose objects. We’ve been playing this message since I first contacted you about this. Um, that includes the conversion lab where your parents and Ashley’s sister are with that reclaimed werewolf—the Chinese guy.”
“Axel Chin?” replied Leona reflexively.
“Yeah, him.”
Hiroshi started turning the Space Dog perpendicular to its path of travel, with the engines of the ship pointed toward Jupiter. He didn’t want to slow the ship, just move it into a higher orbit. However, the ship had a tremendous amount of mass, so it would require a lot of thrust, very quickly, to accomplish the maneuver.
He started at one-half gravity of thrust just to get everybody back on the floor, if they happened to be floating untethered in zero gravity. Hiroshi then hit the ship with ten gravities of thrust.
Leona felt like somebody had just kicked her, and whoever kicked her head had decided to set an elephant on top of her as well. The thrust lasted for four and a half minutes. It was a huge relief when it stopped. Every bone in Leona’s body hurt. She shut her eyes to avoid “hearing” the cries of everyone on the shuttle.
Hiroshi sighed. “I think we’re good. That should’ve lifted us clear of the atmosphere.”
Unfortunately, Hiroshi was wrong.
The Space Dog had lattice towers projecting a kilometer out front and aft of the ship. While they were well clear of the main Jovian atmosphere, the tip of the aft tower passed through a cloud of post-atmospheric gas. The density of this gas was thin enough that normally it wouldn’t have made a difference.
However, at a speed of fifteen hundred kilometers a second it created enough drag to start the Space Dog tumbling. When the front tower passed through the gas during the rotation it, too, sped up the rotation. The towers hit the gas four times each before the ship cleared the area where gas plumes were extending above the planet. By the time they escaped the atmosphere, the Space Dog was spinning at a terrible rate.
The effect inside the ship was very uncomfortable. At the rear of the ship, people were experiencing three gravities pulling them toward the deck floor plates. At the bow of the ship, they were experiencing three gravities throwing them toward the ceilings. Where Leona was, in the middle of the ship, there was no gravity at all, and she was very glad for her seat belt.
Leona used the shuttle communications to contact Hiroshi. “What’s happening? Is this how it’s supposed to behave?”
“I’m a little busy right now. Oh, crap on a stick!” said Hiroshi.
“What? Hiroshi—what is crap on a stick? What kind of expression is that anyway?”
There was no answer from Hiroshi. Then she looked out the shuttle window over the pilot’s shoulder, and wished she hadn’t. Out the end of the Shuttle Bay, Jupiter was spinning crazily past the bay’s door.
After a time the spinning seemed to be slowing. Three minutes later Hiroshi contacted her, sounding excited but satisfied.
“OK, we’re good now. I’m going to reengage gravity in the areas where it still functions.”
“Are you sure we’re good now?”
“Ye
ah, anyway, I’m as sure as I can be at this moment. This astro-navigation is not as easy as it sounds on the computer,” said Hiroshi.
Hiroshi managed to turn on the gravity gradually, which was a mercy.
“I’m on my way to the Command Deck,” said Leona, switching off the comm system and hurrying out of the shuttle. The werewolves stood aside to let the woman pass swiftly by them.
Leona clamped her jaws tight. It looked like a hurricane had gone through the fore section of the ship. Any object that had not been properly secured had been crushed under ten gravities and then hurled toward the ceiling at three gravities.
That included a number of people, who now looked quite dead. It seemed that most of the dead-looking ones were dressed in the green slave gowns. Evidently the broadcast warnings had not been simple enough for the mind-broken slaves to understand. Leona didn’t stop, because there were already other people trying to assist.
She cast her eyes up briefly to inspect the ceiling. The Supes had built it very solidly, possibly with situations just like this in mind.
Leona entered the Command Deck and corralled Hiroshi.
“OK, what’s happening?.”
Referring to the ship’s computer, Hiroshi gave her the run-down.
“There are fifty-two thousand five hundred thirty-eight souls on board, according to the ship’s system. Werewolves number one thousand five hundred seventy eight. Fifty-nine are nonhuman former slaves, and the rest are human. The computer says that we lost one hundred three people of all species in the emergency. I am so sorry that I lost control of the ship.”
“You did better than any of the rest of us could have done. Without you, we all would have died. So, how about you telling me where we are headed,” Leona said.
Hiroshi flinched. Leona briefly wondered if she was being too abrupt with the kid, or whether her hair was a fright from zero gravity.
“Leona…I have to tell you, we lost Thor.”
“Lost Thor! Is he dead?” Leona’s heart started to hammer.
