by JS Rowan
That news shocked Leona—not the fact that the wife of the president of the United States could have been taken by the Supes’ werewolves, but that the Jupiter Fleet could be blamed for her death in the midst of what amounted to an interstellar war!
“I suppose in a sort of way it does make a kind of sense—but doesn’t he realize that the First Lady and her entourage were dead the minute they were taken captive?”
“I guess not,” said Hiroshi over the comm system. “After all, we are still alive. The president doesn’t know what a miracle it is that we allied with Admiral and didn’t get killed by the Supes. Gupta also said,” continued Hiroshi, “that the president is at a seventeen percent approval rating with the public. In November he will be facing the governor of your home state, Texas, in the presidential election. The governor has said numerous times that the country shouldn’t be fighting with you—the US should give you a medal.”
“Is there any good news, Hiroshi?”
Leona felt very tired. Her eyes prickled with the urge to weep.
“The good news is that we have a new, higher offer on the shuttle design from a consortium of the British United Kingdom, Canada, France, Japan, and India.”
“I thought the US was in that deal as well.”
“Not anymore. Gupta said to the representative that we would not deal with the US while they were pursuing legal charges against you. So the consortium ‘un-invited’ the US, and added India and Japan.”
“I suppose you and Gupta didn’t have anything to do with your home countries getting invited into that group?”
“Well, maybe a little,” said Hiroshi humbly.
“The ambassador is a good wolf to have in that position. Otherwise, how long until we rendezvous with the Semper Fi?”
“About six hours. Speaking of which, I have to go through the maneuvers with their pilot one more time, or maybe ten more times. Hiroshi out.”
The Semper Fi was the name that O’Neil had chosen for his ship.
Typical marine, thought Leona, smiling wryly.
It sure had the marines on her ship fired up. Most of them had requested reassignment to Captain O’Neil’s vessel once they heard the name.
The thought of the Semper Fi brightened her mood. Thor and Ashley were on board; she was looking forward to seeing both of them.
Leona’s two kids, Will and Sarah, were still getting used to the idea that Grandma and Grandpa were both werewolves now.
Heh! I guess it’ll be a shock to them when they see their dad for the first time since the conversion, thought Leona.
Ashley had sent a mental image of Thor with his three different colors of fur, turned “calico” from all the times when the fur had to re-grow over the scars from being burned and slashed off.
Leona decided that she had to take a walk to reduce the stress from all of Hiroshi’s disclosures. She was supposed to meet her daughter in an hour on the Command Deck, so there was time. She left her quarters. The three guard wolves, which had been curled up asleep in bunks in a newly installed station across from her door, were up in a flash and ready to go along with her.
Leona stepped out into the corridor and was about to start walking when one of her guard wolves pulled her toward him and out of the way of two running werewolves. The second wolf that was running caught up and tackled the first wolf. They rolled around trying to bite each other until one wolf had the other by the back of the neck. Then they let go of each other and jumped up. Their yipping sounded a lot like giggles.
It took a couple of seconds and then Leona realized that she recognized these wolves.
“Mom! Dad!” she thought.
They looked right at her and then one of them let out a yelp.
“Oh, sorry, dear,” thought her mother.
Then, in a flash, the pair were running again. The giggly yipping resumed a hundred yards down the hallway.
Oh, this day just keeps getting better and better, Leona thought grumpily to herself, blushing.
After an hour of walking on a meandering course through the ship (the “scenic route”), Leona arrived on the Command Deck. She wasn’t “OK” with the unfriendly actions by the US, but at least the knot had loosened from her shoulders.
Her daughter, Sarah, was there, talking with Hiroshi. They were discussing the ship’s drive system.
“The two magnetic towers on each end of the ship create a magnetic field that is over thirty thousand kilometers in diameter. Any solar particles that strike the field do two things: first, they push the field, which in turn pushes us, and second, they also travel down the field lines until they reach the ship. The ship then captures the particles with a linear magnetic guide system,” said Hiroshi. “The final step to the process,” he continued, “is to accelerate the particles to ninety-nine-point-nine-six percent of light-speed in a magnetic accelerator, then eject them in the main drive to provide the propulsion. The particles are not very big, but once they are accelerated they have a lot of mass. If we accelerate in a spiral perpendicular to the sun, we can achieve zero-point-eight-five of light-speed. If we were traveling to Proxima Centauri, which is four-point-three light-years away, we would get there in five-point-zero-six standard years. However, at that velocity, time would appear to be eleven-point-four-seven-four times slower on the ship, so in ship time only one hundred sixty-one days would have passed.”
“That’s very impressive,” Sarah said.
Leona didn’t need to be a telepath to see that Hiroshi was hoping Sarah meant him, not the ship. However, she was a telepath and Hiroshi was broadcasting without realizing it. Leona cleared her throat and Hiroshi carried on talking with Sarah, pretending that he had not just noticed her mother standing there.
“So the Semper Fi is carrying a replacement tower for us that the fabber on the Jupiter Station made.”
“Fabber?”
“Fabricator, it’s kind of a construction bot, but really big.”
“Oh, like a 3-D printer?”
“Kind of, but more like a Model A Ford and a Ferrari are both automobiles.”
“I see’”
“The aft tower can still produce a magnetic field without the forward tower, but it only creates a field of about six thousand kilometers in diameter. That’s not enough for us to have full power. Without that replacement it would be another three months before we reached Jupiter Station—oh, hi, Leona.”
“Hello, Hiroshi. Don’t you have some calculations to do for the rendezvous?” Leona thought to Hiroshi.
“Ah…yes, ma’am,” Hiroshi thought back to her, clearing his throat.
“MOM, I HEARD THAT!” Sarah shouted.
Leona thought her daughter was angry at first, but then she realized that Sarah was excited.
“I just heard my first telepathic sentence!”
Sarah started to do a victory dance, which caused Leona to smile. Sarah had been doing that same dance since she could first walk.
Hiroshi was trying not to notice Sarah dancing. Leona decided that if she wanted to get any more work out of her navigator, she should take Sarah somewhere else.
“Let’s go get some lunch, I’m starving,” said Leona. To Hiroshi, she thought, “Keep me posted on the status of Semper Fi.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Hiroshi thought back, looking relieved and disappointed at the same time.
“Have you seen Deck Four yet?”
“Mom, I practically live on Deck Four,” said Sarah. “Grandpa made sure that Will and I learned how to get there, from the get-go.”
“Good. A restaurant that I like is there. The guy who took it over from the Supe that ran it before is from New Orleans and his seafood boil dishes are delicious.”
“You know, Mom, we don’t actually have any seafood up here.”
“My mouth doesn’t know that, so please don’t spoil it for me.”
“Sure, OK.” Sarah took a breath. “I want to talk with you about something important to me. As you know, I’ve started telepathic training and tak
ing the drug that bumps up the telepathy of people who already have telepathic tendencies. Well, I want to start pilot training as well. I have done some of the simulations, and I’m really good at it.”
“I thought you wanted to return to Earth and finish your university degree.”
“That’s the thing, Mom. I want to do that too. So it gave me an idea. We have all this really cool technology from the aliens that we only know how to use a little.”
Leona, remembering her and Ashley’s discovery of the telepathic distance communication, nodded yes.
“Well, I talked to my professor, and he wanted to come and set up classes on Jupiter Station. So, I posted the idea on all the social media sites. We have had hundreds of professors from dozens of universities responding that they want to come and teach and study—if it’s OK with you and the other leaders.”
“Wow.”
“Yes, and that’s not all, Mom. There were about forty thousand undergrads that wanted to come as well. Given the amount of space we have available on the station, I would like to help establish Jupiter University,” Sarah said, doing her happy dance as they walked.
“All this just so you can stay in space and get your master’s degree at the same time?”
“Actually, I’m thinking of becoming one of the first PhDs from Jupiter University.”
“Wow.”
“You know, Mom, you should come up with a better expression than wow.”
Leona thought for a moment and smiled. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, and for the first time that day, they sparkled.
“Sarah, I think that is a great idea. Get me a list of university administrators that have the ability to set this up, and we can do it. I can talk with them about what’s necessary for us to establish a degree-granting institution on Jupiter Station.”
“OK, that’s excellent! Hey, isn’t that Grandma and Grandpa up ahead?”
Leona looked up and they were waiting by the elevator. As they walked up, tails wagging happily, Sarah smiled at them.
“Hi, you two. Soon I’ll be able to talk with you again. Love you guys!”
Mary thought to Leona, nodding her head, ears pricked forward.
“Tell her we love her, too.”
Leona was about to pass the message when Sarah waved her hands.
“Hey, why does everybody feel so uncomfortable?”
Leona was very impressed. “Wow. That is great, Sarah. Any level of discomfort barely registered with me. We need to test your empathic skills—they’ve got to be very high.”
“Um, thanks, Mom, for the compliment, and nice deflection. So what gives? Is this about the video?”
“What video?” Leona asked, dreading the answer.
Sarah gave her a look of annoyance, like teens at their parents through history.
“Mom, it’s not like that…there is nothing bad…ewww.”
Leona looked very relieved.
“Anyway, Grandma and Grandpa made a video of how great it was to have been converted to a werewolf at their age. Ambassador Gupta has used the video to recruit volunteers to be werewolves. The Semper Fi is going to pick the volunteers up from India. Over eleven thousand seniors have signed up to be converted. They were mostly women whose husbands have predeceased them. Admiral thought it would be great for the morale of his troops before the next battles.”
Leona was looking daggers at her parents. A ship’s captain should know these things!
“Why didn’t you guys tell me about this?”
Mary replied to Leona, her tail drooping a bit. “Because we didn’t want to get that look that you are giving us right now. We didn’t think you would find out until your father and I were on the Semper Fi heading to Earth. We are joining the best of the telepathic wolves to help with the transition.”
Leona broke out laughing, but it wasn’t a good laugh. It was a “could this day get any weirder” kind of laugh. But, she also had a stab of sadness, at the thought that her parents would want to conceal things from her.
The elevator came and everybody got on, including Leona’s guard wolves, who were being as unobtrusive as possible.
No one said anything.
“Mom, Dad—I think what you’re doing is great. Mom, I am proud that you’re a pioneer, being the first woman to be converted,” Leona said out loud.
Mary gave Leona a huge werewolf hug.
“And this way I don’t have to get killed by you two chasing each other down the hallway,” Leona said out loud, smiling wryly.
Thor came down the walkway of the Space Dog’s air lock, looking for Leona and Sarah. He spotted his wife and broke into a run. As he was running up to Leona, she held up her hand.
“Whoa, there, big fella! Don’t run over me!”
Thor came skidding to a stop and picked up Leona, whirled around with her in his arms, and gave her a hug.
“Put me down, you big lug,” Leona said, grinning.
Sarah came and gave Thor a hug at the same time as he was hugging Leona. Without hesitation, Thor reached down with one arm and scooped up Sarah as well.
Leona gave up protesting and hugged Thor hard, until he put her and Sarah down. Will and Mary came up, their tails wagging rapidly.
“Nice to see you, Thor! Good to see you upright. Not often that happens,” thought Will, with forward-pricked ears. The mental image of a wink flashed over his face.
“Good one, old man, I see you have hair now.”
They both grinned, and Will swatted Thor on the back of the head.
Thor looked at Mary, his mother-in-law, smiling.
“Mom, have you done something new with your hair?”
That earned him another swat from Will.
Thor looked around.
“Where is our son?” he thought to Leona.
“He’s in the flight simulator for the next hour. He wanted to be here, but he was scheduled and I didn’t want to show favoritism,” thought Leona.
“That’s OK, sweetie, I’ll see him when he’s finished his duty-time.”
Sarah started talking to Thor about everything that had happened to her in the last six months. It was a nonstop stream of words. She could not hear his telepathic comments so he just stood and listened, tail wagging slowly back and forth.
After fifteen minutes Leona stepped in and patted Sarah’s shoulder.
“Give your dad a break, sweetie.”
Suddenly, alarms and a verbal and telepathic warning sounded through the two ships. It was Hiroshi.
“Everybody brace for impact!”
The pressure doors all over the ship started closing. Most people in the hallways grabbed something to hold on to in case of loss of gravity.
Leona started toward an elevator, but then thought better of it. She went into a nearby room where she thought she would find a communication console. She looked around, seeing nothing.
“Mom, I found a communication thingy over here,” Sarah shouted, from the other side of the room.
“Good girl!” Leona said.
“I didn’t even tell her I was looking for one,” she thought privately to Thor, who was standing by her shoulder.
“Everyone, take a seat and hold on tight,” Leona said to her family.
Leona went over to the communications console and, first grabbing on to a handhold, said, “Hiroshi, report.”
“They shot an asteroid at us. I didn’t pick it up until it was almost too late. It just missed us. It killed a shuttle, though. Not sure who was in it.”
“They…the Supes?”
“Yes.”
“We’re a very small target to shoot an asteroid at. Are you sure we were the target?” thought Thor.
“Yes, Hiroshi, check the trajectory to Earth,” said Leona.
“OK, wait one.”
Leona waited for what seemed a long time.
“Oh no! The asteroid is headed for Earth, at least as an estimate. It is traveling at two hundred kilometers per second. If it hits Earth, there will be nothing left of t
he planet. The only good news is that hitting the shuttle altered the asteroid’s trajectory a little. I don’t know if it will still collide, or where on the Earth it will hit.”
“How long is it until it arrives at Earth?”
“The computer is showing six-point-nine-four days.”
“Can we catch it?”
“We can’t, but the Semper Fi can.”
“Hiroshi, contact O’Neil and get together the best pilots from both ships. Get on board the Semper Fi and find a way to change the course of that thing,” said Leona.
“I am going to need the shuttles and all the wolves you can spare,” said Hiroshi.
“Fine, have all wolves report to the Semper Fi on the double.”
Leona closed the connection with Hiroshi. She turned to Thor.
“I’m afraid that means you too, my love. You are the best engineering wolf we have. If anyone can save Earth, it is you.”
Thor already knew he had to go—he’d just started trying to think of how to tell Leona.
“Mom, I’m going too. I hosted a two-day working seminar on deflecting an inbound asteroid during last year’s astrophysics course. I never imagined that I would be on a ship that would be possibly trying to do this.”
Leona stood there trying to be brave—and watched her mom, dad, husband, and daughter run out of the room to board the Semper Fi.
On board the Semper Fi, Hiroshi took control of the pilot seat. The Russian pilot, Oleg, took the navigator position. Ashley turned on the ship’s internal thought-amplifier to allow everyone on the Command Deck to talk with each other.
O’Neil gave the command, and the Semper Fi undocked from the Space Dog. They were already moving faster than the asteroid, but they were going in the wrong direction.
Hiroshi decided to use the Space Dog as a slingshot to turn Semper Fi around without losing too much velocity. The benefit to the Space Dog was that all the velocity the Semper Fi lost was her gain, speeding the damaged vessel toward Jupiter Station.
The two ships were about twenty thousand kilometers from each other when Hiroshi began his maneuver. He turned the gravity drives on full in both ships so that they started to fall toward each other.
