Page 33 of Her Wolves

When you join the Canis Guard, you train for a day like this.

The greatest dangers, the greatest disasters, the biggest battles—that’s what you prepare yourself for.The days when who you are and what you can do are put to the ultimate test—that’s what you’re thinking of when you go through the drills and the maneuvers, when you put on the uniform.That’s what’s on your mind when you stand, not with the pack that you weren’t born into, but the one that you proved you could be a part of.The Guard is your pack; the uniformed men and women around you are your brother and sister wolves, at whose side you’ll do battle and maybe die.But on a day like this, it isn’t the dying you think of.It’s the lives you’re saving.

In wolf shape, Nick and I got into a topless, armed Guard speeder and went skimming out over the streets of Leto, where there was plenty of battle to go around.Nick sat in the pilot’s seat and I literally “rode shotgun,” responsible for the controls of the speeder’s weapons.I thought of them as extensions of my own wolf fangs and claws—fangs and claws of light and fire, ready to tear deep into my prey, or my enemy.And that enemy was making its presence known.

Colonial Defense had gotten most of the civilians into basement shelters in buildings around the city.A few unlucky ones were lying still in the streets while the attack that claimed their lives raged all around them.Part of our job would be to avenge the helpless people who had fallen.Everywhere was thunder and fire.Smoke poured from the windows ofburning buildings.Flames danced in cruel orange waves on bushes and trees.Some of those trees were shambling around on root-like legs, their limbs and leaves being gnawed away by fire.From behind some buildings came the shocking bursts of explosions.And in the streets and in the air were the ones who had caused it all.

We could see them down on the ground, exchanging energy bolts with our own people and the Colonial troops.We could see them swerving around the buildings in their gliding assault vehicles, firing at targets both on the ground and in the air:the coal-bodied Soorns, who for so long had been nothing to us but images in historical records and figures in stories we’d learned in school and in the Guard Academy.Now the Soorns were real, and they were upon us, and we were sure as hell upon them.

While Nick piloted, I fired.Three Soorn attack skimmers dropped down from overhead and came right towards us, their weapons lit up, ready to blast us out of the air—if I let them.The second I caught sight of them, I opened fire.From the forward guns of our speeder came lances of energy that cut into the Soorn skimmer directly in front of us, slicing its forward section and sending it swerving away and down.The fire of the other two Soorn craft bracketed us, hemming us in.Nick did a hard bank turn around the corner of one building and arced around the other side of it.One of the enemy craft came around the other side and headed for us, set to open fire.I anticipated this and shot first.My shot hit one side of the Soorn craft’s front end, releasing a shower of sparks.The enemy swerved out of control and careened right into the building, disappearing in a blast of fire and smoke and shattered pieces.

Blazing streaks tore through the air from behind us, searing through the air right above me and between us.I took a quick look over my shoulder and saw the last of those threeattack skimmers bearing down on us.I shouted, “Nick!”, just as two more shots came sizzling through, ripping between us again and off to the side of the pilot seat.

“I know!” Nick shouted back.“Hang on!”And he went into a fast, low swoop towards the ground as if we’d been hit.The Soorn skimmer, maintaining its speed but not changing its trajectory in time, whipped past above us.As soon as it cleared us, Nick climbed up again and I opened fire at it.I caught the Soorns at the bottom of their aft section, producing a rude blossom of fire from their hull and making them spin away and crash explosively on the city street.

“Yes!” I growled, but immediately we had another problem.Suddenly our craft lurched hard, and we saw a burst of light from under where we sat.The underside of our speeder started belching smoke and I knew what had happened.We’d been hit from below, somewhere on the street, and were losing altitude.

“We’re going down!” Nick cried, a curse in his voice.He gripped the controls hard in his paws and showed his fangs.Our speeder went careening forward and downward, spewing a trail of smoke behind it.I saw at once that Nick was headed for one of the city’s public pools to ditch the craft.Baring my own fangs and growling hard, I braced myself.Everything went blurring by us as the surface of the water loomed up at us.A second later, everything was a splash and water was everywhere, including in our cockpit.Not wasting a second, we jumped from the craft and into the pool, where we found ourselves waist-deep in the water, and whipped out our two-guns even as Soorn ground troops surrounded the pool.

Nick and I moved in a blur, whirling around and spinning our weapons, taking aim with the energy-beam ends of the two-guns and shooting at the Soorns as they closed in on us.Our shots brought down some of our attackers, while those stillcharging fired their own weapons.We deflected their shots with the blade ends of our two-guns, sending sparks out and down to sizzle in the water.It looked as if there were more than a dozen Soorns coming for us on all sides.We’d take down as many as we could before they got us.

Somewhere in a corner of my mind was Tara’s face, urging me on, urging both of us not to give up, to keep blasting and fighting to the last possible second.This image of her in my mind might be the last I ever saw of her.

Kris, I thought while deflecting incoming Soorn fire, if this is the end, take care of her.Take care of Tara.

Suddenly there came the sound of other weapons being fired, not from around us, but from above us.Explosions erupted on the pavement around the pool.A shadow slid over the water.The Soorns stopped their charge and gazed upward, and so did Nick and I.

Swooping in above us came two of the Caloxi tentacle craft, their arms glowing and firing.Their bolts rained down on every side of the pool, slicing with fiery talons into the Soorns.The dark aliens returned fire, their beams grazing against the hulls of the Caloxi craft as they moved along, tentacles blasting steadily.More Soorns were hit and crumpled to the ground, and we kept blasting at those who remained, dropping more of them.Those who were left standing retreated, running off to find other foes.

The area around the pool was quiet now.The only sounds came from other battles in the city nearby.Nick and I looked up at the Caloxi craft that had come to our rescue.They hovered over us as if to salute us, these beings who before today had been strangers, these aliens who earlier would have killed us as soon as they looked at us.For a moment, the Caloxi looked down at us from their seats in the dishes of their craft, then veered away to take the battle elsewhere.Nick and I had been reprieved wellenough, but our own duty still called.We would have to find more battle for ourselves.

Striding from the pool, we looked out over the city and saw more Caloxi tentacle craft moving towards places where the thunder of combat continued to boom.As we stepped from the water, I dared to wonder where it all would end.

The moment we were on dry ground again, we had another problem.

A loud, vicious roar made us spin around to one side.From around some tall hedges came more trouble:Soorn-mutated reptile beasts, two of them, striding like Tyrannosaurs, their mouths showing fangs like daggers.At the sight of us, these beats paused only long enough to let out roars to tell us that they were hungry and had a taste for wolf meat.

The sound of their roaring drowned out my reaction: “Oh, hell…”

Nick was the first to fire, his blast hitting the armored scales on the breast of one monster and sparking off, leaving only a reddened area on the reptile’s hide.It looked as if only prolonged and concentrated fire, or a more powerful weapon than either of us had, would penetrate the skins of these beasts, which was bad news for us.The beast that Nick hit moved its head menacingly forward and released a screeching, bellowing sound, while its friend came lumbering directly at me.I let loose with one shot, two shots, three, hitting it about its breast and neck.It reared back and screeched and bellowed like the other one, as if to tell me, I’m gonna get you for that.Then both creatures charged, and Nick and I turned and ran.The creatures’ footfalls thundered behind us as we moved down the street on our wolf legs, using all of our wolf speed.The reptile beasts came after us, roaring wildly as they ran.

It was now a chase to see which was faster, two lycanthropes or two huge mutant saurians.The outcome wasnot sure.We ran while firing over our shoulders at our pursuers, some of our shots connecting and others missing them.We didn’t slow them down a bit.Our best chance now was to find someplace to duck into that was too small for them to enter and too strong for them to tear down and get us—perhaps an empty building that hadn’t been too blasted or burned to be safe.We were running down along a courtyard in an area of shops and eateries that had been evacuated.Just one building that they couldn’t break into or bring the ceiling down on us; that was all we needed.

At the end of the courtyard was an intersection with another street, and here we caught a lucky break.Coming down that street was a big, heavy Colonial skimmer craft—with a big, beautiful photon cannon mounted at its front end.Emerging from the courtyard with the monster reptiles still thundering behind us, we waved down the Colonial craft, which stopped in front of us.Nick motioned at our pursuers, and the pilot of the skimmer understood what we meant.The skimmer pivoted, pointing its cannon down the courtyard at the approaching beasts, while Nick and I ran around the other side of the vehicle.As soon as we were clear, the pilot let loose with that cannon.Mighty beams of energy blasted forth to the edge of the courtyard where we had just been.We peered around the skimmer and saw one beam hit one of the reptiles square in the chest.Where the big energy bolt hit, there was a fiery eruption; and the beast keeled over to one side.The sound of its body hitting the pavement was its last thunder.

The other monster managed to get closer to the skimmer craft.It lunged its head forward and snapped its huge, ferocious jaws as if it could bite the cannon clean off.In answer, the Colonial weapon released its fury again in another pulverizing beam that punched right through the midsection of the saurian.Its roars and bellows were cut off as a hole was cut into its bellyand out its back.Thrashing its tail, it collapsed onto one side and lay on the pavement, breathing its last.

We heard a clicking sound and the forward hatch of the Colonial craft swung open.The woman Colonial soldier in the pilot’s seat looked at us from under the rim of her helmet and nodded her head.“Looks like you two got yourselves into some trouble there.”

“Might say that,” said Nick.We studied her for a moment and noticed she was a blonde.She didn’t have the long hair of another blonde that we’d gotten to know very well, but for that moment we couldn’t help thinking about her, back in the bunkers with Kris, preparing to do the thing that we hoped would turn all this madness around.

From the distance came the sounds of ongoing battle.Much as we’d trained for this, I still had to ask myself when and how this was going to end.

The woman pilot looked off in the direction of the battle sounds and said, “They could use us somewhere else.Get in.”

She opened a side hatch and Nick and I climbed inside to where some other uniformed, armed humans were sitting.They welcomed us—wolf men or humans, we were all together in this—and the pilot closed her hatches and got under way again.

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