Jupiter Fleet 1: Werewolves Don't Purr by JS Rowan Read Free Book Online Page B

security Superior had used, and proceeded to scan Thor with them.
    Then all of them except for the poor scared wolf left the room, and the door closed.

    Leona heard the commotion outside her door. She flipped on the monitor that she had discovered in the system, just in time to see the door close on a wolf that she was pretty sure was not Thor. She waved her mother away from the door.
    “Mom, please take cover behind the desk. I’m going to open the door and try to lure them inside.”
    “Why on earth would you want to do that?” asked Mary.
    “Because a blaster battle in the hallway would attract too much attention.”
    “Uh, yeah.”
    Mary went behind the desk and lowered herself to her hands and knees. While she peeked around the side of the desk, Leona went to the door and pressed a panel that was there. She immediately retreated out of the line of fire in case the werewolves or her mother shot their weapons.
    The wolves seemed surprised when the door opened, but they stepped cautiously inside. They saw Mary with the weapon trained on them, but to Leona’s surprise they made no aggressive moves. Leona’s heart leaped. Thor was with them, and he looked unharmed.
    The large werewolf that seemed to be in charge slowly reached over and removed Thor’s restraints and the half helmet.
    “Are you all right?” Leona’s voice cracked with anxiety.
    “I’m fine—but a little confused,” thought Thor. “The main wolf here is asking that you close the door and raise the privacy shield.”
    Leona went to the console, and in a second the door was closed. It took her a couple of minutes of concentration before she announced out loud, “The privacy screen is on.”
    “Now he is asking you to amplify internal connections,” thought Thor. One of his ears pointed up while the other drooped down.
    Leona licked her lips. After some searching, she found “amplify,” and double-checked what that was. She learned that it was a method of allowing non-telepathic species to communicate with the Superiors. She checked that no thoughts or emotions were going to leave the lab, and that there were no recording devices at work. There weren’t. Leona turned on the amplification.
    “Ah! You can now hear me. That is very good.” Somehow the system conveyed the leader’s Indian accent.
    “What was that? I heard a voice but no one spoke! Is that what you have been dealing with, Leona?”
    Mary’s ragged emotions came through with the statement, and it was very intense telepathically. All the wolves were cringing.
    “Um, Mom? That was…disturbing. Please try to calm yourself, so that we can hear the werewolves.”
    Leona’s mother nodded, looking away as she struggled to regain control of herself.
    Thor moved over to Leona’s side. Mary kept her weapon trained on the other werewolves. None of them moved, but the big leader wolf tilted his head.
    “Please let me introduce myself. I am Commander Mukesh Gupta of the Commando Battalion for Resolute Action, or COBRA, of the Central Armed Police Force of India. These wolves are all my surviving commandos.”

    “What is going on? Why did you take me prisoner? Who…? Why did you leave that wolf in the other room?” asked Thor in a flood of thoughts.
    “You have not learned to contain any of your thoughts. I thought it best to take you prisoner and put a thought-helmet on you so that you could not give away all that has happened here. I knew there would be an arrest certificate for you after I saw the thoughts you had about that encounter with the Mind-Breaker,” said Commander Gupta. “The other wolf is now enduring what the Mind-Breakers call ‘electro-training therapy.’ It is mind-breaking torture. He has been through it before and we hope that he will be all right. If we had not put him in that device, there would now be a security team coming round to find out why. The scan we did on you will cause the system to think that is you in there.”
    “Wait,” said Mary,