THE WOLVES OF ARCANUS

Chapter 1: Arrival

In a galaxy far, far away from Aristal, a race of wolves fought a battle for survival against a vicious enemy from space. The insectoid creatures had nearly succeeded in taking over their people and their planet before they finally were able to slaughter them all.

After they managed to recover from the creatures deprivations, their council decided no other world should suffer such a calamity. They were honor bound to hunt these things down and destroy them wherever they were found, sending a message to the species that their kind was not welcome anywhere.

For over a century, the wolf race from the planet Arcanus sent their specially trained warriors out in long distance spaceships to hunt the Tibican. Their modus operandi was to scan any inhabited planet that had a moderate climate and was fairly industrialized that was a favorite of the creatures and see if the Tibican’s had stopped there.

If the Tibican were there, the planet was searched for any survivors. Then they would offer their aid and destroy the creatures either for them or with them. On other planets that had been visited but had driven off the dangerous insects, they would send an insertion team to gather intelligence on how the planet survived the attack and that information was added to their data banks.

They never made contact with these worlds, allowing them to be blissfully ignorant of their visit and they would move on to the next world. They would stay as long as a month or as short a time as a planetary day depending on what was found.

The wolves weren’t beyond taking shore leave at times at some of the worlds they visited. Sometimes, a few would find mates among the inhabitants and would bring them aboard to join the crew.

This made for a very mixed brand of travelers. The wolves were a very gregarious species and would have sex with nearly any race if it was anatomically possible. They had no hangups about alien species mixing with their own genes.

They were powerful, tall, morally honest, sexually skilled, cunning, and very intelligent. They had only one name, having no need for a first and last one as some worlds did. They used high tech methods to hide their ship and their appearance if necessary when they were planet side.

Sometimes they resembled the inhabitants and were able to visit without much of a disguise. Those were the ones they tended to take shore leave on.

It was on one such planet that the Wotan eased into orbit around, cloaking itself from the planet’s primitive satellites and observatories. For the next twenty-four hours they scanned the sparsely populated planet, known as Aristal to its inhabitants.

Captain Ing listened to the reports of his officers. The Tibican, called Ci-Kat-A by the natives, had visited this world but it seemed they had succeeded in defeating them. This meant an insertion was required. Depending on what they found, it looked like shore leave would be possible as well. He hoped so, they really needed it.

He looked toward his officer that dealt with the insertion teams, Major Wieland.

“Wieland, send down your best team and have them see if shore leave is possible here besides their usual mission.” He ordered. “The city......” he paused to look at the report again, “called Megakat by the inhabitants is the insertion point. We are fortunate that this world has a form of canine called Kantin which we seem to resemble rather closely.”

Major Wieland grinned. “Now isn’t that a lucky break. Hope it’s true and we get a break finally. We sure could use it.”

Others at the table nodded in full agreement. Everyone was tired and badly needed a morale booster.

“I certainly second that. The crew is dangerously over stressed, Captain.” The medical officer stated worriedly.

“Yes, I’m well aware of that, Tennar.” The Captain sighed. “Anyway, Wieland, you have two hours to get them briefed and sent out.”

“Yes sir. I’ll get right on it.”

“Great, you’re all dismissed.” He grunted, rising to his feet, pulling down his uniform shirt and leaving the room ahead of the others for the bridge.

In his spacious quarters, laying on his comfortable king-size bed, Kam was attempting to catch up on his reading. The Wotan had run afoul of a hostile space fleet and had to fight their way out of the solar system, suffering damage to their ship in the process. It had taken weeks of work to repair the damage and they were tired and badly stressed.

Reading was one of Kam’s few pleasures. A female might have been a better distraction but he’d just been involved with a she wolf some months ago and it had ended rather messily so here he was bored and horny. Not a good combination.

He knew they were in orbit right now and he knew his team was up for the next mission. There was no saying they would be going down here but he couldn’t help hoping they would.

He was trying again to rein in his wandering thoughts when his comm whistled. His heart jumped with hope, he slapped the comm key.

“Lt. Kam here!”

“Lt. Kam, report to the briefing room asap. You’ve got a mission.” Major Wieland’s voice growled out.

“Yes sir.” Kam responded, grinning with excitement. ‘Yes, my wishes have come true!’ He thought happily as he quickly changed into a non-descript coverall of dusty blue that went well with his blue-gray pelt and black hair. He grabbed his kit bag and exited his quarters, hustling down the hall to the turbolift, taking it down to the shuttle deck.

He was second one there when he entered the briefing room, taking his seat and dropping his bag at his feet. The first one there was his team mate, Genus, a burly wolf with a golden pelt and reddish-gold hair. He nodded at him amiably. The door zipped open and in walked the other two members of his team. A she-wolf named Tara with beautiful tan fur and copper hair and a male red wolf named Donar with hair of gold. The last person through the door was a huge grey wolf with nearly white hair. This was Major Wieland.

“Alright folks, here’s the skinny. The planet below us is called Aristal. It’s at pre-space level of development. It’s main population is a race of felines. They call themselves Kats. There is a smaller population of canines called Kantin by the natives. The largest country with a population around 1.6 million is called Megakat. This is where the battle against the Tibican occurred. The inhabitants called the creatures Ci-Kat-A so remember that when you question them. They apparently drove the things off completely leaving no survivors so they are no weak race. You know what to do. There is one extra request made by the Captain. You are to see if this is a viable place for shore leave.” The major told them.

The room erupted with howls of joy.

“Yes! Here’s hoping it is!” Kam cheered.

“I certainly hope so as well but remember, don’t let your understandable need for shore leave blind you to ignore the dangers. Please keep your heads about you before you tell the Captain it is safe there.” Major Wieland smiled as he carefully warned them. He couldn’t blame them for being excited. If he could, he’d be going with them to check out this really nice looking world.

“We’ll try, sir.” Kam said cheekily. As team leader he was allowed some latitude in his behavior in the command structure. Mayor Wieland could slap him down for that comment but ignored it knowing the reason behind the lieutenant’s rather reckless attitude. The mess they’d left in that unspeakable solar system had badly frightened and upset the whole crew. “You’re dismissed. Good luck!”

Still grinning like a group of pups, the team rose and headed for their shuttle. Stowing their gear their behavior immediately became serious. Each took their seat for the flight down. Kam was the pilot, Donar was co-pilot and navigator, Tara was the comm and medical officer and Genus was the weapons and engineering officer.

They ran through preflight quickly and professionally then Tara asked for launch approval. Receiving it moments later, Kam lifted the shuttle from the deck and slowly floated toward open space as the space doors yawned open.

Taking an elliptical course, he soared around the planet until they reached Megakat City’s airspace. It was night and their shuttle had a cloaking device on so they were invisible to the city’s defense system.

“Hmmm, they have a fairly sophisticated defense system. I wonder why?” Genus said aloud, studying his instruments.

Kam frowned at that information, something about that felt wrong.

“Could it just be because of the attack by the Tibicans?” Tara asked.

“Maybe, but it just seems a little over the top and its not all focused toward space really, some is for certain, but the rest is around a variety of heavily guarded areas.” Genus said slowly.

“Hmm, I’m not sure I like that. We better find out why that is. Genus you focus your attention on that.” Kam ordered as he found a place that was fairly hidden to land their shuttle.

“Yes sir.” Genus grunted, focusing his attention on getting as much information as he could from his instruments to determine where to start his search.

With a minimum of fuss, Kam landed the shuttle in near silence near a copse of trees located in a heavily forested area that seemed to see little in the way of traffic by the inhabitants. They grabbed their kits and checked their comm units that resembled watches. Inserted behind their ears were universal translators that made it easy to speak with the many races they encountered. Each carried a small hand weapon that fit in their palms. It was a very powerful neuralizer that could knock most specious out cold but at a higher setting it could kill. That was something they tried hard to avoid.

They debarked and looked around, sniffing the air while Genus secured their shuttle.

“Okay, remember to check in every four hours. Meet back here by tomorrow night and good luck.” Kam ordered.

The others nodded then they took off in four different directions.