Endangered Species

I saw real fear in the eyes of my Pack, and I fought to keep that from my face. I was the Alpha, and they would follow my lead. “Is there any way to stop this?”

“It’s coming from the Generals at Northern Command, not Fort Lewis,” Mark replied. “Even if you could raise them on the radio, they wouldn’t talk to you. If General Payne relays you’ve taken the base and kept to your agreement? That’s setting up the conditions for the strike. They’ve already decided that werewolves are the enemy. I’m to set you up to die.”

“What do you mean? Isn’t it enough to keep us here?”

“They don’t know if they will be able to use a nuclear strike. I don’t know the backup plan, but I can take a guess. At twenty minutes after sundown each day, I’m to assemble everyone outside the main tunnel entrance, then close the door. The General probably intends to use mortars or artillery to kill as many as possible before finishing up the rest with troops. It’s not the sure thing the nuke would be.”

Either way, we were getting attacked. “So, what are my options?”

Major Perriman was first on that one. “Get the fuck out of Dodge,” he said. “It’s a little after two in the morning. We could load up all our vehicles with people and get them out of the blast zone.”

Melanie looked at him with wide eyes. “And go where? We’re talking about a nuclear strike!”

“Underground and upwind,” he replied. “Prevailing winds are from the west. If they hit this place, Seattle will become uninhabitable.”

“The Packs would make the most sense,” Melanie replied. “None are east of us, and all have underground shelter. We were already allowing people to return. Make that mandatory.”

It made sense. “What about here? Do we abandon the base completely? Is there any way we could survive in the tunnels?”

“How would I know? That’s Air Force shit,” the Major replied.

“Alpha?” It was one of my former human charges in the back, sitting on the lap of her soldier-mate. “Naomi Thompson. I used to work here at the weapons maintenance facility.”

“Doing what?”

“Nuclear warhead maintenance,” she replied. “These tunnels are designed to withstand an on-target airburst from a warhead up to fifty kilotons.”

That didn’t sound like enough. “What is the yield of a Trident missile warhead on the MAINE?”

“That depends on what missile gets sent our way. The W88 warheads are 475 kilotons. That’s overkill for us, and it would irradiate the whole region. W76-1 warheads are ninety kilotons, but the W76-2 are five kilotons. The dash-two can be set for ground penetration before detonation, making them a bunker buster. If NORAD wants to minimize collateral damage while collapsing everything, they will send one into the command complex and another into the weapons storage area.”

“And the Air Force missiles?”

“Those are much bigger, twelve hundred kiloton,” she replied. “Overkill for this mission. If you used one of those, it would wipe out everything between here and Seattle. There’s one more possibility you haven’t thought of.” I raised an eyebrow. “The USS MICHIGAN. That SSGN left on deployment a week before the storm.”

“Isn’t that the same type of submarine as the MAINE?” Major Perriman didn’t get the distinction.

“The USS MICHIGAN is a guided missile submarine carrying hundreds of Tomahawk cruise missiles,” I answered. “The Navy converted it from carrying Trident missiles after the START II treaty.”

Naomi nodded. “Yes, and they are very accurate. The Tomahawks carry thousand-pound conventional warheads or cluster munitions. One warhead wouldn’t penetrate the ground, but if you sent multiples in, you could excavate your way. The cluster bombs would be devastating on troops and equipment above ground.”

“Like troops gathered in the open shortly after sunset,” the Colonel nodded. “And you don’t need nuclear launch codes to order the Tomahawk strike.”

I remembered something from my Naval Weapons class. “The Tomahawks aren’t nuclear anymore, right?”

Naomi agreed. “The nuclear versions were decommissioned a decade ago.”

I had an idea. “Do we have any nuclear Tomahawks here? Or any big conventional warheads?”

She shook her head no. “We only handle the Trident missiles at Kitsap. The nuclear Tomahawks got shipped to the Department of Energy after decommissioning. We keep torpedoes, missiles, and ordnance at Naval Magazine Indian Island. It’s about twenty miles north of here.”

So much for that idea. “Staying here is out of the question unless we can get Norther Command to call off the strike,” I concluded. “Is there any way to convince them we aren’t the enemy?”

Major Perriman settled that quickly. “Alpha, if the General ordered you to surrender, knowing your Pack would be killed if you did, would you?”

My wolf was sure of the answer; she’d kill the General first. I had walked the tightrope between wolf and officer long enough. I was an Alpha, and the good of the Pack would always take precedence. “No. I’d protect the Pack.”

“There’s your answer,” the Colonel said. “We are disciplined, dangerous, and not under their control. Look at me! Twenty-two years of service, yet I threw away my oaths for my mate. In three days, I’ll be stronger, faster, and harder to kill.”

“And you’ll be MINE,” Melanie growled.

“We need to come up with a way to stop them WHILE we evacuate,” I told the leaders.

“That won’t be easy to do,” Melanie said. “We’ve spent a week moving all the Pack members and their possessions here. We don’t have enough vehicles to take it all back. All our food stores are here, Alpha. If we leave tonight, we’ll be abandoning it all and running for our lives. We’d be starting over from nothing.”

“We’ll be alive,” I said. “We can load up the vehicles with supplies and run behind them as wolves.”

“That won’t work for everyone,” one of the Betas said. “My Pack is on Vancouver Island. It took three days of boat shuttles to get everyone to the mainland. Quinalt, Port Angeles, and Beaver Packs are too far away to reach before dawn. How are we supposed to shelter everyone during daylight?”

“And Renfro has to go past the Army base to get home,” Ted added.

“Running won’t help you,” the Colonel said. “I read your briefing. General Payne knows all of the Pack locations. Do you think they won’t lob a few nuclear weapons at them to get the rest of us? A single Trident Missile carries a bunch of them.”

He was right. “Can we shelter somewhere else? At least get out of nuke range?”

“Silverdale and Poulsbo are too close,” Beta Lazard concluded. “Bremerton or Port Orchard might have buildings we could hole up in, but we haven’t scouted out that far.”

“It will have to do,” I said. “Beta Lazard, put together a team with arms and vehicles and head towards Bremerton. Find a location suitable for seventy-two hours of shelter and secure it. While that is going on, the rest of us will evacuate. Melanie, load our remaining vehicles with as many critical supplies as we can carry. Everyone who can shift will run there. Let’s get moving, people!”

It was a flurry of activity, but the two Betas quickly organized what was needed. The scouts were on the road twenty minutes later. As I walked through the tunnels, forklifts were already loading pallets of food and supplies onto waiting trucks.

The Colonel stopped me; he was with Major Perriman and Naomi Thompson, our weapons engineer. “Alpha, a word?”

“What’s the problem, Mark?”

“Luna Melanie wants to use the trucks we came in for transporting supplies. I have other ideas, but I need to run them by you first.”

“What are you guys thinking?”

Mark looked towards the south. “My first thought was to turn everyone around and attack Fort Lewis. We could make it before sunrise if we leave soon, and my men and women could handle any resistance. We could assume operational control of the base and turn hundreds or thousands more, further strengthening the Pack.”

“As long as they are volunteers, I’m not opposed to more turns. Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”

“General Payne may anticipate us returning if we are unsuccessful, and he’s under orders to wipe us out. They might ambush us on the way. Our troops are hesitant to get in a firefight with their brothers in arms.”

I could see that. A week ago, these men were on the other side. “What else could we do?”

“I’m supposed to send two staff members back tonight to report progress. The General will know I’m not following his orders if I show up. The two men have mating bites, so they are out. I could send my Captain, but then what?”

“You could kill the General,” I said. My wolf agreed; she didn’t like anyone betraying her and keeping their head.

“And then what? The strike is coming from NORAD.”

“Force him to call it off? Or we tell them we control Lewis as well.”

“Those men won’t listen, Alpha. If they think werewolves are in control of Joint Base Lewis-McChord, that gets added to the target list.”

“And that leads to my idea, Alpha,” Major Bruce Perriman said. “Is life a game of poker or chess?”

“What?”

“I was a Trekkie as a teen, Angela. In The Carbomite Maneuver, a hostile force is about to destroy the Enterprise. Kirk asks Spock for options; he replies that they are playing a game of chess in which no winning moves remain. Captain Kirk says that we should play poker instead, and he bluffs them. He convinces the hostile force that the hull contains carbomite, an element that reflects the energy of any weapon on its attacker. The bluff works. Kirk proved that it’s not what you can do that matters; it’s what you convince the OTHER side that you can do.”

I’d been a New Generation fan, but I got the point. “We play poker?”

“If you think you can pull it off, yes. You and the Captain get into the Humvee and report to the General.”

My jaw dropped. “I’m the leader of the enemy, Bruce! He’ll kill me on sight!”

“That’s why you need to be a good poker player, Angela.”

His plan was insane, but it was crazy enough to work.