Endangered Species

“It would be better if you held on to me so we’d lean together,” I said as I turned onto the freeway entrance near the gate. “This thing handles like a truck!” Guards had opened them long enough to let us out, then closed and locked the gates again.

“This feels weird,” he said as he wrapped his hands around my waist. “I’ve never ridden behind anyone before, and I haven’t touched another woman since she died.”

“We’re not going to be swapping spit in the showers, Major,” I said as I got the big Harley up to seventy miles an hour. “If you could see the road at night, I’d be holding on to you.”

It was sundown now, and the darkness was rapidly approaching. I kept accelerating, pushing west on Interstate Five towards Olympia. Thankfully, most cars had pulled over when the storm hit, leaving room for me to ride. It wasn’t always that way, so I had to get used to handling the heavier and bigger motorcycle while I could still see. “Is this your first time outside the base?”

“It is,” he said into my ear. Despite the lack of electronics, the bullet fairing and windshield kept wind noise to a minimum. I had to admit that the Harley had a more comfortable riding position than my Yamaha. “Call me Bruce. I can’t see hugging you for the next three hours and still being Major to you.”

“Angela,” I responded. I had to slow down and dodge some stalled trucks but never went below forty. Speed was our friend; I wasn’t seeing anyone out and about, but that didn’t mean we were alone. If we ran into trouble, the whole road would be blocked. That was another reason for the motorcycle; it was more likely to be able to go around than a big truck.

As the world turned black, I slowed to sixty. Bruce couldn’t believe it. “I can’t see a fucking thing!”

“That’s the werewolf advantage,” I told him. “Think of the advantage you guys had in Afghanistan and Iraq because you had night-vision equipment that they didn’t. Now you’re on the other side. The Marines on base didn’t have a chance. They died before they knew anyone else was out there.”

“That’s why you want to go by water.”

“Less likely to get ambushed in the middle of Hood Canal than in the hills.” I had to ask. “Bruce, how hard were you guys hit when the storm came through?”

“It was bad,” he said. “My guys were lucky. We were doing classroom training when the lights went out. I thought it might be an electromagnetic-pulse attack, maybe a nuclear attack, so I got everyone to the lowest level in the building and the center. We started getting people coming in, blinded, burned, and sick over the next few hours. Anyone who went outside or was caught outside for any length of time was dead or dying.”

There couldn’t be much cover. “How much of the base survived?”

“Not as much as I’d hoped,” he told me. “We couldn’t leave, and we couldn’t communicate. We sent people out after dark, and it was bad. Real bad. Ninety percent of the base personnel are gone, maybe close to ninety-five percent. That includes almost all the dependents on base. We assume those off base are gone, too, since they haven’t shown up at the gates. We can see the fires in Tacoma at night and smell the decaying bodies. We didn’t have the people or the equipment to do more; we’ve been fighting to keep people alive.”

“I didn’t see a sick bay.”

“Most of the people who got sick died in the first week. There’s a whole building still filled with the sick and the blind. Fewer people are getting sick now, though. We’ve got things down, staying underground in daylight, and coming out at night.”

I told him about the radiation measurements I’d done when we came ashore and how the solar radiation wasn’t as severe as it was in the first few days. “As long as you have good UV protection and limit yourself to cloudy days or near sunrise and sunset, you can start doing more. Radiation dose is cumulative, so you have to pace yourselves. How is the base doing for food and water?”

“Not good. We set up grills at night, but all the frozen foods and meats are long gone now. Some engineers managed to get one of the well-pumps running for clean water to fill containers. Canned foods and MREs won’t last forever. It’s a good thing the troops are good at digging field latrines.”

It sucked. “You’ll have to start scavenging in town for anything you can find before it burns up.”

I could feel his nervousness. “We’re supposed to protect those people, you know? What do I tell a survivor we run across? ‘Sorry, not only can you not have any food, I’m taking any food around here I can find?’ That’s hard.”

“Life is different now. People are killing and raping with impunity, Bruce. There is no government or order remaining. Something has to survive, and we need good people to make it. We talked about bringing in survivors with good character, especially males, but we couldn’t take just anyone. You only have so much food, water, and shelter. Sometimes good people have to make hard decisions.”

He didn’t say anything. “What decisions did you make?”

We had time, so I told him about meeting my mate and how I worked to improve the lives of the females he’d captured. “In the end, I lost Cole and my women,” I told him. “Given a choice of death or the change, I have to believe these women will take the chance. They’ll be inside the base, going through the fevers without me because I ran away. I chose to save my life instead of theirs.” I wiped away a tear. “That, plus the fact that the man meant to be mine forever is dead, is what I’m struggling to get past. I’m helping you all because I’m still in the military, but I want to help my people, too. My wolf is rather insistent on it.”

“That’s why you are risking your life? For your Pack?”

“Yes. I ‘won’ the Renfro Pack, while I’m hoping to save the good people in the Brinnon Pack. I don’t know what I’ll find; the Pack might not exist. If they kill Beta Mark, I imagine the victor will force everyone to join his Pack. I’d have to fight and win the Alpha to get them back, and I’m half the size and zero fighting experience compared to them.”

He picked up on the rest. “But if the military kills the Alpha there?”

“If the existing Pack leadership dies, I have a chance to get them all back. I have to be there with the group that goes in, so I can take over leadership and order them to surrender. It’s the best-case scenario if we assault the base. If the Alpha orders everyone to fight to the death, they will.”

We crossed the bridge into Olympia, then exited onto the 101 instead of continuing south on Interstate Five. The moon was up, and the night was clear, so I kept our speed up. We weren’t heading up the peninsula towards Bangor; instead, we were sixty miles north of Olympia on the opposite side of the Hood Canal. The two-lane road hugged the eastern shore as we approached Brinnon. It had been a pretty fast run. Someone had done the hard work clearing the road, but I didn’t know who.

I knew Cole’s old Pack House was in this vicinity, but no one had told me exactly where. By now, they might all be at the submarine base. I didn’t detect anyone around as I turned off at the sign for the Pleasant Harbor Marina Resort. I drove the motorcycle down to the docks, parking it under a tree near the walkway. “I should do a perimeter patrol,” Bruce told me as he unslung his rifle.

“I’ll check while you gas up our ride,” I told him. “We need to be able to leave in a hurry.”

He went to work while I took a jog around the lot. Nobody was around, and the bodies were well decomposed by now. I was back as he finished fueling up. “We’re alone, so let’s get to work.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Best case, a small boat or motor launch with an engine that isn’t fuel injected,” I told him. “Lacking that, a small sailboat. We’re at low tide, so we have to hurry.”

We found a yacht with a twelve-foot rigid-inflatable boat up top that would work. It had a 9.9 horsepower engine with a carburetor, so we had to hand-crank the davit to get it in the water. The gas tank was full, and it started on the third pull. “YES!”

I cast off the line and put the engine in gear, driving around to the shoreline where Bruce could get our supplies. We didn’t want to leave anything behind, so his bag went into the center. He laid out prone on the bow, commando-style with his rifle, while I sat low in the back and operated the tiller. After only a few minutes, we emerged into the Hood Canal.

We headed east, crossing the entrance to Dabob Bay to our north, then hugged the coastline as it turned to the north. The current was working against us, so our progress was slowing. “The submarine base is almost a mile away,” I told him as I pointed east.

“Will they hear us and come out?”

“I’m hoping they don’t. We’re small and not approaching, so I’m betting the patrols listen to ensure we go away. We’ll go a mile or so north, cross the canal, then drift back with the current with the engine off. That’s our chance to surveil it.”

No one tried to stop us as we went past. I kept going until I could pick out the Floating Bridge in the distance, then cut across to the eastern side and cut the engine. “This is where it gets fun,” I said as I settled into the bottom of the boat. “We’re at the mercy of the currents now. I can’t afford to start the engine, and an oar won’t do much.”

“Get the camo netting out of my backpack,” Bruce said. The ten-by-ten netting had pieces of cloth attached; it wasn’t perfect, but it would break up the silhouette of the boat and keep us from getting spotted. I draped it over us, then settled in with the binoculars.

We got pushed closer to the center of the channel than I had hoped, but we could make out a lot from four hundred yards out. The wind was out of the north, which was good for us too. Our drifting boat didn’t raise any alarms, as floating objects were often swept by in the currents of the Sound. We watched as a pair of trucks drove in, filled with supplies from the night’s scavenging. Some of the dogs riding along jumped out and shifted to help unload, leaving no doubt that werewolves were in control of the base. I counted thirty-two people before the current took us past the buildings.

I let the current carry us for another thirty minutes before I started up the engine and headed back west. I hugged the coast, passing the town of Brinnon before heading into Pleasant Harbor.

I was so happy about our mission that I wasn’t paying attention as I came up to the dock. I scented the danger as Bruce was hopping off to tie us off.

It was a man’s voice, and he wasn’t alone. “Who the FUCK are you?”

Three armed people stepped out to block the dock entrance.