Endangered Species

The General’s aide, a female Army Major, stopped me outside his office. “What are you doing here, Ensign Summers? You’re supposed to be up at Kitsap!”

“I’m stopping a war, Major. Is the General in his office?”

She looked at me, then at the closed door. “The General is about to leave. Just a moment.” She knocked before entering the office. A minute later, she left like her ass was on fire. “He’ll see you in a few minutes,” she said as she raced out the door.

I guess I had to wait. That was all right; my plan required me to undermine the military leadership with the truth. For that to work, I needed the rumor mill. The officers and enlisted in the Headquarters office gathered around me while I waited. A Ranger Captain I’d seen in training was the first to ask. “What happened up there, Summers?”

I knew what they needed to hear. “We took the base without a single casualty,” I said with a smile. I could see the relief on many faces, as almost everyone knew someone I’d saved. Their buddies were the ones sent into battle after being rescued from certain death. “Better news is that a bunch of them found mates among the people at Kitsap. Over a hundred of my wolves found their destined half in a single night.” I kept the smile going, hiding the pain I was feeling. The loss was a constant companion for me, tempered a little because we hadn’t completed the bond.

“Is finding your mate REALLY like that,” one enlisted female asked. “It seems like a fairy tale.”

“You can’t understand unless you’re a werewolf who finds him,” I responded. “It’s magical.” Mine wasn’t, but I wasn’t a wolf at the time. If I had been, we’d have completed the bond within minutes of meeting each other. “That’s not the problem, though.”

“What problem did you run into,” a Major asked.

“He’s in there,” I said as I turned my head to the office. “The General let me save those men because he planned to kill us anyway. High Command was willing to sacrifice us to eliminate the leadership at Kitsap. Our deaths wouldn’t matter because they planned to level the base and kill us all.” I pulled the written copies of the orders given to Colonel Tester from a pocket, letting the people in the room pass it around. I could see in their eyes the betrayal they felt.

The Major read the orders, then handed them to the next person. “Why? What did you do?”

“Scared old men are afraid of me and what I’ve created. The Generals know that I am capable of saving thousands. They fear I will establish thriving communities around the Pacific Northwest amid this devastation. They should because I will save the people the Generals abandoned. The military has pulled back, saving itself while the American people suffer and die.”

“We can’t save them all, Ensign,” a Captain replied as the letter circulated. “We can barely feed ourselves.”

They know how weak they are in comparison. They won’t let me save you. They’d sacrifice hundreds of their own to eliminate my kind.” I looked around the room. “I’m not your enemy; I’m your savior. Your leaders failed you and the people outside that fence. You have less than two weeks of food remaining in the warehouses. There are no plans for when food runs out. That man isn’t acting in the best interests and traditions of the Armed Services. When you figure that out, grab as much gear as you can and come to Kitsap to join us.”

No one knew what to make of me. Was I openly advocating a mutiny? Yes, I was. The funny thing was that none of the soldiers and airmen in the office thought it unreasonable. Everything was different now.

It might be their only way to survive. I took the orders back and put them in my pocket.

The mystery of the aide’s disappearance was solved when she returned with four Military Police carrying M-4 rifles. “Ensign Summers, you are under arrest. Place your hands on the wall and spread your legs,” the largest one of the men said. The only female on the detail handed off my pistol belt and combat knife before searching me. After cuffing my hands behind my back, the leader pulled me upright and spun me around.

“What is the charge?”

“Disobedience of a direct order in wartime,” the Major said. “Conviction of which can land you in front of a firing squad soon.”

I huffed as the others watched. “I’m the one who ended hostilities, and you’re calling it wartime? I did my job. The one who betrayed his oaths is behind that door.”

That didn’t go over well; the MP holding my left arm slammed me back into the wall before his hand wrapped around my throat. He towered over me, forcing me to look up at his eyes. “You should shut your mouth before it gets you in trouble, wolf.”

If he thought he could intimidate me, he was wrong. He was weak and would be dead soon. I’d never take a man like him, who abused helpless females, into my Pack. “And you should try mouthwash and toothpaste. Your halitosis is truly awful.” One of the other guards laughed at that.

“The General is waiting,” the Major said. Another guard took my right arm, and they marched me into the General’s office. The two guards pushed me into a chair in front of his desk before standing behind me. The female guard stayed at the door while the last guard moved to the wall behind the General’s desk.

They were afraid of me.

I kept my emotions hidden. General Payne was facing the back wall, reading something out of a file in the glow of an oil lamp. Ignoring me was a power play, but he didn’t have MY power. My wolf wanted his blood to stain our teeth for daring to hurt our people. I kept a lid on my beast as I sat quietly. After a few minutes, he turned to face me over his expansive wooden desk. “What are you doing here, Ensign Summers?”

“You ordered Colonel Tester to report the result of the attack on Kitsap Base. The Colonel sent me here to tell you that our forces have taken the base without a single casualty.”

Any sane commander would welcome that news, but the General just raised an eyebrow. “Your orders were to remain at Kitsap and report to the Colonel, the new base commander.”

“That would be incorrect, General,” I said. The mood in the room chilled further with that. “You told me to take the base, and I did. You told me Colonel Tester would roll in after I secured the objective and take over command. The Colonel did. He’s the base commander, and I followed both of your orders to the letter.”

“Then why are you HERE, in my office, instead of patrolling the base?”

“Mind link,” I told him. “Unlike you humans, I have instant communications with any Pack member.” Technically, this was only true if we were within about twenty miles. I could link the people I came down with, but other wolves would have to relay those communications to reach Kitsap. He didn’t need to know this. “I’m here for three things, General.”

“You’re hardly in a position to make demands,” he sneered.

“And you are comfortably inside the blast radius of a W76-1 nuclear warhead with a ninety-kiloton yield,” I replied. “You’re on the edge of the fireball radius, not that it matters. The direct radiation dose and the shock wave will kill you in seconds.”

He waved a hand. “You’re bluffing.”

I leaned forward with my hands behind my back. My eyes locked with the General’s grey ones in a dominance challenge. My wolf came forward, eager to crush this weakling of a human. It isn’t good to look a wild animal directly in the eyes, and I was making him nervous. After ten seconds, he looked down. “I don’t have to. The first thing I came here for is to tell you that every military person in my Pack has resigned from military service. Effective immediately.”

“That’s insane, Ensign! You can’t just leave the military whenever you want! You have oaths and obligations!”

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow. “Oaths and obligations that include nuking your people?” He froze. “I have the orders to gather my Pack for orderly execution you gave to Colonel Tester, but it won’t work. A funny thing happened on the way to your betrayal of my men, General. The Colonel found himself a werewolf mate. ALL the humans you sent up there found werewolf mates. The Colonel works for me now. We’ve dispersed our people to where you won’t find them, and I’m not happy about the knife you tried to stick in my back. That brings me to the second thing I’m here for, General.”

“I don’t have to listen to a treasonous rebel,” he said as he sat up.

I put some Alpha power into the command. “SIT. DOWN.” He wasn’t a wolf, but he responded anyway. “I need to speak with the National Command Authority before this whole thing goes to shit. I’m now a nuclear power. I’m not happy with making threats, but I will do whatever is necessary to protect my Pack.”

“And the third thing?”

“I take your betrayal personally. My wolf doesn’t care about your orders from above. You threatened her, and she wants your blood. I’ll settle for your resignation, General. Mark my words. I’ll either have your signature or your head before the sun sets tonight.”