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Revealed: Chapter 4

"So, anymore word on what that idiot is doing" I walked back into the cockpit after leaving to get some clothes on. I had found some old uniforms of mine from when I was a Spec Enforcer which fit on my new frame except for one major thing. There was nowhere for my tail. I had never thought about how all of the clothes I had gotten since Mars had a hole in the backside where I was easily able to pull my tail through. Now that there wasn't a tail hole I found myself taking a knife to the nostalgic clothing.

"Yeah, that colonel was able to wirelessly access the security footage from the shuttle Crane stole." Francis pointed at a screen on the other wall. "I've already skimmed it once and I didn't see anything, since you know him the best, maybe you'll see something out of place."

"I suppose so." I grabbed a seat over by the screen.

The screen was sectioned off into four areas, each watching a different part of the ship, the cockpit, the cargo hold which was outfitted for passengers and the other two were the internal and external view of the entrance to the ship. Each were devoid of anything alive at the moment.

"Alright, let's see what you're up to Crane." I pressed the play button on the screen and prepared for anything.

Each area didn't move and I began to think that it was still paused until Crane came onto view just outside of the ship. He snuck up to the ship and looked both ways before opening up the door and stepping inside. I looked over to the next area. Once he was inside he made a beeline to the cockpit where he began to turn on the controls. I watched the recording to the end and found nothing out of place. His actions were honed and planned out, not hesitating in the slightest. I stopped an hour later when he left the shuttle again to go back to the lone elevator which was barely in screen.

"Anything?" Francis asked from his pilot chair.

"Nothing." I said in defeat. He didn't show any signs of agitation, he was focused on the task at hand and gave no indication to what his intentions are. I thought about why Crane would want to return to that place, I couldn't think of any reason. All that was left down there were bodies and several packs of werewolves, maybe Dr. Ruse's research. Crane had no use for the research though, none what so ever, which left the werewolves. I recalled that there was a pack of werewolves that had shown some kind of intelligence and had told Crane. He showed some interest in them, but despite his foolhardiness, he wouldn't rush into something like this alone.

Francis spoke up, interrupting my thoughts. "We'll find out why your friend is doing this soon enough." He looked over at his map. "Mars is only a few hours away."

I looked at him in surprise. "Mars should be a few days, not a few hours. How fast is this ship, it looks like a piece of junk to me."

"Hey." He pointed a finger at me, no longer concerning himself with flying the ship. "It's got it where it counts. I may not care about house cleaning, but this ship is the fastest hunk off junk in the solar system. I installed the newest and most technologically advanced ionic engines money could buy and also a few favors from people who owe my family didn't hurt either." He gave me a toothy grin.

"Whatever." I tried to not sound impressed, but I really was. "As long as we get to Crane faster." I tried to think of how much something that would cut traveling time down from days to mere hours would cost. Billions? Trillions? I had no such notions about the costs of engines. "What else do you have invested into this ship of yours?" It was exactly the kind of question he wanted me to ask.

He beamed at me. "I've a got carbon laced high impact chassis protecting us from anything that may come our way, a fully integrated class IV reactor for power along with several class V miniature reactors for back up, an eight core atom processor with..." I blocked out his droning, regretting my decision already.

'The man is annoying.' Dog spoke up.

'He reminds me of Crane.' I replied. He really did, so full of energy at all times, never appearing tired. I would never get any sleep if I was with the both of them.

'Crane knows to respect your privacy when you need it, this man does not know you as well as he thinks.'

'I don't know about that.' I challenged. 'He probably has access to every record about me from the past decade.' I didn't doubt that one bit, he probably had record from when I was a child living in a small town in Washington State.

'He does not know about me.'

'True.' I admitted. If anyone else, but Crane knew about Dog, then they would probably think I was crazy. I thought I was crazy a few times and the thought still lingered. Dog was supposed to be my animal side which hasn't fully integrated into me or something like that. My body was like a character in some game and Dog and I were sharing the same controller. Occasionally Dog took control, but I was lucky enough that he always gave it back.

"Are you listening to me?" Francis looked at me with his head tilted slightly.

"No." I answered truthfully. "I had no idea what you were saying. I know how to shoot guns, make plans and infiltrate high security. I never went on a mission that required intimate knowledge of the specifics of ship parts."

"Shame." He shrugged. "I find them fascinating, being able to travel from planet to planet on a whim. Makes me feel free."

"Maybe after this is all over, I'll find some place and settle down. I've had too much excitement for a lifetime. Get my own slice of freedom." Would it even be possible to get away? Where ever I went, more problems followed, it was infuriating. Too many crazy people alive doing too much damn shit was the problem. Get rid of one and two more pop up.

"Sounds good." It wasn't much of a conversation anymore, just the two of us trying to pass the time as we got closer to Mars. I didn't like all of this waiting around even if it was necessary. I felt that every second not actively doing something was a second wasted. Might as well get something done.

"You have any weapons aboard this thing or am I going to have to borrow something from the British?" There was no way I was going back down into that facility unarmed.

"I have some weapons aboard, but they are kind of aged."

"What do you mean by aged?" I asked out of curiosity.

Francis got up out of his chair. "Better see them for yourself." He walked out heading down back into the ship and I followed. "I like things from history." He hollered over his shoulder. "This ship for example is one of the first ships to travel beyond the asteroid belt, which is why it isn't in the best of shape." He turned right, into a small room which was made smaller by the gun locker that dominated most of its space. "I've got old gas guzzling cars from the past four centuries back home and these weapons span even farther." He fiddled with the combination lock on the safe, not caring if I saw.

"Why the obsession with outdated technology?"

"Not technology." He corrected. "History. History is very interesting despite that most history teachers will bore you to death before you can develop a true appreciation for it. Ahh here we go." He opened up the locker and I saw that it was absolutely filled with guns of varying sizes and shapes.

"Fuck, you even got ones with wooden stocks." I said as he pulled out a sleek rifle that didn't have any place to put a magazine. "What kind of gun is that?" I had no interest in ships, but guns was something I could get on board with.

"This, my friend." He held it out to me. "Is an M1 Garand." I slowly reached out and gingerly took it from him. "A weapon mass produced back in the 1940's for World War 2."

"How the hell are you supposed to load it?" I played around with the alien mechanism that sat on the top of the gun while trying to balance it in my paws. "I haven't seen anything like this before."

"Hey hey hey, don't go jabbing your animal fingers into every part of it. You'll ruin the oil finish." He snatched it out of my hand much to my dismay. "This gun requires not magazines, but clips." He said it as if I would know. He then reached back into the locker and pulled out a metal thing that held eight rather large rounds of ammunition. "You take this and you push it into the top." He demonstrated, but didn't fully load the gun, stopping just shy of pushing the rounds all of the way in.

"That's an odd way of loading a weapon." He handed it back to me and I took it, but minded not to do anything else but look at it. "What else do you have in there?"

Francis' face lit up at the opportunity to share his passion. "Lot's." He said with a wide grin and dove back into his expansive collection.

The next three hours were spent discussing things about all of the guns he had. It was fascinating to see so many kinds of weapons in one place and not in a museum. He had muzzleloaders that dated back to the 1400's and even a massive .50 caliber rifle that was used to pierce the armor of tanks to disable them. With modern technology, the .50 cal was retired from military duty. Why carry around a massive gun when technology was allowing soldiers to simply call in strikes from afar or even use small explosive charges that could be launched from a standard issue rifle which had the ability to disable the slow and cumbersome beasts. Though I still liked the M1 Garand the best out of all of them, it unique design captivated me.

"I think that's enough for now." Francis held out his hand for the M1 that I had kept at my side the entire time. My ears drooped at the thought of giving it up. It wasn't mine to begin with and I knew it. I relented and gave it up and Francis put it back with the other guns he had and locked up the locker. "We'll be arriving at Mars anytime now. The ship may be able to fly in a straight line without me, but I wouldn't trust any computer to land for me." He let me go out first and we went back to the cockpit.

"We heading to the British base first?" I assumed so, Mars was considered a territory of the Crown and all incoming ships of a foreign nationality were required to land and designated areas for inspection. Any military base was considered an appropriate place to land for inspection.

"No. We are heading straight for that little elevator." He sat down at the controls of the ship. A small red orb could be seen in the distance and was growing larger at a rapid pace. "As you read in the message from that Colonel York, he gave us permission to go after Crane. Plus, I'm on a list."

"A list?" I inquired. "What list?"

"You know, a list." I didn't know. He looked back at me and saw the face I was making. "Let's just say it's a list that makes it so I can come and go as I please as long as they know I'm here. They know I'm here so we're fine." I was going to press some more, but a sudden jerk that threw me to the ground stopped me. "Sorry, entering the atmosphere."

I got back up, nearly falling over as another jerk forced me to grab onto Francis' chair. I used to steady myself as I sat down in the passenger chair that was next to him. "You always fly like this." I nervously joked and watched as we went into a controlled fall.

Francis didn't answer. He was concentrated on flying the ship so I zipped my mouth. Sweat was beginning to form on his brow and he bit his lower lip. Lights began to flare up around us and I caught a message on the navigation computer about a collision with a large planetary body. My tail wagged nervously as it seemed the situation was deteriorating rapidly.

"Uh, Francis?" I whimpered holding onto the sides of the chair with both paws.

"I go this." He said confidently. I could see the ground now that we broke the cloud barrier and it was burning red and coming right at us.

"Francis?" I asked again.

"I got this." He repeated, pulling the yoke in several directions frantically. The ground was still getting closer. Other ships would have pulled out of re-entry well above the cloud line, we were just a few miles above the ground now. The ship rocked as the air buffeted the underside of the ship and I could hear all kinds of rattling from within the ship as nothing that wasn't bolted down was thrown about.

"Collision imminent" A female voice called out from the computer.

"A bit late, don't you think?" He yelled at the computer, wrangling with the controls. The navigation screen was replaced with a large blinking count down timer.

10

I gripped tighter onto the seat and closed my eyes. My tail was no longer wagging. It was firmly tucked under the seat. I counted down the time in my head. 9, 8, 7, 6. Each second was an eternity. 5, 4 ,3, 2. Here it comes. 1... There was nothing. The ship wasn't even rocking anymore. I opened my eyes slowly and saw that we had in fact not crashed. The ship was just above ground level. I look at Francis who was beaming at me. The confusion I felt could not be described in words.

"Don't act so surprised." He burst laughing. "Do you think that I would just crash right out of the blue?"

"How?" I began to feel red with embarrassment for a reason I was unsure about.

"Like I said before." He wiped a tear from his cheek and flinged it away. "This ship's got it where it counts and that's all you need to know."

I felt like punching him squarely in the jaw. "Come on." I growled. 'Let's go get Crane." I left him to his devices and headed towards the back of the ship where the docking ramp was located. There I waited and cooled down a bit. I had to admit he got me good, even though I couldn't think of how he avoided crashing without me even feeling it.

"All set?" He came into the room with a few guns that looked modern.

"Yeah, you going to tell me how you avoided killing us?"

"Maybe some other time." He offered me a gun which I recognized as the standard issue NATO rifle. Not as good as the X-A301's I used previously, but plenty reliable. He stepped back after giving me it.

"Not coming?" I checked the gun out of habit.

"No." He waved his hands in front of him. "I'm no soldier, I'd get myself killed in minutes down there." To be truthful, I'd rather that he stayed behind. I wasn't overly comfortable going into a potentially hostile situation with anyone but military types.

"All right, suit yourself." I went over to the docking ramp getting ready to lower it. "You might want to step back, there's going to be radiation."

"Get back up within 24 hours. Radios won't work down there." He then left the area.

I took a deep breath. If I moved fast and got into the elevator quickly like last time, I would be fine. Minimal exposure. I reached over and without counting down hit the button. With a load rusty groan that caused a large cloud of dust to rise, the ramp slowly began to lower. I didn't wait for it to go all of the way down, as soon as it began to fall, I rushed up it and leapt out onto the Martian soil. The elevator was right there 20 yards away and I dashed for it. I got there in just a few seconds and tried to push the button that would call the elevator. I found that my canine fingers were too fat to hit the hit the mechanism that sat within the blown out button and used the barrel of my gun as a proxy finger.

A low rumble within was heard and I could only wait. I just hoped I could still have children in the future. With a ding, the doors opened and I went and once again was on my way down. There were many floors to choose from, but I could only think of one floor Crane would go to, Dr. Ruse's science floor of death. I silently waited as the elevator slowly began its decent, thinking about what I would find. I hope Crane was alright, he was a good soldier, but thinking back, I didn't see him leave with a weapon.

The elevator began to slow and I readied my rifle, preparing for anything that might appear on the other side. The doors parted and I was met with a strange and slightly rattling sight.

Crane was there waiting for me and behind him were four werewolves, to be precise, four werewolves I recognized as being the new smart one.

"Hey cap." He smiled and waved. "Took you long enough. I would have gone back, but it turns out those British shuttles could be called back by remote control, so I was forced to stay and wait." He went on as if everything was fine.

I slowly stepped forward out of the elevator. I smelled the faint smell of rot coming from the facility, but it wasn't strong. "What's going on here? Why do you have werewolves with you?" Why weren't they attacking was going to be my next question.

"Oh them." He pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. "When I was back at the base, I remembered something, something vitally important to us all." He got serious.

I eyed the werewolves that were watching me closely, but made no move to attack me. "Pray tell."

He reached over and suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me over. He draped an arm over my shoulder. "Cap, I would like to reintroduce you to Spec Enforce Squad Four led by Captain Krauss."