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Revealed: Chapter 7

Krauss leaned back into his chair and rubbed his paw across the top of his head, he looked at me in disbelief. "NATO is gone?" He asked me. I had told him everything that I knew. I told him of the experiments that Dr. Ruse had done and how he had essentially nuked NATO to get them out of the way. He had listened the entire time, that look he was giving me now had slowly formed on his face over the course of the past hour.

"Mostly." I replied. "There are remnants of high ranking officials who survived and their own garrisons. They're currently pooling their resources into a case against the Jostens for all of this."

"Fuck." He muttered under his breath. "Can you... can you just give me some time to think this over?" I could see he needed time alone, or at least as alone as he could get with the rest of his pack always following him around. I looked at them. They were off in the back of the room still mulling around, one of them had found the blanket that was used to cover the carrier I was in earlier and was now sleeping on it. He was curled up, just like a dog would be when sleeping. I also noted the smell of the room, they stunk. We would need to stop somewhere and get cleaned up. Francis' ship only had the one shower and not nearly enough cleaning products for everyone.

I left Krauss alone with his thoughts and headed to the sleeping quarters to check on Crane one more time. I found him under a pile of blankets snoring away. He had one arm around the pillow his head was on and the other on, which was wrapped in the bandages was resting on his stomach, slowly rising and falling with each steady breath. His ears flickered every once in a while as if he was hearing something in his dreams.

I checked his arm, being careful to not cause any discomfort. I wasn't a trained medical professionals, but I did have advanced first aid field training. The bandages weren't soaking through, that was good and it wasn't swelling too much. He would just need to be cleared by an actual doctor and I wouldn't let him go out and cause any trouble until the wound was completely healed.

"You're lucky Crane." I said to him while he slept. "I bet that the bullet barely missed the bone, then you would be stuck with a cast for weeks." He stirred a bit and pulled some covers over his head with his good arm. Only the tops of his ears were poking out.

"Mr. Anderson." A voice came out from a speaker that was mounted on the wall. It was Francis, he would be up in the cockpit. "I need to speak to you." The noise woke up Crane and he slowly sat up, favoring his wounded arm as he did so.

"Shut the hell up." He moaned at the voice. "Trying to get some sleep here."

"Sorry about that." There was a click as he cut the connection.

"Go back to sleep." I told him and he looked over at me rubbing his eyes.

"Cap? Jesus, are you throwing a party here. Go somewhere else." He plopped back down into the bed and threw the pillow over it to block out any more noise. He was snoring in seconds and I was left to go up to the cockpit.

"What's up?" I asked the Francis as I walked in. He gave a quick glance over his shoulder and then went back to flying the ship.

"Not much, but now that we've got Crane and his extra friends, we need to start planning our next course of action." He pressed a button on the console that read, Auto Pilot, and swung his chair around to face me. "I want to get in contact with my father, he'll have an idea of how we can best hit Josten."

"Your father?" I questioned.

"Yeah. He's actually the one who sent me to get you."

"Really?" I crossed my arms, waiting for the explanation that I knew was coming.

"Yep." He smiled. "He finally got fed up enough with how Jostens were running their side of the company and there isn't any easy way to simply split away. He needs to force them out and that's why he wanted you."

"Wouldn't it be more... legal to use lawyers?"

"Yes and no." Francis blew some hair out of his eyes and rubbed some stubble on his chin as he thought. "That's what the NATO case is for, a legal diversion of sorts to draw away attention. What he has planned past that, I have no idea, that's why we're going to Venus, the J&H base of operations." Right on cue, the ship turned and Earth's sister planet come into view. The planet had boasted a largely toxic and volatile atmosphere that had prevented exploration for much of the early 2ndmillennium, which made it perfect place to set up shop if you didn't want to be bothered.

I had heard of J&H's nearly mythical base on Venus, how the company spent nearly a decade carefully shipping down supplies to an underground construction crew that meticulously worked under some of the most hostile conditions in the solar system. It was praised as a high point in human ingenuity. Other nations had copied J&H's methods and now several nations also had research outposts on the planet, though nothing as extensive as the corporate one that had been rumored to extend for miles.

The ship approached a space station and began docking procedures. Made sense, only specialized armored shuttles could withstand the pressure and harshness of atmospheric reentry.

"Here we are. Home sweet home." Francis stood up and stretched his arms over his head. "God, it's been forever since I've been here."

"Poor Crane, he just got back to sleep." The corgi was going to be pissed.

"No need." Francis stopped me from leaving and pointed at an armored shuttle slowly rising out of the foggy planet. "Dad's coming up here. Your friend can get a few more hours, regulations on this station are some of the strictest since this is the only station to serve the entire planet."

I was a bit disappointed hearing that, I was excited to see their base of operations. Much of what happened was shrouded in mystery. J&H only ever really talked to the public when they were promoting a new item or revealing a new breakthrough. The research stations were exciting... to anyone with a PHD, the research they released only droned about chemicals, gasses and other complex scientific mumbo jumbo. Sure, J&H released lots of scientific reports, but they were more applicable to normal everyday life. They had singlehandedly cure the common cold. It seemed impossible for the longest time and then boom, they released a vaccine that didn't have to be modified each year.

There were other discoveries, but that one was the one that got me the most excited. For too long I had suffered from the annual cold and flu season. I blamed Crane for that, he would go out and mingle with others and bring the sickness back to me.

The armored shuttle that had the J&H logo proudly stamped on its side came up next to the station and a docking tube promptly went out and connected to it.

"It will be a while before they get here. Lots of security checks and shit to go through before you can disembark or re-embark." He talked as if he had done it thousands of times and hated it every time. Probably had done it enough times to have grown to hate it.

A thought popped into my head at that instant. "Does the station have a decontamination shower?" I asked.

He gave me a strange look, not understanding what I was trying to say. "Yeah. Why?"

"Have you smelled the other passengers you have on this ship?" I nodded down the hallway and sniffed the air. I could smell them and even with his nose, I bet he could if he tried.

He did try and the way he scrunched up his face was all the confirmation he needed. "Yeah, I do. The decontamination is one of the first parts of a full security check. I could probably get them a good cleaning before my dad gets here." He went back to the console on his screen. "You go get them and bring them to the airlock."

"Right." I turned to walk away.

"Oh." He said and I stopped. "I saw the footage of what happened on Mars, make sure they don't tear anyone apart." He was joking, but that got me worried.

"They're not going to go berserk are they?" I asked dog.

'I only know as much as you do in this situation, I do not know what is going through their head. However, from experience from you, nothing should go wrong unless they are provoked.' He felt sure of himself, enough so to make me feel better.

"Okay I'll take your word for it."

'Of course you will.' I felt him smirking. 'To doubt me is to doubt yourself.'

"Whatever." I said. I didn't want to think about the whole Dog was me, it hurt my head too much. I walked back into the room where Krauss was fiddling with the gun I had brought with me to Mars. He had it in pieces, laid out on the table. He was currently tinkering with the trigger mechanism. The others were nowhere to be seen, but I knew better than to think that they weren't aware of where I was. There was something off putting about them, the way they stared. It was hard to remember that they were human at one point, I hoped they would come around eventually.

"Krauss, need you to round up you boys and meet me at the air lock." I walked over next to him at watched as he put down the trigger and begin to reassemble to weapon. He moved quickly and it was put back together in no time. I noted the grease on his fur. He really needed to clean up and was going to have trying to wash all of that fur.

"Where are we? I heard us dock." He was now trying to get the grease out of his fur with a dirty rag, all he accomplished was to smear it. "Can I get some time to clean up first?" The grease was now just getting everywhere. If he kept this up, he would be a black, greasy wolf soon.

"We've docked at a station above Venus, it has showers on board."

"Good." The rag was thrown back down in defeat and Krauss got up. The other three pack members immediately appeared in the room from the corridors. "Let's go, these guys stink." One of the other wolves sniffed his armpit and immediately drew back and coughed a few times. "And they know it." He added.

We went to the airlock and Francis was there. "Ah, you must be Captain Krauss." Francis held out his hand. "I'm Francis Hawthorne."

"I suppose you're my new employer since NATO seems to be gone." Krauss took his hand what must have been a death grip and rapidly shook it. When he let go, I saw a bit of a tear at the corner of Francis eye.

"You can say that." Francis massaged his hand that was already showing signs of bruising. "I've brought you here to meet my father, he will explain everything in depth. But, Mr. Anderson has brought it to my attention that you need to get cleaned up." The smell now was slowly, but surely building up. The ship's poor ventilation system couldn't keep up and scrub the air fast enough.

"You're damn right. I actually don't remember my last shower." He pulled a bit of grease from his fur and balled it up between his fingers. With nowhere to put it, he just held it there. "Plus, I'm not entirely sure what the state of the Mars Facility was in, but I can just smell the death on me."

"Okay then." With a press of a button, the airlock opened and we were met with a long tube that stretched from the ship to the station. "Anderson, you can use the ships shower, I'll go with Krauss and his men to make sure everything goes smoothly. You can wake up Crane whenever, it should be another two hours before my dad gets here. This shouldn't take long." Francis walked off the ship onto the docking tube and the others followed.

I shut the airlock behind them once I saw that they had made it into the station. I caught a glimpse of what was on the station. I saw some people in light body suits with brushes. It was a decontamination shower, Krauss was going to hate me. I had to go through a decontamination shower when the British liberated Crane and me from the Mars facility. Those brushes really dug into your skin, even with a thick coat of fur. Well, too late to do anything about it now.

I went to check on Crane one more time before I hit the shower. He was fine, the worst case of bed head imaginable, but fine.

The shower went by quick, I wasn't actually that dirty and I had become quite efficient at cleaning my fur. The only thing that still took a lot of time was the drying process. Air dryers could only go so fast and I was stuck drying with one hand and brushing with the other to avoid tangles. I changed into a fresh set of clothes and was surprised to see Crane up and about when I got out. I smelled him first, I was familiar with his scent now that I had been around him for some time. I followed the scent into the dining area where he had prepared himself a sandwich and was now sitting at a small table.

"How are you doing?" I sat down across from him. He was chewing, but in very Crane like fashion, he didn't bother to finish chewing before speaking.

"Good." Luckily no food missiles came at me. "The arm hurts like hell, but good." He looked around the room. "Where is everyone?"

"On the station. We arrived not one hour ago at the Venus station. They'll be back soon." I was thinking about getting myself some food as well, Francis was filthy rich so the food couldn't be too bad.

"Cool." Crane took another bite and I took the opportunity to excuse myself before I got a piece of bread in my eye. I went over to the panty and was relieved to find what appeared to be fresh fruit. I took a peach and took a bite out of it. It wasn't actually too fresh, but better than the food on a military starship.

I ate the peach down to the pit and threw it away. I was about to reach for another one until a bang shook the ship.

"What the..." Crane got up from the table with half a sandwich in hand. "That sounded bad."

I didn't bother answering him. I ran to the cockpit and just like I thought, there was a blinking light that indicated someone was trying to hail the ship. I didn't waste any time and accepted the call.

Francis' voice came in loud and clear. "Oh thank god, no time to explain, get your ass over here." He sounded panicked and the sounds of gun fire could be heard very close by.

"What's going on?" Crane ran into the cockpit and stood by the entrance.

"It's the Jostens, they're trying to take the station."