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Revealed: Chapter 13

"Hmm." The technician took a step back from his monitor to study the readings on it. "That can't be right."

"What is it?" Krauss called out from the inside of the purring machine.

"I'm... not... sure. It could just be a malfunction. Let me try to rerun the scan." He went back to the monitor and began to type in commands for the machine. A slow revving began to come from the inside and the inside of the machine began to move.

Mr. Hawthorne, who had been quietly observing from behind the technician stepped up next to the technician, one hand rubbing his chin inquisitively. "What exactly appeared wrong?" He asked, looking at the monitor that still held the data from the previous scan.

"Well, according to these readings, there is about twenty times more brain activity than normal. It can't possibly be right." He crossed his arms in front of his chest, being so sure of his own conclusion.

"What can't be right?" Krauss yelled out. The machine was making a good amount of noise. My sensitive ears were hurting a bit, he must be in his own little slice of hell. "Never mind." He yelled before the technician could try an answer.

"What was that?" The technician asked.

He was about to have his mind blown. "Funny thing. Turns out Krauss here." I nodded at the wolf in the machine. "He can communicate with his brothers behind me via some sort of telepathy."

The technician stared blankly at me and Mr. Hawthorne merely raised an eyebrow. I would say more, if I knew what to say. That was about as much as I knew. If the readings indicated that his brain was on some sort of overdrive, then this would explain it.

A laugh came from the technician. "That's not possible. It's just a glitch." A message came up on the monitor and he turned to it, chuckling like I had just told some mildly amusing joke. He read the message and a new set of data came up. His smile went away.

"What does it say now?" Mr. Hawthorne asked. He still had his eyebrows raised a bit.

The technician turned to us all. "You're not kidding are you?"

The rest of the day consisted on the rest of us getting scans as well. Teresa had to go and dig Crane out from the entertainment area, where he was still drunk and having a good time. He came into the medical ward swaying and pouting.

All of us ended up with increased brain activity, but Crane and I only showed roughly 80% increases. Krauss' brothers showed only slightly less activity than Krauss. I knew why I had an increase, it was Dog and my brain needed to work a bit more to accommodate and extra conscious. Crane must have his own "conscious" talking to him if he had an increase the same size as me. Though I hadn't seen any strange behavior from Crane ever since he broke free from Dr. Ruses control back on Mars. As far as I knew, he acted and was the Crane that I always knew. As long as it stayed that way, there was no issue there.

The results got Mr. Hawthorne very excited. His calm demeanor dissolved as soon as the results were confirmed. He instantly offered Krauss a job. He wanted to know why this was happening and of course said that any tests that were done would only be done with consent and would be humane in every respect.

I didn't like the idea, but it wasn't my decision to make. Krauss simply said that he would think about it once the Jostens were taken care of. He seemed very focused on what was going to be happening very soon.

Mr. Hawthorne explained that he had called in every favor he had to get us a sizable task force. The United States had officially declared Louis Jostens and his part of the company a terrorist organization. They used the evidence from the attack and the NATO case to convince an international court to give them permission to launch a raid on the Jovian facilities. They would be sending half of the Outer Belt fleet which patrolled area between the asteroid belt and Neptune. It wasn't nearly as large as the fleet that protected Earth, but it was large enough.

On top of that, NATO had devoted the remainder of their ships. Due to the mixed nationality of the NATO fleet, several more countries said they were going to send ships as well. It was a case of monkey see, monkey do. In the end we had one dreadnaught from Germany, thirteen heavy cruisers, forty three destroyers and twice as many frigates. It was overkill.

"I want to utilize your unique abilities Mr. Krauss." We had ended up back inside the office that Mr. Hawthorne had commandeered before. "How far can you communicate?"

"I don't know." Krauss shrugged his shoulders. "My brothers are never far from me." The two other wolves were standing behind Krauss, who sat in one of the two chairs opposed to Mr. Hawthorne's desk. I wasn't sitting this time, I stood with Crane off to the side, between two plastic ferns that sat in pots.

The technician sat in the other chair and cut in. "It's impossible to determine the extent of this... power without some preliminary testing."

"There isn't enough time." Mr. Hawthorn rubbed his brow. "The heavy cruiser is going to be here tomorrow, early at that."

"Then there is no way of telling how powerful this is. It could only be effective several meters."

"Or over an entire planetary system."

"Possible."

The two men were slowly becoming more excited and vocal. The rest of us just watched from the sideline. They began to plan possible scenarios.

"What if we use the station and..."

"Ahem." Teresa coughed and stopped her father mid-sentence.

Tensing up at being interrupted, Mr. Hawthorne turned to his daughter that was standing in her usual position at his right. "Yes dear?"

"You're getting ahead of yourself father. Like you said, there isn't enough time for this."

He bit his lower lip and gave a sigh. "You're right, this can wait. Let's move onto more immediate matters. Before I went to see this development in the medical ward, my armorer informed me that your new modified combat armor is ready an in fact, should be here by now."

"Good." Krauss said. "I'd hate to go in naked."

"Seconded." Crane rose a hand.

"What do you think of all of this Dog?" I asked him. We were following Teresa back down to the armory to get the armor. Mr. Hawthorne stayed in his office due to his tired legs. He may have been in the body of an aging man, but he did have spirit.

The armor was supposed to provide just as much protection as the armor Teresa and her soldiers wore, it was simply modified for our body structure. It had been awhile since I had dawned armor. The Spec Enforcer armor was excellent and sophisticated. The armor Teresa had seemed just as sophisticated, if not more. The perks of having a nearly limitless pool of funds.

'All very interesting. I'm a bit jealous in fact.'

"Jealous?" I exclaimed. "Is that even possible for you. I know you get mad, but jealous doesn't seem to be you."

'I'm jealous because you are.' He smirked.

Right, he was me. Was hard to remember at times. He having his own personality and all, though all in all, it was just part of my personality. He was just more of my wild side.

"I guess I am." I admitted. "Telepathy, that's cool. The applications are limitless." What if Mr. Hawthorne was right and it was effective from across a planetary system? Would it make radios obsolete?

'Irrelevant.' Dog said.

"Pray tell?"

I could feel him stirring as he dug a bit to pull up some information where I could access it.

"You know, I should go back to college. With you around, I wouldn't forget anything."

Dog ignored me and finished pulling the information, which hit me like a wall.

'As far as you know, there is only one way to obtain what Krauss has.' He reminded.

"Yeah, you need to be exposed to whatever Krauss was and turn." There went all of the excitement. "No one should go through that."

"Here we are." Teresa stopped at the entrance to the armory. "The armor is right inside and has been fitted already."

"How's that? You never measured us." Crane asked.

"With all of the surveillance equipment in this station, don't need a ruler. Just send some footage to our people back down on the surface and they figure it all out." Teresa pronounced with pride. She went in and we followed.

There they were, piled in neat piles in a large table. On top of each pile were the helmets. Shaped like our heads, except a bit larger. There were even ears built in with a small antennae sitting atop the left ear. There was a tooth design on the muzzle, which I could see allowed the top half of the helmet to fold away in case you needed to look at something without removing the entire helmet.

Crane immediately went for one that had his name etched onto the breast. He lifted the helmet up and inspected the inside of it. "This is pretty sweet."

"Aye." A short man called out with a Scottish accent. He was about as tall as Crane and had a J&H jumpsuit on. "These suits are built with the most durable carbon materials and alloys available. Can withstand most small arms fire, but due to its lighter design, there are the basic holes in protection at the joints, neck and back of the legs."

"What about the built in systems?" Crane asked and the two of then began to go over the armor bit by bit.

I walked past the two of them and went to my own set. Lifting up the helmet, I weighed it in my hands. It was weighted, but nothing that would cause neck cramps after prolonged use. Setting aside the helmet, I inspected the chest next. There was a raised neck cuff that went higher at the back to protect the neck, but at the right angle, a bullet could still get in. The chest was a large single piece and the abdomen was protected by flexible segmented bits. The arms and legs had strapped on panels that would provide decent protection, but would not stand up to a hail of bullets. The legs were shaped odd so that they could be strapped onto digitigrade legs. It wasn't heavy armor, by any means, it was tactical armor, more suited for Spec Enforcers.

Krauss and his brothers were also inspecting their armor. They had a look of approval on their faces and I agreed. This was good quality. It didn't feel heavy and seemed to allow for high mobility.

"And here is the weapon of choice." The Scottish man pulled out a rather large and long rifle that had struts going along the barrel. "This is the M-1A234, a versatile weapon with fully multiple settings and syncs up with your suit. Uses the new metal block ammunition and is good for twelve hundred shots before needing to reload." He held it out and Crane, being the closest, took it.

"It's heavy." He commented and handed it to me.

It was heavy. It didn't compliment the armor at all. Some engineer probably designed it more for looks than practicality. "It's too heavy." I then handed it to Krauss. "You have anything else?" I thought, trying to think of another weapon we could use. "Like the X-A301." It was the weapon we had used when we went onto the Eurasia. It proved to be extremely efficient and deadly.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but I like it." Krauss spoke and aimed at the ceiling, looking down the sights.

"That's because you're built out of nothing but muscle." I replied. While the gun seemed large in my hands and especially Crane's, it was the perfect size for Krauss.

He was too busy admiring his new weapon to hear me.

"We only have those and I doubt this station is equipped with anything other than standard security weapons." The Scottish man was looking at a supply list on a clipboard. "Maybe one of the ships will have some, but until you find out, this is what you'll get."

There were over one hundred ships, surely one of them would have it, especially if they were performing a raid. More like an invasion actually. Until then, we had what we got.

I lifted the helmet back up and put it on. For a moment there was darkness, then the lights began to come on. A screen came up and I could see out along with a flurry on information about the environment. It was just like my old armor. Hope it had a better aiming system though, my bad aim had gotten me into plenty of bad situations.

"Oh, that is cool." Crane looked at me. "You're eyes are glowing." He picked up his own helmet and put it on. The dark eyes immediately began to glow green. "It's just like the old armor."

With the helmet tested, I took it off and the glow in the eyes turned off.

"I guess we're back in the saddle." Krauss slapped me on the back.

"Yeah, let's hope it isn't like old time." Next step was to face whatever horrors the Jostens managed to recreate. We had already seen what they had done to their soldiers, only more perverse things could await us at the belly of the beast.