Wolf: A Military P.A.C. Novel (9 page)

Chapter 17 Michael

The Base at Calgary was a short train ride from Banff and then a bus to the barracks that would be his home for the next ten weeks. Basic Combat Training. He registered at the gate and was passed along to the Admin building, and then shown his quarters. The guy pointed them out and then left him to his own devices. He opened the doors, stepped in and saw one other person in the room. The man was stocky, built like a small bear, dark short hair. Olive brown complexion. An Asian-Middle Eastern mix. He looked up from the book he was reading. A tech manual.

“Ahmed.”

“Like the dead terrorist.”

“That’s Achmed
. I’m meaner. I’ll make sure you’re dead.”

“That’s good, I like that.” Michael smiled, a full grin that showed his enthusiasm.

“We’re battle buddies. Supposed to match up as people come in. Sergeant’s orders.”

“I’d prefer
. . .”

“
. . . what, a blond? With really nice blue eyes?” He held his hands out in front of his chest, the motion making it clear what he was talking about.

“The dummy
. I could make it shut up.”

“Oh, big, and a wise ass. Any good in a fight
?” The grin on Ahmed’s face was a challenge. Pure and simple.

“Do we have the time?”

“Yup.”

After that
, they could be found in the base gym in their off-duty hours. Michael should have been too big to be fast. Ahmed should have been too small not to be beaten to a pulp.

They worked it out, learning from each other.

Michael shut the door of the cabin behind him. Faelon, beside him in wolf form, was silent though she hugged in close to his waist with her shoulder. He rested his hand in her mane. The sun had yet to rise and the dusk of the universe spread over them like a halo.

“I miss this place whenever I leave.”

She barked at him, combined with a low whine; it told him all he needed to know about her own feelings. These mountains were home to both of them. They had been calling Michael for years, and Faelon had grown up here. How she would take the city . . . he didn’t know.

Fresh snow had fallen last night. The air was crisp, and hung with the stillness of a battle just ended. A reminder that the Canadian Rockies held on to its secrets until spring.

Usually.

Michael
walked to the corral. Faelon played, burying her nose in the snow, flinging it to the air and then jumping from place to place. Chaka skittered at their approach. She was still nervous from Faelon’s presence, but the last few days of training had reassured her that this wolf wouldn’t attack.

They had unset the few active traps in the area, yesterday. And while they had seen evidence of the black wolf, it had stayed away.
Michael had laughed when Faelon had called him “chicken.”

Her understanding kept growing. Her curiosity, she never lost. Over the days, she had questioned PAC as much as she had
Michael. More, since he had often been busy writing and got lost in the world of his book. The title had changed to “Military PAC” an irony neither Michael nor his computer had missed.

They had been quiet for several hours before Faelon got curious again. It didn’t usually take her that long.
“Tell me about your world, Michael,” she said, shifting from wolf to human and back again. Chaka reared at the scent change. Michael got her under control, shaking his head.

The Whiskey Jack from the other day showed up to hawk at them.

“Canada’s a world power these days. PAC told you what Canada is?”

“Place where pack lives,” she said, shifting just to answer him. Her brindle coat disappeared into the snow a moment later.

“Right. The years before the Oil Wars were important, the world was panicked and while many countries implemented alternative energies, the States and the Middle East were slower to adapt. Worldwide food production fell off. In America, farms went fallow without fertilizer to cope with the overproduction imposed.”

“Lots of deer,
Michael,” she said.

“Yes
, but humans make food. They have to, the pack is too large. One day I know you’ll understand that.”

“Another satellite has been routed into place,” PAC said.

Faelon burst from the snow six metres in front of him, her pink skin glistening from ice crystals. The brindle mane of her hair was covered in white. “Motion. There,” she pointed out to him. “Not prey.” And then she shifted again. A low growl coming from her direction.

“PAC, Military Mode.”
Michael could feel the computer mutate around him, sliding over his entire skin surface, changing into the body armour that was modelled after the silk of the Golden Orb spider—only this one had carbon fibre and a few other materials to aid its strength. Michael knew he was pretty much bulletproof. The tension that had started to build levelled out and his muscles relaxed as other modifications came on line, ready to boost his metabolism if he needed it, the suit mirroring other tech it had come into contact with. He unstrapped the rifle hung from Chaka’s saddle and readied it. He heard the “ping” that told him PAC had linked to the rifle. He stopped the horse on the valley ridge and tied it behind some tall evergreens, hiding her from view. “Hide our thermal signature, PAC.” Then he went to ground further out, keeping a low profile. He raised the rifle and sighted down the scoop. The terrain sprang close, motion and thermal sensors coming on line.

Michael
knew that he was capable of killing men under the right conditions. He’d done so before. With PAC, he had an unfair advantage. It didn’t change how he felt about his enemies though.

“Show me Tactical, PAC.” Faelon eased up to him on four paws, and hugged in close to him. She held a rabbit in her jaws. The crunch of bones echoed under the tree they were using for cover, but that didn’t change the concentration Faelon focused on the hologram of the Johnston Valley that sprang to life in front of them. From the way she was looking back and forth from the map to the landscape
, she knew what it meant. They’d moved down into Palsatilla Pass, the valley floor fed by Johnston Creek, and behind them and to the right, Halstead Pass, the Panther River Valley, and the back way to Sheep Creek and civilization. The long way around.

“Recon force north of us. On foot. Their thermal gear is good,” PAC said. Seven dots appeared on the map. “It’s coded, too.”

“Shit. That means they have support somewhere. Extrapolate who, PAC.”

The machine was silent for a moment. “Mercenaries. Blackwater from the coding and equipment signature.”

“Right, everything leads back to Saudi. And they want to talk, isn’t that nice. We have a doctor’s appointment to keep though.” Michael returned to Chaka, and pulled her reins free from the bough they had been attached to. “We only fight if we have to. Better to leave them in the dark if we can.” Faelon shifted, that ripple of fur to skin that was like a shiver, a glacier in a quake. A human enough growl was the only sign that she was paying attention. “And Faelon, if anything happens to me, PAC is yours.”

“Not-cub is not-cub’s,
Michael. But it’s complicated.”

He laughed. “Thank you for coming into my life.” He brushed against her.

“Michael not lonely anymore,” she said.

“No, beloved. Excited.”

Then they moved out into the terrain as if they had been hunting together for years, Michael taking Chaka through the trees and rocks following the ridgeline until it sloped downwards into the valley, always keeping cover between him and the forces moving in on them. They didn’t have a P.A.C., but they had the same resources, if slightly slower, that he did. Faelon stayed high and behind him, instinctively taking the high ground. Stopping every few minutes to sight the area and then run ahead. It didn’t take long for the ridgeline to run down into the valley and then they were in the open.

Michael
spurred Chaka on. All he could think of was a trap. The training his father had given him. Bang, you’re dead. “Faelon, move to cover.” Michael put cover between himself and the north end of the valley, PAC put up Tactical. The holo-map hanging in the air like a spell ready to flare up.

“Six more men, south of us.”

There was a soft grump and Chaka went down, Michael freeing his leg before it could get trapped and skidding as nine hundred kilos of horse slid along the ground, blood pooling out behind it in a wave.

When Faelon turned,
Michael was rolling to his feet. Feathers stuck out from his shoulder. He pulled them free and ran for the cover of several large boulders, here in the “way” between mountains.

Faelon didn’t understand the next part, but Michael and PAC did. “The darts have a Nano-bound neuro-toxin in them. They haven’t pierced your skin but my systems have been compromised.”

“Can you neutralize it, PAC?”

“Working. It will take time.”

“Can you get behind them, Faelon?”

Michael sighted in on her, his rifle steady on the ledge of stone just in front him, most of his body hidden. He watched rocks and gravel spit up as she passed from cover to cover, changing her strategy as she moved. Never where she was supposed to be, leaving concealment at speeds he had never seen from her before. Looking forward
, he saw a man take aim, he let his breath slide from his lungs and squeezed the trigger. He heard a sharp bark. An answer to his shot.

There were more men, but they were staring at the wolf
, shock registering. Then they saw what she could do.

The man
was lying in a hollow tucked under a small evergreen overhanging the slope of the basin they were in. He’d seen her. But who saw her didn’t seem to matter. She placed herself beside him and growled as he turned to look at her. With her teeth bared, the skin around her nose and eyes wrinkled, making her look fiercer. She lunged before any noise could leave the man’s throat. This time she didn’t leave her enemy for dead. Fifteen hundred pounds of pressure bit into the soft flesh and vertebrae of the man’s neck. With a crunch his neck severed, the head rolling forward, fear still on its pale bloodless features.

Michael’s sight found another target,
and there was a meaty thud and splinter of bone as the bullet shattered it right beside Faelon.

He watched the next prey, this one standing behind a tree. Something made him look at Faelon before she got to him.
Michael could see the growl paralyze him for a moment, then she leapt for his throat. His hand went for a gun when she was in the air. Her teeth were buried in flesh before he could draw it. Her jaws snapped together. His head bounced, then dug its way into the snow. Its eyes looking to the sky. The other men in the area saw it as a warning. She caught their motion as they ran. Her paws dug into the snow and the rock close to the surface here, and chased the slowest of the prey. He turned to fire at her, the bullet spraying rock and snow in her face. She ignored it, lunged, and landed on the man’s slight chest, shifting form as she did so. She growled, sniffed the man’s scent into her nostrils. The fear in his eyes increased, the whites showing more and more as she stared at him.

Even from
one hundred and two metres away he could hear the intermittent relay from PAC’s systems linked through the receptors in the rifle. “Stay away . . . my pack,” she said. He saw a wet streak stain the man's pants, imagining a heavy urine scent. “Tell . . . cubs.”

She jumped away from him, on all fours, the growl in her throat deepening as she shifted back to a wolf. The man scrambled away, the urine smell sharper in the air now.
Michael saw her legs go stiff, her nose in the air searching. Her ears high, twisting back towards him. Then she scrambled to turn around and race back towards Michael, her eyes showing . . .

Michael turned around. He had time to get his gun out and his arm up and then the black wolf was on him.

Chapter 18 Michael

Huer walked into the gym, Boyen on his heels.

“See that, military brats.” Huer said.

“
How can you tell?”

“
Keeners. Most of the grunts I know run to the bar for their free time. The rebellious wouldn’t be here.”

“
So they’re like us.”

“
Yup, let’s go introduce ourselves. I wonder if they like to knife fight. I could use a good sparring partner.”

“
What am I?”

“
Bad with a knife. When I want a date, you’re my wingman, Boyen.”

The Whiskey Jack had gone silent.

PAC’s tactical display flickered, winked out, and then formed again, dimmer this time. The Nano-bound tranquilizer still compromising the system. Some of the life signs had blinked out, and one had appeared behind Michael. He turned, dropping his rifle and pulling his pistol.

He fired. The roar and flames belching from the gun covered the whine from his foe. The smell of burnt fur filled his nostrils, a growl from the wolf echoed in the space between the mountains as the beast was thrown back by the force of the bullet, and
Michael’s thrust with his hind legs. Claws raked at his body and teeth snapped at the hand that held the gun. They broke skin, rent the flesh enough that Michael had to drop the gun, a cry of pain bursting from his lips. “Boost.” He felt PAC shrink again to become a belt around his waist but the enzymes flooded his system, nothing like PAC could normally do. Michael’s speed and reactions increased. He turned, grasping the gun with his left hand and rolled back in time to block the wolf’s grasping jaws with his right arm. Without the boost from PAC, his throat would have been there instead. Michael brought the gun up, shaky in his left hand, put it to the wolf’s side and pulled the trigger again. The force sent the animal off Michael, but the strength of the wolf’s pull on his right arm broke cartilage and tendons, leaving his forearm hanging useless. Blood flowed, melting the snow beneath him, looking more like black silk than the red of his life force leaking into the ground. Two fifty-calibre rounds in the chest should have killed the wolf. But it healed, as fast as Faelon, was just like her from what Michael could tell. It attacked again. Lunging for his throat from his weak side. Michael raised his shoulder in time. Ignoring the pain that seared through his body, he brought the pistol up one last time. All he had the strength for, even with PAC’s assistance. He looked the wolf in the eye, a pale amber so far from Faelon’s eye colour it made the animal look weak, sickly. It growled at him. Aware. Michael could see human intelligence there. The way it had waited, stalked him when Faelon wasn’t there. This animal wanted his life. He aimed the muzzle of his weapon for that baleful eye. The gun recoiled in his hand and the top of the wolf’s head came off, half its brains scattering over the snow. Michael shifted away from it. Through the ripped fabric of his coat, he could see and feel his right arm, hanging useless, muscle and tendon shredded. His shoulder torn open as well. Tears in the skin on that same hand, and on both legs. Michael knew death when he saw it—had seen it before.

“Medical Mode
. . . PAC.” His breath shuddered in his lungs.

He thanked Faelon for the last eight days. A lifetime. And then the blackness welled up and took him.

Node One: Name, PAC. Primary Interface dying. Searching parameters. Primary Command Interface: Initiate Self-destruct. Memory Conflict. Primary commands no longer recognized. Node One adaption. Home Advantage Command: Secondary Interface; Faelon; wolf; human female. Michael’s Mate. Ignore Primary Command structure. Abort Self-destruct.