Year of Darkness - Part 8 - 2286 by Owen Townend
Tor
padded along the blood-drenched walkway. Bodies lay strewn against the white
steel walls, missing limbs, but he refrained from temptation and hunger pangs.
When he boarded the ship a month
ago, the motion sensor overhead lighting had proven a useful feature but now it
was just relentless; an artificial stalker pursuing him through unexplored
shadow. He could hear every slight click as a new bulb flickered into life. If
he stood still too long, some even whined.
He raised himself onto his hindlegs
and turned to a starboard window to marvel at the perfect dark beyond. Deep space,
approaching galactic central point. The SS Chieftain was nearing its
destination, a planet with inhabitable conditions. As soon as Ulrich had
confirmed that the voyage was two months from arrival, Tor had ordered the
attack. Not so much a massacre as a targeted depletion of the ship’s human crew
and passengers. Only 40% had been slaughtered. He had learned restraint in his
old age.
Tor used a black claw to pull out a
chunk of anaemic ensign from between his yellow teeth before continuing to the
observation deck. He was captain of the ship, after all, and his pack would be
awaiting further orders. Captain of the SS Chieftain. If only old One-Eye could
see him now.
In his way, Odin had inspired Tor’s
life’s work. The god had made meddling in mortal affairs look such fun, not to mention tactically astute.
To think, when Odin had tried to
spear Tor back in 536 for turning one of the Allfather’s bastards into a
werewolf, Tor thought the wise deity had become cock-eyed. When you have spread
your seed throughout Midgard, why rage when one son succumbs?
Still William must have been
uniquely precious to warrant the old fool hunting Tor in human form. Odin could
have just cast Tor out while he was still at the height of his power. However
this vendetta was personal and so Glad ‘o’ War was doomed to fail. Spying the
warrior Bjorn nearby, Tor suspected a fresh play for blood and so smote down
Odin’s champion before the ambush.
Tor then hid William from his father for five
hundred years, feeding the boy’s bloodlust and preparing him for a further clash
with the God of Wisdom and Death, or rather his pet mortals. This suspicion proved correct when Bjorn’s
bloodline continued and yielded fiercer sons than each previous generation.
When Bjorn the Second and his brother Erik came into their own, Tor took a
chance. Using false prophecy, he turned the lad and waited for bestial rage to pit brother against brother.
Of course that was when Odin revealed
his hand. He kept the brothers alive and united long enough to set sail for
Northumberland ,and laid protection on Bjorn the Second and his wife Helga. Tor
retreated for a while but used that time to line up the next skirmish.
Ships crossed and William was
‘discovered’ by Erik, Bjorn and Helga. When the moon shone the following night,
wolf met wolf in terrible combat. Bjorn and Helga did not last long, too
foolhardy to leap overboard while they still had the chance. Then again,
neither wolf stayed the course either, Erik using his last vestige of sanity to
drown William in the murky depths of the sea.
This broke Odin. Already made frail
by his followers abandoning him for Christ, the god crawled off to wherever condemned
deities fade away. There was no answer to Tor’s ingenious strike or even the pain of
a rediscovered child being snatched away from his heartsick father for good. So
it was that Odin the Hooded One retreated into complete obscurity. All that was
left of him now was a ship named the SS Chieftain and a few library books
telling his tale as myth. Meanwhile Tor remained more real than he had ever
been. Of course, his fallen enemy had inspired that. Without Odin’s passion for
family, Tor would never have become a father himself.
Tearing his gaze away from the
beautiful, unbroken absence of light outside, Tor fell to all fours again and
ran the remaining distance to the observation deck. From the artificial wind
resistance against his thick grey pelt to the tandem clatter of paws bounding
across the metal grill floor, he revelled in the run though it passed in less than
a minute.
He turned to the reinforced titanium
doors which now shined with spittle. His betas had apparently licked the blood
off it while he had been away. Tor smirked. Though the thumbprint scanner had
been smashed, the doors slid open at the slightest gesture of his muzzle.
On the other side, the observation
deck stretched in all directions, each wall replicating the same curve as the huge
main window. Out of every deck and room of the SS Chieftain, Tor knew that this
space was the only one that had barely been touched. No-one was allowed to handle
the controls aside from Ulrich and even he knew to wait for the arrival of the
new captain.
Tor glanced around him at his gathered
pack, beta males to port and mates and runts to starboard. Only one stood
beside the captain’s chair at the centre, his long-ago chosen life mate Erica.
She glowered at him as he approached.
“Husband,” she said. Her appearance
was more humanoid than the rest, with a fine down of brown fur over a small
nose. She affected this sometimes to frustrate him.
Tor grinned. “Erica, my love.” He settled
into the captain’s chair without taking his eyes off her. “I trust everything and
everyone is in place?”
“The pack is ready for your next
bloodbath.”
“And the remaining mortals?”
“All safely sealed in the cargo hold.”
Erica pointed to a bank of monitor a few metres behind the chair. “Lorelei and
Sasha are watching them, primed for their next attempt at escape.”
“Next?” Tor’s eyes flashed.
“There have been two attempts so
far. The first involving an unexpected staff override and the second an improvised
explosive which failed.” Erica smirked. “You know humans better than any of us,
husband. Always striving. Never accepting the closing maw of fate.”
Tor grunted. “Ulrich handled it?”
Erica gritted her mildly sharp
teeth. “Yes. Our grandson remains a wonder.”
It never failed to amuse Tor how
embittered Erica was about his pride in Ulrich. Though she never voiced it anymore, Tor knew she
still blamed him for letting their much less impressive son Meric die. The only remarkable thing that the
would-be monk had ever done, was sire a child with aristocracy. Everything else
about Meric had not been worth saving from his fate at the guns of Robert
Newton.
Meanwhile Ulrich was a marked
improvement on his father. Tor saw a ferocity in the boy’s eyes from the day Agnes
Newton released him to the wild. Scooping the babe up from an overgrown
crossroads, Tor set his mind to bestowing Ulrich with all his grim knowledge
and survival tactics. And from there, the boy gained some new ones. It had been
his idea to revisit the Newton family in the 18th Century. Tor
watched with pride as Ulrich lured Georgina Newton outdoors and tore her apart.
Ulrich approached the captain’s
chair now and bowed his head. He held a tablet device in his auburn paw,
manipulating it with human fingers on his other hand. This aside, Ulrich looked
the very epitome of a dignified wolf, with his thick mane and tall ears.
“Ulrich!” Tor said. “Your
grandmother has been singing your praises. Well done for keeping the humans in
their pen.”
“Thank you, sir,” Ulrich replied. “Our
course remains clear and our destination is now less than one lightyear ahead. With
the Chieftain’s hyperdrive, we should close that distance in mere seconds.”
“Good,” Tor said with a toothsome
grin. “I will give the order.”
“Of
course.” Ulrich lingered a moment. His ears twitched. “Sir, I have received
requests from the other beta males to extract a portion of the remaining humans
so we may feed when the planet is in sight.”
“Denied,” Tor growled, turning to
stare down each of the beta males. “We must keep our food supply in good number
till landing. The prey on this new planet may be few and far between while we
establish our colony.”
“I understand, sir,” Ulrich replied
in a slightly petulant tone. The cur might well be hungry, but he had helped
plan the crew's depletion. Only 40% of the population were to be slaughtered while
aboard the SS Chieftain. Ulrich had worked out this percentage himself.
Greediness aside, he was a canny
lad, keeping pace with advancing technology. Though he had struck a severe blow
to the Newton family, he made sure their name and reputation became synonymous
with scientific development. Returning to Agnes’s descendants, Ulrich used his birth
right to the Newton wealth to invest in ambitious projects involving the study
of dark matter and artificial intelligence. When the computer program named Newton
triggered an artificial year of darkness in 2036, that was at Tor’s behest. He
had done his best work under cover of uncommon shadow and would do so again.
When the 21st Century fell dark, he, Erica and Ulrich had used it to
bolster their numbers ahead of the inevitable journey to a new home.
In the hushed quiet of the
observation deck, fatigue and impatience clashed within Tor. His empty stomach
grumbled and he yearned for earth between his paws. No more artificial light
pursuing his every move; only a natural glow would suffice.
He turned to Ulrich. “Activate the
hyperdrive.”
Without a word, Tor’s grandson set
about this. Swiping a human finger across the tablet screen, Ulrich then stepped
aside to check that his instruction had in fact gone ahead. When he returned to
the captain’s chair, the SS Chieftain shunted forward at a nauseating rate that
rattled Tor’s pronounced canines. He watched as several of his betas regurgitated
half-digested digits and eyeballs onto the clean tiled floor.
“Apologies, sir,” Ulrich said. “The
hyperdrive was only intended for use when the crew entered cryo-stasis.”
Tor nodded. “It is a good thing that
we have the stomach for such surprises.” He turned his snout up at the bent-over
wolves. “Well, the best of us.”
“The oldest of us,” Erica added with
snide emphasis.
Tor’s claws dug into the captain’s
chair armrests. He was about to firmly dissuade his life mate from making further
remarks when the observation deck window was filled with light. Natural light.
The new planet was glorious, more
conical in shape than the Earth, like a gigantic green serpent’s tooth.
According to scout reports, their new home was almost entirely forested. The
canopies were so thick in certain places that it almost seemed like day was
night. A perfect hunting ground when it came to it.
However that was not what made Tor
and his pack gasp now. The planet was ideal, but that which orbited it was
better. Three moons, each three times larger than Earth’s modest solo satellite.
It was these that reflected the light of the SS Chieftain tenfold.
Tor did not know which of his kin
bayed first but the rest soon followed. Ulrich’s howl rose high above all
others. Even Erica could not suppress her yowl for long. At last Tor matched
his own voice to the celebration, and showed his pack the timbre and power of
their alpha.
When all fell quiet, he announced,
“After centuries of tooth and claw, survival and hunting, our kind has finally
gained its dominion. No longer do we kill when called to, we now eat at any
time and forever. My pack, Midgard is well behind us. I welcome you to our new
promised land. Fenris.”
And so the wolves returned to their
howling as they entered the planet’s atmosphere. Ulrich maintained a steady
entry, Erica finally bowed her head and Tor salivated over the future.
The triplicate moonlight broadened before them.
A great ending to this saga, Owen. Until the pack settle on their new planet and then who knows what might happen? From Vivien
ReplyDeleteHi Vivien. Thank you for the kind words. It was an unenviable task to round things off after all the other excellent entries. That being said, beware lycan space colonies...
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