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Superiority

Chapter 9

"Damn, this place is cold," said Louis, before stepping into the cramped compartment of a canadian armored transport vehicle.

The driver just nodded in agreement before starting the engine, and heading toward the battlefield.

It was cramped inside the tiny vehicle. Louis barely had room to move around, and there were people surrounding him on all sides. He felt uncomfortable in the confined space, the chair was devoid of comfort in exchange for saving money, and there was a metal pipe pushing into his back that was part of the rear mounted MG. He looked out the window at the already blood soaked battlefield. The fighting had been going on for about ten minutes, and there were already dozens of corpses littering the ground.

Louis couldn't see a good place to start. He was supposed to find a quiet place with a dead wolf that looked somewhat similar to him, and assume his identity. That didn't seem easy, with all the action going on.

Suddenly there was a loud boom next to the transport, as a Lupine missile, shot from high up in the mountain they were driving alongside of narrowly missed them, before the wolf that fired it was gunned down by a canadian sniper.

"This is horrible," thought Louis. But that didn't scare him. It only reassured him in the importance of his mission.

The transport continued alongside the mountain heading towards a lookout destination, where Louis could determine where a good identity to assume would be.

The sound was almost deafening. Even high up, where he was, you could hear the firing of hundreds of rounds, and the screams of the dying. Most of the young men had just barely enlisted, not knowing the horrors they would be facing. Louis tried not to think about the families the dead would leave behind, as the began to descend towards the lookout spot.

Both sides were pretty well matched. The wolves were physically superior, in every way. But the canadians had better training, numbers, and morale.

The transport rolled to a stop, as the driver turned around, and informed Louis they had reached their destination.

Louis stepped out of the vehicle, dressed in full Lupine Marine Corps dress, wearing a red band around his neck, as to identify himself to canadian snipers.

Louis pulled out some binoculars from a bag, and began surveying the landscape, as the transport turned around, and departed.

As Louis surveyed the area, he couldn't help but notice some wolves taking large, flat, cylindrical, metal containers through a door cut into the side of the mountain. He wondered what this could possibly be, as he continued to search for a suitable identity. He soon noticed a dead wolf lying near the edge of the battlefield, whose fur matched his dark brown fur, and who was about Louis' size.

"Looks like he's my target," Thought Louis, as he began descending the mountain, careful to avoid detection. Thankfully the wolf was higher up than the others, and was pretty secluded, which allowed Louis to take the tags from his neck, and wrap them around his own.

He took the time to look over the body of his new self, to see if he could learn anything about his rank, which he found to be a lowly Private. He came across a short journal describing the boredom of living on a military base, and how he hated being drafted. Then Louis came across his wallet. In it were about thirty Lupine dollars, and a credit card, but behind the lining, Louis pulled out a small picture. It showed the wolf before him, next to a beautiful female, who he assumed was his wife, as he held a small pup in his arms.

Louis tried as hard as he could to hold back his tears, but one tear slowly trickled down his muzzle, and landed on his sleeve, freezing after only a moment in the cold alaskan winter. Louis began to think of his own father, who was enlisted in the United States Navy, and was killed by a terrorist attack. Louis was only seven at the time, but he remembered that day more clearly than any other memory he had.

He was playing on the swing in his backyard, when his mother came outside, and told him they were going to go get something to eat. After they had ventured into town from their rural home, Louis was treated to lunch at his favorite restaurant. He was happy at the time, but his mother had a sad look on her face that he would never forget.

When they returned home, Louis was told to sit on one side of the couch, with his mother on the other. His mother just stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. Even at his young age, Louis knew something was wrong. After several mumbled attempts at speech, his mother reached forward, pulled him into a motherly embrace, and tearfully told him his father would not be coming home.

"What happened to him, Mommy?" asked Louis.

His mother looked into his eyes, before responding. "Some bad people, did something bad to him, Louis."

His mother then grabbed his hand, and dropped an object into it. It was a small pendant.

"This was your fathers, Louis," she said, still holding his other hand.

Louis was allowing the tears to flow from his face at this point. He slowly reached into his uniform, and pulled out the pendant. It was a gold crucifix, bent slightly at the bottom.

Louis had long since abandoned the idea of a god, but the small item meant the world to him. He idolized his father at that young age, and it devastated him to lose him.

"So many lives lost without reason," thought Louis. He couldn't help but feel sorry for the young wolf in front of him. With the assumption of his identity, his young son wouldn't know of his death until long after it had happened.

Louis almost hesitated after that last thought, but quickly regained his composure.

More lives would be lost for no reason, if he abandoned his mission.

After carefully, and discreetly sewing the dead wolf's rank patch onto his own sleeve, and retrieving the fallen wolf's weapon, he began descending further down the mountain, towards the Lupine base.

The trees were dense around him, but that didn't stop him, he was on a mission. Occasionally he would pass a wolf, but all he had to do was put on a look of determination, raise his weapon, and run towards an imaginary objective, and he was ignored.

Just as Louis exited the trees, and accessed the main battlefield, the earth beneath him began to shake. He looked up, and saw the side of the mountain shaking in front of him. With a loud hiss of air, the very mountainside gave way to a horrifying armament.

Louis stared in terrified awe. There were ten of them. They each had twenty cannons on them.

And then it happened.

With a deafening roar the mountain began spitting fire. Within two minutes, the Lupine base no longer had to worry about canadian infantry. The massacre was sickening. They never had a chance to retreat, a chance to fight back. The terrible cannons had come out of what seemed to be a spider hole in the side of the mountain. Shocked, Louis remembered seeing the cylindrical containers being loaded through the door. "That was ammunition!" Louis thought, just staring at the mountain for about twenty more minutes, still trying to believe what he had just seen.

"What the hell are you doing marine!" yelled a large angry looking wolf behind Louis.

Louis didn't know what to say. The snow white fur of the scary, tough looking wolf was covered in blood, and he didn't seem to notice, or care.

"Uhh, sorry Sir!" replied Louis, surprised at how afraid he was of the wolf.

"I need you back at the base, you worthless piece of shit! You're on Mess Hall duty tonight, and I find you out here, admiring the scenery? You were told to return to the base after the Spider Hole bombardment!"

"Sir, yes, Sir!" replied Louis running back to the base, tail between his legs.

"This is food?" thought Louis, as he shoveled some sort of chili-like concoction into the bowl of a waiting Air Force officer.

Thankfully, his disguise had worked perfectly. He slipped into the base without being noticed, and the wolves he shared his tent with, completely ignored him. It wasn't a friendly environment. Most of the wolves in the room had been drafted, and were none too happy with their current situation.

"Corn, or peas?" Louis asked the officer.

"Peas," he replied, a hint of boredom in his voice.

Louis obliged, and continued to serve the line, until eight o' clock, when his replacement got there, and he was let off to eat.

The chili was better than Louis had anticipated, but it wasn't the best he'd ever had.

After returning to his tent, Louis waited for the other wolves to fall asleep, so he could read, and memorize their names, before falling asleep himself.

Louis didn't sleep very well that night. He had nightmares of the devastation of the Canadians, of his fathers death, and of watching an all too vivid scene in which the young pup in the photograph learned of his fathers death in the same way he had.

It was early in the morning when Louis woke up. Prison only allowed him six hours of sleep, before he was sent to the mines, so he was used to sleeping very little.

"Hey Shelton," said one of the wolves he shared the tent with. Shelton was the last name of the wolf he had become. "Base Director said he wants to see you for janitorial duties."

"Alright, thanks," said Louis, careful not to talk to the other wolves too much.

Louis was surprised at how warm the base was. There were fires burning all over, keeping the place at a comfortable, if not slightly chilly temperature.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" asked Louis, after walking into the Base Director's ofiice.

"Yes," replied the Director. "You're today's Rec Room janitor."

"Yes Sir," said Louis, before leaving the room.

The Rec Room was filthy. There were empty cans all over the floor, and bored looking wolves were draped lazily over the torn furniture. There was a pool table in the room, but it had inappropriate images carved into it.

Louis looked around the room. There was a wolf watching news, and a none-too-intelligent looking wolf playing ping-pong by himself in the corner, but other than that, most were sleeping, or talking.

Louis walked over to the supply cabinet, and turned the grimy handle to reveal a few basic cleaning supplies, and chemicals. He quickly got to work, picking up cans off the cheap, stained carpet, making sure not to make any mistakes, so nobody would have any problems with him, and draw unneeded attention.

It was only a few minutes before Louis had filled two trash bags with cans, and wrappers. The side of the room he cleaned first, was already starting to get dirty again. Louis liked the cleaning though, it kept his mind off of the task at hand, and kept him out of suspicion.

After a while, Louis found four trash cans in the back room, and set them out. They were perfectly clean when he pulled them out. They probably hadn't ever been used. That would keep at least some of the trash off of the floor.

Wolves came, and went in the time Louis spent cleaning the filthy room. It looked to be a gloomy place to take time off, even when it was mostly clean. The cheap paneling on the walls complimented the grocery store-like tiles on the bathroom floor. The torn faux-leather furniture was stained with substances Louis wasn't sure he wanted to know, and the ceiling fan was missing a blade, making it wobble off balance.

Every few minutes, Louis would hear the door creak, announcing the entrance. or exit, of a wolf, never a happy one, though. Louis overheard most of their conversations. Most of the wolves were drafted, and constantly whined about every detail of their stay on the base.

"The food's terrible!" said one wolf. "My grandmother could make better, and she's dead!"

Louis chuckled at that one, before returning to cleaning. He didn't bother to run the vacuum, seeing as most wolves were tracking in muddy slush with their boots. He filled the mop bucket with a mixture of water, and some chemical with a faded label, that said something about cleaning, and began mopping the bathroom.

After that was done, and he had cleaned the disgustingly filthy toilets, Louis mostly lazed around like the others, occasionally getting up to clean a mess, or take out a bag of trash. He didn't even bother leaving for lunch, opting instead for a snack from the vending machine.

He was sitting on a couch opposite the television, watching the news.

"That's enough about the war Mike," said an annoying newscaster with a shrill voice. "Back to Utah. Our local news affiliate has confirmed that last night, the last remnant of what is now being called The Great Salt Lake City Riots, have been halted. This just in Mike, breaking health news. Can carrots increase your risk for diabetes? We'll have the story..." It was too much for Louis, he just stopped watching it.

His eyes began to water out of exhaustion. He looked at his watch, confirming it was late. Surprisingly, a younger wolf thanked him for cleaning the room, as he got up to leave.

It was a long walk back to his tent in his sleepy haze, he passed the tent up more than once, prompting a higher ranking officer to ask if was drunk, to which proved otherwise, before continuing inside the tent.

The other wolves were asleep, much to Louis' relief. He crawled into bed, and closed his eyes. It didn't take long after that for him to fall into another night of restless nightmare filled sleep.