Revealed: Chapter 6
#28 of Hidden (Series)
It's back!
Revealed: Chapter 6
"Stop squirming." I grappled the corgi with one hand as I tried to shave the area around the bullet wound with the other. It was a futile effort, but it needed to be done, no matter how much he complained. I couldn't afford to have him bedridden because of an infected wound that he refused to let me clean.
"It hurts." He whined. A paw knocked the safety razor that I had out of my hand and it skittered out of the room.
"Jesus Christ!" I backed away from him. "You're a god damn medic. You know that I need to get the area around the wound clean before I can treat it. The fur has to go." I walked out of the room and picked up the razor. It was no good anymore, I needed it to be sterile. I walked back in and dropped it in a small dish of rubbing alcohol I had poured out for sterilization.
Crane brought his wounded arm up to his chest and cradled it. The wound wasn't life threatening, the bullet had hit him in the bicep and went clean through, avoiding the artery and the bone. He wouldn't be able to use it for a while and the first aid I was trying to give him was just to fight off the possibility of infection until we got to a proper medical facility. All I had to do was start, if that was going to be possible.
"You know, for a medic you're ironically not a very good patient." I said, now picking up the razor with tweezers. I held it over the sink and burned off the residual alcohol with a match. The flame burned for a second and quickly died out once its fuel was all gone. "Now hold still." I reached for his arm and he pulled back.
"Let me do it." He offered. "You're too rough and grabby." I pulled back as if that would disprove him.
"Fine." I sighed and handed him the razor which he took with his good hand.
He twirled it in his fingers, trying to get to the right angle. Satisfied, he began. The first pass of the blade cleared away an inch of fur. He tapped the razor on the side of the chair he was sitting on and some fur which had gotten stuck between the individual blades fell to the floor. He repeated the process with precision and in no time he had a square furless patch on his upper arm around the small hole that was lightly bleeding.
"See." He boasted. "Much better when I do it." I had to admit, it was a pretty damn fine job, especially since he had to do it one handed.
"Alright, now let's get the bandages on." I pulled out a roll of medical bandages and some applied some anti-bacterial salve to them. "Hold still now." I was relieved when he no longer tried to avoid my grasp and I got the bandaged tightly woven around the wound. IT wasn't bleeding much so it was more just to keep the dirt out than to stem any bleeding.
"Ow, fuck." He whined when I tied off the ends of the bandage. Ignoring him, I proceeded to get a sling for his arm. I helped him get his arm into the sling with a few more complaints.
"There." I said when the job was done. "Now go get some rest while I figure out what the hell we're going to do next." He nodded we left the room. He turned right towards the sleeping quarters and I turned left to go check on Krauss and the rest of his squad. It was nice that he was back.
'He's not really back.' Dog whispered. 'He isn't the same, he'll be different.'
"What do you mean?" I thought back at him.
'You saw what he's capable, how he acted when those gunmen tried to kill him and capture you. The old Captain Krauss was hot headed, but not so vicious.'
I thought about it a bit. When Krauss had finally snapped into action when we got out of that elevator, he did seem different, minus the obvious transformation. I replayed the entire scene in my head.
-
"Like hell!" Krauss roared and bolted past me in a large grey blur.
He was on the first and closest of the assailants before the man could even fire a single shot. Krauss used his mass to plow right through him and continue towards the next gunman who had begun to draw a bead on the angry wolf.
I fired a few shots at the man and missed, but that distracted him long enough for Krauss to get to him. The man's neck snapped back at an unnatural angle as a clawed paw smashed into the side of his head. He flew off to the side and landed in a heap where he remained unmoving, a bit of blood coming from his nose and a cut that went from his left eye to his ear.
The first gunman who had been steam rolled by Krauss was now slowly getting up onto uneasy feet. He stumbled and tried to reach for his gun. I fired at him as well and this time I didn't miss. The bullet entered his upper thigh and most likely shattered his femur but the way his leg turned to rubber. He screamed out and grasped his broken leg instead of his weapon.
This had gotten the attention of the third gunman who fired a few shots from the hip and me and the rest of us. It was then that I realized that the rest of Krauss' squad had not moved, they merely observed until this point. Now that they had been directly attacked, they sprang into action. Each of them split off into different directions, running at incredible speeds and slowly arced around towards the man.
He threw down his weapon and tried to make a run for his ship, but it was already too late for him. When one of the wolves jumped on him from behind, he smashed his face on the hard irradiated ground and his nose ended up in his brain, killing him instantly.
That only left the man with the broken leg who was still squirming around on the ground, completely ignorant of the large anthromorphic wolf, a true werewolf, who stood above him. Krauss didn't kill the man, he watched him as if on guard. I was about to rush over to see if the man's wound was life threatening until Crane called out.
"Shit." He moaned and held the side of his arm. "Fucking shot me off of a damn hip shot." Blood seeped from between his fingers. He looked up at me, a slight bit of worry etched into it and then looked back at the wound.
I ran over to him, unaware at the time that it was just a flesh wound. "Let's get you onto the ship." I pressed a hand over his to keep up the pressure and walked him over to the ship.
It was there that we found Francis locked inside the bathroom. He was furious at being caught off guard while on the crapper. He took Crane to the infirmary and I went back out to get Krauss and the wounded man, but it turned out I had severed the femoral artery. By the time I got back outside, the man had bled out. There was nothing I could do, I managed to get Krauss and his squad onto the ship and we took off from there. I made my way to the infirmary where I found Crane and began my feeble attempt to get the wound cleaned.
-
'Before Krauss was largely unresponsive and then suddenly, he was active and combative. There are many unknown variables. I advise caution until I can figure out more about him.' Dog sounded genuinely concerned. There was no reason not to be a bit cautious until I got to know his canine self more.
"Okay, I'll stay frosty." I walked into the main cargo bay where I found Krauss with the rest of his squad. I had never met Krauss squad, in the Spec Enforcers, he had his own squad of men that he always worked with. His squad mates were fiercely loyal to him and some people joked about how it was like Krauss had his own personal miniature army in the form of the three deadly soldiers who were never that far away from their Captain.
Krauss was sitting in a chair looking over some junk he had dug out of a nearby crate. It looked like spare parts for the ship, but I wasn't sure. He didn't notice me, or acted like he didn't so I walked up to him. He had spoken earlier so I assumed he still retained his ability to speak now.
"Krauss?" I said warily, ready just in case he did... did what? Attack me? The Captain Krauss I knew would never just attack a fellow soldier, but I would heed Dog's warning for the time being.
"Anderson." He said flatly, not even looking up from the ship part.
"How are you feeling?" I asked, trying to get a conversation going. It shouldn't be too hard, we hadn't seen each other for a long time and there was plenty to talk about.
This time he looked up at me. I saw a lot of wear and tear in those golden eyes of his. "I'm not sure." He raised a paw up in front of his face and slowly rotated it from side to side. He studied it slightly. "I come out of some hazy dream, that turns out not to actually be a dream and suddenly I'm here with you."
I sighed inwardly, relieved that I was talking to a man that was more like the Krauss I remembered, a more human side of the wolf that I was standing next to. I knew that I was capable of, I had turned into a killing machine whenever I lost control. I could only imagine what Kraus was capable of, he was easily a full 100 pounds heavier than me and stood nearly a foot taller. He was pure muscle as well, like Crane, but the similarities ended there. Crane looked funny since all of his muscle mass was crammed into a small frame. Krauss of the other hand appeared menacing, tall, toned and I saw how fast he was back on Mars. If I was capable of punching right through a man's chest, he would be able to punch a man and cause him to explode.
I cleared my head, now was not the time to worry about that. "How did this happen to you?" I pulled a small crate up and sat on it, facing the wolf.
"It's all a big blur." I shook his head. "I only remember bits and pieces. I was assigned to watch over the doctor from the Eurasia, I don't remember much other than walking down halls which were either pristine or soiled with blood. I've..." He paused and looked at his squad and a look of guilt washed over his features. "We've been gone for so long, and it seems like they're still gone." The others were wandering around and inspecting their surroundings. They didn't look at us, but their eats were twitching at every sound. They were obviously on the ready.
"Why don't they speak?" There was something about them that was definitely wrong. The way they moved and looked at everything, was not very human. Perhaps Dog would know.
'They are more animal that Krauss, but more human than the ferals from the labs.' He spoke up, answering my question immediately.
"I'm not sure." Krauss got up and walked over to one of his squad mates. This wolf was smaller, about the same size as myself.
Each of the wolves were the same shade of grey. I would have to rely on size to tell Krauss apart since he was the largest of them.
"They follow me and I get his strange feeling as if they are family." The smaller wolf looked up at him, unintimidated, but showed no sign of hostility at all. "It's... It's difficult to explain, but it's as if they are my pack. I don't know why I call them, but whenever it think about them, the word pack just comes to mind."
I wondered if Krauss had a voice in his head, much like Dog. The feeling I got from Dog, didn't deny it, but it didn't confirm that he was entirely convinced either. There was only one way to find out.
"Do you hear a voice in your head that tells you to regard them as your pack?" He quickly turned to me. He quick movement got the attention of the others and a low growl filled the room. They were looking at me in a very menacing way. Before, they look at me with disinterest, but now I was under intense scrutiny.
I backed off form Krauss who was just as startled as I was at their reactions to his sudden movement at my question. "Stand down." He barked at them and they obeyed instantly. 'Sorry about that, I guess they are my pack."
"Shit that was scary." I tried to calm down by taking a deep breath and that helped a little bit. "Let's not do that again."
'Yeah." He agreed. "Now about your question, it just took me off guard since we've only been talking for a few minutes and suddenly you know about this voice in my head." He tapped the side of his head with a finger.
"Well." I felt Dog begin to rile up. He knew that I was about to reveal him and didn't like that one but. "I have a voice in my head as well. Even gave it a name."
"A name?" He sat back down in his chair.
"Yeah, talk to it so much now, it was just easier to give it a name."
"What did you name it?" He asked.
"Dog."
"Dog!"
"Dog." I confirmed.
Krauss leaned back into his chair and crossed his arms. "Not very creative. I guess I should give my little voice a name as well." He chuckled.
"Sure, but if you're voice is anything like mine, it won't appreciate anything depriving like fluffy." I joked. Dog would hate me if I started to call him that.
'Yes I would.'
"No, mothing like that. I do not share the same kind of humor you American's have, but I do like the simplicity of Dog. I'll name mine Wolf."
"No worse than mine."
"Now that the simple pleasantries are over. I need you to tell me what has happened. I have this large gap in my memory and I need to know why we came out of an elevator in the middle of what appeared to be pre-colonial Mars."
"Well then." I said. "Get comfortable, it's a long story."