Chapter 651

Every Miadax in the rec room froze as the group came in with Selina astride Lila and Lobo close beside them.

“Relax,” Jeff said loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear. “They are highly intelligent beings.”

“You are dismissed,” the First told his crew. “I’ll meet you in the training room shortly.”

“What are they,” the navigator, who was the nearest alien to the wolves, asked as he sidled past.

While the wolves grinned back, Jeff couldn’t resist and said, “Your best friend or your worst nightmare.”

That didn’t settle any of the aliens’ minds at all. In seconds, the bridge crew had filed out of the room.

If the wolves could wear a smirk, Lobo and Lila certainly did, and Jeff could hardly keep his face straight, knowing the crew would remember Lobo and Lila’s grins for quite some time.

The First Officer tore his eyes away from the wolves to ask his Commander, “What can I do for you, Captain?”

Jeff motioned to Lobo and Lila. “Obviously,” he said with a smile, “we brought the wolves I spoke to you about. Would now be a convenient time to try out your mapping equipment on them?”

“Certainly, Captain. It will only take a moment to obtain two units,” the First said before hurrying away.

The Miadax ship had carried thousands of the mapping helmets in preparation for teaching the captives the Miadax language to facilitate their being more productive slaves. Someone in authority must have thought the equipment might be useful should the crew have to abandon ship. Storing several units in each escape module along with survival supplies was standard procedure.

The open-faced, adjustable helmet was lightweight and a shiny black. After returning with two, the First Officer checked that the power source for each was fully charged before turning to Jeff. Hoping that his Captain would volunteer to put the helmets on the beasts himself, The First Officer said, “Uh, Sir, the mapping helmets are ready.”

Selina noticed the hesitation and reached for the nearest helmet. “Instruct me, please,” she ordered, while Jeff grinned.

The First Officer didn’t care who put the helmets on the beasts’ heads, so long as he wasn’t that person. “The helmet is self-adjusting,” he quickly said. “Just place it over the ... subject’s head. It will sense and position itself properly relative to the subject’s brain.”

“Lobo, do you want to be first?” Selina asked.

Before he could respond, and obviously understanding, Lila pushed in front of her mate.

“It is charged with Miadax and English,” the First quickly said as he pointed to a small screen on the side of the helmet that appeared to bear two words in addition to a star and a dash.

“I assume that the word in the second column is English?” Selina asked as she pointed.

“Yes, uh, Ma’am. Select the language by touching the word, then start the process by touching the star there,” he instructed while pointing. “The other sign is the equivalent of your ‘Off.’ It would probably be better if the, uh ... individual would lie down.”

Selina instructed Lila to do so before pressing the star. Lila closed her eyes, but there was no other obvious response to the helmet.

A few seconds later, Selina had put the other helmet on Lobo’s head, chose English and turned it on. He too closed his eyes. A couple of minutes after that, Lila’s helmet buzzed.

“The process is complete, and the buzzing indicates the program was successful,” the First announced. “The ... animal’s brain has been successfully programmed with English.”

Almost as soon as Selina removed Lila’s helmet, Lobo’s mapping helmet also buzzed.

Selina quickly removed his helmet and gave it to the First Officer as well. Both wolves came to their feet but appeared slightly unsteady for a moment or two. Otherwise, there was no visible reaction.

Finally, “Are you two okay?” a worried Morales asked his friends.

Both animals snapped their heads around to stare at Morales before moving closer to Selina, each leaning against her from opposite sides as they tried to snuggle with her. After a moment, they turned as one to approach the First Officer who immediately froze while almost desperately looking toward his Captain.

Jeff, trying to hold back his laughter, called to the wolves. “Lobo, Lila. Shake your heads like this for no. Nod your heads like this for yes. Understood?”

After a slight hesitation, both wolves nodded their heads to a gasp from a very uptight First Officer.

“Do you wish to thank the First Officer for helping you to learn our language?” Jeff asked as he wondered if they would understand his wording. They were more intelligent than he gave them credit for, because after a brief pause, they nodded aggressively.

The First Officer visibly relaxed as he let out a ragged breath.

With a squeal, Selina grabbed both her friends around their necks while they tried to lick her to death — both wolves nodding repeatedly.

Shortly, Morales was on his knees with his arms around both Lobo and Lila.

He would never admit having a problem, but somehow, he had to blink his eyes frequently to clear the moisture there.

When his turn came, the Captain knelt between the two animals, hugged their necks and rejoiced with them. Seemingly, every time the First Officer had decided that he knew his new Captain, something else would happen to amaze him and make him realize he was still not fully accustomed to this Earthman. The Miadax Captain would brusquely order whatever he wanted done — often followed by a threat — but Captain Matthews seemed never to be upset, but maintained a calmness that sometimes was ... contagious.

The First Officer and the Miadax crew had been shown video segments of what was going on inside Ship while the battle was happening. Videos of the women using weapons to assist Ship’s point defense system left the males staring, almost unable to believe what they saw. Females didn’t fight, but these did, and with a vengeance.

When there was a necessity for doing something in a hurry, Captain Matthews was precise with his wording as he gave out orders. Many times when there was nothing serious going on, he even couched his orders as a request, although they still were plainly orders. An occasional, “Would you...” under non-combat conditions was just as much an order as, “Do this,” and the First and his Miadax crew were stunned by it in the beginning. The First’s people were already responding much more quickly and much more positively than they ever had for the Miadax Captain. And... they frequently did more than they were asked. Somehow, it was much easier to put forth one hundred percent for a Commander who they knew would pitch in to do anything he would ever order them to do. They had already seen that over and over in the few months they had been under Matthews’ command and again in the videos they were allowed to watch.

The Miadax Captain would do nothing for himself that he could order someone else to do for him. If he were standing only a few steps from the stim machine, he would still order someone to get stim for him. Ship seemed to prefer giving her Captain his coffee or anything else he might need that she could procure, so he didn’t have to get it himself, but the crew had both a coffee and a stim machine in the rec room and smaller ones in their quarters. One morning, the Captain had apparently arrived early for a meeting. The First had walked in just in time to see the Captain finishing making coffee for the crew that had not yet arrived. He had poured for the First Officer, then himself.

Embarrassed, he had quickly said that he wanted to make sure the crew’s coffee and stim were up to par.

Whatever the reason, the Miadax Captain would never do anything like that. First of all, he wouldn’t have cared what the crew’s stim tasted like, and even if he did, he would order someone else to make it, then bring it to him to test.

The First Officer had cautioned both the Bridge Crew and the Engineering Crew not to become lax, though — reminding them of the videos. Friends were treated with dignity, but enemies that attacked were treated with permanent and sometimes bloody dispatch. The First hoped the crew would not become lax now that they had a Captain who wasn’t looking for a reason to kill them.

The General had allowed the Miadax crew to view several of Captain Matthews’ missions. Some of those were bloody, indeed, but Matthews was there in the midst of everything, frequently putting himself in harm’s way to protect his people. His movements were sometimes almost a blur while in combat, and his team seemed to respond instantly to his orders — their trust in him evident. Last was the knife fight with the previous Colonel. Several of the First’s people came close to throwing up when the now Colonel Matthews disemboweled the other man with a movement that couldn’t be seen until the video was slowed down considerably. They were impressed again when they were told the reason for the fight. The General, himself, had told them he had asked Colonel Matthews to use the General’s knife since she had not been bloodied in some time. One look at the General’s face, and there was no doubt that the blooding of his knife again was a big deal to him, who, because of his rank, would probably never see personal combat again. The Miadax were warriors and well understood what that meant to the General.

After viewing the vid many times, none of the Miadax crew would ever think of challenging Matthews — ever. It would be simpler to put a gun to one’s own head, but with the same result. Because of how their society worked, they were in awe of their Captain, and even that was an understatement. Now, he had casually walked in with a couple of killing machines on four legs flanking him. The aurochs bull was a projection, but these were undoubtedly real. However, they had shown no aggression as the Miadax crew hurriedly left.

Morales put out his hand to the First Officer, who hesitated only a second before he remembered to shake hands. “Thank you,” Morales said. “Lobo and Lila seem to understand more now, but it’s a shame they can’t talk.”

“I will be able to, at least partially, correct that,” Ship broke in to say. “With a continuing effort, they should be able to converse well enough to be understood. The vocal cord procedure should only take approximately one-half hour each. Hopefully, there will be very little soreness from the newly expanded vocal cords and their surrounding structure. However, there will be a steep learning curve as Lobo and Lila learn to pronounce words.

“Mr. Morales, should you think that the learning process is progressing too slowly, I can have them learn by the same process as others, including the Miadax females, have learned in my Academy. It will still feel to them as if they are spending weeks learning, but to you and your family, it will only be a few hours. That said, when you and they are ready for that type of training, please let me know.”

Concerned that the wolves did not comprehend what all the words meant, Morales knelt beside them while motioning for Selina to be there as well. When she knelt beside Morales, he hugged her and said, “Would you try to make certain they understand what Ship has just said? I’m trying to put myself in their place, and I keep wondering how much or how little they understand from the English they now have, since they didn’t have a spoken language to begin with. Think about it. Suppose I told them I was going to catch a plane and go to the beach for a week? They would understand the words, but probably not the meaning. How much of that do you think they could comprehend?”