His patience had worn a bit thin since his days in Star Wolf, but this was only partly why he was pacing back and forth in his room. It was obvious what the other factor was. It wasn't like Leon had dramatically changed or anything. He was always charming in how crude and competitive he was and it was obvious that he liked Wolf, they weren't friends for 15 years for nothing. But something was off in that relationship now, as if Wolf's absence had kickstarted something.
And what about Andrew? Who knows. Although Wolf did frown at the ape tendency to want to work with other apes.
Speaking of other apes, when were they going to find that fucking ship? If it wasn't soon, he would go out there himself.
What did all this mean though? Was there any meaning to it? Was he just overthinking?
It took Wolf a moment to register the knocking at the door. Then another knock. Wolf lurched towards the door, the knob slipping in his sweat. His breathing was heavy. He had to dissipate that energy somehow. Not even a long dose of exercise could stop his pacing. Finally, with bated breath, he opened the door.
Standing on the other side was a lizard in a suit, Wolf's breath hitched.
"Your clothes sir."
Then he let it out as he realized that the only similarities were that they were both lizards and that this guy looked nothing like Leon. He took the neatly folded clothes from the lizard's hands.
"Uh, thanks."
"You're welcome sir. Have a good day."
Then Wolf realized, "Since when do we have butlers!?"
--
"Wally, report?" Panther commanded.
"Sir, there have been no visits by any ship named "Nadir" to any spaceports within the last 4 months."
"Which means that it has an excess of supplies or that the craft is self-sustaining or that it's making unauthorized landings."
"Yes sir. We have also been tracking any and all communications traffic over the last 2 weeks and no ping has been traced back to the unique ID that would identify the ship that it came from."
"Hmmm."
"However, there have been tens of messages sent out to what is presumably the same ship if the senders' coordinates are anything to go by. The messages amount to hails and hellos. It's been occurring for the last few days. The scout is already on his way."
Panther nodded. "Good. Keep me updated."
"Yes sir."
Panther elected not to inform Wolf of the possible candidate. For one, he wanted to be sure that it was the right ship and two, Wolf had been acting a bit antsy ever since he'd come aboard. It mostly came in the form of the swish-swashing of his tail and self-mutterings that Panther could barely hear, not to mention the seemingly endless number of smokes the dog had.
He did tell Leon though who in turn, told Wolf, leaving Panther to regret that he told anyone at all. He knew Leon was naturally a troublemaker so he chastised himself, why tell him? After a few minutes, he just chalked it up to being fooled by the lizard's charisma yet again. He snorted. Why was he so gullible?
--
Wolf was absolutely brimming with energy, he was practically vibrating. "So they found it? What are we waiting for? We need to get out there!"
"We don't know for sure!"
"So you say Leon... but, it just sounds like he's hiding in plain sight, masquerading as an abandoned station. Who knows what's going on up there?!" Wolf said as he tightly gripped the end of the bed, his left eye twitching with anticipation.
"Wolf, just calm down and-"
Wolf grimaced. "Think about it? I already have. I'm going. Wait up or don't, I don't care. All I want is to make sure he can't hurt anyone else. And don't tell me to calm down." He said, his voice lowering. "It pisses me off." He half-muttered, half-snarled to himself.
--
Why was he so gullible indeed? Why did it surprise him at all that Leon reported Wolf was headed toward the transportation bay?
He sent out a message to all necessary personnel to lock down the transport bay until further notice and to restrict Wolf's movements to the bare essentials: room, washroom, and cafeteria.
Wolf banged on the door with visible frustration with both paws. "Why won't it open? Why won't it fucking open?!" He started yelling and yanked on the knob of the door, tearing it out and using the hole as leverage to rip the door open. Getting reports of this from his security officers, Panther ordered barbiturates be used to knock him out safely and prevent more of a rampage from occurring.
"I'll get a fucking ship if it's the last fucking thing I do!!!" Wolf screamed as heavily armed security arrived and sunk shot after shot into Wolf's body. He lumbered forward still as 6, 7, 8 shots were finally enough to put him down. 3 of the guards dragged his body back to his room while Leon looked on.
Panther called. "Leon, you're a fucking asshole, you know that?"
"I know. Bit more than what I expected though. Thanks for the flattery! Although, you did tell me..."
"Yeah, yeah, I know. Look, next time he wakes up, stall him until we know what we're dealing with. When that happens, you are to accompany him along with a ship infiltration expert and 3 of our best men, got it?"
Leon had a shit-eating grin on as he said "Of course, commander."