Moonlit Futures

Chris POV

Grabbing basketball shorts, I slipped them on before heading inside the house towards the kitchen. Creeping quietly I went to the fridge before hearing a noise behind me. Turning to see Matt and Xavier standing in the doorway I opened the fridge for a bottle of water. Grabbing it I went to sit at the table in the corner. Sliding the picnic bench out I gestured for the others to sit as well. Staring at each other for a minute the silence was broken by the crack of my water bottle cap cracking open and me guzzling water.

"Sorry man. I didn't mean to imply that you didn't want her back or anything." Xavier finally spoke.

"It's ok. I know you didn't mean it like that, the pressure has just been building for a while. Plus there are innocent children and women involved this time so I don't want any more death than there has to be." Nodding his head, I looked over at Matt who was hurriedly sketching something on a napkin. Turning it to face me I studied a map of the area with several large X's marked on it. Glancing at him curiously I waited for him to explain.

"Ok so we were brainstorming what to do after you went for a run. Like you we don't want to have any unnecessary deaths and women and children definitely count as unnecessary. Here we are," he spoke pointing at one of the X's. "Lexi is here as far as we know. I think what we need to do is utilize their inability to keep a consistent schedule and with a diversion, we will attack here." Pointing at two more of the X's I could picture the areas he was talking about.

"What about these 3 X's?" I asked him.

"We will station additional troops. Female warriors mostly to herd the women and children to these areas. This way they can be safe in designated zones until we can question them and determine their loyalties. Then they will be faced with the choice of joining a pack or going rouge. We are putting the females in charge of these designated zones because we think they be able to make the women and children more comfortable. From what we have observed it looks like they have very few female warriors so most of these wolves will be untrained and scared. Xavier is letting us borrow his doctor, Dr. Patrick is coming and we will need to find one more to cover all the areas and offer care if needed."

Nodding approval at his plan I studied the map for a few seconds before speaking up.

"What type of distraction are we looking at for this?"

"That's the problem. With the inconsistencies in their routine we will need to dry run a few minor distractions to figure out the best course of action. Xavier has a few of his wolves looking into potential small scale things, almost to look like pranks at first. We estimate we could be ready for the the plan to work in about 2-3 weeks maybe less depending upon how our practice runs go. We are going to start doing dry runs of attacks and shuttling women and children to designated areas with volunteers tomorrow."

Nodding again I looked up at Xavier. 

"You ok with this plan?" 

"We have nothing else to work with. They are making it impossible to study patterns so we need to be willing to move at this point in time but we need to move with out brains and not our emotions. I think it's a solid plan." Nodding at his statements I looked over the map again. 

"I think I'm going to continue to stake out the area and see if there is something we missed but I agree with the plan and the ideas. Training starts at what time?

"10."

"Ok. Let's be ready in the meeting room by 9, give everyone the run down. From there we can break into smaller groups to practice various things. I'll leave to survey the area around 2 and you guys can either continue training or give everyone some rest." Nodding, we departed for our rooms. Going into mine I walked into the bathroom. Starting the shower I waited for the water to heat up before stepping in. Rinsing off the sweat from the day I leaned my head against the wall just letting the spray run over my head before eventually shutting off the water and crawling into bed.