Jason Volkov didn’t like cats. Cats didn’t like him. And while this mutual dislike was a recent development, it had served him well nonetheless. After all, it had kept him alive on a planet that was supposed to have been uninhabited, instead populated by monsters much like himself.

Of course, it had helped on that score that Jason wasn’t entirely human himself, anymore. And it was only because of his… condition… that he’d managed to get the other three remaining crew members as well as the ship off of the planet alive.

As the Mannschenn Drive fired, he’d kept himself under lock-down, knowing full well what might happen if he were exposed to the others like this. And sure enough, he’d changed, almost beyond recognition. As he watched the planet fade away into the distance, the werewolf remembered the crew members… no, friends, that had been lost, and howled in mourning.