Chapter Three
I flapped my thin leathery wings as I fluttered down and landed in front of a large, tri-dome shaped compound. The morph I was in was called a Tapejara. It is an pterasaur, much like the Sordes, but larger, and with an unusual looking crest on it's head.
The Tapejara mind underneath my own was observing the forest below. The Tapejara was looking at the lakes and rivers for fish to eat. But I was looking for the creatures that Jason described.
Frankly, I thought he was over exaggerating. Earth is one of the most genetically diverse planets in the known galaxy. Even the Andalite Home World doesn't compare. We have a mere 500 species in our entire system. And no land animal even remotely reaches the size he was describing.
The largest land animals I had ever seen were Jason's Tyrannosaurus morph, and Melissa's Spinosaurus morphs. While I had seen holos of larger creatures in my academy years, they were not that much larger, and they were few and far between.
The largest land animal on earth is the Elephant, and the largest sea-based animal is the blue whale. The whale is so large and heavy that it can only survive in water.
The sizes described by Jason seemed biological impossibilities. I couldn't fathom an actual creature that size walking the earth.
And I had yet to be proven wrong. After scouring the forests for many hours and covering quite a vast distance, I saw many different animals. Some quite unusual. I'm sure that Jason would be able to identify them, but in more ways than one, they were alien to me.
I flittered back to the compound where we had been living, coming in for a landing in front of the entrance. Andalites prefer open air, living in our scoops. As many Andalite visitors to earth have already discovered, humans prefer living within enormous boxes. Structures similar to our spaceports.
This dome was a very similar structure. It's orgins a complete mystery to me. But possibly the result of meddling with the time stream. It was not a thought I liked to dwell on.
I demorphed back to human form, and rapped on the door with my human fist. Moments later, it opened for me and Emily let me it.
I noticed right away that Erica was inside, and had dropped her hologram to interface with the laboratory computer.
"What is occurring?" I asked.
"Erica figured out that there was a DNA based GPS tracking system in place," Jason replied. "Most of the satellites are not functioning anymore, but the one over the plateau IS. She's rifling through the computer logs to try and see if there's any Titanosaurs in it, and furthermore, to see if there are any anywhere on the plateau."
"You can read DNA?" I asked curiously.
"Not easily," Erica responded. "The DNA molecule is one of the most complex structures in the Universe."
"I know," I said. "It takes even the most advanced Andalite supercomputers several hours to read a single strand of DNA."
"It takes me about 20 minutes," Erica said. "And then I need to process the DNA pattern to determine what the animal or plant is supposed to look like."
"Could you track any pattern on the planet?" I asked. "Not just the Titanosaurs?"
"I'm limited to the plateau," Erica said. "Cause just one working satellite, also I need to FIND the Titanosaur DNA in the records, and THEN I can track it. But if it's on the plateau, and I already have the DNA on file, then yes, yes I can."
"Could you…Track, say…An Andalite DNA pattern?" I asked.
I chose to ignore the looks of what I assume was human pity from Jason, Emily, and Melissa.
"Your morph clone is about three miles west of here," Erica said, in a human tone of voice I did not recognize. The Chee may be androids, but they are sentient androids, and furthmore, have spent thousands of years among humans. They understood humankind far more easily than I did. They practically were human, despite their technological and intelligence difference.
"I did not-," I started to say.
"Whoa!" Erica interrupted. "Found the record for Triceratops. DEFINITELY Triceratops DNA."
"Oh cool!" Emily said brightening.
"Oh…" Erica drooped. "No Matches found on the plateau. There aren't any Triceratops up here."
"Oh," Emily said, physically drooping over. "I really wanted a Trike morph."
"What's this?" Erica said, suddenly. "Sauropod…"
"Yes?" Jason said, immediately leaping to his feet.
"Ding, ding, ding!" Erica said. "We have a Titanosaur! Tracking!"
I could see that the humans were now quite excited. I was still skeptical.
"Oh wow…" She murmured. "Not many left. 42 total."
"Life, the Universe, and Everything?" Emily said, quite nonsensically.
"Not for them," Erica replied. "I count three distinct herds. The smallest of which is also the closest. Four members, about 100 miles northeast."
"A hundred miles!" Jason yelped.
"Quite a distance," I agreed.
"You'll need to pack some supplies," Erica said. "And a communicator of some kind, so I can give you up to date information on the herd's movement."
"We found a thought-speak communicator within the storage bay," I suggested.
"Yeah," Jason said. "But you're the only one who can use it. Thought-Speak communicators require that the users be capable of thought-speak even when not in morph. It'd be a one way communicator."
"Muk-Luk can thought-speak," Emily interjected. "Thought-Speak is natural for the Kelbrid too. He speaks out loud through his suit's vocal processor out of politeness."
It was true, I had on occasion heard the Kelbrid Thought-Speak. But that Emily had discerned that surprised me. The alien was quite guarded, and did not share much about himself. None of us had seen him beneath his armor. I couldn't even begin to guess as to the Kelbrid's nature.
"Muk-Luk and Erica on mission control then?" Jason asked.
"Sounds like a plan, Stan," Melissa said.
"Stan?" I asked.
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We flew. And flew. For hours and hours, until we reached the edge of the time limit. Then we landed and demorphed, remorphed and flew some more. We passed over miles of forest, jungle, and grasslands.
And then we saw them.
As I said, I had assumed that Jason had been exaggerating. If anything, he had been understating the size of the creatures. They towered over the treeline, dwarfing even the tallest of the trees. A mere for creature that could step on Jason's tyrannosaur morph. I am not even exaggerating.
The Tyrannosaur was to these beasts as the earth cat was to a large dog.
{Whoa!} I heard Emily whisper in thought-speak.
{Behold the behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now, his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together.} Jason said. He was obviously quoting something, though I wasn't sure what.
It was a somewhat flowery, if not apt description. These beasts did have tails as thick as any of the trees that they were wading through. They were not consuming grass, however, but casually snacking on just about any plant in their path. They were like gigantic suction tubes, snarfing up any leaf, branch, fruit, and even a few smaller trees in their path.
I flew over one, and began gliding the length of its body. As I examined the tail I saw a lot of scars and scrapes along it.
{Do these creatures use their tails as weapons?} I asked Jason as we circled them.
{When they were younger, almost certainly,} Jason said. {It's speculation but a lot of scientists think that sauropods used their tails like gigantic bullwhips to deter predators. The scars along their tails, along with fossils of fused spinal segments from their tail bones lend a lot of credence to that theory.}
{What predator in it's right mind is gonna attack THAT thing?} Melissa asked. {If it falls asleep on top of my spinosaur morph it would crush it. And that's the biggest thing I've ever acquired.}
{Well none now that these guys are fully grown,} Jason continued. {At this size, nothing will mess with them. Not even the Big Rex. Like elephants and Rhinos in Africa, their size is a deterrent. But just like elephants and rhinoceroses…They weren't always big. And the younger ones are easy prey for a predator that can get close enough to snatch one away from the herd.}
{Menderash} Muk-Luk's thought-speak voice echoed over the thought-speak communicator. {The Android has indicated that you are now in the vicinity of the creatures. Can you confirm visually?}
I relayed his message to the others.
{You'd have to be blind NOT to see them,} Jason said.
{I can confirm,} I responded.
{The Android says that there are four, can you confirm?}
{Correct. We see them.}
{The android says that all four are male, and slowly wandering in the general direction of another herd approximately thirty miles northwest of your location.}
{Erica says that they are male,} I relayed, simply.
{Male?} Melissa said. {No girls at all?}
{They might be like elephants,} Jason said. {Males and females travel in separate herds. Joining up once or twice a year to mate.}
{That is consistent with what Erica said.} I said.
{There's four of us,} Jason said. {Let's each acquire a different one in order to feed as much genetic diversity back into the biome as we can when the Clone Dome scans us.}
{How do we acquire one?} Emily wondered. {We land on the ground to acquire one and we get stepped on for sure.}
{Perhaps we could land on their backs?} I suggested. {They are quite massive, and our human hands and feet should be able to grip long enough to get the DNA.}
{I don't relish the thought of slipping and falling off of one of these guys…I'd be like falling from a ten story building…But I also don't have any better ideas.} Jason said.
{You gonna be okay Behemoth-back riding?} Emily asked Jason.
What followed was a few minutes of silence, upon which I eventually realized that Jason and Emily were now having a private-thought-speak conversation. Which was undoubtedly cut short by what occurred next.
The air pressure began to drop around us, and there was a faint whistling sound. The currents we were currently riding suddenly began changing underneath our wings unpredictably. Jason suddenly veered into a tree, Melissa shot up into the sky about a hundred feet above us…And then we saw the source of the atmospheric changes.
Three swirling vortexes had suddenly appeared in the air above the majestic titanosaurs.
{Menderash!} Jason called out from the tree he had crashed into. {Are those what I think that they are?}
{I…I do not know what they are,} I admitted.
{They look like…Z-Space windows…} Jason replied.
If I had human feet…Or even my Andalite feet, I'd have kicked myself. Of course that's what they were. But I had never seen one open in the atmosphere of a planet before. It was insanely dangerous. Beyond dangerous. Most starships had sensors that prevented them from exiting Zero Space within the gravity well of a celestial body. After all, one miscalculation and your ship is within the molten core of a planet like earth…Or being crushed by the intense pressures of the deep waters of Leera.
What sane species would open a Z-Space Window within the atmosphere of a planet?
The vortexes open wider, to let the ships out…But the laws of physics would not be denied. There is no atmosphere in Zero Space…So all the air was being sucked into the gates. This was the cause of the atmospheric disturbances that had sent us careening. And I realized in horror, that I was closest to the event horizon of the nearest gate.
I began flapping my Tapejara wings as fast and as hard as I could. Violently struggling to get as far away from the portal to certain death as I could. I saw a pair of sordes get sucked into one…
My doom was fast approaching…I didn't have the strength to fight the vacuum that was on the other side of the gate…And the ships emerged, and the gates closed with resounding cracks the instant that they were through.
They were not large ships by any means. Roughly the size of a Yeerk Bug Fighter. They vaguely resembled Skrit Na ships, but the resemblance was superficial upon closer inspection.
They were not saucers, so much as they were spheres. Gyrospheres magnetically held within concentric rings. Thus giving them a resemblance to the Skrit Na's infamous saucer shape…But not mirroring it perfectly.
The center gyroship's ring suddenly shifted from horizontal to vertical, which was apparently a signal to the other two. Blades, like a circular saw suddenly erupted from the ships gyroscopic rings. They began to spin.
{What the hell…} Jason started to say…
But he never finished…At that exact moment the three ships shot forward…and in rapid, brutal succession…Began to slaughter the titanosaurs.