Chapter 11
I started to eat a sandwich that Ely had prepared for me as soon as we left. Ham and cheese. Pretty simple, straightforward. It was a bit bland, which I found unusual, considering Ely's stellar record of tasty sandwiches.
Maybe I hadn't eaten enough. We'd arrived at our destination after two bites. And that was mostly crust.
"This place reminds me of my planet," Groof chatted from the bridge, or the area within the single small compartment that could best be described as the bridge. "Only the Earth trees aren't running around like ours do."
I dropped my sandwich back into the foil it had come wrapped in, ending my well-earned ten second break. So much for the calm before the storm.
Jake observed the view from the bridge. I could make out the tips of the mountains between him and Groof. "How close are we to the area?"
"We're on top of it," Groof answered. "I've put up the shield and radar deflectors. Nobody will see us! Not even a Human with a telescope!"
His joke went by without a hint of understanding from anybody. We were all too busy bracing ourselves for the task ahead. I was already dreading what was inevitably to come, but I'd calmed since earlier, just enough to deal with the shivers and the thoughts that raced through my head. I knew what could happen. I'd seen it all before. I'd dealt with it all before.
"We going?" Santorelli asked to Jake, who had turned away from the bridge to inspect us all with hidden but obvious glances.
"Yeah, start morphing. Groof?"
The giant bug-alien swivelled his head. "Jake!"
"We'll attempt to keep in range for thought-speak. Can you manoeuvre this thing close enough if we run into problems?"
"What a silly question," He laughed. "You Humans are very good at those. Just like you're good at falling over in the dark!"
I'd heard enough of his jokes. In fact, I was rather looking forward to jumping head-first into likely death.
Wait… Were my jokes that bad? No. Surely not! Mine were always of the highest calibre. I always wrote my own jokes for TV… Most of them.
I pictured the Osprey in my head. I thought of its brown wings, the white body and striking orange eyes. A sharp, hooked beak that was typical of Birds of Prey. It was similar to Tobias' Red Tailed Hawk body, and just as capable at tearing up flesh with the combination of that beak and strong, nimble talons. A perfect airborne predator. And it was surrounded by four others, including Tobias, who had to do no morphing at all. There was Santorelli becoming a big Bald Eagle, Jake morphing the rapid Peregrine Falcon.
The last member of our mission was Menderash, who had previously been a bystander. Now, he had regained his morphing ability, and Jake had made sure to send him into the wilderness – or Cassie's barn, as it's more commonly known – in order to acquire some essentials: Bread, milk, and the DNA of animals capable of ripping other animals to pieces. He was becoming a bird, too. It was called a Gyrfalcon, according to Cassie. It was mostly white, with a scattering of brown mostly along its back. It was a little larger than Jake's Peregrine Falcon.
It was clear that he had not morphed for a while.
He flapped his wings and squawked with panic once his body was close to completion. He twitched and squirmed, half wanting to fly far away, and the other half retaining some control over the hybrid mind.
((Get a grip.)) Jake told him firmly.
Menderash slowed to a stop and repositioned, head lifted proudly. ((Apologies. It's been a long time.))
((Maybe we should have tested his morphing.)) I suggested to Jake.
((I planned to,)) He replied. ((But I won't delay this mission for it. We need to get this done sooner, rather than later.))
Groof activated the hatch at the rear of the compartment once the ship had come to a complete stop. "Good luck, Animorphs!" He called as we positioned to leave. "Bring back something shiny if you can!"
((Make sure to keep in range,)) Jake repeated to him. ((We won't be long. We never are.))
That was apparently our prompt, and the enormous Bald Eagle beside me spread its wings and dived for the open hatch and into the still mountain air of Colorado. One-by-one we followed, like the featheriest flying squadron from USS Theodore Roosevelt, spinning through the blue sky and dispersing like true acrobats.
That's what I liked to imagine. It was probably a complete mess in reality. Tobias made us look bad every time. Not that I held it against him.
Jake got us moving quickly. ((Stick to the plan. Start the survey, keep within the boundaries.))
We had been given areas to scout for anything suspicious. Foreign objects, downed trees, patterns, big purple toxic aliens with golden flamethrowers… Anything out of the usual, basically. My scouting area was the furthest south, one with the densest field of trees before they stretched up toward a line of mountains. I turned full circle in the air and spread my wings wide, allowing gravity to do the entirely of the work. Such a thrill would excite even the sternest of adrenalin junkies. I'd grown used to such rapid descents.
My eyes immediately got to work. The eyes of an Osprey are incredible, so it only aided me in the task of plucking individual leaves from trees and scouring the rocks on the ground below. Green, grey, white, brown. The colours of the Rockies.
I formed zigzag patterns through the air, starting from my eastern boundary and moving steadily westwards. There was minor chatter from the others about the odd fallen tree or shifted rock here and there, but there was nothing entirely out of the ordinary to note. I was waiting for Jake's call to send down a terrestrial search party, but he was remaining patient.
As I came close to the edge of my scouting area, beginning to lose hope that I would find anything even slightly suspicious, my eyes shot to a small hill, the trees growing higher to form a green, rustling dome. It was an all-encompassing sheet, but for one anomaly. Separated from the shades of dark green, a hole was coated in shadow, and emerging from it were the bones of a dead tree. Curled, lifeless branches rose up, barely distinguishable from the pure black gap of the hole around it.
((Guys,)) I spoke. ((There's a dead tree here. It's the only dead one in a big cluster.))
((Anything else?)) Jake asked.
I dipped closer to the tree in question. I flicked my wings and just a full turn just above it. I looked into the gap around it, right down to the woodland floor beneath. Mostly soil and dead leaves. ((Doesn't look like it.))
((How much of your area have you seen?))
I considered. ((Pretty much all of it. Nothing apart from the tree.))
((We've got nothing,)) Jake concluded. ((Move to Plan B.))
There it was. It was time to change tactic. I altered course to North, locating the tip of my area. With a few flaps of my wings, I had built up some speed, and zoomed at high speed to join the others on a group of rocks sticking up out of the ground. Tobias was the only exception, as he would continue to provide air cover.
Four Birds of Prey perched like statues atop four pointed rocks. It was beginning to look ritualistic, but it was about to get even weirder.
((Straight to Wolf.)) Was Jake's order.
It was new technology that Surote had given up. One new trick of a few. One of the ones that I, personally, had accepted. He had taken – stolen, borrowed, found… whatever you want to call it – a new, upgraded morphing technology from top Andalite scientists that doubled time in morph and allowed change from one morph straight to another. We had tested it numerous times, and it worked without a hitch.
It still felt strange, however. Why? Before, I'd just have to compete with the instincts of one animal besides my own. But halfway through this change, I would be competing with half-Osprey, half-Wolf instinct. It was infinitely confusing.
My beak melted to a softer, longer snout. Feather turned to fur, wings turned to forelimbs. The mind of the Wolf began to bubble up beneath the steady Osprey. The bird saw the emerging wolves and wished to fly away. The Wolf's mind recognised the other's and so felt impelled to remain. The contradiction in the animal minds was quick to give me a headache, and that wasn't the only inner-conflict. There were many. There were many curious actions from the three around me, from nervous twitches to sudden jolts in any given direction, as they all attempted to keep control. They were succeeding, and soon the Wolf was all that stood in their way.
Menderash's wolf wasn't as familiar as the others, since he'd acquired it from a Yellowstone specimen. It wouldn't take long to accept him into our four-piece, but there was an awful lot of sniffing and growling going on. The fact that his tail wasn't entirely tucked between his legs was driving me insane. He was inferior to me!
All that aside, we still had the mission in mind. We would be sticking together as wolves with Tobias as an overhead guide. So far, we'd explored the zone with sight. Now, it was smell taking centre-stage, and already we could sense something just wasn't quite right…