Chapter 13 (Marco)

((Menderash, stay here. You should be safe,)) Jake ordered. ((The rest of us, let's move out. Try to keep quiet. We don't want all the Kelbrid on us at once if we can help it. Marco and Ax, go for this ship's controls as soon as we get there. The rest of us can keep Vuhl distracted.))

I walked on my knuckles towards the bridge. I was a gorilla. A creature that could rip trees out of the ground, that could knock out a Hork-bajir with a single well-aimed punch. But even I was a little worried. None of us had ever gone head-to-head with a Kelbrid before. Were they a fighting race? We didn't know. Could we beat them? Didn't know that, either.

When we reached the bridge, everything happened at once. Jake lunged for Vuhl, still at her console. He hit her from behind, and she screamed a hissing, alien shriek.

"SHRYEEEE!"

Jake fell back, his paws bloody from Vuhl's blade-feathers. Black, alien blood mixed with the red blood Jake had left on Vuhl's wings. She'd been hurt, too.

I lunged for the nearest console, and Ax followed suit. My big gorilla hands were just barely dexterous enough to work most of the controls. But the real problem was figuring out what button did what.

Vuhl had shot into the air as soon as Jake fell back. With every flap of her wings, she kept out of our reach. "DOUA!" she yelled. "The kuldir are attacking!" I heard the sound of Kelbrid talons racing for the bridge.

Vuhl suddenly saw what I was doing at the console and swooped down on me. Her bladed talons were in my eyes before I could even shield myself.

"Hroooaaar!" I roared in pain as blood gushed from my face where my eyes used to be. I was blind!

I could only hear what was going on. I heard Doua's voice, accusing, "Miserable kuldir! This is how you reward us for trusting you!" I heard Tobias's Hork-bajir grunts of pain. Santorelli's wolf howling in terror. Jeanne's lioness snarling like an echo of Jake's more intimidating roars. Ax's tail blade snapping like a bullwhip. And the wingbeats of alien wings.

I felt the Kelbrid attacking me, again and again. Sheets of blades slapped against my back and sides. And every time I reached out blindly to retaliate against my unseen attackers, my groping hands found nothing.

My fur was soaked with hot, sticky blood. The gorilla's blood.

BOOM.

It wasn't really a sound that I heard, but rather an explosion that I could feel, going off in my bones. I thought I'd experienced every sort of agony there was, but a brand new kind of pain tore into my shoulder. You know that sort of deep, thudding feeling you get deep in your chest at a really loud rock concert? That intense throbbing that feels like it might rip you apart? Multiply that by a thousand, and concentrate it all in one spot. That's about what it felt like.

I could feel my shoulder blade shatter from the force, and the gorilla roared in pain.

I quickly came to realize that there just was no way I could fight if I couldn't see. I knew I had to fall back and demorph. I stumbled as far away as I could get from the sounds of battle, backing myself up against a wall. I tried to find a place to hide, but without being able to see where I was, there was no way to know whether or not I was out of sight. I found the best place I could, and cautiously resumed my human shape. I knew I was taking a huge risk, but, at the time, I couldn't think of any other choice. I could feel my gorilla muscles draining away, my leather skin being absorbed into my pathetically weak human flesh. My eyes re-formed last. I could see.

To my horror, I saw that Doua still had a perfectly clear view of me, in my human form, almost completely helpless. Before I could even think of morphing again, she was on me. She held something against my head that looked a lot like a gun. It didn't really look like a Dracon beam, or an Andalite shredder. It actually looked more like a high-tech, alien version of a regular human gun. Except that the barrel was a lot wider than that of a human gun. This thing could've fired a golf ball.

I was willing to bet that it was that gun that was responsible for the shock wave that had shattered my shoulder. And I was willing to bet a lot more that I wouldn't like what it would do to my skull.

"You have fought bravely, kuldir," Doua proclaimed to everyone in the room. "But you have lost. Surrender now, unless you care nothing for your fellow."

I looked at my friends. It had apparently been a pretty rough battle. Jeanne was sprawled on the floor, her lioness form lacerated, lying in a puddle of blood, barely moving. Tobias was missing an eye, and there was a perilously deep cut pumping Hork-bajir blood from his serpentine neck. Santorelli was nowhere to be seen. There was a long gash down Ax's flank, and his tail was hanging at a weird angle, probably broken. Jake held one paw off the ground, and he was panting heavily, his own bright red blood dripping from his jaw with every breath. Both his eyes were bleeding, but he, at least, seemed to have had the good sense not to demorph.

It wasn't like we hadn't hurt Doua and Vuhl. There was almost as much black Kelbrid blood staining the deck as there was our blood, and the floor was littered with broken blade-feathers. Almost a foot of Vuhl's left wing had been sliced off, and she was staring in speechless horror at the bleeding remnant. Doua sported a number of deep gashes and cuts across her torso. But, just the same, it was plain to see that she was right. We had lost.

Six against two, and we had lost. And it was all my fault.

delly: Yeah, I kinda miss Cassie too, but, sorry, she won't be in this fic at all. But I will tell you that she'll have a big part in The Rebirth (book 56).