Part Five: A Shadow Of The Past
DAVID
The Anubis plunged down to Styx like a fireball, the foggy atmosphere lighting up with a flash.
"I'm losing all systems! I can't get control!" LaRouche panicked.
"Fuck!" Growled Ripper.
"Brace for impact!" LaRouche called out, as I saw the Gervasid's Stryker battleship falling northward of us.
"Holy," exclaimed Sara, "I just saw my life flash before my eyes!" She paused, "I had a dull life!"
"Is this what human's call 'the end of the line?'" Asked Skorre.
"Yeah, this is the end, kiddo," Muttered Aleks, "We're on an express elevator to Hell…Goin' down!"
"Yee-haw!" Cried Ripper.
"Goodbye, guys, it was fun," I murmured, not thinking anyone would hear me, but LaRouche nodded his head in agreement.
The ground below was racing up faster, only a few seconds left…
BAMM!
THUD!
CLANK!
KUR-PLUNK1
We raced along the ground, pushing scraps alongside as we left a small valley behind us as the Anubis tore through the metal surface.
Slowly, the ship eased down, and then to a stop.
"Shit! Is everyone OK?" Asked LaRouche, noticeably shaken.
"I…I think so," I stammered, looking around the bridge. Ripper was bleeding from the legs, Aleks was slumped over a grouping of monitors to the far side, Skorre trying to pull him out. LaRouche was pinned under his chair, slowly getting up. Sara and I seemed fine, though she was clinging to a chair.
"Damn, that was close," said Aleks, spitting out blood, " Fuck, we'd better all morph, repair the ship. That nutcase Bounty Hunter could have landed nearby!"
"Negative," replied LaRouche, " He's nearly twenty miles north of our position. But, there's bad news…"
"Oh yeah? More bad news? More dogs?" Growled Ripper.
"Maybe. When we started crashing, I saw another ship enter orbit of Styx, it looked like a giant triangular prism, but it didn't identify itself."
Curious. Could it be another Bounty Hunter? Or Andalites? Or something else that we havn't seen yet?
Regardless, it could be bad for us.
"It could just be someone here to dump more scrap, you know," he suggested.
"Yeah, but it could also be one of our enemies," I returned.
"We just have to deal with it. We always do," muttered Aleks.
I flashed him a dirty look, "We're not all we're cracked up to be, we can't fight everything."
"True," Said Skorre, "But don't human's always take the optimistic approach to things?"
"Buddy, you need to get real."
A few hours later, we had salvaged some of the pieces of our ship that had detached. More or less, it was intact.
"Alright, we need to get our position. We need to see if Sistranus is around anywhere, and see if any of this scrap is useful to us," I said, "Ripper, you and I will scout. Aleks is in charge 'till we get back."
"Got it, boss," Said Ripper, already morphing to Golden Eagle.
"I'll hold down the fort here, Dave, don't worry."
Aleks may be my second in command, but I didn't trust him one bit.
Ripper and I flew in opposite directions, North and South, for a hundred mile radius around the crash site, I took northward in search of the Stryker Battleship.
High into the cloudy atmosphere of Styx, I looked down. The ground was grey, brown, black. Colours of rust and decay. Some of this machinery was thousands of years old. Some was used only weeks ago.
I dove lower to the ground, to discern something out of the mob of scrap below me.
All I saw was the arrow that pierced my wing. Electric current flowed through my bird body, and I fell hundreds of feet to earth.
I woke up, my head was swimming.
Shit! How long had I been out?
MORPH OUT! I screamed silently, but looked down to see that I was fully human, and that I was clothed in my original black jumpsuit-the Antimorph uniform.
"Welcome back, Taggart," A voice snarled, "My de-morphing device worked, didn't it? How quaint."
Sistranus! It was he who had captured me!
"So, Tak Sistranus. At last we meet."
The Gervasid stood before me, holding a Dracon pistole in his massive hands his tail in it's pouch.
"I never lose a bounty, Taggart. I never will. You flew too low, and I shot you with my Tek-Bow. Now, you will lead me back to your brethren."
"Oh yeah? Why would I do that?"
He growled, "I have methods of torture that were declared war-crimes by the Empire. I can make you beg for death."
"But you won't. You aren't that shallow, are you? You don't like to do that, you aren't sadistic."
The Hunter smiled, " No, not sadistic. Ruthless."
"And why so ruthless?"
"Because of the Yeerk who scarred my soul. Because of Sirex."
A shockwave ran through me. He knew Sirex?
"Sirex is dead. I killed him myself."
He laughed, "Indeed you did. But I will eliminate all traces of him from the galaxy. Everything he created is to be killed."
"What did he do to you that was so bad?" I asked.
"I will tell you the tale, human. Listen well…"
OF PENTASERA…
Fifteen years past, I was a young, Gaglenesh, a Hunter in training. My tribe was the Minas Rathoss tribe, of the eastern swamplands of Pentasera.
My best friend was Welch. He was a year older than I, though I was a natural leader. We trained under my father, Krull Sistranus, to be Hunters and Warriors for our god, Cleum. Gervasid religion dictates that one must 'buy' his was into paradise, by paying God with the souls of his killings. Thus, all Gervasid hunt for pleasure, sport, and religion.
For five hundred years, we made war on our neighbors, the Sstram, of Western Pentasera. They built a wall early on that encircled the planet and kept us on our own land, but it only slowed our attacks.
We massacred them from nearly one billion, to under five hundred thousand.
My older brother Yus was the one who first contacted the Yeerks and made a deal with them. They knew of us, of course. The Sstram had diplomatic relations with the Andalites and other races, but we did not. We didn't leave our half-planet. Ever.
Yus pledged our support to overtake the Sstram for use by the Yeerks, and we would be left in peace in our hunting lands. The Visser in command of the invasion, Esplin 9466, Visser 21, gave his word.
And so our invasions of the Sstram outer provinces began. They fell to our scourge, and we took many alive.
Meanwhile, Sub-Visser two, Sirex 4891, was genetically altering a native life form to create the Tiamat. These artificial controllers proved formidable adversary's to the peaceful Sstram. We fought alongside Yeerk troops, until I learned the truth.
We raided the Sstram Castle Ssurass, and occupied it. In the battle, I was ordered to execute a group of POW's who refused to lay down arms.
I refused.
One of the POW's, a Sstram princess named Ssonora, saved my life by giving me a Dracon with which I killed the Yeerk commander.
By Gervasid custom, I was in debt to her until death.
Welch, Ssonora and I fled underground and joined a resistance movement. We later met up with an Andalite Warrior named Galuit, a bodyguard to the Andalite Ambassador. His family was killed when the Yeerk's moved on the Sstram capital of Ssraass, and bombed the embassy.
When the body's were recovered, they were fed to Taxxons.
For a year we fought, and eventually Ssonora and I fell in love. Galuit promised me that he could give me he morphing power and I could become a Sstram permanently.
But tragedy struck. We discovered that Sirex was making Clones of Hork-Bajir, nearly ten times more powerful than their originals, I his lab…in my native lands.
We attacked the lab, but in the final battle, Sirex, in his Hork-Bajir Clone host, and a diabolical Hork-Bajir Clone that called itself "The Licker," fought the four of us to the bitter end.
Welch was gravely wounded.
Galuit was nearly killed.
And Ssonora…she died.
I killed Sirex, the Licker escaped.
As I held Ssonora's corpse in my arms, a mysterious creature appeared to me. He looked much like a human, though his skin was crimson and small horns dotted his forhead. His ears were also pointy, like a rat.
He called himself "Puck."
Puck claimed that he could bring Ssonora back to life. He showed me the future of the galaxy if she was dead. You, David, but with the name of Hunting, fought alongside the Animorphs against the Yeerks. Eventually, you won.
Beings known as Crayak and Ellimist, not existing in this time line, would wage a silent war across the cosmos.
The Sstram were enslaved, the Gervasid intergalactic Hunters, but despised universally.
I did not like this Universe. I told Puck to resurrect Ssonora.
He did, but since Ssonora and Sirex had died fighting each other, Sirex, too, was alive.
Soon after, Ssonora was captured by Sirex's troops and infested. Galuit escaped and became a Prince. I havn't seen him since. And Welch…Welch was a cripple, blind and dumb.
Yus, my father Krull, and other Gervasid leaders were eventually rounded up by the Andalites and executed for War Crimes, including the destruction of the Sstram race.
I disappeared, and swore revenge.
Sirex, though victorious, was disgraced for not following the orders of Visser 21. Sirex was demoted to a low Under-Visser rank, and began to climb the ladder again.
For his victory in conquering the Sstram and subduing the Gervasid, Visser 21 was promoted to Visser 14. He would eventually become Visser 3.
"Now you know," Tak said, "Why I am so ruthless."