Chapter 3
My name is Marco.
I don't like hearing the end of my life in a single, given order—'Ram the Blade ship!', because that order would certainly end my life, but also Jake's life, Tobias' life and yes, even the three other recruitment's life. They had not yet experienced war and already it was over. We have fought this war for at least three years and in those three years I've seen things that can give nightmares to every person in the world for a week. I've seen Hork-Bajir so close I could hear them breathing and actually smell them. I've seen not only Visser Three's Andalite body (which is terrifying enough) but also many of his monstrous morphs. I've seen the monstrous, red- eyed being called Crayak. I've seen the harsh reality of war. Compared to all that, the end of my life seemed tame, but that didn't stop the utter terror creeping in.
I saw Menderash feverishly working. He was, after all, an Andalites, and Andalites don't stop to think to die for the people's freedom. The rest of us, however, were entirely human and the thought of dying in one last, futile attempt to destroy the Blade Ship...well, it wasn't inviting, I can say that.
I saw Jake, eyes narrowed, focused on the creature that called itself The One. I have been Jake'' best friend for years. I can read him as easily as I can read a book. There was no fear in his eyes, but that did not portray the real Jake. Deep inside, he was as scared as I was. After all, who actually wants to die. Jake may have been putting up the 'fearless- leader' act, but I knew. I could sense his hesitation, his guilt, his grief. He would turn his decision over and over in his mind, trying to think if he'd done the right, condemning us to die for absolutely nothing. But I trusted Jake. I was willing to die if he thought it was for the best.
I saw Tobias, his fierce yellow eyes locked on Jake, his hawk eyes expressionless...no, that isn't true. A hawk's face can never be expressionless. It is also fierce, glaring at you in a way that no human can. But I've also known Tobias for quite a while. Behind those blazing, yellow eyes was one of the kindest people I've ever met. I knew he, out of all of us, would want to die. He had lost Rachel and never had (and never would, I suspected) got over her death. Perhaps this was the quickest way to see her again.
I saw Santorelli and Jeanne looking around in confusion. They didn't quite know what was happening. They hadn't quite grasped that Jake had killed us. Hadn't quite figured out that they were living their last few moments. But I saw the realisation in Santorelli's eyes. He glanced around, as if about to protest, but stayed silent.
I stared stonily ahead. Saw Menderash press maximum burn. Maximum burn. You know how fast that is? Well, we went from standing still to nearly a tenth the speed of light almost instantly, which left us zero time to think about what was happening.
You've seen daredevils, right? You've seen them risk their life just to prove that they can survive jumping over a waterfall or wrestling with a tiger. Now, I'm not calling them dumb or anything, but they lived for the thrill, the exhilaration, the adrenaline pumping sheer excitement of it. Now, maybe that was Rachel, I don't know. Maybe she'd have liked to have died going thousands of kilometres an hour at a ship that just wasn't going to move. I really don't know 'cause I for one, would rather have died when I was old in my sleep.
'We will hit the Blade Ship in three,' Menderash explained calmly as the Blade Ship loomed ever closer. 'One...two...'
I felt like hitting Menderash. Nobody needs to hear beforehand the exact time that you're going to die. Certainly not me, anyway...
'Three...'
I saw my life. My life from when I was young flew by like a bullet. I saw glimpses of Jake and I in nursery, I managed to see my mum kissing me goodnight...but then it stopped and began to go slower when we reached that fateful night when we walked through that construction site. I saw when I had first morphed—it was a gorilla. I could still feel the unmatched power as I morphed as my muscles expanded beneath my skin. I saw when I'd found out that my mother was actually Visser One. I saw when I'd pretended to be a controller to talk to my mum in the underwater facility. I saw David, the trechorous, worm called David who had nearly turned us in. I saw, in detail, my mother falling down a cliff face where we had met. I saw her, tumbling...and I saw the days after where'd I'd hoped she still lived. I saw deep into the past where's we'd erased the life of John Berryman, the host body for Visser Four. I saw when I had finally rescued my mum from the clutches of the Yeerks and finally killed Visser One itself. I saw everything, right from the start of the war to present day, where we were hurtling at impossible speed towards an immovable object. We would hit...and we would hit...Our deaths were mere milliseconds away.
And yet...
And yet...
And yet...from the corner of my eye, at the last possible second, I saw the Blade Ship fired its massive Dracon cannon. I saw through tear-jerked eyes it lance towards us. It didn't hit us full on. It hit us at a glancing blow, but it was enough to veer us of course by a few degrees. It would be enough. We hit the side of the Blade ship, scraping, screeching down its side lengthways. I saw Tobias, feathers ruffled, being jerked around violently. I saw Santorelli, Jeanne and Menderash collapsing everywhere due to the sudden increase in speed and the wild jerking and shrieking as we hurtled down the side of the ship, our side scraping violently with theirs.
No one was on their feet anymore. I was being slammed none-too gently against the bulkhead, Jake beside me.
'Ahhhhhhhhhh!' I heard Santorelli and Jeanne screaming but it was almost drowned out by the horrendous, metal-on-metal noise outside.
Being in more situations than you can count doesn't mean you scream less. In fact you scream more. After all, you've had practise and I was screaming like a baby. I could heard Tobias' wild thought-speak scream in my head. Screaming is one way of getting past the terror. When you scream, you realise that you're still alive. For the time being.
We blew past the Blade at shocking speed.
You know how thrilling that was? Very. It was fun. It was also something that I would never be trying again.
'Jake, that was way past insane!' I cried, hoping he could hear.
'We're not clear yet,' Menderash reported. He'd somehow, amidst the jolting and rapid banging, managed to scramble to his feet and stagger to the consoles. 'The Blade Ship is getting ready to turn and fire at us.'
'How fast is the Blade Ship at turning?' I heard Jake ask.
'Slower than us,' Menderash replied curtly.
'Ok then.' I saw him deciding. He'd just sent us into what I'd thought of as a certain-death experience. And now he was probably planning our deaths in another, spectacular wild display of suicidal behaviour. But that was Jake for you.
'Turn quickly and skim over the Blade ship,' Jake said in his 'fearless- leader' voice again. 'Fire at the bridge. This ship is going down, even if we go down with it.'
I winced. I liked the rest of the plan.
We turned at such high velocity, he went slamming into a wall so hard I probably would have cracked my skull had Santorelli not been there to cushion me.
'Whoooooooaaaaaaa!' we yelled. We became weightless for about a nanosecond as we turned so quickly we evaded gravity itself. And there were we...shooting towards the slowly rotating Blade ship. A horror beyond belief sat cruelly in that very ship...yes, that very ship we were rocketing towards. Sounds insane, doesn't it? It was. Believe me, it was! And I know about insane.
Swoooooooooosh!
We skimmed over the Blade ship like a seagull skimming over the back of a surfacing whale. Ahead, I could see the windowed bulge of the bridge. The weapons were already powered. We flew over the same bridge we had seen the foul creature called The One only minutes before. We saw it swarming with furiously moving Taxxons, a couple of Hork-Bajir and human-Controllers. Menderash, an Andalite within, fired. I saw the beam penetrate the deep blackness of space and connect with the Blade ship's bridge with extreme results.
In a silent explosion, the entire window shattered in shards that went nowhere...just floated in the zero gravity that inhabited space. Everything that wasn't bolted or chained to the floor flew outwards in tornado of objects and creatures. I saw humans get swept outside, either flail for a few seconds before becoming still, or simply exploding due to the pressurised oxygen within their lungs in a shower of organs and blood that froze instantaneously. I saw a Taxxon fly past us, dozens of frail arms grasping at nothing. They could apparently survive longer in space because it took at least a minute for the Taxxon to finally stop struggling.
I saw, through dozens of bodies that filled the area, the consoles of the Blade ship crackle and snap.
Time to get out of here, Tobias said, noticing the same thing with his laser eyes.
We shot straight upwards seconds before the ship simply exploded. I didn't hear it, I just saw, out of the corner of my eye, a brilliant light and random debris flying past us. Ok, that roller coaster ride, I could cope with. That was almost fun...except for the fact that a metal shard spiralled upwards towards us...
'Ah,' I heard Menderash say as we cleared the dust cloud that was settling for square kilometres around in every direction, obscuring the countless bodies from view. I was glad. I didn't need to see them. Ok, I was glad we'd won, but how can anyone possibly kill dozens of people without a few seconds to grieve their deaths. They might have been filthy Yeerks that deserved to be destroyed, but that was only part of them. We had not only killed the Yeerks, we had killed their host bodies, many of which had fought on earth and won. And anyway, our initial plan—rescuing Ax—had surely failed. There probably wasn't a way of saving him from The One, but now...well, now there was no chance at all.
'What is it, Menderash?' Jake asked, snapping to attention.
'It appears that a shard of metal from the exploding Blade ship has buried itself in our fuel supply,' Menderash said simply. 'We will start slowly but surely losing fuel.'
'Ok, I interpret that as 'bad',' I said, trying to absorb this new information. Losing fuel? In space? Not good. Once our fuel ran out, we'd drift around like idiots until we were either rescued or died. No, anyway, we would die. If I didn't die of starvation or thirst, I'd certainly die of boredom. Floating around in ship with nowhere to put red-tailed hawk poop? Not my idea of fun.
'Is there anywhere were we can get more fuel?' Jake asked, sure of the answer he would receive.
'I'm afraid not, Prince...Jake,' Menderash said. 'There are no Andalite fuel ships around for thousands of light years, I'm afraid. Even through Z- Space, the trip would take at least a year. We would run out of fuel within a week. However, if we were to ditch this ship and take another one...'
He was offering Jake a way. A way which Jake quickly grasped. 'A ship? Are there any ships around here that we can take?'
Menderash began pouring over a small sector of the galaxy. I saw strange lines that I didn't understand crossing the galaxy. Borderlines, perhaps? Menderash trailed his finger around for a while, then snapped his fingers.
'There are two planets within a week's time away,' Menderash reported. 'One is frozen. I severely doubt there will sentient creatures on that planet we can 'borrow' a ship from. The other planet, however, seems promising. It is lush, with many plants, a lot of water. If we are trying to locate a ship, our best bet is to land on that planet near a settlement.'
'A settlement? You mean, there will be sentient life on this planet?' I said, seeing exactly Menderash's point.
'Well, no, but with such plant-life, there is a 64% chance that there will be sentient life on this planet,' Menderash said. 'Of that 64%, there is another 56% that they will have ships capable of space-travel.'
We all kind of stared at Menderash. You're telling us we may go down on to that planet and there might not be ships, or even sentient life, down there, Tobias demanded. What will happen if there are no ships? How will we get back?
'We won't,' Menderash replied simply. He was not one for hiding things from us. I wasn't sure that was for the better. 'We'll be stuck down there for ever, I speculate.'
'Swell,' I muttered. 'Jake, you're our leader here, I can't deny that and I'll follow your orders unless its something that I flat out will not obey. So, what do you thing we should do?'
I saw Jake look around. It was a swift glance. Sweeping past Tobias, Santorelli, Jeanne and Menderash, he rested his eyes on mine. I saw his slow, 'let's-do-it' smile. 'Let's do it!' he said.
My name is Marco.
I don't like hearing the end of my life in a single, given order—'Ram the Blade ship!', because that order would certainly end my life, but also Jake's life, Tobias' life and yes, even the three other recruitment's life. They had not yet experienced war and already it was over. We have fought this war for at least three years and in those three years I've seen things that can give nightmares to every person in the world for a week. I've seen Hork-Bajir so close I could hear them breathing and actually smell them. I've seen not only Visser Three's Andalite body (which is terrifying enough) but also many of his monstrous morphs. I've seen the monstrous, red- eyed being called Crayak. I've seen the harsh reality of war. Compared to all that, the end of my life seemed tame, but that didn't stop the utter terror creeping in.
I saw Menderash feverishly working. He was, after all, an Andalites, and Andalites don't stop to think to die for the people's freedom. The rest of us, however, were entirely human and the thought of dying in one last, futile attempt to destroy the Blade Ship...well, it wasn't inviting, I can say that.
I saw Jake, eyes narrowed, focused on the creature that called itself The One. I have been Jake'' best friend for years. I can read him as easily as I can read a book. There was no fear in his eyes, but that did not portray the real Jake. Deep inside, he was as scared as I was. After all, who actually wants to die. Jake may have been putting up the 'fearless- leader' act, but I knew. I could sense his hesitation, his guilt, his grief. He would turn his decision over and over in his mind, trying to think if he'd done the right, condemning us to die for absolutely nothing. But I trusted Jake. I was willing to die if he thought it was for the best.
I saw Tobias, his fierce yellow eyes locked on Jake, his hawk eyes expressionless...no, that isn't true. A hawk's face can never be expressionless. It is also fierce, glaring at you in a way that no human can. But I've also known Tobias for quite a while. Behind those blazing, yellow eyes was one of the kindest people I've ever met. I knew he, out of all of us, would want to die. He had lost Rachel and never had (and never would, I suspected) got over her death. Perhaps this was the quickest way to see her again.
I saw Santorelli and Jeanne looking around in confusion. They didn't quite know what was happening. They hadn't quite grasped that Jake had killed us. Hadn't quite figured out that they were living their last few moments. But I saw the realisation in Santorelli's eyes. He glanced around, as if about to protest, but stayed silent.
I stared stonily ahead. Saw Menderash press maximum burn. Maximum burn. You know how fast that is? Well, we went from standing still to nearly a tenth the speed of light almost instantly, which left us zero time to think about what was happening.
You've seen daredevils, right? You've seen them risk their life just to prove that they can survive jumping over a waterfall or wrestling with a tiger. Now, I'm not calling them dumb or anything, but they lived for the thrill, the exhilaration, the adrenaline pumping sheer excitement of it. Now, maybe that was Rachel, I don't know. Maybe she'd have liked to have died going thousands of kilometres an hour at a ship that just wasn't going to move. I really don't know 'cause I for one, would rather have died when I was old in my sleep.
'We will hit the Blade Ship in three,' Menderash explained calmly as the Blade Ship loomed ever closer. 'One...two...'
I felt like hitting Menderash. Nobody needs to hear beforehand the exact time that you're going to die. Certainly not me, anyway...
'Three...'
I saw my life. My life from when I was young flew by like a bullet. I saw glimpses of Jake and I in nursery, I managed to see my mum kissing me goodnight...but then it stopped and began to go slower when we reached that fateful night when we walked through that construction site. I saw when I had first morphed—it was a gorilla. I could still feel the unmatched power as I morphed as my muscles expanded beneath my skin. I saw when I'd found out that my mother was actually Visser One. I saw when I'd pretended to be a controller to talk to my mum in the underwater facility. I saw David, the trechorous, worm called David who had nearly turned us in. I saw, in detail, my mother falling down a cliff face where we had met. I saw her, tumbling...and I saw the days after where'd I'd hoped she still lived. I saw deep into the past where's we'd erased the life of John Berryman, the host body for Visser Four. I saw when I had finally rescued my mum from the clutches of the Yeerks and finally killed Visser One itself. I saw everything, right from the start of the war to present day, where we were hurtling at impossible speed towards an immovable object. We would hit...and we would hit...Our deaths were mere milliseconds away.
And yet...
And yet...
And yet...from the corner of my eye, at the last possible second, I saw the Blade Ship fired its massive Dracon cannon. I saw through tear-jerked eyes it lance towards us. It didn't hit us full on. It hit us at a glancing blow, but it was enough to veer us of course by a few degrees. It would be enough. We hit the side of the Blade ship, scraping, screeching down its side lengthways. I saw Tobias, feathers ruffled, being jerked around violently. I saw Santorelli, Jeanne and Menderash collapsing everywhere due to the sudden increase in speed and the wild jerking and shrieking as we hurtled down the side of the ship, our side scraping violently with theirs.
No one was on their feet anymore. I was being slammed none-too gently against the bulkhead, Jake beside me.
'Ahhhhhhhhhh!' I heard Santorelli and Jeanne screaming but it was almost drowned out by the horrendous, metal-on-metal noise outside.
Being in more situations than you can count doesn't mean you scream less. In fact you scream more. After all, you've had practise and I was screaming like a baby. I could heard Tobias' wild thought-speak scream in my head. Screaming is one way of getting past the terror. When you scream, you realise that you're still alive. For the time being.
We blew past the Blade at shocking speed.
You know how thrilling that was? Very. It was fun. It was also something that I would never be trying again.
'Jake, that was way past insane!' I cried, hoping he could hear.
'We're not clear yet,' Menderash reported. He'd somehow, amidst the jolting and rapid banging, managed to scramble to his feet and stagger to the consoles. 'The Blade Ship is getting ready to turn and fire at us.'
'How fast is the Blade Ship at turning?' I heard Jake ask.
'Slower than us,' Menderash replied curtly.
'Ok then.' I saw him deciding. He'd just sent us into what I'd thought of as a certain-death experience. And now he was probably planning our deaths in another, spectacular wild display of suicidal behaviour. But that was Jake for you.
'Turn quickly and skim over the Blade ship,' Jake said in his 'fearless- leader' voice again. 'Fire at the bridge. This ship is going down, even if we go down with it.'
I winced. I liked the rest of the plan.
We turned at such high velocity, he went slamming into a wall so hard I probably would have cracked my skull had Santorelli not been there to cushion me.
'Whoooooooaaaaaaa!' we yelled. We became weightless for about a nanosecond as we turned so quickly we evaded gravity itself. And there were we...shooting towards the slowly rotating Blade ship. A horror beyond belief sat cruelly in that very ship...yes, that very ship we were rocketing towards. Sounds insane, doesn't it? It was. Believe me, it was! And I know about insane.
Swoooooooooosh!
We skimmed over the Blade ship like a seagull skimming over the back of a surfacing whale. Ahead, I could see the windowed bulge of the bridge. The weapons were already powered. We flew over the same bridge we had seen the foul creature called The One only minutes before. We saw it swarming with furiously moving Taxxons, a couple of Hork-Bajir and human-Controllers. Menderash, an Andalite within, fired. I saw the beam penetrate the deep blackness of space and connect with the Blade ship's bridge with extreme results.
In a silent explosion, the entire window shattered in shards that went nowhere...just floated in the zero gravity that inhabited space. Everything that wasn't bolted or chained to the floor flew outwards in tornado of objects and creatures. I saw humans get swept outside, either flail for a few seconds before becoming still, or simply exploding due to the pressurised oxygen within their lungs in a shower of organs and blood that froze instantaneously. I saw a Taxxon fly past us, dozens of frail arms grasping at nothing. They could apparently survive longer in space because it took at least a minute for the Taxxon to finally stop struggling.
I saw, through dozens of bodies that filled the area, the consoles of the Blade ship crackle and snap.
Time to get out of here, Tobias said, noticing the same thing with his laser eyes.
We shot straight upwards seconds before the ship simply exploded. I didn't hear it, I just saw, out of the corner of my eye, a brilliant light and random debris flying past us. Ok, that roller coaster ride, I could cope with. That was almost fun...except for the fact that a metal shard spiralled upwards towards us...
'Ah,' I heard Menderash say as we cleared the dust cloud that was settling for square kilometres around in every direction, obscuring the countless bodies from view. I was glad. I didn't need to see them. Ok, I was glad we'd won, but how can anyone possibly kill dozens of people without a few seconds to grieve their deaths. They might have been filthy Yeerks that deserved to be destroyed, but that was only part of them. We had not only killed the Yeerks, we had killed their host bodies, many of which had fought on earth and won. And anyway, our initial plan—rescuing Ax—had surely failed. There probably wasn't a way of saving him from The One, but now...well, now there was no chance at all.
'What is it, Menderash?' Jake asked, snapping to attention.
'It appears that a shard of metal from the exploding Blade ship has buried itself in our fuel supply,' Menderash said simply. 'We will start slowly but surely losing fuel.'
'Ok, I interpret that as 'bad',' I said, trying to absorb this new information. Losing fuel? In space? Not good. Once our fuel ran out, we'd drift around like idiots until we were either rescued or died. No, anyway, we would die. If I didn't die of starvation or thirst, I'd certainly die of boredom. Floating around in ship with nowhere to put red-tailed hawk poop? Not my idea of fun.
'Is there anywhere were we can get more fuel?' Jake asked, sure of the answer he would receive.
'I'm afraid not, Prince...Jake,' Menderash said. 'There are no Andalite fuel ships around for thousands of light years, I'm afraid. Even through Z- Space, the trip would take at least a year. We would run out of fuel within a week. However, if we were to ditch this ship and take another one...'
He was offering Jake a way. A way which Jake quickly grasped. 'A ship? Are there any ships around here that we can take?'
Menderash began pouring over a small sector of the galaxy. I saw strange lines that I didn't understand crossing the galaxy. Borderlines, perhaps? Menderash trailed his finger around for a while, then snapped his fingers.
'There are two planets within a week's time away,' Menderash reported. 'One is frozen. I severely doubt there will sentient creatures on that planet we can 'borrow' a ship from. The other planet, however, seems promising. It is lush, with many plants, a lot of water. If we are trying to locate a ship, our best bet is to land on that planet near a settlement.'
'A settlement? You mean, there will be sentient life on this planet?' I said, seeing exactly Menderash's point.
'Well, no, but with such plant-life, there is a 64% chance that there will be sentient life on this planet,' Menderash said. 'Of that 64%, there is another 56% that they will have ships capable of space-travel.'
We all kind of stared at Menderash. You're telling us we may go down on to that planet and there might not be ships, or even sentient life, down there, Tobias demanded. What will happen if there are no ships? How will we get back?
'We won't,' Menderash replied simply. He was not one for hiding things from us. I wasn't sure that was for the better. 'We'll be stuck down there for ever, I speculate.'
'Swell,' I muttered. 'Jake, you're our leader here, I can't deny that and I'll follow your orders unless its something that I flat out will not obey. So, what do you thing we should do?'
I saw Jake look around. It was a swift glance. Sweeping past Tobias, Santorelli, Jeanne and Menderash, he rested his eyes on mine. I saw his slow, 'let's-do-it' smile. 'Let's do it!' he said.
