Cassie looked around at the two groups of Horse-Controllers, trying to find some kind of context for the emotions she was literally smelling on them. The two groups were moving closer together again, after having split apart before they had reached the road. Cassie saw that the two groups were starting to converge. The Horse-Controllers' destination looked to be one of the main, if not the main, hangers.
It was huge, but Cassie personally thought that the word huge didn't really do the building much justice. From Cassie's perspective, the doors of the hangar looked large enough that a full-grown Tyrannosaurus Rex could walk through them, probably with a few inches to spare, at least. The immense structure was also very carefully and thoroughly guarded. Air Force personnel, some armed with rifles and others armed with automatic weapons, were stationed all around the perimeter of the hangar.
Cassie even thought she could just make out the silhouette of another soldier with a rifle standing at the top of the hangar. There was also a sign on the front of the hangar. Though none of the Animorphs could read it with their dim and rather pathetic horse eyes.
(I miss my real eyes,) Tobias said rather grumpily.
(Yeah, so do I,) Slade commiserated.
All of a sudden a very, very loud series of bells went off. Most of the Animorphs had reared up onto their hind legs before they were able to regain control of their horse minds. Slade and the Horse-Controllers, however, waited calmly and patiently for whatever was coming. Slade, because he was once again telepathically blocking out the impulses from his horse mind, and the Horse-Controllers because they knew what was coming.
Sure enough, the huge doors of the hangar started to slowly open. The noise of the gargantuan motors that were required to open those doors registered as an immensely loud rumbling to both the Animorphs and the Horse-Controllers.
The guards all swung their weapons up into firing positions, looking around with alert assurance. The one place they failed to look was directly in front of them, or they would have seen that the group of horses wasn't acting at all normal. Suddenly, three of the Horse-Controllers surged forward at a run. Marco, Rachel and Aximili followed them after a few seconds of hesitation.
(Why do I get the feeling that there's going to be a lot of shooting really soon?) Tobias groaned.
(Probably because you're right,) Slade said grimly.
(Why are they doing this?) Cassie asked, as their group of Horse-Controllers followed the first one into the hangar. (It doesn't make any sense. Why would they spend all this time hiding in horse bodies, so they could go in and out of areas without being noticed, only to go and blow their cover by charging in like this?)
(They're running out of patience,) Jake said, breaking into a run himself. (The subtle approach isn't getting results fast enough to satisfy them. You heard them when they were talking to each other, right? They want to get out of here as soon as they can. That's why they're doing this. It's their final move; they're desperate.)
(So, what do we do?) Cassie asked.
(We play follow-the-leader with them,) Jake said, pointing to the Horse-Controllers out in front of them with his nose. (That way, we'll know what they're here to get, and we'll also have a better chance at stopping them.) We'd also better hope that these Yeerks have a good plan for not getting shot, Jake thought to himself. There are a lot of people with guns here.
The lead Horse-Controller, out ahead of even Rachel and Ax, body-slammed a guard that hadn't gotten out of the way fast enough. All of them, Animorphs and Horse-Controllers alike, were racing flat-out into the main hangar. The guards hadn't planned for this, and there was not one among their number who didn't wonder how something like this could possibly be happening.
They had been prepared for quite a few scenarios down at Area 51, but being attacked by an army of horses was most assuredly not one of them. The Air Force personnel who were trying to keep the charging horses from getting inside the hangar, the one that they were supposed to be guarding from all comers, were being knocked down by the madly charging horses.
Cassie saw one of the soldiers who had been interrogating them when they had first come into Area 51. Captain Torrelli himself, in fact.
"Someone get these damned crazy horses out of this hangar!" Captain Torrelli shouted.
The Horse-Controllers reared up and pawed the air with their hooves, their shrieking whinnies adding to the general panic in the facility.
"What do we do, Captain?!" one of the other soldiers demanded frantically.
A few of the technicians, made all the more obvious by their long white lab coats, were screaming in panic and running frantically away from the horses charging into the hangar. The soldiers, on the other hand, were marching forward to confront the mixed group of equines. Which, given the fact that the horses were several times larger than the humans facing them, was a rather dangerous thing to do.
"Should we shoot them, Captain?" another of the soldiers asked, raising his rifle into a firing position.
"Negative, soldier," Torrelli snapped. "Do not fire, we could damage the objects in the labs."
Both soldiers nodded, quickly re-shouldering their rifles. The Horse-Controllers, with the Animorphs not far behind, raced into and through the group of rearing, whinnying horses and the soldiers who were trying without much success to subdue them. If the soldiers even noticed them in the chaos, they made no attempt to stop them. Of course, that might have had a lot to do with the fact that they were currently preoccupied with trying to guard the hangar from the first bunch of horses.
Whatever the reason, the Animorphs were not challenged as they thundered into the laboratories inside the huge hangar, hot on the tails of the Horse-Controllers, all wondering what they would find inside the alternately famed and infamous Area 51. As they crossed the threshold into the labs, the Animorphs saw more of the scientists. They were running away from them like the Animorphs had morphed into a pack of wolves instead of a herd of horses.
It was a strange sight, to be sure: white-coated scientists and technicians running away from the horses; shouting soldiers and airmen, brandishing their sidearms and chasing after the horses; and older, elaborately dressed, stuffy-looking, high-ranking officers standing around looking generally annoyed. A lot of people were shouting.
"What the blazing Hades is going on here?!" one of the generals demanded, looking around at the chaos in the once-orderly laboratory.
"Somebody stop those horses!"
"Shoot 'em!"
"Negative, soldier! No firing inside the labs!" another officer, a Major this time, shouted above the noise of pounding feet and clattering hooves.
"What are we going to do then, arrest them?!" another of the low-ranking soldiers entreated, shrill sarcasm coloring her tones.
One of the technicians sneezed, pulling a tissue out of one of his large pockets. "Somebody do something at least!" another sneeze. "I'm allergic to horses!"
It was definitely a strange scene, but the Animorphs were enjoying it. Even Cassie was enjoying herself, because Minneapolis Max was enjoying himself. Rearing up suddenly and letting loose a shrieking whinny, Cassie managed to startle a woman into dropping her open container of strawberry yogurt on the floor.
(Nice one, Cassie,) Slade laughed, turning to snap at the hands of one of the soldiers chasing him and watching in satisfaction as he recoiled.
(We're doing it!) Marco enthused. (We're going to make it inside! Most Secret Place On Earth, here we come!)
(You do know you're a dork, right Marco?) Rachel asked.
(Sorry, Rachel, but even you can't spoil my good mood right now,) Marco laughed. (We're going to go where no kid has gone before!)
The mix-and-match herd of Horse-Controllers, Animorphs in their various horse morphs, and normal horses, blew through the remaining human barriers between them and the main lab. Once inside, it was obvious that this was the focal point, the reason for all the security they had just gotten past. Inside the room were two things, but one of them was seemingly much more important than the other.
The first object was behind a wall of glass that looked like it could easily be a foot thick. Behind the glass, and more than a little distorted because of the glass' thickness, was a polished steel pedestal. Sitting atop the pedestal, bathed in the light of several mounted spotlights, was a green cube that looked like it had had all of its corners rounded off. It was obvious to almost anyone who looked at it that this, whatever it was, didn't belong on Earth.
With the second object it wasn't so easy to tell, since a lot of people on Earth could have made a sword like that. Though, it was kind of odd that not only the hilt but also the blade itself was blue. The strange sword was outside of the glass enclosure. There was also the matter of the jewel that had been literally fused into the base of the blade. It was dark sea-green, and perfectly spherical. The Air Force had had their own gemologists studying the crystal, but all they had managed to find out so far was that it wasn't an emerald.
