Notes:
--...Short because I needed to change perspectives. ^^;;
--Btw, I'm okay without a beta reader...thanks for offering, though. :D
Chapter 8
Marco
By Aura Kage
"Ram the Blade Ship."
For a moment, the crew of the Rachel just stared at him, Jake – now official leader of the Animorphs, who held a reincarnation of the Rachel's namesake smirk.
I saw Menderash look at me from the corner of my eye, and we exchanged uncertain glances. Then the human nothlit turned slowly towards the wall of the Fighter, fingers tapping against the screen and pulling up numerous incomprehensible lines, words that were written in the good old-fashioned alphabet but might as well have been a different language. Then all of it cleared away, leaving only a bar that was sluggishly filling up with red, like Kool-Aid being poured into a test tube.
"Engine power-up at fifty percent," Menderash said in a monotone voice. We were all watching the screen the screen, save Jake, who was still glaring defiantly at the "One."
The ominous feeling in the air, of the power-meter slowly filling and counting up to the time of our deaths, made me chuckle halfheartedly. No one noticed.
"Engine power-up at seventy-five percent."
I glanced back at the One, who was watching the inside of the Fighter with inexpressive eyes. Eyes that half-belonged to Ax.
He looked like he didn't really believe that we were going to ram his precious Blade Ship head-on.
He had another thing coming.
If he was a "he," anyway.
"Engine power-up at ninety percent."
It was all so dramatic, how Menderash was counting down like that. How everyone on the ship was silent. I heard Tobias ruffle his feathers, wings unfolding and then refolding at his sides.
"Engine power-up complete," Menderash said finally, stuttering a little. He turned from the button and lever-ridden counter, to Jake. "Initiating S-Drive 15-10."
"What's the 'S' stand for?" I asked, unable to help myself. "Suicidal?"
Everyone ignored me, of course. Apparently my logic was not worth noting.
"Fighter will ram the Blade Ship in one minute," Menderash droned on. Silence. Then: "Should we not take this time to board the escape pods?"
"Escape pods?" Jake said, turning and looking at the nothlit in surprise. He nodded.
"Yes. I believe I informed you that there were some located on the ship that will automatically be evacuated when Rachel acknowledges Level Seven damage."
"In my opinion, that would be the logical thing to do," Santorelli thought aloud.
"Gee, you think?" I said. "No, let's just all sit here and wait for the Fighter to ram so we can all die and –"
"Let's go," Jake interrupted. We all vacated the cockpit (or whatever it was called…hey, I'm not in charge of these things) and followed Menderash to wherever the escape pods were. They were cute little things, if not as elegant as the Rachel – colored somewhat of a dull black-chrome, like the back of a beetle. Enormous gears that rotated with the strong triple-glass windows were dull purple-silver, and the whole thing was about the shape of a horizontal teardrop, streamlined and pretty.
And also possibly only able to hold about two people each, might I add.
"Lucky you aren't that big, Birdboy," I muttered audibly. "But whose going where?"
"Fifteen seconds," Menderash muttered.
"Um," Jake said quickly, looking around at the five of us. "Um, Santorelli, Menderash, and I will go in one; Marco, Tobias, and Jeanne will go in the other."
"Ten seconds," Menderash continued, hastily shoving up the window of an escape pod, which moved up with mechanical grace. Jake and Santorelli quickly piled into that one, and me – being the only actual "man" of my designated group – placed my fingers in the small niche between the glass and the outer wall of the escape pod, pulling it up with my oh-so-manly strength. I allowed Jeanne to crawl into the small space, and then Tobias – hey, I didn't exactly want him to foot me with his evil little feet – and then crawled in myself, pulling down on a handle underneath the window to close it. Jeanne found a handle as well, and helped tugged down. I noticed, absentmindedly of course, that she was pressed against my side. Okay, so maybe the girl took too many bathroom breaks – but she was still very, very hot.
"Five seconds!" Menderash shouted, his voice strangely muffled and amplified at the same time. Evidently the last five seconds were important enough to be shouted.
The window clicked closed. I felt a sudden sick feeling in my stomach and shifted around a little. "Maybe we shouldn't do this."
Stop moving, you're crushing my wing, Tobias grumbled.
"What?" Jake demanded from the other pod, obviously hearing me.
"Three seconds!"
"I meant, maybe we shouldn't do this without properly jinxing the whole thing," I concluded resolutely. I grinned at Jeanne, who looked bewildered. "May I do the honors?"
I could swear I saw Jake grin through that impossibly thick flawless metal. "Go."
"Two seconds!"
"What are you talking about?" Jeanne asked.
"Shh – this requires immense concentration," I told her seriously. I allowed myself a few seconds of dramatic pause, and then said the forbidden words: "Let's do it."
"Excuse me?"
"One second!"
There was a moment of silence, of waiting. Then the whole ship jerked, and I slammed forward, head crashing into the window – which was, surprisingly, not transparent anymore. Darkness, like black paint rolling down from the top of the window, was obscuring everything from vision. The bottom of the escape pod started to glow a bit, and I felt something slither up from the ground and slap around my stomach, pulling me back from the walls and holding me in place.
Ack! Tobias cried as the snake-thing, no doubt, attempted to grab him around the stomach as well.
I felt the pod being moved backward by gravity, could envision the lovely Rachel zooming forward like a death-scythe towards the neck of unsuspecting victim number one. Towards the Blade Ship, where the actual Rachel had died so long ago. The massive vibration of the ship moving shook the inside of the pod, and I waited for the crash that would result from the impact any second.
In fact, I realized, we might actually be blown to bits before the ship dropped us out. It was not a very happy thought. Maybe it was because I was not in a very happy place.
But no – I felt the escape pod tip forward, so far that I was vertical, with my head facing what was once the window of the escape pod but was now just another wall. We hung in that position for the longest minute in the world, waiting for the inevitable fall.
I gulped and laughed a bit. "Have I mentioned yet that this is crazy, stupid, will permanently put us on the insanity-path-of-no-return –"
Spare us. Please.
"God, Tobias, you –"
And then we started falling.
~
I think maybe I blacked out on the way down to…wherever. Because when I woke up, I was still in the escape pod, but with a very different difference – it had been cracked. Purply sunlight filtered in through the fracture in the smooth shell of the escape pod. I groaned and tried to move, but the strap around my waist prevented me from doing much of anything.
I looked over at Jeanne and Tobias. The former was still unconscious, her mouth slightly open and hair disheveled, but still very hot, in that messy sort of way. The latter was awake, but helpless, as the "seat belt" had gone over his back, pinning one wing down. I realized belatedly that there were feathers all over the interior of the pod.
"Hey, Tobias," I said awkwardly, as he continued to glare at me. I tried to move, but that strap was really, really tight.
Hey, he replied unenthusiastically. He flapped the one wing that was still free. You mind freeing me here?
"I can't move at all," I said, struggling in vain to prove it. I glanced back further, pain lancing in my neck – ugh, I hope it wasn't broken – and saw that his talons were close to the strap. "Hey, maybe if you can tear up this seat belt I'll be able to free you and Jeanne."
Tobias nodded in agreement and beat his free wing as he lashed out several times with his talon, trying to inch closer to get a better shot. Luckily enough, the strap wasn't strong, but it still took several minutes before Tobias was able to fully wreak havoc upon it.
I started to stand – and hit my head against the ceiling.
"They should really make these things bigger," I grumbled, rubbing my head and easily undoing the strap around Tobias. It was designed much like a seat-belt strap, and as soon as the buckle was loosed the belt fluttered towards the sides of the pod and disappeared. "Whoever makes them, anyway."
I don't think they expected people to try and stand up in them, Tobias said dryly as the strap came off. He quickly tried to get to his talons, raking the soft bottom of the escape pod, shedding several more feathers in the process.
I moved on to Jeanne and undid her strap while Tobias flapped up to the cracked shell and perched, looking all around. His russet-brown plumage was discolored by the violet light, making it seem that he was blackish and bluish and opposed to brown and red.
Whoa, he said, looking around. I propped Jeanne up. This place is really weird.
"How weird?" I asked. "As in, stupid weird? Insanely weird? Animorphs weird?"
Weird as in…weird weird.
"Ah. Feeling very descriptive, aren't we?"
I don't see Jake or the others, Tobias continued. Come up here and look.
"Alright." I left Jeanne and stood up – carefully. My head came up easily through the opening in the escape pod, and as soon as my eyes adjusted to the strange light, I whistled. "Uh, yeah. I think that would probably constitute was 'weird weird.'"
Up in the pale orange sky – yes, orange, like a neon "caution, weirdness here" sign – was a small, very distant sun, colored so bright purple that it looked white. After the flashes in my vision dwindled away (note to self: suns near strange plants are just as strong as suns near earth, and therefore should not be looked directly into), I noticed belatedly that the whole silent landscape seemed to be a flat cross between sandy and soil-y. You know, grainy but…soft looking.
Oh, and probably the most significant part – hardly any trees. The only ones were distant, tall spiky things that looked like porcupines who got on the wrong side of adolescence and a growth spurt. Come hither, rich tourists – visit the luscious purple sands of Distant-and-Unknown-Planet!
Okay, so trees might not seem too important. But then you get to thinking, "Hey, wait, don't you need trees to have oxygen? And don't you, like, need oxygen to breathe?"
I gagged and ducked back into the escape pod, and Tobias flapped in alarm and peered down at me.
What's the matter?
"There's no air out there!" I gasped. I don't know how I was able to breathe inside the escape pod – but then, it was an escape pod, and most likely it had some sort of low supply of atmospheric gases that Ax could happily explain to me if I cared to listen for a few years. Tobias continued to look down at me, then back outside, then back down at me again.
I can breathe perfectly fine, Tobias stated. Maybe it's just…um, you hallucinating or something.
"Me? Hallucinating?"
Well, whatever it is, we've got to go find Jake and the others, Tobias said. Like I said, I can't see them, and that means they must be really far. Hawk eyes don't miss much.
"Yeah," I agreed, tentatively standing and checking out the atmosphere again. After a few moments I felt light-headed. "Hey, man, I really don't think I can –"
Pain interrupted me; I stared down in surprise at the feathered purple dart that had buried itself into my arm. Tobias screeched and flew away, probably too startled to get over the hawk's instincts.
And suddenly, I felt way more than light-headed.
They came from underground! Tobias yelled, his winged frame arcing into the sky, gaining altitude. I can't get them – if I get any closer, the leader's going to shoot me with that…that thing he has!
"No…" I called, already weak. Whoo…that must have been some strong sedative. For a moment the image of a gorilla popped into my mind, but I forced it away; even the knights of ye olde knew never to bare your most powerful strength to the enemy immediately. And Tobias needed to…he needed to get away… so that he could warn the others. "No, no…fly away go find Jake…" I chuckled. "Fly away…little ladybird. The blackbirds're outta the pie now."
I'm not going to leave you! Tobias protested. I just need to make sure that –
"Go away," I said firmly, looking down at a disoriented something that was crawling up the side of the escape pod with the agility of a big cat. "Tobias, you can't…"
I can't what? Marco? Marco?! MARCO!