Notes:
--Argh. Sorry this chapter's so crummy; I just needed to explain what the planet looks like a little more. The next one will get on with the half-formed plot in my mind, dunt worry. O.o;;
Chapter 9
Tobias
By Aura Kage
MARCO! I shouted, in vain attempt to wake him up. It was no use – whatever sedative had been in that dart was too powerful.
If a dart was that strong for a human, then I hated the thought of what it might do to a hawk. The human in me shuddering, I took flight, feeling guilty for not spotting the…things…in the first place. Then again, they did come from the ground, and I was too preoccupied with the landscape…
It bothered me. A lot. And it bothered the hawk, too…"the hawk" being the actual mind of my body. My split personality. Ha.
Anyway, it bothered both of us, and for multiple reasons. The first was the silence. The hawk's primordial instincts and memories were always of predator and prey, the sounds of water running and the wind through the canopies of trees that bordered lovely small meadows. The twitching of mice, the erratic hops of rabbits. There was total absence of…any of that there. No animals at all. No sounds. No trees…no trees that I recognized, anyway. Only the steady, slow rippling of the strange looking ground.
And that was another thing. There was absolutely no wind, yet I could see the infinitesimal grains of sand being pushed along by some invisible force. But no wind.
In fact, the air in general bothered me. It was thicker, somehow…I felt more solidity when my wings beat down on the dead air, felt almost as if I were flying through water. When I breathed, it was with more effort. The air was dense, almost as if it were…well, I don't know. Too big for my nostrils?
Maybe that was why Marco couldn't breathe. The air was thicker, or something.
Yes, there was a lot about this place that was bothering me. And the hawk. In fact, the hawk was almost out of its mind with hysterics. But no, even that wouldn't be right…the hawk could probably care less. I tried to comprehend what it thought about this, but it seemed to be only mildly disturbed. Like: "Oh, maybe it's just this place that's different, there's bound to be a meadow or prey somewhere over in that direction…"
I turned in the air, feeling the vibration of the hard wind working against my movements, and saw that the creatures had already towed Marco and Jeanne from the escape pod. They reminded me of moles, somewhat. Humanized moles. Their "hands" were of two long, sharp blades and three smaller, more flexible fingers that included an opposable thumb, which was probably what they had used to pick up that tube-like dart shooter they used on Marco. Their barreled torsos obviously held large lungs – for more endurance, more strength when they dug. (I was assuming now that they dug, considering that they came out of the ground.) Their rat-like visages were adorned with long whiskers, slender pivotal ears, and small dark eyes that didn't look as if they could see at all. Their legs looked powerful enough, thick and with talon-like claws that were…webbed. Killer duck feet. Donald would have gone ballistic.
Were these the Kelbrid? I hoped not. If they were, well…I couldn't think of any of our morphs that could take out claws like that.
I could spot the leader immediately, even in the distorted light. He was wearing a band around his forehead and upper arms. A band that, even contorted in the purple sun, I could tell was unmistakably blue.
He gestured to the others and began a series of grunt-groans, and they replied with a strange gurgle, like a fish trying to sing an opera. They took Marco and Jeanne and literally jumped into the unflawed ground, disappearing – forever? – into impenetrable depths of sand.
The leader turned back to the escape pod and ran his claw over the smoothness, and seemed both disgusted and awed by it. I watched from a distance, circling, as he arched those claws up in the air and ripped a hole into the ship's interior as easily as if he were cutting up a piece of bread. That scared me. That ship had endured going through space and tearing through the atmosphere of this planet, then landed on the ground with only a small crack. And yet this mole-thing had just sliced through it?
That was like me meeting a triple-steel vault that had been strong enough to live through lava, and making an incision as if I were cutting through water.
Then he turned and leaped back into the ground claws-first, revealing a plating of stone-like armor on his back. The ground filled in behind him, leaving no trace that he had ever been there before. He had, obviously, not spotted me at all…I didn't think that he had, as I had a guess that he was blind.
I looked down at the ground, now still and silent. I couldn't risk landing on that ground. Those things, if they were predators, probably hunted by vibrations made by prey on the surface, and that was probably why this place was void of any life. I spotted one of the distant "trees" and headed towards it, hoping for the best.
As soon as I neared, I saw that landing was not an option. The "tree" was like wannabe Hulk cactus – there was no clear spot to land, unless I wanted to impale myself twenty different times at the same time. It didn't look as if the long quills were strong enough to support my weight anyway.
I couldn't fly forever. But I couldn't land, either. Fuming silently, I cast a glance around to see if I could spot Jake. Nope. Nothing.
And now Marco was gone. I hadn't done anything to help except watch from afar.
You're a coward, Tobias. Dirty little bird, flying around trying to find safe haven when you should be looking for the others…
I shoved the thoughts from my mind and started back for the escape pod.
~
I think I maybe sat there for a whole day, just thinking. What should I do next? How could I eat?
I tried morphing…back into my old body, which made me feel even worse than I had in my hawk body. Strange that I now regarded a fierce red-tailed raptor as my true form rather than the one that I had been born in. Strange that I felt bare and insecure without feathers and wings and deadly beak and talons and avian vision and hearing.
No morph I could think of could help me here, though, so I just went back into hawk.
And waited.
For what? I don't know. Just waited. I had the strangest feeling that something was about to happen – I didn't know whether it was good or bad, but I knew it was significant.
I watched the sun set – not directly, but you get what I mean – and the dawning of another sun. The faintest tinges of yellow crept into the sky, and soon the vibrant orange was bleached into the off-white color of cheap paint. The sun that had come up was now a pale blue, not as powerful as the old sun, but more like…
Like the moon. God, could this be…night?
Or at least the "night" that constituted for this world? I doubted it was, in a truly astronomical sense, a moon…it just seemed to be a different sun…a different color. God, was that even right? Were the rays dangerous? Would the atmosphere protect me? My mind ran through a dozen questions all at once, and I just settled on accepting it. No use just sitting there asking when there was no one to give me the answers.
You should really get to looking for Jake and Marco and the others, the annoying little voice in my mind said. They could all be dead for all you know…and Ax, too.
Aw, man. Ax. I forgot all about him.
Yeah, I should get looking…but where to start?
Didn't matter. It wasn't like I could get lost. The beetle-black coating of the escape pod stuck out in the now-white sand.
I spread my wings and pressed them down on that still unfamiliar force in the air, and flew.