The Assignment
Star Trek – Animorphs
«Walk.»
We did.
One slippery arm, closer to a fin now that the blood stopped pounding behind my earholes to let me see it clearly, clamped tight in between us. I refused to let go.
Not until we rounded the shuttle and it saw where we were going.
With a slick movement that I probably should have expected by now, it slipped between my claws. I grabbed for the air. Missed. Growled in the heavy saw-like breath of an adult Hork-Bajir as I stumped up behind the floundering alien.
It crouched by Reddie. A tingle on the back of my neck had me by his side, too.
He blinked up at us, scattering specks of black matter to the filthy red of his uniform. Bits of him.
If it hurt, he didn't say so. Instead, Mr. Red-shirt stared. At me. At the blades on my wrists, the beak and red eyes. His good eye misted over and the man lay back to wince at the sky.
The alien's eyes roved over him. Not being versed in its rather camel-shaped face, I couldn't tell if that was concern or intense interest focusing it on Reddie's burn. I stopped a try at touching the marred skin by jerking my head down in front of it.
Hork-Bajir can scowl pretty well. It comes naturally, something it and my natural form had in common.
"Ugh," coughed the prone man. "What…?"
Tiny glimmers of blood, raw muscle in cracks of mummified skin. My palm, talons relaxed so as not to catch on uniform material or skin, set him steady.
Glimmering black eyes turned to me. The alien's bottom lip puffed out. It looked bizarrely like a pout.
«Sir,» I started, careful to raise fingertips and claws above Reddie's unsettled shifting, «I'm a friend. From before. Are you okay? I mean,» dumb question, «can you move?»
Smacking his lips, Reddie's tongue peeked pale and dry in a wheeze. His eyes bulged.
«Okay, okay. You don't need to talk.»
Would've been helpful, though.
Click. Clickclick.
A shrill tone nearly jumpstarted my knee joint into the dirt. I skimmed a small clump of earth from the blade tip and gave the alien a sour look. Still making the sound, but quieter, it leaned in and made more strange noises.
Mr. Red-shirt's face cleared after a few moments. He nodded.
…Wait.
«Can you… understand it?» I may have sounded disbelieving.
Curved into a sharp angle of disgust, Reddie's eyebrow arched at me.
At me. Not at the alien.
…Oh. «Sorry. I can't go back to being a bird, for now.»
But he shook his head at me. Drew a hand to his throat, winced. Mouthed something.
If you'd believe it, I tend to have a lot of spare time on my hands – on my wings. Flying, soaring through the clouds or avoiding them because damp feathers aren't fun for anyone involved, even scouting out places for the Animorphs. That takes up a little of it.
When the sun seems to drag across the sky and everyone I know is busy or doesn't need me bursting into their lives, I've developed some hobbies to keep from going nuts from boredom.
Reading over people's shoulders. Counting the number of bodies coming and going from shopping centres, homes, schools. People-watching.
Reading lips.
Hawks don't hear quite that well from the heights we take, and I've had to get creative with spying or listening in on private conversations.
No-one can hide from the bird-man.
It's not easy to follow long sentences, but one word, repeated? No problem.
«Water. I'll get some.»
And hopefully not poison one of my tickets out of here in the process. I squashed the familiar stirrings of regret, of worry, and stood. Then I looked at the squat, wrinkled alien.
Its skin seemed to push out into puffy divots and creases. It reminded me of a baby shar-pei.
Not nearly so innocent.
I hesitated. Rims around Reddie's eyes showed startling white, resting first on me, and then on my second meal ticket.
Lips pursed, he waved. Waved again, harder. He wanted me to go.
Could I trust either of them, alone, here?
Well. Either taking the alien with me, leaving Reddie alone, or letting it stay with him without a minder, didn't seem like good choices.
Were they all I had?
«Is there water nearby? Clean water?» I asked. My beak tip pointed directly at Mr. Red-shirt's chest.
A slow nod. Using the hand opposite to his injury, the spaceman pointed. At the shuttle.
Of course, they must have brought emergency supplies. Much closer than a river. Purified.
I eyed the lesser-patterned material, stroking it with the back of a claw. It remained cold despite the sun directly over our heads.
«If it tries anything, make some noise,» I ordered, peering for the handle to open it up. «I'll be there.»
I didn't go on to say that I might not get there in time. But I had to give the flubbery creature some credit; it helped fight off an infested member of its own race. It knew a friendly face didn't mean instant trust. In that position, any one of us would do the same.
A cold glare and I stumped around the craft to find a door.
Despite the battle churning up mud, blood and guts just outside, the shuttle's doors opened at a simple approach. No panel or code-breaking needed. Which was fine by me, if a little naïve by my standards.
A single step up, ignoring helpful human-sized stairs, found me in a rather cozy compartment just behind the cockpit.
Cool air flush on leathery skin, neck bent to fit the enormous frame of my weaponised morph inside the little ship, I hunched further inside. Chairs on revolving bases pointed just off forwards, as if left at odd angles by the swiftly departing crew. Panels, buttons, some raised to switch or flick while others glowed softly beneath glass.
Touch-screens, maybe. Pretty high-tech. I'm pretty sure I've only seen that in the one sci-fi movie I'd ever been dragged to, by the most persistent and flat-out annoying friend to ever need a wing-man, pun intended, despite knowing I couldn't stay longer than two hours to watch some explosions and dramatic kissing against said explosions.
Though that was probably why he chose me. A great excuse to get some girl alone, right?
I still like to reminisce about the horror on Marco's face beneath a shower of upturned popcorn, the carton sticking up from his hair.
Don't ask him about it. He'd deny it.
Scanning the walls, I remembered the look on Reddie's face. Shock. Disgust. Concern.
Very little pain.
Hooked claws into overhead bins loosened their covers, light and thin in my hands. Bits of machinery blinked back at me. I peered in the half-light. Nothing looked edible, and to be honest, who puts food in a place they have to stretch up to?
The longer I fumbled in the strange twilight of manned human space travel, the louder my jagged beak grated in a close imitation of grinding teeth. Reddie wasn't safe out there. Better in here, to be honest.
Better than having some fat alien watching over him when he couldn't defend himself.
In the end I dragged a satchel I'd found in the back to Reddie and his new best buddy. A canteen sloshed inside among blocks of metal and dials, nothing I recognized.
The bag dropped in the dirt so the wounded crewman could dig through it. Finding the water actually curved those coarse lips into a smile.
The alien chirruped as if happy to see it, too.
«There's more,» I said briefly and handed the little laser box over.
Mr. Red-shirt almost snatched it up, thumb swept up to rest on the activator button. His hands curved around it as if holding something precious.
I eyed it.
He didn't point it at me.
«You. » A sharp glare against the dull greys and browns of the bare hillside was about all I could muster. The alien quivered. «He understands you. Tell him your name.»
It burbled. Reddie squinted against the sun, covering his eyes.
Cracked and painful, whispered so that I leaned in – carefully – to spare his throat.
"Moorguenn. She says. Hello."
I managed a tight nod. «Hello.»
Not one thing about it reminded me of any female I'd ever seen. But then, squat and flippered, nothing on Earth quite resembled her, either.
Moorguenn. That's something.
"Ah… Asuf." Reddie's face flickered. That's the warning we had before he started coughing and didn't stop. He didn't let us touch him. Fist to his mouth, the spaceman fought to control himself. A jab at his own shoulder brought up a gasp. "Asuf!"
«Don't try to talk if you're going to choke on it. Asuf, we get it. Nice to meet you.» Oh. Right. «And call me, uh. Teddy. As in… Theodore.»
The alien hummed something and patted Asuf's shoulder.
"She needs. Help."
Moorguenn motioned two fluid circles around her snout. Palms turned inward, she posed for three blinks of those bulbous eyes and actually snorted a sound with at least three consonants.
"Um," Asuf wiped his forehead, "her people, they're in. A bad way. Hurt. I think."
«Not to be rude,» I said patiently, digging claws deep into the earth, «but we have bigger problems. There's Yeerks among the – the Moorguenns here, and we're all in deep trouble.»
Reddie mouthed 'yeerk', his bestest buddy imitating it with her gigantic lips.
«It's a long story.» And I do not have the time to repeat it. Again. «You can't trust anyone, Asuf. Moorguenn. Yeerks can look like anyone, act just like them, and you wouldn't know the difference.»
Her unwavering gaze seemed filled with stars. A deep, mournful blew note through her nose. I felt a chill up my spine.
"Yeah." Asuf coughed. "That's. Her problem."
«A Yeerk problem. So, you already know?»
The lady alien spoke in her mix of blubbering, dial tone singing and rapid finger movements for some time. Asuf watched, and as she slowed, began to speak against the growing raw edge to his voice.
"Moorguenn is from. The deepest trenches, where most. Live. Her people. The Eirin." A tired gesture to the crouching female. "But she had to come. Had to… brave the sun? It hurts them. Like deep ocean pressure. Hurts us. Me," Asuf added, a beseeching tone and unnecessary tap of finger to thumb. "Why…?"
Moorguenn's clicks seemed impatient, even to me. The undulating veins on her face, or whatever they were, wiggled like a rising heartbeat.
"Oh." The man took a deep draught of water. It trickled from the corners of his mouth, dribbling into the blackened cracks to one side. He winced. "Her husband. No. Husband-to-be. Much. Loved.
"He's one of the brave. He came up to… to meet us. One of the First. No," Asuf waved at my apparently obvious disinterest, "not important. Now. But she wants to… save him. He's been lost. He's…"
Coughing ruined the story, and one slap on his back set it off the harder. I withdrew my hand, avoiding his streaming eyes.
«It's okay. I think I can guess; her fiancé became a Controller. An alien – Eirin – enslaved by a Yeerk,» I stumbled over the new word, my thoughts too close together for the awkward handling to be missed. «And, what. You want to save him?»
No eyebrows, no soft, expressive human face, and yet the hopeful shaping of her eyes and little sticky-outie ears brought a chuff from my chest. A scoff.
«The first thing you need to know, is not to hope.» And I hoped she got hit hard by that. «The sooner you start from wishful thinking, the sooner you get dead.»
Half-turned, I jerked my head to peer around us again.
I told myself that I had to keep an eye out for Controllers. They didn't usually hunt alone, and if the dead one had backup, we were pretty much sitting ducks out here.
Just on the edge of dull Hork-Bajir hearing, Moorguenn hummed. High-pitched, soft, it carried on past breathing. She didn't stop or pause.
I had to cut in. The sorrow, the memory borne on that sound could not continue.
«The second thing is, you've made a good decision. In asking for help.» Loathe as I was to admit it.
A cock of the head, curious. Asuf rested his eyes, barely tilting his head towards whoever spoke next.
«You can't do this alone. And I know how to fight them. I've been fighting Yeerks for… a long time,» I managed.
All this emotion. The hawk had no problems avoiding difficult conversation, painful memories. The Hork-Bajir, simple though its mind may be, had the awareness and intelligence to echo my own thinking. It knew misery. It felt another's pain.
It was, in a way, human.
And I didn't know how to handle that. There's a lot of things I… I don't handle well. On my own. Even in a group. Cassie's the better one for feelings. For honesty. I wished she was here, and not me. She'd make best friends with the Eirin girl. Probably do makeovers or talk shop on saving the rainforest.
My goals didn't include getting involved in some kind of alien vendetta.
Unfortunately, past experience taught me the folly of pretending I didn't care.
I had to make a decision.
After all, it's just one Eirin. Right?
We could swoop in, snatch him up and spirit the host body away. Maybe to the mountains. I knew the dryness of the air above the forest canopy, the changeable winds and sheer barrenness of those cliffs. Very few living things made their home up there.
Eirine had the soft, slimy skin of water-based creatures, like frogs or eels. The infested Eirin might dry up and drop dead before finding us up there. The key, of course, would be keeping the host body alive for three days.
Until the Yeerk finally shrivelled up and blew to the seven winds.
Think positive. Don't think about my own advice.
I looked to Moorguenn, thought-speech open to make the deal and buy myself less time to think.
Gurgle.
Wet gasps.
It startled all three of us. I almost demorphed on the spot.
Moorguenn's strangely symmetrical hands split to grasp Asuf's shoulder. Another went to her throat. A twitch that I restrained kept the restraining flipper intact. Panicked, Reddie looked to her. To me.
But there's nothing I could do. Asuf. His lips wet, blood leaking along minute-old tracts of water. Choking.
«No,» I whispered.
Huge, hulking and deadly, my morph had nothing to offer a dying man. I couldn't soothe the burns. Couldn't clear his throat.
Two hearts thumping a wild beat so loudly I barely caught Moorguenn's squeaks, she had to shove at my chest, draw my attention. To her other hand. To the light.
Her palm. It glowed.
Seriously.
«What kind of Disney princess sh-»
