The Assignment

Star Trek – Animorphs

«-owbusiness is this?!» I said, indignant.

The morphing tech acting out-of-bounds. A new friend, dying, bleeding on the dirt and staining my talons. Some mysterious woman lighting up like a fairy tale princess, potentially about to burst into song and draw in every hungry Taxxon within two miles.

Guerilla tactics. You want a hint? Don't start shining lights around and drawing attention to yourself!

Never mind that it's high noon and we're hiding behind a brilliant white spaceship. It's about priorities. And sensibilities. No Animorph morphed to look pretty and glow when a man's life was on the line!

«Could you – not?» I managed.

She hissed at me. Hissed. Like a snake. Or a crocodile.

Her flippers dug under Asuf. Heedless of the way his chest heaved, gagging, Moorguenn scooped him up and staggered to her feet.

Fins.

My blades itched, toeing behind the heavyset duo. The alien's eyes focused straight ahead of her. Only the way her slitted nostrils puffed out with each breath showed the strain.

Brusquely, I shoved her aside. Gathered Reddie in my far more powerful arms. Show me the way, I commanded, barely slowed to stalk after a waddling Eirin.

We went for the rainforest. In the softer earth, my clawed feet sunk deeper and deeper until each step started with a squelch. The light drained from the air and Asuf's face. Hearts beating faster, a wordless bark jolted my arms as I yanked tail spikes from a submerged root.

Moorguenn's throat and palm still glowed. Looking too closely cast bluish spots across my already difficult night vision.

«Where are we going?» I grunted. Raising Reddie over a slick waist-heigh branch, I curved beneath snaked branches to stomp after her.

Moorguenn paused. The conical ears raised and swivelled like tiny satellite dishes.

Asuf wriggled. Despite the iron grip, he almost forced his way into falling head-first. I hefted him up, using my hip and pointing the blades on my elbows anywhere else. Hanging from his waist, Reddie dangled boneless arms, mouth gaped wide.

Bluuurgh. He retched.

A bit of reddish-black something slurped out to splat by my foot.

The tension that seemed to be holding his body together relaxed. My fingers had fewer hard angles to grip. Asuf sagged.

Moorguenn's acute black eyes sparkled. Tangles of roots hooked before her like bars to a cage. She beckoned and slipped away.

More aware than ever of the time limit hanging over our heads, I simply bashed my way through the roots. None came close to scratching my green skin.

Tap. Tap tap. My arm. I glanced down to see relief in Asuf's bearded face. Worry, straying to the horns on my head. Alacrity. His lips moved.

Already stressed enough for the both of us, I almost cut the wobbling mouth open. A clawed finger shut it in the universal 'shut up' press down. If you start choking again, I'm leaving you here, I snarled. The strain of carrying a grown man didn't even touch my reserves.

It's the situation. It's everything. I swallowed a pulse of warmth at the squeeze of his chest moving again as it should and ignored the slight smile on Reddie's face.

Not going to lose another one.

Mud meant falling from the trees. Striding meant the rare times a Hork-Bajir took to the edges of Father Deep. Left the embrace of Mother Sky.

Their blades were never designed for cutting flesh. The idea seemed to perplex the comparatively small brain. What it understood, what Jara Hamee, the Hork-Bajir to willingly give me his strength and body knew best, came much closer to gardening.

Where to cut the vine. Where to strip the bark. How to destroy the greenery in my way without killing plant or beast. Plenty of wide-eyed things fled at the slice-slice-stomp of my hurried journey.

Mud came up to my knees when I lost sight of the pallid alien leading us to safety.

Asuf lay still in my arms. I gave him no mind, peering through the shadows. Looking for that glow. Disney princess Moorguenn should give herself away the better for this irritating gloom. Should.

Didn't.

«Moorguenn?» I called.

Distant insects. Cheepers, distinctive and annoying. Deeper whoops from above, where a Hork-Bajir might feel more comfortable. No Eirin.

Where did she go?

Arms beginning to feel a little strain, I hefted Asuf up again. He didn't react. Didn't move at all.

Didn't breathe.

«Asuf?» Bated breath, dawning horror. I clenched my clawed toes to grip the earth. «Asuf, can you hear me? ASUF!»

Nothing.

«MOORGUENN!»

Why did I follow her out here? Why did I even start to trust some alien with a man's life?

Wild, jerking in the way as natural to me as five-fingered hands, the hollows of empty rainforest seemed to mock me. Mock Asuf. Enjoy the tiny cut on his cheek when I forgot the sharp points on my wrists.

«Moorguenn! Help!» I broadcasted, not caring one whit for eavesdroppers.

A sound like wet rope slapping water. My tail skidded on the squashy surface, anchoring a swivel to glare protectively over my burden.

Grey. Misted greys, browns, purples and white. Black dots moved over the dull backdrop, stopping and starting in ways that made me dizzy to watch.

Some disappeared and reappeared. Appearing. Blinking. I blinked. The forest twinkled.

I hugged Asuf to myself, suddenly aware beyond the reasonable senses of my morphed body. As if hearing the breathing of twenty people at my back, skin prickled all the way down my spine, flicking the tail end from side to side. It twitched as my breath deepened.

They came forward slowly.

Cautiously.

Eirine. I could see them just fine, rounded outlines appearing as if out of nowhere. As if they'd been there all this time. At least – I counted quickly, mindset kicking in as if I'd never left that midnight battlefield – ten. Ten against one of me, laid down by an unconscious friend.

Each waded to my left and right. Not moving for weapons. Not coming within three metres.

Just watching.

I took a deep breath and stepped forward.

Light bumps on my chest heightened the sense of priceless seconds ticking by, his shoes bouncing from the swooping stride. Searching for the right words, I scanned the crowd. Eirin to Eirin.

A few stood shorter than the rest, two dressed in tight hide and loose cloth. No Moorguenn.

Bigger than the rest by a foot, the sleekest Eirin slapped its foot in the mud. Miniscule claws between swathes of webbed skin carried it over sinking earth. Towards us.

Asuf shifted just a little. I loosened my grip, a breath misting the hard keratin of my beak.

Time to make some friends.

Come on, Tobias, you've done this before.

With childish and gullible Hork-Bajir on the run for their lives. In a much less intimidating morph, part of a known rebel resistance group no less. But, hey. You've done this before.

"Ghhghhuuuurrrrrrrrpph plbp plbt," the Eirin said.

Oh.

I glanced down. No, Reddie couldn't translate.

We didn't have time for this.

Cranked down hard on the sense of slobbering, gross heart in my mouth, a firmer plant of talons kept me from slipping. Glancing up from unstable silt, I must have been a sight. Crimson red glaring over a dead body.

Not dead. He's not dead.

«Help us.»

Manoeuvring heavy bulk with the grace of a living swiss army knife, I sank to a knee. And sank some more. Down to my waist in three seconds. The blades on my knee could have caused that.

Head bent, arms pushed out, I offered Asuf. Pleaded.

«Please. He's dying.»

It reared back. Nostril slits flaring, it scratched over its face and made more noises. Less raspberries, more clicking, nothing I understood.

Just before the bubbling in my gut had me do something rash, light flared by my left shoulder.

Soft, bluish, and a sense of frenzied energy in the blur of fins around its head. Yes, her arm!

Red scores of blood where she'd been cut, five splayed talons on fragile skin. I cracked a swift smile.

«Moorguenn! Please,» I said, «I can't help you if you don't help me first.»

She gazed at me solemnly. Moorguenn nodded.

Calls from the other Eirin barely paused her flurry. Plush aliens scattered.

In a swift and bizarre whirl totally opposite to my impression of a soft and weak body, Moorguenn flipped onto her back, rolled around to a round belly and skidded through a knot in the roots.

Asuf landed perfectly on her back. She'd yanked him from me. I let him go.

I lunged after them. Or tried to.

It turns out having a very dense body in what is essentially quicksand leads to rapid sinking.

Mud lapped on thick skin, just below my chest. Knees long gone, hunched in a way that just wouldn't straighten, a yip startled the big slippery fellow still watching me.

Extricating myself took precious seconds. Slicing the mud with my arms released some of the pressure on my legs.

Shortly, but not fast enough to follow the Eirin beginning to trail away, I dug myself out.

Gasped and erupted from the silt. Shook what I could away, scrambled to a new spot with my tail the last to slide from a Hork-Bajir sized hole.

«Wait! Hey!» I called after her.

Waving my arms, flushed along my neck and back, a stagger morphed into a jog after Moorguenn's trail. Fresh water slapped my feet in the shallow trench.

She didn't wait. I kept up, somehow. Mostly.

At times I dove through watery pitfalls. Roots grew natural walls too low to crawl under. I kept my head up, mostly dry, and grimly hung on despite a hammering of a wet-behind-the-ears bark-eater set of instincts.

The swing of my pace slowed. I grit jaw muscles and closed my beak against filthy water spray.

Keep going. No time to rest. Come on, Tobias.

Past an open hollow. Uninteresting no matter the colours or probable hundreds of living organisms in the water, eating the leaves. All but to breathe. I snatched the moment to lurch over, fighting the urge to throw up. I fought harder for some air.

Ankles burning on the end of cement-like calves, I reluctantly stepped up and out of another mudhole. Again.

«Why would anyone live here?» I wondered out loud.

The trail led down. A small slope. I stepped down it, unable to go gingerly with my tyrannosaurus feet. A twist of my core went to a near miss of pink algae.

That shade wouldn't go with forest green, splattered down my neck or not.

The drooping pink strands surrounded Moorguenn's drag marks. A pink tunnel. Lovely. Every tree hung thick with the stuff. Some, on the edges of my quarry's run, bled white.

The broken ends of torn algae brushed my shoulders despite the terrific hunchback of an unhappy monster.

I scratched with an awful retching sound of talons on hard skin and chopped one last wing-length of algae to flop at my feet. My hearts skipped a beat. A clearing. She'd led us to a clearing.

Open air. It flowed down my gullet in easy gulps.

Impenetrable jungle walls surrounded a pool. A black pool.

Its surface shone thick and sloppy, grainy to the eye. It looked like the very last thing a heavyweight seven-foot alien would want to step into.

Hardened earth gave my dull claws purchase to cling and stand correctly. I straightened and sighed. Something in my back clicked. A burst of sharp warmth flowed all the way down, tingling the back of my skull pleasantly.

Hork-Bajir don't do narrow places. Did I mention how annoying this jungle was?

Blurple.

I whirled.

Nothing. No Eirin. Just me, sweating and alone. I gave the dim tunnel of love a short, unfriendly gesture.

I readied my blades. Listened.

Blub. Bluup.

Turned around. Stared at wobbly bubbles coming from the water. If it was water.

«You're disgusting,» I told the pool. «And I'm already going nuts, talking to myself. Not that I wasn't before or anything.»

And now crazy hermit Tobias needs to fall headfirst into a tar pit of death. What's the best way to describe this plan? I can think of a good one.

Insane.

Stupid. This is stupid.

Thoughts fired back. What else is there? Am I going to turn into a useless bird, in the middle of a jungle? Get eaten by some monster cat or simply pass out from the pain of dracon burn?

But yeah. Pretty stupid.

Best to do it fast.

How long can Hork-Bajir hold their breath? Demorphing was… out of the question.

I had time.

I wouldn't want to breathe that stuff with anything better suited to water. Just the thought of black tar seeping into my gills, coating my insides until it ruptured and burst out of my eyes…

I shuddered. Morphing breaks a lot of hold-ups to the imagination. It made imagining that exact scenario way too easy.

«Moorguenn,» I called out. My toes touched water. I skirted the edge, arms spread to keep balance, my tail splayed back for some grip.

Dead leaves split and slid under my foot.

«I'm coming doOOOO-WWWWN!»

I fell. Sank like a stone.

A flash of yellow-golden light and short gasp for breath. Eyes shut, pitch water flushed past my face. Immediately irritated the tender flesh round my eyes.

The pull of need at my throat made me writhe. It released the crossed arms over my chest, reached out for the walls of the pool. It could be like a well. Carved out, maybe. My claws touched nothing.

Rising panic met tired Tobias and awful situation like hot winds to the wet season.

It whirled me up inside just as the water, the thick gunk, yanked. Down. Around! Twisting! Arms trailing above me, tail sucked down!

Down!

«Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!» I yelled. Swallowed a beakful of black juice. It tasted fine, actually.

A tornado! A whirlpool, chaotic, turning over and over and in a roar that beat my head on what must be the pool floor, dragged me hard. Sideways down a vertical tunnel. It felt like being sucked down a vacuum cleaner.

Fast! Couldn't open my eyes. Just the sensation, pulling at my limbs, no control!

Powerless!

And left! Around a bend, cracking a spike on my ankle, losing precious air bubbles to yell. Instinctive. Fists pounding the walls around me, mind screaming to tell me what to do.

What? What do I do? Calling to that dark, primitive mind, I screamed back.

«What do I do?!»

Relax.

What?

Let it go. Let it take you along. Stop panicking and calm down.

It wanted to calm down. My Hork-Bajir didn't like a panicking bird-boy. I could have thrown my hands up in the air, but to be honest, there wasn't room and my entire body ached.

So I did it. I relaxed.

Forced my mind to stop racing. Loosened the tension in my hooked neck. Let the pain of my cracked ankle blade flow all the way up my leg, accepted it.

As I did, the ache lessened. I slipped through the water like an arrow. Faster. Fewer bumps.

My heart rate slowed.

I realized. My heart. Hearts. They controlled the blood flow. If they slowed down enough, relaxed enough, my muscles wouldn't need oxygen as quickly. I could last for longer on my stolen lungful of air.

The Hork-Bajir wasn't truly aware, not like a real Hork-Bajir. But it knew what to do if it found itself at the deep end without floaties on.

Somehow, far from home and totally alone, that hit me. Cassie might not be here. The others could be a whole galaxy away. But in a way… I'd never be alone. Not with all of my morphs. Even the hawk hadn't left me.

Gosh, that's sentimental.

But true.

I smiled a terrifying, beak-wrinkly sort of smile.

…I hope the water ends soon. I'm running out of-

PWOOOOSHHH.