The Assignment

Star Trek – Animorphs


The raw iron stink filled scrunched-open nostrils with a wet crunch.

My tongue curled up in protest. I chewed once, twice. Swallowed. Took another deep bite.

It squished unpleasantly between my teeth.

«I appreciate it,» Tobias said.

Still unfortunately chewing, I nearly dropped the slimy handful. Butterfingers.

"We learned our lesson with Jake. Just hope we have time to wait."

Wiping fingers on my borrowed leggings, I resisted the urge to rub my eyes. Still fishy, the remnants dropped into filthy dirt.

My stomach rolled in protest. Hungry.

Snake-like neck curled into the tiny air hole allowed to captives, Tobias locked his crimson gaze onto mine. He didn't look away.

I did.

Crunch.

Chin shining with grease, Dr. McCoy wiped dribble from fine hairs around his mouth.

Blue uniform a filthy grey, more so from our early lunch, the doctor retained a signature hunch as if totally relaxed in the depths of an alien prison.

Dr. McCoy kept eating. Licked his fingers clean and looked around for more. He didn't take my leftovers but did send a pointed look my way.

I didn't mind meeting it.

But considering his chosen war stories deigned fit for my ears, maybe McCoy had been through worse.

«How's breakfast?» Tobias asked.

"Tolerable," McCoy answered for us both. "Certainly had worse."

As I'd been hearing on-and-off for over forty-eight hours.

"Please."

"The worms were just the start." McCoy's eyes twinkled. "There's tics. Bloated ones. Nasty galactic constant, particularly when refusin' might cause a diplomatic incident. And bugs crawling under your skin, ooh, I had words -"

"Tobias," I said quickly.

The Hork-Bajir watched McCoy. He seemed distant. «Hmmmm?»

Ignoring the smirk on my companion's face, I asked, "What's going to happen to us?"

Tobias closed his eyes.

I swallowed. Ran my tongue over my teeth, twice. "Tobias?"

He pushed his head against the wall as if feeling for something. «We're keeping you a bit longer, to make sure.»

My stomach dropped. I sank to my haunches, knees to the side. A cool breeze barely touched the sweat on my forehead.

Dr. McCoy grumbled.

I almost felt thankful to hear his familiar nonsense.

"If you'd let me use my tricorder," he started, "we might've had a cure made by now, bearskins or real technology be damned."

A curve in serpentine neck matched the sour twist of my lips. We knew. Of course we knew. I propped myself up on a hand. Opened my mouth.

"Awwwoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogh!"

Distant and throaty, a bugled howl dragged Tobias' horned head from our window to let dappled light spot the floor.

Seconds passed. My tongue dried, suspended and waiting.

A shuffle behind the wall. Black dust blew inside between talons curved over the clay windowsill.

«Gotta go. Did I mention how -»

"But you just -" I began.

"How sorry you were?" McCoy chimed in. "Yeah. You did."

A tingle in my stomach fisted my hands. Dirt ground under me as I glared across the domed room. "You know, I could have left by now," I said. "Fly, or cockroach."

«I know,» said Tobias.

"But I didn't."

«You'd do the same for me.»

"So what happens tomorrow?" We both knew the answer to his unspoken question. "When a slug doesn't crawl out of our heads, are they gonna let us out?"

«We need you.»

I hadn't heard anyone ask for my opinion just yet. "Then we're joining the fight," I said.

McCoy pushed himself up to his feet.

Two grains of dirt rolled down the leeward side of my big toe, flung from the rough climb. I scratched it and watched him manoeuvre right between the Hork-Bajir morph and me.

Neck craned back, the man walked directly under Tobias and scowled. "Then what?" the doctor demanded.

Not to be outdone, Tobias shoved his head back inside. Of everyone I knew, the hawk nothlit may be one of few capable of meeting McCoy's blue stare.

"What do you think, Tobias? Jake showed symptoms long before now." My voice dropped. "He couldn't even talk, at the end."

«If they let you out before I get back, don't go outside the village limits.» He didn't look away from McCoy. «Don't upset anyone. Don't morph with no warning, it really freaks them out. And don't promise anyone anything.»

"Get back?" I blinked. "Where are you going?"

«Not far. I'll see you soon.»

The doctor stepped back. More staggered. "I can do an acuity test right now."

«Not helping, Starfleet. They're scared.»

"Scared?"

«You've never faced a Yeerk invasion, mister.» Tobias sounded glacial. «That's a great reason to be frightened out of their minds.»

My warning look didn't keep tension from blooming across Dr. McCoy's shallow wrinkles.

It's hard to read a Hork-Bajir but we'd all learned to read the red-tailed hawk. The dip of his jagged beak could have been shame.

Or exasperation.

"Wait. Tobias!" Legs shaking from nerves, I stood, too. "Why are you still in morph? Aren't you exhausted?"

His head popped out of the window quick as a turtle into its shell. The green claws slipped away. Light flooded McCoy's face.

«Stay safe.»

Scrabbling down outer walls, gone but for the green light filtered through our air-hole, Tobias went. To answer the summons. To fight another war.

Who knew? I shrugged at myself and sat down.

Squish.

Grimaced at nothing. There went another pair of alien pants.

"Regretting it yet?" McCoy had no mercy for me.

"No."

And that was that. Since waking up, cheek caked with mud and trying to focus on split McCoys holding my bruised head, we'd left it there. My hair crumbled out more grit every time I scrubbed it.

There's no story to tell other than regret.

That I'd teleported down in front of a bunch of hyper-paranoid natives. That McCoy hadn't wanted to come and I helped make it happen. That we'd had to sit in close proximity until an eternal three days finally ended.

And Tobias? Who knew about Tobias.

More prickly than ever, practically stuck in Hork-Bajir morph. I hadn't seen one russet-brown feather in the two times he'd come to visit.

In fact, I hadn't seen him fly since we'd first arrived on Eirin.

My skin prickled.

McCoy paced. Those long legs handled the sitting as well as mine.

His boots, a far better option than my bare feet, practically skidded to a stop bare inches from an inch-long me.

"Cassie? What are you doing?!"

The black soles danced around me. I continued to shrink, eyes bulging from my head. My sight split into a million perfect fractals.

Tongue inside very human jaws, it shot out like a spear and curved inwards. Made a tube.

A proboscis.

Folds in great black valleys and mountains stank of leftover sushi as I crawled out of the ruined leather pants.

«Morphing,» I said briefly.

"And if you get caught? I can't just grow wings!" he hissed.

«Keep your head down.»

The fastest morpher on Planet Earth.

That record could stand for an alien planet, too. I tried not to feel too proud.

Wings unfurled, the fly soared my best approximation of 'up'.

Careening. Wild! Out of control!

Six feet clutched dirt and a stray breeze blew me straight into the fresh air of greenery, plants, a hundred sweating, belching beings wafting to and fro like a silver-dish platter of heaven.

I knew what to do.

Clamping down on that shock of losing the windowsill, choking back the thrill of being outside again, my thirsty proboscis unfurled to taste. To scent. To do what flies do best.

Wobbling at the speed of slow, I made my way from the prison hut and followed a familiar Hork-Bajir musk.

Blown up!

«Wh-»

Cut myself off. No. Corrected my flight path.

I wavered and dove into the wake of a swift-moving blizzard. Mist sprayed up from something moving very, very fast.

And there's no way my little housefly could keep up.

But I didn't need to.

Wings tucked at my sides, diving straight down, my tiny body collided with it. Clung on. I screamed inside of my own head.

Fast! SO FAST!

It took everything to keep from spilling whoops into thought-speech. And I still had no idea where I was going.

But that sweat, alien and putrid and so attractive I wanted to rub my fly face in it, blazed straight through sensitive antennae. And we were going the right direction.

Until we weren't.

Gone. Just fish and more green garbage. I thrust down panic and let go.

The white thing kept going. Its wake caught unfurled wings to toss me straight up.

I let it carry me high. Like a thermal.

Hovering to taste the air, my fly found its prey before long.

Looping a few figure-eights to release some tension, I buzzed after Tobias. Hopefully the only Hork-Bajir to be stomping around these parts.

The housefly doesn't see like humans do. See, we have tiny muscles in our eyes to help direct and focus on different objects. To change our perspective. To understand distance.

Flies see in dots of light. In pixels. Like trying to read a book through shattered glass, the only way to understand that Tobias had just swung like a monkey from the trees and landed in a room too dark to see was by letting the fly brain translate it for me.

It's a weird process. I try not to think about it too hard.

But the housefly took me in there. I cut past three monstrously tall Eirin, marked by that distinctive stench of seafood, coasted the edge of a pointed triangle probably belonging to Tobias and ducked into the darkest possible place.

Flat. Textured by ripples bigger than me. Easy to grip in buggy claws. I scented it.

Wood. A table, then.

Six feet tucked underneath me, my front legs scrubbed themselves. Wiped down my wings. Stroked droplets from my antennae.

And became the literal fly on the wall.