Chapter Nineteen

"Hey, it's time."

I looked up from my cards, and outside to see the beginning of the Cryhalis star setting, growing distant. It was definitely time to go. We had to act quickly, before it got cold again.

Tobias was the easy part. Ax called over to him again and this time, while still easily overheated, he managed to get over to our own spacecraft, bringing the weapons and food he could with him. He also managed to bring a small drive, which contained our information and navigation system's data for the Estrella. We would not be lost in Kelbrid space with it.

I let Ax and Marco explain our situations and goals. They were good at thinking logically, pragmatically. Caleb and Sam also managed to bring in some good advice and insight.

After discussing things on the bridge for a while, Ax and Marco had outlined the ideal goals. First, that we should attempt to strip the Researcher of its weapons and all data so it could not be used to the benefit of the Cryhalis, the Kelbrid, or The One. Also for our own defense, since at a later time we could attempt to get the weapons up and running on the Estrella.

Second, that we get Leah and have a place to hold her, as she would be suffering from withdrawal.

"The sick bay should be fine for that," Kat pointed out, "It's not actually made for withdrawal effects from drugs, but it was made with the potential of needing to immobilize or hold people sick, potentially even delusional."

Lastly, that we get away without anything following us. It would probably be the hardest part.

We flew in from the area we had put the Researcher and made it as close to the town where we had left Leah as possible. Ax relayed a message looking for Sitionio.

"Really? Sitionio?" Caleb laughed. "The things you hear in space."

"I think everyone should get hand-held weapons in place," I said. "The situation isn't very clean here. Even if we did manage to take a full three days."

Kat nodded, and as soon as the words were out of her mouth everyone in her group was pulling out a handheld Shredder.

Tobias, Marco, and Ax had already been getting their own items together. I'd already been wearing my own. It felt weird, to be considering combat with handheld weapons. For years, I had fought tooth and claw. I felt it a much less personal experience.

I wasn't sure whether I was glad or disturbed by the disconnect I was feeling at the idea of killing my enemies by Shredder.

Everyone was given items to do. Caleb and Sam were left on the bridge, to handle the defense systems. Jaela, Lahsailat, and my friends moved out, to get Leah. The others were stationed to protect the Estrella, and to try and secure us coming back in when we had Leah in tow.

"Marco, take my Shredder."

He took it from me, after giving me a look.

But I knew what I was doing. I closed my eyes.

Wolf.

I felt my body sprout fur first, followed by the tail. My arms began to look more like forelimbs, and eventually I fell onto all fours. My feet and hands became paws, and eventually what had been left of my torso and head took on a wolf shape.

When I was complete, I inhaled.

The scents were all strange and alien to the wolf, except for the humans nearby. But I wasn't looking for the humans by the spaceship, or Marco. I was looking for another human. A female. The wolf in me couldn't smell her, yet, but I directed him to look anyway.

I began trotting toward the city, where we had been around the bazaar and the registration center. I had a feeling Leah would be around there, around quarters. I didn't need to know how she smelled, really, because she was probably the only human there.

Marco and Ax, with difficulty, managed to keep up, following. Tobias was shortly behind them, readying for a fight as best he could considering how unfamiliar he was with the Andalite body.

I had walked less than a quarter mile when I caught a human scent that was not my friends or the people by the Estrella. It was a new human scent. A female scent. A scent that was tinged with something that made my wolf mind uncomfortable. The tinge was sickly and weak, though something I'd expected from hearing about the drugs from earlier.

‹Got her.›

I moved from a trot to a slow run, which left Marco further behind as Tobias and Ax increasing their speed to a trot.

‹Sorry, Marco.›

Now that we were here, now that I could smell everything and knew in my mind the things we'd been told were true, I felt a sense of urgency. I was responsible for letting this happen, for not following my instincts.

I kept following the trail, as it got stronger, and by the time I hit the registration center I had a good hold of her scent even as the scents of a lot of different species of alien all began to get a hold of the wolf brain, most having that same scent in the background. I focused on the trail at hand, though. It was close, the wolf brain could feel it. The scent was now behind a wall, but I ignored the wolf instinct to dig at it.

‹Ax, this area right here, it's a door. Can you get it open?›

He looked around for a while, finding a keypad. He didn't try very long before slicing at it with his tail and rewiring the thing from inside.

When the door opened, the scent became overwhelming. Even Ax reeled as the stench hit him.

‹Ugh.› I was disgusted.

‹They are leaving the workers to rot in their own filth.›

I tried to track her scent again, but it was impossible for me to distinguish her scent from others in there, with the close sleeping quarters and other disturbing scents to the wolf mind. In any case, Leah was sleeping somewhere in very close quarters.

I demorphed. The stench was less powerful, but the human reflex to gag came in pretty quickly. I decided to morph again, this time to owl. Ax looked at me with envy. But unlike me, he had both a natural weapon and a Shredder.

Once I completed the morph, I flapped my wings a few hard times, finding an area to perch and look around. The owl was not bothered by smell. But that didn't make me feel better when I saw around me the conditions the aliens were sleeping in. I decided I wouldn't mention the situation to Ax more than absolutely necessary, though he already knew a lot of it himself.

There were over fifty animals in the room. I knew them to be sapient workers for the Cryhalis that owned this service system. They weren't human, but I still thought they looked infected, sickly.

I turned my head left, right. Looking for a human being. I finally saw her.

She was cuffed to a post by a wall corner, which was mostly hidden by the bed next to her with another in it. She had lost weight, and she was breathing shallowly. A bit erratically. I couldn't see her eyes under wild hair, and there were sores at her feet, her hands, her neck.

‹Ax, she's at the other end of the room, in the right corner.›

I began demorphing as Ax stepped gingerly around the beds, slowly making his way to the other side, avoiding any noise. I followed him, quickly, remembering the route from when I had been in morph.

"We have to get her out quietly, try not to wake the others up." I whispered. I was still hoping we could get out undetected.

Ax's stalk eyes moved around uselessly, trying to get a good view of the room even in the dark. With his main eyes, he gave a casual glance over the thing that kept Leah attached to the corner. Finally, he struck. Not at the end of the cuff by her wrist, but at the wooden post that had the other end, at the wall.

I was a bit confused at first, but then realized he was avoiding noise. The post had been strong enough to hold Leah, but it came apart almost silently for Ax. Even Leah remained asleep.

‹Do we wake her?›

"Not sure. If she puts up a fight she might wake the others up." Though I wasn't about to admit it, the idea of picking her up made me uncomfortable. Her emaciated figure looked so fragile, like she would break at the lightest touch. And that didn't account for the smell and filth – though obviously I would work around that because we had to.

I reached down to grab her, pick her up, and her head rolled. Leah looked at me awake, with dull eyes, mouth open.

"Nnn... No."

"Not your choice this time," I whispered.

I wasn't sure what had happened. Obviously, it was counter-productive on the part of the Cryhalis to have someone in her state in their service. Everyone was sickly, everyone was thin and reeking, but Leah couldn't even lift her head. Whatever they had intended – drug or otherwise – it hadn't worked like they had intended. She was on the verge of death.

Ax hadn't seen what I had in owl morph, and wouldn't get a good look at her until we were back on the Estrella. But his tail twitched when he heard her, and his stalk eyes moved forward, like he was trying to be able to see through the black that was the room.

"Not now, Ax, we have to go."

I picked her up – too easily – and we made our way quickly back across the room, managing not to stumble across anyone else in the dark. Outside, it was getting colder, fast, and there wasn't so much as a moon to guide us.

Leah struggled, but the attempt was so pathetic I wasn't sure Ax even noticed it. Soon after, we'd caught up with Marco. He couldn't see any better than we could, but the smell that coated Leah hit him, and I could hear him trying not to gag.

"Marco, the Shredder."

He handed it to me.

We continued to hurry as we started moving away from the temperature being tolerable back into it being unbearably cold, like the night prior. I was thankful so far that we had evaded Sitionio, or the others of the center. Though it had crossed my mind that whatever had happened to Leah, they probably hadn't cared at that point what became of her.

I was enraged. But I couldn't do anything about it, anymore than the zoo, or anything else I'd encountered.

"We're almost there." Marco chattered through his teeth, forcing the words out. We saw lights from the Estrella.

Something felt wrong, though. It sat wrong, in my chest, waiting for me to notice it.

"Is it just me, or are there too many lights?"

‹It appears there are Kelbrid and Cryhalis ahead.› Ax said grimly.

He and Marco pulled out their Shredders. Without asking, they moved ahead to make me more difficult to shoot. I couldn't get a hold of my own Shredder, since I was holding Leah.

"Well," Marco said, "At least we're in luck."

"What do you mean?"

‹They have not seen the Estrella.› Ax had a bewildered tone. ‹They are waiting by the Researcher.›

We wouldn't be able to survive the cold much longer outside. But I didn't know what to do without giving away the position of the other ship. Approaching slowly, the aliens ahead finally took notice of us. A Kelbrid turned their reptilian heads at me, and the Cryhalis, from the zoo, gave me what I assumed to be a grin.

The Kelbrid already had weapons drawn. Marco and Ax cocked their own, tail behind them.

"We only want the Andalites," one said, stepping away from the others.

"Never gonna happen."

The Cryhalis took a hold of their Dracon beams, cocking them at us point-blank, approaching slowly. "Come along with us. You are ours now, and will make an excellent addition to the zoo. Heroes, from another planet? It is gold! Far better than those youths."

"Also never gonna happen."

In my head, I was realizing the situation we had. The Kelbrid had worked with the Cryhalis. By offering us, aliens they knew to have high value in our respective cultures, they had given the Cryhalis incentive to work with them, to help them capture Aximili and the other Andalites. The Cryhalis didn't need the Andalites right now. They didn't even need a real Andalite – Tobias would suit them perfectly as an Andalite.

They just wanted the novelty of having us for their zoo.

I was at a loss as to how we would beat all of them – the ten of them versus the two of us who could fight. But before I could think of an idea, the Researcher began to self destruct.

Tssseeeeew! Tssseeeeeww!

Its weapons began going off, exploding, pieces falling and light flashing. The Kelbrid and Cryhalis looked on at them, fascinated. Distracted just long enough. A door in mid-air opened, an entrance to the Estrella, and Ax, Marco and I ran for the spacecraft like bats out of hell. Jaela, Lahsailat, Kat and others kept their Shredders trained on the Cryhalis, on the Kelbrid from the entrance or immediately out front, covering us. Ax and Marco fell behind me, to cover from the other side.

It was only a few seconds, really, before the Kelbrid and Cryhalis began exchanging fire with our own spacecraft. But Lahsailat and Kat, in particular, were excellent at aiming, along with Ax. Between everyone, the Cryhalis and Kelbrid had been stunned within minutes.

We were inside, and a minute after that, we were gone.